The Generals Never Learn

Torture has gotten this administration in trouble again. Because of the use of torture the military trials at Guantanamo may never take place.

Salim Hamdan, who evidently was a driver for Osama Ben Ladin is the first to be tried before the new military commissions on Guantanamo. The administration admits that he was tortured while in detention. The judge in the case, Captain Keith J. Allred has ruled that the General supervising the courts Thomas W. Hartmann has acted improperly and ordered that General Hartmann cease involvement with any Guantanamo prosecutions.

One of the issues involved is Hartmann’s insistence that the prosecution use testimony extracted under torture. Under the current Military Commissions Act testimony extracted under torture may not be used. The New York Times reports that the judge noted that, “the prosecutors have an ethical obligation to present only evidence they consider reliable.

Colonel Morris D. Davis, who had resigned as the chief Guantanamo prosecutor, also testified that General Hartmann, although required to maintain his neutrality regarding prosecutions, has pressured the prosecutor to move forward with trials and has indicated which detainees should be prosecuted first.

Of course the conditions on Guantanamo in which ‘high value’ detainees are held may well be considered inhuman. In a special section of the camp, these detainees are kept in isolated cells and are let out to exercise one hour a day, often at night, thus never seeing daylight. Attorneys for Salim Hamdan have said that after six years in jail, having been tortured and then confined under these conditions, Mr. Hamdan has become mentally unbalanced.

Meanwhile Attorney General Mukasey, who when he was being nominated for the post testified that torture was repugnant to Americans, now says that the definition of torture is contextual – the means to be used depends on how vital the information the interrogators seek is.