Red Cross to the Rescue

The International Committee of the Red Cross released a "torture" report this week. Aptly titled: The ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen "High Value Detainees" in CIA Custody.

The 41-page report details previously alleged Geneva Convention infractions in clear, quoted detail. Whatever you thought may have happened at Gitmo, etc...it did - and worse.

These are the 12 basic techniques used by the CIA according to the report:
* Suffocation by water poured over a cloth placed over the nose and mouth...
* Prolonged stress standing position, naked, held with the arms extended and chained above the head...
* Beatings by use of a collar held around the detainees' neck and used to forcefully bang the head and body against the wall...
* Beating and kicking, including slapping, punching, kicking to the body and face...
* Confinement in a box to severely restrict movement...
* Prolonged nudity...this enforced nudity lasted for periods ranging from several weeks to several months...
* Sleep deprivation...through use of forced stress positions (standing or sitting), cold water and use of repetitive loud noises or music...
* Exposure to cold temperature...especially via cold cells and interrogation rooms, and...use of cold water poured over the body or...held around the body by means of a plastic sheet to create an immersion bath with just the head out of water.
* Prolonged shackling of hands and/or feet...
* Threats of ill-treatment, to the detainee and/or his family...
* Forced shaving of the head and beard...
* Deprivation/restricted provision of solid food from 3 days to 1 month after arrest...


Let freedom ring! Oh, I'm sorry, ours - not yours. Mark Danner at the New York Book of Reviews likens it to the techniques generated by "Communist China and Soviet Russia". He wrote a well-written, left-leaning (albeit lengthy) article discussing the report and what it means with sections reflecting on the Cheney versus Obama meme of late ("He's making us less safe"; "Am not -- you did."), whether torture-induced evidence can be proven accurate and the best ways to find out the entire truth (and what it means if we decide not to). The full article is here.

One of the most perverse points in all of this is that the majority of prisoners held (and subsequently abused) were never charged with any crime. Here is the mother of all money quotes from Col. Lawrence Wilderson, former Chief of Staff to Sec. of State Col. Colin Powell: "The detainees' innocence was inconsequential".

I'm sure there will be more to come - and none of it good. I hope this non-partisan group report will do something -- ANYTHING -- to jumpstart a serious investigation into who, what, when, where...we know why. If the Obama administration continues to look the other way and let the people responsible keep using executive privilege as their get-out-of-jail-free card, I will be sick with disappointment.

There is no way to move ahead as a country with this tarnish on our souls. Hold every one of them accountable and let the political chips fall at will.

Andrew Sullivan posted a quote from John Sifton, attorney and Executive Director at One World Research (a human rights organization):

Under international law—the Geneva Conventions, the Convention against Torture, and basic precepts of customary international law—the United States has a positive obligation to investigate and prosecute persons alleged to have committed torture and other violations of the laws of war. As of Valentine’s Day 2007, and possibly earlier, the U.S. government was obligated to investigate and prosecute the abuses detailed in the report. The United States’ failure to do so is a recurring breach of international law. (emphasis added.)