But why would the administration care about what worked to produce intelligence, if the goal was never intelligence in the first place? What the Ponzi scheme of either innocent men or low-level operatives incriminating each other DID accomplish, was produce a framework of rapid successes and trophies in the new War on Terror.
And now, American contractors Vance and Ertel show, unless there are prosecutions, the law has effectively changed and they can do it to Americans. Jane Mayer in the New Yorker describes a new regime for prisoners which has become coldly methodical, quoting a report issued by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, titled "Secret Detentions and Illegal Transfers of Detainees." In the report on the CIA paramilitary Special Activities Division detainees were "taken to their cells by strong people who wore black outfits, masks that covered their whole faces, and dark visors over their eyes."
Mayer writes that a former member of a C.I.A. transport team has described the "takeout" of prisoners as:
"a carefully choreographed twenty-minute routine, during which a suspect was hog-tied, stripped naked, photographed, hooded, sedated with anal suppositories, placed in diapers, and transported by plane to a secret location."
A person involved in the Council of Europe inquiry, referring to cavity searches and the frequent use of suppositories, likened the treatment to "sodomy." He said, "It was used to absolutely strip the detainee of any dignity. It breaks down someone's sense of impenetrability."
Of course we have seen these images before, in the trial balloon treatment of Jose Padilla, the first American citizen arrested and declared "enemy combatant" in the first undeclared war without end. The designation placed Padilla outside of his Bill of Rights as an American citizen even though he was arrested on American soil. Padilla was kept in isolation and tortured for nearly 4 years before being released to a civilian trial, at which point according to his lawyer he was useless in his own defense, and exhibited fear and mistrust of everyone, complete docility, and a range of nervous facial tics.
Jose Padilla in Military Custody
He was convicted by a Miami jury and sentenced to 17 more years. As of this writing, and meriting it's own outrage, on Sept. 19, an appeals court threw out Padilla's sentence as "too lenient" and has sent it back for review.
Rumsfeld's avuncular "golly-gee, gee-whiz" performances in public are legendary. Randall M. Schmidt, the Air Force Lieutenant General appointed by the Army to investigate abuses at Guantanamo, and who recommended holding Rumsfeld protege and close associate General Geoffrey Miller "accountable" as the commander of Guantanamo, watched Rumsfeld's performance before a House Committee with some interest. "He was going, "My God! Did I authorize putting a bra and underwear on this guy's head and telling him all his buddies knew he was a homosexual?' "
But General Taguba said of Rumsfeld: "Rummy did what we called "case law' policy --- verbal and not in writing. What he's really saying is that if this decision comes back to haunt me I'll deny it."
Taguba went on: "Rumsfeld is very perceptive and has a mind like a steel trap. There's no way he's suffering from C.R.S.--Can't Remember sh*t."
Miller was the general deployed by Rumsfeld to "Gitmo-ize" Abu Ghraib in 2003 after Rumsfeld had determined they were being too "soft" on prisoners. He said famously in one memo "you have to treat them like dogs." General Karpinski questioned the fall of Charles Graner and Lyndie England as the main focus of low-level "bad apple" abuse in the Abu Ghraib investigations. "Did Lyndie England deploy with a dog leash?" she asks.
Exhibit: Dog deployed at Abu Ghraib, mentally-ill prisoner
Abu Ghraib prisoner in "restraint" chair, screaming "Allah!!"
Rumsfeld's worry now is the doctrine of Universal Jurisdiction, as well as ordinary common law. The veil of immunity stripped in civil cases would seem to free the hand of any prosecutor who determines there is sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed based on available evidence. A grand jury's bar for opening a prosecution is minimal. It has been said "a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich." Rumsfeld, and the evidence against him, would certainly seem to pass this test.
The name Dilawar translates to English roughly as "Braveheart." Let us pray he had one to endure the manner of his death. But the more spiritual may believe that somehow it had a purpose, to shock the world and begin the toppling of unimaginable evil among us. Dilawar represented the poorest of the poor and most powerless, wanting only to pick up his three sisters, as his mother had told him to, for the holiday. The question now is whether Americans will finally draw a line, as the case against Rumsfeld falls into place and becomes legally bulletproof. Andy Worthington noted that the case for prosecutors became rock solid when Susan Crawford, senior Pentagon official overseeing the Military Commissions at Guantà ¡namo -- told Bob Woodward that the Bush administration had "met the legal definition of torture."
As Rumsfeld continues his book tour and people like Dilawar are remembered, it is not beyond the pale that an ambitious prosecutor, whether local, state, or federal, might sense the advantage. It is perhaps unlikely, but not inconceivable, that upon landing at Logan International Airport on Wed., Sept. 21st, or similarly anywhere he travels thereafter, Rumsfeld could be greeted with the words such as: "Welcome to Boston, Mr. Secretary. You are under arrest."
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