One of the worst myths official Washington and its establishment media have told itself about the torture debate is that the controversy is limited to three cases of waterboarding at Guantánamo and a handful of bad Republican actors. In fact, a wide array of torture techniques were approved at the highest levels of the U.S. Government and then systematically employed in lawless US prisons around the world – at Bagram (including during the Obama presidency), CIA black sites, even to US citizens on US soil. So systematic was the torture regime that a 2008 Senate report concluded that the criminal abuses at Abu Ghraib were the direct result of the torture mentality imposed by official Washington.
American torture was not confined to a handful of aberrational cases or techniques, nor was it the work of rogue CIA agents. It was an officially sanctioned, worldwide regime of torture that had the acquiescence, if not explicit approval, of the top members of both political parties in Congress. It was motivated by far more than interrogation. The evidence for all of this is conclusive and overwhelming. And the American media bears much of the blame, as they refused for years even to use the word “torture” to describe any of this (even as they called these same techniques “torture” when used by American adversaries), a shameful and cowardly abdication that continues literally to this day in many of the most influential outlets.
The Senate Intelligence Committee today will release part of its “torture report.” The report is the by-product of four years of work (2009-2013) and is 6,000 pages long. Only the Executive Summary, roughly 600 pages, will be released today. Even some of that is redacted: the names of CIA agents participating in the torture, countries which agreed to allow CIA black sites, and other details. For months, top Democrats on the Committee warred with the Obama White House due to the latter’s attempts to redact far more vital information than even stalwart CIA ally Dianne Feinstein thought necessary.
None of this has been in any plausible doubt for years. Recall that Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led an official investigation into prisoner abuse, said in 2008: “There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” Gen. Barry McCaffrey said : “We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the CIA.” Nobody needs this Senate report to demonstrate that the U.S. government became an official squad of torture (with the American public largely on board).
Still, this will be by far the most comprehensive and official account of the War on Terror’s official torture regime. Given the authors – Committee Democrats along with two Maine Senators: Angus King (I) and Susan Collins (R) – it’s likely to whitewash critical events, including the key, complicit role members of Congress such as Nancy Pelosi played in approving the program (important details of which are still disputed), as well an attempt to insulate the DC political class by stressing how the CIA “misled” elected officials about the program. But the report is certain to lay bare in very stark terms some of the torture methods, including “graphic details about sexual threats” and what Reuters still euphemistically and subserviently calls “other harsh interrogation techniques the CIA meted out to captured militants.”
Important parts of the Obama administration engaged in all sorts of gamesmanship to prevent the report’s release, including a last-minute call from John Kerry to Feinstein in which the Secretary of State warned that release of the report could endanger American lives (a warning affirmed yesterday by the White House) And a vital part of President Obama’s legacy will be his repeated and ultimately successful efforts to shield the torturers from all forms of legal accountability – which, aside from being a brazen breach of America’s treaty obligations, makes deterrence of future American torture almost impossible (Obama did that even in the face of some polls showing pluralities favored criminal investigations of torture).
To see how little accountability there still is for national security state officials, recall that the CIA got caught spying on the Senate Committee and then lying about it, yet John Brennan kept his job as CIA Director (just as James Clapper is still Director of National Intelligence despite getting caught lying about NSA domestic spying). Any decent person, by definition, would react with revulsion to today’s report, but nobody should react with confidence that its release will help prevent future occurrences by a national security state that resides far beyond democratic accountability, let alone the law.
The Intercept will have comprehensive coverage of the report throughout the day. We’ll have full annotations of the report; graphical guides to the key parts; reporting in Washington from Dan Froomkin, who has been covering the report for months, and other reporters; and I’ll be live-blogging key parts of the report and other fallout in this space all day, appearing, in reverse chronological order, underneath these initial observations.
Torture used to extract false information to justify Iraq War
Buried in footnote 857 of the report is this remarkable account of how the CIA rendered a detainee to an unknown country, had him tortured, and then used the false information he provided about Saddam’s WMDs and “alliance” with al Qaeda to justify the U.S. attack, including information used by Colin Powell at his notorious 2003 U.N. speech (via Sam Husseini):
-Glenn Greenwald at 4:58 p.m. EST
Torturing detainees with broken and prosthetic legs
This is simply repulsive, for reasons that speak for itself (contributed by The Intercept‘s Margot Williams):
-Glenn Greenwald at 3:47 p.m. EST
Feinstein’s speech
When releasing the report, Dianne Feinstein delivered a speech that contained some rather stark accusations against the CIA. My colleague Peter Maass wrote the following summation of the highlights:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, unveiling the report on the floor of the Senate, described the CIA’s use of torture as “a stain on our values and our history,” and she issued a particularly harsh condemnation of one of the agency’s former directors, Michael Hayden, whom she said had misled her committee and the public.
Referring to the contrast between what CIA cables said about the actual interrogations and Hayden’s portrayal of the interrogations, Feinstein said the CIA’s own documents “presented a starkly different picture from Director Hayden’s testimony before the committee.” She added, “I remember clearly when Director Hayden briefed the committee (and) referred specifically to a ‘tummy slap’… and presented the entire set of techniques as minimally harmful….They were not. The committee’s report demonstrates that these techniques were very harmful and that the constraints that existed on paper in Washington did not match the way the techniques were used around the world.”
Feinstein also accused Hayden of misleading the committee by saying the CIA had decided to destroy videotapes of interrogations because Congress had not requested them. “Director Hayden stated that if the committee had asked for the tapes they would have been provided–but of course the committee did not know the tapes existed,” Feinstein said.
In addition, Feinstein said the agency misled and provided false information to Department of Justice officials who were investigating whether the CIA program was legal. It is not clear whether her statements indicate a desire on her part for the DOJ to reopen its now-closed investigation.
“The CIA provided inaccurate memoranda and explanations to the Department of Justice while its legal counsel was considering the legality of the coercive techniques,” Feinstein said, noting that the DOJ relied on CIA assurances about the conduct of interrogations that were not “consistently or even routinely carried out” in the actual interrogations. She added that “in many cases important information was withheld from policy makers” for years—and she provided specifics:
“The CIA didn’t tell President Bush about the full nature of the [enhanced interrogation techniques] until April 2006. That’s what the records indicate. The CIA similarly withheld information or provided false information to the CIA inspector general…in 2004. Incomplete and inaccurate information was used in documents provided to the Department of Justice and as a basis for President Bush’s speech on September 6, 2006, in which he publicly acknowledged the CIA program for the first time. In all of these cases, other CIA officers acknowledged internally that information the CIA provided was wrong.”
The CIA’s obstruction continued until recently, Feinstein added, with the agency requesting redactions to the Senate report that were apparently intended to weaken its impact, rather than keep out of the public realm classified information that was legitimately sensitive. “The [requested] redactions to our report prevented a clear and understandable reading of our study and prevented us from substantiating the findings and conclusions…we objected.”
-Glenn Greenwald at 3:14 p.m. EST
Look Forward, Not Backward, the leader instructs again
Barack Obama – who notoriously protected all torturers from all forms of legal accountability based on his lawless, repellent and selectively applied decree that we should Look Forward, Not Backward – today said much the same thing in response to this report:
In August, he acknowledged – with casual language more suitable to describing a purchase of new socks – that “we tortured some folks,” but warned us not to get “too sanctimonious” about it. So if you’re feeling sickened and outraged by today’s revelations, just listen to the President: stop Looking Backward and being sanctimonious, and just forget about all this unpleasant business about torture – just like he did.
-Glenn Greenwald at 2:51 p.m. EST
Ladies and Gentleman, Barack Obama and his administration
In all their brave and principled glory:
-Glenn Greenwald at 2:22 p.m. EST
Pure sadism: “Rectal rehydration,” threats to rape and kill detainees’ mothers
-Glenn Greenwald at 2:06 p.m. EST
The U.S. media – beyond what I explained above (most would not even call it “torture”) – played a central role in first obscuring, then justifying, the Bush torture regime to the public. One of the most extreme examples was this Joe Klein column in The Guardian viciously mocking those who claimed the U.S. was torturing detainees (“total rubbish, of course”), and he even wrote this about detainees:
They wear orange jump suits, which are probably an improvement over their Afghan cave-wear (I would actually prefer they be dressed in pink tutus, to give them an appreciation of the freedoms accorded western ballerinas).
Liberal journalist Jonathan Alter wrote a Newsweek column expressly demanding that the U.S. Government use torture, headlined “Time to Think About Torture.” It began: “In this autumn of anger, even a liberal can find his thoughts turning to … torture.”
Now we have new examples. Today’s Senate Committee report describes how Douglas Jehl, then a New York Times reporter, now The Washington Post‘s Foreign Editor, promised the CIA positive coverage of its torture program (a common practice among some DC national security reporters):
My colleague Dan Froomkin emails to say:
Many of the same news organizations you are trusting today to accurately inform you about the torture report were either naive or knowing dupes in a CIA misinformation campaign orchestrated by top CIA officials, that included leaks of information that was amazingly enough both classified and inaccurate at the same time.Finding No. 10 of the summary reads as follows:
-Glenn Greenwald at 1:40 p.m. EST
Destruction of “Zero Dark Thirty” Scenario
The report utterly decimated the central claim of “Zero Dark Thirty” that torture played a key role in finding Osama bin Laden (h/t: Farhad Manjoo)
Piggishness of American exceptionalism: Marco Rubio Edition
Moments after the report was issued, Marco Rubio tweeted this in defense of CIA torture:
Yesterday, the very same Marco Rubio boasted of his efforts to impose sanctions on “human rights violators” in Venezuela:
Does anyone at all have any difficulty seeing why few people outside the U.S. media take seriously the lectures of the Leader of the Free World?
-Glenn Greenwald at 12:32 p.m. EST
Psychologists played key role in torture program, then profited greatly
This is not only a profound and disgraceful violation of all professional ethics, but also a perfect illustration of what the ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer calls “the torture-industrial complex”, as those torture psychologists received contracts totaling $81 million as part of their outsourced work:
CIA leaked classified information to the media for propaganda purposes
For all the claims in Washington about how leaking classified information is destructive and criminal, the CIA – consistent with what the Obama administration frequently does – routinely leaked classified information to the media to propagandize about their torture program. Will there be any criminal investigations the way there are when whistleblowers leak information that embarrasses (rather than serves) the government? Yes, that’s a rhetorical question:
-Glenn Greenwald at 11:55 a.m. EST
More waterboarding, and more brutal, than previously known
Even for waterboarding, it seems clear that there were more than just the 3 known cases, and the waterboarding was more brutal than previously known:
– Glenn Greenwald at 11:51 a.m. EST
Innocent people detained and tortured
From Dianne Feinstein’s summary of the report:
-Glenn Greenwald at 11:31 a.m. EST
— Glenn Greenwald at 11:14 a.m. ET
Feinstein comments
A link to Carol Rosenberg’s article:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article4434603.html
From Xeni Jardin:
http://bbs.boingboing.net/t/senate-torture-report-confirms-cia-had-black-site-at-guantanamo-lied-to-congress/48165
“Carol Rosenberg, a Miami Herald reporter who has singlehandedly kept the Gitmo story alive as America tries to ignore it, writes about the sexual torture and other forms of abuse carried out at Guantánamo Bay. The Senate “torture report” [PDF] released this week confirms that the CIA maintained a so-called “black site” where torture was administered to prisoners, and that the CIA deceived Congress about the existence of such a site.”
Rosenberg:
“The CIA’s spokesman, Dean Boyd, also declined to say when — if ever — the agency relinquished control of Guantánamo’s most secretive prison.
“A footnote in the Senate report says that in early December 2006, three months after the CIA brought its prisoners back to Cuba, then-Director Michael Hayden visited Guantánamo’s “High-Value Detainee Detention Facility” — something not reflected in the prison’s official list of dignitary visits.”
And there is no suggestion in the footnote that the CIA had relinquished control of it.”
Some, here, are undoubtedly already familiar with Hickman’s story:
What Happened When I Spoke Out About the CIA’s Guantanamo Black Site, by Joseph Hickman, Dec. 12, 2014
http://time.com/3631602/senate-torture-report-cia-guantanamo-black-site/
What I have to say springs from my service in the U.S. Navy during WWII and from the traitorous actions of our most vile twenty-first century presidents, and the first vice president as well. (the lack of capitalization is but a miniscule gesture of the contempt in which I hold these foul, vile, sub-human animals who deserve to be CRUCIFIED (one of only a few acts which would be commensurate with their baseness!) They have clearly violated every concept of decency by which we live, and which we seek to convince others to share.
But even worse (and an undergirding part of the prior rationale) is that other nations who have shared whatever nobility we could aspire to are now “left out to dry”!
Whatever we have been able to convince other nations to do with the aim of creating a better world for all not only LIES IN SHAMBLES on a pile of pain, decimation, lies and self-glorified egos (that one in particular for the TRAITOR named CHENEY!) but has been totally negated by their acts of avarice and stupidity.
Welcome Back to the Thirteenth Century…….now that’s real PROGRESS !!!!
It would not be inappropriate to observe that they (Bush II and Cheeeeeney) have turned humanity back a century or more.
Any remaining faith in the goodness of America (sic) has disappeared in the pile of bullshit which has been coming out of Washington since the dawn of the current century and which pervades that foulest of places. We have, in fact, reached a saturation point where there is nothing left BUT that foul-smelling material.
Aside from multitudinous reasons of humanity and dignity, the ultimate reason that civilized nations DO NOT TORTURE can be summarized in a single word: RETRIBUTION ! Those who do NOT torture have a historically superior chance of not being recipients of retributive acts of the same stripe. Even war, that most vile evil of mankind’s warped brain, displays strong evidence of that balance. Lower the bar and our own troops are totally exposed.
As people with values systems, it is also abhorrent to deprive an individual of ANY defense and then subject that person to excruciating pain…..which, in almost ALL instances, yields NOTHING!!! Thus, the deed is seldom worth the loss of other values.
It is encouraging to learn some Americans who wore or wear US military uniforms are vomiting.
It is the seed of your country’s only hope. US voters gave in a long, long time ago.
`feline..
In my humble opinion, the ‘Q and A’ qualifies as basic humanitarian rhetoric. What is a proven fact is that a ‘Human Rights Watch’ advocacy director (Tom Malinowski) stated that “under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place” for renditions. The press on this story was minute at best, and to this day, HRW still haven’t retracted their sentiments.
Last year, HRW stated “A Human Rights Watch’s report (pdf), based on independent analysis and documentation, released late last week found that available evidence strongly suggested the cause was a chemical weapons attack and that the Syrian government was responsible.” Before Russia and the British Parliament resolved Diplomacy, this unsubstantiated evidence was being utilized as a basis for war (‘Syria Crossed The Red Line).
With that being said, this morning I delved into HRW’s past influential documented references (reports) with respect to the 20+ year, Iraq War..
[snip]
Upon researching the evidence w/ respect to the “slaughtered.. 100,000 Kurds”, I’ve uncovered the fact that the ‘Middle East Watch’ that is referenced as providing the statistics/overview of said atrocity, is(was) a division of HRW. They were referencing themselves. This on top of the advocation of the ‘unlawful’ policy (No Fly Zone) that helped in decimating a sovereign country (Iraq), makes me question the legitimacy of said organization.
[link]
http://www.hrw.org/news/2004/01/25/war-iraq-not-humanitarian-intervention
Middle East Watch Report(?) – [pdf]
https://books.google.ca/books?id=1A9vDivZRmgC&pg=PA447&lpg=PA447&dq=Middle+East+Watch+issued+a+193-page+report,+Human+Rights+in+Iraq,&source=bl&ots=CEp-O-i54d&sig=MyFucXVO9zcjcXNkVDwbGz2VCX0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5g-LVLvaKtD9yQSPqYB4&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Middle%20East%20Watch%20issued%20a%20193-page%20report%2C%20Human%20Rights%20in%20Iraq%2C&f=false
Human Rights Watch World Report 1990 – Iraq and occupied Kuwait
[snip]
‘Saddam’s flagrant disregard for the fundamental rights of his own citizens had, however, long been familiar to Iraqis themselves, and to some outside observers. Over the past two years, the US State Department, the staff of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Amnesty International and a number of Western journalists were among those who documented the regime’s crimes. In February 1990, Middle East Watch issued a 193-page report, Human Rights in Iraq, cataloging the extraordinary oppressiveness of the Ba’th Party regime since its seizure of power in 1968. The report concluded that over the past two decades, apart from freedom of worship, virtually every important liberty has been denied Iraq’s 17 million people..’
http://www.refworld.org/docid/467fca3cc.html
No-Fly Zones (Unlawful)
note: references included within link
https://www.globalpolicy.org/previous-issues-and-debate-on-iraq/no-fly-zones.html
No Fly Zones Over Iraq – `j. scahill
[snip]
‘Measured Response’ or ‘State Terrorism’?
‘For much of the past decade, the US and British attacks in the no-fly zones have been given cursory notice by major corporate media outlets, if at all. The story, usually with a Washington dateline, reads the same almost every time: “US warplanes bombed an Iraqi command and control post in southern Iraq after Iraqi radar locked on allied aircraft patrolling the No Fly Zone, according to a statement from US Central Command.” The story almost always goes on to inform readers that “The pilots returned safely to base.” Then, of course, the story explains that the zones were “established after the 1991 Gulf War to protect minority Kurds and Shiites from Saddam.”
Recently, because of the loud beating of the war drum, these attacks are receiving more attention in the media. But primarily from the angle of “Iraqi defiance.” The Bush administration asserted that Iraq’s firing on US aircraft entering Iraqi airspace constituted a “material breach” of the November 8 UN Security Council resolution on Iraq. The charge was quickly, though diplomatically, rebuffed by Secretary General Kofi Annan and several foreign governments, including Security Council member China. There are no UN resolutions that prohibit Iraq from maintaining its military or taking action in defense of its territory.
Hans von Sponeck, a 32-year veteran of the United Nations and a former Assistant Secretary General, scoffs at the characterization of these zones by the US media and government officials as having a basis in the UN charter or Security Council resolutions.
“That’s a total misnomer,” he says. “There is NO UN MANDATE for the establishment of these two no-fly zones. There is always a reference to resolution 688, which deals with an appeal to the Secretary General to ensure the protection of minorities in Iraq. That is not, by a wide stretch of the imagination, an agreement that you can establish, in some other country, airspace that belongs only to you and is blocked to the national aircraft. It is an illegal establishment of a zone for bilateral interests of the US and the UK.”
But despite the public protests raised by von Sponeck and a handful of other UN officials, Washington continues to receive support from the UN in the form of silence..’
note: capitalized emphasis, mine
http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/12/04/no-fly-zones-over-iraq/
It’s cold in the UK, but we will fight for our freedoms!
…
“Face-sitting protest outside parliament against new porn rules
Protesters chanted: “What do we want? Face-sitting! When do we want it? Now!”
Participants wearing gimp masks used mats and blankets to act out face-sitting.”
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/dec/12/face-sitting-protest-outside-parliament-against-new-porn-rules
Glenn you are my nigga!
I am so glad there are people like you and that there are venues for people like to speak truth to power!!!
To me, your best lines were:
“[Torture by the the U.S. government] was not confined to a handful of aberrational cases or techniques, nor was it the work of rogue CIA agents. It was an officially sanctioned, worldwide regime of torture that had the acquiescence, if not explicit approval, of the top members of both political parties in Congress.”
“[U.S.-based media outlets] bears much of the blame, as they refused for years even to use the word “torture” to describe any of this (even as they called these same techniques “torture” when used by [adversaries of the U.S. government]),”
“… a vital part of President Obama’s legacy will be his repeated and ultimately successful efforts to shield the torturers from all forms of legal accountability – which, aside from being a brazen breach of [treaty obligations signed by the U.S. government], makes deterrence of [future torture programs by the U.S. government] almost impossible (Obama did that even in the face of some polls showing pluralities favored criminal investigations of torture).”
“… nobody should react with confidence that its release will help prevent future occurrences by a national security state that resides far beyond democratic accountability, let alone the law.”
By the way there is more than torture being employed against “the enemy” in the U.S. As it will one day float up to the surface the U.S. government has had sort of a renewed MKUltra program all along right in the U.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra
http://ipsoscustodes.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/quis-custodiet-ipsos-custodes/
Satyagraha
RCLopez
RC Lopez,
We appreciate your comment, but please do not use the “n” word, even in a friendly way, on the comment section. Thank you.
WILL, HAVE, DID …. THE CIA LIE(D) TO CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SINCE 9/11/01?
The historical record of actual events, statements to Congress and the media, and documentation obtained show a trail information that can lead to but one conclusion. I have great respect for what they do which is within their charter, but this is all about rouge activities and groups within the CIA etc.
It seems that everyone is being kept in the dark except key players within the CIA and their shadowy handlers.
If someone wanted to create a list of lies, with held information and intentional deceptions, it would be a very very long list.
That list would include most of the nations belonging to the UN, real and phony corporations around the world, activities even off world, what is the truth about GMOs, geo-engineering, weather wars, playing two sides of the same crisis, fabricating events, money from drugs and what about the plans of the MCC and population “control”, the DUMBS non of surface dwellers know about, and the list goes on and on. To most ordinary people what is happening on the taxpayers dime is actually unbelievable and almost like a science fiction story. What about all the high technology we have obtained from those others that we now have patents for but keep hidden under the false claim of national security?
If those patents were released we would have space travel, free energy, medical care like in Star Trek, good wholesome food and the opportunity to clean up our beautiful planet that those global elites have trashed for cash.
Hey there CIA etc. you all know about the double cross. If you don’t think they will pull that on you, you are delusional. Come clean with humanity on what is really going on. Join us and save the planet and humanity. When they are done with you, you will all be gone like the rest of us. Together we can create a fantastic future with amazing opportunities for all humanity and not just for a few DNA blood types and psychopaths.
Think about it. You are no safer than I am. Lets be honest. Stop the lies and share the revelations.
Great piece about some “big picture” connections:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/ferguson_is_baghdad_is_new_york_is_kabul_20141211
Too bad a civil suite can’t be bought against these people. To recover funds spent on illegal activities. Class action.
We no longer need ask why a Bush / Cheney administration was unconcerned the invasion and occupation of Iraq could be considered a war crime.
They already knew they’d implemented a widespread program of torture and there was no turning back. In for a penny, in for ALL the pennies…
WHAT AMERICANS NEED TO FOCUS ON IS WHO WE ARE
Are we really a nations of torture and a side show of horrors?
Are we going to allow our children to believe that we are barbarians?
Are we to let our children see us as the same as our worst enemies?
Are we to allow our American dreams to be dragged through the mud and slime of history?
Are history books to pretend that we are right in our disgusting behavior because mad men took control?
Do we still believe in the goodness of America, and of the belief in justice for all?
Do we have the courage to reverse this sickness before it kills the very soul of America?
WE NEED ANSWERS AND WE NEED ACTIONS.
ARE WE A GOOD PEOPLE OR NOT?
A read through Zinn’s A People’s History of the US, and listen to Noam Chomsky discuss how we continually violate international and national law, will answer that question for quite succinctly. “We” are a leading terrorist nation, only surpassed maybe by our partner Israel.
Russell Brand on CIA Torture Report
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/russell-brand-cia-torture-report-if-rape-being-used-way-get-info-were-already-he-0
This reminds of the attitude too many adults have towards “spanking” children. Although it is scientifically proven that corporal punishment has a pernicious effect on a child’s soul, it is done mercilessly. Society as a boot camp for all these atrocities?
http://www.nospank.net/main.htm
I think this mindset lurks in the family, & in this context it is belittled. The roots are authoritarian education & indoctrination of children. The gashes suffered on the child’s soul need compensation. When adult they avenge themselves on whoever is near & defenseless.
Torture is criminal behavior
Video: How to Prevent Violent Criminal Behavior in the Next Generation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–I0X3-tOwE
Can somebody else please provide feedback and let me know if this is happening to them as well?
It seems like some of the written text within your posts are running off the screen.
Via twitter:
Two jars of habanero pepper jelly to the IT person who gives us preview. :-s
#BLACKLIVESMATTER
Glenn,
I am looking forward to some real explosive interviews.
The first would an interview with Osama bin Laden’s wives; actually, any one of them would do. Probably Murtaza could go as prospective groom, do the interview, and then split as fast as possible. We need to know a lot more about Osama’s stay in Pakistan, who all he met before and after 9/11/01, and how he was finally kiilled. If Murtaza is unwilling then there is a guy called Mazhar Majeed who worked for Rupert Murdoch, and he would be more than willing to help. i daresay he sould be well euipped with some condoms when he embarks on the trip for the intervew.
The second interview would be with few of the prisoners released from Gitmo. Firstlook Media can get into a book contract with them, which would help them financially and resettle them wiith some dignity. Probably you can have them ovver from Uruguay to your house in Brazil and have a pleasant time in the beach while conducting the interview. Same caution applies here as well – they have been away from civilization for too long, especially since we now have confirmation that they had a lot of uncivilized folks to deal with.
H
Just perfect! Not many people will see it this way…….but we must stay strong, knowing that we will be attacked from all sides. When one is absolute in his beliefs then the opposition will only be a nuisance to ignore. Cheney was a great example of that discipline tonight with Bret Bair.
I was floored by what Diane Feinstein said at the end of detailing the depths of depravity that the US (oops! the CIA) had sunk to.
“America is big enough to admit when it’s wrong and confident enough to learn from its mistakes”
Oh! OK. Cool.
So that’s it – no apology, no admission of guilt, no redress for the tortured, no amends to the dead and lives destroyed, tacit pardons for the perpetrators and praise to the nation for being “big and confident”.
Really ! – I still cannot believe that this profound depravity, this unspeakable horror that we have engaged in is being brushed under the carpet.
concur, absolutely.
What’s going on, are comments moderated here. I wrote something fairly innocuous. If it was moderated it is pathetic.
Peggy Noonan overheard in a DC hotel bar at closing time:
“We’re a dying planet full of half-crazed monkeys clawing themselves to death while slightly smarter half-crazed monkeys watch on and wager, some with erections.”
“…“we tortured some folks,” but (don’t) get “too sanctimonious” about it.” – Obama.
“We killed some folks, but don’t get too sanctimonious about it.” – typical Grand Jury.
Both absolve crimes against dark skinned people. Still think the WOT is keeping you safe?
Conference with Edward Snowden for Amnesty International France.
Here at 4:20pm (GMT) 12/10/2014, Edward Snowden answers from Nicolas Demorand, live from La Gaîté Lyrique in Paris, for the international human rights day with Amnesty International France.
Ed speaks about the Senate Torture Report.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVRIVihRJuk#t=1649
Enjoy ;)
Thanks!
Regarding the effectiveness of torture,
“In all the years I’ve been arguing about torture, I never once claimed it never works – because that claim is, to me, both untrue and irrelevant. Torture – like murder – is categorically wrong no matter what benefits it produces.” ~Glenn Greenwald
There’s Glenn, being astute again! Obviously, it is usually incorrect to use an absolute term such as “never.”
But he shouldn’t use murder for his example of “categorically wrong” because murder is wrong (a crime) by definition. He needs the example of an act that is always wrong regardless of what benefit it produces. London Laddie suggested motherfucking.
Torture is a crime, by definition. But there are times I’d be willing to commit that crime — tho virtually none of them exist in the real world.
Torture is not a crime by definition. It is first an act that may or may not be justified. Not everyone agrees that torture can never be justified – that’s the debate. Therefore, torture is analogous to homicide, not murder. By comparing torture to murder, Greenwald is preempting the debate (or “begging the question”). For his comparison (precedent), Greenwald needs an act that is not “categorically wrong” by definition, and which is never justifiable. (It is possible that (for some people) no such act exists.)
Wikipedia:
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human, and generally this premeditated state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such as manslaughter).
Torture is the act of deliberately inflicting severe physical or psychological pain and possibly injury to a person (or animal), usually to one who is physically restrained or otherwise under the torturer’s control or custody and unable to defend against what is being done to them.
Eh! “Vengeance is mine” … sayeth the Lawd.
I can’t even imagine a scenario where one could ‘know’ torture ‘works’? … “Mr. Brennan said that the C.I.A. detention program had value, even if it is “unknowable” whether useful intelligence was obtained as the direct result of brutal interrogation methods.”
Where is the asshole Craig Summers?
Rectal Rehydration Rehabilitation? – Actually, I hope he’s safe and sound.
ut`
dearest `p-ska,
It is of my humble opinion that this critical mass that ‘has’ to be achieved, is unattainable sans a calaitous event that instantaneously wakens one’s soul from patriot to dissident.
It’s been 4 yrs since stumbling into these hallowed-halls of ut`.. After reading this paraphrased quote, I remembered an article from 2010 where Glenn introduced me to Mark Ames via a ‘freedom fighter rebellion’ [article] about an individual’s (J.Tyler) ‘spontaneous revolt’ against the ‘evil government oppressors’. Glenn’s article has stayed w/ me over the years, for it was then that I realized that the dissidence needed to even challenge these purveyors of ill-will was a force that no current movement could attain on it’s merits alone.
Instead of ‘tripping into a lifeboat’ aboard the Titanic and living the illusion of escaping the insanity, I’m using the time to out the injustices being perpetrated in our names, in an effort that future generations will come to know that there were a few humanitarians who tried in ernest to collectively expose/archive** said transgressions as a futile means to right the wrongs.
My pessimism aside, your quotes below w/ respect to your own humility and astutely recognizing one’s true essence, define your humbling existence.
Much respect, `p..
commentary: [article]
ht `IraqVetForHumanRights
Wednesday, Nov 24, 2010 12:04 pm (est)
@Ch̩ Pasa Рre: Clue
[article] – http://www.salon.com/2010/11/24/tyner/
**archive – The Intercept. Please note Salon’s archives and means to convey sentiments via ‘twitter’. (.. thinking that they have a ‘preview’ function, as well?!)
(:^)-{-</: skateboard dude
`harpie, phone home..
It is of my humble opinion that this critical mass that ‘has’ to be achieved, is unattainable sans a calaitous event that instantaneously wakens one’s soul from patriot to dissident.
You may be right donger, dear. And sometimes there are days when I despair. I think one would have to be something other than human not to at times. But I’m not yet ready to give in because of the future generations you mention. I don’t have children of my own, but I have nieces and nephews and some of them now have small children of their own. If I throw up my hands and turn inward, and if everyone else does the same, then what hope is there for them? Their lives will be sunk in despair much sooner than mine in that case, and I can’t live with that guilt.
I still see hope in the struggles we are seeing in places like Ferguson, which has sparked protests in cities around the world. Those protests, which were birthed out of injustice, have brought together people of all races, creeds and socioeconomic statuses. I don’t know if it will be enough, no one does, but if we don’t support those efforts and get involved ourselves, then they will dwindle by default and there will be nothing left but rank submission and acquiescence. The calamitous events that awaken people are sometimes very different, but it sure seems like the opportunities for them are increasing what with the militarization of police, the economic upheaval, destruction of the environment, decline of species diversity, climate change, unending war…the list goes on. Eventually that list will build up sufficient grievance to spill over. It’s anyone’s guess how many of us will be swept up in the deluge.
Heeded and valued.
ps – Appreciating the narcissistic expose..
d.
As I stated below in a comment, the disclosure of the torture report was scheduled for the moment at which the ratifications of TPP & TTIP are underway. Planned distraction of the public’s attention!
I read on another comment thread, that it is right in time to make a lot of fuss before the election.
As to the photo above:
– make-up: no rouge, the complexion ashen
– facial expression: haggard
– costume: violet, the traditional color of mourning in churches during passiontide
Well staged! Did Hollywood help?
Oh, I’d better let the analysis of the farce to a professional:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfaa1rWUgsE
If they allow this report to be ‘public’, is it a distraction from something bigger?
Yes.
It’clear that all these torture techniques were originating strait from german Nazi GESTAPO manual applied to members of underground in Russa, Poland. Greece and Serbia. Go to any war museum in Easter Europe to see films and pictures of these techniques as well as tools of torture. But what US omit from torture manual was that torturer has only 6-12 hour to get actionable intelligence since after that underground protocol required to sever all connection with individual and relocate after 12 hours of his/her datainment which made more insedious technics impossible to deploy.
Person being tortured also knew that after that time he will be off the hook from oath of silence he took. After admitting utter failure of direct tortures GESTAPO switched to several other techniques, such as arresting families of suspect and trying to extort info about resistance as well as money, promising to release mother, son or daughter and then releasing him/her under clandestine observation to find out his contacts. Playing with hope of desperate parent or child worked the best since it build up mistrust inside resistance underground and put people facing deep moral dilemma, knowing which way they decide they loose humanity anyways.
That technique was only partially countered by underground court system which promptly executed informants adding to moral tragedy and despair. At later days GESTAPO tortured people, any inocent people for intimidation or propaganda purposes, openly disseminated cases of torture, with mandatory public executions of mutelated bodies, all directed toward terrorizing public at large. At the and GESTAPO got the same result of their torture as CIA did. No actionable info at all. What they got was hatred of Nazi Germany , US respectively, and their monsterius inhumanity, surprisingly succeeded in breaking basic existential human fear and increasing recruitment for resistance movements as a reasonable, human response to random evil.
CIA must have known this from the beginning so it look like they simply let loose psychopathic maniacs living in shadows of US security establishment to do their deeds while convincing themselves that they do best they can for America.
Is this report an attempt normalize torture in our conscience the same as NSA revelations did. I think so since none of it provide any legal basis to pursuit perpetrators of war crimes.
Good points though a bit hard to understand. For future guidance use this: http://www.edufind.com/english-grammar/english-grammar-guide/
I’m seeing in the comments here people saying the word ‘torture’ is not used in the report. Are they excluding Feinstein’s foreword? Here’s what she stated:
“While the Office of Legal Counsel found otherwise between 2002 and 2007, it is my personal conclusion that, under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured. I also believe that the conditions of confinement and the use of authorized and unauthorized interrogation and conditioning techniques were cruel, inhuman, and degrading. I believe the evidence of this is overwhelming and incontrovertible.”
Oops, I put this here twice. I didn’t realize moderation too that long on here.
It is worth the torture report side-by-side with James Risen’s State of War (2006), which more or less details the three major criminal actions of the Bush Administration: Rendition and torture and assassination of suspects (all extrajudicial), domestic spying in violation of the U.S. constitution, and generating false claims about WMDs in Iraq as a pretext for the invasion and occupation of an oil-rich country. Obama is still busy with the domestic spying and extrajudicial assassination business – yes, that is change we can believe in. Minimal, in other words.
1) On transfer of control of al Qaeda-linked suspects from FBI to CIA control in the months after 9/11: “Bush had decided that al Qaeda was a national security threat, not a law enforcement problem, and he did not want al Qaeda operatives brought back to face trial in the United States, where they would come under the strict rules of the American legal system. . . . for FBI agents in the field in Afghanistan, the first sign that they had lost the turf battle for control of al Qaeda prisoners came in late 2001.”
Why would Tenet and Cheney and Bush want to keep the CIA in control and not have domestic criminal trials of terrorism suspects? Issue #1 is the pretext for an invasion of Iraq – the initial effort was to link Saddam to 9/11 and the anthrax letters, an effort that persisted until summer 2002, when Bush and Blair agreed that the pretext for war would be non-existent nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in Iraq, and that the effort to link Saddam to 9/11 (which is what a lot of the CIA torture of prisoners in that time frame was about) would be dropped. Issue #2 is that any public expose of al Qaeda would reveal that all the money for the attacks came from Saudi Arabian donations to ‘Islamic charities’ that funneled money to bin Laden’s organization, who used it to pay for airplane tickets, living expenses, flight school training, etc. for 20 hijackers. Despite extensive domestic and international warnings about the impending hijackings, the Bush Administration, the CIA and the FBI all failed to stop it – a massive intelligence failure that Tenet, Bush, Cheney etc. would not want examined in a court of law, for obvious political reasons.
2) On the scope of the torture program: “Two years after Abu Zubaydah’s capture, the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal erupted, triggered by photographs of degrading and pornographic treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and expanded with further disclosures of abuse by the U.S. military and the CIA.”
What had happened in that timeframe, 2002-2004? The CIA torture practices were being used by private contractors in black sites in Iraq and Afghanistan, and from there they spread to the military, where they were systematically used as an anti-insurgency tactic – i.e. an attempt to terrorize the civilian population into submission by torturing people and threatening their families, which was the Bush Administration’s response to the Iraq anti-occupation insurgency that arose in response to the idiotic neocolonial program of Paul Bremer and the neocons in Iraq, best described as conquer-and-pillage.
This Senate CIA torture report thus has a very narrow scope – it insulates the people who gave the CIA the orders (although there was no explicit presidential authorization, the president’s lawyers provided a legal justification for torture to the CIA, which seems about the same thing), and the role of the CIA’s private contractors in exporting torture practices to the military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan is not touched on, either – and it was not just the CIA, what about the British version of the CIA torture program?
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/cia-torture-report-so-when-will-britain-come-clean-about-its-role-9913756.html
But the bottom line is that torture was a stupid, criminal idea – it was first used in an effort to create ‘show trial’-style propaganda linking Saddam to 9/11, and then in an effort to crush a popular uprising against U.S. occupation in Iraq. The defenders of this program know that this is true, and are merely seeking to avoid responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
Has this been made ‘public’ to distract from something bigger?
Greenwald was on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show last night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF6A1glQVGY#t=9m46.2s (@9:46)
Thx for the link! I’d like to quote from it:
This reminds me of the fact that, although it is known that spanking a child causes braindamage, too many parents & caregivers think “Sometimes children just need a good smack on the bottom to get their attention”. This belittling of severe damage is an attitude passed to the next generation. Btw I’ve got the information on another comment thread that Bush was known to enjoy torturing animals when he was a child. Insane children become insane adults.
No illusions about the future, neither have I.
The LO show with Glenn talking torture last night immediately made me want to also rewatch an Alex Wagner interview of Jeremy Scahill back in July on the same subject. I seem to recall Jeremy’s answers left poor Alex almost unable to speak or even ask questions coherently for about 5 mintues. A couple of Duck searches failed to help me find that video though…
Andrew Bacevich agrees with Cindy:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/12/09/torture-report-highlights-consequences-permanent-war/MdEpEx2ilVexZuECsJ88TN/story.html
Not disagreeing with the analysis that Feinstein has done a fine job in playing her part in yet one more US Government “dog and pony” show which is most certainly stemming from motivations grounded in what I believe to be a bogus “War on Terror” initiated for the exclusive purpose of population control and attainment of concrete assets (land and mineral) to profit the few ruling world elites at the expense of the many.
Unfortunately, it is a show that the masses of non-elite world citizens have to attend. Although many of us are tired of being held in the precarious position of that captive audience; now is NOT the time to curl-up in a fetal position and go to sleep.
Now is the time to to start screaming “booooooooooooh!” at the top of your lungs.
It does not matter what title the report is given —- It is evidence of gross criminal conduct on the part of many US Government Officials in all three branches of the US Government to conspire and collude in violation of existing US and International laws prohibiting the use of torture.
I want the architects of this crime to be bought to justice both nationally and internationally; and will continue to make this demand.
Call to action:
Certainly the architects (upper echelons of US Government first and foremost) of the war crimes described in this article need to bought to justice. That is: be prosecuted for their crimes. Demand that the Attorney General do his job. Force him with your signature. Make him do it or publicly state that he is incompetent to uphold both US and International Law.
https://www.aclu.org/secure/cia-torture?ms=web_141209_nationalsecurity_ciatorture_BOR
Rhetoric is not enough. Walk the talk.
Thanks for that link Lyra – signed and shared.
My pleasure Sillyputty.
Hello!!! This report is nothing but one of the last acts form the democrats’ political survival playbook. Over 9000 reports, mostly linked to the current government was withheld by CIA because of direct order from White House. None of these mud throwers are innocent thumb sucking children. They are using a pinch of already ineffective yet dramatic data to go ahead in their political race. International agenda and policies of the US&A government remain intact.
The land of the free and the home of the brave?
Some of the comments here are saying the report never refers to the interrogation techniques as ‘torture’. Are you excluding Feinstein’s foreword? Because she states this:
“While the Office of Legal Counsel found otherwise between 2002 and 2007, it is my personal conclusion that, under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured. I also believe that the conditions of confinement and the use of authorized and unauthorized interrogation and conditioning techniques were cruel, inhuman, and degrading. I believe the evidence of this is overwhelming and incontrovertible.”
This feels increasingly like living in a work of fiction. Psychopaths run the most powerful country on earth. Their spies are in the process of bugging the entire earth. They are developing flying killer robots and God knows what else. They are detaining their imagined foes in hell-holes and torturing them, as if it were nothing. What novel is this!?
The immediate political dimension — now US state terrorists and violence apologists spread panic that fallout from CIA terrorism will hit US? How can they act surprised? They torture with impunity and think the world is the same? Actions have consequences.
Learning how to speak.
Step 1: Getting people to say the word torture.
Step 2: Getting people to say the word rape.
Enhanced interrogation is a euphemism for torture, and torture is a euphemism for rape.
The road is long.
Actually, one of my worries here is whether enhanced interrogation really is a euphemism. The entire report is about “enhanced interrogation”. But what if it turns out that “enhanced interrogation” was only one of four or five different secret CIA programs, and there are others like “conditioned feedback” and “psychological intervention” that haven’t specifically been asked about and so are not mentioned whatsoever? Maybe that’s why only some of the detainees were given the enchanced-interrogation treatment?
Very good points. And drugs are definitely part of the game.
This is not a haphazard amateur effort. This is the culmination of history + science + unlimited resources + an “existential enemy.” The same people who are literally collecting it all, subverting software, hardware and encryption standards brought that same power, resources and expertise to addressing the problem of controlling and manipulating the human will.
We are experimenting with people, and the torture, rape, and humiliation we see are used to prove or disprove certain theories about control and interrogation.
These are likely not the only theories the government is experimenting with. Drugs and other “nonviolent” forms of physiological coercion are also logically part of the mix, along with a whole bunch of fucked up shit we haven’t even thought of yet.
Much more has yet to be uncovered. This is a 1977 NYTs article reporting on a mind control or ‘behavior’
program. This is still going on as I have found out first-hand this year.
President Uncle Tom, “…who notoriously protected all torturers from all forms of legal accountability based on his lawless, repellent and selectively applied decree that we should Look Forward, Not Backward…”
The nation’s heroic patriot-vermin cannot be distracted from their work. They must be rewarded instead, in order to maintain morale while conducting new atrocities.
Goddamn the USA and the evil it stands for.
I have a twelve step program for renouncing torture. The first step is to acknowledge you did it. The report never uses the word torture and so falls short of reaching the first step. I therefore conclude the US is not really serious about their desire to reform and is just wasting the time of the rest of the class.
I assume those who designed this torture program ,regard it as the new lessons of the school of medicine and psychology, and there is no guarantee that they are not going to use it again.
On one side, we have the case of NSA using gang-stalking with help of ASIO harassing father of USA citizen sending people to harass him daily about war on terror views at his job(cab driver in Australia) and then ultimately doing so much torture that father of USA citizen divorced her partner and a child was made fatherless.For NSA Latino and Muslims are terrorists. Then ASIO gang-stalked the poor Pakistani guy so much he left Australia after being divorced and after having his son snatched.At end they wonder why Snowden got so fed up in NSA that he left screaming “stop this non-sense”.
Jesus Christ. NSA and ASIO shame on you both.I know ASIO do it to every cab driver in Australia harassing him daily about war on terror views but this case ASIO spies were making fun of private conversation which was discussed on skype with USA citizen. Did NSA feed ASIO that information?
Mr president Obama, please open you eyes and ask your intelligence agency what they are doing to minorities.
ASIO need to get this fact across the head that you cannot destroy an American family unit and then walk away laughing at misery of American family unit.ASIO American justice will catch up with you and you will reply to USA government for torturing an American family and making fun of Latinos(tax payer parasites) and Muslims( are nazi) jokes you made up.
I know this comment wont be published but you know these are kind of human rights abuse cases which make it impossible for someone with a soul to not leak the NSA files.
Alas, they can destroy families, laugh and walk away. They have worked very hard to do it to mine. That is why I publish here. And just today I find my newest neighbor moved here last week to work with President Obama’s former personnel director hiring for, among other agencies, the CIA.
In reality, this whole WOT is a sham. A rotton sham. And so is the CIA. I’ve learned enough over 30 years to see the truth now. The CIA has been torturing people since it’s inception. PERIOD. I’ve posted this before, but I’m going to post this again. Read this and you’ll finally understand EXACTLY what the CIA really is.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=13678
That background will tell you WHY JFK was killed. And why Landsdale was instrumental. And why Jim Garrison became convinced the CIA/DOD IS the government. And WHY we are where we are today. And who should know better than Col. Fletcher Prouty. After all..it was him who convinced Garrison. He knew it all….
http://www.prouty.org/garrison.html
The release of the so called Torture Report summary, while giving the world a few facts of the insideous nature of the CIA, does nothing to show it’s true purpose or scope of power on this planet. It’s up to you to find the truth. But here is a clue…ASSASSINATION IS BIG BUSINESS. However, to illustrate the depths to which the real PTB will go to keep the truth from coming out, one can do no better than to understand the story of Prouty’s book..The Secret Team and what the CIA did to round up every single copy. Unfortunately..they can’t keep it off the net.
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/
“The history of the great events of this world are scarcely more than the
history of crime” –Voltaire
Now I understand
I’ll leave it at that.
ps.. WTF? http://weeklyintercept.blogspot.com/2012_05_01_archive.html
Just a few note. As several have noted the U.S.is indeed a signatory of the U. N. Convention Against Torture. We are also a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Anyone who peruses the Q and A page at Human Rights Watch can see clearly that torture is not to be used, under any circumstances, not ever.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2003/03/11/legal-prohibition-against-torture
Yes, and the US has long recognized that when others do them, those things are torture. Especially when they do them to US soldiers. That results in death. No absurd memo from the DOJ can change that.
Feline, thanks for the link.
This is exactly why the U.N. should weigh in immediately and demand accountability through investigations and trials. Failure to do so will confirm that it’s nothing more or less than the US’s lapdog, a small yappy one, at that. It nips at the heels of those who do relatively minor things and snoozes while the US illegally bombs other nations.
I’ve said this many times: I wish the US could regulate itself, hold itself accountable and do the right thing, but we appear to be paralyzed. It is therefore incumbent on the rest of the world to insist that we be held to international standards. If we can’t begin practicing rule of law, abiding by international standards and rules, and cease committing crimes against humanity, then sanctions should be leveled against us, and we should lose our membership in that organization. Talking ethics, morality, legality seems to do nothing. Maybe if we suffer economic losses we’ll come to our senses.
If I were a signatory member of that organization, I’d be demanding accountability. It should have happened in 2003 the moment we launched “Shock and Awe,” but continuing to turn a blind eye a decade later just exacerbates the harm. Because without that the message is clear: nothing is too grievously wrong for the US to be allowed to get away with. The anxiety and fear this kind of free-fall creates is damaging for everyone. It’s exceptionalism taken to exceptional extremes.Getting away with it keeps pushing us to more extreme behavior. What next? A nuclear bomb on the Mid-East (something a group of dolts at the Guardian routinely call for) because we “feel like it?”
Thanks, MM and Mike Sulzer –
Yes, indeed we howl about abuses of other countries, but are loathe to be accountable for our own misdeeds. Agree, MM, the other signatories should calling for accountability very loudly.
[snip]
‘Now that the L.A. Times reports that rendition will continue during the Obama administration, Human Rights Watch has apparently altered its position. According to Tom Malinowski, the organization’s “Washington advocacy director,” the risk of torture and other abuses does not mandate the prophylactic cessation of rendition. Instead (quoting the L.A. Times):
What I heard loud and clear from the president’s order was that they want to design a system that doesn’t result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured — but that designing that system is going to take some time.”
Malinowski said he had urged the Obama administration to stipulate that prisoners could be transferred only to countries where they would be guaranteed a public hearing in an official court. “Producing a prisoner before a real court is a key safeguard against torture, abuse and disappearance,” Malinowski said (emphasis added)..’
http://dissentingjustice.blogspot.ca/2009/02/major-flip-flop-by-human-rights-watch.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/01/nation/na-rendition1
Hi suave –
Well, there definitely have been some who think HRW is suspect. How do you folks manage to find all these links?
The article is from 2009 – and I’m copying a portion of the Q and A here —– maybe not exactly want the Malinowski indicated, but interesting now that I reread it. Anyway – here is the excerpt from the Q and A:
“The United States may not send detainees to another country to be questioned by police or security forces who use torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during their interrogation. Article 3 of the Convention against Torture expressly prohibits sending a person to another state “where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.” Human Rights Watch believes that the U.S. government would be complicit in torture – in essence, aiding and abetting torture – if it sent detainees to another country aware that they might be tortured there. The purpose of U.S. human rights commitments would be circumvented if the U.S. government could effectively subcontract interrogation techniques that it is prohibited from using itself.”
Further thoughts?
‘This Rabbit-Hole Goes Deep..’
`feline..
My questioning of HRW’s suspect tactics have evolved over the last 10 years of researching our complicity in the fabricated war that is Iraq. It was 04’/05′ when I was made privy to an interview of General Wesley Clark on Democracy Now (..Amy Goodwin). In the interview, he made mention of certain sovereign countries (..Syria included) that our government was planning to “take out”. Thinking that Syria was being setup for another ‘Yellow-Cake’ redux, I delved into who was ‘behind the curtain’ w/ respect to said rhetoric and stumbled onto these individuals..
Project For The New American Century – (PNAC)
Section V of ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses’ – (Sept. 2000);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
cont’d..
Found it. (.. twas 07′)
[snip]
GEN. WESLEY CLARK:
Well, in a way. But, you know, history doesn’t repeat itself exactly twice. What I did warn about when I testified in front of Congress in 2002, I said if you want to worry about a state, it shouldn’t be Iraq, it should be Iran. But this government, our administration, wanted to worry about Iraq, not Iran.
I knew why, because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”
So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/3/2/gen_wesley_clark_weighs_presidential_bid
In the last couple of years, HRW has been accusing Syria of utilizing sarin gas, etc.. To this day, I haven’t seen evidence that the current government of Syria was complicit in said war crimes.
[snip]
‘A Human Rights Watch’s report (pdf), based on independent analysis and documentation, released late last week found that available evidence strongly suggested the cause was a chemical weapons attack and that the Syrian government was responsible.’
http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/20/sarin-gas-attack-just-one-syrian-atrocity-icc-should-pursue
In reporting, which Human Rights Watch hailed as demonstrating their importance in informing the world’s media, the New York-based group stated:
http://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2013/11/30/evidence-error-human-rights-watch-chemical-weapons-attacks/
‘Questions plague new report on Syria’
[snip]
‘A report by the UN Mission to investigate use of chemical weapons (CW) in Ghouta, Syria was released last Monday, but per its mandate, did not assign blame to either the Syrian government or opposition rebels.
Media commentators and officials from several western countries, however, have strongly suggested that the Syrian government is the likely perpetrator of CW attacks in Ghouta and other locations.
But on Sunday, veteran Mideast journalist for The Independent Robert Fisk also reported that “grave doubts are being expressed by the UN and other international organisations in Damascus that the sarin gas missiles were fired by Assad’s army.”
The UN official’s accusations mirror statements made earlier this year by another senior UN figure Carla del Ponte, who last May told Swiss TV in the aftermath of alleged CW attacks in Khan al-Asal, Sheik Maqsood and Saraqeb that there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” that rebels had carried out the attack. Del Ponte also observed that UN inspectors had seen no evidence of the Syrian army using chemical weapons, but added that further investigation was necessary.
The UN Inquiry tasked with investigating chemical weapons use in Syria hastily dismissed del Ponte’s comments by saying it had “not reached conclusive findings” as to the use of CWs by any parties.
So why then are we getting these contradictory leaks by top UN officials?
The recently released UN Report on CW use in Syria may provide some clues. While it specifically does not assign blame for the use of CWs to either side, its disclosures and exclusions very clearly favor a rebel narrative of the Ghouta attacks. And that may be prompting these leaks from insiders who have access to a broader view of events..’
http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/17107
Mother Agnes Miriam – The “Crank-Like”, “Evil Assad Apologist”!!
[snip]
‘Since the onset of the Syrian conflict, Mother Agnes has made efforts to combat the skewed narratives emerging from corrupt western, Israeli, and Gulf Oil and Gas media – not least regarding the controversial issue of the alleged chemical weapons attacks in Ghouta, Damascus. Contrary to the smears, Agnes doesn’t deny people died during the incident, nor offer a complete alternative narrative. Her questions surrounding the event are entirely focused on the many inconsistencies and inaccuracies within the “official narrative” and the dubious YouTube videos touted as impartial evidence. It seems the CIA were also less than convinced of the US governments “assessment”; so much so that a mass resignation was threatened if their name was attached to John Kerry’s dodgy dossier. Furthermore, a considerable open source collaborative effort to determine the perpetrator of the alleged chemical weapons attack has drawn the logical, and somewhat scientific conclusion that only the rebels could have been responsible. In addition, the much politicised UN report that attempted to point the finger at the Syrian army has also come under much scrutiny from highly qualified avenues for its poor methodologies and misleading conclusions. Regardless of all the above, the fact Mother Agnes actually resides in Syria, is the head of an organisation that has mediated between warring factions and enabled the safe evacuation of civilians, and consistently calls for peaceful reconciliation and dialogue, doesn’t count for much in the eyes of rabid western pundits eager to demonize anyone that dare question, or offer a counter narrative to their fabrication-laden fantasies on Syria..’
http://notthemsmdotcom.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/owen-jones-mother-agnes-a-lesson-in-conciliatory-leftists/
‘Investigative Journalist’ Scahill Takes Swipe at Mother Agnes:
[snip]
“I’ve informed organizers of @STWuk that I will not participate in their conference if Mother Agnes is on the platform,” Scahill tweetetd on Friday.
“@STWuk” is the Stop the War Coalition, which will hold the all-day conference in London on November 30, and which had apparently extended an invitation for Mother Agnes to speak, along with roughly a dozen or so other speakers.
The conference is to include a session on “The Syian war in context,” and obviously Mother Agnes, who has struggled so hard to end the bloodshed in her country, would have provided a valuable perspective for all in attendance. But she will now no longer speak. In response to the controversy surrounding her participation, she has withdrawn. Blessed are the peacemakers..’
http://richardedmondson.net/2013/11/17/investigative-journalist-scahill-takes-swipe-at-mother-agnes/
Hi suave…
Hmmm…. you gave a lot there about this Project for the New American Century and Syria specifically. Guess that’s in response to suspicions of HRW. Will have to mull all that over later.
What I was more interested in was —– what about that specific Q and A? I might have liked it to be maybe stronger, but I don’t think it was as bad as that Mlinowski thing from 2009. Since time has indeed passed, I’m thinking it may have been since updated (and a bit better, I think.
The report is worthless if those responsible for torture are not brought to a courtroom. Government agents will not stop abusing prisoners if they know they can get away with it if Congress or the Executive just release a report without any prosecution.
Really? Given how much the guilty are screaming, they think it is already having an impact. Prosecution is required, but even information can help prevent a repeat, at least of a while.
I think Steb is right, though. If there are no prosecutions it will fade away the way the NSA issues seem to be doing.
It’s raining snowballs in hell, but I side with Steb on this one. Sure, the torturers want the emotional comfort of being perceived as moral — and the CIA doesn’t want an institutional stain — but they don’t face prosecution and punishment, and know they won’t. As long as that is true, nothing prevents this from happening again. Fear that people will say mean things isn’t generally considered an effective deterrent against crimes of violence.
@Mona
Steb
30 Nov 2014 at 8:45 pm
@ Mona
Your comments are irrelevant to me. I do not waste time with those who sympathize with terrorists.
From the NSA revelations I thought Michael Hayden was a piece of shit. Little did I know what a colossally huge turd he is. I think for his accumulation of crimes, that he should be the first to be sent to the ICC in The Hague. Cuffed to The Dick, Cheney.
Trouble with The Hague is that it’s in a NATO country. The West no longer has a credible platform for a world court.
I suggest some country in Africa that doesn’t owe the West the sweat from its balls.
Thanks, Glenn to you, Murtazza, and the other reporters and researchers who are covering this. Keep up the work.
And EC – I’m not a reporter, and they probably don’t listen to me, but I do hope some TI – or other – reporter listens to you and starts a real investigation. Please try not to despair. Keep praying and holding on. Hope you obtain some help and relief- soon.
Thank you so much for your kind words, feline16. They count for much and I am warmed by them.
The unknown country was Egypt, according to James Risen and several other sources afaik. Clinton’s good buddy was more than happy to help out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Shaykh_al-Libi#In_CIA_custody
Libi later died under extremely shady circumstances in the custody of a Libyan prison in 2009
Sam Hussein makes a great point in that twitter thread
Torture works. Extra judicial murder works. War Crimes work They will always have value to an institution of authority that “must keep you safe”. .. none of it ends unless there are genuine consequences.
Torture in the Obama era
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2014/08/11/amnesty-international-report-details-crimes-by-usnato-forces-in-afghanistan/
Meta-narrative: Plucky and determined band of Senate staffers dig into a State institution which specializes in disinformation, false narratives, misinformation — all sorts of spycraft — and which also has the tools of selective classification, deletion, and revision of evidence of their own activities.
Yet somehow this plucky band of Senate staffers produce an unwelcome exposé of this humongous and nefarious institution against its will.
Where are the prosecutions?
Where are the links — named names — of officials who gave the go ahead?
Where is the comprehensive plan — it must exist — which guided institutional policy.
For some reason, this feels like a stage production … a way to put rest to the rumors and accusation wrapped up in one report (bye bye Democrats, thank you for your service) which by all accounts doesn’t provide a full account. Where were the interviews with victims? Where were interviews with guards and military personnel who participated? Where was the money trail? Who signed checks? Who authorized arrests? Who managed flight plans? Who managed fuck-ups? Who reported to elected officials that they did/did not do such and such.
What sort of nation allows so many crimes to simmer unattended — for ten years! — while the criminals continue to lie and deceive in plain sight?
Where is the rationale? The ineffectiveness of torture isn’t in much dispute among professionals.
Is everyone in the CIA an idiot? (Another unbelievable meta-narrative.)
I spent all day reading various accounts, listening to the Senate speeches, trying to make sense of it …
I don’t believe it.
.
“What sort of nation allows so many crimes to simmer unattended — for ten years! — while the criminals continue to lie and deceive in plain sight?
While I certainly cannot claim all the answers, the most prevalent that comes to mind is that a nation ran by oligarchs and plutocrats allows these things.
Nothing else makes sense.
“For some reason, this feels like a stage production … a way to put rest to the rumors and accusation wrapped up in one report (bye bye Democrats, thank you for your service) which by all accounts doesn’t provide a full account.
Yes…..
Title: Look, we really DID something about torture. Respect our legacy, please!
A group of people are condone torture of the enemy. About a decade later mostly that same group of people exonerate themselves and pass the buck to those scary CIA guys over there. Who woulda thunk?
So, I went to Duckduckgo to see if the media is using the word torture. here are the search results:
Marines on alert ahead of release of Senate torture report
By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent
updated 6:47 PM EST, Mon December 8, 2014
Senate Torture Report Faults C.I.A. for Brutality and Deceit – NYT
By MARK MAZZETTI DEC. 9, 2014
Officials fear torture report could spark violence
Erin Kelly, USA TODAY 7:13 a.m. EST December 9, 2014
Read The Senate Torture Report Here
The Huffington Post | By Paige Lavender
Posted: 12/09/2014 11:24 am EST
What You Need to Know About the Senate’s CIA Torture Report
Dec 9, 2014, 5:01 AM ET
By LUIS MARTINEZ via Good Morning America
The insane narrative you are supposed to believe about the torture report – Washington Post
Dan Drezner December 8
How to Read the Senate Torture Report – Time
Massimo Calabresi Dec. 8, 2014
CIA torture program: Senate report details abuse of detainees – as it happened
Tom McCarthy Guardian US
Tuesday 9 December 2014 17.50 EST
CIA tortured, misled, U.S. report finds, drawing calls for action
By Mark Hosenball Reuters
WASHINGTON Tue Dec 9, 2014 5:02pm EST
Bloomberg News
Bush Joins Bid to Block Senate Release of CIA Torture Report
By Chris Strohm December 08, 2014
Bush, Ex-CIA Chiefs: Senate Report on Torture Wrong on ‘Rogue Program’ – Newsmax
Monday, 08 Dec 2014 06:49 AM
ByRebecca KaplanCBS NewsDecember 8, 2014, 2:55 PM
White House confirms Senate torture report to be released Tuesday
CIA torture brutal and ineffective: US Senate report – Yahoo News
By Michael Mathes 3 hours ago
So, the Atlantic finally breaks form and puts apostrophes around it, but I’d bet that’s because Hayden uniformly made air quotes with his fingers when he said it:
Former CIA Director Braces for ‘Torture Report’
Allen McDuffee Dec 7 2014, 5:26 PM ET
Had to go to the bottom of the news barrel at Fox to find a media outlet not inclined to use the word torture:
Senate panel releases scathing report on CIA interrogations amid security warnings
Published December 09, 2014
Kinda looks like that particular logjam is starting to shake loose.
The admission of torture in the media is no substitute for the admission of actionable culpability by the government.
The establishment knows this.
Thus it is called a Torture Report by the media (including, bizarrely, by Greenwald and Wheeler) EVEN THOUGH THE REPORT DOES NOT CONCEDE TORTURE HAPPENED.
This is not accountability. This is whitewashing.
The media says it IS a torture report. But it isn’t, it examines degrees of “abuse” and finds nothing to prosecute. The media says a Grand Jury looked into the killings of Mike Brown and Eric Garner. But both Grand Juries, like this Report, ended up supporting the establishment regardless of anything. The media claims these issues are being addressed, but in point of fact they have simply been avoided beneath a façade of procedure.
I see what you’re saying now. Apologies for flailing around misreading for so long.
So, some observations. Accountability is never, ever going to come from the government on this, as you note. And that is why the word torture will not be used by them in any report. Ever. Again, as you note.
The fact that there are now a LOT more media outlets using the word, in spite of the above, IS progress. The fact that we have more information now in the form of this report is also progress. Else why have so many fought so hard to keep it concealed in entirety? It certainly isn’t enough and it may not result in accountability in a form you and I desire, but at one point I never thought we’d even see the word torture in the media, let alone exposes of Hayden’s lies lined up next to the parts of the report that prove he lied.
Will these people ever be held accountable? Probably not to the satisfaction of everyone. But I know that some of them fear travel now because they know they broke international laws and could be held accountable elsewhere. Rumsfeld canceled a trip to Germany in 2005 and Bush canceled a trip to Europe in 2011 due to fears of prosecution in international courts. It took a long time to bring Pinochet to justice. Should the people who did that have given up because it didn’t happen in a more timely manner? :-s
Thanks for persisting. I do think those are points that are important to be clarified.
Pinochet was not brought to justice. He was released by Jack Straw in the UK because of health reasons. When he got off the airplane in Chile, he did a jig that showed he was quite healthy. The elites protect each other, the powerful protect the powerful. Because they are all guilty, so they have to stick together, and they do. Obama is no better than Pinochet, and the next president, Rethug or Dim, will protect him also.
You are correct. Apologies for the error.
While my preference would be for something akin to the Velvet Revolution, it does seem as if the more prevalent – if not exactly effective in the longterm – solution for removing elites who are disdainful of their populace more closely resembles what happened to Ceau?escu. And that does seem to be what our government is preparing against with all the police militarization.
I’m not sure if the ankle bracelet option is still used in many US states as an alternative to jail, but when it was used the person who had been ordered to wear the bracelet was contained to their house and maybe a section of their property and, with constant notification to some authority, their place of employment. So basically Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney and some others might be suffering(?) the consequence of the equivalent of wearing an ankle bracelet that contains them to an entire continent or country. As I’m sure that you and many of us do, I find that to be an unsatisfactory outcome for the pain, death and suffering they have for so long been responsible for having set upon so many humans.
Yeah, it’s totally unsatisfactory, but I find it intriguing that they even admit to that small bit of threat. It’s not like them to admit to weakness of any kind. It could just be extreme paranoia on their part, or an indicator that, perhaps, they don’t yet have as much control over the rest of the world as it sometimes seems. Hard to say.
At any rate, my own mental health sort of pushes me to keep in mind something that Greenwald shares from time to time whenever someone questions his persistence in the face of such monumental odds. To paraphrase, it goes something like this (and I know you’ve seen it before): What has been created by mankind can be dismantled and replaced by mankind. We just need to build up to critical mass. And, I say the rising tide of protest happening across the world is an indicator that the mass of people who are tired of the ruling elite is increasing rapidly. I doubt we’ll know the moment when critical mass is reached, but unless a significant number of our so-called “rulers” go FDR and start getting all New Deal soon – and my guess is they won’t because they’re too egotistical, greedy and self-centered (not to mention sociopathic) – the unrest is going to continue for the long haul.
I hate doing this… I owe you and Pedinska an apology for being such an ass. (Both of you know what I’m talking about.) No forgiveness is expected.
I’m glad both of you and so many others find this whitewash obscene.
Meh. No worries. We don’t all see with equal clarity at any given time and for a lot of different reasons, and sometimes we get mislead to varying degrees. In this case, I was misreading what Cindy was trying to say. To me, the important thing was that I knew from her commenting that Cindy is astute and observant, she looks for truth and she was patient and persistent until I got it. She didn’t make me an enemy in the process, something that happens far too much among people who largely agree on the overview though, perhaps, disagreeing on details. It’s hard to see anything when you’re on defense all the time. ;-}
And, Mazz agrees too:
“In this case, I was misreading what Cindy was trying to say. To me, the important thing was that I knew from her commenting that Cindy is astute and observant, she looks for truth and she was patient and persistent until I got it. – Pedinska
Myself included – it’s so damnably frustrating to put into words that a) on the one hand I think I know what The Intercept, et .al are saying when they say this is a “torture report” in that they are saying what really happened = torture, as opposed to b) what the “authors” of the report who never mention torture at all are finally saying.
I truly haven’t meant to kill the messenger in any of my previous posts on this, and do think that we are all seeking justice where none has been explicitly offered.
Many thanks to all that take the time to post on here, as well as take other actions that we never do get to see to the extent they are able to in order to make things better for all of us. Protesting, voting, writing letters – in short – using your voices in what ever way possible is the most important thing of all.
As jgreen7801 rightfully reminds us: Speak up people.
it’s so damnably frustrating to put into words that a) on the one hand I think I know what The Intercept, et .al are saying when they say this is a “torture report” in that they are saying what really happened = torture, as opposed to b) what the “authors” of the report who never mention torture at all are finally saying.
Yup. That’s it in a nutshell.
Cindy is absolutely correct that they will never purposefully put themselves in legal jeopardy. I think the reason that there is still strong opposition to the airing of this report though is because there is still a perceived possibility of jeopardy for someone, however vanishingly slim and ill-defined that may be. Unrest with these policies/actions is growing worldwide and someone is taking note, so the offering up of sacrificial lambs seems to now be on the table and the rush is on to place someone else’s lamb first in line.
Those who currently (and rightly) perceive themselves as being targeted – the CIA, Bush administration members, congressional leadership and, to a lesser extent, Republicans who support(ed) Bush – are fighting very hard to deligitimize even this weak effort at pseudo-accountability. To the extent that this infighting among the ruling class results in more fingerpointing and information emerging it’s a good thing. Anything that disrupts the bipartisanship of their criminality is fine with me because it keeps it stewing in public view and provides fuel to whatever change might be bubbling from the bottom of the pot upward.
@ Sillyputty 10 Dec 2014 at 1:16 am
That day you paraphrased me — asking me “how those well armed family members in Texas were doing” — I really flew off the handle at you. I thought you were taunting me with words I posted on Al Jazeera many years ago, which were followed up by a patriot defending the logic of the death-threats. (Mere death-threats from Texas are just a tiny bit of my program; I’m also subjected to constant stalking and the occasional physical torture session in Brazil, among other inconveniences.)
Now comes the mealy-mouthed bit, after promising myself not to bother with others’ sensitivities…
I regret lashing out at you, SP. As I’ve grown to hate Americans for supporting torture and permanent offensive war, I’ve always known their are decent people among them. Hell, I was born in Texas and I think I came out much better than just all right. (I am going to continue to think well of myself while millions of dollars and thousands of man/woman hours are spent in an effort to destroy my self-confidence.)
People are speaking up. It may not inconvenience the totalitarians a bit, but it’s making me a bit more discerning.
Now, I am going to again post the names of those who planned to murder me and collaborated with the Stasi, then TI can delete the post.
(I actually grieved when some of these people, including two not mentioned, passed away. But sympathy dissolved years ago.)
I want justice from flies and tigers, as many Chinese speakers so crudely categorize people, based on the size of their bank accounts. The naming of names follows:
@ Sillyputty 10 Dec 2014 at 1:16 am
Names of those who should be put on trial for terrorist threats against my person:
John Darrell Burnitt (deceased)
Jennifer Lynn (Burnitt) Caudle (possibly, hopefully, deceased)
Mike Caudle, Lt. Col. USAF (F-111 & F-15 pilot) cum religious fundamentalist school teacher (possibly, hopefully, deceased)
Diane (Burnitt) Baily (possibly, hopefully, deceased)
@Stan – re: “I regret lashing out at you, SP. As I’ve grown to hate Americans for supporting torture and permanent offensive war, I’ve always known their are decent people among them.”
I recall the exchange, and do not consider it my best or brightest moment. We’re (most of us) seeming to realize that we’re literally all in this together, and that we should seek to lift each other up; constructively criticize; and empathize more often than not.
We all are entitled to our own voice and deserve mutual respect – and that I may have undermined that is regrettable as well.
Fox News had this Mike Bulldog Rogers blaring out the dangers of publishing the report a day before it was published. However, the report itself found mention as footnote after it was publiished. If ever I were to make an exception and allow CIA to perform waterboarding again, it would definitely be on Rupert Murdoch and Bill O’Reilly.
The only way we can make sure that such atrocity against human rights will never occur again is to prosecute all that were involved without exception no matter how higher up they were. Any thing short of that is unacceptable.
The didn’t interview the perpetrators or the victims.
Thank god they weren’t writing about rape.
Oh wait…they were.
I never liked John McCain, but today I am convinced he would have been a far better president than the present incumbent. The torture techniques under this gentleman only gave way to remote drones. I suppose a future presidency will probe the indiscriminate use of droning everyone without even asking questions.
It is amazing how ‘president elects’ change their tune upon inauguration, so McCain would likely have been equally if not more stupid.
He accepted Sarah Palin as his running mate, and sang about bombing Iran – and this was even before the (s)election. The guy is lamentable.
But you’re right about Obama, he just hit the ground running killing people, with his dazzling, sickening charisma somehow and grotesquely making murder look cleaner to the unthinking world than torture.
Casual Reader: Neither the establishment left or right are correct. Your heart is. If you have one, that is.
Isn’t it interesting that the only person who has incarcerated regarding torture is John Kiriakou the CIA officer and whistleblower on waterboarding:
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Remember%2C_CIA_officer_and_whistleblower%2C_John_Kiriakou%2C_is_the_only_reason_why_we_learned_of_waterboarding_in_the_first_place/39809/0/38/38/Y/M.html
This reminds me of the Garner death in NYC. The only person to be prosecuted was the person who filmed the incident.
“Thou shalt not substantially or effectively challenge the establishment” is the unwritten rule. It’s heartbreaking.
It is important to remember that it was a whistleblower who originally brought this all to light. Everyone should read Dan Rather’s book. He talks about with the Abu Grabi abuse how the government convinced CBS to do no advertisements ahead of what was one of their biggest stories in years (which they would normally advertise for), and then cut the segments length, and then not rebroadcast it.
All the torture discussions are based in part upon what happened during and following the Korean War accusations of US biowarfare. For background info and a discussion of this aspect of the issue, see http://sainthoward.blogspot.com/2014/12/does-torture-work.html and its linked references.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/ declined to publish this comment, and no justification was provided.
Re: ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero’s ill-advised op-ed in the NYT, Marcy Wheeler has some interesting observations to make about why such a pardon will never happen:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2014/12/09/obama-would-not-cannot-deem-any-activities-authorized-by-gloves-come-off-finding-illegal/
Obama will protect the establishment. Feinstein will protect the establishment. The GOP will protect the establishment. It isn’t complicated.
Marcy, for her part, should be aware that drone strikes and targeted assassinations have killed “thousands” not merely “hundreds” of civilians.
She also calls this a Senate Torture Report, like Glenn Greenwald mistakenly does, and both of them are wrong to do so. The descriptions do indeed describe torture, but the official wording of the Report does not for one sentence or clause concede “torture” actually occurred. This is important, because whitewashing allows people to think the issue is being faced, while it is simply being officially contextualized in a non (legally) actionable fashion.
She also calls this a Senate Torture Report, like Glenn Greenwald mistakenly does, and both of them are wrong to do so. The descriptions do indeed describe torture, but the official wording of the Report does not for one sentence or clause concede “torture” actually occurred.
Of course it doesn’t use the word torture. But I am puzzled why you say that Marcy and Glenn are wrong to call it torture just because this report refuses to. Both of them have been calling it torture for years in the face of governmental – and MSM – assertions to the contrary. Why would they stop now that there is finally demonstrable proof emerging that the stories they’ve been writing all along are true?
Whitewashing isn’t what came to my mind while absorbing all of this today, though I can see why it might after thinking about your comments for a bit. I believe there is a large amount of damaging(/damning?) evidence contained in this report and, if they really wanted to avoid producing it, they only had to delay until the new Republican-majority congress takes office. I haven’t yet read the entire thing, but from what I’ve been reading here and elsewhere, it looks very much to me like an attempt to selectively apportion blame, to direct anticipated outrage in a controlled manner. I think that is going to be a tough bill to sell if people actually read the stories out there on it, and there are a lot of them right now. They are quite blunt in laying out the contents, which even in this redacted document, are pretty horrific in nature.
I think calling it a Torture Report implies it discusses, well, “torture.”
But it doesn’t. So Greenwald and Wheeler are unwittingly giving it credence which it doesn’t actually have.
Hope that makes it less puzzling.
That they are not saying “This report PROVES torture, which is illegal and actionable, happened” and are instead looking for other weaknesses only demonstrates to me that the Report doesn’t actually officially accuse anyone AT ALL of torture. They (Wheeler and Greenwald) just don’t see that. At least not yet.
From the Statute of Rome:
From the UN Convention Against Torture or other Cruel, Degrading or Inhuman Treatment:
Yes, it’s torture, and that includes sleep deprivation, stress positions, heat/cold extremes, water-boarding. Death of a prisoner through hypothermia constitutes torture and homicide; use of “rectal feeding” is torture and arguably some form of rape.
Hina Shamsi should be promoted to the ACLU’s Executive Director position:
A Special Prosecutor, Compensation and C.I.A. Reforms Are Needed
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/12/09/a-tortured-accounting/a-special-prosecutor-compensation-and-cia-reforms-are-needed
Don’t miss Thursday night’s powerful new crime drama starring Michael Chiklis:
By day he’s an Ivy League professor of behavioral psychology, by night he helps the secret police disfigure and cripple the bad guys
Seligman, PhD
If you have to ask how much, you can’t afford him.
Seligman PhD
Thursdays, 10pm on CBS
http://www.salon.com/2010/10/14/army_contract_seligman/
From the article on Mr. Seligman, PhD:
“Seligman is most famous for his work in the 1960s in which he was able to psychologically destroy caged dogs by subjecting them to repeated electric shocks with no hope of escape. The dogs broke down completely and ultimately would not attempt to escape through an open cage door when given the opportunity to avoid more pain. Seligman called the phenomenon “learned helplessness.”
Sounds a lot like what the oligarchs and plutocrats have done to American democracy. Speak up people.
http://www.salon.com/2010/10/14/army_contract_seligman/
Horrifying on so many levels.
This is what contractors are doing to unwitting Americans — shocking and burning them — to people they deem dissidents or who just happen to end up living near someone who’s paid to participate in the program.These people are targeted individuals.
This is too funny:
“In 2003, Bush gave a speech at a UN event condemning torture and calling on other nations to investigate and prosecute torture allegations. The statement was so at odds with US practices that the CIA contacted the White House to make sure enhanced interrogation techniques were still okay (pp. 209-210):”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/cia-torture-report-abuses-rectal-feeding
It’s a lovely speech, here’s an excerpt:
“Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since 1984, forbids governments from deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering on those within their custody or control. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit. Beating, burning, rape, and electric shock are some of the grisly tools such regimes use to terrorize their own citizens. These despicable crimes cannot be tolerated by a world committed to justice. “
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/06/20030626-3.html
Thank you for this pointer ! One more reference to add to my list in the documentation of my own remote torture by parties using very advanced electromagnetic, scalar and nanoparticle weapons systems to inflict unspeakable levels of pain as I write this. Not even taking a pause on the sadism on the day the nation releases a torture report.
Such is the hubris of a criminal assured never to be held accountable for his crimes.
My uncle had similar problems that you face, and he benefited greatly from a daily dose of 100ml pomegranate juice. The nanoparticles are easily neutralized by the red antinano pomegranoes.
@General Hercules-Damn you for making me laugh when I’m pissed off! Now I’m feeling bad for laughing at your uncle’s condition and treatment. I can’t stop laughing! “Antinano Pomegranoes” Too f-ing funny!!!!!!!
Okay, now without laughing. Please don’t discount people with stories such as Pat B above. Now a reasonable person should suspect our government is doing the crap Pat B is telling us.
To me Pat B’s above comment is just as likely as that crazy guy Einstein and his theory that gravity bends light. What a bullshit concept that the light from a star behind our sun can be seen during a solar eclipse! Or what about the “fabric of space time?”
Before I dash out to fill up on ‘the red antinano pomegranoes,’ I want to thank you Phil for being wise to understand that what Pat, AmericanGestapo and I all have been complaining about (in different ways) is completely conceivable, particularly 24 hours after we’ve finally been allowed to scratch the surface of our government’s crimes under the guise of ‘fighting terrorism.’ When this truth comes out, the country will be shaken to its core. And the evidence is in my home.
@Phil Ferro: Nobody’s story must be discounted, not mine anyways.
@EC: I had two friends called Mike Wolf and Abbadabba in this site, and both had similar problems as you. They have both disappeared. Mike Wolf was forever providing links to his self-video productions, which must have been his undoing.
Bushwacker was referring to Kim Dim Wit. He is supposed to have fed his hounds with his own uncle and his friends.
Many of the people who were tortured were already suicide-bombers ready to blow themselves up. We could not have hurt those terrorists any more than what they were ready for. But we have hurt ourselves and our credibility. Our children and grandchildren will wonder what sort of slimy creatures their forefathers were, and may even disown us. That will be our punishment.
What we did is probably more physically painful than exploding into a million pieces in a split second.
Andrew Sullivan dug this up today:
In a just world, this would be read to the war mongers and torturers and those who signed the paper work…before they were sentenced to prison for their crimes.
My sister’s town in Vermont passed a law in 2003 barring Bush and Cheney from entering the town on risk of arrest for being war criminals. Naturally they were mocked in the usual smarmy terms, and there were the usual cooings from the war mongers and civilian cheerleaders about how “quaint” and “naive” resistance to the program is, but with each passing day, I commend them on their foresight and guts in taking a stand (no matter how small and symbolic) when the rest of the world slumbered. History will be kinder to them than it will be to the rest of us.
I think I have responded so viscerally to all of this because there are so many Americans hell bent on either defending the practice or saying they want the report hidden away. I honestly thought somewhere in my horrid little mind that we were better than defending torture when it was all laid bare, but they’ve managed to wrestle away one of my last remaining hopes for human decency.
John Rizzo was just asked by everyone’s favorite Wolf Blitzer if he had it to do over what would he change. John Rizzo was a main legal proponent for “Enhanced Interrogation”. His answer shines a light on the kind of sociopathic people we have in high places. He would have informed more members of the intelligence committee of the details of the EITs. No moral qualms about abusing fellow human beings. Now they are arguing whether torture was effective. So, if it’s effective then torture is ok. This is fine with most people? Please, God help us change things. Speak up people.
jgreen7801 I’ve been practically screaming and still no one is helping. Can you speak up for me?
Sure. If I can.
The Intercept must take seriously targeted individuals claims of being burned and shocked and poisoned. Government contractors are involved as are military contractors. One of those involved in my targeting left a shipping tag in the trash on his computer which led me to this page, now delinked but still available via cache:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ifjzsFpXHJoJ:www.insight.com/content/dam/insight/en_US/ips/pdfs/U.S.%2520Communities%2520National%2520Services%2520Price%2520List.pdf+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
Somalia 2014:
Channel 4 News – “The CIA is here, MI6 is here, the French are here. …Their mission is to snatch Al Shabaab suspects from the streets, take them to secret jails to be interrogated. “
“…When the suspect doesn’t say what they [the white men] want, they are given shocks with a cattle prod, they are tortured and beaten.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k61IssGzFJU
Occam’s razor suggests this whitewash report is only what the CIA and military don’t mind us knowing or were unable to successfully hide.
Also, how many military brig commanders around the world still use ‘some of the techniques’ they learned a decade ago – for the right prisoner?
It can’t possibly be over or put behind us until OUR country prosecutes those that issued the war crime orders, or it will certainly happen again.
It also requires somehow eliminating that second “conditional” rule of law DOJ has for crimes by the wealthy and War Party powerful…
It is inhumane and murderous! Some of those men tortured were innocent. How is it that we have stooped to the level of the terrorist? What’s next beheading? The CIA is justifying the torture and at the same time saying that we will never do it again. Yea right, everybody knows the CIA will out source the torture business to private foreign military contractors who will possibly operate clandestinely in our country as well. This will again give the CIA plausible deniability.
Tim Weiner?
So, what IS all the hoopla? The president already admitted “we tortured some folks”. Noone will be held accountable for anything so what’s the point of a report we won’t ever be able to read? The public(who pays for all this shit) should feel privileged that our overseers even bothered to include us in their choreographed play. We can all make a lot of noise and get back to serious issues like the Kardashians or X-Factor, or the “Next Big Thing”. I’m watching CNN right now wondering why they are even discussing the issue. What’s the point if there won’t be any accountability beyond “Shame on You”, and some finger wagging? What a bunch of bullshit theater. I want my money back.
ng and murderous! How is it we lowered our mindset to the same as terrorist? Whats next, beheadings? The CIA has sworn we will never do it again but fail to disclose the use of private foreign military contractors, possibly operating in our country as well, to continue its torturous ways. If the foreign contractor gets caught then the CIA can cry out plausible deniabiliy.
Glenn,
New headline should read “Congress’ CIA Torture Report Confirms Iraq War Lies”
Indeed.
Excellent idea Alex.
That will open the stomach of the grand pregnant snake otherwise known as 11 Sep 2001.
We should realize that NOTHING is beyond being justified by the government should it seem to prove useful to their agenda. Nothing.`
Brennan, CIA head appointed by Obama, comes out and STILL says torture was AOK because, you know, we think it worked. Shameful Nazi mindset.
It is good to remember that it was Clinton that began “extraordinary rendition” as referenced in this interview with Michael Scheuer as he proudly defends his role in setting up the programme:
Sky News – “Why didn’t you torture people in the US, why did you send them to Mubarak in Egypt?”
Michael Scheuer – “Because Mr. Clinton was a coward. He thought he could get away with sending people to Mubarak’s prisons. He [president Clinton] might have been ashamed of it, but I was happy to do it because I was defending the United States and he [president Clinton] wouldn’t do it.
Sky News – “Under what authority is the CIA acting as a torturer and in some cases a killer?”
Michael Scheuer – “Under the authority of the department of justice of the United States. Who do you think approved Mr Clinton’s programme? It was Eric Holder [now the US attorney general] when he was at the department of justice”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwhHSuLR690
Veteran — now professor — Eric Fair, in NYT op-ed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/world/senate-torture-report-shows-cia-infighting-over-interrogation-program.html?_r=0
With the CIA feeling oh so self-righteous about their actions one has to wonder why they went to so much effort to hide the truth from everyone.
If international law “progresses” through its own abrogation, then abrogation is in fact the basis of international order. We must ‘look forward, not back’, because looking back causes a crisis in confidence, confidence in our global hegemony. Israel’s illegal occupation acts as a sort of lab for the rest of Western civilization. The worst of us shall lead us. The brinksmanship of International Law is our ‘shared value’. It is deeply incented.
This is a WHITEWASH, is what it is.
The report won’t agree that the techniques/methods were torture. Please see this clearly.
At no point does the summary officially concede torture (which is by definition actionable) happened. Even Obama is saying “harsh methods” now.
This is relevant, I believe, and the mass media is ignoring it. Quite deliberately, I believe, even though it literally spells the difference between accountability and impunity for the ruling class in this regard.
This is no “torture” report, it is an anemic examination of “degrees of abuse,” a cynical whitewash further complicating what is essentially a simple matter of actionable wrongdoing, exploited by the media as some kind of reckoning (useful to exacerbate the farcical theater of two opposite political parties) without risking actual comeuppance at all for those involved.
Does the CIA run the US ? It would seem so if the findings of this report are to be believed. There are apparently 54 countries that were complicit in this program. If the CIA was entirely responsible is it not worrying that it has access to such vast amounts of money to pay these countries for their services, and even more worrisome, the power to negotiate with the Governments of these countries to break the laws of their own lands. One would have thought that countries such as the UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia would have insisted on the US President’s seal on the deal before committing to blatant disregard of international and national law and violation of human rights and treaties they had ratified.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/world/senate-intelligence-committee-cia-torture-report.html
“Taken in its entirety, the report is a portrait of a spy agency that was wholly unprepared for its new mission as jailers and interrogators — but that embraced its assignment with vigor. The report chronicles millions of dollars in secret payments between 2002 and 2004 from the C.I.A. to foreign officials, aimed at getting other governments to agree to host secret prisons.
Cables from C.I.A. headquarters to field offices said that overseas officers should put together “wish lists” speculating about what foreign governments might want in exchange for bringing C.I.A. prisoners onto their soil.
As one 2003 cable put it, “Think big.””
And this from Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2014/12/09/the-money-behind-the-cias-torture-program/
You ask, “Does the CIA run the US ?”
Pretty much, it would seem. And I can tell you this: Beyond a shadow of any doubt, today’s report reveals just the tip of a mighty iceberg. Things ain’t what they seem in the ol’ U.S.
“access to such vast amounts of money to pay these countries for their services, and even more worrisome, the power to negotiate with the Governments of these countries to break the laws of their own lands….”
Welllll……. that kind of brings us to the valid part of Tenet’s little tantrum (quoted below). The CIA did not do this alone, without support, guidance or funding. Despite what you see on TV shows. If they acquired the use of other nations’ land, air space, transit corridors, etc., they likely did so with the quasi-knowledgable help of the State Department. At the very least. There are also the money-dispensers: members of Congressional committees, sub-committees, etc. Logistical support commonly involves the regular military. The list is nice and long.
One of the most significant possible benefits to getting Establishment Dems involved in leaking the whole filthy schmear is that there are NatSec actors who may retaliate…………. and out some of the civilian suits who made it all possible. That they would reveal or smear only their second tier enablers goes without saying — but that’s fine. The entertainment value alone would make it worthwhile.
To add from http://ciasavedlives.com/
Apparently this website was created by a group of former CIA officials with hundreds of years of combined service – but no names or contact information or way to fact-find the source.
We, as former senior officers of the Central Intelligence Agency, created this website to present documents that conclusively demonstrate that the program was:
1. authorized by the President,
2. overseen by the National Security Council, and
3. deemed legal by the Attorney General of the United States
on multiple occasions. None of those officials were interviewed either. None. CIA relied on their policy and legal judgments. We deceived no one. You will not find this truth in the Majority Report.
I am somewhat inclined to believe the CIA were not 100% responsible.
One too many Presidents and Government Officials have gotten away with a “rogue CIA” defense.
However, having said that, it is no excuse for carrying out the torture. I am sure the CIA had some leeway as to what tactics to use.
“Doing one’s duty”, “following orders” does not cut it, that has been the excuse offered for some of the world’s worst atrocities to date.
Another Marcy Wheeler tweet:
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/542409782460551168
Torturers who couldn’t waterboard: $450/day Torturers who could waterboard: $1800/day (66)
(That’s page 66.)
Marcy (emptywheel) also posted this at C&L, WRT the Romero editorial. Not only was it bizarre, it seems, but entirely in vain because Obama won’t — can’t — pardon them, because he’s implicated in much of the underlying war-powers authority.
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/12/obama-would-not-cannot-deem-any-activities
Romero’s op-ed is also at cross-purposes to the ACLU’s own efforts to expose this torture, notably ACLU’s FOIA lawsuit, it seems.
(She also links to an Opinio Juris piece by Kevin Jon Heller that’s also worth reading.)
Romero has apparently lost his mind. Jameel Jaffer has been tweeting his call for prosecutions (from years ago) all day.
Who are these two “psychologists” who made millions helping the CIA torture people, and WHY do they still have their licenses?
Their names are James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/17/blowing-whistle-cia-torture-beyond-grave/
As for the licenses, I believe the APA declined to sanction them.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/New-Evidence-Links-CIA-to-by-Roy-Eidelson-American-Psychological-Association_CIA_CIA-Interrogations_CIA-Torture-Interrogations-141014-921.html
Rectal Feedings? Wasn’t that a ‘South Park’ plot?
How life imitates art.
I just want to post Douglas Jehl’s response to the torture report. Glenn tweeted a link to it:
“As a national security reporter for The Times in 2005, I worked aggressively to pursue and publish stories about the CIA’s harsh interrogation of terrorist suspects, at a time when those details remained highly classified. I am proud of the work that my Times colleagues and I did in bringing these CIA practices to light. I was not interviewed for the Senate report, and would never comment on reporting that was based on confidential conversations with current and former U.S. government officials.’’
-Douglas Jehl, Washington Post foreign editor
I don’t know what to say. Cowardly clump? Self-serving weasel? Boot licker? Anything but journalist.
Given your extraordinary talent PI….
Could you depict both him and Mr. Klein in special “pink tutus” ???
Perhaps TI will publish your artwork.
Not that this should or would matter to in comparison to level of awful acts that we’re discussing here, but I find it objectionable that tutus are an old standby of cretins such as Joe Klein to use an insult and to pretend like the he has something that resembles a sense of humor. The ballet is beautiful art. The cliche jabs used about tutus always makes me cringe and shake my head in disgust at the offending speaker or writer.
Quite agree Kitt.
That is why it only seems fitting that Mr. Klein be adorned in his fantasy garment prior to indictment for colluding to aid and abet war criminals with his journalistic endeavors. Of course..I wouldn’t want Mr. Jehl to feel slighted in way —- as his contributions to the effort are obviously worthy of note.
Let Mr. Klein and Mr. Jehl model the desired outfit in tandem. Think of It as a charitable deed in karmic law.
For all the media hype, the summary doesn’t recommend prosecution, and it seems the summary doesn’t actually SAY it was “torture.” (Obama is also today calling the behavior “harsh” or “enhanced” techniques.)
Again, it is NOT a “torture” report, that’s just how the establishment is spinning it, and we play along STUPIDLY by agreeing it is one.
“Again, it is NOT a “torture” report”
Yes it IS a torture report.
“that’s just how the establishment is spinning it”
No, the establishment is saying it’s a “harsh” or “enhanced” interrogation report.
“and we play along STUPIDLY by agreeing it is one.
Not me, or anyone else that I can see on here.
That said, I’d like to see the full documents, and the video tapes that were destroyed, and people held legally liable….
“That said, I’d like to see the full documents, and the video tapes that were destroyed, and people held legally liable….”
As would I.
Everywhere I look this is called a torture report, indeed even you think it is one, even though its authors do not actually call what happened “torture.”
It should have been called “Examination of torture of suspects,” for tortured they certainly were.
I agree. This shorthand doesn’t sufficiently describe the report.
More appropriately it should be called “how CIA managers and CIA employees conspired with Bush officials and Obama officials to subvert the Constitution and who then conspired to perpetuate their subversion by maliciously obstructing Congressional oversight.”
Calling it a “torture report” is like calling ebola the flu.
The real threat isn’t the torture, it’s the subversion of the democratic process with misinformation, deception, propaganda and political intrigue. That is killing this country.
What I don’t understand is why all our perpetually outraged rightwing government haters suddenly rally to defend these jackbooted thugs whom they usually call a threat to freedom.
“Why won’t you just trust us?”
: ` (
A thoughtful take on what I said, appreciated. Tribalism trumps all, it seems. I do know some libertarians who feel as I do, and some progressives, but both the left and right wing establishmentarians just keep objecting to each other rather than objecting to the ruling class that provides the primitive and easy theater of tribalism to keep us divided while it fleeces us. I understand that you consider the right wing at fault, always, and I concede they have lost their way. But so has the left wing, as it is equally ineffective at reining in corporatist/militarist government overreach.
People want to be on the winning side more than to be motivated by principle, and I think this “philosophy” is infected into people by politicians and the media on the whole.
The mass media and the state (both parties, all agencies, all branches of government) are one corrupt establishment, I believe. Many within the establishment do not know this, but in my opinion they serve the corruption unwittingly.
Does anyone see the cruel irony of a reader begging for help and being ignored while people comment on other torture? Coram, Mona, Pedinska, Benito, JGreen7801 — can you all please help me persuade Glenn to help me? They are killing me and destroying my family.
ec, I do see your comments, but I don’t know what to say other than if you have proof of this then email it to Glenn.
I have no powers to bend anyone to do anything about it, but hope that if such proof is offered, then you might get some relief. I hope that you do.
Thank you Pedinska. I have written and sent what I could. This is a covert operation with cover and I need a countermeasures expert but victims cannot hire them because all their calls and computers are infiltrated and our calls are circumvented by the agents. The one piece if advice I got indirectly through a source with intelligence contacts was ‘don’t waste your money’ because your expert will be coerced into compromise. I have sent shipping labels, have published names of perps, but am being burned by electromagnetic fields that are not visible and are targeted when I am alone. I have identified the 11 coax surveillance cables running from foreclosef unit in ‘Fannie Mae’s gands’ directly adjacent to my unit. But I need the help of a journalist with contacts who can bring an uncompromised countermeasures team. Glenn et. al scold journalists for ignoring victims but he is doing the same thing himself! I don’t want to be a story only after I lose my family and die.
EC: You have posted this plea many, many times here, often at length. It is time to stop. Glenn has an email address. Use it if you have some specific information for him.
But I respectfully request that you cease littering the comment board with this matter.
Thanks.
Mona, I feel the same way about your incessant bickering about Zionists when the post has nothing to do with Zionism. You think you are righteous in your indignation but when someone is begging the site for help from TORTURE YOU offhandedly dismiss them. You are mistaken if you believe you are a compassionate person.
Zionism, the Israel lobby — these are issues the readership here commonly discusses for a good reason: several of the writers here, especially Glenn, focus on matters pertaining to it. It is on topic.
This is not, however, the proper space in which to endlessly beg and importune Glenn, or for others to approach Glenn, for attention to your personalpersecution, real or imagined.
Glenn posts his email address, which is: glenn.greenwald@theintercept.com
You want his attention to your problem? Contact him,directly. And stop doing it here.
So far, I have not accepted suggestions that Glenn should be lobbied to ban you. That’s because your volume stays (just) within non-flooding range. But since you’ve posted today yet again, more than once, on this same matter — and addressed me specifically — I will tell you that there have been discussions about asking Glenn to examine whether your commentary exceeds his tolerance for volume of essentially the same thing. Such a request has not yet been made. I hope you don’t make it necessary.
You’re making me quiver in my boots, Mona. Yes it’s true, I am trying to draw attention to my personal persecution, but I am just one of thousands enduring the same TORTURE herein the U.S. How insufferably entitled you are to think that your intellectual debates about Zionism are more important than my REAL torture. You are shameful. And while readers here are sometimes interested in the Zionism debate (when the story applies), they are all here today to read about TORTURE. Which makes my comments fit in nicely with the subject matter.
Let me be blunt, EC. You are either a psychologically disturbed person, or you are here to disrupt with diversion to your personal paranoid nightmare, hijacking reasonable discourse — which also has the effect of making comments here look like den of kooks. Constant begging for attention from Glenn — here in comments — imploring him to send some journalist team to investigate the microwaves or whatever the fuck are directed at you by…THEM….is all bullshit.
Email the man. If he answers, great. If he doesn’t, well, that is an answer, too. Either way, get your begging him out of HERE.
If you don’t stop the bullshit, odds are that eventually Glenn will shut you down.
What is this, ‘Mean Girls?’ Someone has apparent psychological issues and it isn’t me. You are a bully, not much different from the people who have performed the torture detailed here. If GG wants to block me, that is his perogative. But he doesn’t need his mommy to tell him when to do so. Get a grip, Mona. You are hurting Glenn’s reputation. If you are supposed to be on the side if good, I don’t want to know what evil looks like. Except, I already know. Grow the fuck up. You’re not the moderator of The Intercept.
No, I am not the moderator of TI. Glenn is. But several of us who are familiar with his standards — not just me — are volunteers to alert him to issues and he is generally responsive to our suggestions.
Email. The. Man. But stop spewing endless bullshit here about the need for journalist teams to come see the, what, microwave torture in your house or whatever the fuck you are always on about? The beams that are killing you and your family? If he thinks there is some merit to your lamentations he may get involved. If not, not. But this constant misuse of the comments section for your campaign is way past tiresome.
I have ignored you. But with this thread you named me and demanded my attention. You got it. Now that you know what I think and suggest, you will hopefully adjust your behavior accordingly.
Mona, go fuck yourself as I’m sure there’s no one else who wants the job. You are a megalomaniac who thinks some past relationship with Glenn gives you some special authority to dominate the comments. I won’t make the mistake of ever thinking you are capable of being interested in helping torture victims. You just like to hear yourself opine. You are as spiritually mindless as the torturers and I would never want you in my physical sphere. And because I limit my exposure to negative influences, you may have the last word. I’m
done with you.
Mona, EC seems as though she needs Glenn’s help. He could at least reply to her emails or acknowledge her in some way.
Oh dear folks, I think we’re all wrong.
—————————————————————————————————————————————-
Statement by George J. Tenet on the Release of the SSCI Report on CIA Rendition, Detention and Interrogation
December 9, 2014
The report released today by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) does damage to U.S. national security, to the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency, and most of all to the truth.
No one should blindly accept the Committee’s assertions without a careful reading of the rebuttals by the SSCI Minority, the current CIA leadership, and other documents that are being released in conjunction with the publication of the Majority’s deeply flawed report. These documents show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the detention and interrogation program operated by the CIA in the aftermath of 9/11 was directed by the President, with the oversight of the National Security Council, and the legal authorization of the Attorney General and Department of Justice. These approvals were given not just once but on multiple occasions. The documents also show that the Congressional leadership was regularly and accurately briefed on the program.
The documents will demonstrate that at a time of grave threat to the United States the program was effective in saving American and allied lives and in preventing another mass casualty attack on American soil.
It is regrettable that the Committee consciously chose to denigrate the integrity and performance of men and women who gave their all to protect the country without interviewing any of them, or holding a single congressional hearing. Rather, they chose to indict them in absentia solely on the basis of a selective and faulty interpretation of documents. This is not the way dedicated public servants should be treated. Our nation would have been better served if the committee had asked or listened to them. It is indeed a dark day for Congressional oversight.
The Committee leadership say the report will ensure this never happens again. My hope is that a report like this—biased, inaccurate, and destructive will never happen again
On that note, let’s have the entire report.
Yep, that truly comical that he said, “solely on the basis of a selective and faulty interpretation of documents.
I’m not sure if I know of any language strong enough to express my contempt for the despicable sadist George Tenant and his fellow sadists. If there is some other label for people who perform what has been “selectively” exposed in what we’ve read, I don’t know what it would be. It certainly isn’t something that would describe, “men and women who gave their all to protect the country.”
Worth repeating, at least as principle, if not binding case law:
Why was the publication delayed until now?
By the end of this year free trade agreements as TPP & TTIP are scheduled to be ratified – behind closed doors. There was almost no coverage by the media.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/02/06/tpp-opposition-soars-corporate-media-blackout-deafening
http://www.msnbc.com/ed-show/watch/why-the-tpp-poses-danger-to-us-jobs-368870979944
Lately there was an article about the “Battle in Seattle” in 1999 on Alternet. The protests were against the WTO which is the ambrella organization for exactly these “partnerships”, TPP & TTIP, but no word about the deadline for the ratification.
http://www.alternet.org/labor/battle-seattle-15-years-how-unsung-hero-kept-movements-united
I’d like to underline that I think that the ordeals of the victims of torture are unabashedly used to drown out something else which is underway to be signed, sealed & delivered right now. The torture as well as Gitmo are long long overdue to get coverage by the media – the chosen moment is just another abuse, because there is no intent to stop it in the future. Maybe the Free Trade Agreements make it even more possible.
We tortured an innocent man to death.
Marcy Wheeler reports on Twitter that fn32 shows that Gul Rahman was a case of mistaken identity. We shackled him naked to a wall and he froze to death.
And we paid at least $81 million for it.
CORRECTION: Marcy now reports that there are two Gul Rahmans; the one who died was not a case of mistaken ID.
Is it just me or does Sen. Feinstein look a little overmedicated? Either that she came to the podium directly from her appearance as an extra in the Walking Dead.
I would suggest that she’s exhausted. Give her a break — she’s 81 years old.
all the more reason she’s unfit for public office
That may be, but she managed to get us here, for all her apparent faults.
I’m not a fan, but she gets a little credit for this. (And she’s half of the way to 82, FWIW.)
so where was the CIA on 9/10/01???????? And with all the torturing etc by the CIA and the military the US has failed to prevail in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least the Iraqis were smart enough to get us out of the country – Oh wait…
You want me to give a break to one of the number 1 defenders of the CIA during her tenure in office? One of the number 1 financial beneficiaries of the MIC by virtue of her husbands holdings and contracts? And to an individual who likely knew all along what was happening with regard to America’s “torture” regime and despite her now repeated ad nauseam refrain that “Congress was misled or lied to” by the CIA? Get serious I will never show Sen. Feinstein any respect whatsoever on anything other than helping her across the street when she’s too old to do it without assistance.
Further, I’m a couple hundred pages into the executive summary at this point and I’ll tell you what (having spent 13 years working for a federal agency): 1) nobody does fuck all without it starting at the top or being authorized at the top, 2) the entire report thus far appears to be little more than a re-telling of what is already known via journalistic endeavors over the last 13 years, 3) it reads like one grand exercise of everyone in a position of authority in Congress and the Executive branch only being “read in enough to maintain plausible deniability at all times”, and 4) an example of the purest Congressional political theatre of throwing the CIA under the bus because they know Congress will never take any action whatsoever to meaningfully hold any alphabet agency accountable for anything, ever, or any Executive branch member or any member of Congress accountable for their complicity and failures of oversight with regard to the American Global Regime of Torture. And if you believe otherwise I’d suggest you are naïve in the extreme and have no sense of US history.
Congress quite simply, with a few notable exceptions, is a body of millionaires who are absolutely captured by money and influence peddling (with back-end guarantees of private sector employment post-office), and, beholden to the military/media/banking/fossil fuel-petrochemical/health insurance/big pharma/big ag/big data industrial complex for their very election to office in the first instance. Again, with very few notable exceptions.
I can just about guarantee with absolute certainty that the US Congress and the Executive branch of the US Government (DOJ/AG/President/Vice President) will never do anything to hold any of the listed industries or their heads legally accountable for anything–ever. To do so is to open themselves up to legal accountability for their complicity in what was clearly violations of domestic and international law, and they are smart enough to never ever do that.
The only members of Congress actually prosecuted for anything, ever, are those so mindlessly inept and brazen in their petty criminality (never major crimes mind you), that to not use them as the “sacrificial lambs” to perpetuate the appearance/perception among the plebes that Congress believes the rule of law applies to all equally, is to blow up the entire façade.
Sen. Feinstein is a sad joke and I will never show her an ounce of respect.
I objected to this and only this:
“Is it just me or does Sen. Feinstein look a little overmedicated? Either that she came to the podium directly from her appearance as an extra in the Walking Dead.” (I’m not a Diane Feinstein fan by any stretch of the imagination.)
So you can dismount from the high horse.
If you are the slightest bit concerned or “object” to my irreverence re: Sen. Feinstein’s appearance, then I believe you are “concerned” and find “objectionable” the wrong thing(s) in life.
If the mockery of, someone’s appearance, or any other insignificant personal attribute, strikes you as uncivil by comparison to someone’s complicity, efforts to deflect blame from his/herself, and/or culpability in an inhuman, immoral and criminal regime of state sponsored torture, then all I can say is your and my moral compasses look nothing alike.
rrheard: “I believe you are “concerned” and find “objectionable” the wrong thing(s) in life.”
Smacks of projection.
She looked that pallid on Nov. 27, 1978, when she stood on the City Hall steps and announced the deaths of Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk. Now she has this surreal moment.
This is America. The most vicious, brutal government at all levels. The only difference is they got a huge media covering up for their crimes against humanity. Big Western Media still refusing to call what america did a torture even though this report paints a very sadistic torturous activities.
Listen! I am begging you to pay attention.
The worse crimes remain hidden and continue to this moment as covert agents target unwitting American citizens for further research on radiation, cyclotron heating, bioagent exposure and more. These offenses are going on NOW with Obama’s knowledge and permission from Congress.
“The military and law enforcement, however, can use non-lethal weapons (see USC Title 50 Chapter 32 Section 1520a). Further, testing of electronic equipment; discovering unauthorized electronic surveillance; training of intelligence personnel by officers the United States is allowed. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/1805.html”
People are being tortured in their own homes. I am being tortured in my own home. Thousands are demanding investigations, yet reporters including those at The Intercept ignore their pleas. It’s time to pull the curtains off this abomination. Please bring a countermeasures team to my home stat.
So, I’ve been reading through this report… and is anyone else struck by how amazingly dumb some of the “terrorists” the US paraded as threats to national security, really were?
I mean, there’s a section in there about Jose Padilla, the supposed “dirty bomber” who wanted to detonate a radiological weapon in the US. He genuinely believed that he could make a dirty bomb by whirling a bucket of uranium-238 and chlorine over his head for 45 minutes. These guys aren’t the cunning Bond villains they were pictured to be…
“So if you’re feeling sickened and outraged by today’s revelations, just listen to the President: stop Looking Backward and being sanctimonious, and just forget about all this unpleasant business about torture – just like he did.”
Thank you Mr. Greenwald!
Throw that blame back into the Executive Branch where it belongs.
NYT op-ed: “Pardon Bush and Those Who Tortured.” The author is Anthony Romero, national executive director of the ACLU.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/opinion/pardon-bush-and-those-who-tortured.html
What the hell?!
I’ve received two emails from him since he wrote that.
You can probably find it on ACLU website.
I’ve gotten no e-mails, and I’m on their alert list. Their website — aclu dot org — shows a reprint of what was on the NYT op-ed page.
This had better be a hoax, that’s all I can say. For one thing, his rationale — that a pardon somehow will make all the torture retroactively illegal — makes no sense. And it was always illegal.
E-mail just came in.
Should have put that in the op-ed. Even so, what’s his point? “What was Obama going to do? Submit it to a grand jury?” Nasty, but not entirely on point.
Trouble is, if they’re pre-emptively pardoned, why appoint a prosecutor, special or otherwise? This op-ed is still trans-dimensionally bizarre.
My guess is Mr. Romero was just shown his NSA file by some man or woman in a non-descript Men in Black suit and told in no uncertain terms that he needs to start toeing the line otherwise choice photographic tidbits from his file are released to Faux News.
I agree with you. I only pointed out the emails because they exist, and because he obviously is being pummeled to explain what the hell is going on with that. I haven’t finished reading the emails, much less trying to figure out what he is getting at. Too much going on today to decipher everything that is coming at us.
Hopefully…
He will publish a coherent explanation of both intent and meaning for that “bizarre” persuasive opinion piece.
Better yet….Retract it completely.
That email made less sense than the op-ed that came before. It smacks of ass coverings and cringing from justifiably outraged flamethrowers.
Yep. Exactly right.
Partly, it suggests the man has given up entirely. The fig-leaf of pardons is all he can imagine as possible at this point. Was he demoralized by the November Republican sweep perhaps?
One thing I’ll say about Republicans — and I haven’t thought of them as distinctively worse than Democrats for years — their collective response to this toothless report is right back to status quo ante, c. 2005. They clearly believe that human rights violations are great good fun if they’re in control of the violation process — and they believe that they will be going forward. It’s not an unreasonable belief given the lackluster Democrat slate, Hillary’s obvious status as heiress-apparent, and Citizen’s United.
The Libertarian or radical freedom wing of the conservative bloc has allowed itself to be completely subsumed by the larger, better funded and more numerous Deep State autocrats. As long as our middle-aged, native-born white men get a few ego boosts now and then, they’re simply not a concern for the would-be feudal lords of Flyover* who now control the bulk of their party.
I guess nationwide and internationally, the beatings will continue until morale improves…………. or at least until large numbers of average men are so driven to despair that a pan-Islamist or other ideological movement sprints across a continent or two. Again. After a few decades of letting our most sociopathic inmates run our asylum it will come to that. There are men who have received multi-thousand sq ft mansions, unbounded prestige and sinecures for creating this monster. They will keep pushing until one or more backlash movements grows to truly threatening proportions.
*(Actually it might be better to call them the Nabobs of NoVa, or Princelings of Potomac.)
They will keep pushing until one or more backlash movements grows to truly threatening proportions.
And then they will go to war, against their own citizens if necessary, to continue the status quo. Everyone’s eyes should be on the Ferguson/Michael Brown/Eric Garner protests. They are a prequel to any other protests of the actions of these fucking nabobs you so accurately described.
Read that earlier today.
Is Mr. Romero tacitly stating that the ALCU has been added to the list of the Alphabet Agencies in their compliance with unwritten Executive Branch directives?
Has he been threatened or blackmailed into submission?
Regardless that op-ed indicates a surrender on the part of the ACLU, diminishes credibility of the organization, and speaks to the reach of the Shadow Government.
I’m not sure what he thought he was playing at. From his e-mail, after the op-ed ran: “If you read my op-ed in the New York Times1 this morning and were surprised, you’re not alone. Even some of my staff here at the ACLU were confounded — until I had a chance to explain.” Trouble is, his explanation is still off-kilter. Torture was always illegal, so a pardon doesn’t change that. And if the US doesn’t prosecute these crimes, the ICC then could under its statute.
And as he said, even people at the national office were confounded, to say the least. This time, he might not be speaking for the organization, certainly not the rank-and-file. And they might cut him loose if he’s too far over the moon.
Romero astonished me with that op-ed. Kevin Jon Heller is also flummoxed:
http://opiniojuris.org/2014/12/09/aclu-endorses-blanket-amnesty-torture/
(Repost of comment much lower in thread on this topic.)
Yes…
Thank you for that post Mona.
I read Mr. Romero’s Op-ed at that time and it did not settle well.
This from Mr. Heller makes sense:
“The bottom line is this: you want to make clear that torture is wrong, that torturers are criminals, and that future torturers should beware ? You don’t offer blanket amnesty to the Bush administration officials who systematically tortured.
You prosecute them.”
“Psychologists played key role in torture program, then profited greatly
This is not only a profound and disgraceful violation of all professional ethics, but also a perfect illustration of what the ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer calls “the torture-industrial complex”, as those torture psychologists received contracts totaling $81 million as part of their outsourced work…”
——–
The should be outed, stripped of their jobs, and stand trial.
Seriously, when are people going to be held accountable for crimes of the gravest nature? These weasels can’t even claim what some did at Nuremberg: that they didn’t know what was being done (and even that didn’t confer immunity during those trials).
I think we all know that we’ll have the same response that happened in the wake of the Snowden revelations: nothing. Europeans and Brits are betting (and I’m guessing rightly) that there will be a brief flap and then it will be business as usual. What is it going to take to tip the scales back toward justice? We need to return to the notion that some things are worth fighting for and emulate Central and South America, where people steadfastly refused to allow their torturers and despots to have the last word. Cheney, Bush, and Obama might want to remember what happened to Pinochet.
Right on, MM.
MM, I posted a response to this, and another commenter’s query, re the identity of the psychologists involved. It had two links though, so appears to be suspended in commenter purgatory. I expect it will appear above shortly.
MM,
Always lovely to read a comment from you. I have not spent as much time in the comments here as I probably should, as I kind of lost the habit after GG left the Graun. All the best.
“Obama official: White House won’t take sides between CIA, which says interrogations worked, and Senate”
It is too bad that Americans will never know the comedic effect of hearing things like “the president will not take sides between…a government agency that the president controls…and the congress” but if enough Americans, I don’t know, expected their elected leaders to actually take responsibility for the actions of government that they were elected to direct, perhaps “officials” would stop saying silly things like that.
Who are these two “psychologists” who made millions helping the CIA torture people, and WHY do they still have their licenses? They should be drummed out of any organizations that they belong to. They DESERVE to be in jail, but we know that will never happen.
Jesus. Just when you think they can’t get more stupid or more offensive…
May Mr. Klein be granted his wish!
Perhaps he will receive his very own special “pink tu-tu” for aiding and abetting war crimes of the State.
GG (via twitter) references this @sullydish post:
“Verschärfte Vernehmung”
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2007/05/-versch-auml-rfte-vernehmung/228158/#more
It’s said, when talking about history, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. I would venture that there are those who study the past specifically so they can repeat it.
One last bit to add from the Sullivan piece:
This is why it’s so critically important that we dispense, once and for all, with the crap about Godwinning a thread, which ends up derailing numerous Guardian discussions, and general hysteria about daring to draw parallels
There are potent parallels that matter. The same patterns are played out over and over again: their signs are not subtle and aren’t meant to be. It’s why so many of us took to the streets to protest this war before it began. There was only one place it could go: here.
I think we pretty much were able to dismiss the Godwinning when Godwin actually appeared in one of Glenn’s threads to shoot that misrepresentation of what he was saying down in flames. Can’t find the link to his comment, but that was a pretty epic manifestation when it happened. :-)
Couldn’t quite find the link either, but I did find a link where Glenn writes a paraphrase of what Godwin had written in the comment thread:
UPDATE II: Godwin himself appears in comments (authenticity confirmed via email) to explain that his “law” sought to discourage frivolous, but not substantive, Nazi analogies and comparisons. –GG
http://www.salon.com/2010/07/01/godwin/
Thanks for finding that Kitt. It looks like the comments from those articles are no longer archived anywhere. The link he has in that update no longer leads to Godwin’s actual comment. What a shame. That was pretty cool.
I have bookmarked this instead as it does a fine job of explaining that phenomenon even without Godwin’s direct contribution on clarity which affirmed what Glenn had written.
When I look at that post Godwin’s comment still seemed to be there. It was on page 9, on my browser at least.
*********Just a note from Godwin
While it’s correct to say that my original experiment in memetic engineering was intended to be humorous, it was not at all “lighthearted,” as Glenn characterizes it.
It was, in fact, with a heavy heart, dismayed at how quickly the enormity of the Nazis and the Holocaust was being eroded in political culture, that I set out to inspire people to think more deeply about glib comparisons.
I’ve written about Godwin’s Law on more than one occasion since formulating it. For example, I explained what I was up to in a 1994 article in Wired, “Meme, Counter-meme.” More recently I reflected on the enduring impact of Godwin’s Law in Jewcy.com (“I Seem To Be A Verb: 18 Years of Godwin’s Law.”)
People familiar with my work and writings will find plenty of ammunition there to use against those who would glibly shut down discussions. The purpose of Godwin’s Law is to provoke remembering, not forgetting (and certainly not silence).
*********
The link in the update is:
http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2010/07/01/godwin/permalink/d9c9180de9d0fce57c2f3b5329785fbd.html
The permalink-link on the actual comment is:
http://www.salon.com/2010/07/01/godwin/#postID=2032752&page=7&comment=1644695
Neither one actually brought the comment up in my browser though.
Operation Paperclip. The US didn’t only invent innovative and exciting ways to torture people… it provided amnesty to Nazi and Japanese ‘scientists’ heavy on torture and experimentation expertise in order to get that information themselves and use it.
PS: ironic this site has blocked every comment I have attempted to post over tor for a while now.
I thought nothing could surprise me any more on this subject… but Greenwald tweeted an old article of “sullydish” that I somehow have never read, incredible:
It includes an image of a 1937 memo by Gestapo Chief Heinrich Müller, showing the heading “Gestapo Methods of Examination” and under that, “sharpened interrogation” to be used on “terrorists”. Gee…where have I heard those techniques being used more recently???
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2007/05/-versch-auml-rfte-vernehmung/228158/#more
Check out the “techniques”. But weren’t the Gestapo merciful, Just like Bush and Cheney they didn’t forget to involve medical personnel in the torture sessions (more than 20 blows and a doctor had to be present) Isn’t that lovely!!!
According to this article the CIA raped prisoners with broken bottles and boiled some alive at black op sites in Uzbekistan. Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK’s ambassador to Uzbekistan was the source for this charge:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2009/11/ambassador-cia-people-tortured/
10 years and only 480 pages out of 6000 = limited hangout
CIA cited Israeli Supreme Court rulings to justify torture, Senate report says
What? They didn’t think they could come up with enough legal justification under US law???
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.630823?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
(Have to register to view entire article)
Israeli law IS U.S. law!
Pfft!
What is doubly amazing about that Israel legal reference is that American leaders are typically railing against the evil influence of foreign jurisprudence on American courts:
“The insidious wiles of foreign influence
The infamous “torture memos” were part of this tendency. In them, administration lawyers argued that the president, as commander-in-chief, had the “inherent constitutional authority” to approve any interrogation techniques needed to protect the nation’s security—regardless of the 1949 UN Convention Against Torture, ratified by America in 1994. Human Rights Watch, a non-partisan monitoring group, claims that America’s abuse of detainees was the “predictable result” of Mr Bush’s decision to circumvent the law.
In virtually every other country in the world, an international treaty or convention, once ratified, overrides domestic law. Not so in the United States; it simply becomes part of the ordinary body of American law. As such, it can be ignored by the president or Senate if national security, or even ideology, seems more important.”
http://www.economist.com/node/4061122
Article Six of the United States Constitution establishes the laws and treaties of the United States made in accordance with it as the supreme law of the land.
Since the President and every member of Congress took an oath to “preserve, protect and to defend the Constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic”, should they not then be sworn to bring the perpetrators of torture to trial?
There is no justification under US law, statute, case law, whatever — other than the memoranda that Bybee and Yoo cooked up, which themselves are unjustifiable other than as Exhibit A at their trials.
ZERO DARK THIRTY: PROPAGANDA FUELING THE BIG BAMBOOZLE
FROM FALSE FLAG 9/11 BY PHILIP MARSHALL
Ultimately, the evidence that September 11th was an al-Qaeda operation rests entirely on the confessions of one man, Khalid Sheik Mohammad. We now know that KSM, as he’s been dubbed in various reports, learned the hard way to remember his role in 911. Naked and with his feet bound to a wooden board, KSM’s lower half was elevated and buckets of water were slowly poured into his nasal passages. Unable to breathe, with water entering his lungs, he would have been sure that he was drowning. The natural human reaction is to survive and the only way to survive is to tell the aggressor whatever he wants to hear. It’s that simple. The main reason we don’t use waterboarding here in America is that it simply doesn’t provide truth, only words to stave off imminent death. After two years of this treatment and a year of sleep deprivation, snarling dogs and humiliation, KSM also “confessed” to every evil act under the sun over the past 15 years — to planning 31 other attacks around the world.
We later learned that his interrogation was videotaped, but the tapes mysteriously vanished. The 911 Commission, taking its cue from the Bush administration, referred to the deranged KSM as a “super terrorist” or “terrorist entrepreneur.” In June 2008, KSM appeared in a military court at Guantanamo. Shackled and rambling incoherently, his initial complaint was that the court-appointed artist had botched his profile, specifically that his nose was drawn much too large. After the vanity issue, his next complaint was another ramble about having been tortured for the previous five years.
The President himself informed the nation in a September 2006 speech about the success of the waterboard. Referring to another detainee, Abu Zubaydah, al-Qaeda’s so-called planning chief, Mr. Bush said, “We knew that Zubaydah had more information that could save innocent lives, but he stopped talking. As his questioning proceeded, it became clear that he had received training on how to resist interrogation. And so the CIA used an alternative set of procedures. I cannot describe the specific methods used — I think you understand why” — with a pause — “but I can say the procedures were tough. After he recovered, Zubaydah was defiant and evasive. He declared his hatred of America. During questioning, he at first disclosed what he thought was nominal information — and then stopped all cooperation. Well, in fact, the ‘nominal’ information he gave us turned out to be quite important. For example, Zubaydah disclosed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — or KSM — was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.”
The 911 Commission Report concluded that KSM was the “mastermind” of these attacks, with financial and logistical support from Osama bin Laden. But the Commission’s conclusions — or assumptions — are based entirely on thirdhand testimony. Remarkably, no one from the commission was allowed to talk with KSM or even with KSM’s interrogators. Americans have been given proofs that amount to little more than words from men behind the curtain. After torturing a prisoner, our government releases his “confessions” to the media with no question as to its authenticity, just as the “confession” tapes of Osama bin Laden give us another unverified source of disinformation. When we consider that only one in seven Americans can find Iraq on a map, the deception is like taking candy from a baby.
Astonishingly, the 911 Commission’s final report states the following, within a warning-style box:
The following chapters on the 911 plot rely heavily on information obtained from captured al-Qaeda members… . Assessing the truth of statements by these witnesses … is challenging. Our access to them has been limited to the review of intelligence reports based on communications received from the locations where the actual interrogations take place. We submitted questions for use in the interrogations, but had no control over whether, when, or how questions of particular interest would be asked. Nor were we allowed to talk to the interrogators so that we could better judge the credibility of the detainees and clarify ambiguities in the reporting. We were told that our requests might disrupt the sensitive interrogation process.
This testimony wouldn’t be allowed in traffic court but in the Post-911 World, this is all we need in order to know who planned the massacre of 3,000 people on 911. The New York City Fire Department lost 343 men; the NYPD lost 23; nearly 200 people jumped to their deaths from the burning towers; United and American lost 33 crew members and 314 passengers; airport security was defeated; the United States military was defeated; the American economy was ruptured; we have warrantless wiretaps, two wars with 4,000 dead American soldiers, another hundred thousand physically and mentally disabled and perhaps another one million dead in the Middle East. Yet thirdhand hearsay from a waterboarded captive is all we care to offer by way of explanation or closure.
Even if we grant these two chapters of hearsay, there is, as noted earlier, still no accounting for the advanced tactical knowledge, logistical support or aviation training required for the mission.
Finally Pandora’s Box is open, but the worse crimes remain hidden at the bottom
and continue to this moment as covert agents target unwitting American citizens for further research on radiation, cyclotron heating, bioagent exposure and more. These offenses are going on NOW with Obama’s knowledge and permission from Congress.
“The military and law enforcement, however, can use non-lethal weapons (see USC Title 50 Chapter 32 Section 1520a). Further, testing of electronic equipment; discovering unauthorized electronic surveillance; training of intelligence personnel by officers the United States is allowed. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/1805.html”
People are being tortured in their own homes. Thousands are demanding investigations, yet reporters including those at The Intercept ignore their pleas. It’s time to pull the curtains off this abomination.
This is an interesting retrospective of mr hopey-changey:
“Obama’s shifting views on torture: how the candidate lost his way as president
Only the most cynical could have guessed in 2008 that it would be Obama’s own administration that stood in the way of the torture report’s publication
…Obama’s first chief of staff and Chicago confidant Rahm Emmanuel reportedly dressed down former defense secretary Leon Panetta for agreeing to co-operate with the Senate inquiry.
“I was summoned to a meeting in the Situation Room, where I was told I would have to ‘explain’ this deal to Rahm … It did not take long to get ugly,” Panetta claimed in his memoir, Worthy Fights. “’The president wants to know who the f**k authorized this to the committees,’ Rahm said, slamming his hand down on the table. “I have a president with his hair on fire and I want to know what the f**k you did to f**k this up so bad.””
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/barack-obama-shifting-views-cia-torture-report
Bush explains to Matt Lauer why torture isn’t torture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp4vLBvU1bA
It’s worth reminding the attorneys present, criminal and otherwise, about some basic case law, Chambers v. Florida, 309 US 227 (1940).
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/309/227
Some points from the fact pattern:
1. The defendants were subjected to sleep deprivation, isolation and the threat of mob violence. The fact that it wasn’t physical violence or possibly-fatal injury didn’t excuse what happened, the current language of 18 USC 2340 notwithstanding.
2. Its purpose was to elicit information under questioning, also inexcusable on a number of points, due process in particular. The fact that similar practices are used in SERE doesn’t mean that it applies to prisoners in custody.
3. As the Court pointed out, this is inexcusable under overriding principles of law.
The question, now, is that if this is permissible for prisoners in US custody abroad, what’s to stop Federal agencies from doing the same for terror suspects here? Or Federal criminal suspects generally? Or criminal suspects if the temptation to get information or confessions is strong enough? Now that the lid is off, what’s to stop it, if custodial personnel are above the law?
corman nobbiez hunnee taht Blarg de Palmoff persum iz doin him jawb deefendin de kriminulz don u no.
don u bee botherink him wiht leetle thinks liek reel law kasez an prinsipoolz.
it wil onny cornfuse him.
Glenn Greenwald ?tweets:
Julian Sanchez ?replies:
Marco Rubio…classic Cuban-American fascist from the good ol’ days of Batista.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Cuban crime bosses make for good Republicans. I still can’t believe how stupid this country was, amnesty for mafioso in the name of anti-communism. Castro shut down their drug and prostitution rings, oh boo hoo.
Marco Rubio’s Twitter comment on the torture report:
“Those who served us in aftermath of 9/11 deserve our thanks not one sided partisan Senate report that now places American lives in danger.”
Disregarding the moral implications of torture, it seems as if even the practical implications were ignored. Once you let the monster loose, how do you get it back in its cage. That’s one problem with this report. There is no intent on killing the monster, just controlling it. Once the powers that be delineate how far you can go without committing torture that becomes the new normal acceptable treatment. Monsters all.
I’ve been listening on CSPAN to the senators present the report.
It took about ten years to produce this report — far from thorough, far from comprehensive.
According to Rockefeller, the CIA intentionally misled Congressional oversight and refused to cooperate with elected officials. CIA managers were supported in their efforts by officials in both the Bush and the Obama administrations. Leaders and managers of the CIA intentionally subverted public political processes.(30 to 40 people according to Rockefeller) by hiding information, by controlling information, by disinforming both the public and executive officials (Feinstein notes example of Powell being kept in the dark), and by numerous outright lies.
If — no matter how virtuous they claim their motives — those directly responsible for not only the original torture programs but the subversion of democracy are not vigorously and publicly prosecuted, how can anyone assert that basic justice or American constitutional principles have been genuinely applied?
[correction: source of “30 or 40″ CIA people Feinstein rather than Rockefeller.]
I offered the above without transcript, but the conclusion seems nonetheless valid.
How can anyone allow those who intentionally and knowingly subvert the principles of the Constitution not only keep their jobs but go remain free of legal prosecution?
Their apologists’ best response?
They meant well.
You live in a country where its still cool for white people to murder black kids in the middle of the street in the name of justice, you really expect any moral compass in this septic tank of nihilism?
The release of this report is a good step. The intelligence agencies feel emboldened to engage in illegal / criminal / unethical behavior because they think they can cover their tracks by classifying everything. But there will come a day when accountability will occur.
Over and over, Director Hayden responds to Senate inquiries and the report concludes:
“This testimony* is incongruent with CIA records.” (*Hayden’s testimony)
What a surprise.
Just more PR & propaganda, censorship, & cover-up by the Government, CYA (Cover Your A$$) Intelligence community that will continue its smear campaign against the American public by using the following tactics as quoted by Joseph Goebbels during the 1930’s & 1940’s.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent,for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” AND
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”
The US. & UK. Governments no longer have any credibility ! They make statements but never provide proof . Trust us, I think NOT ! Don’t trust but verify, & demand evidence of proof ! Until they do so, it’s just more lies, excuses, rationalizations, & justifications .
No more lies, excuses rationalizations,or justifications, the public needs to hold these officials to account to the fullest extent of the law under Title 18 sec. 241 & 242 So any future traitors will know there will be consequences to such behavior. I hope the United Kingdom has equivalent laws, but if not maybe it’s time to get some. Better late than never.
REMEMBER: POLITICIANS, BUREAUCRATS AND DIAPERS SHOULD BE CHANGED OFTEN AND FOR THE SAME REASON.
Some word of true Patriots are as follows, as opposed to the words of false flag patriotism of today.
He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.
Benjamin Franklin
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.
James Madison
The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
Patrick Henry
“We the People are the rightful masters of BOTH Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution”
Abraham Lincoln
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Abraham Lincoln
We should not forget the Waring of President Eisenhower .
http://youtu.be/8y06NSBBR
The NSA is controlled & operated by the DOD & the MIC (Military Industrial Complex) Private Corporations.
“The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.”
President John F. Kennedy
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
April 27, 1961
As a reminder Hermann Goering said at the Nuremberg Trials .
“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
Benito Mussolini
NSA General Keith Alexander told lawmakers “that even if approved, the measure would not necessarily end warrant-less collection depending on judicial interpretation.”
As is said in the law, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. (“False in one thing, false in all things” is an instruction given to jurors: if they find that a witness lied about an important matter, they are entitled to ignore everything else that witness said.)
Time to start removing the corporate Congress from office & defunding the NSA to force them to comply with the law & impose jail time for non compliance under USC Title 18 Sec. 241 & 242. Google it !.
Stop with the trying to put the lipstick on a pig approach !
Disclaimer: Be advised it is possible, that this communication is being monitored by the
National Security Agency or GCHQ. I neither condone or support any such policy, by any Government authority that does not comply, as stipulated by the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Not Prince Hamlet
I watched the Serious minds of my generation more troubled by pet firework trauma than Gazan children
I watched an old man play on his iphone while his friends debated whom to murder and create
I watched Hope and Change sag like a hollow load and mumble somethin’ about torturin’ some folks
I watched..
As soon as the conversation even asks the question whether information garnered from torture is actionable you’ve crossed the line. That should have zero influence on how we treat other PEOPLE and shouldn’t even be thought. We are supposed to be a civilized society and yet as a collective conscience, as reported by Huffington Post, most of the country thinks torture is OK. I’m going to keep an eye on my neighbors from now on. Anyone who thinks torture is justified in any circumstance cannot count him/herself as civilized. Speak up people.
Neo-conservatism is synonymous with nihilism. You can’t expect people to speak up when their only interest is themselves. We are a nation of useful idiots. Cheney and daughter are laughing at their deplorable behavior all the way to the bank.
Regarding American exceptionalism, Glenn, it’s worth remembering that the body of international humanitarian law underlying the ban on torture — the Nuremberg Charter, the Geneva Conventions and such after WWII — were in no small part instigated by the US. And as Juan Cole points out, it was a factor when the Framers set out to write a constitution.
http://www.juancole.com/2014/12/founding-foundational-constitution.html
So, if that nation-state now flouts all that, and the rule of law itself, that is truly exceptional. It may mean that all bets are off.
All bets have been off for a long time now… I’d reckon about a century, now, save at most a decade or two…
Hmmm A CIA lawyer notes “inconsistency” between CIA court declarations on why the courts should show the utmost deference to secrecy, and the agency’s revealing of classified material to an author who informs them that he is writing a book on how the CIA interrogations “worked” and were “approved”. Apparently the CIA acknowledging leaks to friendly authors while stonewalling the courts made this lawyer’s submissions “a work of fiction”. P431.
Nobody ever finds it all. As dreadful it is, it is likely that there is far worse still buried. Just as some “in the field” did not want to go as far as those in Washington ordered, there were those who went much farther. There always are. It is bad enough that torture became a regular part of business as usual at the CIA, but worse is how far some of those must have taken it.
Now we have Brennan from the top and various others claiming even the well documented stuff did not really happen that way. A strong president would tell them to shut up or face firing and detention for failing to obey.
It may not matter if there was a disconnect between Washington and overseas. If the atrocities took place, there is the principle of command responsibility, and that includes civilian officials, who should have known or must have known (to use the exact legal phrasing) that this was taking place, and that includes the Commander in Chief, not just those who did it, not just those who wrote the torture memoranda.
Matter? I was not looking at this from a “who is responsible” pov, but rather more of a Conrad ‘Heart of Darkness’ perspective.
I just didn’t like the news coverage that keeps stressing that the CIA “misled” the President. Even someone as valiantly stupid as George W. Bush should have known or must have known something was going on, even absent his public admissions later. See, if no one was guilty, then it didn’t mean anybody was.
That would be the point of the well-rehearsed stage-production and today’s grand play opening.
I don’t like the script either coram nobis.
It is just another in a long line of many designed to obscure the truth.
All those with wisdom realize that shit rolls downhill…not uphill.
The upper echelon criminals will need to be prosecuted in an International Court of Law.
Any attempt to exact justice otherwise would be an exercise in futility…just another act superimposed on the existing script.
Details about the rectal-feedings:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/hayesbrown/cia-used-rectal-feeding-as-part-of-torture-program
“Water wasn’t the only thing provided rectally. Food and other nutritional supplements were also delivered rectally to break hunger strikes, particularly in the cases of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Majid Khan.”
“Aside from feeding and hydration, according to the report, CIA leadership was also warned that rectal exams were being conducted with “excessive force.””
Where does rectal feeding end and rape begin?
The Big Bamboozle. They renditioned and tortured to coverup their own crimes.
Oh, and here’s a fun fact: Article 3 of the UN Convention Against Torture, to which the US is a signatory, bans what it calls “refoulement,” which the US has practiced as rendition, at least to third-party states like Morocco, Syria and others. Outsourcing it doesn’t remove the guilt either — just adds to it.
And they got rich doing it. I think all to often people forget their budget is coming out of your pocket. We pay billions so cops can murder black kids. Is the entertainment value really that great?
I have not read the report yet, but I wonder how many of those who were tortured died? Now we are talking about murder too.
Holy shit: From the NYT live blog:
The Senate report discloses that in November 2002, a major American newspaper, which it doesn’t identify, discovered that the C.I.A. had a secret prison in an unidentified country where it was holding Abu Zubaydah, the first major Qaeda operative captured after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The report says that after the C.I.A. learned that the newspaper knew about Abu Zubaydah’s whereabouts, the Bush administration urged it not to publish the information. The report notes that the newspaper agreed, but that the agency still decided to close the prison.
In fact, the unidentified newspaper referred to in the report was The New York Times, and the country where the prison was located was Thailand. The New York Times agreed at the request of the White House not to publish an article disclosing that the C.I.A. had a secret prison in Thailand.
In December 2003, The New York Times finally did disclose that the C.I.A. had a prison in Thailand where Abu Zubaydah had been held, and that he and another detainee, Ramzi bin al-Shibh had subsequently been moved.
— JAMES RISEN
I’m getting the impression that the main impetus for this executive summary is to put forward the case that despite ample public source evidence of American government torture, evidence that has existed since well before the end of the Bush regime, despite their best efforts to inform themselves, the poor helpless congress of the US was misled by the evil CIA into thinking everything was just dandy:
“…other emails describe efforts by the CIA to identify a “strategy” for limiting the CIA’s responses to Chairman Graham’s requests for more information on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program,”
I generally like your reporting Glenn but to actually think anyone who’s “responsible” (i.e. SecDef, CIA chief, POTUS, whomever) will be held to account is sheer fantasy. I’m sure some mid-level schmuck(s) will end up thrown under the bus of accountability. Nothing to see here.
No big deal. I remember a heap of publicity over the Senator Church committee hearings on the FBI, CIA, NSA. Lots of testimony, TV, big report. This too shall pass. BTW, funniest comment below is from a guy who think “the world” is going to punish the U.S.
quote”No big deal.”unquote
Yes, no big deal..in your parallel universe of Morons R Us.
Rodger the Lodger, the idiot who insists criminal suspects have a right to testify at grand jury proceedings, at their choice.
No doubt little Mr. Shiklgruber’s minions thought the way you do in the late 1930’s…when the Third Reich was going to last 1000 years.
No Rodger Lodger….
I find your cheap, media-focused, critical analysis of this “mia culpa” dog and pony show to be “funnier” in the most horrifying sense.
Move on to the comments section of a MSM scripted news outlet like…The NY Times. No doubt you will be well received.
No big deal if it were you or one of your loved ones who had been tortured? No big deal when US actions give license to others to commit the very same acts?
From a general point of view, I state that if the USA does not take strong action against the head perpetrators, a la Nuremberg, the world will. The USA would definitely not like that result.
Israel and the British Commonwealth of Nations would also be dragged into the reckoning.
I hope that you are right Nete Peedham.
On the surface, it does seem glaringly apparent that no branch of the US Federal Government will exact justice for the crimes committed in the conduct of the “War on Terror” as a direct result of orders given by the Executive Branch.
The CIA, who takes their orders from the Executive Branch, is guilty of deception according to the Executive Branch.
The CIA will counter that they did not misrepresent or lie regarding their Executive mandate.
Congress will, as usual, lack the backbone, to demand prosecution of the guilty parties deferring instead to the “confusion” (as though the right hand does not know what the left is doing) generated by Executive Branch claims which deny full knowledge of the torture program specifics prior to issuing orders to use that same program for….torture of detainees in black ops sites operated with black ops funds obtained from taxpayers which, of course Congress approves – albeit without full knowledge – of the black ops budget or use.
Therefore, the primary guilty parties are not charged with any crimes in the US Judicial Branch, because no one will prosecute.
Members of all three branches of the Federal Government are in collusion to hide the truth as well as the full extent of the crimes that they have, and continue to commit on the behalf of their “elite” masters.
The big “mia culpa” dog and pony show will play out in the US media and stupid American citizens will continue to attach credence while their own government rules with the iron fist of tyranny, and continues to dismantle their Constitutionally granted rights with the end objective of annihilating birthrights that do not fall under statuary law.
That is unacceptable.
There is no alternative but to prosecute the multiple cases of war criminals in an International Court of Law.
That would be the most benevolent course of action and least offensive outcome for the “non-elite” humans on planet Earth.
On preventing a proposed congressional investigation:
page 486: “We (the CIA) either get out and sell, or we get hammered, which has implications beyond the media, congress reads it, cuts our authorities, messes up our budget, we need to make sure the impression of what we do is positive.”
Decisions will be made later on the declassification and release of the full 6,700 page Study. – Dianne Feinstein
Good. Give us the entire report.
If anything, this summary of the report documents stupidity of biblical proportions on behalf of agents who perpetrated the torture on behalf of the Bush regime who already knew it was moraly repugnant, and by virtue of international law , perpetrated moraly depraved and illegal acts on behalf of the American people, who mostly would hang these war criminals. . Who in their right mind, knowing down the road it might be discovered, would describe actual torture in an email?????? I’ll tell you who. The USG hired though the CIA employment the most stupid, evil, depravity driven animals who don’t have one shred of morality. In reality, they are no different than the same weak scum who succumed to Hitlers reasoning. Unfortunately for them..Nuremberg is living proof why we HAVE TO PROSECUTE THESE DEPRAVED ANIMALS. period. America will NEVER recoup their standing in the world untill they do.
need to be
Furthermore, my perception of the moral standing of Senator Feinstien has changed. Bravo to her. She has now forced the regime of torture on the center stage of history. The scumbag psychopaths in the Bush regime and the institution of the CIA will forever go down as the depraved leaders of Corporate war on the planet.
Yes yes… if you just monitor everybody, all the time, then who needs torture… Sigh.
Now…when do we STOP allowing these bastards to steal our childrens greatgrandchildrens labor by virtue of the 16th amendment so the corporatacracy can rape the planet?
Got AK-15?
Until you understand only nation wide refutation of the 16th Amendment will stop these fucking psychopaths by virtue of our god given and Constitutional right to DISSOLVE this government by FORCE..you will allow them to enslave the entire future of your seed.
After being reminded yet again what a monumental lying sack of shit Michael Hayden is, I am thankful that Glenn had the opportunity to debate him and show him up last year at the Munk Debate. That was so awesome.
That was a right and proper shredding of not only Hayden but also Dershowitz. Icing on cake and ice cream with whipped cream AND cherry on top. ;-}
http://munkdebates.com/debates/state-surveillance
Previous link was to the Munk Debate website where one can find the list of debaters, the results of the audience polling (both pre- and post-debate) and a transcript.
Here is the youtube link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d1tw3mEOoE
For those who wish to propagate the theory that torture produced actionable intelligence, there is this article by Matt Apuzzo, Haeyoun Park and Larry Buchanan in the NYT:
Does Torture Work? The C.I.A.’s Claims and What the Committee Found
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/08/world/does-torture-work-the-cias-claims-and-what-the-committee-found.html
tldr version: “Nope, those were lies too.”
This is so sad. It’s hard to really recall what the national mood was like just after 9/11 but I remember, as a student who heard about it in the news with my friends, our perception was probably something like that of a child kidnapping victim who is later found and rescued to much media fanfare. A storyline where we see one side as so clearly innocent and wronged and the other as so clearly awful that no one is going to protest a lot if the kidnapper gets kicked around during the arrest or purposefully put into a cell with the most violent sociopath in the prison. Not long after memes about deranged religious lunatics whose life purpose was to blow up Americans in exchange for 72 virgins appeared in pop culture and then it seemed like the guy had escaped from prison and we were going to be on the run from him forever. That is a reflection but not an excuse, obviously – it is probably not a good thing to be assured of one’s perfect victimhood, when it comes to countries.
At least, though, in the big, big picture, we are now living in a world where there is some concept of accountability and self-reflection after military action in the global psyche. I doubt that conceptually existed, in any real form, prior to the past hundred or couple hundred years. I think words like “war crime” and “genocide” didn’t even exist until around 1943, when coined by Raphael Lemkin. I realize it is a stretch to find something positive in the fact that, hey, we are way more self-critical than Genghis Khan or Napoleon ever would have dreamed of being. But I still think it’s an important reminder that even if progress towards peace seems grindingly slow in the short term, thanks to the hard work of many dedicated individuals, we really have moved forward at an amazing pace when you zoom out a bit. I’m still confident humankind can progress even further.
“…I realize it is a stretch to find something positive in the fact that, hey, we are way more self-critical than Genghis Khan or Napoleon ever would have dreamed of being.”
That is precisely the official patriot-filth’s line of argument.
That is the official Perfect Victimhood line of black-and-white thinking, somehow acceptable when your home team of one does it, Stan. Dehumanization is only bad when other people do it.
I am tossing it back at you; you thought you were entitled a to a monopoly, but you were not so exceptional after all.
Generalize, demonize, dehumanize, and be generalized, demonized, and dehumanized. That is the way it works. That is the way it has always worked, Nic. How does it feel, being on the other end, patriot-filth?
Could you specify what words I used that you thought were dehumanizing? I’ve seen you call me “patriot-filth” twice now, what comparable language did you see in my post?
I understand you’re upset. I’m upset too. I was upset after 9/11 as well. That’s my point – knee-jerk demonizing in the opposite direction won’t solve anything. Of course I think we can’t torture people, of course I think we have to take a hard look at how to move forward now that this information is known, and that may be an awful experience in examining and trying to rectify the fruits of our actions. But if nothing else, it can be an opportunity for increased awareness and growth – some of the most important lessons are extremely painful, but they’re still lessons. Dehumanizing people is, to my mind, a huge step backwards by that metric, or at the least nothing but a lateral move. Dehumanize Muslims, dehumanize ‘patriots’, and on and on it goes. You’re not filth, Stan, you’re a good person who sometimes gets confused, like everyone else.
@ Nic 09 Dec 2014 at 3:42 pm
I am not confused.
9/11 was provoked. Period. The US had been attacking the ME for many decades; retaliation was bound to happen. “In war, bullets fly in both directions.” When they did, this country went on a wild rant [sic] instead of trying to deescalate the situation and maneuvering itself into a more defensible posture, strategically speaking. Violently defending oneself is acceptable behavior in my book; slamming a small, pre-destroyed country against the wall [sic again] in blind revenge — with the inevitable long term blow-back — is not. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Saddam was OBL’s enemy, and the lethal components discovered by US soldiers in Iraq were stamped Made in USA.
That monstrous Texan — with most Americans egging him on — claimed ‘they hate us for our freedom’, held hands with the pure white Saudi prince, and ordered an invasion of the wrong country. More than 70% of the voting age population of the US generalized, demonized, and dehumanized thousands of people they wanted to know nothing about, then killed them. That was very rude. Five hundred pound bombs, hot white phosphorus, and DU spew is far more uncivilized than my crude language (learned in W’s Texas, by the way).
I can almost appreciate your conciliatory tone, but I am not swayed by mincing phrases such as ‘moving on'; code for ‘forget about it, let’s plan the next batch of atrocities… Lockheed Martin’s share price is down!’. There is nothing to be gained by being polite to uncivilized people. I think they need a shock — a taste of their own medicine, short of me actually threatening anyone with torture or murder.
And I am one of the tortured. Why? Not sure, but I speculate it is partly because I found the dehumanization of hundreds of millions of people, just before so many of them were tortured and/or bombed, unacceptable, and I made this known in no uncertain terms to very menacing people — in W’s Texas. Then these people made plans to murder me, sicced the Stasi on me, then informed me of their murderous plans over lunch. The organized stalking continues to this day; the Stasi joined me for lunch this afternoon.
Naturally, it changed me; I am no longer the innocuously polite person I once was. Observing those around me glibly demonize a vast region of the world before setting it alight pissed me off. Then they came for me because I was pissed off about it.
I am not confused.
Stan, I’m sorry you’re experiencing such distressing thoughts. I would be lying and completely patronizing if I said I believed you, but I believe living with those thoughts in your head would be extremely painful. Sorry for being confrontational before, I didn’t understand the situation. Hang in there, and try to remember there’s a lot of love in the world.
@ Nic 09 Dec 2014 at 11:28 pm
Nic, you patronizing psychopath — the irrational shite you (assuming you are American) and most Americans actually do believe indicates you and they are seriously lacking in critical thinking skills, or you’re just plain evil, or both. You are the real enemy — not the Muslim bogey-man — and I have nothing to gain by attempting to convince an enemy of anything. Why would a torture subject feel compelled to persuade a torture apologist that he has been tortured? The appropriate attitude of the former toward the latter is revulsion until the torture subject is broken, and I am far from broken.
So, keep dishing out all that terrorist love… right up the rectums: the American torturer’s favorite playground.
OK, I haven’t gotten to the chapter on “Threats Related to Sodomy, Arrest of Family” yet….I’m going to get a cup of cocoa…so no spoilers please!!!
A trillion things all happening at once — maybe a trillion and two — but at some point plz comment on how the NYT held back on this story until the committee made the announcement. Technically, they shouldn’t have, but it seems they did so, so as not to steal Feinstein’s fire.
Wrt this comment from below:
Third, allegations are NOT evidence. If the sole witness is an enemy combatant speaking through a lawyer who has not been cross examined and offers no corroborating evidence, these allegations would not be admitted as evidence in an American court of law and you should similarly disregard them. — Bart dePalma
See this:
https://twitter.com/trevortimm/status/542353585473073152
REDACTED: Karl Popper’s “Open Society and Its Enemies”
Another myth busted.
There is some brilliant detective work in the summary:
“They slapped and punched him…dragged him through the dirt….This may account for the abrasions fund on Rahman’s body after his death.”
You think???
I sure hope Obama brings REDACTED to justice!!! Wouldn’t want to be a nation without laws!!!
Selectively disclosing 480 pages out of 6000 isn’t really disclosure at all. I assume the worst things are in the part still secret.
Specifically, I have to think: if I really wanted information out of a long-term captive, how would I torture him? And what comes to mind is the popular truism that heroin addicts would sell out their own mothers. It is simple to dose the prisoner with heroin until he is addicted, then cut off the supply until he talks, but one can easily imagine many more sinister ways of regulating the positive and negative reinforcement he receives in order to promote the disclosure of genuinely truthful information by operant conditioning. Until I hear such things admitted, I have to think that either the torturers are exceptionally stupid and primitive or they think I am.
“…I have to think that either the torturers are exceptionally stupid and primitive or they think I am.”
Well, they are Americans: just as stupid and primitive as their generals and politicians.
Huh. It seems we deserved all that terrorism after all.
It looks like Obama won the struggle over redacting pseudonyms, ex from the executive summary:
email from: [REDACTED|;
to:
[REDACTED|;
cc:
[REDACTED], [REDACTED],
“New York Times reporters are reading the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report and highlighting significant parts.” -front page of the NY Times
The Intercept, on the other hand, provides readers with a copy of the report and we thank you.
The Times has followed suit, apparently, and is now (on the heels of others) providing a link to the full report.
Another whitewash, with perps walking around in broad daylight.
But thanks for noting the endorsement of the Great American Public, Mr. Greenwald: “Nobody needs this Senate report to demonstrate that the U.S. government became an official squad of torture (with the American public largely on board).”
It could not happen without their support.
Very good read, Juan Cole:
“Two types of torture were common during the lifetimes of the Founding Fathers. In France, the judiciary typically had arrestees tortured to make them confess their crime. This way of proceeding rather tilted the scales in the direction of conviction, but against justice. Pre-trial torture was abolished in France in 1780. But torture was still used after the conviction of the accused to make him identify his accomplices….
…Fascists (that is what they are) who support torture will cavil. Is waterboarding torture? Is threatening to sodomize a man with a broomstick torture? Is menacing a prisoner with a pistol torture?
Patrick Henry’s discourse makes all this clear. He was concerned about the government doing anything to detract from the dignity of the English commoner, who had defied the Norman yoke and gained the right not to be coerced through pain into relinquishing liberties.
Fascists will argue that the Constitution does not apply to captured foreign prisoners of war, or that the prisoners were not even P.O.W.s, having been captured out of uniform.
But focusing on the category of the prisoner is contrary to the spirit of the founding fathers. Their question was, ‘what are the prerogatives of the state?’ And their answer was that the state does not have the prerogative to torture. It may not torture anyone, even a convicted murderer.”
http://www.juancole.com/2014/12/founding-foundational-constitution.html
Per CNN, the report cites a detainee who was chained naked to a wall and died of hypothermia.
There may be other deaths in custody, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.
http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-feinstein-consider-timing-cia-report-203416589–politics.html
And somehow those “factors to consider” are going to miraculously change anytime in the near (or far, for that matter) future? Bullshit being spewed far and wide.
On CNN, Barbara Starr is concerned ISIS could use the torture report as “propaganda” and the military is gearing up for violence in the Middle East.
It’s good the military has finally cottoned on to the existence of violence in the Middle East.
They’ll probably use the report as a ‘How-To Guide’….
Except the homoerotic aspects of the torture implemented by our devoutly religious American leaders which are likely too depraved & degenerate for ISIS
In Rachel Maddow’s show on the torture report:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpO9EqETcIU&list=UU6xhIMcVbFH51EB0kTfpSbw
it is pointed out that Obama wants pseudonyms of pseudonyms redacted (it parodies itself, doesn’t it?)
why does Obama want that? Because possibly the locations of officials in the report could be mapped onto other data sets available, and the official’s true identities revealed.
Suddenly, for Obama,…it is now not “only meta-data”.
Consider:
Techdirt – “Of course, as Julian Sanchez points out, from this description, it certainly appears that the CIA was collecting “just metadata,” and, as you may recall, Feinstein has been at the forefront of arguing that no one should care about the NSA’s activities, because it’s just metadata. Kinda funny how perspective shifts when it’s your metadata being discussed. Suddenly, it becomes a constitutional issue:”
And:
Wired – “Phew, NSA Is Just Collecting Metadata. (You Should Still Worry)
The Metadata Is the Message
With today’s communications technology, is metadata really less revealing than content? Especially when we’re dealing with metadata at the scale that we now know the NSA and FBI are receiving?
Because at such a scale, people’s intuition about the relative invasiveness of content and metadata starts to fail them. Phone records can actually be more revealing than content when someone has as many records and as complete a set of them as the NSA does.”
And:
Two rather contradictory statements. Ah, the cognitive dissonance.
Appalling and unfortunately not the least bit surprising. Expansion &dominance regardless of the cost.
Juan Cole has important article today
“Why the Founding Fathers thought banning Torture Foundational to the US Constitution”
Points how important it is to bring the constitution and the rule of law back into the political dialogue
http://www.juancole.com/2014/12/founding-foundational-constitution.html
The Independent uses scare quotes around the word “torture.”
https://twitter.com/RiosJose559/status/542338885700046848
The same mindset of journos that provide news reports from the NYC and Berkeley and Ferguson protests by getting their information only from the police. They would no doubt put scare quotes around “police brutality.”
Mr. Greenwald,
The Intercept could provide a valuable service by attempting to fill the blackout sections with what it is likely they are hiding: names of actual countries, sites, people, etc. To the extent possible, of course. It could be a living post that could be constantly revised and updated as more information became available.
In particular they could try to figure out the font and do character width analysis. For example, in the statement “Over the course of the next month, CIA officers considered at least four countries in —– and one in —————– as possible hosts for detention facilities and at least three proposed site locations”, you can just about guess that the first is Africa and the second is Eastern Europe just by the width of the space.
The catch, though, is that I don’t have any reason to assume the spies don’t use such things to mess with our heads by this point. Is there any law that redacted documents have to simulate the use of a black marker, even at the expense of security? For all I know they rewrote the whole summary beginning to end. The classification level itself is redacted.
But the thing is, it all becomes more and more irrelevant. It stops being a part of the government you want to audit and improve, and starts being more like some Nazi war crime. I mean, who really cares if the guards at Auschwitz went by the book? Their whole book is rotten.
I hope Glenn and Snowden can get the full report out. Should be a piece of cake for Snowden.
Growing up a boomer, it has always been my understanding that in WWII the Germans found out in France, these methods do not work. Perhaps this was the entertainment industry of the time. A belief that the US kept a moral high ground.
I just love everyone using ‘techniques’ when talking about jaw breaking, kneecapping or testicle squeezing.
Hope to read some day a media report announcing that ISIL used a head separation ‘technique’ on one of their ‘prisoners’ and that it was okay because ISIL has a manual where all these techniques are cataloged and duly approved and the technique was implemented by a highly trained operator.
Perfect. Thanks!
On this momentous I day I thought it would be a good idea to take a little trip down memory lane. Remember when the military gave a no bid-contract to the guy famous for torturing dogs? Good times, those were.
http://www.salon.com/2010/10/14/army_contract_seligman/
It’s through that experiment that Seligman coined ‘learned helplessness” on shocked dogs. Now military contractors, including Northrop Grumman, are testing it on unwitting American targets.
Why wouldn’t Obama pardon Bush and friends? Romero answers his own question:
“What is the difference between this — essentially granting tacit pardons for torture — and formally pardoning those who authorized torture? In both cases, those who tortured avoid accountability.
But with the tacit pardons, the president leaves open the very real possibility that officials will resurrect the torture policies in the future. “
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/opinion/pardon-bush-and-those-who-tortured.html?_r=0
Romero astonished me with that op-ed. Kevin Jon Heller is also flummoxed:
http://opiniojuris.org/2014/12/09/aclu-endorses-blanket-amnesty-torture/
For those seriously and objectively reviewing this report, consider these items before reading it:
First, “torture” does NOT include all coercive interrogation or anything you would personally not want to be subjected to. Here is the statutory definition of torture from 18 USC 2340:
(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality
Second, the coercive interrogation techniques the military has used on thousands of its own members in SERE training are not torture. If the Intel Committee Democrats are honest, they will discuss how CIA borrowed the SERE training program in its entirety and employed it against al Qaeda.
Third, allegations are NOT evidence. If the sole witness is an enemy combatant speaking through a lawyer who has not been cross examined and offers no corroborating evidence, these allegations would not be admitted as evidence in an American court of law and you should similarly disregard them.
As a point of disclosure, I am a criminal defense attorney.
Bart! You awesome authoritarian troll you, you are back!
I am a criminal defense attorney – Bart
So?
Now Bill, be duly deferential. Our boy Bart is teh lawyer, so he knows torture stuff better ‘n lowly you.
A lawyer in the same way that WinSmith was a PhD candidate.
Uppity I am!
Bill, what does a long term torture subject do when if perps don’t leave business cards and videos of the evidence?
Any advice?
I assume you are the more competent attorney, Bill — given American standards.
“Third, allegations are NOT evidence. If the sole witness is an enemy combatant speaking through a lawyer who has not been cross examined and offers no corroborating evidence, these allegations would not be admitted as evidence in an American court of law and you should similarly disregard them.”
Unfortunately for Obama’s legacy, and I truly feel sorry for Americans of the future who will be reading this sorry chapter in their history, the way that John Yoo and the like of the American legal profession have made such a joke of American national security law, what evidence of torture which does NOT gain admittance into the court rooms of America is more damning than what does.
Here is how a prosecutor would gather evidence for a court of law.
Cross examine the enemy combatants making the allegations. NO competent prosecutor will take the evidence given by an accused at face value and risk having a defense attorney expose the witness as a liar at trial.
Then separately interview all of the participants in the CIA interrogation program to confirm or deny the enemy combatant’s allegations and identify conflicts in their testimony.
If you believe you can make a prima facie case of an actual crime, start flipping the lower level perpetrators against the leaders.
I suspect that the committee Democrats did none of this.
I suspect that the committee Democrats didn’t watch the 92 torture videos.
Say Attorney Bart, is it legal to destroy evidence?
Destroying materials that you knew could be used as evidence in a legal proceeding could be obstruction of justice. However, if you are acting on the legal guidance of the criminal prosecutor (Justice Department), do you have reason to know that materials concerning that act could be used as evidence in a legal proceeding?
Interesting legal question.
Why Bart, are you are suggesting that attorneys in the DoJ gave the “legal guidance” that evidence could be destroyed. And yanno Bart, Congress was investigating as well, so the issue was not merely evidence for use in a criminal trial(s).
Mona: “Why Bart, are you are suggesting that attorneys in the DoJ gave the “legal guidance” that evidence could be destroyed.”
No. They provided legal advice that the SERE techniques CIA wanted to use against al Qaeda were not torture under treaty or statute.
Mona: “And yanno Bart, Congress was investigating as well, so the issue was not merely evidence for use in a criminal trial(s).”
I am frankly unsure if the executive denying materials to the Congress can be criminal obstruction of justice. If so, the executive has been committing this felony hundreds of times over the years. Generally, this statute is limited to materials which could be evidence in a legal action in the courts.
So Bart, you are saying that when federal employees know a Senate committee is investigating them, it is legal to destroy evidence relevant to the investigation?
So the committee did not have the power to compel testimony from the other people who were present? In that case, I wonder why the summary report requires 6,000 words. A more concise summary would be: “Certain xxxxxxxxx claimed they were xxxxxxxx. Those accused of performing the xxxxxxx refused to talk to us. Therefore we find no credible evidence to support the allegations, since the XXX has destroyed the videos and other relevant evidence. There were memos approving the use of xxxxxxx, but this by itself does not constitute proof that xxxxxxx actually took place”.
BM: “So the committee did not have the power to compel testimony from the other people who were present?”
Congress has the power to subpoena anyone in the executive apart from perhaps the president and the power of the purse to compel that testimony. The question is whether this committee did or even wanted to interview the CIA operatives.
Remember that Congressional reports are always political documents and a committee can shape them by including the evidence which supports their preferred conclusion, while ignoring contrary evidence.
For example, the House intelligence committee did not bother to call the CIA contractors on the ground at Benghazi before they raised a stink in the press, then the majority ignored their testimony in their Benghazi report.
Say lawyer man, here’s some,er, excited utterances for ya (I can haz lawyer talk, too!):
Taguba performed the investigation of the Abu Ghraib war crimes committed by ARMY personnel. Taguba has no knowledge of the CIA enhanced interrogation program apart from what others have told him and his quoted comments are from the forward of a report he did not author. They would not be admissible in any court in the United States.
Think objectively and demand actual evidence.
Gen. Barry McCaffrey said : “We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the CIA.”
Gen. Barry McCaffrey said : “We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the CIA.”
And Gen. McCaffrey knows this how?
Speculation is barred from a court of law for good reason.
Bart, You think Barry McCaffrey is just blowing smoke out his ass?
Also, is it legal for a federal employee of an agency a Senate committee is investigating to destroy relevant evidence?
Mona: “Bart, You think Barry McCaffrey is just blowing smoke out his ass?”
Unless McCafflrey can offer actual evidence to back up his assertion, he is committing the tort of slander.
Judging the quality of secret investigations and the secret reports that follow, is always difficult. Of course, this might be a feature rather than a bug.
Most people know the difference between right and wrong, they don’t need congress’s or parliaments for that, and they most certainly don’t need greasy, lying and complicit lawyers.
As a point of disclosure, I think you are a moral monster.
The law? LOL
For stating that allegations are not evidence? All defense attorneys believe this. My modest proposal would be to introduce the use of torture into criminal trials, in order to extract a full confession from the accused. This would have the beneficial side effect of eliminating the need for defense attorneys, thus ridding the world of these moral monsters.
quote:’This would have the beneficial side effect of eliminating the need for defense attorneys, thus ridding the world of these moral monsters.”unquote
Says the poster child of morality free monsters who would torture his mother for ice cream change. Afterall..he had his son tortured to death in an Italian prison…for..well..being his son.
Finally. Let the pro-torture MSM scum talk begin. ..again. I’m ready for battle.
Precisely.
No doubt a here-to-fore unmasked element of the “White House” (yes that was a dirty quote) preparation team.
The evidence is no longer subject to scrutiny.
It is what it is.
Go away now you deceitful, pompous, complicit lawyer
Bill Owen: “I think you are a moral monster.”
For demanding that the accused be considered innocent until actual evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that they are guilty of an actual crime?
Think about it for a moment or two.
It is interesting that you believe in upholding the tenets of the American legal system so scrupulously for those accused of torture. What about those “suspected” of terrorism? Do their rights to due process not count?
Bart, there is no “accused.” This is not a criminal trial. It is a Senate investigation into the CIA’s torture program, relying heavily on contemporaneous CIA documents. Sen. John McCAin has endorsed the report.
You are a moral monster because you are here tap dancing in order to detract from our duty as citizens to confront immorality that was done in our name.
Mona: “Bart, there is no “accused.”
Really? The Senate Democrat report directly accuses the CIA and its chain of command up to President Bush of a variety of acts which Feinstein claims are in “violation of U.S. law, treaty obligations, and our values.”
The Senate Democrats and John McCain are free to argue that the CIA program did not conform with their personal values and should not be continued, (although these hypocrite Intel Committee Democrats had no objection to the program at the time). However, they are not free to slander the Bush administration and the CIA by falsely claiming they committed criminal acts without offering evidence.
Wow, coercive interrogation, that Orwellian phrase is more frightening to me than torture I think. Do you not see the inherent problem with coercive interrogation and why it’s illegal for US police to practice it. Even if they aren’t doing it to inflict harm? Plus in what world could what we did to prisoner “combatants” not fit under the definition of torture? We know they threatened to kill them and their family members, which is an example given in your definition, yet never even charged them with a crime. We were literally doing it just to force false confessions or due to the fact many have now been released with no charges or trail for the sole purpose of just hurting them. What we did co old not fit the definition you provided so how on earth are you defending what we did?
You’re a pompous bloviator who hopes that on one is paying attention.
“Harm School”
“In reaching and justifying its decision to waterboard detainees, the Bush administration relied on the argument that the U.S. military had done the same thing, without lasting harm, to its own troops.
(snip)
“The administration’s defenders still invoke this argument. “If this is torture, we’ve been torturing our own soldiers for years,” a former Republican Justice Department official tells the Los Angeles Times. “Why is it that we are all of a sudden revolted and aghast?”
The more fundamental problem is that the administration was wrong to extrapolate SERE’s results. In several crucial respects, contrary to the 2002 memo, SERE does not “resemble a real interrogation.” Jerald Ogrisseg, who served as chief of psychology services at the Air Force SERE school, explained these differences to the Senate Armed Services Committee last year.
(snip)
“The more fundamental problem is that the administration was wrong to extrapolate SERE’s results. In several crucial respects, contrary to the 2002 memo, SERE does not “resemble a real interrogation.” Jerald Ogrisseg, who served as chief of psychology services at the Air Force SERE school, explained these differences to the Senate Armed Services Committee last year.”
If that is so, then any and all potential clients are forewarned that this “criminal defense attorney” is incompetent.
“The more fundamental problem is that the administration was wrong to extrapolate SERE’s results. In several crucial respects, contrary to the 2002 memo, SERE does not “resemble a real interrogation.” Jerald Ogrisseg, who served as chief of psychology services at the Air Force SERE school, explained these differences to the Senate Armed Services Committee last year.”
This is irrelevant to the question of whether SERE techniques constitute torture under 18 USC 2340 by “inflict[ing] severe physical or mental pain or suffering.”
Non sequiturs aren’t going to get you out of the hole you’re in. As you can see by the date of that article, your debunked claim is so long over that I have to wonder what sort of audience you are accustomed to when you try to sell yourself as a “Defense Attorney.”
DoD deception hides fact that SERE torture techniques still allowed for interrogations May 7, 2014
So why did the CIA destroy the ‘not torture’ tapes then? Lack of storage space?
Oh, but wait, the tape destruction was cleared by, wait for it, “lawyers”, so it must be okay then.
http://nyti.ms/1yyMjGu
Are you wearing your big boy pants today? The people want to know.
As a point of disclosure, I am not a lawyer but I am wearing my big boy pants.
The CIA almost certainly destroyed the tapes to keep Congress from publishing them.
You know this how?
Is it then ok to destroy evidence relevant to a congressional investigation? Is it ok to violate the Federal Records Act?
@ bart the parasite, er, lawyer:
ohhhh, so *your* baseless speculation is ‘good’, ‘righteous’, and ‘correct'; but *others* ‘speculation’ (BASED ON FUCKING BEING THERE) is ‘bad’ info ? ? ?
did i get that right ? ? ?
That’s true enough, although 18 USC 2340 doesn’t match the definition in, say, the UN Convention on Torture and and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which the US is a signatory, and we are talking about international law here. It’s possible that § 2340 might not cover, say, sleep deprivation or waterboarding, or at least it would be difficult to convince a Federal jury that it might. But, as a matter of criminal defense law, would you, hypothetically, object if your client’s confession or testimony was elicited by that? Or by any form of coercion to obtain it?
Also, as to SERE, it was meant as training, at least before it was retro-engineered as part of this program, and I am unaware of any deaths in its application, unlike some of the detainees in these facilities. At that point we’re talking some form of homicide.
In any event, 18 USC might not be the applicable law if the defendants are tried by, say, the ICC, which would apply international law, or a US military court-martial, which would apply 10 USC §§ 801 et seq., which they already have done, in the latter instance, to some of the lower-ranking defendants at Abu Ghraib. Certainly the witnesses to torture will involve more than one victim, esp. once you consider the number of contractors involved. Multiple defendants can testify against each other in a criminal proceeding.
One final note: the current § 2340 has been subject to amendment over the years, notably during the Bush administration, as the notes suggest.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2340
coram nobis: “That’s true enough, although 18 USC 2340 doesn’t match the definition in, say, the UN Convention on Torture and and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which the US is a signatory”
Our signing statement to the UN Convention on Torture contained an amendment limiting our agreement to the language of our own torture statute.
Ah. But the language is, as they say, non-derogable, which is to say, a nation cannot subtract from it either by their statutes, wartime necessity nor reservation, to call the latter what it is. And there is also is customary and statutory international law, since then (e.g., Statute of Rome) to apply. It’s a matter of basic principle, not technicalities. “… the torturer has become like the pirate and slave trader before him hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind,” as the Filartiga ruling said.
Would you say that not allowing a person to sleep for seven days is TORTURE?
The tormentum insomniae was good enough for the Inquisition.
Thank you Mr. Greenwald!
Please don’t hold back on this issue.
It is a golden opportunity.
Every bit of sarcastic literary wit (a clear talent) combined with impeccable reiteration of facts presented with historical evidence is critical to the presentation.
I implore you to use a sledge hammer and just keep pounding the stake.
Glenn and Dan and all your colleagues, thank you for your ongoing, very good work!
It is a constant that those who profess themselves to be the most “patriotic” citizens, are those that commit the greatest atrocities on other human beings that are outside their own country or outside their political party. They have nothing to do with loving their country but are rather only power mongers intent on aggressively controlling other people.
Emptywheel Post — April 2, 2014 “CIA’s Own Records of CIA’s Lies to Congress”
Glenn – glad there are others here to take over some of the remaining Snowden reporting. Issues like the release of the “torture report” do need your attention. Pleased to see it.
free art for blogs (on this topic)
http://flyingcuttlefish.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/torture/
Thank you for this.
Excellent prologue btw.
In the old days, old fashioned print media would present a filtered synopsis of a six thousand page report that no one would read thoroughly and which would dismiss as irrelevant the outlet’s earlier participation in the ongoing whitewash.
I only wonder how thorough and accurate this report will be. The hype has been enormous — but hyped expectations often disappoint. (This is America, after all.)
To put it differently, this seems like the last chance to hold torturers accountable for their actions.
While everyone is waiting for – and also during — updates and whatnot, open the links and read the content within them. Everyone will benefit from doing that.
Good suggestion.
Dan Froomkin’s 12 THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND WHEN YOU READ THE TORTURE REPORT presents a some significant considerations.
First sentence, shouldn’t “itself” be “themselves?”
Murdoch’s poodle fear-mongering: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/09/reckless-and-irresponsible-top-republicans-lash-out-ahead-release-cia-report/
Be sure to read Marcy Wheeler’s post titled: The Debate about Torture We’re Not Having: Exploitation
Wheeler – “It’s not just a question of whether torture is “effective” at obtaining intelligence. It’s also whether the entire point of it was to produce spies and propaganda.”
Definitely a must read as well as the next one…
“For Obama to pardon Bush, Cheney, and Tenet, he would have to admit that the same Finding that he used to authorize drone strikes that have killed hundreds of civilians authorized war crimes. There is absolutely zero chance Obama is going to do that.”
To all protesters busy in Berkeley over last several days: This would be a good day to turn some of your attention to John Yoo — faculty of Berkeley School of Law. He is displeased that this report is being discussed. Please pay him a visit to discuss it with him.
Good tip.
Glenn Greenwald….quote”(2) President Obama, who barred all criminal prosecutions for Bush officials and other torturers and thus brazenly violated at least the spirit and probably the letter of the Convention Against Torture. That treaty, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1988 (exactly 25 years ago to the day: Happy Anniversary!), compels all signatories who discover credible allegations that government officials have participated or been complicit in torture to “submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution” (Art. 7(1)). It also specifically states that “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture” and “an order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture” (Art. 2 (2-3))”unquote
Living proof that Legal Imperialism is alive and well within the borders of the US, notwithstanding the monsters who authorized and perpetrated the torture program are every bit guilty of war crimes against humanity as the Nazi’s who were prosecuted by USG officials at Nuremberg and Japan.
Excellent point chronicle.
There is no justification or feeble apology which can absolve the architects(upper echelons of the Government) from their guilt.
These people must be bought to justice for a full accounting of their actions: https://www.aclu.org/national-security/infographic-torture-architects
That will not occur by asking the “Dictator or other puppets of the elite administration” to hold them accountable.
It must be demanded and forced if necessary, by external media reporting and decent human beings worldwide.
This is the time and opportunity to force justice, not upon those following orders, but upon those responsible for giving them.
Truth is a double-edged sword.
May those with courage and inclination to do so, pick it up and begin slashing.
Many thanks to Mr. Greenwald, Mr. Froomkin, and other TI staff for leading the charge.
This report will probably dismay the guys who were put through the drill. Nevertheless, this is a courageous step forward to show executive accountability where it counts.
I agree. Not many countries would have the courage to name the officials who performed torture and hold them accountable. Well, if not hold them accountable, at least name them. Well, if not name them, at least admit they performed torture. Well, if not torture, at least acknowledge they did something.
The US, alone among nations, is willing to stand up and admit their officials did something.
Spoil sport. We know more and more about less and less …and when the ‘torture report’ comes out (if it actually does) I’m confident we’ll know everything about nothing.
*That’s why Im beginning to like Jose Rodrigous, the former CIA interrogation chief, who is writing op-ed(s) to beat the band over at WaPo in front of the SSIC report. His disdain for the Democratic leadership hypocrisy re torture is only matched by Glenn Greenwald.
`bah
‘Fo shizzle my nizzle’..
Yale gastroenterologist Anish Sheth, M.D., the author of What’s Your Poo Telling You? and Poo Log, says;
http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/fix-stomach-problems
Every day, in every way, we are trying to be more like you.
Thanks for your comment Benito. My biggest for ages.
*My biggest laugh for ages!
quote”Gen. Barry McCaffrey said : “We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the CIA.” unquote
Within the site linked to in that statement, is a link to the youtube video of supposedly Gen. McCaffrey saying this on live tv. If you click on it…you get an apology from Google saying it’s no longer available. SORRY ABOUT THAT. Sorry? The only thing SORRY is Google’s aquiescence to the torture coverup. Fuck you Google.
Right on. Google is part of the National Security State and for that reason I NEVER knowingly use it or give them a dime.
As to you hypocritical terrorists in DC. You didn’t do any of this in my name and the sooner you’re reduced to begging for mercy for your actions, the better.
Wow. This is journalism at its very best. Thank you so much, Glen. Absolutely marvelous.
My concern is that after this and any there report on torture is released the American public will quickly forget about it and go back to their business. Maybe a little bit of indignation somewhere, but in the end nothing will happen, no one in the public will care, no great pressure will be exerted on the government or the courts, and all the war criminals will have escaped justice. At the same time, the public cares mostly about who’s winning the next round of American Idol. There are two basic reasons for that, one is the dismally twisted and prejudiced education they receive on the history of their own country in HS. The other is the continuous barrage of patriotic propaganda they are subject to through TV and the movies. This includes almost everything Americans watch 35 hours a week on the tube, from inane sitcoms to CIA hero stories, not to mention the commercials in between. Americans, ever better entertained than informed, will care absolutely nothing about the torture report because they have already been convinced by the media that torture works…
Many of the countries that aided and abetted the US in carrying out these programs are party to the Rome Statue of the ICC (the US is not). One way or another the details will come out eventually and “allies” and “fair-weather friends” will not look kindly on the country that organized and instigated these depravities – most likely with plenty of assurances that they would never see the light of day – and then left them to take the fall.
As for American lives being endangered – the actions of Government are squarely to blame for that but let’s not forget those jingoistic voters and citizens who were all for invading and devastating a country and destroying countless lives for no reason and for accepting torture and indeed any depravity wrought on others if it meant assuaging their fears with the illusion of safety. Can’t say there was no warning – it was foretold more than a decade ago that these actions would come back to bite with a vengeance. A cover-up will make that vengeance worse. A transparent reveal will likely not present more danger than is already at hand and it could even minimize it.
People seek revenge when justice is denied them. Hiding the truth, not owning one’s actions is to deny Justice to a great many people worldwide and thus no peace and reconciliation is possible. What world are we making for our children through our cowardice and irresponsibility.
Josephine related –
You make excellent points. I can hardly believe the media apologists who defend torture and am stupefied that any segment of the public would find this acceptable ( I haven’t really surveyed the msm comment sites, as someone suggested, but knowing of comments left about the NSA abuses and also about those struggling economically, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised…)
A great point you make is about the memory of the public. Attention spans seems to be measured in sheer seconds these days. Where is coverage of the NSA related stories these days in msm media, for example. And we know out of sight too often means out of mind.
We need to have this constantly pub before us and we need action to make sure these processes stop. Doesn’t if feel as though we’re fighting on too many fronts all at once? But we can’t give up. Somehow we must keep pressing on – and challenging the system.
This should be on the cover of the report.
http://httpics.com/Civil/Bushtorture.jpg
In this case, the devil is not lurking in the details. Parsing what constitutes torture only allows the criminals to evade responsibility.
Totally agree. I can’t scream it loudly enough. If you have to draw a line delineating torture or not torture you’ve already lost your argument. These people are truly sick in the head and they’re in charge.
Yes! Especially since once they drew up the definition they promptly ignored it. The Torture Memos said torture was “serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death” but weeks of loud music would surely be expected to do serious damage to the hostages’ hearing, and water boarding to cause brain lesions or other neurological symptoms, and of course hypothermia did cause death in one case I know of.