Observer (UK): I never believed the US would turn on its torturers so swiftly

[Jackeens]

I never believed the US would turn on its torturers so swiftly

The lawyer who exposed those behind America's interrogation techniques believes a criminal investigation is now essential

Philippe Sands
The Observer, Sunday 26 April 2009


The world is watching as America attempts to come to terms with the abuse it unleashed in the aftermath of 9/11 and trying to digest the full implications of last week's extraordinary events. With a wide-ranging Spanish criminal investigation into torture at Guantánamo threatening to embarrass the US, Barack Obama decided to declassify legal memos sent under the Bush administration in the hope the country would move on. The opposite has happened. Ever more documents set out in meticulous detail the full extent of the cruelty: who was abused by whom, how they did it and what was done. The truth has been revealed in stark detail, from the number of times waterboarding was used to the legal deliberations that led to it. By Tuesday, President Obama had raised the possibility of US war crimes trials and far-reaching inquiries, developments that were unthinkable a month ago.

And yet perhaps it was inevitable. When Obama took office, evidence of torture was strong. Susan Crawford, the Bush-appointed head of the Guantánamo military commissions, confirmed that the use of stress positions, sleep deprivation, dogs and forced shaving on detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani was torture. President Obama's attorney general and the head of the CIA agree that waterboarding is torture. The issue was not how to characterise the acts, but what to do about them. By intervening, Spanish prosecutors seem also to have catalysed debate on what to do about the senior lawyers and officials involved, particularly Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, Jim Haynes, John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Doug Feith, those fast becoming known as the Bush Six.

Rest of article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/26/philippe-sands-torture-usa