“Torture Team”: British Attorney Philippe Sands on the White House Role in Sanctioning Torture

[seemslikeadream]

“Torture Team”: British Attorney Philippe Sands on the White House Role in Sanctioning Torture

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/8/torture_team_british_attorney_philippe_sands


PHILIPPE SANDS: 24 is a television program in which the use of torture is essentially rejoiced in as a technique for producing meaningful information. It had an effect down at Guantanamo. One of the things I discovered in my conversations was that people watched it, people were influenced by it, probably apparently as Antonin Scalia is.

But that is a shocking statement. And I put it in these terms. If he’s going to express that view, that the United States president is free to authorize torture, then why isn’t the Iranian president free to authorize torture against American nationals? Why isn’t the Egyptian president free to organize—authorize torture? The logic of the argument is really surprising and, frankly, outrageous.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you, Philippe Sands, about the possibility of US officials being charged with war crimes. You were quoted in a New York Times piece on Tuesday: “Mr. Sands, a British law professor, said two foreign prosecutors, whom he did not name, asked him for the materials on which his book Torture Team was based. ‘If the US doesn’t address this,’ he said, ‘other countries will.’"

PHILIPPE SANDS: That’s an accurate account, and I describe, in one of the concluding chapters of the book, conversations I had with a European prosecutor and a European judge. And the committee was very interested in that, in relation to a question they asked me and the other witnesses giving testimony: “What should this committee do?” And the answer that I gave was, “Look, it’s not for me to make recommendations on precisely what you do and don’t do, but what needs to happen is the United States needs to get involved in an accounting process. The committee needs to establish the facts. And if the United States doesn’t, others will do it.” And I have no doubt, no doubt whatsoever, that investigations will take place, if they’re not already taking place, and that some of these individuals, if they travel outside the United States, will face a very real threat of investigation.

AMY GOODMAN: And the legality of what President Bush said, or the implications of it, when he said to ABC News, “We started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people. Yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue, and I approved”?

PHILIPPE SANDS: Well, it appears to be an admission that the President of the United States authorized torture, that he authorized waterboarding. The convention prohibiting torture, the Geneva Conventions are absolutely clear: there are no circumstances in which torture is permitted. And if the account is accurate, the President is, in effect, owning up to the fact that he has committed a war crime. And under the torture convention, there is an obligation to investigate any person who has committed a war crime. So it was a very surprising admission. I wonder if it was fully thought through. If it’s accurate, it is deeply disturbing.

[seemslikeadream]

1. WATCH THE HEARING ANY TIME

WATCH THE HEARING
rtsp://video1.c-span.org/project/ter/ter050608_guantanamo.rm

[slipslidingaway]

2. K&R thanks n/t

[PDJane]

3. I'm waiting for this book.........

I've pre-ordered, and it should be here sometime next week. I hope.

[ogsbee]

4. Who funds/created 24? Intel?

I don't believe in coincidences. I'm afraid the Mighty Wurlitzer has gone way past manipulating journalism.

[Peace Patriot]

5. I don't know. That's a bit too much like blaming J.D. Salinger (author of

the novel "Catcher in the Rye") for teen suicides, or for John Lennon's murder. Does fiction actually "cause" people to do bad things, or would bad things be done anyway, with some other justification?

I know that protection of "free speech" gets very weird when you're talking about CORPORATE "free speech"--a "right" that doesn't exist--and also use of our PUBLIC airwaves, which have always been subject to regulation, in this and most other countries, often with an obligation to serve the common good.

But I have always been suspicious of the argument that depiction of violence (or sex) causes people to lose their free will and to act out what they see. At the same time, I don't want to underestimate the godawful monopolistic power of global corporate predator media, nor their ill intentions.

Whether "24" gave some emotional comfort to torturers at Guantanamo Bay--or eased their consciences a bit--is less important to me, and to all of us, I think, than AUTHORIZATION to torture ISSUED BY leaders of our government, and than their obedience to those unlawful orders. They could have gotten some emotional comfort, or mitigation of their consciences, in a number of other ways, from a number of other sources. But they got AUTHORIZATION from only ONE source: the Bush White House and Pentagon.

I've watched most of "24" and it didn't cause ME to torture anybody--nor to forgive or excuse Bushite torturers. I may be much more analytical than a lot of other viewers, but still, I really don't see that presenting dramatic situations--and doing it very well, as a matter of fact--creates an endorsement for the actions of fictional characters. And I think that a very strong argument could be made that presenting a fictional dilemma--a conflict--on the issue of torture (for instance, a nuke about to be exploded over Los Angeles, and the President decides to torture a former adviser of his, whom he is convinced knows where the bomb is) has a POSITIVE impact, causes people to THINK about the dilemma. In that case, torture wasn't presented as FUN, or as desirable, but as a difficult moral dilemma. Do you permit millions to be nuked, or break a law? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a highly manipulated set-up, but then so is a lot of drama. Look at the case for war that Shakespeare makes in Henry V (or was he being ironical)?

Also, better to have this topic OUT THERE--right on TV--than never spoken of, never depicted, never dealt with, politically OR artistically.

My own ethical conclusion about the President's dilemma in "24" was that, yeah, if I were in that situation, and was truly convinced of the facts (millions in L.A. about to be nuked; someone in my custody had the info that could stop it), I might well authorize torture--in violation of the law. But I would--or I hope I would--then go before the people of the country, confess what I'd done, and put myself at the mercy of the justice system and Congress. In other words, a civil disobedience attitude. Sometimes breaking the law is justified for a higher purpose--but to remain "clean," in your own conscience, you must take the consequences, whatever they are. The rule of law is thus upheld--but human freedom to make such a judgment is also honored. And, of course, the higher purpose (saving all those people) is accomplished.

This was not the solution in "24." And it has not been the case with the Bushites, who have been trying to cover up their torture from day one, and immunize themselves from any consequences--which makes me very, very suspicious that their motives (the motives of top Bushites) were not good, and, indeed, may have been very bad (--such as using torture to cover the tracks of their own crimes; or for business purposes, or for sadistic entertainment).

The dilemma that we face as a society--besides dealing with those who authorized this war crime--is dealing with those who obeyed the order. Torture is an act which degrades the torturer, more than any other violent act, even murder. And being part of a society in which the government--supposedly representing all of us--has committed such acts in our name, is deeply disturbing. Art--at least traditionally, and, once again, I hesitate about "corporate" art--is a healer. To the Greeks, for instance, the depiction of actors caught in wrenching dilemmas, or having committed horrible acts, was purgative. It cleansed the emotions. It helped people deal with fears and guilt and nightmares. Bettelheim makes the same argument in favor of children's fairy tales--stories depicting a child being eaten by a wolf, or stuffed into an oven, or threatened by monsters--that the depiction of these horrors and dangers HELPS the child's psyche to deal with fear and anger. The story is a representation of inner life--not an incitement to violence, but rather a remedy for violence (a well-balanced, self-confident child).

Art is also a REFLECTION of society--a way of mirroring problems BACK TO society. If artists cannot depict and address society's problems, then society will be much the poorer for understanding itself and devising solutions. For these and other reasons, I am greatly averse to censorship. The remedy for corporate misuse of our PUBLIC airwaves--for instance, to promote torture, or war, or police brutality--is not censorship, in my view, but rather busting up corporate news/entertainment monopolies, to break their hold on public imagery and on our political dialogue, and also to forbid their conglomeration of financial interests, which has included direct war profiteering.

Boycotts are okay. They are a form of free speech. And they can be effective. And a boycott urges choice, generally in a financial decision (whether to buy a business' products), not direct censorship. I think we should be very leery of censorship, even in our proper and rightful action of regulating the PUBLIC airwaves for the common good--and look more to the monopolistic practices of the corporate media, and also aim at DIVERSITY, at a truly open, creative, independent use of the airwaves and other media, rather than focusing on particular corporate producers or the writers they hire, and trying to fathom their motives. I don't mean we should be ignorant about who is making what TV shows, video games, etc. I'm talking about focus--the thrust of our effort to bust the war profiteers, and to restore democratic health to all media (news/opinion, books, movies, etc.)

Censorship--like Prohibition (of drugs, of alcohol)--never works. It just drives problems underground, and creates a fascist, police state mentality. Gee, if we could only rid our airwaves of "24," torture would never have been committed, and we would all be virtuous again. "24" wasn't the problem. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & cabal were the problem. "24"'s producers and funders may be fascists. The solution to that is to reduce their financial and political power and open the airwaves to other content.

[seemslikeadream]

6. Which came first torture on 24 or Yoo's?