Q: What do the following Army service decorations have in common?
- Army Distinguished Service Medal
- Legion of Merit with three oak leaf clusters
- Army Staff Identification Badge
- Meritorious Service Medal with six oak leaf clusters
- Army Commendation Medal with two oak leaf clusters
- Army Achievement Medal with one oak leaf cluster
A: They have all been awarded to the author of this statement:
After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.
That would be Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba (ret.), writing the preface to the report Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by the US, recently released by Physicians for Human Rights. The “ret.” in General Taguba’s full title is somewhat euphemistic; after 34 years of service, in 2006 he was instructed to retire by the Army’s Vice-Chief of Staff. This might have been related to his authorship of the Taguba Report, the official report of an Army investigation into torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.
It’s hard to have a reasonable discussion about the possibility of holding senior officials in the U.S. government responsible for war crimes. It’s the kind of accusation that gets thrown around too lightly for political or rhetorical reasons, by ideologues on one side or the other who are far too quick to find inhumanity and evil intent in the actions of their opponents.
But that doesn’t mean that war crimes don’t happen, or that our country doesn’t commit them, or that responsibility can’t ever be traced to the highest reaches of the government. There is no question that the U.S. tortures; people who have been held without any charges against them have been raped, killed, and permanently psychologically damaged. And there is no question that it’s not just a matter of a few bad apples — not when John Yoo, author of the infamous Department of Justice torture memos, gets asked “Could the President order a suspect buried alive?” and doesn’t know what the right answer is.
The question is, should the President and other administration officials be held accountable for these acts? Taguba thinks the answer is yes:
This report tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individuals’ lives on their bodies and minds. Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors… [T]hese men deserve justice as required under the tenets of international law and the United States Constitution. And so do the American people.
It it literally sickening that we’ve come to this. But nobody can be surprised. The Bush Administration has been perfectly consistent in its behavior for the last eight years. It’s going to take some time to deal with the consequences, and it won’t be pleasant for anyone. I can’t imagine the sort of havoc it would wreak on the political landscape if a Democratic administration pursued charges of war crimes against a former Republican administration (for example). It would not be the kind of thing that brings the country together, let’s just say.
On the other hand, should the United States have a policy that its political officials cannot, a priori, be accused of war crimes, because to do so would cause a political firestorm? Perhaps we will end up needing a Truth Commission.
War is a messy business, so the people needed to fight effective soldiers can sometimes be ruthless. It’s quite understandable if the stress of comrades being killed in battle causes an impairment of judgement. You can’t have vicars or human rights lawyers in the battle, authorizing soldiers everytime they want to pull the trigger. Nor can military commanders remain in total control of actions of all soldiers in practice. There are arguments about how to morally treat suspected terrorists when trying to get vital life-saving information from them about their organization, and arguments about what kinds of weapons are the most humane. E.g., on the one hand the nuclear bomb is terrible if detonated, but that is exactly why it deterred WWIII from breaking out during the Cold War.
I was wondering when the first apologist would show up. It is one thing when soldiers commit crimes; it is quite another when political and military leaders encourage them.
nc wrote: “war is a messy business”
Which is exactly why it should be the remedy of last resort. The fundamental crime of the Bush/Cheney regime was invading a sovereign country who had not attacked the United States, had no role in 9/11, and presented no imminent threat to our safety or security. And they did it by lying to America about the reasons for the war.
as I have written here more than once “violence is the last refuge of the incompetent”.
e.
Dr. Carroll, thank you for raising this issue. It is a stand which I think every good citizen should take, but most citizens will not.
As someone who has never been able to vote for a Republican for national office (starting with Nixon), I ask myself whether I am biased, and whether impeachment and war-crimes prosecutions might do more harm than good. I will never be sure, but one good result might be to expose the Republican party base to the evidence for corruption and malfeasance which they have managed to ignore or rationalize. Perhaps this in turn might mean than someday I could vote Republican.
Bush and Cheney will not face either impeachment or indictments on war crimes. In part this comes from a range of executive priviledges, and international declarations such as the American Servicemembers Protection Act. Yet they could still face the US Justice system, and Bush and Cheney must be crapping out bricks sideways at the prospect of an Obama victory. So in keeping with criminals in general, the problems created by prior crimes are “solved” by committing further crimes. This could involve a range of actions from starting a war with Iran to election fraud and rigging. A war with Iran, with associated emergency internal security activities, might be the perfect way to turn the election to McCain. This would turn the nation’s focus to a war and the political need for an experienced military man in the Whitehouse. Heap some funny computer patch codes in those Diebold machines and voila, the GOP is in the whitehouse and has enough in the Senate and House to beat down any special investigation of the Bush administration.
Mind you, I think Bush and Cheney belong in San Quentin, but I’d be surprised if they get within a grand jury indictment of the place. I also have some concern that if these two really begin to feel threatened by these actions they might unleash all sorts of horrors to cover their tails. Clearly that is not the way our government is supposed to work, but then again we have drifted pretty far from what might be called rule of law, and even further away from democracy.
Lawrence B. Crowell
Integrity comes from complete disclosure. The international community will be the judge. It is not so much a matter whether Bush serves time so to speak. It is a matter, if the USA’s actions are deemed war crimes, we, the country, need to make amends and take measures that prevent such actions in the future.
I could give a crap if Bush lives out his days as a judged war criminal on a Texas ranch or not.
We, our country, must be accountable for what we let happen. Then we must take actions that are a responsible reaction to those events so we protect against recurence. Then we can again start to hold our heads up as a nation.
Elliot (#28) wrote:
But Iraq *did* attack the US indirectly – by switching its oil currency trade from dollars to euros back in around 2000. 9/11 and the search for chemical weapons were simply handy pretexts, and even then it took a couple of years of tiresome jumping through diplomatic hoops before they could settle accounts with Saddam Hussein.
See the book “Petrodollar Warfare Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar” by William R Clark, reviewed at http://www.world-wire.com/news/1215050002.html
Iran has also switched their oil trading to euros, and for that would already have been clobbered by the US the same way as Iraq if it weren’t for public opinion and Iran’s closer alliance with Russia. Perhaps, despite these, its nuclear ambitions will prove to be its undoing, just as dabbling with chemical weapons (and above all trying to mess with the dollar hegemony) was Saddam Hussein’s.
I think the US was justified in invading Iraq, for the reasons summarized above, although predictably they made a hash of it at first. Didn’t they learn anything from Vietnam? When occupying a large country, one must go in mob-handed and not rely on a few shiny new toys! (The Brits, who successfully invaded Iraq in the 1920s were helped by half a million troops from the Indian army, and even then it took a couple of years to subdue and settle the country.)
31, George, and 29, JimV: much the same as my “Truth Commision” point. Knowing what happened (and how) is more important than punishing those that did it. If only because it’s more likely to lead trto measures to prevent such things happening again.
32: the British also have (and had) hundreds of years of experience of overseas warfare and hostile occupation, and of creating useful territories out of such places. They have also gained serious experience in the last hundred years of the myriad ways there are to “de-occupy” a country. They’re not brilliant at it – but I can’t think of any better off the top of my head.
The British supposedly tried to give the US troops and political heads a few clues for Iraq, only to be told to shove it.
John R Ramsden, are you really saying that Saddam changing the currency of oil trading justifies all horrors of “precision” bombardments and the like, which were unleeshed on the Iraqi population by the US? If so, your moral compass is off by more than just a few degrees.
If we are unable to bring Bush and his cronies to justice for their crimes, at least we can try to make their crimes generally known – a poor substitute, but better than nothing, and difficult in its own right. Good work, Sean!
Pieter (#34), could I remind you that Saddam tortured and killed Iraqi citizens by the bushel, including I think somewhere around a million in the Iran-Iraq war which he started, and hundreds of thousands since the first Gulf War.
Using precision bombing, the US is at pains to avoid unnecessary casualties and collateral damage, and practically all of both these since the US-led occupation has been caused by Iraqi factions.
There are always innocent casualties, and that’s regrettable; but to mind, anything or anyone that prevents the EU getting too big for its boots can only be applauded and encouraged, or else one day, mark my words, things will be a hundred times worse than they are now!
the valuing of oil in dollars or euros is irrelevant.
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=06&year=2008&base_name=how_does_a_falling_dollar_rais
anon (#37), that article was absurdly oversimplified. But one of the replies cited a very interesting, and slightly alarming, article at http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/02/26/stories/2008022650070900.htm which confirms exactly my point. Here’s a quote:
John R. Ramsden, I can only hope that you meant the last paragraph of your posting #36 with a ton of irony?
John R Ramsden, Saddams crimes were atrocious, but your point in #32 was that his currency policy alone was sufficient justification for war. That’s just crazy.
As for “precision” bombing: I don’t know if you saw the fire balls over Bagdad during the first week of the war, but I do not buy that only the bad guys were hurt, and that all innocent Iraqis just walked away. Sure, they show the missile going through the kitchen window of the palace, but they don’t show the size of the crater afterwards. It is rather distasteful to call the casualties “regrettable” when speaking from the comfort of your own –safe– home.
And you don’t have to worry about the EU; they will keep themselves small by consistently voting against a constitution in ill-advised referenda. 😉
Members of this administration won’t be prosecuted for war crimes for the simple reason that they committed none. Sorry to break into your echo chamber with a dissenting view, but if invading Iraq constitutes a “war crime”, then you’ll need to round up the following Democratic Senators who voted for the 10/11/02 resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq: Baucus, Bayh, Biden, Breaux, Cantwell, Carnahan, Carper, Cleland, Clinton, Daschle, Dodd, Dorgan, Edwards, Feinstein, Harkin, Hollings, Johnson, Kerry, Kohl, Landrieu, Lieberman, Lincoln, Miller, Nelson, Nelson, Reid, Rockefeller, Schumer, and Torricelli. That’s 29 Democratic Senators voting in favor if you’re counting at home, vs. 22 voting against, so the resolution would have won only among Democrats.
Like that distinguished list of Democratic Senators, I believed that invading Iraq was the best among a range of difficult choices. I still believe that. I didn’t vote for Bush in 2000 or 2004 (I have voted Libertarian in the last few elections but find Bob Barr to be pretty distasteful) and I have no financial interest in the war through working for a defense contractor or the like. I am neither stupid (you’d have to take my word for it that I am better informed re: world affairs than 90% or more of you), greedy, nor evil. I just disagree with you, and I think the growing tendency to criminalize disagreement is not favorable for the US or the world.
So let the insults fly, or engage in reasoned debate, as people in this country used to be able to do. Or ignore my intrusion into the echo chamber entirely.
Nothing in the post, or in any of the links, or in Gen. Taguba’s preface, or in the Physicians for Human Rights report, claimed that invading Iraq was a war crime. Maybe the noise in the echo chamber made it difficult to read?
Most nations have laws that protect former presidents for good reason – to persecute former leader is little more than scapegoating 1 person for crimes of the whole nation. What was the approval rating of Iraq war among americans when it all started? 60-70%? So how come Bush is personally accountable for what majority of population happily approved of?
Every nation has the leader it deserves.
Same goes re torture – i don’t doubt that majority (=more than 50%) of americans (or any other nation) will answer positively to something stated like
“- Is it ok to use physical and pscycological pressure to obtain info that will possibly help to save life of your child?”
– “Yes, sure, let somebody do dirty work to keep us safe .. just don’t tell us about details”
This is an inevitable flaw of democracy – average personis neither very intillegent nor particularly nice … Other systems have other flaws, needless to say )
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Loki,
I couldn’t disagree more. The approval rating was based on a calculated propaganda campaign pushed by the Bush/Cheney regime. Plans to attack Iraq were in the works before 9/11. It was this event that gave them the opening to move ahead despite no evidence of WMD, threat against us, or involvement in 9/11.
I think if Bush had gone on television and said: “We don’t think Iraq was involved in 9/11 but we want to invade because Saddam is just not a nice guy and we think that our private subcontractors will make a lot of money and a neo-con think tank is telling us we need to establish an American empire in the middle east”, I suspect the approval ratings would not have been that high.
Treason is not too strong a word, in my opinion for their actions.
e.
Comments such as Elliot’s have no basis in reality. The Democratic leadership saw the same intelligence and voted for the war for the same reasons. Let’s not forget about UK, Spain, Italy, Netherlands and blaa blaa blaa.
The difference is the Democrats don’t have the integrity to see it through. Instead they see victory in defeat. Proud Democrats all…It is a depressing thing to witness.
It is another sad day for science here at Cosmic Variance when distortion is promoted by Sean and allowed to run free in the comments.
Those who disliked the US before the war with Iraq still do. Not surprising that the election of pro-US governments in Germany and France of all places goes unnoticed here.
Our ears have been bombarded with this phrase until it has lost its sting… nowadays war criminals, fascists, bigots are the people you do not agree with
Slide2112,
My comment was in reference to approval ratings by the public not the state of (dis)information provided to Congress.
Are you suggesting that the story told to the American people about the rationale for going to war was truthful?
And how many non-American troops are still part of the “coalition of the willing”. (please provide the actual numbers) I wonder what backroom strong arm tactics were used to encourage many of them to join.
It is disgusting and I am not giving Democrats a pass. Some stood up. Durbin, Wellstone etc.
And nobody “dislikes” the U. S. I love this country and that’s why it is critical that we hold accountable those who have contributed to our decline in eyes of the rest of the world. So we can regain a place of repect in the world community
e.
As the Count points out (#14), the US now has a law that authorizes the military to “rescue” a US citizen from any form of detention, including international law. That law was signed a few months after Bush/Cheney (at the behest of Addington, Rove, and Gonzales) unsigned the International War Crimes Treaty. I wonder just which members of the administration these actions were designed to protect????
http://www.alternet.org/story/13055/
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2002/05/06/usint3903.htm