Mukasey and Mission Impossible
By
Max J. Castro
Karen
Hughes resigned her post as head of public diplomacy for the United
States last week. Hughes, a friend and political confidante of the
President, was in charge of improving the image of the United States,
especially in the Middle East. Why did she quit?
There
was no reason given for Hughes’s departure, but another event that
took place in the nation’s capital last week gives a clue of why
she might have found the job of winning the hearts and minds of
people around the globe frustrating and ultimately futile.
That
event was the testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee of
Judge Michael Mukasey, Bush’s nominee to fill the post of attorney
general left vacant by the departure of the unlamented Alberto
Gonzalez.
By
Max J. Castro Read Spanish Version
majcastro@gmail.com
Karen
Hughes resigned her post as head of public diplomacy for the United
States last week. Hughes, a friend and political confidante of the
President, was in charge of improving the image of the United States,
especially in the Middle East. Why did she quit?
There
was no reason given for Hughes’s departure, but another event that
took place in the nation’s capital last week gives a clue of why
she might have found the job of winning the hearts and minds of
people around the globe frustrating and ultimately futile.
That
event was the testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee of
Judge Michael Mukasey, Bush’s nominee to fill the post of attorney
general left vacant by the departure of the unlamented Alberto
Gonzalez.
In
the course of his testimony, Mukasey refused to say whether he
considers the practice of waterboarding torture and illegal. That
despite the fact that waterboarding, which involves the simulated
drowning of prisoners under interrogation, has been considered
torture under U.S. and international law for decades.
Long
condemned by human rights groups as one of the worst forms of
torture, waterboarding, which in Spanish-speaking countries is known
as “el submarino,” was widely practiced by South American
military dictatorships during the “dirty wars” of the 1970s. The
human rights doctrine established by President Jimmy Carter, which
officially remains a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, was
developed as a response to abuses such as waterboarding.
Waterboaring
is the epitome of torture. For the jurist nominated to be the chief
law enforcement officer for the United States to refuse to qualify it
as such speaks volumes about why Karen Hughes, or for that matter
anyone charged with defending the United States in the court of world
public opinion, is today faced with an impossible mission.
What
Mukasey has said, and the reasons he has adduced for refusing to say
that waterboarding is torture, are instructive. Mukasey has declared
waterboarding to be both “repugnant” and possibly “over the
line.” Possibly? So, waterboarding, according to Mukasey, may be
repugnant and also “within the line”? What line is that, and if
waterboarding is not over it, what then would qualify?
The
reason Mukasey gives for not making a definitive statement on the
subject of waterboarding is that he has not had access to the
classified information regarding the techniques used by U.S.
interrogators. But why should that matter? According to Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, waterboarding is not a
close call but a clear case of torture. Thus, says Leahy, “No
American should need a classified briefing to determine whether
waterboarding is torture.
But
Mukasey apparently does; the reason is simple as well as shocking.
According to a story reported in The
Miami
Herald,
Mukasey doesn’t want “to render an opinion that would expose
government officials who approved the technique to possible legal
liability.” And who, pray tell, might those officials be?
Incredibly,
Mukasey’s opinion on whether waterboarding is illegal and a form of
torture does not rest on the legal standing of the technique or its
extremely cruel nature but on the legal ramifications for those who
may have carried it out or ordered it. In effect, Mukasey’s
absolute priority is to ensure impunity for top Bush administration
officials. In this, Mukasey seems to be saying something like the
following: “If
our people (U.S. interrogators) did it, if
they (Bush and other top administration officials) approved it, then
it is not torture and it is not illegal!
It’s
an amazing, twisted, fallacious argument made necessary by the fact
that, in its absence, the top echelon of the Bush administration may
be subject to prosecution for war crimes under U.S. and international
law.
Yet,
such a travesty was not enough to convince Democratic Senators Dianne
Feinstein and Charles Schumer to oppose the nominee, who they say is
“no Alberto Gonzales” and “far better than anyone could expect
from this administration.” Mukasey will be confirmed and, as in so
many other cases, including the Iraq war, another Bush outrage is
perpetrated with the complicity of liberal Democrats.
People
in other parts of the world, especially Latin America, won’t be as
easily swayed as Schumer and Feinstein. Torture, impunity, the
complicity of respectable and even liberal people, are all things
people in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and other countries of
Latin America know far too well and repudiate. Like a submarine, the
esteem with which the United States is held in the region and beyond
will continue to sink.
Torture
leaves a lasting stain that is removed only through accountability.
Mukasey and President Bush, the man who will be Mukasey’s boss if
he is confirmed, are trying desperately to make sure there never will
be accountability. As long as that is the case, Karen Hughes, or a
thousand public diplomats more capable than she, will be faced with
Mission Impossible.
