Someone may ultimately get convicted of something in connection with the destruction of CIA videos showing the torture of two terrorism suspects, but if so it will be along the lines of lying to Congress or criminal contempt, not anything having to do with torture.
That’s because the Military Commissions Act of 2006 amended the War Crimes Act of 1996 to immunize U.S. government employees against prosecution for doing the things the videos are supposed to have documented. They couldn’t be used as evidence in a prosecution for war crimes, at least not in this country, because for now, at least, no one can be prosecuted for war crimes. Accordingly their destruction couldn’t be considered obstruction of justice, since that’s a crime that requires the possibility of justice in the first event.
Congress could repeal or amend the Military Commissions Act to remove the immunity provision, but that would require an effort by the Democratic majority of a sort that they’re apparently constitutionally (the temperament, not the document) unequipped to undertake.
It appears that no one in the CIA or the White House ordered that the videos be preserved. It’s possible that Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington, encouraged their destruction, just as other administration lawyers apparently encouraged, but didn’t order, their preservation. But unless someone can show that Addington did so with the purpose of foiling an investigation, of which there weren’t any at the time, or of defying a court order compelling the Justice Department to produce materials that might have included the videos, so what? At least four members of Congress—the Gang of Four, consisting of the chairs and ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees—knew about the videos and did nothing to preserve them either. If Addington is guilty of something, so are they.
Congress has made torture effectively legal. That should be a much larger scandal than the question of who was or wasn’t involved in destroying the evidence of an unprosecutable crime. In the end, investigations into the videos will result in nothing other than very large legal bills for a number of people; enough to ruin the small fry while leaving others unscarred. And meanwhile, Congress continues to enable the administration’s adventures in illegal war, surveillance and who knows what else. Their time would be far better spent on rectifying those oversights (yes, pun intended) than on pursuing what will prove to be a pointless excercise in chest-beating.
Your first few sentences leave me very concerned. I want you to read the USA Patriot Act. If you want to stop the ‘evil doers’ then you must understand the provisions for FELONY prosecutions using the USA Patriot Act.
This is not about pinning a ‘torture’ label on bush and his criminal cronies. THEY WANT you to focus on ‘homicidal images’ and images of groteque torture.
A human mind filled with these images and the emotions that accompany them is just a pawn in a game.
FOCUS on the FELONY.
The actual physical destruction of evidence of high level terrorist suspect interrogations is the crime.
It is a FELONY VIOLATION of the USA Patriot Act to destroy evidence in a terrorist investigation. In a time of war, to destroy evidence is treason.
We must use the Patriot Act to prosecute those responsible for the destruction of this key evidence. We must rally the cry of ‘UNAMERICAN’ and FELONY VIOLATION of the USA Patriot Act.
The press will have a HUGE PARTY with only the assertion by those with access that bush and his administration have committed unamerican acts in a time of war, that they have willfully destroyed incredibly valuable evidence in a terrorist investigation, it really is that simple.
READING and understanding the Patriot Act is NOT SIMPLE and requires true dedication. I believe most persons who have not read the Patriot Act are simply terrified of the law itself and that is how your government wants you … terrified of the law and unable to think clearly and use the tools that are HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT.
Prosecute with the Patriot Act for freedom.
Patrick, I’d be grateful if you could point me to the section of the PATRIOT Act you’re talking about. The thing is huge; even approximate directions would be helpful.
I have to question your assertion that the videos constituted “incredibly valuable evidence in a terrorist investigation”, which also implies that the CIA wouldn’t have found some way to preserve anything of value during the two or three years between the making of the videos and the destruction of them.