When do lies and commission of crimes qualify candidacy for public office?

When office holders self-exempt from the rule of law and get off scot-free

Editing, brief comment by Carolyn Bennett

Impunity (synonym exemption) means, according to Merriam Webster, exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss; example: laws were flouted (disregarded) with “impunity.”

University of Wisconsin history professor Alfred W. McCoy spoke with Democracy Now today about U.S. torture and related contradictions, denials and lies committed by current and past federal administrations in Washington. This is some of what McCoy said in answer to Amy Goodman’s questions.

 

Impunity

First stage of impunity in crime of torture: Blame commission of the crime on “the bad apples,” as former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did after U.S. crimes at Abu Ghraib were exposed in 2004.

Second stage of impunity in crime of torture: Claim the crime is/was “necessary for our national security—unfortunate, perhaps, but necessary to keep us all safe,” as former U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney did and continues to do.

Third stage of impunity in crime of torture: lie (deepen the lie) or deny or say, hey, we are not going to do it anymore, as does current U.S. President Barack Obama: 

Whatever might have happened in the past, we need unity as a nation, we need to move forward together into the future.

Put it behind us, not investigate, not prosecute ─ the very definition of impunity. Lawlessness upheld by a head of state trained to be a lawyer, a professor of constitutional law.

Fourth stage of impunity in crime of torture: legalize the illegal: those authorizing or executing torture or having done so (as the agents in the George W. Bush administration) seek not only “exoneration,” license to get away with crime, but vindication for having committed it: legal by necessity in the name of “national security.”

Fifth stage of impunity in crime of torture: Codify the lies, censor and enshrine a new history. “Rewrite the history, rewrite the past,” as is being done by past and present U.S. administration cabinets, employees and related agents. “Without respect for the truth of the matter, reconstruct it in a way that justifies torture.”

Feigned commitment and outright lies

During the Cold War, McCoy recalls, the CIA taught allies how to torture but the United States did not hands-on torture. “We outsourced it. We funded prisons. We harvested intelligence.”

Under President George W. Bush, we [hands-on] did it ourselves: the United States “authorized the CIA to create a fleet of two dozen chartered jets for rendition. They authorized the CIA to open eight black sites from Thailand to Poland, so U.S. CIA agents actually engaged in waterboarding, wall slamming, and forms of psychological torture under President Bush.”

Under the Obama government, “We have gone back to the Cold War policy of outsourcing the abuse to our allies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia.” The United States turns a blind eye to human rights abuse and at the same time “authorizes the CIA very quietly to conduct extraordinary rendition.”

Former president George W. Bush said, famously, America does not torture. The Obama government, on taking office declared, “My administration is going to operate in a way that leaves no doubt that we do not torture, that we abide by the Geneva Conventions, and that we observe our traditions of rule of law and due process as we are vigorously going after terrorists that can do us harm.”

But, as Alfred McCoy points out, “Under the United Nations Convention against Torture ─

A nation is prohibited from sending people to countries where they will be subject to human rights abuse as defined by the Convention against Torture.

Rendition is the process of sending somebody to a country where they are likely to be tortured.

W

ho is to say that this too is not hands-on? And even if we choose to believe that it is not actually hands-on, it is still the commission of the crime by having sent a person or people to the dungeon where the crime, the crime of torture, or other human rights abuses are sure to be committed. 

There is no escape from these truths and in order to truly preserve the rule of law, the agents of administrations past and present must be brought before the bar of justice. Moreover, those holding license to practice law or even to teach it should be stripped of both license and privilege.

In Articles two, three and four of the UN Convention against Torture are these statements:

Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.  No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
 An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.Article 2 

No State Party shall expel, return (‘refouler’) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.Article 3

Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture. Article 4

Sources and notes

“As Italy Sentences 23 CIA Agents in Rendition Case, Obama Refuses to Prosecute Anyone for Torture,” September 21, 2012,

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/21/as_italy_sentences_23_cia_agents#transcript

Alfred W. McCoy is Professor of History, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

McCoy is author of Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (2009). Among his most recent articles are: “A Hundred Years of Drug Prohibition: A Study in the Failure of Global Governance,” in Michael Heazle, Martin Griffiths, and Tom Conley, eds.. Foreign Policy Challenges in the 21st Century (London: Edward Elgar, 2009), pp. 207-30; “Covert Netherworld: Clandestine Services & Criminal Syndicates in Shaping the Philippine State,” in, Eric Wilson, ed., Government of the Shadows (London: Pluto Press, 2009), pp. 226-55; “Legacy of a Dark Decade: CIA Mind Control, Classified Behavioral Research, and the Origins of Modern Medical Ethics,” in, Almerindo Ojeda, ed., Trauma of Psychological Torture (Westport: Praeger, 2008) pp. 40-69; “Torture in the Crucible of Counterinsurgency,” in, Marilyn B. Young and Lloyd C. Gardner, eds., Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not to Learn From the Past (New York: New Press, 2007), pp. 230-62. Dr.

McCoy took his doctorate in Southeast Asian history at Yale University and his M.A. at UC-Berkeley. http://seasia.wisc.edu/People/Alfred%20McCoy.htm; http://history.wisc.edu/people/faculty/mccoy.htm

CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment [excerpt]

The States Parties to this Convention,

Considering that, in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Recognizing that those rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person,

Considering the obligation of States under the Charter, in particular Article 55, to promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Having regard to article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which provide that no one may be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,

Having regard also to the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted by the General Assembly on 9 December 1975 (resolution 3452 (XXX)),

Desiring to make more effective the struggle against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment throughout the world,

Have agreed as follows:

Part I

Article 1

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means

any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.

Article 2

Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 3

No State Party shall expel, return (‘refouler’) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

Article 4

Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.

Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature. …

The United Nations CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE contains 32 articles, http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html

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