Cheating Justice (29 page)

Tyrie, also the chair of a separate British parliamentary group on rendition, called the All Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition, complained in January 2011 that the government had refused to release needed information about Britain's complicity in the handling and rendition of detainees.
81

Canada has reviewed and issued a thousand-page report on the Maher Arar case, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was conducting an investigation into wrongdoing by Syrian and American officials, Amy Goodman reported in June 2010.
82

A 2007 European Parliament report examined and documented more than one thousand CIA rendition flights over Europe, reported Amnesty International in a 2010 publication,
Open Secret: Mounting Evidence of Europe's Complicity in Rendition and Secret Detention
. The European Parliament identified nations that had facilitated flights by the CIA, and those that had likely opened their territories to CIA black sites.
83

The United Nations has played a role as well. A UN Joint Study on Secret Detention, released in February 2010, decried in the strongest terms the U.S. use of secret detention in the “war on terror,” comparing it to the Gulag system in the former Soviet Union and “disappearances” in Latin America, said Amnesty International in its
Open Secret
report in 2010.

In November 2010, the UN Human Rights Council questioned U.S. representative Harold Koh, legal advisor at the State Department, about the mistreatment of detainees in the course of a review of the nation's human rights record. One member of the Council, Germán Mundarain Hernández of Venezuela, urged the United States to close secret detention centers and to “punish those people who torture, disappear and execute detainees arbitrarily and [to] provide compensation to victims.”
84
Koh said that the United States was “turning a page” on prior practices and was ensuring humane treatment of all detainees.
85

Others connected to the UN were not entirely convinced. The outgoing UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, an Austrian lawyer, drove home the point that the United States was obligated under the Convention Against Torture to “independently investigate every allegation of torture or suspicion of torture,” according to an October 2010 Reuters article.
86
“There are plenty of allegations. Not much has been done,” said Nowak. Because of U.S. unwillingness to take these steps on its own, Nowak proposed a probe by a special prosecutor or a panel of international experts. His successor, Juan Ernesto Mendez, a law professor in the United States who suffered torture in Argentina in the 1970s, has agreed, insisting that the United States has a duty to investigate “what happened and by whose orders.” Mendez added: “Unfortunately, we haven't seen much in the way of accountability.”
87
And in April 2011, the former chief UN nuclear weapons inspector and head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, proposed an international inquiry into the legality of the war in Iraq and a possible war crimes trial, reported Charles J. Hanley in the
Washington Examiner.
88

International commissions may bolster and support the efforts of those in the United States who are seeking accountability, but only if they remain independent and free from the type of political manipulation that the WikiLeaks cables show the United States was willing to employ in other investigations. Mounting evidence around the world makes the transgressions of President Bush and Vice President Cheney increasingly difficult to ignore in the United States.

One thing seems clear. The issues are not likely to disappear. German lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck, the general secretary of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, said in 2008 that the international community has become increasingly engaged in seeking accountability for U.S. torture of detainees and human rights abuses. “Many lawyers, many prosecutors, many judges in several European countries took action, and I think there is more to come,” he said, “but it will depend very much if there is really something going on in the US. If not, I guess there will be more and more lawsuits here in Europe.”
89

The Bush administration went to great lengths to use its powers while in office to block accountability, and to immunize insiders from prosecution. Even though the United States has forcefully pressured, even threatened, foreign countries into protecting the Bush team from accountability, those nations also have to respond to the political sensibilities of their own people, many of whom are unwilling to wave off or justify crimes against humanity. Members of the Bush administration—and Americans who would follow their example—are on notice that, in a global world, they may face global accountability.

What can be done to respond to the misdeeds of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and their aiders and abettors? And to recover from the damage that they have caused to our democracy?

In the time that has elapsed since they left office, more information has come to light about the destructiveness of their actions. We can see more clearly the lingering effects of impunity and how it works to compound the harm already done to our democracy, our standing in the world, our sense of who we are as a nation, and the real lives of real people injured by war, torture, illegal surveillance, and more. As members of the Bush administration attempt to rewrite history and paint themselves in a positive light, speaking up for truth and accountability becomes more important than ever.

Now is the time to gather new strength in a movement for accountability. Although the task may seem daunting and difficult, positive efforts around the world to secure justice offer a healthy dose of optimism. Success can be measured by the determination of good people who persevere. While it may take many years, the American people will find out why President Bush really invaded Iraq, why he instituted a regime of torture and cruelty previously unknown in American history, and why he put into place a vast program of surveillance of Americans. Ultimately, the appropriate remedies—civil or criminal—will be brought to bear on his conduct.

Recent examples underscore how impunity for grave crimes around the world and in the U.S. has been shattered, sometimes many years later.

On November 26, 2010, sixty years after the fact, the Russian parliament finally acknowledged Josef Stalin's guilt for the massacre of twenty thousand Polish officers in the Katyn Forest.
1
For many years, the charges were deflected; first the Soviet government and then its Russian successor blamed the Nazis. But the truth eventually could not be denied. While Stalin still had his defenders, and though he was not shamed or tried during his lifetime, this determination, fully supported by the historical record, will stain his memory forever.

And after twenty-five years, justice finally began to catch up with Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator, in London, of all places, where he had gone for medical treatment. As the result of an extradition request by the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, described in chapter 5, Pinochet was put under house arrest. Chileans took heart from the proceedings abroad and initiated new actions against him for murder and torture.
2
For the last years of his life Pinochet felt the hot breath of accountability on his neck, and the world, including the many he had injured and their families, finally cradled a feeling of real justice.

Even in the United States, sanctuary ended for people who bombed and killed civil rights workers in the South in the 1960s. It took decades, but bold prosecutors were able to bring new cases and win convictions in some of the most horrific instances of segregationist violence—the assassination of Medgar Evers, the bombing that killed four girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, and the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi. People determined to see justice, including family members and crusading journalists, never gave up, and eventually they succeeded.

Time and the truth also caught up with Nazi war criminals who had come to the United States after World War II and were living under false pretenses. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of war criminals who aided the Nazis as concentration camp guards, police officers, and local officials tried to hide their identities. It took more than a quarter of a century for action to be taken. Finally, the law was strengthened, a special Justice Department unit was created, and more than one hundred war criminals left the country, or were deported or extradited. Cases were still being brought more than sixty-five years after the end of World War II.
3

These examples stand as warning to President Bush and Vice President Cheney and their team that their violations of U.S. law will not be forgotten. By refusing to accept their misdeeds, Americans can send a strong signal that there will be no escape from accountability. Over the long run, it's hard to prevent justice from being done.

At stake in this effort is nothing less than preserving the oxygen that keeps democracy going—and that is the rule of law.

Citizens are the generating power for accountability—and there are many steps that can be taken to achieve it. These efforts range from simple actions to the more complex, and they parallel the strategies of many social change movements. With the information available on the Web from trustworthy sources such as Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and others, people concerned about accountability can keep informed of developments as they emerge, and build on them. People have sought resolutions from professional organizations, such as the American Bar Association;
4
others have formed new advocacy groups, such as the National Religious Coalition Against Torture, which published a tool kit and released a video.
5
In Berkeley, California, the local government sponsored “Say No to Torture Week,”
6
while progressive activists in the Midwest secured a meeting with their senator to press for accountability on torture and then posted a video about it on YouTube.
7
Citizen journalism, letters to the editor, blog posts—all can have a cumulative and powerful effect.

What is vital for our democracy is for people to speak out for justice, be informed, expand their reach, and bring others along. Paraphrasing a Talmudic sage, it is not the responsibility of any single person to finish the task, but neither is any person permitted to avoid it.

The authors would like to thank and acknowledge the many people who guided this book along its way. The support and encouragement of Max Palevsky were central to developing this book, and his resolute commitment to fighting for democracy and justice continued to resonate even after his death in 2010. We wish to thank our publisher, Beacon Press, and the terrific people associated with it, in particular, the director and our editor, Helene Atwan, and the assistant to the director, Crystal Paul. Loretta Barrett, our wise and experienced agent and friend, played an invaluable role, as did her colleagues at Loretta Barrett Books, Inc. Especially indispensable and inspiring were the people in our lives who shared their kindness, generosity, and advice, and, for that, we express our deep gratitude to Jennifer Clarke, Jodi Evans, Terry Allen, Angela Bonavoglia, Lory Frankel, Susan Cohen, Michael angel Johnson, and Robert Holtzman.

1.
“In Bush's Final Days, Are Pardons in the Works?”
All Things Considered
, NPR, November 23, 2008,
www.npr.org/
.

2.
Kenneth Roth, “Will Bush Pardon Himself?”
Daily Beast
, January 18, 2009,
www.thedailybeast.com
.

3.
Brent Budowsky, “Bush Will Issue a Mass Pardon,”
Pundits
blog,
Hill
, July 25, 2008,
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/
.

4.
George W. Bush,
Decision Points
(New York: Crown, 2010), p. 170.

5.
Dick Cheney, interview with Jonathan Karl,
Good Morning America
, December 15, 2008,
http://abcnews.go.com
.

6.
Elizabeth Holtzman with Cynthia L. Cooper,
The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens
(New York: Nation Books, 2006).

7.
“Statement by President George W. Bush, June 26, 2004,” PEN America Center website,
www.pen.org/
.

1.
George W. Bush, 2003 State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003,
www.c-spanvideo.org/
.

2.
“Faces of the Fallen,”
Washington Post
,
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen/iraq/
(accessed April 5, 2011).

3.
Iraq Coalition Casualties Count,
iCasualties
,
http://icasualties.org/
(accessed March 27, 2011).

4.
Michael E. O'Hanlon and Ian Livingston,
Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam Iraq
, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution, July 28, 2011,
www.brookings.edu/iraqindex
.

5.
Terri Tanielian and Lisa H. Jaycox, eds.,
Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery
, Rand Corp., Doc. No. MG-720-CCF, 2008,
www.rand.org/
.

6.
Matthew Duss, Peter Juul, and Brian Katulis, “The Iraq War Ledger: A Tabulation of the Human, Financial, and Strategic Costs,” Center for American Progress, May 6, 2010,
www.americanprogress.org/
.

7.
Anna Mulrine, “Iraq War: Why Us Military Withdrawal Might Not Happen in 2011,”
Christian Science Monitor
, February 17, 2011.

8.
Charles Lewis and Mark Reading Smith, “Iraq: The War Card,” Center for Public Integrity, January 23, 2008,
http://projects.publicintegrity.org/
.