Center for a Stateless Society » torture

È stato pubblicato un sommario minimo, parziale, fortemente censurato del rapporto che il senato americano ha redatto sul programma di torture della Cia dopo l’undici settembre. Il modo in cui i media di regime hanno accolto il rapporto illustra il problema in questione non meno del rapporto in sé.

Come direbbe un tossicodipendente che cerca di uscire dal circolo, come prima cosa bisogna ammettere l’esistenza del problema. Governo e media americani, magari con la popolazione al seguito, ancora si rifiutano risolutamente di farlo.

Articolo dopo articolo, leggiamo di “interrogatori estremi” e “tattiche inquisitorie brutali”. Le parole ingannano. Non ammettono il problema. Cercano di girarci attorno.

Il soggetto non è “tecniche inquisitorie estreme”. Non stiamo parlando di “tattiche inquisitorie brutali”. Il soggetto in questione è: tortura.

Le leggi americane definiscono chiaramente il concetto di tortura (18 US Code §2340): “Azione commessa da una persona sotto pretesto legale e intesa ad infliggere forte sofferenza fisica o mentale (altro dal dolore o dalle sofferenze risultanti unicamente da sanzioni legittime, inerenti a tali sanzioni o da esse cagionate) ad altra persona affidata alla sua custodia o controllo.”

Le leggi internazionali (la convenzione Onu contro la tortura) definiscono la tortura altrettanto chiaramente: “[Q]ualsiasi atto mediante il quale sono intenzionalmente inflitti ad una persona dolore o sofferenze forti, fisiche o mentali, al fine segnatamente di ottenere da essa o da una terza persona informazioni o confessioni, di punirla per un atto che essa o una terza persona ha commesso o è sospettata aver commesso, di intimorirla o di far pressione su di lei o di intimorire o di far pressione su una terza persona, o per qualsiasi altro motivo fondato su qualsiasi forma di discriminazione, qualora tale dolore o sofferenze siano inflitte da un agente della funzione pubblica o da ogni altra persona che agisca a titolo ufficiale, o su sua istigazione, o con il suo consenso espresso o tacito.”

Queste descrizioni sono istruttive, ma non ne abbiamo bisogno per arrivare alla conclusione che gli atti descritti nel rapporto (waterboarding, privazione del sonno e l’introduzione a forza di sostanze nel retto delle vittime, tanto per citarne tre) rappresentano tortura, solo tortura e nient’altro che tortura. Non esiste una definizione razionale del termine tortura che non si adatti alle azioni descritte.

Da qui giungiamo inevitabilmente ad una seconda conclusione: Le persone coinvolte nei casi di tortura, dagli esecutori materiali, su su lungo la catena di comando, fino al presidente degli Stati Uniti, sono criminali violenti e pericolosi. Sarebbero riconosciuti come tali in una società sana, che esistano o meno leggi che dicono che le loro azioni sono crimini.

La domanda, ovviamente, è: cosa fare? La risposta degli opinionisti tradizionali varia da “nulla” a “audizioni in senato nella speranza che tutto si dissolva” fino a “nominate un giudice speciale e lasciate che sia lui a far fuori i criminali meno protetti così noi possiamo continuare come sempre”.

Anche le proposte più radicali non vanno oltre il deferimento degli Stati Uniti e la consegna di tutta la banda, dal primo all’ultimo, alla Corte Internazionale dell’Aia.

Nei programmi di disintossicazione in dodici punti, il secondo punto consiste nel riconoscere un “potere superiore”. Il secondo punto di un programma di disintossicazione dalla tortura, il riconoscimento dello stato come “potere superiore” in terra, è in realtà il vero problema.

Lo stato accorda ai suoi rappresentanti un potere estremo, soprattutto sui carcerati e i prigionieri di guerra. Questo potere corrompe, permette ai rappresentanti dello stato di commettere abusi e torturare, come notato dagli psicosociologi nell’esperimento condotto nella prigione di Stanford.

Lo stato, inoltre, protegge i suoi uomini dalle accuse di responsabilità, nasconde la violenza di stato con eufemismi, devia il discorso dalla tortura come crimine alla tortura come politica. E poiché lo stato ha il monopolio della legge, tutto il processo penale è nelle sue mani. I torturatori sanno che difficilmente saranno processati.

Se tolleriamo lo stato, tolleriamo la tortura. È più che mai ora di smetterla di tollerare entrambi.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

The First Step is Admitting That It’s Torture

Thomas L. Knapp — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 19:00:47 +0000

The US Senate’s minimal, partial, heavily redacted summary of its report on the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program is out. That report’s reception by establishment media turns out to be at least as demonstrative of the problem it addresses as the report itself.

As any recovering addict will helpfully inform you, the first step is admitting the problem. The US government and American media (and presumably following them, the America public) still resolutely refuse to do that.

In story after story, we see references to “enhanced interrogation” and “brutal interrogation tactics.” Those are weasel words. They’re not admissions of the problem, they’re attempts to talk around the problem.

We’re not talking about “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Nor are we discussing “brutal interrogation tactics.” The subject in question is torture.

Torture is clearly defined in US law (18 US Code §2340): “[A]n act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control.”

Torture is clearly defined in international law (the UN Convention Against Torture): “[A]ny act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”

These summations in the laws of states are informative, but we don’t really need them to conclude that the actions described in the report — waterboarding, sleep deprivation and the forced infusion of substances into victims’ rectums, to name three — are torture, all torture and nothing but torture. There exists no reasonable definition of torture that the described actions don’t conform to.

From that primary conclusion we must inevitably draw a secondary conclusion: The persons involved in the torture, from the operators actually implementing it all the way up the chain of command to the president of the United States, are violent, dangerous criminals and would be recognized as such in any sane society, regardless of whether or not codified law existed to describe their offenses.

The question, of course, is what to do about it. “Mainstream” suggestions range from “nothing” to “hold some Senate hearings and hope it goes away” to “appoint a special prosecutor and let him throw some of the less well-connected criminals under the bus so we can get on with life.”

Even at the radical end of the spectrum, suggestions tend to run to things like putting the US under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and conducting a wholesale rendition of the gang, from top to bottom, to the Hague for trial.

The second step in 12-step addiction recovery programs involves recognizing a “higher power.” The second step in any torture recovery program is recognition that the existing temporal “higher power” — the state — is in fact the real problem.

The state bestows extreme power upon its agents, especially over prisoners and detainees. That power corrupts, enabling those agents to abuse and torture, as social psychologists observed in the Stanford Prison Experiment.

The state’s structure also protects its agents from accountability, shrouding discussions of state violence in euphemism, turn the debate from torture as a crime to torture as policy. Furthermore, the state’s monopoly on law leaves prosecution and adjudication up to the state itself. Torturers know they’re unlikely to face justice.

If we tolerate the state, we tolerate torture. It’s time and past time we stopped tolerating either.

Translations for this article:

Italian, Prima Cosa, Ammettere le Torture
Spanish, El primer paso es admitir la tortura

The Weekly Libertarian Leftist And Chess Review 53

Natasha Petrova — Sun, 26 Oct 2014 23:00:14 +0000

Kathy Kelly discusses ISIS and the war in Iraq.

Douglas Macgregor discusses U.S. military intervention.

Franklin Lamb discusses Syrian migrants and their plight.

William Blum discusses the Berlin Wall.

Sheldon Richman discusses torture and Obama.

Lucy Steigerwald discusses the War on Drugs abroad.

Richard M. Ebeling discusses Ludwig Von Mises and the business cycle.

David S. D’Amato discusses Henry George.

Charles Davis discusses why pro-war pundits are always wrong.

Randall Holcombe discusses how a new Obama appointee supports individual rights.

Shamus Cooke discusses Obama’s foreign policy with respect to Iran.

Steve Chapman discusses Ted Cruz and presidential power.

Stephen Zunes discusses the recent Israeli war in Gaza.

Sheldon Richman discusses how the state is not the friend of the worker.

Jeffrey Tucker discusses whether government should have the power to quarantine.

Matt Gilliland discusses living like you’re free.

Jeremy Scahill discusses how Erik Prince is still rich and free.

Ivan Eland discusses Turkey’s desire to stay out of the war against ISIS.

T. Hunt Tooley discusses WW1.

Robert Koehler discusses the Vietnam War.

Aaron Tao discusses Radley Balko’s book on police militarization.

Ferdinand A. Hoischen discusses the state.

Michael D. Yates discusses the rule of capital and employers in the workplace.

Franklin Lamb discusses the potential expulsion of an ISIS affiliate from Libya.

George H. Smith discusses self-interest and social order.

George H. Smith discusses political philosophy.

Anthony de Jasay discusses classical liberalism.

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses WMD blowback in Iraq.

Paul Keres defeats Laszlo Szabo

Paul Keres defeats Max Euwe.

The Weekly Libertarian Leftist And Chess Review 44

Natasha Petrova — Sun, 24 Aug 2014 23:00:37 +0000

Pepe Escobar discusses why Obama is bombing ISIS.

Alex Kane discusses 11 facts about police militarization.

Philip Giraldi discusses the GOP.

John Maxwell Hamilton discusses how WW1 led to modern propaganda and surveillance.

Charles Davis discusses how America helped make the Islamic state in Iraq and Syria.

Joshua Cook discusses blowback in Iraq.

Ted Snider discusses the pattern on display in the U.S. response to ISIS.

David Lindorff discusses police militarization.

Medea Benjamin discusses the U.S. funding of repression in Egypt.

Alex Kane discusses the use of humanitarianism as an excuse for U.S. intervention abroad.

Sheldon Richman discusses attacks on liberty during WW1.

Immanuel Wallstein discusses the caliphate vs everyone else.

Lucy Steigerwald discusses police militarization and the Michael Brown case.

Kevin R.C. Gutzman discusses Lynne Cheney’s book on James Madison.

Michiko Kakutani discusses a book on women soldiers.

Thaddeus Russell discusses alliances between libertarians and leftists.

Justin Raimondo discusses how today is like the sixties.

Conor Friedersdorf discusses the memo allowing for drone assassination of American citizens.

Ralph Nader discusses Hilary the hawk.

Ivan Eland discusses U.S. interventionism in Iraq.

David Swanson discusses how militarism is a public safety issue.

Elliott Colla discusses ceaseless escalation in Iraq.

Falguni A. Sheth discusses torture and Obama’s comments on it.

Gilbert Mercier discusses how the war culture has come home to roost.

Peter Suderman discusses the events in Ferguson, Iraq, and the legacy of 9-11.

W. James Antle the third discusses American defeat in Iraq.

William Astore discuses the U.S. fetish for bombing.

The Washington Times discusses the “nanny state” in New Jersey. I prefer the term patriarchal state.

Reuben Fine defeats Arthur William Dake.

Vladimir Akopian defeats Vladimir Kramnik

The Weekly Libertarian Leftist And Chess Review 43

Natasha Petrova — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 23:00:24 +0000

George H. Smith’s series on social laws is now on its third part.

Patrick Cockburn discusses the end of Iraq.

Cesar Chelala discusses war crimes in Iraq and Syria.

John Marciano discusses Obama’s response to the torture scandal.

Doug Bandow discusses the recent U.S. military action in Iraq.

Jay Stephenson discusses how network television presents moderate pro-war people and extreme pro-war people.

John Grant discusses how to break the cycle of war.

Tyler Durden discusses the complete history of U.S. intervention in Iraq.

Jacob Sullum discusses the panic about stoned drivers and marijuana legalization.

A. Barton Hinkle discusses the export-import bank.

Wendy McElroy discusses the War on Drugs and private shippers.

Ivan Eland discusses a scandal worse than Watergate or Iran-Contra.

David S. D’Amato discusses left-wing individualism.

Jason Lee Byas discusses the renewed U.S. intervention in Iraq.

J.D. Tuccille discusses five areas where libertarians get it right.

Brian Nicholson discusses imperial surgery in Iraq.

Cory Massimino discusses state support on behalf of the rich.
rtarian
Cory Massimino reviews Markets Not Capitalism.

William Blum discusses the U.S. government’s longstanding use of torture.

Justin Raimondo discusses Hilary Clinton and foreign policy.

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman discusses Nixon’s treasonous behavior related to Vietnam.

Kelly Vlahos discusses how the child migrant crossings are partially due to the War on Drugs.

Sheldon Richman discusses the recent U.S. intervention in Iraq.

William Blum discusses attempts to overthrow the Cuban government.

David Stockman discusses the new intervention in Iraq.

David D. S’Amato discusses American Coup: How a Terrified Government is Destroying the Constitution.

Joel Schlosberg discusses Paul Krugman’s recent attack on libertarianism.

David Swanson critiques the renewed bombing of Iraq.

Anand beats Carlsen.

John E Oberg is defeated by W Wenz

The Weekly Libertarian Leftist And Chess Review 42

Natasha Petrova — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 23:00:46 +0000

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses whether the CIA should be reformed rather than abolished.

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses why the CIA should be abolished.

Kevin Carson discusses accusations of agri-terrorism.

Ivan Eland discusses how the current situation in Libya shows the folly of U.S. interventionism.

Lucy Steigerwald discusses the importance of graphic photos of war.

David Swanson discusses the renewed U.S. intervention in Iraq.

Luciana Bohne discusses American recruitment of Nazis from the past and present.

Brian Cloughley discusses Cold War 2.

Glenn Greenwald discusses the presidential ritual of bombing Iraq.

Justin Raimondo discusses sneaking back into Iraq.

Eric Margolis discusses the Ukraine.

David Stockman discusses Iraq.

John V. Walsh discusses an Obama interview with the Economist.

Benjamin G. Davis discusses torture.

Sheldon Richman discusses the continued subversion of Cuba by the U.S. government.

Laurence M. Vance discusses whether the import-export bank should be reauthorized.

Sheldon Richman discusses the 100th anniversary of World War 1.

Anthony Miles defeats Michael Rhode.

Anthony Miles beats Karpov with ..a6.

Dubious Arguments Against Releasing Senate Torture Report

Natasha Petrova — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 23:00:01 +0000

Yahoo News recently reported that an internal U.S. intelligence memorandum warns that the release of a Senate report on torture could inflame anti-U.S. sentiment in the Middle East. This is a predictably bad argument that usefully serves to keep people worldwide in the dark about the criminal practices of the U.S. government. This argument assumes that preventing anti-American sentiment is more important than giving people access to the truth. This standard applied to World War 2 would mean that Holocaust photos shouldn’t have been shared, because it might inflame anti-German sentiment.

In other words, there is always a risk that something will offend someone somewhere. If you applied this principle consistently, you’d release barely anything – if at all. Libertarian principle also informs us that responsibility for any immoral acts committed in response to the release would belong to the people who did them. It wouldn’t be the fault of the people doing the releasing.

Of course, the discussion above presumes that people actually would commit immoral acts in response to the release of the report. As opposed to just hating the American government. The anarchist is rightfully concerned with the former rather than the latter. What the governing class and national security establishment is really concerned about is the latter. They don’t want distrust by people around the world to interfere with their projection of power.

Libertarian principle is about the opposite. It would be a good thing, if the release of the report were to impede the use of coercive American power around the globe. The lives saved would be incaluable as the military power of the American government were no longer trusted to do right. That’s one of the best anarchist arguments for the release of the report. Not to mention the fact that it will make available good information for future war crimes trials.

To make this a reality, Wikileaks and similar organizations should be encouraged to contact whistleblowers within the establishment. If the government won’t release it on its own accord, another Chelsea Manning might be willing to. They don’t even need to be an anarchist, but, it would still be a very anarchistic act on their part. The kind of act that can radicalize people and push them towards anarchism.

Anarchists should thus contact Wikileaks and encourage them to follow through on this suggestion. The result could be very favorable to liberty. Freedom cannot survive the use of torture. All the more reason to get started on this project.

The Weekly Abolitionist: Last Week in Torture

Nathan Goodman — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 23:03:07 +0000

Last Friday, August 1st, President Barack Obama commented on the CIA’s use of torture after 9/11. At first glance, his comments look like an acknowledgement of wrongdoing. After all, Obama acknowledged that “When we engaged in some of these enhanced interrogation techniques – techniques that I believe, and I think any fair-minded person would believe were torture – we crossed a line.”

However, the way the president talked about CIA agents engaging in war crimes seemed downright flippant at times. Saying “we tortured some folks” is a remarkably casual way of acknowledging that employees of an organization you lead committed war crimes.

“We have to as a country take responsibility for that so hopefully we don’t do it again in the future,” Obama said. But his attitude towards individual responsibility for the torturers flies in the face of taking responsibility to ensure this never happens again. Obama directly deflected blame from the individuals responsible for torture, saying, “It is important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job those folks had.” Obama not only made excuses for the torturers, he directly praised them, saying “A lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots.” This is consistent with the pattern we’ve seen from this administration. Obama’s mantra has been that, when it comes to torture, “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.” As such, his administration has consistently protected torturers from legal accountability.

If intelligence agents and guards in detention centers are “working hard under enormous pressure” that can motivate them to torture detainees, and if they know that they will face no consequences for torturing, then they have every incentive to torture. We’re often told that the state is necessary to protect us from predatory criminals, but it’s clear in this case that the state empowers its agents to act as predatory criminals.

There’s another issue with Obama’s torture speech that has been much less widely discussed. Jeff Kaye points out that Obama explicitly said “one of the first things I did was to ban some of the extraordinary interrogation techniques that are the subject of that report.” That is to say, Obama only prohibited some of the torture techniques that CIA agents used.

Kaye explains some specifics on how the administration continues to permit particular torture techniques:

Obama’s admission that he had only banned “some” of the previous administration’s torture techniques was not the first time the government has made such an admission, however obliquely.

Last April, I wrote how the Department of Defense’s main directive on interrogations (3115.09), which supposedly had banned SERE-derived torture techniques (like waterboarding, hooding, etc.) used by the government after 9/11, in fact made a note that only some of the SERE techniques were banned. The ones that were not banned resided in — the Army Field Manual on interrogation, the same manual Obama had endorsed in his Jan. 2009 executive order on “lawful interrogations.”

SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, and is the name given to DoD’s program to prepare military and CIA and other specific government personnel for capture and imprisonment by a brutal enemy. Its participants take part in a mock-prison camp exercise, and it was the kinds of torture practiced during that exercise that were utilized in full-blown operational mode by CIA and Defense Department interrogators in the so-called War on Terror.

The SERE-derived model, which is what the “extraordinary interrogation techniques” really were, was superimposed on an earlier torture program based on isolation and sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, fear and drugs, developed by the CIA and codified in a 1963 interrogation program that is referred to today as KUBARK. Earlier this year, I obtained a version of the previously declassified KUBARK manual with new portions now unredacted.

But oddly, besides myself, only Obama seems to have noticed that not all the torture techniques were rescinded by him. The press and certainly the Senate and the House of Representatives have ignored entirely the use of torture in the Army Field Manual. While some bloggers and human rights groups have noted the anomaly of having the nation’s primary instructions on interrogation include torture techniques, and some have even called for a repeal of Appendix M or a rewriting of the field manual itself, none of these groups or individuals have made this a primary issue. Nor, when the controversy over the Senate report on the CIA torture program is discussed, is the ongoing presence of torture in the Army Field Manual ever mentioned.

This is a key point that is all too often ignored: torture is still happening. Kaye also notes that Jeremy Scahill uncovered the use of torture by the current administration at a black site in Somalia.

Last week, Obama tried to make a speech that showed the US government coming to terms with how wrong it was to use torture. Instead, the president illuminated how his administration’s actions, and the state’s very structure, enable torture.