Virtually without exception, the American judiciary has refused to allow any victims of America’s War on Terror abuses — whether foreign national or American citizen — to even have their claims heard in court. Federal courts have repeatedly shielded government officials from any accountability for these abuses, not by ruling in their favor on the merits, but by ruling that they need not answer for their actions at all. Courts have accomplished this whitewashing by accepting the Bush and Obama DOJ’s arguments that government actions undertaken as part of the War on Terror are completely shielded from judicial review — i.e., from the rule of law — by both secrecy doctrines (it’s too secret to risk having a court examine) and immunity prerogatives (government officials cannot be sued even for egregious wrongdoing committed while in office).
Greenwald then lists five examples of U.S. Courts preventing meaningful inquiry based on “secrecy” and “immunity.” In comparison, he describes a recent ruling by the Pakistan’s highest court holding its ultra-secret ISI agency accountable for prisoner abuse. It appears that the “backwards” country of Pakistan offers more civil rights protection to victims of “the war on terror” than the United States.
