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| Protests outside the White House fueled President Obama's decision to close Guantanamo Prison, one of the locations of prisoner torture mentioned in the recent Senate Intelligence Committee report. Image: Chris DeRidder / Shutterstock.com |
The responses to the release of the Senate Intelligence
Committee’s report on torture have been mixed both within and outside of the
United States. In fact, even before the
latest report, the Obama administration has been dealing with the aftermath of
torture activities in court.
In February 2009, the case of Bay Area firm Jeppesen
Dataplan came to court. Jeppesen was
known to have flown captives to foreign countries notable for the brutality of
their prisons. In the damage suit, five
men—some still incarcerated—accused Jeppesen of complicity with torture during
the George W. Bush administration.
Though President Obama had previously issued orders banning torture and
closing CIA “black sites,” as well as condemning waterboarding as an illegal
act of torture, the result of the Jeppseon case set a precedent for dismissing
such cases as likely to damage national security by revealing state secrets.
Similarly,
though the 500-page Senate report summary found that the CIA had tortured many
suspected terrorists using methods such as forced rectal feeding, coffin-like
confinement, and sleep deprivation (without producing useable information that
could not have been gotten through other means), the issue of whether or not to
prosecute those involved remained largely unexamined. Though Obama
stated that the practices are “inconsistent with our values as a nation,”
he also stressed not wanting to “refight old arguments” and to “leave these
techniques where they belong—in the past.”
The Justice Department has ruled out criminal prosecutions at this time.
Elsewhere
in the world, reactions have been equally tepid, for the most part. Though many suggested the report release be
delayed due to potential unrest from the Middle East—as most of the torture
victims were Middle Easterners suspected of terrorism—the reactions from that
area have been fairly muted, compared to what was expected. There were no significant protests and few
official statements, though some discussion did occur on Twitter.
Of
those who did comment publically, Iranian officials condemned the
interrogation program. Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said the report documented “violence, extremism, and
secrecy as institutionalized in the US security system.” In Turkey, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu
said that "torture
and other brutal, inhuman, or degrading treatments or punishments are unacceptable
under any circumstance" but also called the report a "positive step in
terms of transparency."
Could
it be more beneficial to move forward rather than try to pursue legal action
against the perpetrators mentioned in the report, especially given the relative
lack of violent response from the Middle East?
Or will the American justice system suffer for not bestowing
consequences for potentially unlawful behavior?
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