Things I Wish I Said
Torture policies
What's been clear for a while is that the plan on torturing prisoners in US custody was conceived and directed from the center of the Bush Administration. The report spells out the details of the progression. Weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, President Bush issued a memo that said that detainees in this conflict could be treated without regard to the restrictions of the Geneva Conventions. This was interpreted, by people with intimate access to the President (and who may have been responsible for helping him come to that view in the first place), as authorizing them to construct legal fictions authorizing the adoption of torture as a standard operating procedure to be used on US detainees captured in the conflict.
Which they promptly did. Jim Haynes, the DoD legal counsel (and a Bush appointee), railroaded some legal cover for Rumsfeld to rely upon to authorize the use of torture for detainees.
The source for these torture techniques was the SERE program, which is a program run by the US armed forces to teach US military personnel how to resist illegal torture if they are caught by an enemy willing to break the Geneva Conventions. The techniques themselves are the ones used on US military by their enemies in Vietnam and Nazi Germany, and have been known for a long time to elicit false confessions. In other words, the SERE program is a perfect place to learn how to illegally torture detainees, and that's where Bush administration officials looked. It is clear to any onlooker that any legal fiction invented to justify the torture of enemy detainees using these methods is illegal and probably counterproductive.
There were hiccups as military lawyers raised fierce objections to torture being introduced as a standard technique for the US military. Rumsfeld authorized torture at Guantanamo in Dec 2002, then rescinded the order in Jan 2003. Haynes convened a Working Group, which relied on made-to-order legal opinions from Yoo and Addington, thus providing a legal fiction on which Rumsfeld relied to re-authorize torture in mid 2003.
By that fall, SERE trainers (who had instructed US military personnel in torture techniques at Guantanamo) had traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan to teach military personnel how to torture prisoners there as well. As the techniques were adopted (piecemeal) in various locations, they became "confused" (according to the post-Abu Ghraib investigations), and contradictory information was in circulation. Some SERE instructors thought the techniques were being used in dangerous ways. Subsets were authorized, then de-authorized. Meetings in which some generals objected weren't communicated to everyone.
In other words, there were two messages: one which said "it is OK to torture detainees in these several ways." This message came directly from President Bush and the civilian leadership of the Department of Defense, and no doubt found many US military personnel in support. The other came from many military lawyers, many generals, and no doubt many other US military personnel. That message was "do not torture detainees." From the beginning, many military lawyers and generals had protested vigorously to torture, and it is no surprise that in this climate of controversy and the attempt by the civilian leadership to authorize illegal torture practices in standard operating procedures under cover of railroaded legal fictions, that the exact details became confused.
It was in this climate that the abuses at Abu Ghraib took place.
The SERE torture techniques that the program trains US military to resist include, specifically: nakedness, stress positions, hooding, being treated like an animal (that is, leashed, forced to perform tricks), cold, poor food, slaps to the face and stomach, waterboarding, humiliation, and plays to specific phobias. Furthermore, as the Levin-McCain report makes clear, it is exactly these torture techniques which the Bush Administration was interested. A good example is the idea that Arabs have a fear of dogs. The SERE techniques include exploiting these fears. Several books and testimony shows that this was discussed explicitly in White House meetings, written into policies for Guantanamo and in Afghanistan and Iraq, and used on prisoners. This specific idea is a good example of how this list of torture techniques, adopted from a program known transparently to those who drew from it to be training US military to resist illegal torture, spread through US military operating procedure.
These techniques are manifest in the photographs of torture at Abu Ghraib. Forced nakedness. Stress positions. Intimidation by dogs. Being forced to behave as an animal. Cold. As such, the conclusion of the Levin-McCain report: that the actions taken by the US military personnel shown in the photos were, by and large, understood by them to be authorized as part of the torture regime which had been approved at the highest levels of the Bush Administration, the Pentagon, and in their own facility.
There are still some blank spots in the report. Why did it take the SERE program and its lawyers so long to realize that their specialties were being illegally exploited offensively by the military? (It was not until late 2003 that they started objecting to this use, and not until late 2004 that their lawyers and generals put a stop to it.) Did SERE trainers who traveled to these locations understand that they were training US military personnel to illegally torture detainees? It seems hard to believe they couldn't have. Did their superiors, who must have known of their trips to these locations, understand the purpose? It seems almost certain they did.
There are details to fill in. The details of how the practices spread from location to location are unclear. For example, the general in charge of Guantanamo visited Abu Ghraib as the torture techniques were coming to be practiced there. How important was that event in their adoption? It seems clear that many generals accepted these illegal practices, and many others did not. What did the objectors do to try to stop these illegal practices, and why did it take so long for them to be successful? Are there records of their objections with high level Department of Defense leadership? What was the disposition of any such objections. For example, by Dec of 2003, the military lawyers had informed Rumsfeld that he could no longer operate under color of the pro-torture legal fictions invented on his behalf. Yet it took at least another year for that to actually become felt as a matter of policy. This seems almost certainly due to active unwillingness to disseminate this policy, but the details of that aren't spelled out. It seems that reviews like this may have been as a result of high-level objections to torture policy, but who said what when isn't detailed in the report (at least, those portions released at present).
Perhaps the declassified version will fill in some of these details. It is important to figure out where the threads of responsibility lie. The reason is that many of these acts are war crimes of the sort for which Nazis and others were executed for by the United States.
¶ 11:56 PM 0 Comments
Monday, December 15, 2008
Wow. I just read the Executive Summary and Conclusions of Report on Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody, released unanimously by the Senate Armed Services Committee. It isn't really news, at this point. Most of the facts have been discussed in previous books. But the report puts together a timeline and the names attached in an official way that will hopefully be fruitful for further investigations.
What's been clear for a while is that the plan on torturing prisoners in US custody was conceived and directed from the center of the Bush Administration. The report spells out the details of the progression. Weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, President Bush issued a memo that said that detainees in this conflict could be treated without regard to the restrictions of the Geneva Conventions. This was interpreted, by people with intimate access to the President (and who may have been responsible for helping him come to that view in the first place), as authorizing them to construct legal fictions authorizing the adoption of torture as a standard operating procedure to be used on US detainees captured in the conflict.
Which they promptly did. Jim Haynes, the DoD legal counsel (and a Bush appointee), railroaded some legal cover for Rumsfeld to rely upon to authorize the use of torture for detainees.
The source for these torture techniques was the SERE program, which is a program run by the US armed forces to teach US military personnel how to resist illegal torture if they are caught by an enemy willing to break the Geneva Conventions. The techniques themselves are the ones used on US military by their enemies in Vietnam and Nazi Germany, and have been known for a long time to elicit false confessions. In other words, the SERE program is a perfect place to learn how to illegally torture detainees, and that's where Bush administration officials looked. It is clear to any onlooker that any legal fiction invented to justify the torture of enemy detainees using these methods is illegal and probably counterproductive.
There were hiccups as military lawyers raised fierce objections to torture being introduced as a standard technique for the US military. Rumsfeld authorized torture at Guantanamo in Dec 2002, then rescinded the order in Jan 2003. Haynes convened a Working Group, which relied on made-to-order legal opinions from Yoo and Addington, thus providing a legal fiction on which Rumsfeld relied to re-authorize torture in mid 2003.
By that fall, SERE trainers (who had instructed US military personnel in torture techniques at Guantanamo) had traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan to teach military personnel how to torture prisoners there as well. As the techniques were adopted (piecemeal) in various locations, they became "confused" (according to the post-Abu Ghraib investigations), and contradictory information was in circulation. Some SERE instructors thought the techniques were being used in dangerous ways. Subsets were authorized, then de-authorized. Meetings in which some generals objected weren't communicated to everyone.
In other words, there were two messages: one which said "it is OK to torture detainees in these several ways." This message came directly from President Bush and the civilian leadership of the Department of Defense, and no doubt found many US military personnel in support. The other came from many military lawyers, many generals, and no doubt many other US military personnel. That message was "do not torture detainees." From the beginning, many military lawyers and generals had protested vigorously to torture, and it is no surprise that in this climate of controversy and the attempt by the civilian leadership to authorize illegal torture practices in standard operating procedures under cover of railroaded legal fictions, that the exact details became confused.
It was in this climate that the abuses at Abu Ghraib took place.
The SERE torture techniques that the program trains US military to resist include, specifically: nakedness, stress positions, hooding, being treated like an animal (that is, leashed, forced to perform tricks), cold, poor food, slaps to the face and stomach, waterboarding, humiliation, and plays to specific phobias. Furthermore, as the Levin-McCain report makes clear, it is exactly these torture techniques which the Bush Administration was interested. A good example is the idea that Arabs have a fear of dogs. The SERE techniques include exploiting these fears. Several books and testimony shows that this was discussed explicitly in White House meetings, written into policies for Guantanamo and in Afghanistan and Iraq, and used on prisoners. This specific idea is a good example of how this list of torture techniques, adopted from a program known transparently to those who drew from it to be training US military to resist illegal torture, spread through US military operating procedure.
These techniques are manifest in the photographs of torture at Abu Ghraib. Forced nakedness. Stress positions. Intimidation by dogs. Being forced to behave as an animal. Cold. As such, the conclusion of the Levin-McCain report: that the actions taken by the US military personnel shown in the photos were, by and large, understood by them to be authorized as part of the torture regime which had been approved at the highest levels of the Bush Administration, the Pentagon, and in their own facility.
There are still some blank spots in the report. Why did it take the SERE program and its lawyers so long to realize that their specialties were being illegally exploited offensively by the military? (It was not until late 2003 that they started objecting to this use, and not until late 2004 that their lawyers and generals put a stop to it.) Did SERE trainers who traveled to these locations understand that they were training US military personnel to illegally torture detainees? It seems hard to believe they couldn't have. Did their superiors, who must have known of their trips to these locations, understand the purpose? It seems almost certain they did.
There are details to fill in. The details of how the practices spread from location to location are unclear. For example, the general in charge of Guantanamo visited Abu Ghraib as the torture techniques were coming to be practiced there. How important was that event in their adoption? It seems clear that many generals accepted these illegal practices, and many others did not. What did the objectors do to try to stop these illegal practices, and why did it take so long for them to be successful? Are there records of their objections with high level Department of Defense leadership? What was the disposition of any such objections. For example, by Dec of 2003, the military lawyers had informed Rumsfeld that he could no longer operate under color of the pro-torture legal fictions invented on his behalf. Yet it took at least another year for that to actually become felt as a matter of policy. This seems almost certainly due to active unwillingness to disseminate this policy, but the details of that aren't spelled out. It seems that reviews like this may have been as a result of high-level objections to torture policy, but who said what when isn't detailed in the report (at least, those portions released at present).
Perhaps the declassified version will fill in some of these details. It is important to figure out where the threads of responsibility lie. The reason is that many of these acts are war crimes of the sort for which Nazis and others were executed for by the United States.
¶ 11:56 PM 0 Comments
Licensing Natural Images
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Sometimes it is hard to get a good picture of how much value humans get from having animals and their habitats exist. One idea that might make this more clear would be to charge for the use of their images. That is, in the same way that it costs a company or organization money to use the likeness of a celebrity on their products, it would cost them money to use the likeness of a fox, or eagle, or valley, or mountain.
Of course the hard part is figuring out who would administer these licenses, but a revenue-maximizing monopoly would be a decent way to start (same as with a celebrity). Such a venture would then be obligated to use some large fraction of the revenues on conservation efforts. Or it could be structured as an agent contract. That would make it easy to figure out if the agency price was fair: compare to what human celebrities can negotiate with their agents.
¶ 9:08 AM 0 Comments
Complicated Assets
I'm also reminded of a successful businessman whose advice is to "buy what you know." Often, I think people don't heed this advice, but when there's a flight to liquidity, they sure do. "You want me to buy a what?!" one imagines traders without the expertise in CDOs, CDSs, super-senior tranches, and the like asking their counterparties.
Thus, precisely when you wish there was a liquid market for these complex securities is precisely when a) people don't want to buy things they can't comprehend, and b) no-one will trust you an inch to explain it to them! (After all, you moron, you thought you understood them and you just got destroyed the economy and your institution.) ¶ 7:47 PM 0 Comments
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
I was reading Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein complain about the complexity of understanding the assets involved with the banking meltdown. These are smart people. And while it may be true that the underlying bets are (in retrospect) easily identified as bad, the reality is that it is hard to figure out the securities involved.
I'm also reminded of a successful businessman whose advice is to "buy what you know." Often, I think people don't heed this advice, but when there's a flight to liquidity, they sure do. "You want me to buy a what?!" one imagines traders without the expertise in CDOs, CDSs, super-senior tranches, and the like asking their counterparties.
Thus, precisely when you wish there was a liquid market for these complex securities is precisely when a) people don't want to buy things they can't comprehend, and b) no-one will trust you an inch to explain it to them! (After all, you moron, you thought you understood them and you just got destroyed the economy and your institution.) ¶ 7:47 PM 0 Comments
Bailout Fail
So why isn't the bailout working? Well, it sort of is. The TED spread (the gap between treasury note yields and LIBOR interbank rates) is down from an insanely high peak to more like "intense crisis" levels. But this would have happened with a sensible intervention policy as well. What's making TED drop, in my opinion, is the belief that government will step in to backstop major banks. I'll bet that in fact, a more sensible plan might have actually eased the credit crisis more. The theory would be that with crazy giveaways like the Citi bailout, the public will start clamoring for heads to roll and the backstop guarantee will evaporate as politically impossible (and damn the consequences), whereas if it was conducted in a more sensible way, such a clamor might be further away.
By "sensible" I mean that the government could be demanding far, far more concessions than it is getting. The banks are using bailout money for shareholder dividends, for instance. The government isn't even getting the shares in the banks it deserves for the value of the bailouts it is handing out. The Citi and AIG bailouts are the prime examples here. There's little doubt that Citi would crash and burn without government assistance. The government should demand a much, much higher stake than it did. Given that the alternative is liquidation, is 99% the right number? (That is, a nationalization.) Given Swedish history, it might be. One could argue that the right number is the one that pulls the most non-government capital back into the game. Too little runs the political risk of intervention fatigue. Too much may run the risk that investors, if they pick the wrong bank to invest in, will get their shares confiscated if it goes under. Caveat emptor and all that, but there's definitely that argument that you can go too high. (Unless you're willing to nationalize all the banks in one go.)
It would seem like even Treasury Secretary Paulson's original second-rate plan of having a government-lubricated market for trash mortgage securities would be better than the straight-up giveaway he's ended up doing. (Insert lubrication joke here.) Even better would be direct government investment in banks in return for radical concessions, up to and including nationalization for the worst offenders.
More from Robert Reich and Mark Thoma. ¶ 8:51 PM 0 Comments
Monday, December 1, 2008
What's up with the bailout? Tons (literally) of money spent, and still the stock market is in turmoil, economic indicators are bad, and the credit crisis is still severe.
So why isn't the bailout working? Well, it sort of is. The TED spread (the gap between treasury note yields and LIBOR interbank rates) is down from an insanely high peak to more like "intense crisis" levels. But this would have happened with a sensible intervention policy as well. What's making TED drop, in my opinion, is the belief that government will step in to backstop major banks. I'll bet that in fact, a more sensible plan might have actually eased the credit crisis more. The theory would be that with crazy giveaways like the Citi bailout, the public will start clamoring for heads to roll and the backstop guarantee will evaporate as politically impossible (and damn the consequences), whereas if it was conducted in a more sensible way, such a clamor might be further away.
By "sensible" I mean that the government could be demanding far, far more concessions than it is getting. The banks are using bailout money for shareholder dividends, for instance. The government isn't even getting the shares in the banks it deserves for the value of the bailouts it is handing out. The Citi and AIG bailouts are the prime examples here. There's little doubt that Citi would crash and burn without government assistance. The government should demand a much, much higher stake than it did. Given that the alternative is liquidation, is 99% the right number? (That is, a nationalization.) Given Swedish history, it might be. One could argue that the right number is the one that pulls the most non-government capital back into the game. Too little runs the political risk of intervention fatigue. Too much may run the risk that investors, if they pick the wrong bank to invest in, will get their shares confiscated if it goes under. Caveat emptor and all that, but there's definitely that argument that you can go too high. (Unless you're willing to nationalize all the banks in one go.)
It would seem like even Treasury Secretary Paulson's original second-rate plan of having a government-lubricated market for trash mortgage securities would be better than the straight-up giveaway he's ended up doing. (Insert lubrication joke here.) Even better would be direct government investment in banks in return for radical concessions, up to and including nationalization for the worst offenders.
More from Robert Reich and Mark Thoma. ¶ 8:51 PM 0 Comments
