Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, ACLU, Barack Obama, Big Brother, civil liberties, civil rights, Control Grid, Dictatorship, DNA Database, domestic spying, Empire, Fascism, gitmo, human rights, john yoo, left right paradigm, nanny state, Nazi, obama, obama deception, Oppression, orwell, Patriot Act, prison industrial complex, Torture, warrantless wiretap
Obama Supports DNA Sampling Upon Arrest
Wired
March 10, 2010
Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties Knight In Shining Armor many were expecting.
Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.
When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.
Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the 18 states, including the federal government, that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.
The American Civil Liberties Union claims DNA sampling is different from mandatory, upon-arrest fingerprinting that has been standard practice in the United States for decades.
A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.
The ACLU is suing California to block its voter-approved measure requiring saliva sampling of people picked up on felony charges. Authorities in the Golden State are allowed to conduct so-called “familial searching” — when a genetic sample does not directly match another, authorities start investigating people with closely matched DNA in hopes of finding leads to the perpetrator.
Wondering whether DNA sampling is legal?
The courts have already upheld DNA sampling of convicted felons based on the theory that the convicted have fewer privacy rights. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that when conducting intrusions of the body during an investigation, the police need so-called “exigent circumstances” or a warrant. That alcohol evaporates in the blood stream is the exigent circumstance to draw blood from a suspected drunk driver without a warrant.
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 2-party system, 2nd Amendment, 9/11 Truth, Al Gore, anti gun, Barack Obama, brownshirts, bush, climategate, Dictatorship, Dissent, Empire, Fairness Doctrine, Fascism, free specch, George Bush, Global Warming, global warming hoax, government bureaucrat, Gun Control, internet, Internet 2, internet blackout, internet censorship, internet police, john yoo, left right paradigm, nanny state, Neolibs, New World Order, NWO, obama czar, political dissent, provocateur, supreme court, truth movement | Tags: Information Czar
Obama’s Favorite For Supreme Court Justice Wants to Ban Guns, Free Speech
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
January 15, 2010
 Obama’s Advisor Cass Sunstein is one of his top picks for a seat in the Supreme Court |
Cass Sunstein, president Obama’s appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and the man who outlined a plan for the government to infiltrate “conspiracy groups” in order to undermine them, is in direct line for a promotion to Supreme Court Justice.
Sunstein, already in an advanced position of power in the White House as Regulatory czar, has already called for strict restrictions on gun ownership, an internet “Fairness Doctrine”, and an effective ban on free speech where dissenting opinions to those of the government are expressed.
Suntein’s name was on various shortlists to replace Justice David Souter last year following his retirement, and prior to the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor. Sunstein’s name was also touted for the Supreme Court before Obama even took office in November 2008.
His close personal relationship with Obama should set alarm bells ringing for anyone who values the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, particularly as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, now aged 75, is likely to take retirement soon following illness, and with Justice John Paul Stevens now aged 90.
Sunstein and Obama go way back from their faculty days at the University of Chicago law school and are firm friends. Sunstein worked as an advisor to Obama during his presidential campaign and was drafted into the White House soon after Obama won the election.
As Obama’s “Information Czar”, Sunstein effectively interprets the law for the Executive. Sunstein operates in a similar, but much more elevated, role to that of former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, who infamously re-interpreted the law to legally sanction torture under the Bush Administration.
As we highlighted in our article yesterday, Sunstein has outlined plans for the government to infiltrate “conspiracy groups”, including the 9/11 Truth Movement, in order to undermine them via postings on chat rooms and social networks, as well as real meetings.
Sunstein has effectively penned the blueprint for a Cointelpro “provocateur” style program to silence what have become the government’s most vociferous and influential critics.
The specifics of the plans must be read in full in order to gauge their extreme nature and the threat Sunstein poses to the freedom in America.
On page 14 of Sunstein’s January 2008 white paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories,” he proposed that “under imaginable conditions” the government “might ban conspiracy theorizing” and could “impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories.”
In effect, Obama’s information czar wants to tax or ban outright, as in make illegal, opinions and ideas that the government doesn’t approve of.
Sunstein’s definition of a “conspiracy theorist” encompasses those who question manmade global warming and, most bizarrely, anyone who believes that sunlight is healthy for their bodies.
Presumably if Sunstein had been in power in the latter middle ages he would have attempted to tax and then ban the work of Galileo Galilei for subscribing to the theory that the Earth was not the centre of the universe and that it actually revolved around the Sun.
When he’s not going after those evil sunlight lovers, Sunstein advocates Internet censorship via enforced and regulated links in news pieces to opposing opinions.
Sunstein himself later retracted that proposal, explaining that it would be “too difficult to regulate [the Internet] in a way that would respond to those concerns”, and admitting that it was “almost certainly unconstitutional.”
Sunstein has also called for the re-writing of the First Amendment, and has even proposed a mandatory celebration of tax day in America.
His views on the Second Amendment have also raised serious concerns. In his book “Radicals in Robes,” he wrote: “[A]lmost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine.”
Sunstein is on record attacking the Second Amendment. Watch in the following clip as he says “The Supreme Court has never suggested that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to have guns.”
Given his extreme actions and stated intentions, Cass Sunstein should be forced out of office and barred from practicing law with immediate effect. If president Obama has his way, however, we may very soon see his good buddy Sunstein elevated to the highest judicial position in the country.
Bloggers and news organizations must declare war on Cass Sunstein
Sunstein: BAN Conspiracy Theories Against Global Warming and U.S. Government
Filed under: 2-party system, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, bush, bush = obama, Child Abuse, child torture, civil liberties, civil rights, Detainees, DOJ, Extraordinary Rendition, Geneva Convention, George Bush, gitmo, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, human rights, interrogation, Iraq, john yoo, left right paradigm, nation building, obama, obama = bush, obama deception, obamas war, occupation, rendition, Torture, War Crimes, War On Terror
Obama Protecting Bush’s “Testicle Crusher” Attorney
San Francisco Chronicle
December 8, 2009
The Obama administration has asked an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing former Bush administration attorney John Yoo of authorizing the torture of a terrorism suspect, saying federal law does not allow damage claims against lawyers who advise the president on national security issues.
Such lawsuits ask courts to second-guess presidential decisions and pose “the risk of deterring full and frank advice regarding the military’s detention and treatment of those determined to be enemies during an armed conflict,” Justice Department lawyers said Thursday in arguments to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Other sanctions are available for government lawyers who commit misconduct, the department said. It noted that its Office of Professional Responsibility has been investigating Yoo’s advice to former President George W. Bush since 2004 and has the power to recommend professional discipline or even criminal prosecution.
The office has not made its conclusions public. However, The Chronicle and other media reported in May that the office will recommend that Yoo be referred to the bar association for possible discipline, but that he not be prosecuted.
Yoo, a UC Berkeley law professor, worked for the Justice Department from 2001 to 2003. He was the author of a 2002 memo that said rough treatment of captives amounts to torture only if it causes the same level of pain as “organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.” The memo also said the president may have the power to authorize torture of enemy combatants.
Filed under: 1984, 2-party system, 4th amendment, Abu Ghraib, Alberto Gonzales, Alex Jones, Big Brother, big pharma, bill of rights, Boystown, brainwashing, Britain, Child Abuse, child sex slavery, Communism, Conditioning, Control Grid, CPS, Dictatorship, education, education system, Empire, Europe, european union, Fascism, franklin coverup, global elite, Hitler, house of representatives, jeff gannon, john decamp, john yoo, johnny gosch, knock and talk, left right paradigm, Mark Foley, medical industrial complex, mental health screening, middle class, Military, nanny state, Nazi, neocons, Neolibs, Oppression, orwell, paul bonacci, pedophilia, Police State, Propaganda, Psyops, rape, scandal, Sex Scandal, stasi, stasi tactics, Surveillance, Taxpayers, Texas, Torture, Troops, United Kingdom, US Constitution, Washington D.C. | Tags: Congressional Budget Office, CRB checked, Danny Davis, education begins at home act, house visits, HR 2343, HR 3289, Karen Effrem, lleana Ros-Lehtinen, Mazie Hirono, pre-k act, rape rooms, texas youth commission, u.s. state workers
U.S. government: We know parenting better than you
Proposals would give Washington unprecedented control over kids
World Net Daily
July 24, 2008
The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to debate two bills that could give the federal government unprecedented control over the way parents raise their children – even providing funds for state workers to come into homes and screen babies for emotional and developmental problems.
The Pre-K Act (HR 3289) and the Education Begins at Home Act (HR 2343) are two bills geared toward military and families who fall below state poverty lines. The measures are said to be a way to prevent child abuse, close the achievement gap in education between poor and minority infants versus middle-class children and evaluate babies younger than 5 for medical conditions.
’Education Begins at Home Act’ – HR 2343
HR 2343 is sponsored by Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., and cosponsored by 55 Democrats and 11 Republicans. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that implementing the Education Begins at Home Act would cost taxpayers $190 million for state home visiting plus “such sums as may be necessary” for in-hospital parent education.
While the bill may appear to be well-intentioned, Pediatrician Karen Effrem told WND government provisions in HR 2343 to evaluate children for developmental problems go too far.
“The federal definition of developmental screening for special education also includes what they call socioemotional screening, which is mental health screening,” Effrem said. “Mental health screening is very subjective no matter what age you do it. Obviously it is incredibly subjective when we are talking about very young children.”
While the program may not be mandatory for low-income and military families, there is no wording in the Education Begins at Home Act requiring parental permission for treatment or ongoing care once the family is enrolled – a point that leads some to ask where parental rights end and the government takes over. Also, critics ask how agents of the government plan to acquire private medical and financial records to offer the home visiting program.
“There’s no consent mentioned in the bill for any kind of screening – medical, health or developmental,” Effrem said. “There are privacy concerns because when home visitors come into the home they assess everything about the family: Their financial situation, social situation, parenting practices, everything. All of that is put into a database.”
Effrem said it does not specify whether parents are allowed to decline evaluations, drugs or treatment for their children once they are diagnosed with developmental or medical conditions.
“How free is someone who has been tagged as needing this program in the case of home visiting – like a military family or a poor family?” she asked. “How free are they to refuse? Even their refusal will be documented somewhere. There are plenty of instances where families have felt they can’t refuse because they would lose benefits, be accused of not being good parents or potentially have their children taken away.”
When WND asked Effrem how long state-diagnosed conditions would remain in a child’s permanent medical history, she responded:
“Forever. As far as I know, there isn’t any statute of limitations. The child’s record follows them through school and potentially college, employment and military service.” Effrem said conflicts could also arise when parents do not agree with parenting standards of government home visitors.
“Who decides how cultural tolerance is going to be manifested?” she asked. “There’s some blather in the language of the bill about having cultural awareness of the differences in parenting practices, but it seems like that never applies to Christian parents.”
’Providing Resources Early for Kids’
The Pre-K Act, or HR 3289, is sponsored by Rep. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and cosponsored by 116 Democrats and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla. Estimated to cost $500 million for each of fiscal years 2008 through 2013, the bill provides funds for state-approved education. Government workers would reach mothers and fathers in the hospital after a baby has been delivered to promote Pre-K programs.
“They give them information about Child Care Resource and Referral Network so they can get the child into a preschool or daycare that follows the state standards and get the mom working as quickly as possible,” she said. “It’s always that sort of thing: It’s a list of resources, it’s intruding on parental autonomy and authority and it’s not necessarily accurate or welcome information.”
While parents may choose to be involved in preschool programs, Effrem said the Pre-K Act poses similar concerns about government trumping parents’ rights.
“Once they are involved, they don’t have any say over curriculum,” she said. “There’s plenty of evidence of preschool curriculum that deals with issues that have nothing to do with a child’s academic development – like gender, gender identity, careers, environmentalism, multiculturalism, feminism and all of that – things that don’t amount to a hill of beans as far as a child learning how to read.”
Effrem said the Pre-K Act extends a “really messed-up K-12 system” to include even younger, more vulnerable children.
“This is an expansion of the federal government into education when there really is no constitutional provision for it to do so.”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/..cpre-k-education%e2%80%9d-bills.html
Government Permission Required For Parents To Kiss Children
http://noworldsystem.com/200..ission-required-for-parents-to-kiss-children/
Filed under: Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Britain, Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Detainees, Dick Cheney, enemy combatant, Europe, european union, Extraordinary Rendition, Geneva Convention, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, john yoo, Military, nation building, occupation, Oppression, rendition, Torture, Troops, United Kingdom, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror
Former Iraqi detainees sue U.S. military contractors
Reuters
June 30, 2008
Four Iraqi men are suing U.S. military contractors who they say tortured them while they were detained in Abu Ghraib prison, according to lawsuits being filed at U.S. federal courts on Monday.
The lawsuits allege the contractors committed violations of U.S. law, including torture, war crimes and civil conspiracy.
The scandal over the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib unleashed a wave of global condemnation against the United States when images of abused prisoners surfaced in 2004
The four plaintiffs, all later released without charge, described their experiences to Reuters on Monday at an Istanbul hotel, where they periodically meet their U.S. legal team. They gave accounts of beatings, electric shocks and mock executions.
Farmer Suhail Naim Abdullah Al-Shimari, 49, said he was caged, beaten, threatened with dogs and given electric shocks during more than four years in detention. He was released in March without being charged and without any judicial process.
“I lost my house, my family were made homeless and left without a breadwinner. I lost four-and-a-half years of my life and all they did was say sorry,” he told Reuters.
Some lower-ranking soldiers have been convicted in military courts in connection with the physical abuse and sexual humiliation of Abu Ghraib detainees.
The latest lawsuits follow a similar one launched in early May in federal court in Los Angeles by another former Abu Ghraib detainee, Emad Al-Janabi. The latest plaintiffs sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
“This litigation will contribute to the true history of Abu Ghraib. These innocent men were senselessly tortured by U.S. companies that profited from their misery,” said Susan L. Burke, one of the attorneys representing the detainees.
The lawsuits were being filed where the contractors reside. They named CACI International Inc, CACI Premier Technology, L-3 Services Inc and three individual contractors.
Cheney’s Aide Says He Didn’t Write Torture Memos
http://ap.googl..IqyDQB701JjpfgD91I5L7G0
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article4232283.ece
Filed under: Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Detainees, Extraordinary Rendition, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, interrogation, Iraq, John Conyers, john yoo, nation building, neocons, occupation, rendition, Torture, War Crimes, War On Terror
John Yoo Refuses to Answer if Bush Can Order a Detainee Buried Alive
John Yoo Says President Bush Can Legally Torture Children
http://www.latimes.com/news/natio..inee27-2008jun27,0,2790643.story
Filed under: 5th Amendment, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, army, civil liberties, civil rights, Colin Powell, deaths, Detainees, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, John McCain, john yoo, lindsey graham, Military, nation building, neocons, occupation, red cross, rendition, Seymour Hersh, supreme court, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House | Tags: Jerrold Nadler, Lawrence Wilkerson
2-star General Accuses WH of War Crimes
Washington Post
June 18, 2008
The two-star general who led an Army investigation into the horrific detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib has accused the Bush administration of war crimes and is calling for accountability.
In his 2004 report on Abu Ghraib, then-Major General Anthony Taguba concluded that “numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees.” He called the abuse “systemic and illegal.” And, as Seymour M. Hersh reported in the New Yorker, he was rewarded for his honesty by being forced into retirement.
Now, in a preface to a Physicians for Human Rights report based on medical examinations of former detainees, Taguba adds an epilogue to his own investigation.
The new report, he writes, “tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individual’s lives on their bodies and minds. Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors.
“The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. Through the experiences of these men in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, we can see the full-scope of the damage this illegal and unsound policy has inflicted –both on America’s institutions and our nation’s founding values, which the military, intelligence services, and our justice system are duty-bound to defend.
“In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. . . .
“After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, 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.”
Pamela Hess of the Associated Press has more on the report, which resulted from “the most extensive medical study of former U.S. detainees published so far” and “found evidence of torture and other abuse that resulted in serious injuries and mental disorders.”
At Least 25 Detainees Murdered In U.S. Custody
Think Progress
June 20, 2008
At today’s House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights hearing on torture, Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, told Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody, with up to 27 of these declared homicides:
NADLER: Your testimony said 100 detainees have died in detention; do you believe the 25 of those were in effect murdered?
WILKERSON: Mr. Chairman, I think the number’s actually higher than that now. Last time I checked it was 108.
A February 2006 Human Rights First report found that although hundreds of people in U.S. custody had died and eight people were tortured to death, only 12 deaths had “resulted in punishment of any kind for any U.S. official.”
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/n..etainee_dies_youre_doing_i.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2008/200608_b_mccain.htm
Documents confirm U.S. hid detainees from Red Cross
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/41394.html
John Yoo’s ongoing falsehoods in service of limitless government power
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/17/yoo/index.html
Filed under: 4th amendment, Abu Ghraib, CIA, Detainee, DoD, Donald Rumsfeld, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, Fascism, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, john yoo, Nazi, neocons, Oppression, Pentagon, rendition, Torture, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House | Tags: David Addington
Pundit: Bush Administration Officials Will Be ’Indicted For War Crimes’
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=8076
Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved ‘Enhanced Interrogation’
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4583256
Filed under: 4th amendment, Abu Ghraib, al-qaeda, army, Child Abuse, CIA, defense department, Detainee, DoD, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, False Flag, Fascism, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, iraq deaths, john yoo, marine, Military, neocons, Oppression, Pentagon, rape, rendition, Ron Paul, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House
Above the law: the Bush crime syndicate
Washington Post
April 2, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXpavT5RCP8
The Bush crime syndicate genuinely believed that the president was above the law. It’s not hyperbole — it was an actual legal opinion:
The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president’s ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.
[…]
Sent to the Pentagon’s general counsel on March 14, 2003, by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the memo provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of war. It contends that numerous laws and treaties forbidding torture or cruel treatment should not apply to U.S. interrogations in foreign lands because of the president’s inherent wartime powers.
“If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network,” Yoo wrote. “In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch’s constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions.”
Interrogators who harmed a prisoner would be protected by a “national and international version of the right to self-defense,” Yoo wrote. He also articulated a definition of illegal conduct in interrogations — that it must “shock the conscience” — that the Bush administration advocated for years.
“Whether conduct is conscience-shocking turns in part on whether it is without any justification,” Yoo wrote, explaining, for example, that it would have to be inspired by malice or sadism before it could be prosecuted.
Torture for Profit
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/04/01/bush-memo.html
Top Bush Administration officials pressured underlings to use torture tactics at Guantanamo
http://rawstory.com/news/20..underlings_0402.html
Hersh: children raped at Abu Ghraib, Pentagon has videos
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/07/15/hersh-children-raped.html
Secret DOJ Memo Says Fourth Amendment Has “No Application” After 9/11
http://infowars.net/articles/april2008/030408Memo.htm
Filed under: 9/11, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Alberto Gonzales, army, Australia, Child Abuse, CIA, civil liberties, Colin Powell, Detainee, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Extraordinary Rendition, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, iraq deaths, john yoo, Military, neocons, Oppression, Torture, Troops, UN, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House | Tags: lindsay england, Ricardo Sanche
Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7553360276446246577&hl=en
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2008/..photographer-interview.html
Young Gitmo Detainee: I’ve Been Tortured
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1224602720080313
Australia accused of helping with notorious CIA rendition flights
http://rawstory.com/news/2008.._helping_CIA_rendition_0311.html
U.S. Denied UN Torture Envoy Jail Access
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1113820080311
Filed under: 2008 Election, 9/11, 9/11 Truth, CFR, Child Abuse, George Bush, Guantanamo, john yoo, minnesota, Mitt Romney, neocons, North American Union, SPP, Torture, We Are Change, wtc-7
We Are Change Confronts Mitt Romney
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlwKfn-SQuI
Abu Ghraib abuse just tip of the iceberg: author
AFP
August 20, 2007
Those people truely to blame for the degrading treatment of Iraqi prisoners in Baghdad’s infamous Abu Ghraib jail remain in the shadows, while such abuses continue unchecked and unseen.
That’s the view of American author Tara McKelvey, who sought to uncover the truth behind the 2004 scandal in her book “Monstering: Inside Americas Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War.”
Asked who was really responsible ahead of the trial of the only US military officer charged with tormenting Iraqis at the jail, McKelvey replied: “That’s the million dollar question. That’s what everyone wants to know.”
Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, 51, goes on trial on Monday on charges which include cruelty and mistreatment of detainees, making false statements, obstruction of justice and disobeying orders.
McKelvey hopes the hearing will provide some answers as to why US soldiers forced their Iraqi prisoners to strip, form naked human pyramids, parade on all fours with leashes chains on their necks, and threatened them with dogs.
“These court-martials have been very useful in the sense that they allow people to ask questions. And they forced people to account for their behavior when they were at the prison,” she told AFP.
“They are one of the few venues where things things are out in the open.”
So far attempts to the blame the affair on US President George W. Bush, who ordered the invasion of the Iraq in March 2003, his Vice President Dick Cheney or former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the main architects of the war, have come to nothing.
“People try to blame Bush, they blame Cheney, they blame Rumsfeld. But chasing that chain of command is difficult, partly because so much of these documents and the photographs have been withheld from the public,” said McKelvey.
She added the “smoking gun” in the scandal could lead to John C. Yoo, who was a lawyer in the office of legal counsel at the Justice Department, and was one of the authors of a key departmental memo.
“In that memo, he defines torture to allow all sorts of abuse and techniques, and that was one of the key points in this entire debate,” McKelvey said.
“People say often: torture and abuse have taken place in every war. And it’s true, if you look at My Lai or some of the incidents in Vietnam that were horrific.
“But the difference now is that this is codified. There have been allowances made for these things to occur.”
The Abu Ghraib scandal first came to light in 2004 when photographs the grinning soldiers had taken of themselves dishing out the abuse to their prisoners shot round the world.
But McKelvey believes the abuse was more widespread than was ever revealed and is probably still continuing in other places and situations.
“It’s true you can say the scandal exists because of the photographs, but what you saw on the pictures was really only a fraction of the abuse that was taking place. And certainly not the worst of it,” she said.
“There is no question in my mind that the extent was far greater than it was acknowledged at that time. In December 2003, there was something like 12,000 detainees in Iraq,” she said.
But there were thousands who were never registered and held in short-term facilities such as schools or police stations, she added.
“Today, polls show that a sizable number of soldiers think that torture is OK in certain conditions, that they won’t report abuse if it takes place.
“And I think the sad truth is that these things are still taking place but the difference between now and April-May 2004 is that people aren’t taking pictures.”
Abu Ghraib interrogator faces court-martial
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1823472020070818
noworldsystem.com 