Fair Trial or Water Boarding?
It emerged today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to the killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl, who was killed in Pakistan in 2002. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was apprehended by the American forces in Pakistan in 2003, confessed before a military tribunal at the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba - the centre where the US keeps more than 400 detainees awaiting trials before the special military tribunals the Bush administration set up in wake of the 9/11 atrocities. Mohammed had previous confessed to planning the attacks of 9/11. In addition to this, Mohammed has confessed to have taken responsibility for the 2002 Bali bombings and has made plans for a line of other terrorist attacks.
Pearl was working as a journalist for the Wall Street Journal in Pakistan in 2002 when he was kidnapped and later beheaded. Images of the beheading were distributed by the kidnappers on the internet and made for gruesome viewing of Pearl’s last minutes.
While the heinous crimes of 9/11 and Pearl's beheading are not in any way disputed, Mohammed's confessions raise questions regarding the methods that might have been used to obtain his confession. It has previous been alleged that Mohammed has been the victim of torture, including the well-known method of water boarding - methods which the use of Vice-President Dick Cheney has referred to as 'no-brainers'. Can we trust that his confessions are legitimate? Is it more reasonable to assume they have been obtained by the use of torture? And what fait awaits Mohammed before the Military Tribunals?
Here is a link to the story in the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/us/15cnd-khalid.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
And the BBC’s coverage
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6455307.stm
Pearl was working as a journalist for the Wall Street Journal in Pakistan in 2002 when he was kidnapped and later beheaded. Images of the beheading were distributed by the kidnappers on the internet and made for gruesome viewing of Pearl’s last minutes.
While the heinous crimes of 9/11 and Pearl's beheading are not in any way disputed, Mohammed's confessions raise questions regarding the methods that might have been used to obtain his confession. It has previous been alleged that Mohammed has been the victim of torture, including the well-known method of water boarding - methods which the use of Vice-President Dick Cheney has referred to as 'no-brainers'. Can we trust that his confessions are legitimate? Is it more reasonable to assume they have been obtained by the use of torture? And what fait awaits Mohammed before the Military Tribunals?
Here is a link to the story in the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/us/15cnd-khalid.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
And the BBC’s coverage
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6455307.stm
Comments
Only the Bush administration can achieve a confession to Pearl's brutal killing and the 9/11 attacks, and still end up looking like idiots.
Having said that, I don't think that KSM's statements were the product of torture. You can read the actual transcript at http://www.slate.com/id/2161919/fr/flyout
It was a hearing in front of a military tribunal. Those sound very Orwellian, but we would be surprised I think at the professionalism and legal prowess of these military lawyers. It's regrettable that he can make these claims, and get Amnesty UK spokesman Mike Blakemore to say "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 'confession' was not made in a court of law but in a secret screening process that bars lawyers." That's a bit of a stretch in this case. I'm not sure why soldiers would torture KSM to get him to attempt to kill Jimmy Carter, the Pope, and Howard Kissinger. He's a dangerous serial killer in my view, and should be subject to the same judicial machinery as other murderers.
Incidentally, for a very interesting account of torture, and what the military may be doing to cover it up, see http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7871885
Jeffrey Rosen is interviewed about new advances in science and what it might say about the theories of criminal punishment. It's a great interview. He also talks about watching a torture of a detainee, in which the detainee got to watch a movie (Harry Potter) with his examiner and then they ate Subway sandwiches. This may be an ill-advised cover-up, as he points out that all reporters who are allowed to watch interrogations are shown a similar scene, but sometimes with a McDonald's hamburger.
You are right in stating that only the Bush administration can obtain confessions for 9/11 and Pearl's killing and yet look out of depth.
At the same time, I think you are right in assuming that KSM did not confess to plot the killings of the Pope, Kissinger and Carter under torture. These confessions look more like a man suffering from megalomania.
Having said that, whether or not torture is a good truth-seeking tool or not remains irrelevant as it is deplorable in every form and shape. Also, it remains the situation that the military tribunals are not a proper court of law as we would traditionally think of one. It also remains a fact that KSM does not have a proper legal defence but is assigned a military educated lawyer and he is therefore denied the same judicial machinery as other alleged murders.
I still find it unlikely should torture not have been used at one point in the interrogation of KSM given US policy on this matter.
In any event, it is troubling that KSM didn't have any legal counsel present at the hearing. However this was merely a preliminary hearing to decide if he should be considered an enemy combatant. He seemed happy to be considered as such, comparing himself with George Washington. A more interesting case would be one where the accused denies the charges made against him.
The torture debate is a fascinating one I think. I hope we get a real debate about that in the upcoming election. I think Senator McCain may have some very interesting things to say on the matter, especially considering he was tortured during his time in a POW camp in Vietnam.
One other point, the military lawyers all go to law school first. They may not be as accomplished as some big corporate lawyers, but they are very well-educated. The military judicial system is actually an excellent way to gain trial experience right out of law school. I can't speak for the profession generally; but one of my good friends in law school is a JAG lawyer in the Marine corps now. I'd put him up against anybody in a court room.
Finally, it does seem like reform of this process is in the works, as Senator Graham (R) and Senator Levin (D) who were present at the hearing will be looking into the way KSM was treated.
1. an American soldier is captured by 'freedom fighters' in Iraq;
2. the captors erroneously (or tactically) claim that since the Iraq war is illegal s/he should be ascribed the nonsensical status of illegal combatant (in breach of the Geneva Convention);
3. s/he is taken to an unmonitored part of Iran and subjected to torture;
4. under torture s/he reveals American plans to send special forces into Iran and spark off a war;
5. the soldier also admits to the following crimes: the use of phosphorous in Iraq; shooting of Iraqi civilians; raping of several Iraqi civilians; consumption of alcohol; planning to drop a nuclear bomb on Mecca during the Hajj;
5. American plans are revealed to the international media and the planned invasion of Iran is stopped. Thousands of civilian lives are saved. Only they are Iranian humans, not American humans;
6. the soldier is tried behind closed doors and represented by a court-appointed Iraqi lawyer, fresh out of what’s left his/her college; said lawyer’s Iraqi college buddy assures us that he’s a great lawyer.
Would that be ok?
Your argument is shockingly utilitarian. If you start the argument by asking if torture can save lives then you are already condoning it. Torture destroys infinitely more lives than it saves and is an instrument of totalitarianism. Even if everyone who is tortured is guilty, that would still be an obscene breach of human dignity. Human rights are absolute for good reason. The prohibition of torture and the right to a fair trial are not open to utilitarian fine tuning because (i) human dignity is not negotiable; (ii) it would be a slippery slope to dictatorship. It is ironic that people who are lucky enough to be able to take freedom for granted are busy arguing against it.
I've never endorsed torture, and I didn't here. I wholeheartedly reject your accusation that I condone it.
It seems to me a perfectly rational starting point to ask whether torture works. If it does not, and I do not think it does, then there is no reason to use it.
This is exactly what Senator McCain has said in the past. He was tortured himself by the Viet Kong. He strongly advocated the 2005 torture ban which outlaws the torturing of detainees. The difficulty of course is that torture as a concept has not been adequately defined; the administration has said they use "tough" or "alternative" questioning techniques, which could mean almost anything.
In 1999 the Israeli supreme court outlawed torture, and I think they know as much as anybody about trying to combat terrorism. In the end, the problem here is accountability. The administration and CIA have said they don't torture, and Congress has outlawed it. The difficulty is holding them to that when the process is shrouded in secrecy. To that end, I think the recently-announced senate investigation into KSM is a welcome development.