The Department of Justice has ended its investigation on CIA interrogation methods of detainees that range back to former President George W. Bush’s first term. The CIA is pleased that prosecutor John Durham, Republican-appointed U.S. attorney, decided not to bring any criminal charges against CIA officials involved with the interrogations in question, specifically the deaths of two prisoners of war, Gul Rahman and Manadel al-Jamadi.
Once again, the CIA can wash its hands. America can close the books on the Iraq-Afghanistan torture days of the early 2000s and finally “look ahead to the challenges of the future” as Gen. David Petraeus, the current CIA director noted in a message to employees on Thursday, the day Attorney General Eric Holder announced the end of his 2011 criminal investigation.
Gul Rahman was a suspected Afghan militant, not charged with any terrorist crimes, who died in November of 2002 after being shackled to a cold wall at a black site prison deemed Salt Pit. Manadel al-Jamadi was the Iraqi who made headline news in 2003 when photos of his body packed in ice after being suspended in the air with his hands behind his back and a sandbag on top of his head surfaced during the Abu Ghraib scandal.
If anything can be taken from the war on Iraq and Afghanistan it’s this: If you did anything wrong early enough in the war, you’ll be pardoned. The ease of access to large amounts of information has only grown exponentially, even in as little time as the last 10 years since the wars started. One would think with such a large flow of information put into the hands of the people that it would help shed light on the underbelly of government institutions and corporate businesses, but instead the CIA gets better at hiding the skeletons in their closet.
Though the CIA and other agencies in the intelligence community are already viewed with a healthy amount of skepticism, society is going to become increasingly powerless to these agencies the more that our communication methods grow. The days of the Patriot Act and its “enhanced surveillance procedures” are not over; Obama extended many of these provisions.
It’s ironic that while individuals’ privacy is continuing to be diminished, anything related to the military-industrial complex is being conducted in more privacy. If the extent of our protests amount to a few people conversing in a coffee shop half-truth snippets about MK-Ultra or the Iran-Contra scandal, then we can expect even less fruitful investigations in the future. Even the amount of fall guys the CIA can throw under the bus will start to decrease.
Two men, not ever convicted of any crime, are dead and no one is held responsible for their murders? It’s ridiculous. It seems the CIA would rather put this whole Iraq and Afghanistan war crimes stuff behind us.
Nick Bell is a media production senior and may be reached at [email protected].
Welcome to the world of NDAA…..