First at Human Rights First

Delighted to learn the Elisa Massimino (left) has been named the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Human Rights First.
Elisa, who joined that NGO in 1991 and has served as its Washington, D.C., Director since 1997, earned bachelor's and master's degrees in philosophy, then a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. An Adjunct Professor who teaches human rights advocacy at Georgetown University Law Center, Elisa's also taught law classes at Virginia, George Washington, and American University.
The press release announcing the appointment points out that The Dark Side, reviewed in IntLawGrrl Elizabeth L. Hillman's post earlier this week, makes note of Elisa's work on behalf of persons held since 9/11 as suspected terrorists. (Our prior post mentioning this work is here.) The release states that Jane Mayer's account

credits Massimino with being 'instrumental' to the national debate on these issues. 'Massimino quietly put together a stunning coalition of retired military dignitaries ... to support the restoration of the Geneva standards in the treatment of prisoners.' Massimino, the daughter of a submarine commander, led this informal coalition of nearly fifty retired generals and admirals in meetings with the majority of the 2008 presidential candidates and many members of Congress.

An apt assessment, as all who've followed Gitmo-related issues will recognize.
Heartfelt congratulations!

(Hat tip to our Opinio Juris colleague, Kenneth Anderson)

Read On! "The Dark Side"

(Read On! ... occasional posts on writing we're reading)

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals (Doubleday, 2008) by Jane Mayer (below right) is making a big splash this summer. It’s landed on the New York Times bestseller list and sent its author to countless interviews, including appearances last week with Bill Moyers and David Letterman.

Despite its grim title, Mayer’s book does more than call out villains (a fairly despicable David Addington stars as Public Enemy No. 1, but many others lurk alongside). In both her book (its dedication professes her “love of American history and admiration for those who have fought to fulfill the promise of the country’s ideals”) and interviews (on Letterman she said that there are “many good guys in the military, and in the FBI”), Mayer is careful to give credit to those who resisted “the dark side”.

Among those who come out best in her account are uniformed military lawyers. Mayer documents how the JAG corps was bypassed, ignored, and isolated while key decisions were made about military commissions, the laws of war, and the rules regarding the treatment of prisoners. This is not a new interpretation; Mayer’s narrative echoes charges made repeatedly in press coverage (including her own work in The New Yorker, about which IntLawGrrls earlier posted here and here) of the White House’s frequent dismissal of military legal expertise. For example, in the drafting of the military commission order, the services’ top lawyers were “marginalized,” in the words of Rear Admiral Donald J. Guter (88) (Guter is now Dean of Dusquesne Law School in Pittsburgh), and ultimately blind-sided by the rash proposal to authorize a new version of military commissions. The infamous “torture memos” triggered shock and outrage from many military lawyers, Mayer writes on p. 232:

The memos from uniformed lawyers to the politically appointed general counsel were brimming with barely concealed disbelief at the direction the Justice Department was proposing for soldiers to take.

Mayer draws on interviews, government reports, legal analyses, and an already extensive body of scholarship to build a damning critique of post 9/11 legal conclusions and political actions. But not yet answered is the central historical question: Why did the U.S. adopt legal and military practices so wrongful in the face of such powerful opposition? Judge advocates and other officials who realized, in real time, that grave mistakes were being made could not stop the Bush administration despite what Mayer casts as truly valiant efforts.

The hubris of a few misguided individuals may be enough explanation for now. But eventually, we have to reconcile the impotence of Mayer’s “good guys” with her faith in American ideals-- and her hope for the future.

(Cross-posted at Legal History Blog)

Siting "unspeakable" secrets

Kudos to Jane Mayer for her article "The Black Sites: A rare look inside the C.I.A.'s secret interrogation program," just posted at the New Yorker's website.
Mayer, author in 2005 of a definitive article on extraordinary rendition, "Outsourcing Torture," provides more detail in this article than a reader ought to have to stomach regarding the interrogation of so-called high-value detainees, post-September 11 captives believed to possess significant information about Al Qaeda and its activities. Last September President George W. Bush admitted that 14 of those detainees had been held at CIA secret sites, but that they'd just been transferred to Guantánamo, where they're believed to remain to this day. Mayer writes that after the transfer detainees were interviewed for the 1st time by the International Committee for the Red Cross; the resulting, confidential report is said to have "harshly criticized the C.I.A.’s practices," and to have asserted that some violated both U.S. law and the grave breaches proscription of the Geneva Conventions.
Mayer pays particular attention to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who the U.S. executive says has confessed to plotting the 9/11 attacks and to a laundry list of other terrorist acts. Her article underscores that any statements were the result of extremely harsh conditions of detention and interrogation. Mohammed reportedly was visited by a stream of female interrogators while he was locked in a cell without benefit of clothing. And he reportedly was subjected to simulated asphyxiation via drowning; that is, "waterboarded".
The waterboarding allegation's been heard before, so much that a reader may find herself becoming inured to, less shocked by, it. It's a concern voiced here and here with respect to repetition of images of torture. What once was "unspeakable" and "unthinkable" is, now, spoken of and thought about all the time. That sad fact brings to mind a quote that my colleague Jack Ayer of Underbelly blog found in Abba Eban's Autobiography. Eban's precise reference to "Jewish history" is altered here to emphasize the quote's applicability to all manner of violations of human dignity:

Many things in history are too terrible to be believed, but nothing in history is too terrible to have happened.

IntJournGrrls

To mark World Press Freedom Day today, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has given its Cano Prize to Anna Politkovskaya, a reporter for the Russian paper Novaya Gazeta. She was praised for her “incredible stubbornness” in “chronicling events in Chechnya when the whole world had lost interest in that conflict” -- until October 7, 2006, when Politkovskaya was shot dead near her Moscow home. (photo at left © UNESCO)

This story brings to mind other women who deserve much credit for writing without fear: the New Yorker's Jane Mayer, for work on U.S. antiterrorism like "Outsourcing Torture," and also the Washington Post's Dana Priest, for her exposés of the CIA's "black sites," and, along with Anne Hull, of the poor medical treatment given wounded veterans.

Credit is also due a woman less well known: 24-year-old economics graduate Awatif Ahmed Isshag, who for the last 4 years has kept her Darfur village aware of events near and far. Her medium? Neither magazine nor the internet, but handwritten missives posted on a tree near her home. Asked about the wisdom of her venture by Stephanie McCrummen of the Post, Isshag gave a reply worthy of the most intrepid reporter:

"Journalism is a profession of risk," she said matter-of-factly, her voice echoing lightly in the nearly empty room. She also said, "I will fast to get the story."

Imagining violence

Tucked into "The Good Shepherd," an otherwise bloodless account of Cold War espionage, is the stripping, black-hooding, and mock-drowning of a Russian interrogee by American agents. Director Robert De Niro's allusion to contemporary events -- forcedly naked and black-robed detainees at Abu Ghraib, alleged CIA waterboarding of detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- is obvious. And it is effective: the image isn't easily put out of mind.
The New Yorker's Jane Mayer and others have written of late about the exponential increase in scenes of torture, on film and on TV, since the attacks of September 11, 2001. It's easy to criticize justificatory depictions in shows like "24." But is De Niro's critical usage that much different? And what about the countless iterations of Abu Ghraib's hooded man that have appeared not only on the news pages and in editorial cartoons, but also on untold university symposium posters? The propriety of one such poster provoked an impassioned discussion in my Human Rights class last week. Most students thought use of the image an appropriate means to draw attention to an event at which speakers would argue against torture. But a few voiced concern that even this usage helped to make something once was reflexively disturbing seem more familiar, more normal -- to inure even the most caring to scenes of torture.
The discussion took on new significance as eyes turned to scenes of horror at Virginia Tech. Of particular note is Alessandra Stanley's New York Times commentary on the sadly rote reportage that such tragedies have produced. Her column again spurred the question whether routinization of violence -- whether graphic depiction of violence for the cold consumption of all -- increases society's tolerance of violence to a degree that ought not to be tolerated.
(Many thanks to my superb Human Rights students for raising and exploring this important question.)