1.
NAVY JAG RESIGNS OVER TORTURE ISSUE
Peninsula Gateway
December 27, 2007
http://www.gateline.com/104/story/260.html
or
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,158983,00.html?ESRC=dod.nl
"It was with sadness that I signed my name this grey morning to a letter resigning my commission in the U.S. Navy," wrote Gig Harbor, Wash., resident and attorney-at-law Andrew Williams in a letter to the Peninsula Gateway last week. "There was a time when I served with pride . . . Sadly, no more."
Williams' sadness stems from the recent CIA videotape scandal in which tapes showing secret interrogations of two Al Qaeda operatives were destroyed.
The tapes may have contained evidence that the U.S. government used a type of torture known as waterboarding to obtain information from suspected terrorists.
Torture, including water-boarding, is prohibited under the treaties of the Geneva Convention.
It was in the much-publicized interview two weeks ago between Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, who is the chief legal adviser at the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions, that led Williams to resign.
In the interview, Graham asked Hartmann how the uniformed legal community should respond if the Iranian government used waterboarding to torture a U.S. solider into disclosing when the next U.S. military operation would occur.
Hartmann responded: "I am not prepared to answer that question."
For Williams, a former naval Lieutenant Commander and member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG), this answer went against "every training I had as an attorney" and as a member of the military.
Williams enlisted in the Navy in 1991 after completing law school at Santa Clara University. He was a legal officer and defense counsel in the U.S. Navy, meaning he both prosecuted and defended people in military courts.
He served on the USS Nimitz CVN-68, based in Bremerton, before becoming a member of the Naval reserves in 1995.
Williams, 43, felt that Hartmann was admitting torture is now an acceptable interrogation technique in the United States -- an admission that did not sit well with him.
"There was this saying in the Marines: 'We don't lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate people who do,'" Williams said. "And that sort of echoed through the Navy."
Williams felt that resigning from the reserves was not enough to demonstrate his dissatisfaction. He wrote to the *Gateway* hoping to set an example, echoing his same reason for joining the Navy two decades ago: "It was my way of serving the public," he said.
In his letter, Williams likened the use of torture by the United States to techniques used by the Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany, and the Khmer Rouge. He also wrote that he hopes "the truth about torture, illegal spying on Americans and secret renditions is coming out."
Williams doubts that much will come of his letter of resignation and acknowledges that his life in Gig Harbor -- which consists of practicing personal injury law and spending time with wife and young son -- will not change much.
"I suspect (the Navy is) probably going to be fine with it," he said. "I doubt they would keep me in voluntarily."
He also states that, although reserve officers only perform military service once a year, he "probably would have stayed on if this hadn't happened, both for sentimental value and if something big happened where I was needed."
OUTRAGE OVER CIA SCANDAL
Below is an excerpt from the letter Andrew Williams submitted to the *Peninsula Gateway*. For the entire letter, see Letters to the Editor 16A.
"Thank you General Hartmann for finally admitting the United States is now part of a long tradition of torturers going back to the Inquisition. In the middle ages the Inquisition called waterboarding 'toca' and used it with great success. In colonial times, it was used by the Dutch East India Company during the Amboyna Massacre of 1623.
"Waterboarding was used by the Nazi Gestapo and the feared Japanese Kempeitai. In World War II, our grandfathers had the wisdom to convict Japanese Officer Yukio Asano of waterboarding and other torture practices in 1947 giving him 15 years hard labor. Waterboarding was practiced by the Khmer Rouge at the infamous Tuol Sleng prison. Most recently, the United States Army court martialed a soldier for the practice in 1968 during the Vietnam conflict."
2.
[Letter]
DESPITE COVER-UP ATTEMPTS, SECRETS EXPLAIN U.S. TORTURE
By Andrew Williams
Peninsula Gateway (Gig Harbor, WA)
December 26, 2007
http://www.gateline.com/opinion/story/295.html
It was with sadness that I signed my name this grey morning to a letter resigning my commission in the U.S. Navy.
There was a time when I served with pride, knowing that by serving with the finest men and women in the country, we were part of an organization whose core values required us to “do the right thing,” and that we were far different from the Soviet Union and its gulags, the Vietcong with their torture camps, and a society of surveillance and informers like Nazi Germany.
We were part of the shining light on the hill who didn’t do those things. Sadly, no more.
The final straw for me was listening to General Hartmann, the highest-ranking military lawyer in charge of the military commissions, testify that he refused to say that waterboarding captured U.S. soldiers by Iranian operatives would be torture.
His testimony had just sold all the soldiers and sailors at risk of capture and subsequent torture down the river. Indeed, he would not rule out waterboarding as torture when done by the United States and indeed felt evidence obtained by such methods could be used in future trials.
Thank you, General Hartmann, for finally admitting the United States is now part of a long tradition of torturers going back to the Inquisition.
In the middle ages, the Inquisition called waterboarding “toca” and used it with great success. In colonial times, it was used by the Dutch East India Company during the Amboyna Massacre of 1623.
Waterboarding was used by the Nazi Gestapo and the feared Japanese Kempeitai. In World War II, our grandfathers had the wisdom to convict Japanese Officer Yukio Asano of waterboarding and other torture practices in 1947, giving him 15 years hard labor.
Waterboarding was practiced by the Khmer Rouge at the infamous Tuol Sleng prison. Most recently, the U.S. Army court martialed a soldier for the practice in 1968 during the Vietnam conflict.
General Hartmann, following orders was not an excuse for anyone put on trial in Nuremberg, and it will not be an excuse for you or your superiors, either.
Despite the CIA and the administration attempting to cover up the practice by destroying interrogation tapes, in direct violation of a court order, and congressional requests, the truth about torture, illegal spying on Americans and secret renditions is coming out.
Andrew Williams, Gig Harbor
3.
[Letter]
U.S. NAVY RESIGNATION LETTER SOUNDS LIKE ‘GRANDSTANDING’
By Lt. Cmdr. Brian Wild, Ret. U.S. Navy, Gig Harbor
Peninsula Gateway (Gig Harbor, WA)
January 2, 2008
http://www.gateline.com/opinion/story/328.html
Last week’s letter from attorney Williams about his resignation from the Naval Reserve was very disappointing to read (Peninsula Gateway, Dec. 26).
If Williams wanted to forgo his full reserve retirement, then that would mean something -- real money. Instead, he sounds like every other member of the ACLU and is just grandstanding by finally retiring from the Naval Reserve -- not a big deal.
As a retired Naval Reservist myself, I do not consider “waterboarding” as torture and would approve its use for high-value captives to obtain any information possible.
Waterboarding does not have any permanent or long-lasting effects, but it is effective most of the time to obtain information. This practice was even used at U.S. POW training camps when I was a “student” at the Navy SERE school (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) in California.
To compare its use to what happened in Soviet gulags, Nazi concentration camps, or to any other country’s real torture techniques, it pales by comparison. The CIA and the U.S. Armed Forces are just trying to protect us, not pick on innocents, as Williams seems to imply.
We are at war with terrorism, not another government, and we need to fight this fight aggressively, defeat the terrorists quickly and get our troops home. If you don’t have the stomach for it, choose another country -- but let our real heroes fight with all the tools available to them.
Lt. Cmdr. Brian Wild, Ret. U.S. Navy, Gig Harbor
4.
WATERBOARDING
By Hilzoy (“[A] philosophy professor who specializes in ethics. When she is not thinking deep thoughts, she likes to play guitar, read novels, listen to music, and wander around looking for birds”)
Obsidian Wings
October 31, 2007
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2007/10/waterboarding.html
From the NYT: "In an effort to quell growing doubts in the Senate about his nomination as attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey declared Tuesday that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques ‘seem over the line or, on a personal basis, repugnant to me’ and promised to review the legality of such methods if confirmed. -- But Mr. Mukasey told Senate Democrats he could not say whether waterboarding, which simulates drowning, was illegal torture because he had not been briefed on the details of the classified technique and did not want to suggest that Central Intelligence Agency officers who had used such techniques might be in ‘personal legal jeopardy.’”
There is an easy way for Mukasey to get around the fact that he has not been briefed on what the CIA did: just define waterboarding, say whether waterboarding so defined is torture, and add that not having been briefed on what the CIA did, he doesn't know whether or not what they did meets his definition. That Mukasey has not taken this obvious route suggests that he is not motivated by his own uncertainty, but by the desire to keep people he believes have engaged in torture from being punished for their crimes.
That we are even having a debate about this question, and that it is not a foregone conclusion that someone who claims not to know whether waterboarding is torture cannot possibly be confirmed as Attorney General, is a testament to the moral degradation of our country, and of our political discourse. Here is a description of waterboarding (h/t Katherine), written by a Malcolm W. Nance, a "former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the U.S. Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California":
"There is No Debate Except for Torture Apologists
“1. Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period. There is no way to gloss over it or sugarcoat it. It has no justification outside of its limited role as a training demonstrator. Our service members have to learn that the will to survive requires them accept and understand that they may be subjected to torture, but that America is better than its enemies and it is one’s duty to trust in your nation and God, endure the hardships and return home with honor.
“2. Waterboarding is not a simulation. Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.
“Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.
“Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration -- usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threaten with its use again and again.
“Call it ‘Chinese Water Torture,’ ‘the Barrel,’ or ‘the Waterfall,’ it is all the same. Whether the victim is allowed to comply or not is usually left up to the interrogator. Many waterboard team members, even in training, enjoy the sadistic power of making the victim suffer and often ask questions as an after thought. These people are dangerous and predictable and when left unshackled, unsupervised, or undetected they bring us the murderous abuses seen at Abu Ghraib, Baghram, and Guantanamo. No doubt, to avoid human factors like fear and guilt someone has created a one-button version that probably looks like an MRI machine with high intensity waterjets.”
Imagine what we would think of a country where candidates for high office and nominees for the highest law enforcement position in the country had earnest debates about whether or not the rack was torture ("hey, I do stretching exercises before I go jogging, and it doesn't hurt me!"), or whether disembowelling living prisoners shocked the conscience ("I had my appendix out, and I'm doing just fine!"). We would think that the people who said such things had utterly lost their humanity. Yet for some reason, altogether too many of our fellow citizens seem to think that it is perfectly acceptable for politicians and their appointees to have the same debates about waterboarding. I suspect that future generations, and the current inhabitants of other countries, will regard this the same way we would regard people who took it to be an open question whether the rack was torture: with abhorrence.
To quote Nance again:
"We live at a time where Americans, completely uninformed by an incurious media and enthralled by vengeance-based fantasy television shows like ‘24,’ are actually cheering and encouraging such torture as justifiable revenge for the September 11 attacks. Having been a rescuer in one of those incidents and personally affected by both attacks, I am bewildered at how casually we have thrown off the mantle of world-leader in justice and honor. Who we have become? Because at this juncture, after Abu Ghraib and other undignified exposed incidents of murder and torture, we appear to have become no better than our opponents."