US moral dilemma.. ..
Message 16540707
a post send to me by Rehan...the source from Slate, LA times and drudge report for this compilation plus his own intro and second paragraph..and some analysis..
America in the midst of a new terror, the likes of which they have never known, have resorted to measures, which raise difficult questions of human rights abuse. When President Bush last month signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to undertake its most sweeping and lethal covert action since the founding of the agency in 1947, explicitly calling for the destruction of Osama bin Laden and his worldwide al Qaeda network, America finally announced to the world that they were playing on their turf now.
"The gloves are off," one senior official said. "The president has given the agency the green light to do whatever is necessary. Lethal operations that were unthinkable pre-September 11 are now underway." The CIA's covert action is a key part of the president's offensive against terrorism, but the agency is also playing a critical role in the defence against future terrorist attacks.
For example, each day a CIA document called the "Threat Matrix," which has the highest security classification ("Top Secret/Codeword"), lands on the desks of the top national security and intelligence officials in the Bush administration. It presents the freshest and most sensitive raw intelligence on dozens of threatened bombings, hijackings or poisonings. Only threats deemed to have some credibility are included in the document. One day last week, the Threat Matrix contained 100 threats to U.S. facilities in the United States and around the world -- shopping complexes, specific cities, places where thousands gather, embassies. Though nearly all the listed threats have passed without incident and 99 percent turned out to be groundless, dozens more take their place in the matrix each day. It was the matrix that generated the national alert of impending terrorist action issued by the FBI on Oct. 11. The goal of the matrix is simple: Look for patterns and specific details that might prevent another Sept. 11. "I don't think there has been such risk to the country since the Cuban missile crisis," a senior official said.
Some US officials have also suggested quite tentatively that the best strategy in fighting terrorism is to "disrupt" the groups and cells planning future missions. This, they propose by torturing suspects and Bin Laden associates which is legally and morally problematic for America. One way of jumping through this loophole, and which is already being practiced, is to farm out torture assignments to countries such as Egypt, Jordan, or Pakistan, where they have no compunctions about extracting information from sources with violence or by threatening their family members. There are no doubts that torturing terrorists and their associates for information works.
In 1995, Philippine intelligence agents tortured Abdul Hakim Murad, whom they arrested after he blew up his apartment making bombs. The agents threw a chair at Murad's head, broke his ribs, forced water into his mouth, and put cigarettes out on his genitals, but Murad didn't talk until agents masquerading as the Mossad threatened to take him back to Israel for some real questioning. Murad named names. His confession included details of a plot to kill Pope John Paul II, as well as plots to crash 11 U.S. airliners into the ocean and to fly an airplane into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. His co-conspirator Ramzi Yousef was later convicted for the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing. Similarly unappealing methods helped the CIA uncover the millennium bomb plot of 1999, after al-Qaida terrorists were questioned in Egypt and Jordan. The defendants in the African embassy bombing trials claimed that during the investigation the FBI threatened to turn them over to the brutal Kenyan authorities if they didn't cooperate with U.S. prosecutors. Confessions were made.
Even now the 700 detainees are not being tortured in America, but they are not being treated very nicely. They have been held over a month without charges, many in solitary confinement in 8-by-10-foot cells. Some report being deprived of toothbrushes, showers, and warm clothing. They have limited contact with attorneys and none with their families. The material witness statute allows them to be held only "a reasonable amount of time," and it's clear that many of these detentions are not reasonable. It's approaching Nosenko treatment, and in a few weeks it really will "shock the conscience." Among those 700 individuals are Zacarias Moussaoui and Nabil al-Marabh. (Moussaoui is the Moroccan who wanted to learn how to steer a jetliner but wasn't interested in takeoffs or landings. Al-Marabh allegedly had ties to at least two of the New York hijackers and was involved in transferring money for the foiled millennium plot in 1999.)
Some of the 700 detainees have vital information about Osama Bin Ladin and al-Qaida, and unless the president plans to suspend the right to habeas corpus, as Abraham Lincoln did, his options will become increasingly unattractive. He can release them, along with all the secrets they harbour. He can deport them or extradite them to places like Egypt, where they may well be subject to torture and abuse. Or he can stick with America’s current plan, which appears to be confined to the soft bigotry of indefinite confinement. That will, at some point, amount to torture in its own right, which will indeed raise serious legal questions. However in these difficult times, there is a feeling, that the American people and indeed even their own Justice Department will be accommodating |
