A reminder of the banality of evil

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	• Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values Philippe Sands Palgrave Macmillan, 2008 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A reminder of the banality of evil

In Torture Team, Philippe Sands, professor at University College London and a respected international lawyer, carefully examines how Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, and a team of compliant lawyers consciously set aside international rules constraining interrogations and thereby both destroyed the historic American commitment to the rule of law and opened themselves up for possible war crimes trials. "That decision," writes Sands, "was motivated by a combination of factors, including fear and ideology and an almost visceral disdain for international obligations." The book is carefully researched, meticulously documented, and always respectful. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the rule of law, and perhaps more ominously, for anyone concerned with what Hannah Arendt labeled, "the banality of evil."

Most of the book is bracketed by actions taken in 2002 and 2006. It was in February of that first year when George Bush declared that the Geneva Conventions did not protect detainees in Guantánamo. And it was on December 2 of the same year that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signed a document, drafted by his General Counsel, Jim Haynes, which authorized eighteen aggressive interrogation techniques that might be used in questioning terror suspects.

Then, in June of 2006 the Supreme Court ruled, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions applied to the treatment of those captured in the "War on Terror." In his concurring opinion Justice Kennedy wrote that, "By Act of Congress... violations of Common Article 3 are considered `war crimes,' punishable as federal offenses, when committed by or against United States nationals and military personnel."

Both of the actions taken in 2002, Sand observes, went against international law and long-standing U.S. military practice. Then, in the chapters that follow, he carefully builds his argument showing how both actions were rationalized and "legalized" by lawyers willing to forgo their obligations to please their clients. Through extensive interviews with most of those responsible for the legal advice, and many of those responsible for its implementation, Sands leaves the reader convinced that some legal action must be taken against those responsible if the United States is to undo the damage done to its reputation as a supporter of human rights and to the integrity of international law. Difficult as it might be to imagine, that would mean, in a just world, that Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo and Jim Haynes would face an international tribunal.

Much of the book is woven around the released interrogation log of detainee 063 (Mohammed al-Qahtani). In a fitting postscript, after years in Guantánamo, after being accused of being the "20th highjacker," after months of being subjected to what must be called torturous interrogation, all charges against detainee 063 were dismissed "without prejudice."

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Best torture evidence to date

Philippe (correct spelling) Sands' 'Torture Team' is the best summary, to date, of the intricate policies the U.S. government devised for hiding the truth about their torture policies. The Q.C's research is impeccable. Interviews with important people involved in the torture decisions are riveting. The book reads like a John le Carre novel, but is unfortunately and (disgracefully) true. It will be interesting to see if the lack of a 'paper trail' is helpful in keeping some participants from being prosecuted as war criminals. a MUST READ.

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The trail of torture

Along with documents made available dating back to 2002 - the Yoo/Bybee "torture memo", the Jim Haynes memo originating in Guantanamo and approved by Rumsfeld, and the interrogation logs of prisoner 063, al Qahtani - the author conducts a series of interviews that help us point to where the authority for "enhanced interrogation techniques" came from. It's now fairly clear that the impetus of the abuse that was applied to al-Qahtani at Guantanamo or that was depicted graphically at Abu Graib did not originate with a "few bad apples" in the lower ranks but came from up high; and that those at the lower ranks such as Diane Beaver were in some sense used as scapegoats.

The author uses a measured approach throughout the book, carefully interviewing many of the players involved, careful not to jump to conclusions but alert to missing links. As an English barrister and expert in international law, he brings knowledge of the dealings of the British government with the IRA, the arrest of Pinochet, and the British government's experiences in Iraq. He is someone who does not want to see undone the past efforts of the American government to reign in the use of torture around the world.

The treatment of al-Qahtani involved a systematic attempt to break a human personality down to something below an animal. All the eighteen interrogation techniques approved by Rumsfeld fell within the Yoo/Bybee legal guidelines of not being torture (Rumsfeld even mocked one of them as being a lot less than something he did every day), but taken together over an extended period of some fifty days - solitary confinement, lack of sleep, sensory overload, dehydration, extreme temperatures, humiliation, etc - they had a combined effect that can only be seen as torture - at least torture of the human soul, if not strictly speaking the body. The body was constantly monitored by physicians. And was all this necessary? The author makes clear that the "ticking time bomb scenario" was not in play here because 9/11 was already a year old. Was anything gained? Nothing that anyone knows, and soon before this book was published al-Qahtani was released without a trial.

A signal moment in the chain of events occurred on February 7, 2002 when George W. Bush announced that the U.S was not going to abide by the Geneva Conventions. In August of 2002 the OLC of the Justice Department produced the "torture memo". The basis for the forthcoming interrogation methods was set. The author interviews up the chain of command as far as Rumsfeld's legal counsel Jim Haynes in an attempt to see how they were originated and then used on al-Qahtani. The military side of the Pentagon was at least sceptical if not outright opposed to the aggressive approach the civilians - Feith and Haynes especially - were espousing. But Haynes, in his position of legal authority at the Pentagon, managed to lock the military out the process. The question beyond the scope of this book and hidden behind the wall of national security is how he was influenced by the top of the government.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

On December 2, 2002 the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed his name at the bottom of a document that listed eighteen techniques of interrogation--techniques that defied international definitions of torture. The Rumsfeld Memo authorized the controversial interrogation practices that later migrated to Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, as part of the policy of extraordinary rendition. From a behind-the-scenes vantage point, Phillipe Sands investigates how the Rumsfeld Memo set the stage for a divergence from the Geneva Convention and the Torture Convention and holds the individual gatekeepers in the Bush administration accountable for their failure to safeguard international law.

The Torture Team delves deep into the Bush administration to reveal: · How the policy of abuse originated with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, and was promoted by their most senior lawyers · Personal accounts, through interview, of those most closely involved in the decisions · How the Joint Chiefs and normal military decision-making processes were circumvented· How Fox TV?s 24 contributed to torture planning· How interrogation techniques were approved for use · How the new techniques were used on Mohammed Al Qahtani, alleged to be ?the 20th highjacker? · How the senior lawyers who crafted the policy of abuse exposed themselves to the risk of war crimes charges

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