 Iraq
 Guantanamo
 Cuba
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 William
James "Jim" Haynes II
WILLIAM HAYNES News:
20080402
-
 John
Yoo -  Gonzales
- Haynes
-  Addington
-  Criminal
- Torture
-  Lawyers
-  Military
-  Government
-  Terrorism
-  Intelligence
-  Politics
-  History
-  Book
-  US
-  International
- Guantánamo
- Cuba
- Iraq
- "The
Green Light." ... "Yesterday the public finally got
to see the full text of an infamous Department of Justice memorandum from
March 2003 designed to authorize torture. I will have some more comments
on this odious document authored by John Yoo, a man who (amazingly) teaches
at a prominent law school. But this disclosure serves as a fitting introduction
for the publication today of Philippe Sands’s article “The
Green Light” in Vanity Fair. The article is a teaser for Sands’s
forthcoming book, set for release later this month, The Torture Team."
... "We’ve all heard ad nauseam the [Republican President Bush]
Administration’s official torture narrative. This is a different kind of
war, they argue. Each invocation of “different” is to a clear point: the
[Republican President Bush] Administration wishes to pursue its war unfettered
by the laws of war. Unfettered, indeed, by any form or notion of law. But
Sands’s work is important because he has looked carefully at the chronology:
what came first, the decision to use torture techniques, or the legal rationale
for them?"
"[Alberto]
Gonzales and [William] Haynes laid out their case with considerable care.
The only flaw was that every element of the argument contained untruths.
The real story, pieced together from many hours of interviews with most
of the people involved in the decisions about interrogation, goes something
like this: The Geneva decision was not a case of following the logic of
the law but rather was designed to give effect to a prior decision to take
the gloves off and allow coercive interrogation; it deliberately created
a legal black hole into which the detainees were meant to fall. The new
interrogation techniques did not arise spontaneously from the field but
came about as a direct result of intense pressure and input from Rumsfeld’s
office. The Yoo-[Jay]Bybee Memo was not simply some theoretical document,
an academic exercise in blue-sky hypothesizing, but rather played a crucial
role in giving those at the top the confidence to put pressure on those
at the bottom. And the practices employed at Guantánamo [Cuba] led
to abuses at Abu Ghraib [Iraq]." ... "The fingerprints of the most senior
lawyers in the administration were all over the design and implementation
of the abusive interrogation policies. [David] Addington, Bybee, Gonzales,
Haynes, and Yoo became, in effect, a torture team of lawyers, freeing the
administration from the constraints of all international rules prohibiting
abuse."
"Sands
notes the focal role that the torture lawyers saw for the Attorney General’s
opinion power. It was, as Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith suggested
in a recent book, a device that could be used to give a sort of pardon
in advance for persons undertaking criminal acts."
"And
of course, the torture lawyers fully appreciated from the outset that torture
was a criminal act. Most of the legal memoranda they crafted, including
the March 2003 Yoo memorandum released today, consist largely of precisely
the sorts of arguments that criminal defense attorneys make–they weave
and bob through the law finding exceptions and qualifications to the application
of the criminal law. But there are some major differences: these memoranda
have been crafted not as an after-the-fact defense to criminal charges,
but rather as a roadmap to committing crimes and getting away with it.
They are the sort of handiwork we associate with the consigliere,
or mob lawyer. But these consiglieri are government attorneys who
have sworn an oath, which they are violating, to uphold the law." ... "They
have dragged the Department of Justice, as an institution, straight into
the gutter. " -By Scott
Horton -Harpers.org
See Also: [United
States v. Altstoetter] via: [Google
Search]
20061024
-
 Noteworthy
- US
- Guantanamo
Bay - Cuba
- Military
- Intelligence
- Torture
- Terrorism
- Prison
- Religion
-  People
- War
Crimes - Law
Enforcement -Politics
- "Can
the '20th hijacker' of Sept. 11 stand trial? Aggressive
interrogation at Guantanamo may prevent his prosecution." ... "Mohammed
al-Qahtani, detainee No. 063, was forced to wear a bra. He had a thong
placed on his head. He was massaged by a female interrogator who straddled
him like a lap dancer. He was told that his mother and sisters were whores.
He was told that other detainees knew he was gay. He was forced to dance
with a male interrogator. He was strip-searched in front of women. He was
led on a leash and forced to perform dog tricks. He was doused with water.
He was prevented from praying. He was forced to watch as an interrogator
squatted over his Koran." ... "That much is known. These details were among
the findings of the U.S. Army's investigation of al-Qahtani's aggressive
interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." ... "But only now is a picture
emerging of how the interrogation policy developed, and the battle that
law enforcement agents waged, inside Guantanamo and in the offices of the
Pentagon, against harsh treatment of al-Qahtani and other detainees by
military intelligence interrogators." ... "In interviews with MSNBC.com
- the first time they have spoken publicly -former senior law enforcement
agents described their attempts to stop the abusive interrogations. The
agents of the Pentagon's Criminal Investigation Task Force, working to
build legal cases against suspected terrorists, said they objected to coercive
tactics used by a separate team of intelligence interrogators soon after
Guantanamo's prison camp opened in early 2002. They ultimately carried
their battle up to the office of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld,
who approved the more aggressive techniques to be used on al-Qahtani and
others." ... "Although they believed the abusive techniques were probably
illegal, the Pentagon cops said their objection was practical. They argued
that abusive interrogations were not likely to produce truthful information,
either for preventing more al-Qaida attacks or prosecuting terrorists."
... "And they described their disappointment when military prosecutors
told them not to worry about making a criminal case against al-Qahtani,
the suspected "20th hijacker" of Sept. 11, because what had been done to
him would prevent him from ever being put on trial." ... "Defense Department
e-mails seen by MSNBC.com show that a delegation visiting Guantanamo on
Sept. 25, 2002, included Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel
and now attorney general; David S. Addington, legal counsel to Vice President
Dick Cheney, now his chief of staff; Timothy E. Flanigan, the deputy White
House counsel; William Haynes III, the Pentagon general counsel; Larry
Thompson, then deputy attorney general; Christopher A. Wray, the principal
associate deputy attorney general, now head of Criminal Division at the
Justice Department; and John Yoo, a lawyer in the Justice Department's
Office of Legal Counsel, who reportedly had just helped write an Aug. 1,
2002, "torture memo" to Gonzales, defining torture narrowly as causing
pain equivalent to organ failure or death." ... "The visiting VIPs met
with Gen. Dunlavey and his staff, but not with any of the law enforcement
investigators who opposed the aggressive interrogations." ... "Under the
Military Commissions Act signed last week by President Bush, statements
made under torture would not be admissible in a military trial." ... "But
the law says a military judge could accept statements made under coercion.
A court may have to decide which category, torture or coercion, encompasses
such techniques as a fake trip to Egypt, sleep deprivation, and being forced
to do dog tricks. The new law also extends legal protection from prosecution
for war crimes to any U.S. personnel who used coercive tactics, if they
believed in good faith that what they were doing was lawful." (1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Bill Dedman -MSNBC
20060712
-
US
- Iraq- Guantanamo
Bay - Cuba
- Military
- Prison
- Politics
- "GOP
Senator Criticizes Appeals Court Nominee." ... "A
key Senate Republican clashed yesterday with President Bush's pick for
a federal appeals court, taking aim at the nominee's past support for harsh
interrogation methods at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
... "At a Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C. [Republican])
said that Pentagon General Counsel William J. Haynes II had pushed for
the tactics over the objections of top uniformed military lawyers who considered
the policy process a "sham."" ... "The result, Graham told reporters after
the hearing, was "legal confusion" that contributed to the scandal at Iraq's
Abu Ghraib prison -- and the attendant courts-martial and other career
damage for those held responsible." ... "Noting that the U.S. commander
in Iraq during Abu Ghraib, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, has seen his career
stall, Graham said, "The question is whether enough things went wrong on
[Haynes's] watch that he needs to be held accountable."" -By
Charles Lane -WashingtonPost
20021118
-
- 
- 
-
"Military
trial plans nearly done: Bush to decide which
detainees will be tried by tribunals." ... "The government is nearly ready
to go forward with military tribunals for suspected al Qaeda operatives
in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan, pending completion of
final details and approval from President Bush, according to federal officials."
... "Pentagon General Counsel William J. Haynes II has met in recent weeks
with senior officials in other agencies, including the Justice Department,
to outline the plans that have been put in place for the tribunals, also
known as military commissions." -By Susan Schmidt
and Bradley Graham-WashingtonPost
via -MSNBC
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