No(n) U.S. Personnel – Moon of Alabama

December 7, 2005

No(n) U.S. Personnel

In reaction to serious international pressure, the U.S. government today seems to paddle back from its torture policy.

Rice Signals Shift in Interrogation Policy

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought Wednesday to clarify U.S. policy on harsh interrogation methods, saying no U.S. personnel may use cruel or degrading practices at home or abroad.
…
"As a matter of U.S. policy," Rice said the United Nations Convention against Torture "extends to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the U.S. or outside the U.S."

The U.N. treaty also prohibits treatment that doesn’t meet the legal definition of torture, including many practices that human rights organizations say were used routinely at the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

There are two issues with this. First of course is how much to believe "mushroom cloud" Condi. Call me suspicious on that one.

But more important are the big loopholes within the words "no U.S. personnel may use".

– Does this mean "non U.S. personnel may use"?
– Does Rice include or exclude unofficial U.S. people like CACI contract interrogators?
– What about people renditioned by the U.S. to other countries and foreign torture practitioners?

And please why is there this inconsistency?

Even so, asked if Rice had stated a new U.S. policy for the treatment of detainees abroad, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, "It’s existing policy."

I am not convinced.

Posted by b on December 7, 2005 at 16:40 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Killing the Messenger?

Last week the [state] department stopped posting surveys of how the international press is covering significant developments in U.S. foreign policy. Based on reporting from U.S. embassies around the world, the surveys quoted newspaper and broadcast reports in just about every language.

Didn´t help, but nice try.

Posted by: b | Dec 7 2005 17:02 utc | 1

Rice is a liar.

Posted by: beq | Dec 7 2005 17:30 utc | 2

The entire Administration are liars.

Posted by: Ensley | Dec 7 2005 17:40 utc | 3

In your face lies – spells: dare challenge me, see what happens.
So Merkel goes all submissive and admiring, which she was from day one.

Posted by: Noisette | Dec 7 2005 18:41 utc | 4

Sometimes the feelings of a people can be more safely expressed on the Sports Pages. That seems to be the case in Britain, where Condi’s trip has occasioned this from the Guardian:
Blinkered America is already among the thugs
They like to glamorise European soccer hooligans, but nobody in US sports seems to realise that they’ve got a homegrown problem of their own, argues Steven Wells ….
….
Meantime, I think it’s time for the pot to shut the fuck up. Link
Most uncharacteristic Guardian prose!
All the moreso because I think his premise is off. I think that it applies far more to the political realm than the sporting realm, where American audiences occasionally lapse into violence, but not on the scale one finds in Europe; but perhaps one cannot state things so baldly w/out hiding behind the metaphor of sports.

Posted by: jj | Dec 7 2005 18:45 utc | 5

Didn´t help, but nice try.
Sorry, but she didn’t try. Nor did she want to help. She just wanted to stop the conversation.
Words mean nothing to these people. Words are just something they use to get what they want. If one set doesn’t do it, they try another. The words are chosen – and defined by them without our knowledge of the modified definitions – to make us think they are doing one thing when they are actually doing something else. (They never lie, you always misunderstand.) You cannot have a conversation with these people; they are not interested in understanding you or in you understanding them in any way other than the way they want you to. You are something to be managed with as little effort as possible, not someone to relate to. (Rice is a bit of a drama queen, so is more effective than most in the administration at using tone of voice to make the impression she wants while hiding from you what she actually means. The effect is aurally akin to the old shell game where your eye gets caught up watching the motion of the hands and shells so that you don’t notice that the con man has picked up the pea.) Dealing with these people at the level of their words is a futile exercise; save your breathe.

Posted by: lonesomeG | Dec 7 2005 21:36 utc | 6

to the extent that rice attempts to say things that are in some sense true, “no u.s. personnel” means – as you say, b – “only those persons who are not officially enrolled as employees of the u.s. government”

Posted by: mistah charley | Dec 8 2005 2:42 utc | 7

I’m in agreement with Bernhard’s assessment. Rice is displaying a perverse sense of humour here and maintaining that detainees will continue to be “rendered” into the hands of unsavoury– but not U.S.–governments. One can make a case that one’s hands are clean when they are contracting others to do their dirty work for them, and that is precisely my take on That Woman’s statements. (I’m not sure I like the new sobriquet… it makes her sound like a Satanic Marlo Thomas. Maybe she has decided to become such a stickler for misleading, though technically accurate, statements in an attempt to shake off her old nickname of “Condi-Lies-A-Lot”.)

Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 8 2005 3:39 utc | 8

Just heared a journalist on a (serious) radio news show here who was in that Rice press conference.
He said the question asked to Rice on this was the first asked in the press conference, it was carefully worded and, he thinks, planted. The answer was studied, known by heart and planed.
Here is that part from the state.gov transcript

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, is the United States only obliged to prevent cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment to its detainees on U.S. territory?
SECRETARY RICE: Mr. President — to answer this question. As you know, it’s been an issue here on my trip. As a matter of U.S. policy, the United States obligations under the CAT, which prohibits, of course, cruel and inhumane and degrading treatment, those obligations extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States.

Posted by: b | Dec 8 2005 7:22 utc | 9

Eric Umansky explains the loophole Rice is using here.
Hint – the U.S. definition is just a bit differnet than anyone else’s is.

Posted by: b | Dec 8 2005 8:08 utc | 10

To accept their misuse of language or their carefully narrowly structured statements is pointless.
Am I being naive, or is it singularly remarkable that no reporter/journalist can ask the ‘right’ question ?
Have the bitch explain ‘Ghost Detainees’ !
The Absolute Ban on “Disappearances”:

“Disappearances” are banned in all situations. According to the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance:
“No circumstances whatsoever, whether a threat of war, a state of war . . . may be invoked to justify enforced disappearances.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said:

No matter how legitimate the reasons for a person’s detention, no one has the right to keep that person’s fate or whereabouts secret or to deny that he or she is being detained. This practice runs counter to the basic tenets of international humanitarian law and human rights law. Link

A detailed backgrounder with sources and reference links from Human Rights Watch here

Posted by: Outraged | Dec 8 2005 12:38 utc | 11

Rice’s torture denial leaves loopholes
She says cruel practices are off-limits, but cites no examples

Posted by: Outraged | Dec 8 2005 13:05 utc | 12

A tap dance on torture
… Deconstructing a misbehaving secretary of state is challenging because the people who work for them are very smart, but what was odd about Rice’s defense was how transparently silly it was.
Part one of her spin insists that the United States has never, not once, ”authorized” or ”condoned” the torture of any detainee anywhere. It sounds strong until you simply ask what the United States means by ”torture.” It turns out that it is not torture to dunk people’s heads in water until they almost drown, to stage fake executions of prisoners, or to come within an hour or so of freezing them to death. The late Pat Moynihan called this defining deviancy down.
Part two of the case is her assurance that American behavior is ”consistent” with its obligation under international law that bans torture. Once again, that sounds clear until you simply inquire what behavior is in fact consistent with those obligations. It turns out that anything goes as long as it occurs outside the United States — be that a secret prison abroad or a facility on rented land at Guantanamo Bay. That is why we hold ”suspects” on foreign soil or spirit them off to countries known to torture people — a practice with the 1984 title of ”rendition,” which Rice claimed is central to the war on terrorism…

Posted by: Outraged | Dec 8 2005 13:17 utc | 13

@Outraged
There’s no argument. It is pointless “(t)o accept their misuse of language or their carefully narrowly structured statements”. Just because we understand or talk about the mechanics of a veiled threat does not mean that we find it any more acceptable.

Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 8 2005 15:05 utc | 14

@Monolycus
No argument nor criticism intended whatsoever … just a passing observation that virtually anything Bush&Co say publicly when cornered or confronted is safe to assume is a lie.
Peace. Salaam. Shalom.

Posted by: Outraged | Dec 8 2005 19:59 utc | 15

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