Socialism as saintliness

As part of my ongoing efforts to understand humans, I recently read William James’ “The Varieties of Religious Experience”. (Now, if only there were a book “The Varieties of Capitalist Experience”!) As you might expect, I do not share James’ views on most things, but several passages are highly interesting.

Now, some of the following seems clearly wrong: Quakerism for instance seems to me to be perfectly compatible with non-violent resistance. And, it may grate upon the non-religious among you (it did on me a little): I would read “salvation” as something purely ethical, although James means something more.

And, as friends have pointed out, this is a highly exclusive version of socialism. Socialism, if it is anything, is democratic and inclusive, in which all can have their say, not only in the legislative-political but also in the economic realm.

Moreover, as religious friends have pointed out, the “doormat Christianity” of turning the other cheek, as it is usually understood, is not faithful to the original text of the gospels, which preach non-violent resistance, rather than no resistance at all.

BUT in any case, note that at the end he considers utopian socialists as the secular version of this saintliness, as an exemplary, visionary orientation. I would disagree with his unsupported judgment about practicability — indeed he seems to be entirely contemptuous of them — but the general characterisation to me seems valid. Note some of the language is surprisingly modern; this was written in 1901-2, but the “world yet to be born” is straight out of Arundhati Roy, and the “creative social force” and “potentialities for human development” are fairly modern socialist or anarchist formulations, I would say. The vanguard imagery (torch bearers! drops flung ahead of the crest of a wave!) is perfectly overblown, straight out of orthodox Marxism-Leninism — of course this is “vanguardism” in its defensible sense of exemplary moral character, not the apologetics for Leninist authoritarianism with which that word has long been tainted.

The creation of a socialist heaven on earth, regardless of the existence of a heaven per se, of course is much older, as old as socialism itself — an animating vision of all revolutionary and
transformative politics.

And, the “facets of the character-polyhedron” is an awesomely geeky formulation. What is this earth thing you call love?

Passage follows.

“
[S]aintliness has to face the charge of preserving the unfit, and breeding parasites and beggars. ‘Resist not evil,’ ‘Love your enemies,’ these are saintly maxims of which men of this world find it hard to speak without impatience. Are the men of this world right, or are the saints in possession of the deeper range of truth?

No simple answer is possible…

As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors. The saint may simply give the universe into the hands of the enemy by his trustfulness. He may by non-resistance cut off his own survival.

… We must frankly confess, then, using our empirical common sense and ordinary practical prejudices, that in the world that actually is, the virtues of sympathy, charity, and non-resistance may be, and often have been, manifested in excess. The powers of darkness have systematically taken advantage of them. The whole modern scientific organization of charity is a consequence of the failure of simply giving alms. The whole history of constitutional government is a commentary on the excellence of resisting evil, and when one cheek is smitten, of smiting back and not turning the other cheek also.

You will agree to this in general, for in spite of the Gospel, in spite of Quakerism, in spite of Tolstoi, you believe in fighting fire with fire, in shooting down usurpers, locking up thieves, and freezing out vagabonds and swindlers.

And yet you are sure, as I am sure, that were the world confined to these hard-headed, hard-hearted, and hard-fisted methods exclusively, were there no one prompt to help a brother first, and find out afterwards whether he were worthy; no one willing to drown his private wrongs in pity for the wronger’s person; no one ready to be duped many a time rather than live always on suspicion; no one glad to treat individuals passionately and impulsively rather than by general rules of prudence; the world would be an infinitely worse place than it is now to live in. The tender grace, not of a day that is dead, but of a day yet to be born somehow, with the golden rule grown natural, would be cut out from the perspective of our imaginations.

The saints, existing in this way, may, with their extravagances of human tenderness, be prophetic. Nay, innumerable times they have proved themselves prophetic. Treating those whom they met, in spite of the past, in spite of all appearances, as worthy, they have stimulated them to be worthy, miraculously transformed them by radiant example and by the challenge of their expectation.

From this point of view we may admit the human charity which we find in all saints, and the great excess of it which we find in some saints, to be a genuinely creative social force, tending to make real a degree of virtue which it alone is ready to assume as possible. The saints are authors, auctores, increasers, of goodness. The potentialities of development in human souls are unfathomable. So many who seemed irretrievably hardened have in point of fact been softened, converted, regenerated, in ways that amazed the subjects even more than they surprised the spectators, that we never can be sure in advance of any man that his salvation by the way of love is hopeless. We have no right to speak of human crocodiles and boa-constrictors as of fixedly incurable beings. We know not the complexities of personality, the smouldering emotional fires, the other facets of the character-polyhedron, the resources of the subliminal region… The saints, with their extravagance of human tenderness, are the great torch-bearers of this belief, the tip of the wedge, the clearers of the darkness. Like the single drops which sparkle in the sun as they are flung far ahead of the advancing edge of a wavecrest or of a flood, they show the way and are forerunners. The world is not yet with them, so they often seem in the midst of the world’s affairs to be preposterous. Yet they are impregnators of the world, vivifiers and animaters of potentialities of goodness which but for them would lie forever dormant. It is not possible to be quite as mean as we naturally are, when they have passed before us. One fire kindles another; and without that over-trust in human worth which they show, the rest of us would lie in spiritual stagnancy.

… If things are ever to move upward, some one must be ready to take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed. When they do succeed, they are far more powerfully successful than force or worldly prudence. Force destroys enemies; and the best that can be said of prudence is that it keeps what we already have in safety. But non-resistance, when successful, turns enemies into friends; and charity regenerates its objects. … [G]enuine saints find in the elevated excitement with which their faith endows them an authority and impressiveness which makes them irresistible in situations where men of shallower nature cannot get on at all without the use of worldly prudence. This practical proof that worldly wisdom may be safely transcended is the saint’s magic gift to mankind. Not only does his vision of a better world console us for the generally prevailing prose and barrenness; but even when on the whole we have to confess him ill adapted, he makes some converts…

In this respect the Utopian dreams of soci
al justice in which many contemporary socialists and anarchists indulge are, in spite of their impracticability and non-adaptation to present environmental conditions, analogous to the saint’s belief in an existent kingdom of
heaven. They help to break the edge of the general reign of hardness, and are slow leavens of a better order.
“

— William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 355-60

An appropriate orientation

“implacable to the whole system of official values: the ignobility of fashionable life; the infamies of empire; the spuriousness of the church, the vain conceit of the professions; the meannesses and cruelties that go with great success; and every other pompous crime and lying institution of this world.”

— William James, on Tolstoy

The antiwar movement in the large, and measuring it

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/measurenonprofit

I read this article and thought it was interesting. I had some comments on it, which pertain to the antiwar movement at large, so I thought I would share them. Make of them what you will.

1. Measuring is good when possible!

Being a scientist (and a mathematician at that), I like data. Observing and measuring is good. If you can find things to measure, more power to you.

However, I can see some difficulties in the context of the antiwar movement. In particular, some things are hard to measure; and more, some important or essential things that an activist group should be doing, might have completely zero short-term measurable effect. Some details follow.

2. The scale of antiwar goals.

To stop, or even prevent, a single war is a massive, world-historic event. To reduce the US national military budget, say to a level comparable to the rest of the world, even more so: that amounts to a total restructuring of the economy. To stop militarism, more so again: that is a culture and an economic and institutional inertia written deeply into american life. And, to stop jingoistic patriotism — the insane loyalty to a single geographic region with some arbitrary boundaries denoting the fates of long forgotten kings, emperors and imperialists who once carved up the earth for themselves — indeed amounts to a complete change of american life: so that every wave of the flag is met with curiosity or stupefaction, rather than with cheers and tears; so that the “american” in american life it more or less ceases to exist, to the extent it denotes anything more than a geographic location.

Make no mistake, the antiwar movement has these as goals, and not just in the US, but everywhere. They are not complete goals — a world with all these achieved might still be one of rank inequality, authoritarianism, and thwarted human life. One might argue they are best pursued alongside others — perhaps it can only be done along with a restructuring of the rules of international trade, greater international economic and political integration, debt forgiveness, the satisfaction of humanitarian and economic needs and so on; or more radically, the restructuring of the global economy, economic democracy, north-south reparations, finding a better economic alternative to capitalism, etc.

Nonetheless, the broad antiwar goals are goals for the long term. They chart a course for human history. Their time-frame is measured in centuries — even as the insanity and potential for catastrophe is so great as to demand that they be achieved now. Thus, one expects progress to be slow, even negligible; but one wishes, and needs, it to be done now.

Of course there are more local and immediate goals too, but the big picture must always be kept in mind, where measurable progress can be expected to be indistinguishable from zero even in the best possible case.

3. Sometimes vast changes happen unpredictably — in the meantime, ideas are important.

Events like the founding of the United Nations and the end of the cold war were world-changing — and entirely unpredictable a few years beforehand. Nobody would have advocated the second world war, or (say) the invasion of Afghanistan, in order to achieve these goals. The end of the second world war was indeed the impetus for the founding of the UN, but it is a superficial reading of history to regard that as the sole cause. These were not mere elite decisions, not merely the brokering of power by beloved leaders.

The creation of the United Nations built upon a century of pacifist organising and activism, the advocacy of various schemes of international integration, agitation for the outlawing of war (achieved in 1928 by the Briand-Kellogg pact, and today binding on all nations as customary international law), and the work of organisations like the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom. Nobody could have measured any progress whatsoever towards international integration until the first world war led to the League of Nations; and after its demise, again, until the second world war led to the UN. History is unpredictable, but the course of history depends upon the ideas and institutions that are in existence; the power of those ideas; and the balance of forces those ideas and their supporting institutions have at their disposal. By measurability standards the WILPFs and the Bertha von Suttners of the world are clearly zero or close to it. By the standards of history, they are monumental.

The conclusion must be that in political activism, the mere propagation of ideas — perhaps even the mere existence of active organisations working for those ideas — is of value in itself. Having an organisation, having people willing to meet regularly, putting time into the cause, in itself is something. Of course, the more people doing it, the wider the ideas spread, and the more clearly they are formulated and powerfully they are expressed, the better. Some of this may be measurable. But much of it surely cannot.

In any case I think, in the activist context, the proposition that no measurable effect implies no political effect is not always true.

4. Sometimes vast changes happen after long struggles — at the beginning, nothing was measurable.

An insistence on measurability would have stopped people speaking out against the Vietnam war for many years — as I recall, Kennedy first sent troops in around 1963 but the protest movement did not pick up until the end of the decade. Recall the stories of Chomsky and fellow activists going to speak every weekend, I think at the Boston Common — with a significant police presence, not to beat up the antiwar protestors (as we see more usually today!), but to protect Chomsky and company from being beaten up by pro-war onlookers. An absolutely hopeless situation — and disorganised at that — but without this sort of persistence, the later massive movement could never have arisen.

More generally, the situation for most serious activists — those antagonistic to power, to received ideology, and not subservient to some faction of power (like the CAP Shwarz refers to) — almost always seems hopeless. Power is strong by definition, it has legions of unthinking supporters, and no shortage of subservient academics, pundits, and intellectuals. Challenging a political and intellectual hegemony is tough work! The best approach however seems clear: have a realistic analysis, but do what is required for the cause and for the good. As Gramsci put it: pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.

History shows that it can be done. And, often it is drastic. The pace of change can quicken, dramatically. Ideas can be widespread, and regarded as good, just as impractical. Many people are not prepared to act until they believe that others are prepared to act. Political action is self-referential, at least at first, its philosophy is logically circular, as with much of social life — but it happens. And it cannot happen without an impetus that is non-measurable up to the instant it occurs, collapsing the nesting of logical brackets, and making a reality of the common knowledge that we think other people think we think they think.

5. The local situation may also make measurability hard.

None of this is to say that measurable effects should not be noted where possible, just that good work may not always have short-term measurable consequences. For campus organising, I can think of some sorts of measurements that could be made. But thinking about it, the same problems seems to apply even to goals local to a single campus. Getting the local war criminal prosecuted would be monumental in US history. Stopping, or placing further institutional limits on, military research would be a massive shift in the direction of the whole university — one can well argue, a
t least to a first approximation, that Stanford built itself into a world-class institution precisely by taking government money for military-related research. Moreover, current military research on campus is institutionally protected by white-washed reports and “academic freedom” and runs together with the vast sums of “defence”-related money supporting the economy of not just Stanford, but the entire country — military Keynesianism.

In addition, arguably the low-lying fruit (no classified research on campus, no ROTC on campus, for example) have already been won by movements long ago (well, the 1970s!).

But, the general idea seems fine. Activist groups should have identifiable goals, visions, and so on. And activist groups should not be wasting their limited time and resources by doing things which do not help their cause — or by not helping their cause as much as they potentially could.

I would just say to be on guard that too much of a focus on short-term measurability could potentially detract from the sort of cultural and ideological change that is, in the long run, central to any antiwar, or anti-imperialist, or pacifist mission, and which seems nigh impossible to measure objectively.

PhD Thesis

In 2009 I completed my PhD at Stanford. I submitted my thesis “Chord diagrams, contact-topological quantum field theory, and contact categories” on August 21, 2009.

A local pdf is available here (1.3 MB, 229 pages).

I defended my thesis on May 29, 2009. I gave a beamer presentation; the slides are available here (4.5 MB).

thesis thesis_defence

Information and actions, nuclear weapons, indefinite detention

1. Nuclear Weapons

Obama has made several rhetorical commitments to nuclear disarmament; there is also an ongoing Nuclear Posture Review. Now is the time to push him to do something substantial about it.

From the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation:
Video — U.S. Leadership for a Nuclear Weapons-free World
http://www.wagingpeace.org/

Tell President Obama to Make Dramatic Nuclear Cuts
http://capwiz.com/wagingpeace/issues/alert/?alertid=13704431

From TrueMajority:
A Nuclear Free World
http://act.truemajorityaction.org/t/120/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=33

From Peace Action:
Petition to President Obama for Nuclear Weapons Abolition
http://www.peace-action.org/nukes/campaigns/nptpetition.htm

From the Union of Concerned Scientists:
President Must Match Actions to Words on Nuclear Weapons
https://secure3.convio.net/ucs/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2095

2. Indefinite detention

The Obama justice system
by Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/08/obama/index.html

Petition from Amnesty:
Stand Against President Obama’s Proposed Indefinite Detention Regime
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=12497&ICID=T0906A02&tr=y&auid=5026108

Petition from ACLU:
Stop Indefinite Detention
https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?amp;cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1625

The end of the Golden Shield

The NY Times reports on newly leaked emails from within the Department of Justice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/us/politics/07lawyers.html?_r=1&hp

Discussed further by Glenn Greenwald.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/07/torture_memos/index.html

These leaks further support and strengthen various arguments already made by those calling for accountability, including ourselves — and of course, the arguments made against other Bush administration officials as well.

In various discussions on Rice’s culpability, we have dealt with the possibility that, on trial for war crimes, Rice would point to the “torture memos” for exoneration, as supposedly independent legal advice. In response, we (and the prosecution) would argue that that is not a proper characterization of the facts. We have argued, based on previous revelations, that the memos were written as “get out of jail free” cards. According to reports of National Security Council Principals Committee meetings in 2002, chaired by Rice, the memos were regarded as a “Golden Shield” for officials who feared prosecution. One can even make the case that the relevant lawyers and officials at the Department of Justice were complicit, in a conspiracy to torture.

So, in court, there would be a question to establish which narrative is accurate:

(1) Rice and others request disinterested legal advice; legal advice allows waterboarding etc. In this case, Rice and others might have a viable defence. After all, they are not lawyers, and deference ought to be accorded to the opinions of qualified lawyers within the government.

(2) Rice and others want to perform, have performed, waterboarding etc but need their “golden shield” of legal advice. They want, perhaps expect, administration lawyers in the department of justice to provide all necessary justifications. They request “get out of jail free” cards, crucially involving waterboarding. Despite the clear legal precedents that waterboarding is torture etc, obedient, perhaps complicit, lawyers provide justification. Where the justification is insufficient or not forthcoming, pressure is applied until the requisite degree of legal backing is given. In this case, the defence is not viable. The legal opinions are not in good faith, or created under pressure/duress, or dishonestly, or in complicity to torture. Rice and others (maybe including lawyers) go to jail.

How could a judge or jury choose between these narratives? There are crucial matters of fact that could help distinguish them.

Plainly, words like “golden shield” in Principals Committee meetings support narrative #2. The fact that waterboarding had happened prior to the memos, also. But clearly, much turns upon the communications between lawyers and the principals like Rice. In this regard, these emails are crucial new pieces of evidence. In particular:

A. Chronology and retrospectivity.

If interrogations happen before the legal justifications, that suggests they were written as retrospective justification. In general, lawyers (and the law) abhor retrospectivity. Lawyers do not like to write retrospective justifications, and if they do, they prefer to write them in general terms. Importantly, these emails reveal that the memos, although written in general terms, were effectively retrospective, and were regarded that way.

B. Evidence of pressure/reluctance.

The details of communications between the principals like Rice, and the lawyers, are crucial. The more reluctant lawyers are to provide these justifications, or disagree with them, the more narrative #1 sounds preposterous. As far as the individual lawyers are concerned, the reluctant ones are less likely to be found complicit, although perhaps the more likely their seniors are. These emails are the incarnation of one lawyer’s reluctance and reveal extraordinary pressure from the White House, and policy-makers in general.

I should add that Comey’s reluctance appears to be on extremely narrow and legally indefensible grounds; he also seems to neglect the mountain of precedent that waterboarding is torture and so on; he seems to be somewhere between gross dereliction of professional duty and complicity in torture. But the point remains.

These are not petty matters. They are crucial findings of fact which would probably be the central issue in a war crimes prosecution. And I think we have crucial evidence here which demolishes any remaining possibility of viability for the “get out of jail free card” defence for Rice and others.

Rice's nonsense on torture

Oh wow, I only got around to watching this video now, and from some of the comments I thought she must have been making some half-convincing arguments… nope!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijEED_iviTA&feature=channel_page

Well, first we upgrade al Qaeda to tyrants, okay. Then one gets the impression that the US homeland was not attacked in WWII. Those little incidents at Pearl Harbor and on the Aleutian islands are called bombing and occupation, to most people.

Then we are informed that 500,000 deaths in WWII is “no!” Why? Perhaps we should have got the figure correct to the precise soldier?

The problem with the internet is that you can actually find obscure references instantaneously. In this case, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) report on Guantanamo. Turns out, with ten seconds of google:

* the OSCE people were only allowed in on the condition of not actually interviewing any detainees! These same conditions were rejected by other human rights organisations, like Amnesty.

* and, the guy who led the OSCE team, Alain Grignard, with the Belgian federal police, thought detaining prisoners for years with trial was a form of “psychological torture”.

http://intelligence-summit.blogspot.com/2006/03/osce-guantanamo-better-than-belgian.html

“Did you know that? Alright, no, well wait a second, if you didn’t know that, maybe before you make allegations about Guantanamo, you should read.”

But it gets better!

CR: “The ICRC also had access to Guantanamo, and they made no allegations about inerrogations about Guantanamo. What they did say is that they beleived indefinite detention…”

What sort of access did the ICRC have? Does anybody remember? Like, there were some prisoners that were deliberately kept away from the ICRC? And, like, this was such an official policy that it was actually written into the operating manual for the prison, there was an official level given to each prisoner, and the top level were kept away from the ICRC?

In fact, you can read various versions of the manual online.

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Chaplain,_Red_Cross_Muzzled_at_Gitmo_in_2004

In any case, with its access, the ICRC did write a detailed report, which was leaked recently. Perhaps you might actually like to read what the ICRC *did* have to say.

http://www.nybooks.com/icrc-report.pdf

From the introduction, the very first paragraph:

“The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has consistently expressed its grave concern over the humanitarian consequences and legal implications of the practice by the United States (US) authorities of holding persons in undisclosed detention in the context of the fight against terrorism. In particular, the ICRC has underscored the risk of ill-treatment, the lack of contact with the outside world as a result of being held incommunicado, the lack of a legal framework, and the direct effect of such treatment and conditions on the persons held in undisclosed detention and on their families.”

It’s clearly a glowing report, with sections entitled “Suffocation by water”, “Prolonged stress standing”, “Beatings by use of a collar”, “Beating and kicking”, “Confinement in a box”, “Prolonged nudity”, and so on. And clearly none of this involves any allegations about interrogations, surely.

And here is an example of non-allegations about interrogations, from the summary, section 1, page 5:

“as outlined in Section 4 below, and as concluded by this report, the ICRC clearly considers that the allegations of the fourteen [detainees interviewed] include descriptions of treatment and interrogation techniques — singly or in combination — that amounted to torture and/or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

Can’t you see there are no allegations about interrogation?

And this is fantastic:

CR: “By definition, if it was authorised by the President, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.”

I didn’t know we had monarchists left in this country!

Hmm, I wonder which article of the Convention has the “President said so” defence? Dang, that could have come in handy for Pinochet’s lawyers when he was being extradited for torture under the same convention! Pity he didn’t notice that provision, having been President of Chile and all, since by definition anything he authorises doesn’t violate the convention!

Civilian Casualties in Iraq?

We have a densely argued discussion of the available evidence andliterature review in footnote number 30 of our open letter:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/antiwar/cgi-bin/mediawiki/index.php?title=Condi_coalition_letter_draft#cite_note-29

(Why does the link for footnote 30 ends in “note-29”. I think I blame computer scientists who like to begin counting at 0 rather than 1.)

(If you go there, all the references are hyperlinked, they are not here)

“
See Opinion Research Business and Just Foreign Policy for these estimates. This far exceeds the Iraq Body Count number of around 90,000, which only counts deaths reported by multiple crosschecked media reports: see their information page. The US government has not made any serious study of deaths in Iraq during the war and occupation. Perhaps the closest is Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, Report to Congress by Department of Defense, September 2008, at p.22. However, as noted in the December 2007 version of this report, there are many deaths for which “the Coalition does not have visibility, in particular, murders and deaths in locations where Coalition forces are not present”: at p.18. See the Congressional Research Service report Iraqi Civilian Casualties Estimates, Hannah Fischer, January 12, 2009, for some further discussion. The Just Foreign Policy figure is an extrapolation of an epidemiological-style cluster study study published in the prestigious British medial journal The Lancet, which obtained a figure of 426,000-794,000 for the period March 2003 – July 2006: Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy et al., “Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A Cross-Sectional Cluster Sample Survey,” The Lancet, October 21, 2006, 368 (9545), pp. 1421-1429. The UK Ministry of Defence’s chief scientific advisor called the survey “close to best practice” and “robust”: High Death Toll Backed, Newsday, March 27, 2007.
“

The Just Foreign Policy website estimate is currently 1,320,110… it’s a rough estimate based on extrapolation from the Lancet study.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

Rice references in recently released reports

This is reference material. I have gone through the two reports

“OLC Opinions on the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program” , the timeline released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on April 22,
http://intelligence.senate.gov/pdfs/olcopinion.pdf

and

“Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody”, the Report of the Senate Armed Services Committee
http://armed-services.senate.gov/Publications/Detainee%20Report%20Final_April%2022%202009.pdf

and copied the significant references to campus faculty. Some of the text may be a little strange: lifted from PDF by character recognition.

Enjoy. Or not. Much of the substance regarding Rice has been reported, e.g.

“Rice gave early approval for CIA waterboarding, Senate report reveals”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/23/condoleezza-rice-cia-waterboarding

but primary source material is very powerful.

References to Rice and NSC Principals Committee in

OLC OPINIONS ON THE CIA DETENTION AND INTERROGATION PROGRAM

RELEASE OF DECLASSIFIED NARRATIVE DESCRIBING
THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL’S OPINIONS ON
THE CIA’S DETENTION AND INTERROGATION PROGRAM

April 22, 2009

pp. 2-4

The capture of Abu Zubaydah and the initiation of the CIA detention and interrogation program

In late March 2002, senior Al-Qa’ida operative Abu Zubaydah was captured. Abu Zubaydah was badly injured during the firefight that brought him into custody. The CIA arranged for his medical care, and, in conjunction with two FBI agents, began interrogating him. At that time, the CIA assessed that Abu Zubaydah had specific information concerning future Al-Qa’ida attacks against the United States.

CIA records indicate that members of the National Security Council (NSC) and other senior Administration officials were briefed on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program throughout the course of the program.1 In April 2002, attorneys from the CIA’s Office of General Counsel began discussions with the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council and OLC concerning the CIA’s proposed interrogation plan for Abu Zubaydah and legal restrictions on that interrogation. CIA records indicate that the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council briefed the National Security Adviser, Deputy National Security Adviser, and Counsel to the President, as well as the Attorney General and the head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice.

According to CIA records, because the CIA believed that Abu Zubaydah was withholding imminent threat information during the initial interrogation sessions, attorneys from the CIA’s Office of General Counsel met with the Attorney General, the National Security Adviser, the Deputy National Security Adviser, the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council, and the Counsel to the President in mid-May 2002 to discuss the possible use of alternative interrogation methods that differed from the traditional methods used by the U.S. military and intelligence community. At this meeting, the CIA proposed particular alternative interrogation methods, including waterboarding.

The CIA’s Office of General Counsel subsequently asked OLC to prepare an opinion about the legality of its proposed techniques. To enable OLC to review the legality of the techniques, the CIA provided OLC with written and oral descriptions of the proposed techniques. The CIA also provided OLC with information about any medical and psychological effects of DoD’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) School, which is a military training program during which military personnel receive counter-interrogation training.

On July 13, 2002, according to CIA records, attorneys from the CIA’s Office of General Counsel met with the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General from OLC, the head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, the chief of staff to the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Counsel to the President to provide an overview of the proposed interrogation plan for Abu Zubaydah.

On July 17, 2002, according to CIA records, the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) met with the National Security Adviser, who advised that the CIA could proceed with its proposed interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. This advice, which authorized CIA to proceed as a policy matter, was subject to a determination of legality by OLC.

On July 24, 2002, according to CIA records, OLC orally advised the CIA that the Attorney General had concluded that certain proposed interrogation techniques were lawful and, on July 26, that the use of waterboarding was lawful. OLC issued two written opinions and a letter memorializing those conclusions on August 1, 2002.

pp. 6-9

Events after issuance of August 1, 2002 OLC opinion

According to CIA records, after receiving the legal approval of the Department of Justice and approval from the National Security Adviser, the CIA went forward with the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah and with the interrogation of other high-value Al-Qa’ida detainees who were then in, or later came into, U.S. custody. Waterboarding was used on three detainees: Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. The application of waterboarding to these detainees occurred during the 2002 and 2003 timeframe.

…

In the spring of 2003, the DCI asked for a reaffirmation of the policies and practices in the interrogation program. In July 2003, according to CIA records, the NSC Principals met to discuss the interrogation techniques employed in the CIA program. According to CIA records, the DCI and the CIA’s General Counsel attended a meeting with the Vice President, the National Security Adviser, the Attorney General, the Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General, the Counsel to the President, and the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council to describe the CIA’s interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. According to CIA records, at the conclusion of that meeting, the Principals reaffirmed that the CIA program was lawful and reflected administration policy.

According to CIA records, pursuant to a request from the National Security Adviser, the Director of Central Intelligence subsequently briefed the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense on the CIA’s interrogation techniques on September 16, 2003.

References to Rice and NSC Principals Committee
in

Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody
Report of the
Committee on Armed Services
United States Senate

November 20, 2008
Released 23 April, 2009

p. xv

(U) Mr. Haynes was not the only senior official considering new interrogation techniques for use against detainees. Members ofthe President’s Cabinet and other senior officials attended meetings in the White House where specific interrogation techniques were discussed. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was then the National Security Advisor, said that, “in the spring of 2002, CIA sought policy approval from the National Security Council (NSC) to begin an interrogation program for high-level al-Qaida terrorists.” Secretary Rice said that she asked Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to brief NSC Principals on the program and asked the Attorney General John Ashcroft “personally to review and confirm the legal advice prepared
by the Office of Legal Counsel.” She also said
that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld participated in the NSC review ofthe CIA’s program.

(U) Asked whether she attended meetings where SERE training was discussed, Secretary Rice stated that she recalled being told that U.S. military personnel were subjected in training to
“certain physical and psychological interrogation techniques.” National Security Council (NSC) Legal Advisor, John Bellinger, said that he was present in meetings “at which SERE training was discussed.”

p. xx-xxi

(U) NSC Legal Advisor John Bellinger said that, on several occasions, Deputy Assistant
Attorney General Bruce Swartz raised concerns with him about allegations of detainee abuse at
GTMO. Mr. Bellinger said that, in tum, he raised these concerns “on several occasions with DoD officials and was told that the allegations were being investigated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.” Then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said that Mr. Bellinger also advised her “on a regular basis regarding concerns and issues relating to DoD detention policies and practices at Guantanamo.” She said that as a result she convened a “series of meetings of NSC Principals in 2002 and 2003 to discuss various issues and concerns relating to detainees in the custody ofthe Department of Defense.”

(U) Between mid-December 2002 and mid-January 2003, Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora spoke with the DoD General Counsel three times to express his concerns about interrogation techniques at GTMO, at one point telling Mr. Haynes that he thought techniques that had been authorized by the Secretary of Defense “could rise to the level of torture.” On January 15, 2003, having received no word that the Secretary’s authority would be withdrawn, Mr. Mora went so far as to deliver a draft memo to Mr. Haynes’s office memorializing his legal concerns about the techniques. In a subsequent phone call, Mr. Mora told Mr. Haynes he would sign his memo later that day unless he heard definitively that the use of the techniques was suspended. In a meeting that same day, Mr. Haynes told Mr. Mora that the Secretary would rescind the techniques. Secretary Rumsfeld signed a memo rescinding authority for the techniques on January 15, 2003.

(U) That same day, GTMO suspended its use of aggressive techniques on Khatani. While key documents relating to the interrogation remain classified, published accounts indicate that military working dogs had been used against Khatani. He had also been deprived of adequate sleep for weeks on end, stripped naked, subjected to loud music, and made to wear a leash and perform dog tricks. In a June 3, 2004 press briefing, SOUTHCOM Commander General James Hill traced the source oftechniques used on Khatani back to SERE, stating: “The staff at Guantanamo working with behavioral scientists, having gone up to our SERE school and developed a list of techniques which our lawyers decided and looked at, said were OK.” General
Hill said “we began to use a few ofthose techniques … on this individual.”

(U) On May 13, 2008, the Pentagon announced in a written statement that the Convening Authority for military commissions “dismissed without prejudice the sworn charges against Mohamed al Khatani.” The statement does not indicate the role his treatment may have played in that decision.

p. xxvi

Conclusion 2: Members of the President’s Cabinet and other senior officials participated in meetings inside the White House in 2002 and 2003 where specific interrogation techniques were discussed. National Security Council Principals reviewed the CIA’s interrogation program during that period.

pp. 16-19

II. Development of New Interrogation Authorities (U)

A. CIA’s Interrogation Program and the Interrogation of Abu Zubaydah (U)

(U) Abu Zubaydah was captured by Pakistani and CIA forces on March 28, 2002. According to former CIA Director George Tenet, once Zubaydah was in custody, the CIA “got into holding and interrogating high-value detainees” (HVDs) “in a serious way.”uo Then­ National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said that “in the spring of 2002, CIA sought policy approval from the National Security Council to begin an interrogationprogram for high-level al­-Qaida terrorists.”lll Then-NSC Legal Advisor John Bellinger said that he asked CIA to have the proposed program reviewed by the Department of Justice and that he asked CIA to seek advice not only ~om DoJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) but also from the Criminal Division. 112 Ms. Rice said that she asked Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to brief NSC Principals on the proposed CIA program and asked Attorney General Ashcroft “personally to review the legality of the proposed program. ll3 She said that all ofthe meetings she attended on the CIA’s interrogation program took place at the White House and that she understood that DoJ’s legal advice “was being coordinated by Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales.,,114

(U) According to President Bush, the agency developed an “alternative set” of ,”tough” interrogation techniques, and put them to use on Zubaydah and other HVDs. 115 Though virtually all of the techniques that were used on Zubaydah remain classified, CIA Director Michael Hayden confirmed that waterboarding was used on Zubaydah. 116 Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) Steven Bradbury testified before Congress that the “CIA’s use ofthe waterboarding procedure was adapted from the SERE training program.,,117 When asked whether she was present for discussions about physical and/or psychological pressures used in SERE training, Secretary Rice recalled “being told that U. S. military personnel were subjected in training to certain physical and psychological interrogation techniques.” 118 Mr. Bellinger, the NSC Legal Advisor, stated that he was “present in meetings at which SERE training was discussed.,,119

(U) Public reports have identified a retired U.S. Air Force SERE psychologist, Dr. James Mitchell, as having participated in the CIA’s interrogation of Zubaydah. 120 Dr. Mitchell, who retired from the Air Force in 2001, agreed to speak to the Committee about his time at DoD.

[redacted]

(U) An unclassified version of a May 2008 report by the Department of Justice (DoJ) Inspector General (IG) confirmed that FBI agents “initially took the lead in interviewing Zubaydah at the CIA facility,” but that “CIA personnel assumed control over the interviews” when they arrived at the facility. 125

[redacted]

(U) The FBI Special Agent told the DoJ Inspector General that he also “raised objections to these techniques to the CIA and told the CIA it was ‘borderline torture. “,130 According to the unclassified DoJ Inspector General’s report, a second FBI agent present did not have a “‘moral objection'” to the techniques and noted that he had “undergone comparable harsh interrogation techniques as part of the U.S. Army Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training.,,131

(U) According to the DoJ Inspector General’s report, FBI Counterterrorism Assistant Director Pat D’ Amuro gave the instruction to both FBI agents to “come home and not participate in the CIA interrogation.” The first FBI Special Agent left immediately, but the other FBI agent remained until early June 2002. 133 The report said that around the time of Zubaydah’s interrogation, FBI Director Robert Mueller decided that FBI agents would not participate in interrogations involving techniques the FBI did not normally use in the United States, even though the OLC had determined such techniques were legal. 134 Then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said that she had a “general recollection that FBI had decided not to participate in the CIA interrogations” but “was not aware that FBI personnel objected to
interrogation techniques used or proposed for use with Abu Zubaydah.” 135

pp. 31-35

E. The Department ofJustice Changes
the Rules (U)

(U) On August 1,2002, less than a week after JPRA sent the DoD General Counsel’s Office its memoranda and attachments, the Department of Justice issued two legal opinions signed by then-Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) Jay Bybee.

(U) Before drafting the August 1,2002 opinions, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the OLC John Y 00 had met with Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales and Counsel to the Vice-President David Addington to discuss the subjects that he intended to address. 224 Then­ National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said that she understood that the Department of Justice’s legal advice to the CIA “was being coordinated by Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales.,,225

(U) The first ofthe two August 1,2002 OLC memoranda, known to many as the “First Bybee” memo, presented OLC’s narrow interpretation of what constituted torture under U.S. law. The memo stated that the federal anti-torture statute of 1994 prohibited “only extreme acts” and that in order to constitute torture, physical pain would have to be equivalent in intensity to that accompanying “serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily functions or even death.,,226 For mental pain to rise to the level of torture, according to the memo, it would have to result in “si~flcant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years.,,22 The First Bybee memo also found that the federal anti­torture statute may not be applicable to interrogations ordered by the President if he acted pursuant to his Constitutional commander-in-chief powers. Further, the memo argued that even if the federal anti-torture statute could be construed to apply to such interrogations, the defenses of necessity and self-defense could potentially eliminate criminal liability under the statute. 228

(U) The First Bybee memo also effectively dispensed with the “specific intent” requirement of the federal anti-torture statute by narrowly defining that requirement. The federal anti-torture statute states that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be “specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.,,229 The First Bybee memo stated that in order “for a defendant to have acted with specific intent, he must expressly intend to achieve the forbidden act.,,230 Under that interpretation, to violate the law, a person must expressly intend to commit torture and the memo stated that “knowledge alone that a particular result is certain to occur does not constitute specific intent.”

(U) Jack Goldsmith, who succeeded Jay Bybee as Assistant Attorney General of the OLC
in 2003, described the First Bybee memo’s conclusions and their effect:

[V]iolent acts aren’t necessarily torture; if you do torture, you probably have a
defense; and even if you don’t have a defense, the torture law doesn’t apply if you
act under color of presidential authority. CIA interrogators and their supervisors,
under pressure to get information about the next attack, viewed the opinion as a
‘golden shield,’ as one CIA official later called it, that provided enormous
comfort. 231

(U) The second August 1,2002 OLC legal opinion was also signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee. 232 According to a declaration made to the United States District Court for
the Southern District ofNew York. by the Information Review Officer for the CIA, the so-called “Second Bybee” memo is an I8-page legal memorandum from the OLC to the Office of General
Counsel of the CIA containing “information relating to the CIA’s terrorist detention and interrogation program” and “advice to’ the CIA regarding potential interrogation methods.” 233 According to the filing, the CIA requested the legal guidance from the Department of Justice. 234 A February 1, 2005 letter from the Justice Department to Senator Arlen Specter, then-Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, stated that the Second Bybee memo gave the CIA “specific advice concerning specific interrogation practices, concluding that they are lawful.” 235 And the unclassified report of the Department of Justice Inspector General explained that the opinion analyzed “specific techniques approved for use on Zubaydah includ[ing] waterboarding … ,,236

[redacted]

John Bellinger, the NSC Legal Adviser, said that he “expressed concern that the proposed CIA interrogation techniques comply with applicable u.s. law, including our international obligations. 238

(U) The Committee has been denied the Second Bybee memo and does not know which specific interrogation practices, other than waterboarding, were analyzed in the memo. A heavily redacted version ofthe Second Bybee memo, released on July 24, 2008, provides no further details about the specific interrogation practices that were analyzed by the OLC. 239 The unredacted sections only make clear that the OLC applied its analysis in the First Bybee memo to a set of (redacted) facts at issue in the Second Bybee memo.240 And while public sources have suggested that the OLC’s analysis applied to Zubaydah, then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo suggested in recent testimony that it “perhaps” applied to others “similarly situated.,,241

(U) According to Acting CIA General Counsel John Rizzo, the techniques that the OLC analyzed in the Second Bybee memo were provided by his office. In his testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Mr. Rizzo stated that his office was “the vehicle” for getting the interrogation practices analyzed in the Second Bybee memo to the Department of
Justice.,,242

[redacted] Lt Col Baumgartner, the JPRA Chief of Staff, recalled sending a copy of the same information that he had sent to the DoD General Counsel – including the list of SERE techniques and Dr. Ogrisseg’s memo on the pS1.;chological effects of Air Force SERE training and on waterboarding — to [redacted] attorney. 43 Mr. Haynes, the DoD General Counsel, recalled that in the context of reviewing the list of SERE techniques provided to his office, that he may have been “asked that information be given to the Justice Department for something they were working on.,,244

(U) With respect to the issues addressed in Dr. Ogrisseg’s memo relating to the psychological effects of resistance training, Mr. Haynes said that he knew that there was a government interest in that subject, but that he did not know if that information was used as support in any OLC legal analysis, and ifhe did know, he did not recall. 245

(U) Then-NSC Legal Advisor John Bellinger said that some of the legal analysis of proposed interrogation techniques prepared by the DeEartment of Justice referred to ”the psychological effects of military resistance training.” 46 In fact, Jay Bybee, the Assistant Attorney General who signed the two August 1,2002 opinions, said that he saw an assessment of the psychological effects of military resistance training in July 2002 in meetings in his office with John Y 00 and two other OLC attorneys. Judge Bybee said the assessment – which to the best of his recollection had been provided by the CIA – informed the August 1, 2002 OLC legal opinion that has not been released publicly.247 In his June 26, 2008 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, John Y00 refused to say whether or not he ever discussed or received information about SERE techniques as the August 1, 2002 memos were being drafted. 248

(U) While Judge Bybee said that he did not recall “any written advice provided to any governmental agency prior to August 1, 2002, on the meaning of the standards of conduct required for interrogation under the federal anti-torture statute or on specific interrogation methods,” the August 1,2002 memos were not the only occasion on which DOJ provided legal
advice on the CIA’s interrogation program. 249 John Bellinger, the NSC Legal Advisor, said that
he understood t
hat in 2002 and 2003, the OLC provided “ongoing advice to CIA regarding CIA’s
interrogation program.,,250 And then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said that she
was present at “several” meetings in the White House at which Mr. Yoo provided legal advice. 251 Ms. Rice said that she asked Attorney General John Ashcroft “personally to review and confIrm” DoJ’s legal guidance. 252

pp. 109-110

E. National Security Council (NSC) Principals Discuss DoD Interrogations

(U) In a June 9, 2008 letter to the DoJ Inspector General, John Bellinger the former NSC Legal Advisor, stated that he “repeatedly asked the Defense Department about conditions and
detention policies at Guantanamo Bay” and that he “specifically raised concerns about interrogations practices used at Guantanamo, including concerns raised by the Department of
Justice. ,,851

(U) Mr. Bellinger told the Committee that Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz raised concerns with him “about allegations of abuse of detainees at Guantanamo.,,852 Mr. Bellinger said that Mr. Swartz called him on “several occasions” to express his concerns and that, in response, he “raised these concerns on several occasions with DoD officials and was told that the allegations were being investigated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.,,853 He said that then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice “convened a series of meeting of NSC Principals in order to ensure that concerns about conditions and other issues relating to Guantanamo were fully discussed with the Department of Defense and other agencies.,,854

(U) Secretary Rice confirmed Mr. Bellinger’s account, stating that he advised her “on a regular basis” regarding concerns and issues relating to Department of Defense detention policies and practices at Guantanamo. 855 She said that, as a result she “convened a series of meetings of NSC Principals in 2002 and 2003 to discuss various issues and concerns relating to detainees in the custody of the Department ofDefense.,,856