Doing the right thing?
 

I'm rather surprised to see no comments here regarding the recent Senate Committee report into the CIA Detention and Interrogation Program.

Even putting aside the somewhat risky future position American aviators captured by hostile forces have now been placed in (yes, torture is horrible and wrong but you won't face prosecution if you use it...) what's the legal position regarding those pilots involved in rendition flights? After all, most knew the people they were transporting were going to undergo something more than 'a severe talking to'.

I like to think I'd have declined to pilot a rendition flight on moral grounds and let the chips fall where they may. But maybe not.

Thoughts?

A Military task is to fly from A to B at a briefed time with a briefed payload be it Pax or Frieght. Unless it is Dangerous Air Cargo, a VIP or Royal flight anything else is of little or no concern. The pointed finger will aim at the tasking authority and then up the Chain of Command. The military, including Govt employed civilians cannot cherry pick their tasking preferances.

I appreciate that this theory didnt work too well at the Nuremburg War trials, but we have moved on a little since then.

Hmmm

Mr Noritake; new user registered Nov 14; asking questions about rendition; and he likes to think he would have declined. I smell a journo!:=

You will find the thread you are looking for in Jetblast cannot be bothered giving you a link good luck in there anyway.

I don't think the warders that led a man to the gallows ever came under any kind of censure and they knew exactly what they were doing.


There are an increasing number of people coming on to PPRuNe with agendas, nothing to do with aviation themselves, often just trolling for the sake of it, to see their written word in print and to watch the fish rise.

Don't feed the troll.

Doing the right thing?
 

Last time I checked captured Americans were being beheaded.

So look who's talking?

What the CIA did in the report is the softhearted stuff. I don't mind them doing it again any minute.

Doing the right thing?
 

Radix, would you prefer it if they used questioning techniques that achieved results? From what I understand the CIA gained very little of value with their organised baths and staying-awake marathons. Just saying...

I wouldn't bother with the Jetblast thread unless you feel the need for pages of liberal vs conservative willy waving and dick measuring. A more relevant question is what does this do for any aircrew who find themselves under capture. Never mind the ISIS type threat, which was never going to be a Geneva Convention conflict, but what about other nations that now see the rules of warfare are indeed completely arbitrary and negotiable. Thankfully the type of nation that is likely to feel this way is also less likely to have an effective counter Air threat, but there are other ways of being held captive than being shot down.

This torture episode effectively removes the need for anyone to worry about any consequences of not observing the Geneva Convention. Thanks to a deceptive and complicit series of UK Government actions around rendition, the UK is as much in the frame as the others.

...or he could just be someone new here with a topic of interest. I don't know; does it matter? Our opinions here are read by thousands of people all over the world. If you're shy about your feelings, don't put them in a public forum.

I may be wrong. Naaaa!

EDIT: how did this post submitted at 12:15, that appeared as posted at 12:15, suddenly change its time? Something is afoot.

A gentle reminder
 

And could I remind those serving that we are not authorised to comment on present-day US intelligence matters, or those of 5 Eyes or other partners. Just saying...

:=

Exaggerate much?
Hyperbole much?

Thank you for your comments.

I wish I was a journalist; I suspect it pays a damn sight more than I currently earn.

The reason I asked the question is quite simple. Some years ago my country was criticized by some for its treatment of prisoners - a treatment which was far less severe than that noted in this report (the less savoury sections of which have been redacted so we can only guess at what they describe). I think, in hindsight, most of my compatriots would view these criticisms of our behaviour as fair and just.

I'm not interested in soliciting comments on 'intelligence matters', but on how serving and ex-serving Western aviators view those who facilitated the acts described in the report, albeit in a peripheral mode, though rendition flights, ATC service of such flights, etc., etc.

If it's simply seen as 'part of the job', fine. But if I don't ask, how will I ever know?

The OP's question is probably worth thinking about, troll or not. At some point, rightly or wrongly, those who have inflicted what has been deemed torture may well be facing judicial process. Will pilots who ferried the victims? Probably not. What about an operative in Northern Pakistan who kills a terror suspect who turns out to be innocent? If he was caught there in the act of shooting him, very probably. If he used a RPAS...who knows?

ShotOne

Was the operative following what he believed, in all good faith, to be a legal order, and within the bounds of his RoE (which, because we play by the rules will take into account Geneva Convention etc)? Is it the person doing the 'deed' or the person who ordered it who has committed the crime? There have been calls that Bush and Blair stand trial for war crimes. Can we expect all those who served during, and after, GW2 to be in the dock alongside them?

Back to this case I suggest that any body linked to, but not directly committing the physical torture, will use the 'legal order' as his defence i.e. there was nothing illegal with flying an aircraft from A to B. They will probably claim that under 'need to know' they have 'plausible deniability'.:yuk:

And before a stream of comments regarding the Nuremburg defence of "I was only following orders" remember that on the (RAF) commissioning scroll is the statement "...and you to observe and follow such Orders and Directions as from time to time you shall receive from Us, or any superior Officer, according to the Rules and Discipline of War, in pursuance of the Trust hereby reposed in you." Which takes us back to para 1.

So it's OK to bomb terrorists (i.e. ISIS/L), causing death, pain and disfigurement on their own territory, but giving them a slap or almost drowning them in your own territory is a no-no?

I recall the movie "Mississippi Burning". One of the characters (FBI men) complains that they are operating in the gutter. The response being "well, if they crawled out of the sewer, then perhaps the gutter's the place we ought to be".

It sounded to me that the folks engaged in the "torture" exceeded the scope of their orders and crossed a line. Whether that line was sufficient to warrant criminal prosecution, I don't know.

If I'd been involved in transporting these folks, I would have been as much in the dark about what was going to happen to them as the other 6 billion or so folks on this planet. So I would not have declined the mission. Even if I had known then what I know now, I doubt I would have declined to transport them.

"according to the Rules and Discipline of War"

That was the whole point of Nuremburg (and many other trials since). The orders given were not iaw Rules and Discipline of War-hence illegal.

The comparison with the Warders taking the condemned to the gallows is, IMHO, a weak one. Those actions were completely lawful at the time.

The problem here is hindsight doesn't take in context but I'm sure everyone here knew 9/11 was a one shot deal. For the not so prescient, there was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off and information was needed.

The term torture is applied with a wide brush, getting slammed against a wall specifically built to give now holds the moral equivalence of the most heinous acts. I understand the concept of a line in the sand not to be crossed, but you allow that and soon enough even a no contact interrogation or a particularly distasteful diet will soon be judged as torture. Even the concept of imprisonment may be viewed as a form of torture.

In 10 years from now will the killer drone program that the US and I believe the UK uses be viewed with the same moral repulsion?

a. Intelligence gained under torture is unreliable.
b. Intelligence gained under torture is inadmissible in court.
c. It's illegal.
d. It diverts resource from legal interrogation.
e. It provides succor to the enemy and creates martyrs.
f. It's generally applied to people who have not been found guilty by a legal process.

But, most importantly, it takes us one step closer to becoming the thing we're fighting and it's not necessary.

I am not a liberal and have no compunction about killing the enemy, with prejudice, but torture is not the tool of a thinking man.

Sun.