reflectivepundit

Post-9/11Torture and the Need for a Truth Commission

By Brigitte L. Nacos 
According to Eric Brahm, a “truth commission's main goal is to establish what happened in the past. Truth commissions do not normally have the power to prosecute.” Such a body typically sheds light on human rights violations, war crimes, and hate crimes that were encouraged, blessed, and perpetrated by officials or agents of the very state that creates a truth commission after the offensive practices have been halted as morally and legally wrong. While the need for truth commissions arises typically in the wake of abuses by authoritarian states, such a body would be well suited to investigate and write the complete chapter of post-9/11 torture in U.S. controlled prisons abroad.

Given the pressing problems on his plate, President Barack Obama has reason tell us that it is more important to look ahead rather than be distracted by problems in the past. But there is a way to keep the eye on the ball of today’s and tomorrow’s decision-making without completely ignoring past wrongdoings. The calls for the prosecution of former officials in the White House, Department of Justice, and Department of Defense are justified in the face of the already available evidence, but I prefer the establishment of a truth commission with full access to all relevant information rather than the prosecution of the by now well-known cast of torture advocates and defenders that would widen the divisive partisan and ideological divide.

If we want to learn from the shocking decisions that involved top-officials in the Bush administration and what was revealed to some members of Congress, including leading Democrats, we need to learn the whole truth and let the chips fall wherever they may. Otherwise former administration officials, such as Vice-President Richard Cheney, can continue their propaganda campaign of fear in defense of the utility of torture in bolstering homeland security.

I agree with David Epstein’s take on the liberal media’s cavalier reporting about the Bush administration’s torture record (as we know it so far) compared to their never-ending attacks on both Bill and Hillary Clinton because of the Monica Lewinsky affair. Remarkably, the same moral guardians in the fourth estate who never tired of condemning the sex scandal in the White House have not shown such such an appetite to denounce the Bush administration’s torture policy. Instead, they continue to avoid the “t” word and report benignly about “enhanced interrogation.”

All the more reason for a truth commission.  

Bush: "We do not torture" vs. Clinton: "I did not have sex with that woman"

by David Epstein

It's now clear that the one shameful soundbite that will haunt Bush is his statement "This government does not torture people." The clear comparison is with Bill Clinton's disclaimer of the Lewinsky scandal, finger-wagging and all. 

The question is, which is worse? And this is a question really aimed at the media. Because the answer is obvious, but at the time Clinton's sexcapades got more condemnation and oppobrium heaped upon them than Bush ever got. Some, like Maureen Dowd, never got over this, and carried their biases over to their coverage of Hillary. 

But Clinton left office with the nation at peace and with a budget surplus, while Bush has left us devastation, economically, militarily, and in terms of our international reputation and ability to lead. What can't the press tell the difference? It's a source of eternal mystery and frustration.

High Time to Stop Piracy

By Brigitte L. Nacos
As the crew of a U.S. Navy destroyer looked on, four Somali pirates continued to hold the captain of a U.S.-flagged cargo ship hostage in an un-powered lifeboat off the coast of Africa. Hours earlier, the armed pirates had boarded the Maersk Lines' "Alabama” and taken the unarmed crew hostage. While details of the incident, the captain’s predicament, and the crew’s ability to regain control over their ship remained sketchy, it is known that there have been six such pirate attacks in the region within the last week and more than 150 last year. Moreover, at the time of this latest incident more than a dozen ships and more than 200 sailors are held by pirates who demand many millions of dollars in ransom.

Last fall, the United Nation’s Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution asking member-states to deploy naval vessels and military aircraft to actively fight against rampant piracy on the high seas. Resolution 1838 called “upon all states interested in the security of maritime activities to take part actively in the fight against piracy.” But while pirates have been fought off and in some instances captured by war-ships of several nations, there has not been an effective response to the UN resolution, no concerted military action. When Somali pirates were captured in the past, they were typically handed over to Kenyan authorities since most aggrieved nations seem unwilling to bring these gangs to justice in their own courts. The United Nations should therefore to direct the International Criminal Court to try captured pirates.  

While the container ship Alabama was the first American vessel to be taken over temporarily in the waters near the Horn of Africa, last December pirates chased and shot at the U.S. cruise M/S Nautica with more than 1,000 people on board but failed to hijack the vessel because the Nautica was faster than the pirates’ boats.