I’ve been expressing some sympathy for President Obama these last several days. He does, after all, have to put up with the Republicans, for whom I have no sympathy at all. But, as Dahlia Lithwick has recently reminded us, the guy does have his faults. In a recent article in Slate, Dahlia brings us up to speed on the cases of Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, two American citizens who went to Iraq as security contractors in the employ of Shield Group Security and became very upset about what they saw there. Vance brought his concerns to the FBI, which led to a raid by the U.S. Army personnel on Shield Group Security, which raid led to the incarceration of Vance and Ertel. From there, things went very downhill very fast. As Dahlia tells it,
Overnight, Vance and Ertel went from U.S. contractors to “enemy combatants,” and both were allegedly subjected to sleep deprivation, aggressive interrogation, blindfolding, shackling, hooding, and “walling.” Both were denied access to legal counsel for their appearances before the Detainee Status Board, and neither was allowed to see the evidence against them. Writing for the majority today, Judge David Hamilton [of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals] doesn’t mince words about this treatment:
“After the plaintiffs were taken to Camp Cropper, they experienced a nightmarish scene in which they were detained incommunicado, in solitary confinement, and subjected to physical and psychological torture for the duration of their imprisonment—Vance for three months and Ertel for six weeks. They allege that all of the abuse they endured in those weeks was inflicted by Americans, some military officials and some civilian officials. They allege that the torture they experienced was of the kind “supposedly reserved for terrorists and so-called enemy combatants.” If the plaintiffs’ allegations are true, two young American civilians were trying to do the right thing by becoming whistleblowers to the U.S. government, but found themselves detained in prison and tortured by their own government, without notice to their families and with no sign of when the harsh physical and psychological abuse would end.”
The two were never charged with any crime. Instead, in a resolution that looks ever more familiar, both were eventually dumped at the airport in Baghdad to make their own way home. They sued [former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld and other “unknown defendants” for “their roles in creating and carrying out policies that caused plaintiffs’ alleged torture.” Rumsfeld moved to dismiss all claims. The district court agreed to dismiss some claims but allowed the case to proceed on others, including the claim that their treatment amounted to unconstitutional cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Why is Rummy moving to dismiss all their claims? Because he says that, even if everything that Vance and Ertel say happened did happen, it was all constitutional. What does President Obama have to say? That Rummy’s right.
Real change, Barack? I’m not seeing it.
Afterwords
Yesterday, the President was visiting the families of the 30 men who died in that helicopter crash in Afghanistan. I’m not doubting the President’s concern and empathy for the families’ grief. But those men didn’t have to die.
