WHY THIS RESOLUTION?:
John Moon, MSCA Delegate Assembly 2005

All of us remember the terrible images realeased by CBS on 28 April 2004 of the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib: the hooded man, the pyramid, the naked man on a leash being tugged around by a female soldier. At the time, I was researching an article on the effects of war, a study specifically centered on the second Iraq war. Inevitablly, I was drawn to the issue of torture. I became convinced that an impartial investigation was necessary because all the previous investigations had been in-house jobs. Major General Taguba was fearless and honest in investigating the abuses at Abu Ghraib. But he could not go higher than Brigadier General Janis L. Karpinski. And the subsequent Army investigations could not touch the White House Counsel or the Department of Justice.

The lawyers in the Department of Justice expanded the powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to an unprecedented extent. Since customary international law is not federal law, they declared that the President may ignore its prohibitions. On 7 February 2002, Jay S. Beybee, Assistant Attorney General to Alberto R. Gonzales, at that time Counsel to the President, argued that “Under Article II [of the US Constitution] the President possesses the power to interpret treaties on behalf of the nation.” He can modify, suspend or ignore treaties; he can interpret federal law under his powers as commander-in-chief. He has unlimited power over the interrogation of detainees, a power which the President’s lawyers argued was merely an extension of his power to conduct military operations without any restrictions from Congress. Bybee on 1 August 2002: “Any effort by Congress to regulate the interrogation of battlefield combatants would violate the Constitution’s sole vesting of the Commander-in-Chief authority in the President.” In other words, in these matters, his authority is absolute.

Using this sweeping assertion, the President’s lawyers redefined torture, defining it narrowly under four criteria: 1). It must be intentional; 2) it must be prolonged; 3) it must have a profound impact on the subject; 4) it must constitute an extreme act. One more Bybee: “Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture...it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years.” Physical pain in itself, humiliating treatment, inhuman and degrading treatment in themselves do not qualify as torture.

In Guantanomo, in the Afghan prisons, at Camp Bucca in Iraq, at the prison on the Baghdad International Airport, at Abu Ghraib, the following international treaties and federal laws were ignored or violated:

CUSTOMARY INTERNATIONAL LAW.

THE THIRD GENEVA CONVENTION: RELATIVE TO THE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF WAR: 1949. RATIFIED BY THE UNITED STATES. SUSPENDED BY THE PRESIDENT IN REGARD TO THE TALIBAN AND AL QAEDA. GENERAL COLIN POWELL, THE SECRETARY OF STATE, OPPOSED THIS SUSPENSION.

THE FOURTH GENEVA CONVENTION: RELATIVE TO THE PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS IN TIME OF WAR: 1949. RATIFIED BY THE UNITED STATES. SUSPENDED BY THE PRESIDENT IN REGARD TO THE TALIBAN AND AL QAEDA. GENERAL COLIN POWELL, THE SECRETARY OF STATE, OPPOSED THIS SUSPENSION.

THE INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS: 1966. RATIFIED BY THE UNITED STATES (1992).

THE CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE [CAT]: 1984. RAFIFIED BY THE UNITED STATES (1994).

THE INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS [ICCPR].

INTER-AMERICAN DECLARATION ON THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF MAN.

THE UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE [UCMJ].

THE FIFTH, EIGHTH AND FOURTEENTH AMENDMENTS TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION.

Individual soldiers have been investigated and punished. It is time for high administration officials, many of whom have been promoted, to be held accountable.