All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and our next guest on the show is the other Scott Horton, heroic anti-torture, international human rights lawyer, and contributing editor to Harper's magazine.
Of course, he teaches law at Columbia law school as the co-founder of the American university in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and on and on like that.
You can find him at harpers.org/subjects/no comment.
Welcome back to the show, Scott.
How's things?
Great to be with you.
Beautiful day.
Uh, well, good.
It's a pretty nice here in LA, but I haven't had a chance to get outside yet.
Uh, but it looks nice out the window.
Okay.
So, uh, geez, I saw this headline and it made me frown.
It says judge throws out challenge to Obama's planned assassination of us cleric.
And I was wondering, it seemed to me like, wow, this is world history right here, permanent, like the textbooks 50 years from now are going to have to have a whole little paragraph about this, right?
Yeah, it's a, it's not a surprising decision, frankly, because I think most of the legal, most of the lawyers who looked at the suit when it was first filed said, uh, the judge is going to say using one of a number of different legal doctrines, I'm not going to touch this question.
And that's what happened.
I mean, it's not that he said, yeah, green light, you know, uh, Obama, you can do whatever you want.
Uh, nor was he going to say what you're doing is wrong.
What he was, what he said essentially is this is not a question for my court.
And he used the doctrine of standing largely to do that saying, Hey, well, you know, this was, this is this guy's father.
It's not him who's dealing with it.
And, you know, even if it were him, it's not the sort of question that a federal judge should be deciding.
Well, do you agree with that?
If you were a federal judge, would you say, well, you know, as much as I'm against this being a heroic anti-torture human rights judge, uh, still, uh, this is the job of the president and the Congress to figure out not me.
Do you buy that?
I'll tell you.
I think that, uh, the judge himself, uh, indicated a reason why that argument really doesn't fly very far.
Um, he said the law requires that if the government is going to, um, is going to tap the phone to this guy, our lucky in Yemen, uh, because he's an American citizen, he's got to come.
He has to go to the government, has to come in advance to a special court and get a warrant authorizing it.
But the government's telling me that if they want to kill him, they're just entitled to do that.
No specific prior review.
That's a little strange.
Yeah, he's right.
It is.
It's a little strange.
It's like ridiculous, which is why he relied, as you're saying on the, uh, the standing of the father primarily, right?
Because the rest of that argument doesn't really hold up.
Yeah.
So, I mean, he sort of left a little bit out there and I would say, you know, during oral argument and otherwise, I think he and others made clear that they really weren't terribly happy with the argument that the government was raising here.
That was a bit of a grab for power.
I have a sense that, um, you know, okay, they lost this ruling, uh, the CCR and the others who brought this case, ACLU, uh, did, but I'm, I have a strong sense that they actually had some impact, uh, on the Obama administration.
Uh, you know, I, and I, I have this based on talking with folks at the, at the justice department and in the White House lately, I think they feel that they got the, uh, they got the short end of the stick and public relations on this entire matter.
Their argument didn't really look or sound very good and that they mishandled and bungled the whole thing by having someone, you know, disclose it, uh, to the press, uh, in advance.
And I think they, they seem to recognize, you know, one of the major arguments here was why is the government doing this when there's no, they haven't even shown any effort to arrest this guy or file criminal charges against him.
Uh, and what happened after that hearing?
Suddenly we discover that, uh, following US pressure, the government of Yemen has launched a manhunt to try and find al-Balaki and arrest him evidently in coordination with some sort of arrest request from the United States.
So it looks like the, it looks like the Obama administration may very well have shifted their position.
Hmm.
Well, you know, it was always very telling to me, and maybe I read too much into this, but anonymous administration officials hiding behind a secret identity, basically, uh, still all they were willing to come up with for the Washington post was that we believe that this man, al-Balaki may have ties to terrorism.
And based on that, they were going to have him killed.
So I wonder how you put that in an indictment, I guess, since the Patriot act or whatever, you can call anything you want materials.
Well, we don't know what the specific information is that they have.
I mean, I have to say, you know, I mean, I read the stories that ran the New York times and elsewhere, and I came away thinking that, uh, they must have a good case.
And then I read the expert submissions that came in from a Princeton professor and a number of others, uh, in the Al-Balaki case.
And I, who, and we have a number of experts who sort of poured over all the statements that had come out of the justice department, uh, and the intelligence establishment and basically said, no, actually they don't have evidence that sustains any of these things.
And the suggestion that there is some powerful Al-Qaeda network operating in Yemen that directly, uh, threatens us interest.
That was pretty roundly drubbed.
I mean, we're talking about perhaps a couple of hundred people, no more than that.
Uh, so, you know, it looks like things were seriously overstated, uh, and hyped, uh, a little bit by the U S but you know, I, I, I really have a sense right now.
I'll tell you two things.
One, I have heard that, uh, that the, this position of aggressive use of drones as a tool for targeted killings outside of the, the war zone itself, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Um, there's been a lot of pushback against that within the administration.
I hear particularly from the state department, but also justice department and other places.
I don't think you're going to hear the Obama administration say, Oh yeah, we recognize that we don't have this power.
I think what you're going to see is a more cautious use of the power.
Um, but I think that that doesn't mean any reprieve, uh, for people who live in the Northwest frontier province of Pakistan.
And I think it's, it's been raining bombs and it's going to continue to rain bombs.
It means that it's much less likely we're going to see aggressive use of drones in Yemen and Somalia.
Well, now on the legal technicality here, uh, I've always been a bit confused about this cause I hear people saying that, you know, the CIA does this and that, and it's illegal, but, uh, the national security act of 1947, I'm roughly paraphrasing it here, but it says something like, uh, the CIA may also from time to time do things that the president says, or something very vague like that.
In other words, they can break the law.
If the president writes a finding that says, I instruct you to do this or that they can do that.
And they have total impunity to do that.
So why doesn't that include murdering American citizens?
The only limit on it, right.
Would be when the finding goes to the Congress.
And if the Congress decides to impeach them over whatever it is that they're doing, but other than that, the national security act of 1947 says that there is no law, but the president, right?
Well, executive order 13, two to two also, you know, provide some guidance in this area.
Uh, but in fact, there's an awful lot of law here that secret law that we don't know where they're, you know, they're decisions by the executive, uh, and that there's still classified, um, executive parts of executive orders, uh, that deal with these matters.
And we really don't know what all the parameters are that have been set out there.
And, uh, I would say the area got much, much darker and much murkier, uh, under, uh, under George W.
Bush.
Uh, and Obama doesn't seem to have done anything to, uh, to shuttle, to shut a lot of light on it, but he seems to be very, very happy with all the aggressive powers that Bush claimed.
Thank you.
Well, so now this guy, I'll walk you since his father doesn't have standing.
Uh, well, first of all, is this going to go to the Supreme court now or what's going to happen?
Um, I mean, they will have a right of appeal first to the court of appeals and in the district of Columbia, um, which I would say is extremely unlikely to reverse this ruling.
And then they would have the possibility of seeking a writ of certiorari to the Supreme court.
But you know, I, I would say it's been decided on a very, very narrow, limited, uh, area.
So it's, it's not terribly likely it would be picked up by the Supreme court, but who knows?
Well, it's so funny because, uh, you know, and I'm sorry for the people who, you know, who are not too familiar.
We didn't really give them too much of the background here, but it's the Obama administration is claiming the power to murder American citizens, either with the military or the CIA, uh, wherever in the world he feels like.
And apparently since the whole world's a battlefield, that includes whatever County you live in.
And this here's, I'm thinking this is the biggest deal in the history of America.
And yeah, well, you know, uh, it's kind of not even an issue at all.
And I'm going to lose on this one too, I guess.
All right, well, hang on everybody.
It's the other Scott Horton from Harper's and Columbia.
And, uh, we'll be talking a little bit more about this and about Cheney's indictment in Nigeria after this.
All right, everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with the other Scott Horton, heroic anti-torture international human rights lawyer.
We were talking about the most important thing in the world that nobody cares about Obama's claimed power to assassinate you and the court's refusal to, uh, enjoin such amazing, uh, actions or even asserted powers for action there.
Uh, but, uh, now we need to move on to good news.
I like it.
Nigeria charges, former U S vice-president Dick Cheney over bribery.
Yeah, it's, uh, you know, it's coming as a big bombshell in the United States, but that's, you know, mostly because people haven't been tracking this story.
It's been around for a long time.
Uh, and, uh, and it is a absolutely serious story.
I mean, in fact, Halliburton, you know, acknowledged that the bribery occurred.
Uh, it occurred while, uh, Dick, uh, Cheney was CEO of the company.
Uh, you know, between 160 and 180 million dollars in bribes were paid.
Uh, Halliburton agreed to pay a lot of fines on it.
Uh, the U S justice department did not decide to indict, uh, Dick Cheney.
Uh, but there was a lot of really strange stuff about that decision.
It was like rushed out in the last days of the Bush administration to be done.
And of course the, uh, the justice department in the Bush era had a really long established streak of not indicting, uh, senior corporate officers when their corporations did, uh, engaged in criminal acts.
In fact, we find very frequently, this is senior corporate officers who have made big donations to the Republican party or, or who were party bigwigs, but none of them really begins to compete in that regard with Dick Cheney, who of course was the sitting vice president at the time.
And the Nigerians throughout this period said, okay, you U S we'll do your investigation, but when you're done, you know, we're going to make our own call about who we will charge on this.
And now they've made their decision.
It's an independent commission in Nigeria that did this, their economic and financial crimes commission, which is actually quite well regarded.
Um, and they've handed down their indictment and they're going to go after Mr.
Cheney.
Now.
So what does that mean?
They got to call Hillary Clinton and ask her to extradite him.
Well, I think, you know, I mean, we'll see an extradition request go forward.
Uh, and the, you're not clear to me how the U S is going to deal with it.
I mean, the U S has suddenly become very big on extradition.
Do you know if you're following the Julian Assange matter, uh, uh, and the U S really has no reason to deny the extradition request.
There's no question about the validity of the charges.
I mean, not to say he may wind up being acquitted at the end of the day, but these are very serious charges.
The, uh, bribery actually did occur.
And moreover, uh, it happened in an area of government contracting, which was his special responsibility at Halliburton, the person who actually did the bribing, a guy named Stanley was handpicked for that position by Dick Cheney and reported to Dick Cheney.
So, you know, what's this about Halliburton is pushing for a plea bargain on Cheney's behalf.
Is that what that is?
Um, you know, it, I would just say that is normal.
It's normal when things like this go on, that, uh, that party, that there's some sort of negotiation that begins, uh, about a plea bargain.
And in this case, Halliburton, you know, I mean, they've already admitted to, uh, uh, to guilt effectively.
They've already paid fines in the United States.
They still have the Nigerian side to deal with.
Uh, and in the course of negotiations, corporations routinely say, you know, we'll pay a monetary fine, but don't indict any of our officers.
That's just the way the, the whole dance goes.
Well, maybe we can buy him some F-35s.
The American people have a bottomless pockets.
I heard so.
All right now.
All right.
So tell me about Assange.
There's a whole legal something going on supposedly about him, but it seems much more like just, uh, some hit men have been hired.
We call them the governments of Britain and Sweden and whatever, and they're going to do our dirty work for us when it comes to this Assange guy.
Yeah.
If you watch NBC news, you know that there was an international man hunt to get this man finally apprehended yesterday.
Oh my God.
Completely ridiculous.
Uh, this, the first of all, this has nothing to do with WikiLeaks or any disclosures on WikiLeaks.
Uh, it has to do with a sexual misconduct charge that was raised in Sweden and the whole background of this is very, very strange.
So it occurred just as WikiLeaks was coming into, um, uh, into focus, uh, in, in the news with their, uh, with their second major publication.
Um, and it happened, uh, people learned about it in the news media.
In fact, Assange's own lawyers said they first heard about this reading Swedish newspapers talking about it.
So a prosecutor did this and immediately leaked it to the press.
So it was all over the press.
Her supervisor then squelched it and then it was reopened.
So it's been on again, off again, on again, off again.
Um, Assange applied for residence in Sweden.
His residence request was denied.
He then went to Britain and then the Swedes went after him with an arrest warrant in which they say that he left the jurisdiction, you know, but of course they, they may have to leave the jurisdiction.
It's all really ridiculous.
And Assange and his lawyer have been cooperating consistently.
They didn't have to go, uh, uh, snatch him.
There was never any question as to his whereabouts.
It was always known by the authorities and all that he's been thought for is questioning in connection with this matter where he always said he was available and willing to be questioned.
So, um, you know, it's, uh, been turned by the irresponsible media in the United States into something other than what it is.
Well, you know, I Googled Assange rape and I got 12,600,000 results.
So damage done.
And of course it's not rape.
Well, yeah.
I mean, even, even they're saying there was some weird feminist power balance thing out of whack or some, some, she didn't, she regretted it the next morning, that's the charge.
Uh, the, the, the charge was that she had consented only to have sex with him wearing a condom and the condom broke.
Right.
But no assertion that she tried to make him stop and he wouldn't.
Uh, well, in fact, it's agreed that it was consensual.
So, you know, I don't know.
It's the sort of thing that, uh, you know, it may be the guy's bad and as a cab, but it wouldn't be pursued as a, on a criminal basis and most countries in the world, but Sweden isn't most countries, of course, and now at the same time, and I have to assume that the U S state is behind most of this, but PayPal Visa, MasterCard, the people that hosted the DNS, uh, gave him the.org address on the internet, uh, the Swiss bank where WikiLeaks, uh, held their money.
This is all, uh, you know, been turned against him and shut down.
They've made a WikiLeaks without really law without charging them with anything.
They've just made them kind of unpersons.
I don't know if they did civil forfeiture to seize the bank account in Switzerland or what, but, uh, you know, it seems like some precedents are being set here for this sort of subtle, not too subtle war against this organization.
Well, in, in 2008, the army counterintelligence center, uh, was asked to, and did a, uh, study suggesting how to shut down WikiLeaks.
About a 30 page document classified as secret, no foreign.
And of course it was immediately leaked to WikiLeaks, uh, and posted.
And it makes an interesting read because, uh, we use the tactics they described to be pursued are exactly what is going on right now.
So they say, defund the organization, find out where its servers are and shut them down, vilify the people who are running it.
And then, and this is really the key point.
They say you have to destroy the confidence of potential leakers in this organization by forcing WikiLeaks to acknowledge who it got the material from.
And that's exactly what the U S is going to try and do.
Oh, so they're going to call him a witness and bring him here.
I think that's right.
They will want him to finger Bradley Manning as the source, because they think that will destroy WikiLeaks.
All right.
Well, I'm sorry.
We're out of time.
Cause I got a lot more questions for you about this, but we'll have to catch back up and see heroic anti-torture human rights lawyer, the other Scott Horton from Columbia, from harpers.org.
Thank you very much.
Hey, great to be with you.
Take care.
