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Legal
opinions
permitting the
U.S. to
torture
prisoners and
authorize
their transfer
out of Iraq
were
respectively
accepted or
written by
Harvard law
professor Jack
Goldsmith
while he
headed the
Justice
Department’s
Office of
Legal Counsel
(OLC).
In
that capacity,
Goldsmith
drafted a memo
on March 19,
2003, that was
a green light
for the
transfer of up
to a dozen
prisoners from
Iraq to CIA
prisons where
they were
tortured,
writes
Lawrence
Velvel, dean
of the
Massachusetts
School of Law
at Andover.
Velvel
makes his
comments in a
thorough
critique - -
giving both
pros and cons
- - of
Goldsmith’s
self
protecting
book entitled
“The Terror
Presidency,”
a book in
which
Goldsmith
seeks to make
himself look
good in order
to evade the
criticism he
deserves.
And
while
Goldsmith
withdrew a
torture
memorandum
written by
government
lawyer John
Yoo on August
1, 2002, he
accepted a
second Yoo
memo of the
same date
apparently
spelling out
harsh
interrogation
techniques to
be used on
prisoners--techniques
said to be
torture by
international
law
authorities,
Velvel said.
Goldsmith
has succeeded
in his effort
to falsely
make himself
look good:
the MSM
and Congress
have anointed
him a hero
when it is
more likely he
aided and
abetted
violations of
law, says
Velvel.
In
his thorough,
two sided
critique,
Velvel
describes the
ways in which
Goldsmith
deserves
sympathy and
credit (e.g.,
in standing up
to David
Addington,
Vice President
Dick
Cheney’s
Chief of Staff ),
as well as the
ways in which
he abetted
crimes.
CIA
torture
methods such
as electric
shocks, stress
positions and
waterboardings
must have
been approved
in the second
memo, Velvel
writes, which
Goldsmith did
not withdraw
“because it
was devoted to
the actual
tactics (as)
the CIA people
were demanding
a golden
shield that
would protect
them from
later
prosecutions,
and only a
memo approving
specific
tactics could
do that.”
Velvel
said that
Goldsmith in
his book
entitled
“The Terror
Presidency”(W.W.
Norton),
published last
year, tells us
“he read and
was horrified
by torture
memos after he
was put in
charge of the
OLC and long
before he
wrote the
transfer
memo…He is
convicted out
of his own
mouth.”
“His
(Goldsmith’s)
admission that
he read the
second, still
secret memo
that detailed
specific
interrogation
techniques
being used by
the CIA makes
it flatly
impossible
that he did
not know or
suspect what
was going on
when he wrote
the transfer
memo,”
Velvel writes.
Goldsmith’s
memo “was
used to
facilitate the
ghost detainee
program in
which various
prisoners were
hidden from
the
International
Red Cross so
that nobody
would learn
that they were
prisoners,”
Velvel wrote,
“and
contrary to
the Geneva
Conventions I
gather, their
status, health
and
whereabouts
were not
disclosed to
their
families.”
Goldstein’s
memo, Velvel
added, was
tantamount to
a “get out
of jail free
card” for
torturers who
could later
claim legal
authorization
for their
acts.
Velvel
wrote that
Goldsmith’s
transfer memo
held that by
not charging
prisoners the
U.S. could
transfer them
out of the
country. “By
not formally
accusing
them in any
judicial way,
we could,
according to
Goldsmith,
transfer them
out of Iraq
because formally
they were
not yet
‘accused
persons’
although in
fact our
government had
already
accused and
convicted them
every way but
sideways. This
is true
dissembling.
This is true
reliance on
minimal form
over gigantic
substance. And
this is
exactly what
Jack Goldsmith
did in his
memo of March
19, 2004.”
Goldsmith
also protected
criminals and
shielded their
criminal
conduct in
other ways,
Velvel said.
He noted
Goldsmith
admits in his
own book that
he flatly lied
to New York Times
reporter
Eric Licthblau
when, prior to
the 2004
election, he
denied he knew
anything about
a secret,
illegal NSA
spying
program.
Had
Goldsmith
truthfully
conceded
(extensive)
knowledge,
thereby
affirming the
(at the time
unconfirmed)
existence of
the program,
says Velvel,
or if he even
had merely
said “no
comment” or
“I can’t
discuss
that,” the
NY Times might
have broken
the story of
the NSA spying
before the
2004 election,
instead of
delaying a
year and
thereby
greatly
advancing
Bush’s
reelection
prospects.
What’s
more, Velvel
charges,
Goldsmith
lengthened the
period of U.S.
conduct
regarding
torture by
maintaining
his three-year
silence
“until the
time came to
garner
publicity in
September,
2007, for his
new book.”
He pointed
out:
“Goldsmith
was an enabler
of evil,
including evil
and crime
justified by
the tortured
rationalizations
of lawyers who
set out to
provide legal
cover for
torture, for
cruelly
inhuman
conduct and
other
horrors.”
At
issue, Velvel
says, is
“whether
lawyers, in
order to
justify and
provide a
basis for
supporting
vicious and
illegal
actions of the
government,
are free to
assert the
most
outlandish
arguments in
favor of these
actions, are
free to invent
astonishing,
even evil,
arguments in
favor of the
positions, are
free to
facilitate the
government’s
evil actions
and not to
counsel
against the
positions even
though the
positions and
actions are in
violation of
domestic
criminal laws,
in violation
of
international
law, contrary
to the
American
constitutional
system, and
taken without
consideration
of the
traditions and
values of this
country.”
Velvel
added that any
lawyer in
private
practice who
attempted to
provide cover
for a
client’s
“gravely
illegal
conduct in
this way would
be subject to
disbarment,
subject to
criminal
prosecution,
and
disqualified
from being on
any
respectable
law school
faculty.”
Velvel’s
views,
previously set
forth in a
blog posting,
have now been
published in
“An Enemy of
the People:
The Unending
Battle Against
Conventional
Wisdom,” a
collection of
essays
published by
Doukathsan
Press.
(Further
Information:
Sherwood Ross,
media
consultant to
Massachusetts
School of Law,
at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com)
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