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CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

amanpour.blogs.cnn.com

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Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#41

Post by josephlord »

alexandros wrote: post #8
beloch wrote: post #6

It would actually be in the U.S.'s own interests to prosecute these CIA agents and their superiors. First, this would show support for international laws against torture and help put the lid back on Pandora's box. This would directly reduce the probability of captured U.S. citizens being tortured. No, that probably does not include those captured by ISIL, but are rogue terrorist organizations all U.S. citizens will n…

The prestige hit and vulnerability to "letting down the troops" criticisms will ensure this doesn't happen.

Do you really think that? Even when something really bad happens? 9-11 type incident or worse.

Only following orders is no justification for war crimes including torture. The world needs to see that America believes that and that it doesn't just apply to Nazi's. America is an example to the world, please be a good one.

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#42

Post by kiiski »

briandear wrote: post #19

One huge peave of mine reflects a general level of ignorance about CIA by both media and commentators; they aren't CIA 'Agents' they are CIA 'officers.' It might sound like a nitpick, but if the news media repeatedly gets such a fundamental detail wrong, how can they be even remotely viewed as credible in the bigger issues? It would be like a reporter referring to RAM as ROM; hard to to have any faith that they even…

Perhaps they are not using the word "agent" as a CIA job title, but rather in the actual meaning of the word:

  An agent is one who acts for, or in the 
  place of, another, by authority from him; 
  one entrusted with the business of another.

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#43

Post by josephlord »

rhino369 wrote: post #15
alexandros wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prestige hit and vulnerability to "letting down the troops" criticisms will ensure this doesn't happen.

The real reason is that they were carrying out the official policy of the US government. Just calling it CIA torture is minimizing how far up this went. Bush ordered it. DOD knew. DOJ not only knew, it crafted the governments tortured definition of torture. Congress knew. This isn't some off the books CIA wet team opp. It was planned and signed off at the highest levels. John Yoo, who wrote the torture memos, is a pr…

Agree they should all be tried but in practice the best sequence may be to start at the bottom and establish there that crimes took place and have the defences establish the orders given as mitigation to build that case against the politicians and senior leadership.

Having the juniors in prision would build political pressure from those who follow orders (military etc.) for the politicians to join them and hopefully make it less of a party political issue.

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#44

Post by tete »

waps wrote: post #12
molecule wrote: post #4

Any country, except the United States. > Prosecutions by the U.S. itself, however, seem very unlikely. In 2012, the Department of Justice said that “the Department would not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees.”

Supporting the UN human rights council ? Really ? Have you ever looked at who you're supporting just to get your way ? I mean, I'm all for holding those responsible to account, but, firstly, nothing will change unless the US itself holds those people to account. Second the UN are firmly on the side of human rights violators that make Hitler look like a beginner, and the UN itself also feels the need to commit massacr…

I agree. The UN isn't close to a great organization in reality, but at least on paper this is where the Human Rights are from and that's something most sane people can agree on.

In the end what really matters is to make sure people don't get tortured and that torture is frowned upon. I think this might be a step into the right direction. However, like with all such things I do not know if that's true. It could also mean there will be more secrecy and torture until death will become standard, to prevent these things from ever getting into any media. History will show us.

To me it seems impossible to predict the outcome, but I think you can't change things like these when they are not frowned upon.

This makes me think a bit of Operation Paperclip, where the US was also defending people who tortured other things. Of course you can't compare it like 1:1 (you never can). The thing though is that a huge society (Germany) changed a lot, because all the things that happened in the past are frowned upon. Yes, there are individuals who didn't learn from it, but they are a rather rare exception. What this means is that there are fewer people being harmed.

Sorry for pulling of Nazi-Comparison. It's just a great example for the change of thought in a society. It also happened to East Germany or a lot of Eastern European countries, that were indoctrinated by Stalinism and maybe even look at Ukraine. There it got so far that (on the mainland, in Kiev) they hate communism/Russia so much that the biggest party actually have SS runes.

That might seem far fetched now, but that's the point where I agree. One shouldn't just switch to the other side and blindly follow them, just because you share their hate. This is true for states, but also institutions or political systems.

Hopefully I didn't get too far with that connection.

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#45

Post by JonnieCache »

briandear wrote: post #19

One huge peave of mine reflects a general level of ignorance about CIA by both media and commentators; they aren't CIA 'Agents' they are CIA 'officers.' It might sound like a nitpick, but if the news media repeatedly gets such a fundamental detail wrong, how can they be even remotely viewed as credible in the bigger issues? It would be like a reporter referring to RAM as ROM; hard to to have any faith that they even…

How exactly is that a fundamental detail?

BTW the word is "peeve."

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#46

Post by etherael »

thawkins wrote: post #24
rasz_pl wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh they can be located, they are all living safely in US.

One would wonder what would happen if they where "rendered" to a prison in italy.

Nobody wonders this at all.

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#48

Post by arethuza »

briandear wrote: post #19

One huge peave of mine reflects a general level of ignorance about CIA by both media and commentators; they aren't CIA 'Agents' they are CIA 'officers.' It might sound like a nitpick, but if the news media repeatedly gets such a fundamental detail wrong, how can they be even remotely viewed as credible in the bigger issues? It would be like a reporter referring to RAM as ROM; hard to to have any faith that they even…

I believe that you are correct about the terminology - the way the CIA operates is detailed in books like Robert Baer's See No Evil.

However, I'm not sure that this kind of nitpicking actually matters - from what we now know people employed by the CIA tortured people and it doesn't really matter whether the correct term for these people within the CIA is "officers" or "agents" - everyone else is going to call them "torturers".

[NB I actually up-voted you because I didn't think you deserved to be down-voted. The agent/officer distinction is really important for how spies actually work (and the CIA is not alone in this) but it's distracting from the main point here].

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#50

Post by probably_wrong »

justin66 wrote: post #11
beloch wrote: post #6

It would actually be in the U.S.'s own interests to prosecute these CIA agents and their superiors. First, this would show support for international laws against torture and help put the lid back on Pandora's box. This would directly reduce the probability of captured U.S. citizens being tortured. No, that probably does not include those captured by ISIL, but are rogue terrorist organizations all U.S. citizens will n…

> Prosecuting those who committed illegal acts, even though they were assured of immunity, sends a clear message that individuals are still responsible for their actions. They weren't really offered immunity, they were assured by the Office of Legal Counsel that they were doing something legal. Get bad advice from your lawyer as to what is legal and what isn't, go commit a crime, and see what happens.

For a counterpoint, you might want to look into Argentina's "Law of due obedience"[1]. Of course, Argentinean law doesn't affect US law, but the fact that this law was eventually repealed sets an international precedent that "I was just following orders" is not a valid defense from prosecution.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ley_de_Obediencia_Debida

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