A Chinook helicopter flies over Afghanistan (U.S. Army photo)

WASHINGTON — Last year, as Dr. Steven Miles, professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and faculty member of its Center for Bioethics, was researching the deaths of detainees in U.S. custody, he noticed something strange. Although the Department of Defense had in the past issued press releases when detainees died at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, at some point in 2006, he says, the “entire prisoner death reporting system was turned off in Afghanistan.” Although at that time deaths in Iraq were still being reported, he says, that system was “turned off” at the beginning of 2008.

Miles, a member of the board of the Center for Victims of Torture and author of “Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and America’s War on Terror,” was working on an updated edition of his 2006 book, which documents how physicians and psychologists working for the U.S. military violated the Hippocratic oath and American Medical Association rules by helping the government design and monitor abusive interrogations. The Hippocratic oath requires doctors to consider above all the health of their patients and to do no harm, while an AMA directive prohibits physicians from “providing or withholding any services, substances, or knowledge to facilitate the practice of torture” and obliges doctors to support victims and to “strive to change situations in which torture is practiced.”

Instead, Miles documented, first in the British medical journal the Lancet and then more expansively in his book, physicians actually helped facilitate torture. “The medical system collaborated with designing and implementing psychologically and physically coercive interrogations” in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, he wrote. Death certificates were falsified and military health officers were either reporting instances of torture late, or not reporting them at all, he found. And, he observes in the Appendix to the book’s second edition, titled “Oath Betrayed: America’s Torture Doctors,” published by University of California Press this year, the military appeared to be using physicians and psychologists to test the reactions of detainees to particular interrogation techniques, which may well violate ethical bans on experimentation on human subjects. Physicians for Human Rights recently released a report documenting similar concerns.

As Miles was working on his book, he realized there were huge gaps in the military’s reporting about the torture, injury and death of detainees in its custody. Although Miles says the Pentagon never reported the deaths of detainees subjected to “extraordinary rendition” — those sent to other countries for interrogation, sometimes under torture — the Pentagon had, at least, been reporting the deaths of some prisoners it acknowledged having in its custody.

Then one day, the press releases stopped. “They just stopped reporting it,” said Miles last week. It couldn’t be that no one died, he said, because “you have a certain expected death rate based on the size of the population. I’ve been able to trace all public death reports and can show when they turned them off.”

Last week, the Washington Independent first reported that the Department of Defense appears to have stopped releasing information about the deaths of detainees in its custody in Afghanistan and Iraq. (It has continued to release them concerning detainees at Guantanamo, most of whom are represented by lawyers.) Despite numerous daily requests for a response from the Pentagon since the middle of last week, the site has still not received any information from the government about whether or why it stopped issuing these reports for its other detention centers abroad.

Miles, meanwhile, has used his findings to write an article about the Pentagon’s failure to disclose detainee deaths and their causes. The paper is now being prepared for publication in the American Journal of Bioethics, a leading bioethics journal and website. In his paper, Miles writes:

In May 2004, shortly after media published photographs of lethal abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, DoD disclosed 22 prisoner deaths; of which 12 (54%) were attributed to natural causes. DOD did not disclose another 67 deaths that occurred during that same period. Only 13 (15%) of the total 89 deaths were due to natural causes. By the end of 2008, 93 of 165 known decedents (56%) are unnamed. Death certificates are available for 37 (22%). Homicides and shelling of prisons are the leading causes of death. DoD has completely suppressed prisoner death reports from Afghanistan since 2004 and adopted a similar policy for Iraq in 2008.

That the government has concealed or delayed reporting on deaths in its custody is nothing new. The New York Times reported in 2004 that the Defense Department had provided incomplete or inaccurate information about deaths of prisoners in its custody. And Human Rights First, a leading human rights legal advocacy organization, in a comprehensive report in 2006 documented similar gaps in the government’s reporting of deaths in U.S. custody.

“Our report found that commanders failed to report deaths in custody,” said Devon Chaffee, advocacy counsel with Human Rights First. “Sometimes they reported them days or weeks later. But there clearly was a reporting problem. Some were simply not reported at all,” she said, although Army regulations require that deaths in U.S. custody be reported within 24 hours.

Human Rights First’s report, Command’s Responsibility, based on its study of autopsy reports and interviews with military personnel, witnesses and physicians, found that between August 2002 and February 2006 nearly 100 detainees had died “while in the hands of U.S. officials in the global ‘war on terror.’” Although the military had deemed 34 of those deaths suspected or confirmed homicides, Human Rights First counted a total of 45 cases where the facts suggested “death as a result of physical abuse or harsh conditions of detention.” What’s more, in almost half the cases surveyed, “the cause of death remains officially undetermined or unannounced.” Overall, the group found, by the beginning of 2006, “eight people in U.S. custody were tortured to death.”

The international Geneva Conventions, which govern the treatment of prisoners in wartime, requires each signatory country to report publicly the deaths of detainees in its custody. But because President Bush early on decided that detainees in the “war on terror” are not technically “Prisoners of War” entitled to the protections the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. military has not followed that requirement.

The Obama administration does not appear to have changed the reporting policy, although at least some officials in the administration have declared the “war on terror” over. Still, the Pentagon under President Obama has not resumed regular reporting on the deaths of prisoners in custody, says Miles. The system is “still shut down,” he said. “Obama hasn’t opened it up. It’s just mysterious to me.”

The Washington Independent has called and written to officials in the Defense Department at least six different times in the last week, asking for a response to this claim about its reporting and for a statement of the current policy on reporting detainee deaths. Late yesterday, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed that the DoD issues press releases when detainees die at Guantanamo Bay; the Washington Independent still has not received an answer with regard to the deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Regardless of the DoD policy, however, the result of the suppression of this information is that no one seems to know how many detainees in U.S. custody have died – including how many of those have been murdered or tortured to death – since the “war on terror” began.

Chafee said that Human Rights First and other human rights organizations, as far as she knows, have not had the resources to update their reports to keep an accurate count.

Representatives for the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights said those organizations have not been able to track those numbers, either. Both have sought information from the government related to detainee deaths through the Freedom of Information Act.

Daphne Eviatar is a law reporter for the Washington Independent.

“There are a lot of things Jesus wouldn’t do because he’s the son of God,” Bauer told the AP. “I can’t imagine Jesus being a Marine or a policeman or a bank president, for that matter. The more appropriate question is, ‘What is a follower of Jesus permitted to do?’”

“I think if we believe the person we have can give us information to stop thousands of Americans from being killed, it would be morally suspect to not use harsh tactics to get that information,” Bauer said.

Hat tip People for the American Way

Alberto Gonzales (WDCpix)

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will cooperate with a “truth commission” proposed by Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy to look into possible unlawful conduct by the Bush administration, the Washington Independent reports. This morning reporter David Weigel caught up with Gonzales after a forum on Republicans and the Hispanic vote and posed the question.

Gonzales’ reply:

“My view has always been to be as cooperative as possible, and that’s what I’ve been with respect to everything. As far as I’m concerned I’ve got nothing to hide and I’ll cooperate. Every time I’ve been asked to cooperate, I’ve cooperated. In terms of what happens in the future, I’m not going to comment on that, but that is what I’ve done in the past.

“I think only a fool would be unconcerned about any kind of commission or investigation in this political town and in this political climate. Having said that, again, because I feel like I’ve got nothing to hide and I’ve done nothing wrong, I’m not worried about the truth, so long as what we’re talking about is the truth and things don’t become politicized.”

Related: Talk of Truth Commission sparks conflict

For two years of the Bush era beginning with Hurricane Katrina, the Star Tribune published a weekly comic strip on its opinion page that was unlike anything else in American newspapers, sending up current events in a serial format with heaping helpings of dark humor and giddy gore.

Kirk Anderson’s “Banana Republic” dispensed satire so bruising and brutal it made you want to die of shame — but also so funny and true it gave you reason to live. Now a new book compiles every episode of “Banana Republic,” letting readers relive tortuous times and die of embarrassment all over again.

Click the arrow to play the promo, exclusively on MnIndy.

The detestable action in “Banana Republic” is set in the nation of Amnesia, located somewhere south of the border. Yet every week events quite like those in Amnesia had just happened at home in the United States. Waterboarding, wiretapping, welfare for the wealthy – all took on a fake Spanish accent that fooled you only long enough for a laugh to get caught in your throat like a bad breakfast burrito.

Anderson peopled Amnesia with dictator Generalissimo Wally and his loyal subjects – cheering masses that do not include Rita, a frustrated member of the impotent opposition party called Los Cause, or her husband Diego, who spends much of the serial suffering casual torture as a prisoner of Wally’s regime. They are joined by Rita’s brother Cesar, who upon return from National Guard duty in a foreign war is rendered useless for civilian life when army doctors replace his arms with twin bazookas.

The exotic setting is strategic, letting readers react to the atrocities and bad policies depicted before they recognize the country as their own, Anderson said. If the indictment of America came first, ideological blinders might prevent people from getting the point of the cartoon.

Anderson has published the full run of “Banana Republic” in one sturdy volume that’s available for purchase in stores across the Twin Cities and everywhere else online. (A book talk and cartoon presentation is set for Feb. 10, 7:30 p.m., at Common Good Books in St. Paul.) Besides providing sharp reproductions that put the often grubby original versions to shame, Anderson has added useful annotations for each installment – succinct reminders of the events (both national and local to Minnesota) that inspired each strip’s satire. That makes the book a kind of diary of an era that was so depraved, one inauguration won’t wash it away.

But if the national politics that inspired “Banana Republic” is seeing some of its excesses reversed, the media flux that freed up Anderson to try something new continues unabated.

In the Twin Cities, Anderson personified an important step in the disintegration of the daily press. When the St. Paul Pioneer Press laid him off in 2003 after eight years as editorial cartoonist (never replaced), it was as if an internal organ had gone missing.

Minnesota woke up in a cold media bathtub with an abdominal scar and a message scrawled on the mirror: Call an ambulance – one of your editorial cartoonists has been removed.

So when “Banana Republic” was implanted in the Star Tribune two years later, Anderson’s invention worked like an artificial kidney, efficiently processing a week’s worth of news with a few drops of ink and vitriol spread across a quarter-page of newsprint. It was unclear how the newspaper had ever functioned without it.

The “Banana Republic” serial came to a close Nov. 22, 2007, ended by editors who finally bowed to bean-counters — but whom Anderson holds blameless, thankful for 100-plus weeks of work that went way beyond what American newspapers normally allow (way, way beyond, if you consider the frequent depiction of melon-balling).

Editorial cartoonists have played the canaries in the media mines as America’s newspaper barons dig deeper for dwindling ad revenue. Anderson said he now hears of several dropping every month. “Satire will survive,” Anderson told The Minnesota Independent in an interview, but “editorial cartooning as we know it is dying.” His own work has shifted to animation for films and videos, such as the Flash animation promotion for the “Banana Republic” book above.

He said he’s satisfied with the strip’s transition from op-ed pages to book form. “I’m glad I did this and stuck it in one place. It does work as a whole.” And he’s not concerned that the book’s content is dated and obsolete. In fact, just the opposite: He is concerned that the book’s content remains disturbingly current. “Unfortunately, most of it still fits today,” Anderson said. “I worry that these issues are with us for a long time” — even under President Obama.

Minnesota Public Radio has also posted its own audio interview with Anderson.

Here are the stores in the Twin Cities where you can buy a copy of “Banana Republic.”

Mayday Books
True Colors Bookstore (formerly Amazon Bookstore)
Common Good Books
Big Brain Comics
Northern Sun Merchandise
Arise Bookstore
St. Martin’s Table
Schneider Drug Store

Meanwhile, Minnesota peace activists are trying to nail down Klobuchar’s position on a bill by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would strictly define interrogation techniques. A noncommittal e-mail from Klobuchar on Monday didn’t satisfy them, but Feinstein’s office tells MnIndy that the bill’s in flux anyway after Obama’s executive orders to close the Guantanamo prison camp and end interrogations outside the bounds of the U.S. Army’s Field Manual.

In other news concerning Minnesota’s lone senator, Klobuchar’s bill to delay the nation’s conversion to HDTV from Feb. 17 to June 12 passed on Monday. The House version is expected to come to a vote today, according to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s office, with only slight changes needed from the Senate to make the two bills agree.

Illustration: Matt Mahurin

President Barack Obama took a major step toward undoing the interrogation and detention policies of the Bush administration on Thursday, issuing four executive orders that lay out an unequivocal path to closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, constructing a new legal and policy architecture for terrorism detainees, and ending the CIA’s so-called “enhanced interrogation” regime.

Both civil libertarians and ex-CIA officials involved in interrogations and detentions policies hailed the changes.

“It’s a great leap forward in terms of respect for human rights,” said John Kiriakou, the retired CIA official who supervised the early interrogation of Al Qaeda detainee Abu Zubaydah in 2002. “From the very beginning, the CIA should not have been in the business of enhanced interrogation techniques and detentions.” CIA interrogators waterboarded Abu Zubaydah, but not while Kiriakou supervised the interrogation.

Under the executive orders issued Thursday, the CIA’s interrogators cannot question detainees using “any interrogation technique or approach, or any treatment related to interrogation, that is not authorized by and listed in Army Field Manual 2 22.3.” That manual was rewritten by the Army in 2006 to reemphasize its compliance with the Geneva Conventions and U.S. laws banning torture. The Bush administration took an unyielding stance toward exempting CIA interrogations from that manual and those laws. But the Obama administration revoked all Bush administration executive orders from September 11, 2001 onward “concerning detention or the interrogation of detained individuals,” and directed the attorney general to conduct a thorough review of all other “directives, orders, and regulations” on the subject issued by the Bush administration that are no longer applicable.

Obama further instructed the military to close Guantanamo Bay within a year. A different executive order empanelled a cabinet-level task force to determine what should be done with the roughly 245 detainees still held at the Cuban naval base, as well as determining “lawful options for the disposition of individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations” in the future.

In testimony Thursday morning to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, ret. Adm. Dennis Blair, Obama’s nominee to lead the 16-agency intelligence community, repeatedly underscored his opposition to torture. “Torture is not moral, it’s not legal and it’s not effective,” Blair stated. While the director of national intelligence-designate would not say whether he considered waterboarding torture, he told Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), “There will be no waterboarding on my watch, there will be no torture on my watch.”

Kiriakou said that the reaction to Obama’s harmonization of interrogations policy would get “a very positive reaction” inside the CIA. “There are people at CIA who engaged in what were certified as enhanced [interrogation] techniques, but were never supportive of it,” he said. “This should make people very happy. No one wants to be in harm’s way [legally]. Despite what the Bush White House and Bush Justice Department said was legal, I think people at the CIA understood that this was not legal and [the techniques] were torture.”

Tyler Drumheller, a former chief of CIA operations in Europe during the Bush administration’s first term, agreed. “These people aren’t monsters,” Drumheller said. “They were doing what they were told, and what was the policy of the [Bush] administration.”

The reaction from civil libertarians was uniformly jubilant. Linda Gustitus, president of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, said Obama “has already changed the world with respect to America’s use of torture.” Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies said the orders represented an “extraordinary first step towards ending the illegalities and abuses of the last seven years.” Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch, said the interrogations order “makes meaningful the US commitment not to torture detainees” and that “President Obama has rejected the abusive practices of the last seven-and-a-half years.” Caroline Fredrickson, Washington director of the ACLU, said Obama had given the U.S. “a much-needed and significant break from the Bush administration policies that, with utter disregard for our Constitution, trampled our nation’s values and ideals.”

Progressive members of Congress who fought against the Bush administration’s detentions and interrogations apparatus joined in their enthusiasm for Obama’s move. “President Obama’s first days in office have been a triumph for the rule of law,” said Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), a member of both the intelligence and the judiciary committees. Added Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), a member of the House intelligence committee and chairman of a special House panel on intelligence oversight, “Today’s orders will begin the process of putting our detainee policies back on sound legal footing while maintaining our ability to get actionable intelligence.”

Holt added in a phone interview, “If you outlaw torture in all its specifics [as the executive order does], I don’t really care about a general statement. I’m really pleased.” He noted that when Obama was an Illinois state senator, Obama wrote a law requiring all police interrogations to be videotaped, which Holt has long argued should be standard CIA and military practice as well.

Senators at Blair’s hearing expressed some concern over whether Obama’s executive orders had left loopholes for CIA interrogations and detentions that would contravene the bans on abuse and cruel and unusual punishment. Officials scrambled to reassure senators and journalists that there would be no such exemptions. While Blair testified that he would not wish to see operational specifics of interrogation techniques made public, he declared that he was “not saying ‘Here’s the document, and then, just kidding, here’s the real stuff.’” Similarly, at a background briefing at the White House on the new orders, a White House legal official told reporters that there would be no “reintroducing techniques that are inconsistent with the Army Field Manual.”

The Center for National Security Studies’ Martin agreed. “I don’t think there’s a real loophole for the CIA, although any president can always undo an order that he’s signed,” she said. “But
ordering the CIA to close its detenion centers is an enormous step, as it would take substantial time and resources to open them again.”

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, blasted the closure of Guantanamo Bay as irresponsible. “During these troubled times, GITMO facilitates the necessary function of gathering intelligence and keeping America’s most dangerous enemies in custody,” Price said in a statement. “Closing the facility without a plan in place to replicate those functions is irresponsible.” Yet Obama’s order directs both the military and the cabinet to come up with precisely such plans.

Drumheller hoped that the administration would engage in some sort of reckoning with the notion, put forward without evidence by senior Bush officials for seven years, that the Bush administration’s interrogation program actually provided valuable intelligence in the struggle against Al Qaeda. “What really did come out?” Drumheller asked. “There should be an honest appraisal of [the program] not just the first few months, but all these years. It would give an idea why [the use of torture] probably isn’t a good idea.”

Kiriakou, who had more hands-on experience with the interrogation regime than nearly anyone in the intelligence community, was satisfied simply to see the program end. “It’s finally time that regulations fell in line with reality,” he said.

Spencer Ackerman is National Security Reporter at the Washington Independent.

The central aim of the agenda is to find areas of mutual agreement among evangelicals and progressives. For gay rights, that means a focus on employment nondiscrimination laws for the LGBT community with an exemption for religious institutions. In reproductive health, it means finding ways to reduce the need for abortions by “preventing unintended pregnancies, supporting pregnant women and new families, and increasing support for adoption.”

The agenda takes an encompassing approach to immigration: “We agree that we need secure, compassionate, and comprehensive immigration reform. We support policies that create an earned path to citizenship and protect families, while securing our borders and treating American taxpayers fairly.”

Torture is one area where both sides seem to have found common ground. The coalition rejects torture as un-American and immoral.

Tony Jones

Among the dozens of evangelical leaders who have signed on is Tony Jones of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis. In his letter of support he wrote, “My hope is that President-elect Obama and the new Congress will embrace this governing agenda, which includes policies that represent real progress on historically divisive issues: reducing abortions and ensuring workplace equality for gay and lesbian persons.” Jones continued, “Together, this growing group of faithful persons represents a new path forward in America that models a positive religious presence in the public square.”

Another signatory is Paul de Vries, a member of the board of the National Association of Evangelicals. “There is one Lord Jesus Christ, and he has many issues,” wrote de Vries. “Tragically, while the Democratic and Republican parties each have at least an attenuated sense of some of his issues — each party seems tone-deaf to some others. Nowhere has the failure to be faithful to Truth and to listen to one another been more acute than on issues underlying the so-called ‘culture wars.’”

During a recent conference call with reporters, a number of evangelical leaders explained why they agreed to be a part of this effort to end the culture war. Probably the most profound example was Jonathan Merritt, founder of the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative.

“As a committed Southern Baptist, I know all too well the ‘culture war’ mentality. It is a mentality that often speaks without listening, divides rather than unites and promotes destructive partisanship,” he said. “At the same time, I am proud of the unwavering moral stances that conservative Christians, including Southern Baptists, have taken. We remain committed to important issues like the traditional marriage and protecting life conception.”

He continued, “Yet conservative Christians must also live out the other tenets of our faith, including compassion, charity, human dignity and the pursuit of peace. Therefore, I support this agenda because I am a Southern Baptist, not in spite of that fact.”

Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke

On ABC News Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney acknowledged knowing about and approving of the torture technique known as waterboarding.

“I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn’t do,” Cheney said. “And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it.” (Back in April, George W. Bush admitted as much, as well.)

Replaying the tape on MSNBC last night, Rachel Maddow asked Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committe, “Did he just admit to condoning torture?” His reply:

“As far as I’m concerned, that’s exactly what he admitted,” Levin said after a pause to shut his eyes, and shake his head as if still in disbelief.

“Now he’ll say that he doesn’t admit supporting torture,” Levin added, “but facts are that the policies which were approved, the legal opinions authorized these harsh techniques, and when the Vice President of the United States says that he believes — and he said that what, just a few nights ago — that waterboarding is ‘appropriate,’ there is no other conclusion that I can reach other than I know it’s a form of torture, it’s been acknowledged as a form of torture I think since the Inquisition. Senator McCain who was the subject of torture is absolutely clear on it, but I think every authority on waterboarding and torture will say that waterboarding constitutes ‘torture.’”

George W. Bush famously told CBS’ Katie Couric, “I’ve said to the people that we don’t torture, and we don’t.” But his administration has long danced around the definition of torture and whether waterboarding, a forced simulation of drowning, qualifies.

Both George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice have commented that the incident with al-Zaidi is represents progress — a “sign of freedom that people feel,” as Bush said — in Iraq. No word yet on how and if the U.S. will look into the allegations.

Members of a committee of Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) brought a striking yet silent protest to the plaza outside St. Paul’s Ecolab on Wednesday.

Group members stood vigilantly on the steps, wearing bright orange bodysuits with black bags draped solemnly over their heads. Some of the demonstrators held banners and displayed posters that identified torture victims. Each of their heads was bowed. A blood red sign read, “Torture destroys us all.”

For those who paused at the scene, Sonja Johnson of WAMM, (pictured below) provided a little more information: “We’ve done a lot of research on torture,” she said as she handed out fliers that presented facts about crimes against humanity, while also touching on a few arresting cases. “We want people to be treated humanely … we want to stop torture at the top and we want to educate people about it.”