As Expected, DOD Charges al-Nashiri; Will the US Also Charge His Torturer?

/in , /by

DOD has filed charges against Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing. (h/t jl)

The Department of Defense announced today that military commissions prosecutors have sworn charges against Abd al Rahim Hussayn Muhammad al Nashiri of Saudi Arabia.

The chief prosecutor has recommended that the charges against Nashiri be referred as capital. Capital charges may only be pursued with the convening authority’s approval.

The charges allege that Nashiri was in charge of the planning and preparation for the attack on USS Cole (DDG 67) in the Port of Aden, Yemen, on Oct. 12, 2000. The attack killed 17 sailors, wounded 40 sailors, and severely damaged the ship by blowing a 30-foot by 30-foot hole in her side. The charges also allege that Nashiri was in charge of planning and preparation for an attempted attack on USS The Sullivans (DDG 68) as that ship refueled in the Port of Aden on Jan. 3, 2000.

Now, aside from the question of whether it is illegal to target a series of military targets, I have no problem with the government finally charging al-Nashiri.

But I wonder whether the government is also, finally, going to charge the people who staged a mock execution using a power drill against al-Nashiri–basically doing the one thing even John Yoo said would be illegal? Last we heard, after all, Albert, who staged the mock execution, was training CIA officers. And Albert’s supervisor, Ron, now heads CIA’s European Division. And while the US told Spain back in March that they were still investigating, the 8 year statute of limitations on torture that occurred before January 28, 2003 would have already expired.

As with all their other torture cases, they’re just letting the statutes expire.

So congratulations, DOD, for finally charging one of the alleged worst of the worst. Now when will the government charge those who tortured al-Nashiri?

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  1. earlofhuntingdon says:

    When hell freezes over, when Obama comes through on his promises of government transparency and constructive change, or when Republicans compromise are examples of “when” that come to mind, but that might border on being cynical.

  2. scribe says:

    Or, for that matter, will anyone ever bother to charge the former captain of USS Cole, now Rethug candidate for Congress, who got himself into a nice DoD job creating the torture program for Rummy and Deadeye after 9/11?

    I thought so.

  3. tjbs says:

    Not holding my breath or believing the torture ended , just buried deeper.

    If you don’t look in the rearview mirror on the Interstate how far could you go ? Obama never changed lanes.

  5. MadDog says:

    Does France now outsource its judical system to US Military Commissions?

    From that DOD announcement:

    …It is further alleged that Nashiri was in charge of the planning and preparation for an attack on the French civilian oil tanker MV Limburg in the Gulf of Aden on Oct. 6, 2002. This attack resulted in the death of one crewmember and the release of approximately 90,000 barrels of oil into the gulf…

    (My Bold)

    I’m at a loss as to how the US, and in particular, US Military Commissions, have the legal authority to charge anyone regarding this alleged attack.

    It it not that I think the alleged attack was itself legal or in any way justifiable, but instead it doesn’t seem to me that the US has jurisdiction for this alleged attack.

    May the resident Legal Eagles clue me in.

    • Jeff Kaye says:

      Thanks for the update on the anthrax story. I left a comment for at the article, because the reporter touched on the “expert” behavioral panel in an uncritical fashion, saying their report gave “corroboration” after “an expert panel concluded that Ivins was the killer, after conducting an unusual, posthumous, court-approved review of his psychiatric records.”

      Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/20/112520/was-fbi-too-quick-to-judge-anthrax.html#ixzz1K7h9FxcL

      I left a link there to my story exposing the defense and national security links to this panel, and to Edwin Meese…

      As for Al-Nashiri, this is all about hiding tortured testimony. Who knows what they’ve done to the fellow in 11 years of torture, solitary, and god knows what else? Some will say, so what? But the entire ethics of this country is so forsaken at this point that Alfred Hitchcock’s old movie, “The Wrong Man,” can only play as science fiction in 2011.

      One thing for sure, this has nothing to do with justice, and those who lost loved ones on the Cole must know that the government is more interested in propaganda and torture games than they are in serving justice on any killers. Right to a speedy trial? Quaint, as are the laws on torture or human experimentation. A drill to the head should replace the stars in the field of blue on the flag, because that’s what’s holy now, evidently.

  8. eCAHNomics says:

    Took ’em 11 years to charge al-Nashiri.

    Must be a tremendously, overwhelmingly, convincing case.

      • eCAHNomics says:

        The most charitable thing you can type about the USG is that it is a bad joke.

        Yet even at FDL, there are still those who moan about us purists who just won’t recognize that we must make compromises to get stuff done.

        Made the analogy the other day wrt diffs between Rs & Ds: would you rather be tortured by waterboarding or by having your privates burned with lighted cigs.

        Which would a pragmatist choose?

  9. tjbs says:

    sorta like sentence first, then will get to the trial…..soon….and very soon……. pretty soon………… really soon………really, we got the goods on this guy though, just WAIT and see……

  10. powwow says:

    Guantanamo Military Commissions, such as they are, exist for the prosecution of war crimes (crimes committed during an armed conflict), and war crimes (plus spying) only – not to include war crimes committed by Prisoners of War (who are prosecuted in the traditional military justice system by court martial), according to the terms of the Military Commissions Act itself, as passed in 2006 and 2009 by Congress.

    So what’s the “war” or “armed conflict” in which Al Nashiri of Saudi Arabia was fighting in 2000, when the USS Cole was attacked, that transformed his alleged crime into a “war crime” that permits his case, of necessity, to be prosecuted outside of our open, operating, independent federal justice system?

    [And how is that supposed “war” squared with what we’ve all just been hearing from Fundraising Party loyalists, about how repeated aerial bombardment of another nation’s infrastructure by the United States Air Force and Navy is not “war,” when it comes to the President’s attack on Libya?]

    As it happens, I just finished compiling, in a long comment in an older thread, a good bit of the wisdom of the military service-seasoned 1819 House of Representatives, that relates to the ever-more-pronounced, ceaseless pattern of American presidents attempting to ‘take the law into their own hands’ by invoking an amorphous, ill-defined “military justice” jurisdiction to avoid the jurisdiction of, and the potential for checks on presidential power by, our independent federal judiciary. So I’ll let the 1819 words of one of those Representatives speak for me, with regard to this specious “law of war” Commission charge sheet, in the Guantanamo-birthed presidential justice system that makes a mockery of American justice.

    Speaking on January 26, 1819 (although it could have been yesterday, if our legislators had such integrity), about the rogue actions of a celebrated American Army Major General (Andrew Jackson), Representative Edward Colston of Virginia, a veteran of the War of 1812, pointedly asked [select Image 829 in the Annals of Congress for the Second House Session of the 15th Congress]:

    But again, sir, General Jackson President Obama’s Military Commission has undertaken to execute this man for a supposed offence against the law of nations, in taking part against us in a war, whilst his country and ours were in a state of peace. Now, not to mention that his “well established principle” is not the law of nations at all, and cannot be supported by any acknowledged authority on that subject, nor the hostility of this principle to all the heretofore received opinions of this nation, I contend that, in this country, no violation of the laws of nations can be punished without an act of Congress prescribing that punishment. […] Before any man, then, can be punished for a breach of those laws [of nations, those laws and] an act of Congress must prescribe it; and will gentlemen inform us where the [international law and the] statute is to be found in which the penalty for the offence charged upon Arbuthnot Al Nashiri is to be found?

    • Jeff Kaye says:

      Brilliant, powwow, and I am ever grateful for you pointing this out. I also enjoyed the apt and very interesting quote from that 1819 Congressman. Truly, the more things change, etc.

  11. bluewombat says:

    I hope this doesn’t sound like a dumb question, but how can DOD charge anyone with anything? They’re a war-making operation, not a justice-producing one (neither is the Department of Justice, of course, but that’s a topic for another thread). Isn’t it up to DOJ to charge people with crimes?