Death of Prisoner Justified If Interrogator Acted in 'Good Faith,' Report Said By Jason Leopold

[Demeter]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_jason_le_080403_death_of_prisoner_ju.htm


Mary Walker, the former Air Force general counsel, received an urgent memo from the Pentagon's top attorney on Jan. 17, 2003. Attached to the classified document was a set of directives drafted two days earlier by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

"Establish a working group within the Department of Defense to assess the legal, policy and operational issues relating to the interrogations of detainees held by the U.S. Armed Forces in the war on terrorism," a copy of the memo said. "The working group should address and make recommendations as warranted on the following issues: legal considerations raised by detainees held by U.S. Armed Forces. Policy considerations with respect to the choice of interrogation techniques, including, contribution to intelligence collection, effect on treatment of captured U.S. military personnel, effect on detainee prosecutions, historical role of U.S. armed forces in conducting interrogations, recommendations for employment of particular interrogation techniques by interrogators."

Earlier this week, the Defense Department turned over an 81-page document to the American Civil Liberties Union in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that provides further insight into the extraordinary executive branch powers granted to President George W. Bush following the 9/11 attacks. John Yoo, a former deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel who had also written the August 2002 legal opinion widely referred to as the “Torture Memo”, drafted the document, dated March 14, 2003. The August 2002 memo provided CIA interrogators with the legal authority to use long-outlawed tactics, such as waterboarding, when interrogating so-called high-level terrorist detainees.

Yoo's March 14, 2003 memo, declassified Tuesday, essentially provided military interrogators with legal cover in the event that they resorted to brutal and violent methods to extract information from prisoners. It is virtually identical to the memo he prepared for CIA interrogators.

"If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network," Yoo wrote. "In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch's constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions."

But the legal opinion, rescinded in early 2004, was not entirely the work of Yoo.

In early January 2003, commanders stationed at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba complained to Rumsfeld that military officials were unable to glean information from prisoners about alleged terrorist plots in the US and abroad using conventional interrogation methods. Following his conversation with military officials, on Jan. 15, 2003, Rumsfeld sent William Haynes II, the Pentagon's general counsel, a memo requesting that he form a "working group" to determine what methods military interrogators could use to extract information from a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. Haynes asked the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel for guidance and selected Walker to chair a "working group" to write a report on legally permissible interrogation techniques. The members of the group included former Undersecretary of Defense for policy Douglas Feith, officials from the Defense Intelligence Agency officials, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and judge advocate generals (JAG's) from all four branches of the military.

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Authors Bio: Jason Leopold is the author of the National Bestseller, "News Junkie," a memoir. Visit www.newsjunkiebook.com for a preview. He is also a two-time winner of the Project Censored award, most recently, in 2007, for an investigative story related to Halliburton's work in Iran. He was recently named the recipient of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation’s Thomas Jefferson Award for a series of stories he wrote that exposed how soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been pressured to accept fundamentalist Christianity. Leopold is working on a new nonprofit online publication, expected to launch soon.

[Diclotican]

1. Demeter

Demeter

Murder is STILL murder in my book, regardless of what this administration, and many in the top brass in Pentagon is saying. This EXCUSES as they would be called when the history books are been written, would not be kind to this type of excuses to murder..

When you have prisoner in your keep, they are some rules to be followed, both nationally in US, and international LAW. I know this Administration have low respect for internationally tractats and law, but if they have that type of excuses, and tried to hide it in "exclusive memos" then it prove once and for all, that this administration are morally so deep in water, than they never would survive if the whole truth are coming to light.

By the way. The nazi-germany of the 1930s also used a lot of the same rhetoric, when it come to using torture on THEIR inmates in prisons, and further down the road the Concentrations camps. Th surviving documents, prove clear that the Gestapo, SS and all the others was given much thoughts to the REASONING of using torture.. Many of the top leaders in SS and Gestapo in fact discussed in some detail, what type of torture was best to witch type of prisoner... And they even had a special School for the prisoner guard, in Dachau, who was to be one of the worst Concentration camps in the whole system.. And that is bad, when you think about it...

And, can ONE peron in this world prove for anyone else, that torture work?.. In most cases, the information you get from using torture would be doubtfully at least. You are given the information, the prisoner believe you to want. And if you, as a integrator want to know where the next terror plot are to come, then you may press ahead for that. Even if the prisoner may not know about it.. Or in any cases would never tell you who the dirty bomb are.

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language

[Demeter]

2. I'm Sure We all Feel That Way Here, Diclotican

och Hej pa Dej! I don't have the right keyboard, and I'm too lazy to look up the ASCII....

[Diclotican]

3. Demeter

Demeter

I guess you are right there Demeter:toast:

Hei på deg også;). Don't botter if you have not the right keyboard, I would still understand for the most what you are saying in swedish I guess;). ASCII what is that?:. I am afraid I have not heard about that yet..


Then, of to try to get that Windows Media Center Ok:p. Working in progress as they say.. Withouth a manual... Wel I get all this movies going all right.. So I guess it would go better with the rest, when I just understand what do what...

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language

[Demeter]

4. ASCII is a Computer Code

every character in every alphabet has a 16 bit code assigned to it. If one knows which codes to use, one can write in any language. I don't know how the oriental languages are handled, but I assume there is some similar arrangement.