Why Won’t Jeh Johnson Answer Hank Johnson’s Question about Forced Nudity?

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The House Armed Services Committee is having a hearing on Law of War Detention. Much of it has focused on Jeh Johnson affirming that military commissions line up with American values. (In other words, it is fairly depressing.)

But an interesting exchange happened when Hank Johnson had his turn. He set up his question by talking about a recent trip to Gitmo. He described the good treatment he saw the detainees being subject to. Jeh Johnson said that we’re following the Geneva Conventions.

Then he said (working from memory), so why is Bradley Manning being subject to worse treatment.

Frankly, Hank Johnson got a few details incorrect (for example, he said that Manning had to wear shackles in his cell). But he went through Manning’s treatment reasonably well.

In response, Jeh Johnson reverted immediately to the importance of pretrial detention. He used the same old lie about Manning being able to talk to others in his cell block. Here’s a rough liveblog:

not in solitary confinement. Public misinformation. It is public that he is currently in classification status called Maximum security. Someone in Max occupies same type of cell that a medium security pretrial detainee. Same time of cell. You could have Max security and medium confinee in the same row of cells and they could converse with one another.

(That would be true if anyone was in a cell close enough to him to be able to talk to, but there isn’t.)

But perhaps most tellingly, Jeh Johnson didn’t address Hank Johnson’s question about the forced nudity Manning is being subject to.

Ultimately, Buck McKeon cut off Hank Johnson, saying that Jeh Johnson could answer him “off the record.” (?) I hope he meant for the record; we shall see.)

But for now, at least, it appears that Jeh Johnson really doesn’t want to talk about why Manning is being subject to a policy implemented–and then rejected–at Gitmo.

Dylan Ratigan, Law Professors and I All Agree: Obama Needs to Explain or End Manning’s Treatment

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On Friday, Dylan Ratigan and I had a podcast chat about the treatment of Bradley Manning. Among other things, we talked about the “Constitutional Law Professor” President’s rather bizarre response when DOD told him it was standard procedure to strip an Army man of his clothes because of a trumped up claim that his underwear was a terrible threat to him.

DYLAN: And what does that say to you about our President that he endorses such a ridiculous point of view?

MARCY: I mean for starters it says he’s giving the military way too much leeway. They said, “Well, this is standard operating procedure.” And as I pointed out today in my blog, what they’re doing to Manning, the forced nudity, goes right back to Gitmo and goes right back to the treatment they used with Abu Zubaydah. So him giving — he came in to office and on day 2 said, “We’re going to close Gitmo. We’re going to end these abusive techniques,” and yet when DOD came to him and said, well, you know, it’s all standard procedure to take away a man’s underwear. The President just said, “Oh, okay.”

That’s one of the things a bunch of (real, active) law professors had to say in their letter calling on Obama to explain or end the treatment of Bradley Manning.

The Administration has provided no evidence that Manning’s treatment reflects a concern for his own safety or that of other inmates. Unless and until it does so, there is only one reasonable inference: this pattern of degrading treatment aims either to deter future whistleblowers, or to force Manning to implicate Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in a conspiracy, or both.

If Manning is guilty of a crime, let him be tried, convicted, and punished according to law. But his treatment must be consistent with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. There is no excuse for his degrading and inhumane pre-trial punishment. As the State Department’s PJ Crowly put it recently, they are “counterproductive and stupid.” And yet Crowley has now been forced to resign for speaking the plain truth.

The Wikileaks disclosures have touched every corner of the world. Now the whole world watches America and observes what it does; not what it says.

President Obama was once a professor of constitutional law, and entered the national stage as an eloquent moral leader. The question now, however, is whether his conduct as Commander in Chief meets fundamental standards of decency. He should not merely assert that Manning’s confinement is “appropriate and meet[s] our basic standards,” as he did recently. He should require the Pentagon publicly to document the grounds for its extraordinary actions –and immediately end those which cannot withstand the light of day.

Obama cannot be a leader on human rights by refusing to challenge a military that, for years, used forced nudity like they’re using with Manning as part of systemic abuse of alleged terrorists.

But that’s what he has been doing.

DOD Gives Manning Caveman Gown, Says They’re Not Humiliating Him

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With all the attention focused on Bradley Manning’s treatment yesterday because of PJ Crowley’s ouster, DOD has done a lot of pushback on the notion that taking away Manning’s underwear is “ridiculous, counterproductive, and stupid.”

The pushback has been so effective that a number of journalists have reported that Quantico no longer takes Manning’s underwear away.

So let’s be clear: Quantico is still taking Manning’s underwear away. But they have now given him a gown to wear.

Josh Gerstein did some actual reporting on these gowns. The more elaborate version is made of two layers of backpack grade cordura nylon.

[Ferguson Safety Products founder Lana] Speer said her company’s smocks are made out of a “backpack-type material that was the strongest stuff we could find that could be washed.” She was also blunt about the items being far from fashionable.

“It’s stupid looking,” Speer said.

No offense to Speer (whose concerns deal with genuinely suicidal people), but the picture Ferguson uses to advertise the smocks–with the caveman looking models–doesn’t help make them look any less stupid.

While it’s unclear whether Quantico is using this particular gown or not, one thing is clear: what Manning is forced to wear is not comfortable. Here’s how he described it.

After apparent outside pressure on the Brig due to my mistreatment, I was given a suicide prevention article of clothing called a “smock” by the guards. Although I am still required to strip naked in my cell at night, I am now given the “smock” to wear. At first, I did not want to wear this item of clothing due to how coarse it was and how uncomfortable it felt. However, the Brig now orders me to wear the “smock” at night.

So for those who have gotten confused by DOD’s pushback: they are still taking away Manning’s very dangerous boxers at night (though they allow him to wear such dangerous items during the day). And then, in a bid to pretend they’re not trying to drive Manning crazy, they basically make him sleep in an uncomfortable duffel bag-like garment.

WikiLeaks Reveals How the British Lied to OECD about BAE Bribery

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A WikiLeaks cable dated March 5, 2007 has raised new interest in the BAE bribery scandal (AP, WSJ, Telegraph). While no one seems to have noted this, the cable shows that the British lied to their counterparts at the OECD about details of the bribery investigation into BAE.

As the Guardian (which led the reporting on this story) reported three years ago, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office started investigating evidence of an elaborate kickback system by which the Brits would give money to the Saudis for BAE contracts in 2004 (it turns out those kickbacks were allegedly used to fund covert operations). In 2006, Prince Bandar bin Sultan flew to London and threatened Tony Blair the Saudis would stop sharing information on terrorists if the SFO continued its investigation. As a result, in early 2007, the SFO stopped its investigation, citing public interest. The US settled its investigation of the same bribery scheme for $400 million last year.

The cable appears to be preparation for the March 2007 OECD meeting of the Working Group on Bribery; it serves as a review of what had happened in the previous, January 2007, meeting regarding the British decision to stop its investigation of the BAE bribery scheme. Much of the cable reviews the stance of each country regarding the UK decision, with France vocally complaining that the British decision violated the Convention on bribery’s prohibition on invoking relations with foreign countries as reason to spike a bribery investigation, and Australia fully supporting the UK decision. According to the cable, the American delegation was in between those two positions (they were basically arguing for putting off a conclusion about the appropriateness of the decision until the March meeting for which this cable served as preparation):

The U.S. delegation took note of the experience and professionalism of U.K. delegation members. The US del inquired into what appeared to be inconsistent accounts relating to differences in views of the SFO Director and Attorney General regarding the merits of the case, reports alleging British intelligence agencies had not joined the government’s assessment that the case raised national and international security interests, and whether the SFO could provide WGB members with assurances that BAE would not continue to make corrupt payments to senior Saudi officials.

[snip]

The U.S. delegation commented that it was not appropriate at this juncture to conclude that Article 5 does not contemplate the proper invocation of national security interests.

Ultimately, the cable reveals, the group developed a consensus to revisit the issue in the March meeting after further review of the British investigation.

The cable is perhaps most interesting because it gives us a glimpse of what the British publicly told the international community about its investigation, the targets, and the reasons for dropping the investigation.

The SFO Deputy Director falsely portrayed the decision to end the investigation as voluntary

Most interestingly, the cable shows that SFO Deputy Director Helen Garlick portrayed SFO Director Robert Wardle’s decision to terminate the investigate as entirely voluntary.

Garlick started by underscoring the U.K. delegation’s willingness to answer as much as possible the questions of the WGB, bearing in mind pending litigation in the U.K. Garlick reported that SFO and MOD Police investigators had expended more than 2 million pounds sterling on the BAE investigations. She said on December 14, SFO Director Robert Wardle had decided to discontinue the joint SFO/MOD Police investigation based on his personal, independent judgment.

The French doubted this (I’m guessing they were suspicious partly because Wardle did not brief the group himself). Shortly after the January meeting, the Guardian reported that Wardle disagreed with Lord Goldsmith’s ultimate decision to spike the investigation and in 2008 Wardle testified that he strongly disagreed with the decision.

Wardle told the court in a witness statement: “The idea of discontinuing the investigation went against my every instinct as a prosecutor. I wanted to see where the evidence led.”

All of which suggests the French were right to doubt that Wardle made this decision himself.

The Brits may have kept Bandar bin Sultan’s role in the bribery scheme secret

In addition, tt appears that the Brits may have kept Bandar bin Sultan’s rule in the bribery scheme secret–though it may be, instead, that the cable didn’t record the details of the briefing pertaining to Bandar. The cable describes the Brits exhorting their partners to keep the contents of the briefing on the investigation classified.

U.K. delegation head Jo Kuenssberg said the U.K. recognized the level of interest of WGB members in the case and stressed the need to respect the confidentiality of the information contained in the U.K.’s briefing,

And then, among the details revealed in the investigation, the Brits described an “unnamed senior Saudi official” and “another very senior Saudi official” as recipients of some of the bribes in the scheme.

Third, payments made under the al-Yamamah contract to an unnamed senior Saudi official: Garlick advised that in October 2005, the SFO had demanded BAE produce documents including payments related to the al-Yamamah contract. The company made representations to the AG on public interest grounds (political and economic considerations) as to why the investigation should be halted. The AG undertook a Shawcross Exercise and sought representations from various British officials regarding the case. The SFO Director wanted to continue the investigation. On January 25, 2006, the AG agreed that there was no impediment to continuing the investigation. The SFO sought Swiss banking records regarding agents of BAE. The SFO found reasonable grounds that another very senior Saudi official was the recipient of BAE payments. The SFO was poised to travel to Switzerland in connection with its Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) request when the decision to discontinue the investigation was made;

The cable explicitly named Turki Bin Nasir, then the head of Saudi Arabia’s Air Force and already by that point publicly tied to the bribery scheme. So these two must be others. I’m guessing that Bandar–whose receipt of $1 billion via the scheme would be broken by the Guardian in June 2007–is the “very senior Saudi official” mentioned, not least because his involvement seems to have been exposed at the Swiss bank account stage of the investigation. So the only question, then, is whether the Brits kept his name–as they did the “unnamed senior Saudi official”–secret from their counterparts at the OECD. It appears, however, they did.

In addition, the British review of the investigation far underplayed the amount involved here.

Crowley: “The Impact … for Which I Take Full Responsibility”?

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While a number of media outlets have reported one line–“The exercise of power in today’s challenging times and relentless media environment must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values”–from PJ Crowley’s resignation statement, I wanted to remark on a few things in the larger statement.

The unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a serious crime under U.S. law. My recent comments regarding the conditions of the pre-trial detention of Private First Class Bradley Manning were intended to highlight the broader, even strategic impact of discreet actions undertaken by national security agencies every day and their impact on our global standing and leadership. The exercise of power in today’s challenging times and relentless media environment must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values.

Given the impact of my remarks, for which I take full responsibility, I have submitted my resignation as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Spokesman for the Department of State.

I am enormously grateful to President Obama and Secretary Clinton for the high honor of once again serving the American people. I leave with great admiration and affection for my State colleagues, who promote our national interest both on the front lines and in the quiet corners of the world. It was a privilege to help communicate their many and vital contributions to our national security. And I leave with deep respect for the journalists who report on foreign policy and global developments every day, in many cases under dangerous conditions and subject to serious threats. Their efforts help make governments more responsible, accountable and transparent. [my emphasis]

Note, first of all, the sentence, “Given the impact of my remarks, for which I take full responsibility.” That has been interpreted as a reaffirmation of Crowley’s statement that DOD’s treatment of Manning is “ridiculous, counterproductive, and stupid.” But there’s actually some ambiguity to the statement: the antecedent of “for which” could be “remarks,” as has been interpreted, but it also could be “impact.” Given that Crowley has spent years crafting public statements in which any ambiguity would lead to international incident, I suspect the ambiguity, in a written statement issued during a time of heightened attention, is intentional.

If so, this is Crowley making it clear he intended all this to blow up (remember, too, the participants in the MIT session at which Crowley first made his remarks double checked that his statements were on the record before they posted them).

And he tells us that his intent was to raise attention to the impact that certain actions of our national security agencies have on our international standing.

While I hope Crowley has an opportunity to explain precisely which actions he had in mind–aside from Manning’s treatment, of course–I wanted to point to a CAP paper Crowley wrote in 2008, linked by Rortybomb. The paper as a whole is a sound strategy for counter-terrorism (I’m particularly fond of Crowley’s focus on building resilience at home). As Rortybomb points out, Crowley argues that part of the fight against terrorism must be about remaining on the right side of history.

Most of the world now believes, fairly or not, that America is on the wrong side of history. While the Bush administration acknowledged the vital importance of winning hearts and minds in its revised 2006 counterterrorism strategy, too often since 2001, U.S. policies have neither matched our values, nor what we preach to the rest of the world. We are perceived, accurately or not, as operating secret and illegal prisons, condoning torture, denying legal rights, propping up autocratic regimes, and subverting fair elections.

Read more →

DOD Continues to Stall on Kucinich’s Request to Visit Bradley Manning

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Last we heard of Dennis Kucinich’s request to visit Bradley Manning, the Pentagon had spent a full month referring his request from one official to another rather than respond to his request.

On February 4, Dennis Kucinich asked DOD to allow him to visit Bradley Manning so he could assess his conditions of confinement. On February 8, Robert Gates wrote Kucinich a short note telling him we was referring his request to Secretary of the Army, John McHugh. In a letter dated February 24–but apparently not received in Kucinich’s office until March 1–McHugh told Kucinich he was referring his request to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs.

In short, a full month after the date when a member of Congress requested a visit with Manning, DOD is still stalling on a real response with bureaucratic buck-passing.

On Friday, Anti-War Radio’s Scott Horton did an interview with Kucinich. Here’s an update on his quest to visit an American citizen detained less than an hour from Kucinich’s congressional office.

That’s right. I put in a request to the Secretary of Defense who referred me to the Secretary of the Army who referred me to the Secretary of Navy who referred me to the Secretary of Defense and still not an answer on whether or not I can visit.

Kucinich goes on to note he’s a member of the Oversight Committee and that under the Constitution DOD ought to be subject to some accountability.

If these reports keep coming out and they do not permit third parties to come in and make an assessment, I don’t think we can take their word for it. We just can’t.

Obama says DOD has assured him everything they’re doing to Manning is standard. If so, then why are they fighting so hard to prevent a member of Congress from visiting him?

The Brothers Daley Cover Up Abuse of Suspects Again

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You may have noticed I snuck away for the weekend. Mr. EW and I decided to take the opportunity of Athenae’s book party to head to Chicago for a weekend. In spite of the fact that Athenae’s book was obviously timed to St. Paddy’s Day, in spite of the fact that I’ve been to Chicago for St. Paddy’s Day before, I somehow forgot there’d be thousands of drunk fake Irishmen in the streets from dawn to dusk.

Gaping at the green river is about as close as my Irish husband wanted to get to one of the legendary St. Patrick’s Day celebrations on earth. (He’s just jealous because Dublin’s celebration sucks shamrock by comparison.)

But I wasn’t entirely ignoring current events. One of the women in my hotel, up from Indiana for the weekend, told me she came up to see “our Mayor Daley” in the parade. “For the last time,” I thought, as I realized how this holiday is a bit of a send-off to the Mayor.

And so I was already thinking about the Daley empire when I read of brother Bill’s reasoned reflection before he determined State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley had to go.

While some White House officials knew of Crowley’s comments, White House chief of staff Bill Daley learned of them when ABC News asked that question of the president. Daley told White House officials of Crowley, “he’s done.”

Another Daley covers up abuse of suspects, I thought.

I was thinking of Richard M’s role in covering up the torture committed by Jon Burge and other Chicago cops.

Last Wednesday, IL Governor Pat Quinn signed a law outlawing the death penalty in Illinois. Next Wednesday, former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge reports for a four and a half year prison sentence for lying about torturing one suspect–though credible evidence suggests he tortured at least 50 and possibly as many as 200 police suspects. Those are the latest chapters in the long exposure of the systematic torture of black suspects by Burge’s South Chicago detective team, and the wrongful conviction of many of those suspects based on tortured confessions.

And Richard M is in the middle of the scandal, largely because as Cook County’s State’s Attorney he pawned off evidence of torture rather than investigate and prosecute.

Daley was Cook County’s state’s attorney for seven years during the 1980s, and his office approved at least 55 felony murder charges against black males who claim they confessed only after they were beaten, suffocated, burned and electro-shocked by Burge and his detectives.”Many of our men, or sons, fathers, brothers are behind bars for crimes they did not commit,” said one demonstrator Friday.

As demonstrators protested outside City Hall, the mayor attempted to explain this 1982 letter from then-police superintendent Richard Brzeczek expressing concern about torture allegations to then state’s attorney Daley. The mayor said he read it and referred it to subordinates believing the police department had the ultimate responsibility to investigate office misconduct.

“It’s up to the Chicago Police Department. That responsibility lies within them,” Daley said.

“What did Daley do about it? Absolutely nothing. And what does the report say about that? Nothing,” Read more →

Not Only Won’t Obama Close Gitmo, He’s Now Relying on Gitmo’s SOPs

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As I have repeatedly pointed out, stripping detainees to “demonstrate the omnipotence of the captor” was introduced as a Standard Operating Procedure at Gitmo back in 2002 when they were preparing to torture Mohammed al-Qahtani. Abu Zubaydah’s torturers, like Bradley Manning’s jailers, call it being “God.”

That must be the standard procedure that President Obama was talking about when he gave this explanation when Jake Tapper asked him about PJ Crowley’s condemnation of Manning’s treatment.

With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are. I can’t go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning’s safety as well. [my emphasis]

So not only won’t Obama close Gitmo, then, but he’s willing to rubber stamp the standards introduced there for use on American soil.

Update: Corrected the transcription.

PJ Crowley on Manning’s “Ridiculous, Counterproductive, and Stupid” Treatment

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As I noted earlier today, State Department Spokesperson PJ Crowley described Bradley Manning’s abuse as counterproductive and stupid at an event at MIT yesterday.

Ethan Zuckerman has a transcript of Crowley’s remarks.

Charlie deTar: There’s an elephant in the room during this discussion: Wikileaks. The US government is torturing a whistleblower in prison right now. How do we resolve a conversation about the future of new media in diplomacy with the government’s actions regarding Wikileaks?

PJC: “I spent 26 years in the air force. What is happening to Manning is ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid, and I don’t know why the DoD is doing it. Nevertheless, Manning is in the right place.” There are leaks everywhere in Washington – it’s a town that can’t keep a secret. But the scale is different. It was a colossal failure by the DoD to allow this mass of documents to be transported outside the network. Historically, someone has picked up a file of papers and passed it around – the information exposed is on one country or one subject. But this is a scale we’ve never seen before. If Julian Assange is right and we’re in an era where there are no secrets, do we expect that people will release Google’s search engine algorithms? The formula for Coca Cola? Some things are best kept secret. If we’re negotiating between the Israelis and the Palestinians, there will be compromises that are hard for each side to sell to their people – there’s a need for secrets.

Hey PJ? Your invocation of peace in Israel is admirable (though note Crowley appears to be confusing his damning leaks, since the exposure of the unreasonable concessions the Palestianian Authority gave Israel came from al-Jazeera, not WikiLeaks). But don’t you think we also have a right to know that our long-term intelligence partner in Egypt was offering up ways to cancel democratic elections in the same part of the world?

Since that report, Josh Rogin has gotten confirmation from Crowley that the reports are accurate.

Reached by The Cable, Crowley confirmed that he did in fact make the remarks.

“What I said was my personal opinion. It does not reflect an official USG policy position. I defer to the Department of Defense regarding the treatment of Bradley Manning,” Crowley told The Cable.

Finally, Jake Tapper asked Obama about Crowley’s comment. And the Commander in Chief’s response to being asked about abuse? Apparently DOD says abuse  is cool now.

Obama: “I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not procedures on Manning meet basic standards, they assure me that they are.”

Of course they meet basic standards! The “God” standard that has been part of our torture regime for 9 years now.

Update: Fixed my reference to the Palestine Papers.

State Department’s Crowley Condemns Treatment of Bradley Manning: “Counterproductive and Stupid”

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Crowley (via wikipedia)

When PJ Crowley tweeted this the other day:

These are not #Twitter or #Wikileaks revolutions. They belong to the people, but technology can expand and accelerate the pace of change.

I was going to tweet back that he had to say that, given the necessity of maintaining the Administration party line on WikiLeaks. I’ve pointed out the difficult position our government’s crackdown on WikiLeaks has put Crowley in before, after all.

But sometimes the truth has a way of slipping out:

I just heard an extraordinary remark from State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. He was speaking to a small audience at MIT on “the benefits of new media as it relates to foreign policy”, an event organised by the Center for Future Civic Media.

Around twenty of us were sitting around the table listening to his views on social media, the impact of the Twittersphere, the Arab uprisings, and so on, in a vast space-age conference room overlooking the Charles River and the Boston skyline. And then, inevitably, one young man said he wanted to address “the elephant in the room”. What did Crowley think, he asked, about Wikileaks? About the United States, in his words, “torturing a prisoner in a military brig”? Crowley didn’t stop to think. What’s being done to Bradley Manning by my colleagues at the Department of Defense “is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.”

Wow. Crowley has spent the last several months condemning the abuse of Middle Eastern dictators against their citizens. And now, in a room of twenty people, Crowley has condemned the abuse our own country commits.

I’ll be curious to see whether Crowley even disputed the assertion that Manning was being tortured.