Zeno Swijtink
04-12-2009, 03:19 PM
The Bench: The Bush Six: The Talk of the Town: The New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/talk/2009/04/13/090413ta_talk_mayer)
THE BENCH
THE BUSH SIX
by Jane Mayer
APRIL 13, 2009
KEYWORDS
Philippe Sands; “Torture Team”; Bush Administration; War Crimes; Criminal Investigations; Spanish Courts; Torture
About a year ago, a book came out in England that made a fascinating prediction: at some point in the future, the author wrote, six top officials in the Bush Administration would get a tap on the shoulder announcing that they were being arrested on international charges of torture.
If the prediction seemed improbable, the background of the book’s author was even more so. Philippe Sands is neither a journalist nor an American but a law professor and a certified Queen’s Counsel (the kind of barrister who on occasion wears a powdered horsehair wig) who works at the same law practice as Cherie Blair. Sands’s book, “Torture Team,” offers a scathing critique of officials in the Bush Administration, accusing them of complicity in acts of torture. When the book appeared, some scoffed. Douglas Feith, a former Pentagon official, dismissed Sands as “a British lawyer” who “wrote an extremely dishonest book.”
Last week, Sands’s accusations suddenly did not seem so outlandish. A Spanish court took the first steps toward starting a criminal investigation of the same six former Bush Administration officials he had named, weighing charges that they had enabled and abetted torture by justifying the abuse of terrorism suspects. Among those whom the court singled out was Feith, the former Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy, along with former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer; and David Addington, the chief of staff and the principal legal adviser to Vice-President Dick Cheney.
In Washington the other night, over a cup of camomile tea, Sands described the behind-the-scenes role he played in ...
cont at The Bench: The Bush Six: The Talk of the Town: The New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/talk/2009/04/13/090413ta_talk_mayer)
****
Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and ... - Google Book Search (https://books.google.com/books?id=-YSPAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1)
Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values
By Philippe Sands
Edition: revised
Published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2008
Original from the University of Michigan
Digitized Oct 23, 2008
ISBN 0230603904, 9780230603905
254 pages
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
THE BENCH
THE BUSH SIX
by Jane Mayer
APRIL 13, 2009
KEYWORDS
Philippe Sands; “Torture Team”; Bush Administration; War Crimes; Criminal Investigations; Spanish Courts; Torture
About a year ago, a book came out in England that made a fascinating prediction: at some point in the future, the author wrote, six top officials in the Bush Administration would get a tap on the shoulder announcing that they were being arrested on international charges of torture.
If the prediction seemed improbable, the background of the book’s author was even more so. Philippe Sands is neither a journalist nor an American but a law professor and a certified Queen’s Counsel (the kind of barrister who on occasion wears a powdered horsehair wig) who works at the same law practice as Cherie Blair. Sands’s book, “Torture Team,” offers a scathing critique of officials in the Bush Administration, accusing them of complicity in acts of torture. When the book appeared, some scoffed. Douglas Feith, a former Pentagon official, dismissed Sands as “a British lawyer” who “wrote an extremely dishonest book.”
Last week, Sands’s accusations suddenly did not seem so outlandish. A Spanish court took the first steps toward starting a criminal investigation of the same six former Bush Administration officials he had named, weighing charges that they had enabled and abetted torture by justifying the abuse of terrorism suspects. Among those whom the court singled out was Feith, the former Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy, along with former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer; and David Addington, the chief of staff and the principal legal adviser to Vice-President Dick Cheney.
In Washington the other night, over a cup of camomile tea, Sands described the behind-the-scenes role he played in ...
cont at The Bench: The Bush Six: The Talk of the Town: The New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/talk/2009/04/13/090413ta_talk_mayer)
****
Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and ... - Google Book Search (https://books.google.com/books?id=-YSPAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1)
Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values
By Philippe Sands
Edition: revised
Published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2008
Original from the University of Michigan
Digitized Oct 23, 2008
ISBN 0230603904, 9780230603905
254 pages
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