Obama Press Conference: Nailing Torture, Trashing the Pakistani Government

Related Post: Pakistan - Who's in Charge?
Video and Transcript: President Obama “Day 100″ Press Conference (29 April)

President Obama offered an excellent presentation in Wednesday night's press conference. He was in command, fluently moving from his opening agenda on swine flu and the economy to questions on foreign policy, the US auto industry, and the financial sector. He even dealt effectively with the puffball question, courtesy of a New York Times correspondent, "What has surprised you the most about this office? Enchanted you the most from serving in this office? Humbled you the most? And troubled you the most?"

Obama said little about foreign policy and security in his initial statement, dealing with the immediate health crisis and the Federal Government's budget, but the third question put him on the spot over torture:

You’ve said in the past that waterboarding, in your opinion, is torture....Do you believe that the previous administration sanctioned torture?

I half-expected the President, given the Administration's back-and-forth over the last 10 days on whether to press charges against any Bush officials, to flinch. He didn't. To use baseball language, he knocked the question out of the park.

What I’ve said — and I will repeat — is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture.... And that’s why I put an end to these practices.

I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do, not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.

Yes, it was torture. And whether it had any effect is tangential, given the damage done to America's counter-terrorist efforts and its standing in the world.

Obama invoked Winston Churchill --- and who in the US could hate Churchill? --- who "said, 'We don’t torture,' when the entire British — all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat". The President avoided the trap of commenting on which Bushman "sanctioned torture", but he turned the main talking point of Bush defenders, "Torture helped win the War on Terror", against them:

[Banning torture] takes away a critical recruitment tool that Al Qaida and other terrorist organizations have used to try to demonize the United States and justify the killing of civilians. And it makes us — it puts us in a much stronger position to work with our allies in the kind of international, coordinated intelligence activity that can shut down these networks.

I am sceptical that Obama will be closing Guantanamo Bay this year. And I still have concerns --- serious concerns --- about other US detention facilities, such as Camp Bagram in Afghanistan. But, at least on the narrow issue of whether there is any rationale for "torture", the President signed, sealed, and delivered the appropriate response.

In foreign policy, two specific cases arose: Iraq and Pakistan. On the former, Obama easily held the line, despite the continuing bombings and political instability in and beyond Baghdad:

Athough you’ve seen some spectacular bombings in Iraq that are a — a legitimate cause of concern, civilian deaths, incidents of bombings, et cetera, remain very low relative to what was going on last year, for example. And so you haven’t seen the kinds of huge spikes that you were seeing for a time. The political system is holding and functioning in Iraq.

(The questioner, Jeff Mason, let Obama off the hook. The emerging issue is whether the US military will have troops in and just outside Iraqi cities well past the summer deadline for withdrawal.)

Pakistan, however, offered a far more serious exchange, the significance of which has been missed so far by the media. It started with a sensationalist, and thus potentially useless question:

Can you reassure the American people that if necessary America could secure Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and keep it from getting into the Taliban’s hands or, worst case scenario, even al Qaeda’s hands?

The President batted that scenario straight back, "I’m confident that we can make sure that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is secure." Then, however, he offered two very clear signals.

First, his Administration is standing behind the Pakistani military and encouraging it to take the lead in the fight against insurgency. Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is safe "primarily, initially, because the Pakistani army, I think, recognizes the hazards of those weapons falling into the wrong hands. We’ve got strong military-to-military consultation and cooperation." What's more....

On the military side, you’re starting to see some recognition just in the last few days that the obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided, and that their biggest threat right now comes internally. And you’re starting to see the Pakistani military take much more seriously the armed threat from militant extremists.

Second, while Obama and his advisors are placing their strategic chips on the military, they have little faith in the current Pakistani Government:

I am gravely concerned about the situation in Pakistan....The civilian government there right now is very fragile and don’t seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services: schools, health care, rule of law, a judicial system that works for the majority of the people.

Obama's statement was not off-the-cuff. It was the next step, after statements by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, that Islamabad better get its act together to take on "the Taliban" and "Al Qa'eda" or its politicians can be put to the side.

If Pakistani President Zardari is not convinced, he will do well to consider Obama's concluding challenge:

We will provide them all of the cooperation that we can. We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don’t end up having a nuclear-armed militant state.

Of course, Obama never said "coup", but as Washington ramps up the fight against insurgents in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, he sent out the message.

Zardari is disposable. The Pakistani military is not.

Discovering How the US Became a "Torturing Democracy"

Related Post: Fox News Anchor: "We Do Not F****** Torture!"

By coincidence, as the latest furour over torture escalated, I was writing chapers on the early months of the Bush Administration. That, in part, is why I have been unsettled by the spin, diversions, and outright lies of former Bush officials: the evidence offers no gray area in which to hide. The Bush Administration authorised torture, under the label "enhanced interrogation", and persisted in that authorisation even though there was no evidence of its effectiveness, let alone its legality or morality.

One of the sources I have been using is the website for the documentary Torturing Democracy. It is invaluable for its interviews, documents, and commentary (and the full documentary is on-line). A few of many notable examples:

Richard Armitage, former special forces officer, Deputy Secretary of State in the Bush Administration: "There is no question in my mind -- there's no question in any reasonable human being, there shouldn't be, that [waterboarding] is torture."

Moazzam Begg, detainee in Camp Bagram in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay:

The CIA, the military intelligence, and the FBI had decided in May 2002 to begin my interrogation in earnest, which included during that period me being tied, "hogtied" as I call it, also as they call it in America, with my hands tied behind my back to my ankles and being left like that for hours on end at various points....They brought photographs of my family, which they'd taken off my laptop computer, which they'd seized in Pakistan, which include pictures of my children that they waved in front of me and asked me, "Where do you think they are? Do you think they're safe? What do you think happened to them? Do you think you're going to see them again?" And during this period hearing the sounds of a woman screaming. The implication of which was it was my wife being tortured next door; they didn't say as much, but they didn't have to.

Martin Lederman, Department of Justice Legal Adviser:

The purpose of the torture memo [of August 2002] was to give the CIA absolute assurance that no matter what it did, in terms of interrogation, that it would never be subject to any criminal culpability. None of its agents would ever be exposed to criminal culpability under domestic law, putting aside foreign tribunals.

Michael Gelles, Chief Psychologist, Naval Criminal Investigative Service:

We know that people who are tortured provide information. We just don't believe that in most cases that information is accurate and reliable. Because people will provide information to stop the discomfort.

Text and Analysis of Obama Statement: 4 Torture Memos Released, No Prosecutions of Interrogators

Related Post: The Torture Memos - A Quick Response to George W. Bush’s Officials

UPDATE: Full Text of the 4 Torture Memos

We'll have full analysis of President Obama's statement tomorrow, but here's an immediate reading.

This is good politics. Very good. The Obama Administration pins blame for unacceptable practices on the Bush Administration while finally getting the hook of a criminal showdown for any of those officials. The absolution of "those who carried out their duties relying in good faith" is also the signal that Bush advisors who ordered those activities will not suffer a Truth Commission or judicial hearings.

It's also good for another troubling reason. There are a series of cases where the Obama Administration is not only holding onto its predecessor's executive powers but fighting to ensure there are no court hearings on whether those powers are legal. From warrantless surveillance to rendition to unlimited detention, Gitmo-style, at Camp Bagram in Afghanistan, the Administration is playing the political game of "Look at the other guys, don't fret about us."

OBAMA STATEMENT

The Department of Justice will today release certain memos issued by the Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005 as part of an ongoing court case. These memos speak to techniques that were used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects during that period, and their release is required by the rule of law.

My judgment on the content of these memos is a matter of record. In one of my very first acts as President, I prohibited the use of these interrogation techniques by the United States because they undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer. Enlisting our values in the protection of our people makes us stronger and more secure. A democracy as resilient as ours must reject the false choice between our security and our ideals, and that is why these methods of interrogation are already a thing of the past.

But that is not what compelled the release of these legal documents today. While I believe strongly in transparency and accountability, I also believe that in a dangerous world, the United States must sometimes carry out intelligence operations and protect information that is classified for purposes of national security. I have already fought for that principle in court and will do so again in the future. However, after consulting with the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, and others, I believe that exceptional circumstances surround these memos and require their release.

First, the interrogation techniques described in these memos have already been widely reported. Second, the previous Administration publicly acknowledged portions of the program - and some of the practices - associated with these memos. Third, I have already ended the techniques described in the memos through an Executive Order. Therefore, withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time. This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States.

In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution. The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world. Their accomplishments are unsung and their names unknown, but because of their sacrifices, every single American is safer. We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs.

Going forward, it is my strong belief that the United States has a solemn duty to vigorously maintain the classified nature of certain activities and information related to national security. This is an extraordinarily important responsibility of the presidency, and it is one that I will carry out assertively irrespective of any political concern. Consequently, the exceptional circumstances surrounding these memos should not be viewed as an erosion of the strong legal basis for maintaining the classified nature of secret activities. I will always do whatever is necessary to protect the national security of the United States.

This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America's ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.

The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals. That is why we have released these memos, and that is why we have taken steps to ensure that the actions described within them never take place again.

Bagram Inmates To Challenge Detention

Josh Mull points us to this story, which suggests that inmates at the Bagram Internment Facility may soon be able to follow Guantánamo detainees in challenging their detention in US courts:

Although the Supreme Court has ruled that detainees at the US naval base in Cuba have the right to challenge their detention, the government had argued that inmates held at the US air base in Bagram, Afghanistan did not have such a constitutional right.

Judge John Bates, however, ruled the Bagram detainees faced essentially the same situation as the Guantanamo detainees, being held indefinitely without due process.

"Bagram detainees who are not Afghan citizens, who were not captured in Afghanistan, and who have been held for an unreasonable amount of time" may invoke the right to habeas corpus, Bates wrote, referring to the legal right dating back centuries.

If it stands, the ruling could have far-reaching implications for how the US government handles terror suspects and for its operations at Bagram, where about 600 detainees are held.

Full article here.