During an interview with PBS’s Bill Moyers last Friday, Philippe Sands, renowned international lawyer and professor at University College London, said that in interviews with key Bush administration officials for his new book, Torture Team, he found that architects of the administration’s torture program such as former Pentagon official Douglas Feith are refusing to recognize their involvement in the program. In essence, they may have been “complicit in the commission of a crime,” Sands noted. “There was not a hint of recognition that anything had gone wrong, nor a hint of recognition of individual responsibility.” In a recent House hearing, Sands said that based on Britain’s experience with the IRA, “coercion doesn’t work.” Sands said the use of torture against the IRA “extended the conflict” by 15 to 20 years, adding that “one of the great regrets that I have is that the [Bush] administration never seemed to turn for advice to its closest allies and asked them ‘what was your experience when you faced a similar situation?’” Sands also rejected the term “war on terror,” which he said “transform[s] criminals into warriors.” He said by using such language, “[Y]ou create a context in which they are able to recruit in their struggle.”
Archive for May 14th, 2008
TORTURE — SANDS: BUSH’S TORTURE ARCHITECTS ARE ‘WEASELING OUT’ OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR CRIMES:
Posted by James O'Rourke on May 14, 2008
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Environmental Stances Are Balancing Act For McCain
Posted by James O'Rourke on May 14, 2008
Visiting a science center in Jersey City on Friday, Sen. John McCain said, “I’m proud of my record on the environment.” (By Robert Sciarrino — Associated Press)
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 12, 2008; Page A01
In December 2005, Republicans were poised to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, an achievement they had sought for decades. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) had attached the provision to a must-pass defense spending bill and threatened to keep lawmakers in Washington until Christmas if they tried to strip it. Desperate to remove the provision, leaders from national environmental groups turned to a handful of key GOP senators for help.
With only days left before the critical vote, League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski and Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund President Rodger Schlickheisen obtained a private audience with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). McCain had been on both sides of the Arctic drilling issue over the course of his career, and the two leaders of the fight against opening the refuge were eager to know whether he would come down in their column. Read the rest of this entry »
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Strange bedfellows in Iraq
Posted by James O'Rourke on May 14, 2008
May 12, 2008
IN THE FACE of American charges that Iran has been training and arming Shi’ite militias in Iraq, the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government has been issuing contradictory statements – as it strains to maintain a precarious balance between the United States and Iran, its two principal backers. President Bush made this triangular relationship possible, but he can’t seem to acknowledge it or deal head on with its consequences.
Instead of treating Iran’s support for Shi’ite factions in Iraq as a black-and-white issue of military meddling, the administration ought to make sure it gets right the politics of the matter. After all, any workable American exit strategy will depend less on a clear-cut military victory than a political compact involving not only Iraq’s feuding factions but also the surrounding states. Read the rest of this entry »
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