UN Torture Rapporteur: "Couldn't Be More Clear" That Waterboarding Is Torture, "Immoral and Illegal"
Saturday 13 November 2010
by: Alex-Seitz-Wald | ThinkProgress | Report
In a interview with the Dallas Morning News published yesterday, former President Bush touted his authorization of waterboarding as a key accomplishment to “leav[ing] behind a firmer foundation for my successors.” “[W]e passed laws that Congress endorsed and embraced, like the Terrorist Surveillance Program, military tribunals and enhanced interrogation techniques. The enhanced interrogation techniques are available to presidents if they so choose to use them.” Bush’s comments come on the heels of the revelation, published in his memoir released this week, that he personally authorized the waterboarding of 9/11 suspects.
Bush has adamantly defended his use of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” over the years, saying the practices saved lives, were completely legal, and were not torture — but many rightly disagree. On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union “joined a growing chorus in the human rights community calling for a special prosecutor to investigate” Bush’s use of waterboading to determine whether his administration “violated federal statutes prohibiting torture.” “[T]he former President’s acknowledgment that he authorized torture is absolutely without parallel in American history,” the ACLU wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.
And yesterday, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez — who was himself tortured by the Argentinean junta in the 1970s — firmly stated that waterboarding is torture — “immoral and illegal.” In a radio interview with Mark Colvin of ABC News in Australia, Mendez said the legal memos authorizing waterboaring that Bush “hides behind” were “completely flawed,” and that there isn’t “any question” under international law that what Bush authorized was torture:
JUAN MENDEZ: Mr Bush hides behind the fact that he is not a lawyer and he has this folksy you know kind of cute way of saying, well the lawyers told me it was legal, as if he didn’t know that it’s immoral. You know? Immoral and illegal. I mean he can’t really hide behind his lawyers.
I mean he was very hypocritical of him to say something like that. I mean it’s been so clearly established that those memos were, they don’t even deserve the name of legal memos because they are completely flawed from the legal reasoning. But even worse they are morally flawed as well.
MARK COLVIN: There’s no question that in international law waterboarding is torture?
JUAN MENDEZ: I don’t think there is any question, any serious question. I mean it’s a question of severity. If you think that waterboarding is not severe mistreatment you don’t really know what waterboarding is. … I mean if you then redefine upwards the severity standard to say that it’s only severe if it’s organ failure or death, then you know you’re really very clearly distorting the sense of the words and you know words have to be interpreted in treaty language, they have to be interpreted in their plain meaning and their plain meaning couldn’t be more clear in the case of waterboarding.
This not the first time that someone with Mendez’ job has called out Bush’s use of torture. Former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Professor Manfred Nowak, agreed that waterboarding is torture. He even warned the Obama administration that it may be violating international law by failing to adequately investigate the Bush administration on the matter. As a party to the UN Convention Against Torture, the U.S. is obligated to investigate and prosecute U.S. citizens that are believed to have engaged in torture, he noted.
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Comments
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Now, you'all know what the
Sat, 11/13/2010 - 21:18 — Anonarcmous (not verified)Now, you'all know what the patrolman says to you when he pulls you over in Texas: "Sorry ignorance of the speed limit [law] is no reason to speed. Now you well know that..." Ditto torture. One would think that if one does not want these procedures done to self or family--it prob is not very good stuff to do to others either? Don't they mention that in them churches down there in Midland-way. It is pretty flat out there--you'd think the word would travel fast enough?
beautiful day in color pictures
Sat, 11/13/2010 - 21:26 — thesunshining (not verified)Hi, today is a beautiful day in my life. I saw a first snow in this year and I save this photo for all people in the World!
That is truly glorious about
Sat, 11/13/2010 - 21:46 — buttheiceslippery (not verified)That is truly glorious about the first snow, though it has nothing to do with Bush authorizing torture in Guantanamo...unless you could add that that first snow was a blizzard that forced the roof of Bush's mansion in the Dallas 'burbs to collapse on top of him, in which case it would truly be a beautiful day in a LOT of people's lives!
Republicans + Whitewater +
Sat, 11/13/2010 - 22:14 — Keith (not verified)Republicans + Whitewater + Ken Star + 70 Million tax dollars = Nothing on Clinton
Republicans + Monica Lewinsky + Oral Sex + Clinton lies = Impeachment
Bush + WMD in Iraq + Cheney and Haliburton + Preemptive Strike + over 4000 Americans Dead = Decision point
Bush and Cheney + Waterboarding and Torture = Decision point
and the list goes on and on and on and on....
" I mean he was very
Sun, 11/14/2010 - 00:26 — Giovanni (not verified)" I mean he was very hypocritical of him to say something like that. I mean it’s been so clearly established that those memos were, they don’t even deserve the name of legal memos because they are completely flawed from the legal reasoning. But even worse they are morally flawed as well. "
Couldn't disagree more. Not at this point in time anyway. Without rule of law applied fully to this seemingly endless abrogation of it, morals mean nothing to society at large. it wasn't hypocritical.. it was yet another admission of guilt from a war criminal.
We have to stop allowing for excuses and demand justice.
George W. Bush was never
Sun, 11/14/2010 - 00:58 — kathy (not verified)George W. Bush was never elected by the people of the U.S. He was appointed by corrupt judges so that he could do the bidding of his corporate masters: oil, energy, weaponry, and construction.
He and they want to demoralize our sense of right and wrong. The fact that republicans have been voted back in to congress after all the lying, stealing, murderous waring, and ill treatment of prisoners of war, shows that people have become immoral. George W. Bush was always evil. He flashed the devil sign numerous times throughout his presidency.
He is a Pontius Pilate; crucifying the body of Christ with cluster bombs. He is not a Christian
as he claims but a power-hungry monster who
gets off on breaking laws, and hurting, and killing. Obama never would have been allowed to be president if he didn't agree to protect the evil Bush administration and their corporate masters as he has done. God save us all...from them...deliver us from evil !!!
Great topic :)
Sun, 11/14/2010 - 03:53 — Hilary Swenson (not verified)It is extremely interesting for me to read that post. Thanks for it. I like such themes and anything connected to this matter. I would like to read more soon.
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Morality issues are not
Sun, 11/14/2010 - 13:22 — Orly (not verified)Morality issues are not Bush’s values. He just escaped prosecution by the legal trick of blaming lawyers who told him WB was right. So the Decider, the God guided man cleans his conscience. A high number of voters (over 40 per cent) see him favorably. And he is still convinced (and he is right) that repeating a lie thousand times it become truth and people believe it. Few people will read his memoirs because they no longer read anything. They listen and watch to be “informed”. And we know who run the “informational-news-factory”. It is good to make comments but I have the impression that it is a waste of time. What he says is what people will know. What he wrote will not reach them.
Something has struck me for
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 13:22 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)Something has struck me for days that I have not commented on previously, and which no one else has mentioned: MEMOS ARE NOT LAW! The rationalizations and so-called "justification(s)" and "legitimization" of the extreme war crime(s) of torture may have been put in an "Executive Order", "Presidential Directive", "National 'Security' Directive" and/or some other so-called "law(s)" that the mostly traitors in Congress passed and/or the "President" signed, based on those memos; but the memos are NOT law, nor do they legitimize or justify ANYTHING!
And, since all of those memos and so-called "laws" ARE COMPLETELY UNCONSTITUTIONAL, IN VIOLATION OF OTHER U.S. LAW(S), INTERNATIONAL TREATIES THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT HAS RATIFIED AND SIGNED AND HAS NOT REMOVED THEIR SIGNATURE(S) FROM, AND ARE IN VIOLATION OF OTHER INTERNATIONAL LAW(S), THERE IS NOTHING WHATSOEVER FOR THE "BUSH, OBAMA (AKA BARRY SOETORO) AND COMPANY" TO HIDE BEHIND!...
...All of the "enhanced
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 13:23 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...All of the "enhanced 'interro(r)gations'" [sic(k)] are totally illegal and/or unlawful, unconstitutional, and treason against God, the country, We the People, the Constitution, and the entire world; so there are absolutely no legal rationalizations that they can use to "justify" or "legitimize" any of it! Therefore, unless the U.S. is already entirely the "Fourth Reich" and authoritarian corporate-fascist militarized police state that these extremely evil "powers-that-be" have been seeking to make it for a very long time now, and there is no True Justice left in "Ameri(k)a", ALL of these Machiavellian psychopaths and sociopaths MUST be prosecuted, convicted and locked up for the rest of their lives without ANY possibility(ies) of parole, EVER!...
...And NO ONE must EVER
Mon, 11/15/2010 - 13:24 — S. Wolf Britain (not verified)...And NO ONE must EVER AGAIN be allowed to so-trample on the principles of God-given LAW, DUTIES AND RIGHTS written down, of True Morality, Dignity, Liberty, Freedom and Justice FOR ALL, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE(S) WHATSOEVER!
But, if those COLOSSAL CRIMINALS aren't held truly accountable, God help us, have mercy; and, as Kathy so aptly said above, "deliver us from (all) evil"!
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