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Bin Laden’s death and the debate over torture

Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By John McCain - May. 12 (Opinion) - Osama bin Laden’s welcome death has ignited debate over whether the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques used on enemy prisoners were instrumental in locating bin Laden, and whether they are a justifiable means for gathering intelligence.

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After Osama Bin Laden ...

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Nicholas Kristof - May. 02 (Opinion) - President Obama has just announced that the United States killed Osama bin Laden today in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and recovered his body. It has been nine years and seven months since Osama orchestrated 9/11, but an American team finally killed him. His body is in American hands. This is revenge, but it’s also deterrence and also means that bin Laden won’t kill any more Americans. This is the single most important success the United States has had in its war against Al Qaeda. So what does this mean? First, it is good for the United States reputation, power and influence that we finally got bin Laden. Bin Laden’s ability to escape from the U.S., and his apparent impunity, fed an image in some Islamist quarters of America as a paper tiger — and that encouraged extremists. Bin Laden himself once said that people bet on the strong horse, the horse that will win, and the killing underscores that it’s the United States that is the horse to bet on. Moreover, this sends a message that you mess with America at your peril, and that there will be consequences for a terror attack on the United States. That said, killing bin Laden does not end Al Qaeda. Ayman al-Zawahri, the Egyptian No. 2, has long played a crucial role as Al Qaeda’s COO. And Al Qaeda is more of a loose network than a tightly structured organization, and that has become even more true in recent years. AQIM, the version of Al Qaeda in North Africa, is a real threat in countries like Mali and Mauritania, and killing bin Laden will probably have negligible consequences there. The AQIM terrorists may admire Osama and be inspired by him, but they also are believed to be largely independent of him. And Anwar al-Awlaki, the Qaeda-linked terrorist in Yemen, likewise won’t be deterred by bin Laden’s killing — Awlaki’s ability to engage in terrorism will be affected more by the upheavals now taking place in Yemen and whether that country has a strong and legitimate government that takes counter-terrorism seriously. It’s also true that bin Laden’s killing might have mattered more in 2002 or 2003. At that time in countries like Pakistan, many ordinary people had a very high regard for bin Laden and doubted that he was centrally involved in the 9/11 attacks. Over time that view has changed: popular opinion has moved more against him, and you no longer see Osama t-shirts for sale in the markets. Some people still feel a bit of respect for his ability to outwit the United States, or they are so anti-American that they embrace anybody we don’t like, but bin Laden has been marginalized over time. Osama’s declining image also means that he won’t be a martyr in many circles (although if Americans appear too celebratory and triumphant, dancing on his grave, that may create a sympathetic backlash for Osama). Many ordinary Pakistanis, Yemenis and Afghans will simply shrug and move on. His death won’t inspire people, the way it might have in 2002. And Al Qaeda is already going through a difficult time because it has been sidelined by the Arab Spring protests; on top of that, losing its top leader will be a major blow. It will be fascinating to see what the Pakistani reaction is to a U.S. military operation on their soil. It seemed to me that President Obama was going out of his way to sound deferential to Pakistan — and to emphasize that Osama was an enemy of Pakistan as well as of America — precisely because he was concerned that Pakistanis might react with outrage at an American military operation.

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The Abuse of Private Manning

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Mar. 15 (Editorial) - The treatment of the soldier accused of giving government files to WikiLeaks conjures creepy memories of how terror suspects were handled during the Bush years.

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This CIA agent is no diplomat | Craig Murray

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Craig Murray - Feb. 28 (Opinion) - The US says Raymond Davis should have immunity in Pakistan. Just another attempt to flout the rule of law outside its bordersI tread with some caution in discussing the case of Raymond Davis, the CIA agent facing charges of double murder in Pakistan and the threat of the death penalty. I add my plea to the voices urging the Pakistani government to ensure Davis does not hang.But one thing I can state for certain: Davis (as we will call him for now) is not a diplomat and does not possess diplomatic immunity. There is some doubt as to who he really is, with the charges against him in Pakistan including one that he obtained documents using a false identity.Watching Barack Obama's presidency has been a stream of bitter disappointments. His endorsement of Davis as "our diplomat" and invocation of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations was, in its sheer dishonesty, as sad an Obama moment as any.As a general rule, international treaties are written in very plain language and are very accessible. That is certainly true of the Vienna convention. Unfortunately I can see scant evidence that any journalists have bothered to read it.Leaving aside staff of international organisations recognised by the host country as having diplomatic status (and there has been no claim yet that Davis was actually working for Unicef), in bilateral diplomatic relations the provision for diplomatic immunity is tightly limited to a very small number of people. That makes sense when you consider that if Davis did have diplomatic immunity, he would indeed be able to avoid detention and trial on a murder charge. The world community is not going to make that impunity readily available.Full diplomatic immunity is enjoyed only by "diplomatic agents". Those are defined at article 1 (e) of the Vienna convention as "the head of the mission or a member of the diplomatic staff of the mission". Helpfully the diplomatic staff are further defined in the preceding article as "having diplomatic rank". Those ranks are an ascending series of concrete titles from third secretary through to ambassador or high commissioner. Davis did not have a diplomatic rank.But there is a second category of "administrative and technical staff" of a mission. They enjoy a limited diplomatic immunity which, however, specifically excludes "acts performed outside the course of their duties". (Vienna convention article 37/2.) Frantic off-the-record briefing by the state department reflected widely in the media indicates that the US case is that Davis was a member of technical staff covered by this provision.But in that case the US has to explain in the course of precisely which diplomatic duties Davis needed to carry a Glock handgun, a headband-mounted flashlight and a pocket telescope. The Vienna convention lists the legitimate duties of an embassy, and none of them need that kind of equipment.It appears in any event unlikely that Davis ever was a member of the technical staff of the embassy or consulate. Under article 10 of the Vienna convention the host authorities must be formally informed – by diplomatic note – of the arrival and departures of such staff, and as embassies under article 11 are subject to agreed numerical limits, that in practice occurs when another member of staff is leaving. If this was not done Davis was not covered even in the course of his duties.Pakistani senior ex-military sources tell me there is no note appointing Davis as embassy or consulate staff, and that appears to pass a commonsense test – if the note exists, why have the Americans not produced it?Finally, possession of a diplomatic passport does not give you diplomatic status all over the world.I hope this helps clarify a position that the US government, and the media it influences, have deliberately muddied. Sadly this whole episode reflects the US's continuing contempt for the basic fabric of international law. It sits with its refusal to sign up to the international criminal court so that US citizens may not be held accountable for war crimes, with its acknowledged overseas assassination programme, its one-sided extradition treaties and claims of extra-territorial jurisdiction over offences committed outside the US.We hoped it might get better under Obama. It is not."We've got a very simple principle here that every country in the world that is party to the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations has upheld in the past and should uphold in the future, and that is, if our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country's local prosecution," Obama said in a press conference. "We expect Pakistan, that's a signatory and recognises Davis as a diplomat, to abide by the same convention ... I'm not going to discuss the specific exchanges that we've had [with the Pakistani government], but we've been very firm about this being a priority."PakistanCIAUnited StatesUS foreign policyBarack ObamaCraig Murrayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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At CIA, mistakes by officers are often overlooked

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Adam Goldman, Matt Apuzzo - Feb. 09 - At CIA, mistakes by officers are often overlooked

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Suleiman: The CIA's man in Cairo

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Aljazeera - Feb. 08 (Opinion) - On January 29, Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s top spy chief, was anointed vice president by tottering dictator, Hosni Mubarak. By appointing Suleiman, part of a shake-up of the cabinet in an attempt to appease the masses of protesters and retain his own grip on the presidency, Mubarak has once again shown his knack for devilish shrewdness. Suleiman has long been favoured by the US government for his ardent anti-Islamism, his willingness to talk and act tough on Iran - and he has long been the CIA’s main man in Cairo.

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Missing Iranian nuclear scientist "resettled" in the US

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Julian Borger - Mar. 31 (Opinion) - An Iranian nuclear physicist who vanished last summer during a visit to Saudi Arabia was persuaded to defect by the CIA, a US report claims ABC News is reporting that Shahram Amiri, a young Iranian nuclear scientist who went missing while on a pilgrimage to Mecca in late May or early June last year, is now living in the US having been seduced by US intelligence. According to the people briefed on the intelligence operation, Amiri?s disappearance was part of a long-planned CIA operation to get him to defect. The CIA reportedly approached the scientist in Iran through an intermediary who made an offer of resettlement on behalf of the United States. Last October, Iran accused the US of seizing Amiri, an expert on radioactive isotopes at ...

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How Should Obama Deal With Bush Era Torture?

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Atlantic Monthly - By Andrew Sullivan - Feb. 14 (Opinion) - Walling and phobias are the least of it: hypothermia, sleep deprivation up to 960 hours, waterboarding, brutal stress positions, sensory deprivation and isolation for years, mock executions, and confinement in upright coffins were all deployed and they are all forms of torture. The fundamental judge of torture, the International Red Cross, has called it torture; Museum0004 every other country in the world acknowledges that it was torture, the current president acknowledges that it was torture, and the record shows unequivocally that it was authorized and supervised directly from the president's and vice-president's office. My own hope was that president Bush would take the lead on this. But, alas, he hasn't. I see the great political benefits of this approach - but the belligerence of the far right that refuses to acknowledge the plain facts in front of us would still lead to deep polarization.

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The Privatization of War: Scahill reports 121,000 contractors in Afghanistan

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Aljazeera - By Riz Khan - Dec. 23 (Interview) - During an interview with Riz Khan on December 21st Jeremy Scahill reported that the Obama administration has surpassed the Bush era’s privatization of war, having nearly doubled the number of security contractors in Afghanistan over the past several months. Amongst the contracting firms who remain in Afghanistan is Blackwater (now operating under the name XE) – a firm that Scahill describes as “one of the most powerful private actors in the so called War on Terror.“

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Rep. Reyes: CIA 'Deliberately Lied' To Intel Panel

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

NPR - Jul. 11 (Interview) - The CIA last week launched a review of how it briefs key members of Congress after House Democrats complained that the CIA has been misleading Congress for the past eight years. House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes says his committee was "deliberately lied to."

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The Torturers’ Manifesto

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Apr. 18 (Editorial) - These memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution. Congress should impeach him. And if the administration will not conduct a thorough investigation of these issues, then Congress has a constitutional duty to hold the executive branch accountable. If that means putting Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales on the stand, even Dick Cheney, we are sure Americans can handle it. After eight years without transparency or accountability, Mr. Obama promised the American people both. His decision to release these memos was another sign of his commitment to transparency. We are waiting to see an equal commitment to accountability.

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David Kay's Report

Tue, 27 Jan 2004 00:00:00 -0800

Fox News - By Bill O'Reilly - Jan. 27 (Opinion) - Mr. Bush has two choices. He can explain the Kay report and admit the mistakes made. Or he can ignore the issue, hoping Americans will ignore it come next November.

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