Filed under: 9/11, ACLU, Baghdad, Britain, Centcom, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Department of justice, Detainee, Dick Cheney, DOJ, Europe, european union, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crime, FOIA, Geneva Convention, Habeas Corpus, human rights, Impeach, interrogation, Iraq, john ashcroft, london, Mi5, Military, Nancy Pelosi, nation building, occupation, rendition, Torture, Troops, United Kingdom, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding, White House | Tags: diego garcia, indian ocean, island of diego garcia, prisoner boxes, wooden crates
Iraqi detainees put in wooden crates
The Memory Hole
July 23, 2008
In Iraq, some prisoners/detainees are kept in wooden crates known as “prisoner boxes,” so I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the US Central Command asking for the following:
“Vanity Fair (Feb 2005 issue) has reported the existence of wood “prisoner boxes” being used by the US military in facilities in and around Baghdad. They are used to hold individual prisoners and detainees.
“I hereby request all photographs of these boxes, including empty boxes as well as boxes holding prisoners and detainees.”
Around nine and a half months later, CentCom responded by sending the three photographs on this page.
Another Secret Terror War Prison Found
Huffington Post
August 1, 2008
The existence of a secret, CIA-run prison on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean has long been a leaky secret in the “War on Terror,” and recent revelations in TIME — based on disclosures by a “senior American official,” who was “a frequent participant in White House Situation Room meetings” after the 9/11 attacks, and who reported that “a CIA counter-terrorism official twice said that a high-value prisoner or prisoners were being interrogated on the island” — will come as no surprise to those who have been studying the story closely.
The news will, however, be an embarrassment to the US government, which has persistently denied claims that it operated a secret “War on Terror” prison on Diego Garcia, and will be a source of even more consternation to the British government, which is more closely bound than its law-shredding Transatlantic neighbor to international laws and treaties preventing any kind of involvement whatsoever in kidnapping, “extraordinary rendition” and the practice of torture.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/..6my6QSyHcMGDyb_qe2WwvIE
ACLU: Memos authorized CIA torture
http://rawstory.com//news/2008/A..horized_CIA_torture_0724.html
Former Gitmo Prosecutor Says Trials Rigged
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2008/07/former-gitmo-prosecutor-says-t.html
MI5 Outsourced Torture
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/15/humanrights.civilliberties
`Terrorist’ Loses 60 Pounds on Cheney Torture Diet
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/new..8&sid=as7YVr4Wamak&refer=home
Why Pelosi won’t impeach: She knew about the torture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w88NXHsgi08
Ashcroft: Waterboarding ‘Consistently’ Seen As Legal, Refuses To Say Use On U.S. Troops Is ‘Unacceptable’
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/17/ashcroft-torture/
Filed under: Abu Ghraib, ACLU, Afghanistan, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Detainee, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crime, flip flop, flip flopping, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, human rights, interrogations, Iraq, John McCain, lindsey graham, Military, nation building, neocons, occupation, rendition, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, veto, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding | Tags: Detainee Treatment Act, gitmo
Forgetting His Vote To Allow Waterboarding, McCain Says ‘We Could Never Torture Anyone’
Think Progress
July 28, 2008
In February, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) voted against a bill banning the CIA from waterboarding and using other torture tactics in their interrogations. When the bill passed, McCain urged Bush to veto it, which he did.
In an interview with Newsweek published today, McCain defended his position, insisting that the CIA plays “a special role” in defending the U.S. and thus should be allowed to use harsh interrogation tactics such as waterboarding:
NEWSWEEK: On torture, why should the CIA be treated differently from the armed services regarding the use of harsh interrogation tactics?
MCCAIN: Because they play a special role in the United States of America and our ability to combat terrorists. But we have made it very clear that there is nothing they can do that would violate the Geneva Conventions, the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibits torture. We could never torture anyone, but some people misconstrue that who don’t understand what the Detainee Treatment Act and the Geneva Conventions are all about.
McCain’s vote against the waterboarding ban did make one thing clear: that he condones torture. With Bush’s veto, waterboarding remains a distinct option for the CIA:
Still, waterboarding remains in the CIA’s tool kit. The technique can be used, but it requires the consent of the attorney general and president on a case-by-case basis. Bush wants to keep that option open.
“I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future presidents, from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack,” Bush said in a statement.
McCain is either clueless or ignorant about the fact that his vote allows the CIA to waterboard detainees. And as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of McCain’s chief surrogates, has said about waterboarding, “I don’t think you have to have a lot of knowledge about the law to understand this technique violates Geneva Convention common article three, the War Crimes statutes, and many other statutes that are in place.”
Filed under: civil liberties, civil rights, human rights, Mexico, Military, Oppression, police brutality, Torture, Troops, war on drugs, waterboarding | Tags: National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, policia, sinaloa, tortura, torture techniques
Report Cites Torture by Mexican Military
Washington Post
July 12, 2008
The National Human Rights Commission on Friday accused the Mexican military of wrongfully killing eight civilians at roadblocks, torturing witnesses and allowing soldiers accused of rights violations to escape prosecution during its continuing campaign against drug cartels.
In a lengthy report, commission investigators documented a case of soldiers jamming splinters beneath the fingernails and toenails of a witness and forcibly injecting alcohol down his throat. The man had been mistaken for a drug dealer operating in the hills near the border south of Phoenix, the report said.
In another case, soldiers stormed a house in the western village of Uruapan and allegedly tortured two suspects by stabbing their genitals with electric cattle prods. Other suspects were held at military facilities, forced to undress and barred from communicating with lawyers or family.
Most of the abuses have gone unpunished, the report said. For instance, no action has been taken against soldiers suspected of shooting dead four civilians at a roadblock in the central state of Sinaloa, the report said.
The commission’s report held the military’s top brass to be as responsible for the violations as the low- and mid-ranking soldiers accused of committing the actual offenses. In some instances, civilian law enforcement authorities have been impeded because the military delayed the release of information, the report said.
“We need armed forces that do not tolerate some of their members violating fundamental rights without consequences,” José Luis Soberanes, president of the commission, said Friday.
The military, which has generally defended its rights record, did not immediately respond to the report.
U.S. Military Training Torture Techniques to Mexican Police
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/07/0..rture-techniques-to-mexican-police/
Filed under: 1984, Big Brother, civil liberties, civil rights, cocaine, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, George Bush, Mexico, Military, Oppression, police brutality, Police State, Surveillance, Torture, Troops, Uncategorized, war on drugs, waterboarding | Tags: james anders, leon GTO, policia, tortura, torture techniques, william cosby
AP
July 2, 2008
Videos showing Leon police practicing torture techniques on a fellow officer and dragging another through vomit at the instruction of a U.S. adviser created an uproar Tuesday in Mexico, which has struggled to eliminate torture in law enforcement.
Two of the videos — broadcast by national television networks and displayed on newspaper Internet sites — showed what Leon city Police Chief Carlos Tornero described as training for an elite unit that must face “real-life, high-stress situations,” such as kidnapping and torture by organized crime groups.
But many Mexicans saw a sinister side, especially at a moment when police and soldiers across the country are struggling with scandals over alleged abuses.
“They are teaching police … to torture!” read the headline in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma.
Human rights investigators in Guanajuato state, where Leon is located, are looking into the tapes, and the National Human Rights Commission also expressed concern.
“It’s very worrisome that there may be training courses that teach people to torture,” said Raul Plascencia, one of the commission’s top inspectors.
One of the videos, first obtained by the newspaper El Heraldo de Leon, shows police appearing to squirt water up a man’s nose — a technique once notorious among Mexican police. Then they dunk his head in a hole said to be full of excrement and rats. The man gasps for air and moans repeatedly.
In another video, an unidentified English-speaking trainer has an exhausted agent roll into his own vomit. Other officers then drag him through the mess.
“These are no more than training exercises for certain situations, but I want to stress that we are not showing people how to use these methods,” Tornero said.
He said the English-speaking man was part of a private U.S. security company helping to train the agents, but he refused to give details.
A third video transmitted by the Televisa network showed officers jumping on the ribs of a suspect curled into a fetal position in the bed of a pickup truck. Tornero said that the case, which occurred several months earlier, was under investigation and that the officers involved had disappeared.
Mexican police often find themselves in the midst of brutal battles between drug gangs. Officials say that 450 police, soldiers and prosecutors have lost their lives in the fight against organized crime since December 2006.
At the same time, several recent high-profile scandals over alleged thuggery and ineptness have reignited criticisms of police conduct. In Mexico City last month, 12 people died in a botched police raid on a disco.
The National Human Rights Commission has documented 634 cases of military abuse since President Felipe Calderon sent more than 20,000 soldiers across the nation to battle drug gangs.
And $400 million in drug-war aid for Mexico that was just signed into law by President Bush doesn’t require the U.S. to independently verify that the military has cleaned up its fight, as many American lawmakers and Mexican human rights groups had insisted.
The videos may seem shocking, but training police to withstand being captured is not unusual, said Robert McCue, the director of the private, U.S. firm IES Interactive Training, which provides computer-based training systems in Mexico.
“With the attacks on police and security forces in Mexico that have increased due to the drug cartel wars, I’m not surprised to see this specialized kind of training in resisting and surviving captivity and torture,” he said.
Video shows cop choking marijuana suspect
Groups Sue U.S. for Data On Tracking By Cellphone
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-..008/07/01/AR2008070102884_pf.html
Police Want Snitch Text Messages To Fight Crime
http://apnews.myway.com/..0702/D91LRUL04.html
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, nation building, neocons, occupation, Oppression, rendition, Torture, United Kingdom, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding
Neocon gets waterboarded; agrees that it’s torture
The Guardian
July 2, 2008
Late last year, the writer, polemicist and fierce proponent of the US-led invasion of Iraq Christopher Hitchens attempted, in a piece for the online magazine Slate, to draw a distinction between what he called techniques of “extreme interrogation” and “outright torture”.
From this, his foes inferred that since it was Hitchens’ belief that America did not stoop to the latter, the practice of waterboarding – known to be perpetrated by US forces against certain “high-value clients” in Iraq and elsewhere – must fall under the former heading.
Enraged by what they saw as an exercise in elegant but offensive sophistry, some of the writer’s critics suggested that Hitchens give waterboarding (which may sound like some kind of fun aquatic pastime, but is probably best summarised as enforced partial drowning) a whirl, just to see what it was like. Did the experience feel like torture.
Filed under: 5th Amendment, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Detainees, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, Military, nation building, occupation, Oppression, poll, rendition, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding
44% Favor Torture Of Terrorist Suspects
Raw Story
June 24, 2008
A new poll of citizens’ attitudes about torture in 19 nations finds Americans among the most accepting of the practice. Although a slight majority say torture should be universally prohibited, 44 percent think torture of terrorist suspects should be allowed, and more than one in 10 think torture should generally be allowed.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/21/9787/
’Soldiers routinely abuse detainees’
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite..owFull&cid=1213794299228
Filed under: 5th Amendment, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Detainee, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, fear mongering, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, John McCain, nation building, neocons, Newt Gingrich, occupation, Pentagon, rendition, supreme court, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War On Terror, waterboarding
Glenn Greenwald
Salon
June 17, 2008
Even when set against all the reckless fear-mongering being spewed in response to last week’s Supreme Court ruling — which merely held that our Government can’t abolish the constitutional guarantee of habeas corpus and must provide minimum due process to people before locking them in cages for life — this comment by Newt Gingrich on Face the Nation this weekend is in a class all by itself:
On the other hand, I will say, the recent Supreme Court decision to turn over to a local district judge decisions of national security and life and death that should be made by the president and the Congress is the most extraordinarily arrogant and destructive decision the Supreme Court has made in its history. . . . . Worse than Dred Scott, worse than–because–for this following reason: . . .
This court decision is a disaster which could cost us a city. And the debate ought to be over whether or not you’re prepared to risk losing an American city on behalf of five lawyers . . . .
We better not allow people we seek to imprison for life to have access to a court — or require our Government to show evidence before it encages people for decades — otherwise . . . we’ll “lose a city.”
Bush: Critics Of US Torture Chambers ’Slandering America’
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/06/02/gingrich-bu..-more-terror-attacks/
U.S. Abuse Of Detainees Common In Afghanistan
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/38775.html
McCain: Habeas Corpus a Privilege not a Right
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/june2008/140608_a_mccain.htm
McCain To Introduce Legislation Undermining Supreme Court Decision On Guantanamo
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/15/kristol-court-guantanamo/
Waterboarding, slapping, sensory deprivation – all on US tactics list
http://news.scotsman.com/world/..-deprivation-.4194720.jp
Pentagon Looked Into Torture Early
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy..8/06/16/AR2008061602779_pf.html
Supreme Court Restores Habeas Corpus
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/06/15/supreme-court-restores-habeas-corpus/
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 hijackers, 9/11 patsies, 9/11 Truth, bin laden, brainwashing, Child Abuse, Extraordinary Rendition, FBI, George Bush, Guantanamo, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Official 9/11 Theory, Pentagon, Torture, United Kingdom, War On Terror, waterboarding
Rigged Gitmo Trials Prove 9/11 Official Story Wrong
Scant evidence against suspects say prosecutors, yet convictions already assured
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
February 22, 2008
Four prosecutors In the Guantánamo Bay case assert that the trials are rigged and that convictions are already assured despite the fact that there is scant evidence to link Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his cohorts with 9/11, proving that the official story is a fable and the real perpetrators are being protected.
As we previously highlighted, after half a dozen years of waterboarding, genital zapping, sleep deprivation and brainwashing, the Pentagon has finally found six patsies who will readily welcome their 72 virgins and take the fall for 9/11, providing debunkers with ample ammunition to dismiss questions about the gaping holes in the official story of the terror attacks and allowing the government to close the book.
Included amongst them is alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who also admitted to a raft of other terror attacks and plots, some of which he could not possibly have been involved with because they occurred after his capture or related to targets that did not even exist until after his incarceration.
As reported by The Nation this week, Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantánamo’s military commissions, was told directly by Pentagon general counsel William Haynes, that the final verdicts in the trials had already been decided before they had even begun.
“Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can’t have acquittals, we’ve got to have convictions,” Haynes told Davis.
In addition, Harper’s Magazine reports that, “Three more former Guantánamo prosecutors — Major Robert Preston, Captain John Carr and Captain Carrie Wolf — “asked to be relieved of duties after saying they were concerned that the process was rigged. One said he had been assured he didn’t need to worry about building a proper case; convictions were assured”.
Preston wrote in an e mail to his supervisors “that there was thin evidence against the accused.”
A defense attorney for the suspects, Clive Stafford Smith, said the prosecutors informed him that “they were told by the chief prosecutor at the time that they didn’t need evidence to get convictions.”
If there is scant evidence against the alleged mastermind of 9/11, as four top prosecutors assert, and yet the government has already decided to rig Mohammed’s trial to secure a conviction, then that means the government is knowingly protecting the real 9/11 masterminds and allowing patsies to take the fall for the attacks.
Despite the fact that it only took three months to charge him with the 1998 embassy bombings, there has been no formal indictment of bin Laden over six years after 9/11 and the FBI’s wanted poster makes no reference of Bin Laden’s involvement in 9/11.
When asked by reporters why no reference was made, FBI agent Rex Tomb was forced to admit that “the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”
The assertion of four top prosecutors and a defense attorney – that the Guantánamo trials are rigged and convictions are already assured despite little evidence against the accused – proves that the suspects are mere patsies, that the perpetrators of 9/11 remain free, and that the government’s only motivation is to sweep questions under the rug by conducting a show trial which is an insult to the very notion of justice.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/08.._news/news_guantanamo_col
Foreign Secretary: CIA did use UK for torture flights
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a..id=517228&in_page_id=1811
Filed under: 2008 Election, army, CIA, flip flop, George Bush, GOP, Guantanamo, John McCain, neocons, Republican Debate, Senate, Torture, waterboarding
McCain Is A Liar He Is A Pro-Torture Candidate
Former prisoner of war and outspoken on the opposition of torture voted ‘No’ against a bill that would ban the use of water torture
Lee Rogers
Rogue Government
February 14, 2008
John McCain the corporate controlled Republican presidential candidate voted against a Senate bill that bans the use of water torture. The bill entitled the Intelligence Authorization Bill contained a provision that required interrogations to be in line with the standards of the Army’s field manual which would effectively ban the use of water torture on detainees. McCain’s vote is surprising considering that he has said on numerous occasions that we should not condone the use of torture. It is amazing that McCain would vote against a bill that would ban the use of water torture after he’s spoken out against the use of torture on a frequent basis during his presidential campaign. Clearly the straight talk express doesn’t have a whole lot of credibility when he does the opposite of what he says. How can anyone take McCain seriously after this vote?
The Senate ended up voting in favor of the bill 51 – 45 but in the end the passage of the bill is nothing more than staged theatrics by the establishment. George W. Bush has already said that he is going to veto it because apparently he needs the authority to torture people to keep Americans safe. This is a ridiculous assertion considering that torture is a war crime and it is a proven fact that torture does not mean you’ll get good information from the individual being tortured. Anyone who is tortured will say anything to make the pain stop regardless of if what they say is factual or not.
Giving McCain the benefit of the doubt, maybe there was something else in the bill that he didn’t like which caused him to vote against it. McCain argued on the Senate floor prior to the bill’s passage that the CIA shouldn’t be tied to the Army’s field manual, but this was after McCain stated previously that the Army’s field manual should be the gold standard for interrogations. So apparently the CIA is exempt from McCain’s gold standard? There’s simply no consistency with his argument. Looking at the bill in its entirety, this bill provides authorization for the big government intelligence apparatus that McCain seems to love so much. Also considering McCain’s abysmal track record of supporting big government programs, it seems pretty clear that the main reason why he didn’t vote in favor of this bill is because it limited the ability of the government to torture people. Apparently Bush and McCain agree that the government needs to have the authority to torture people to keep the American people safe. This is of course a lie. The U.S. government has failed to adequately show one case that definitively proves that the use of torture has kept the American people safe. It is nothing more than empty rhetoric.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbQLuZ28EEM
The bottom line is that McCain is a sick individual for saying that he is against torture yet votes against a bill on the sole criteria that it eliminates the government’s authority to use techniques like water torture. This is clear evidence that McCain should be removed from the presidential race and put in a mental institution.
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 commission, 9/11 Families, 9/11 hijackers, 9/11 patsies, 9/11 Truth, 93 bombing, al-qaeda, Antonin Scalia, bin laden, Detainees, Extraordinary Rendition, FBI, George Bush, Guantanamo, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, KSM, michael hayden, New York, NORAD, Official 9/11 Theory, Pentagon, put options, secret camps, Torture, War On Terror, waterboarding, World Trade Center
Tortured Patsies To Take Fall For 9/11
Pentagon hopes executed scapegoats will make questions disappear
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
February 11, 2008
After half a dozen years of waterboarding, genital zapping, sleep deprivation and brainwashing, the Pentagon has finally found six patsies who will readily welcome their 72 virgins and take the fall for 9/11, providing debunkers with ample ammunition to dismiss questions about the gaping holes in the official story of the terror attacks.
“Among those held at Guantanamo is Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the attack six years ago in which hijacked planes were flown into buildings in New York and Washington. Five others are expected to be named in sworn charges,” reports the Associated Press.
The fact that KSM’s confession included a plan to target the Plaza Bank building in Washington state, which was not founded until 2006, four years after the alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind’s arrest, should provide a clue as to the reliability of the “terror mastermind’s” culpability for 9/11.
But that was not the only plan that Sheik Mohammed was alleged to have hatched, as he claimed responsibility for everything from three assassination plots against Clinton, Carter and the Pope, to the FBI sponsored 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He surprisingly stopped short of accepting the blame for global warming and the Challenger space shuttle disaster.
Even CNN’s audience was not buying the propaganda at the time, with 74% saying they disbelieved the authenticity of KSM’s confession. CIA veteran Robert Baer wrote a stinging Time Magazine piece dismissing the supposition that KSM was “responsible for the 9/11 operation from A-Z” as he claimed in between cattle prod sessions.
It would be very clear why the establishment would be interested in hanging out the Ron Jeremy of terrorism to dry as the scapegoat for an official 9/11 story that holds about as much weight as a Milan cat-walk model. By invoking the “but he admitted it” line, any debate about the mountain of unanswered questions surrounding the attacks, which prompted 9/11 families to demand a new investigation last week, is effectively silenced. The fact that the 9/11 Commission was riddled with Bush administration cronies can also be swept under the rug.
But this cuts both ways.
In his first interview following 9/11, Osama Bin Laden denied any involvement in the attacks.
“I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle,” Bin Laden told the Pakistani based Ummat newspaper.
If Bin Laden wasn’t involved in 9/11 then KSM’s “confession” is rendered obsolete.
Since Khalid has squealed on the “A to Z” of 9/11 and will face a lethal injection, perhaps he can provide some answers to a few troubling little questions that still have us 9/11 “conspiracy nuts” running around in circles before he kicks the bucket;
– Was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed responsible for the FBI ordering the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to go ahead? In his confession, KSM says he ran the attack but fails to explain why it was the FBI who provided the terror cell with the bomb materials through their informant.
– Was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed responsible for NORAD completely reversing its standard operating procedure on the day of 9/11?
– Was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed responsible for the collapse of three steel buildings, one that was not hit by a plane, from fire damage alone for the first and only time in history?
– Was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed responsible for warning, according to Newsweek, a group of top Pentagon officials to cancel their flights on the evening of September 10th due to security concerns?
– Was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed responsible for the record number of ‘put’ options, speculation that the stock of a company will fall, that were placed on American and United Airlines in the days preceding September 11th? This despite a September 10th Reuters report stating ‘airline stocks set to fly.’
– Was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed responsible for blocking FBI anti-terrorism investigations before 9/11 related to the bin Laden family and Saudi charities that were front groups for Al-Qaeda?
– Was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed responsible for advising the Secret Service not to remove President Bush from a completely unsecured Florida elementary school by letting them know he wasn’t a target on 9/11?
Of course if the Pentagon gets their way, such questions will disappear along with any chance that the executed patsies could ever recant and contribute to the true perpetrators of 9/11 being identified.
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/february2008/120208_scalia.htm
U.S. Wants To Execute Six Patsies For 9/11
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=6592
US to Try 9/11 Suspects in “Kangaroo Court”
http://www.independent.co..ptember-11-attacks-781007.html
More evidence of Pre-9/11 Inside Trading: Follow the Money? God forbid
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?c..va&aid=8046
‘I was waterboarded during my training as a Navy flight crew member… [C]utting off a finger would have been preferable’
http://www.washingtonpo..008020803156.html?nav=rss_print/outlook
Hayden Admits: Contractors Lead ‘Enhanced Interrogations’ at CIA Black Sites
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/02/in-testimony-be.html
CIA chief doubts waterboarding tactic is still legal
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/08/america/08intel.php
AP Confirms Secret Camp Inside Gitmo
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7288144,00.html
6 Guantánamo Detainees Are Said to Face Trial Over 9/11
http://www.nytimes.com/200..&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 hijackers, 9/11 Truth, Abu Zubaydah, CIA, CNN, Congress, CPAC, Department of justice, Detainee, Dick Cheney, DOJ, Extraordinary Rendition, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Impeach, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Michael Mukasey, neocons, Torture, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding, White House, Wolf Blitzer
Cheney: ‘Damn right’ I back Bush use of waterboarding
Raw Story
February 7, 2008
http://youtube.com/watch?v=w2aNncCkSgY
The controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding was a hot topic in a House Judiciary Committee hearing today, at which Attorney General Michael Mukasey said the Justice Department would not investigate the legality of the actions of U.S. interrogators on terror detainees.
CNN’s Situation Room reports that Vice President Dick Cheney, an ardent defender of U.S. tactics in the war on terror, was “defiant” about the use of waterboarding on suspects in an appearance today at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.
Cheney said that he supported President Bush’s national security decisions, which included the approval of waterboarding along with other harsh interrogation tactics. “I’ve been proud to stand by [Bush], by the decisions he’s made,” said Cheney, who then asked aloud, “Would I support those decisions today?”
“You’re damn right I would,” he answered himself, to loud cheers.
CIA Chief: We Waterboarded
ABC News
February 5, 2008
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HnI-mu_l9AQ
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/tort-f07.shtml
Filed under: 9/11, CIA, Congress, Coverup, Detainee, FBI, Fox News, George Bush, Guantanamo, Nancy Pelosi, Propaganda, Torture, waterboarding | Tags: Greg Gutfeld, Jerrold Nadler, Rachel Marsden
House Passes Ban on Waterboarding
Think Progress
December 13, 2007
In a 222-199 vote, the House today passed the FY2008 Intelligence Authorization bill, which bans waterboarding and confines the CIA “to the interrogation tactics permitted by the Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations. Rep. Jerrold Nadler’s (D-NY) remarked, “[This] means no more torture, no more waterboarding, no more clever wordplay, no more evasive answers, no more dishonesty.”
Watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuEmUcNlzNg
Yesterday, 30 retired generals and admirals wrote to Congress and urged lawmakers to ban waterboarding.
Fox News ‘Comedian’ Declares ‘Waterboarding: It’s A Good Thing’
Think Progress
December 12, 2007
In a FoxNews.com column, Greg Gutfeld — host of Fox’s 2 a.m. “dark humor” news show you’ve never heard of — writes this “comedic” defense of waterboarding:
Now, waterboarding might be torture, but as long as people I hate also hate waterboarding, then I love it more than life itself. … So I cherish waterboarding. I want to make it our national sport, our national bird. I want to make the waterboard the state flower of Vermont, instead of the Birkenstock.
For too many conservatives, waterboarding is a big joke to be taken lightly. Rachel Marsden — Gutfeld’s former co-host — claimed waterboarding was simply a “CIA-sponsored swim lesson.” Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) said yesterday that waterboarding is “like swimming, freestyle, backstroke.” Conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds said he’d “be happy to” be waterboarded, and John Ashcroft suggested he’d also be willing to take the dive.
Waterboarding is not “simulated drowning.” It is drowning. As Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and William Delahunt (D-MA) explained, “The victim’s lungs fill with water until the procedure is stopped or the victim dies.” Former Navy survival instruction Malcolm Wrightson Nance explained to Congress:
In my case, the technique was so fast and professional that I didn’t know what was happening until the water entered my nose and throat. … It then pushes down into the trachea and starts the process of respiratory degradation. It is an overwhelming experience that induces horror and triggers frantic survival instincts. As the event unfolded, I was fully conscious of what was happening: I was being tortured.
Perhaps these conservative armchair torture pundits need to follow Daniel Levin’s lead and gain some first-hand enlightenment about waterboarding.
FBI agent threatened to arrest CIA interrogators in 2002.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/13….ators-in-2002/
Bush Threatens to Veto Waterboarding Ban
http://www.seeingtheforest.com/archives/2007/12/199_republicans.htm
Pelosi and Harman Aided and Abetted 9/11 Cover Up
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2007/12/pelosi-a…-911.html
Wikileaks busts Gitmo propaganda team
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks_busts_Gitmo_propaganda_team/?
Fox analyst: Americans not above torture, and shouldn’t be
http://rawstory.com/news/20..tter_than_1213.html
The White House and Congress Knew about the CIA Interrogation Videotapes
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2007/12…ew-of-cia.html
Guantanamo Legal Adviser Refuses To Say Iranians Waterboarding Americans Would Be Torture
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/11/graham-waterboarding-iran/
Filed under: Abu Zubaydah, al-qaeda, Alberto Gonzales, CIA, Congress, Detainee, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Iran, larry johnson, lindsey graham, michael hayden, neocons, obstruction of justice, rockefeller, Senate, Torture, waterboarding, White House
The White House and Congress Knew about the CIA Interrogation Videotapes
George Washington’s Blog
December 12, 2007
According to a former “senior intelligence official”, the White House knew of the existence of the CIA interrogation tapes since 2003, at the very latest, and tacitly approved the destruction of the tapes in 2005.
Indeed, former CIA agent and State Department counterterrorism official Larry Johnson said that it was “highly likely” that President Bush himself had viewed the videotapes of the 2002 interrogations that were later destroyed. Is that why the White House has instructed its spokesperson not to answer any questions on the subject?
And according to the Director of the CIA, Congress was also informed about the existence of the tapes, and — later — of the CIA’s intention to destroy them.
Indeed, Senator Rockefeller has confirmed that the Senate Intelligence Committee knew of the existence of the videotapes in 2003. And Congresswoman Harman has confirmed that the House Intelligence Committee also learned of the existence of the videotapes in 2003. Is that why Senator Rockefeller opposes any real investigation into the destruction of the tapes, saying “I don’t think there’s a need for a special counsel, and I don’t think there’s a need for a special commission”?
The obstruction of justice regarding the tapes appears to have been orchestrated by the very highest levels of the U.S. Government.
Guantanamo Legal Adviser Refuses To Say Iranians Waterboarding Americans Would Be Torture
Think Progress
December 12, 2007
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “The Legal Rights of Guantanamo Detainees” this morning, Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser at Guantanamo Bay, repeatedly refused to call the hypothetical waterboarding of an American pilot by the Iranian military torture. “I’m not equipped to answer that question,” said Hartmann.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who asked the hypothetical, pushed Hartmann on his answer, asking him directly if it would be a “violation of the Geneva Convention”:
GRAHAM: You mean you’re not equipped to give a legal opinion as to whether or not Iranian military waterboarding, secret security agents waterboarding downed airmen is a violation of the Geneva Convention?
HARTMANN: I am not prepared to answer that question, Senator.
After Hartmann twice refused to answer, Graham dismissed him in disgust, saying he had “no further questions.” Watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89cYbggdGVQ
Longer Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jbcWzSVcco
Hartmann’s non-answer is reminiscent of State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger’s refusal in October to condemn “the use of water boarding on an American national by a foreign intelligence service.”
But not every lawyer who’s worked for the Bush administration has been so hesitant to call waterboarding torture.
In 2004, after then-acting assistant attorney general Daniel Levin had himself waterboarded, he concluded that the interrogation technique “could be illegal torture.” For his efforts, “Levin was forced out of the Justice Department when Alberto Gonzales became Attorney General.”
Sen. Graham, a former military judge advocate, has said before that someone doesn’t “have to have a lot of knowledge about the law to understand this technique violates Geneva Convention Common Article Three.”
Let’s (Not) Go to the Videotape!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX_1Qsq0DTM
Related News:
Ex-CIA Larry Johnson: ‘Highly likely’ Bush saw torture tapes
http://billpressmedia.com/highlylikely.mp3
Ex-CIA agent: Waterboarding approved at top levels
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20…co/cia_videotapes
White House Was Ordered Not To Destroy Torture Evidence
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/2007…eotapes_courts
CIA may have more interrogation tapes, detainee’s lawyer suggests
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/White_H…on_of_1211.html
CIA Failed To Inform Congress About Tapes
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2…ecrypt/main3611381.shtml
White House goes ‘no comment’ on CIA video case
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/W…video_c_12102007.html
Former CIA: Waterboarding Useful But Torture
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews…0938320071211
CIA Director To Testify About Destroyed Tapes
http://www.reuters.com/articl…654798320071210?sp=true
Secretly briefed, Pelosi did not object to waterboarding in 2002
http://rawstory.com/news/200…t_to_waterboarding_1209.html
Destroyed CIA torture tapes said to implicate Pakistan and Saudi Royal Family in 9/11 attacks
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ge….destroyed-inter_b_75850.html
Photos Show UK Gitmo Detainee Was Tortured
Man Held By CIA Says He Was Tortured
McCain: No Investigation Needed
Congress Looks Into C.I.A. Obstruction As Calls for Justice Inquiry Rise
‘Well-Informed’ Source Tells CBS That Tapes Were Destroyed To Prevent Prosecution
Lee Hamilton Says the CIA Obstructed the 9/11 Commission
Inquiry into CIA interrogation tapes’ destruction begins
CIA destroyed video of ‘waterboarding’ al-Qaida detainees
C.I.A. Destroyed Tapes of Interrogations
C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations
CIA admits destroying interrogation tapes
Filed under: 2-party system, CIA, George Bush, Guantanamo, House, left right paradigm, Nancy Pelosi, Neolibs, Torture, waterboarding
Secretly briefed, Pelosi did not object to waterboarding in 2002
Pelosi would later boot sole objector to program from chance to chair Intelligence Committee
Raw Story
December 9, 2007
Two senior Republicans and Democrats in Congress — including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — were briefing on the CIA’s program to use waterboarding on terror suspects in September 2002 and did not object, according to Sunday’s Washington Post.
In the long-ranging article, which seemingly takes the lawmakers and the Bush Administration to task by discussing the practice’s emergence in Nazi Germany and other totalitarian states, a Pelosi aide said the Speaker remembered discussion of “enhanced” interrogation techniques and “acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time.”
“In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody,” the Post wrote. “For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.”
“Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill,” the Post added. “But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.”
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 commission, 9/11 Truth, Abu Zubaydah, Afghanistan, al-qaeda, CIA, Detainee, False Flag, Guantanamo, Iran, ISI, John McCain, lee hamilton, michael hayden, neocons, obstruction of justice, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, State Sponsored Terrorism, sunni, Torture, waterboarding, Zacarias Moussaoui
Destroyed CIA torture tapes said to implicate Pakistan and Saudi Royal Family in 9/11 attacks
Huffington Post
December 7, 2007
On December 5, the CIA’s director, General Michael V. Hayden, issued a statement disclosing that in 2005 at least two videotapes of interrogations with al Qaeda prisoners were destroyed. The tapes, which the CIA did not provide to either the 9/11 Commission, nor to a federal court in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, were destroyed, claimed Hayden, to protect the safety of undercover operatives.
Hayden did not disclose one of the al Qaeda suspects whose tapes were destroyed. But he did identify the other. It was Abu Zubaydah, the top ranking terror suspect when he was tracked and captured in Pakistan in 2003. In September 2006, at a press conference in which he defended American interrogation techniques, President Bush also mentioned Abu Zubaydah by name. Bush acknowledged that Zubaydah, who was wounded when captured, did not initially cooperate with his interrogators, but that eventually when he did talk, his information was, according to Bush, “quite important.”
In my 2003 New York Times bestseller, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, I discussed Abu Zubaydah at length in Chapter 19, “The Interrogation.” There I set forth how Zubaydah initially refused to help his American captors. Also, disclosed was how U.S. intelligence established a so-called “fake flag” operation, in which the wounded Zubaydah was transferred to Afghanistan under the ruse that he had actually been turned over to the Saudis. The Saudis had him on a wanted list, and the Americans believed that Zubaydah, fearful of torture and death at the hands of the Saudis, would start talking when confronted by U.S. agents playing the role of Saudi intelligence officers.
Instead, when confronted by his “Saudi” interrogators, Zubaydah showed no fear. Instead, according to the two U.S. intelligence sources that provided me the details, he seemed relieved. The man who had been reluctant to even confirm his identity to his U.S. captors, suddenly talked animatedly. He was happy to see them, he said, because he feared the Americans would kill him. He then asked his interrogators to call a senior member of the Saudi royal family. And Zubaydah provided a private home number and a cell phone number from memory. “He will tell you what to do,” Zubaydah assured them
That man was Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, one of King Fahd’s nephews, and the chairman of the largest Saudi publishing empire. Later, American investigators would determine that Prince Ahmed had been in the U.S. on 9/11.
American interrogators used painkillers to induce Zubaydah to talk — they gave him the meds when he cooperated, and withdrew them when he was quiet. They also utilized a thiopental sodium drip (a so-called truth serum). Several hours after he first fingered Prince Ahmed, his captors challenged the information, and said that since he had disparaged the Saudi royal family, he would be executed. It was at that point that some of the secrets of 9/11 came pouring out. In a short monologue, that one investigator told me was the “Rosetta Stone” of 9/11, Zubaydah laid out details of how he and the al Qaeda hierarchy had been supported at high levels inside the Saudi and Pakistan governments.
He named two other Saudi princes, and also the chief of Pakistan’s air force, as his major contacts. Moreover, he stunned his interrogators, by charging that two of the men, the King’s nephew, and the Pakistani Air Force chief, knew a major terror operation was planned for America on 9/11.
It would be nice to further investigate the men named by Zubaydah, but that is not possible. All four identified by Zubaydah are now dead. As for the three Saudi princes, the King’s 43-year-old nephew, Prince Ahmed, died of either a heart attack or blood clot, depending on which report you believe, after having liposuction in Riyadh’s top hospital; the second, 41-year-old Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, died the following day in a one car accident, on his way to the funeral of Prince Ahmed; and one week later, the third Saudi prince named by Zubaydah, 25-year-old Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, died, according to the Saudi Royal Court, “of thirst.” The head of Pakistan’s Air Force, Mushaf Ali Mir, was the last to go. He died, together with his wife and fifteen of his top aides, when his plane blew up — suspected as sabotage — in February 2003. Pakistan’s investigation of the explosion — if one was even done — has never been made public.
Zubaydah is the only top al Queda operative who has secretly linked two of America’s closest allies in the war on terror — Saudi Arabia and Pakistan — to the 9/11 attacks. Why does Bush, and the CIA, continue to protect the Saudi Royal family and the Pakistani military, from the implications of Zubaydah’s confessions? It is, or course, because the Bush administration desperately needs Pakistani and Saudi help, not only to keep Afghanistan from spinning completely out of control, but also as counterweights to the growing power of Iran. The Sunni governments in Riyadh and Islamabad have as much to fear from a resurgent Iran as does the Bush administration. But does this mean that leads about the origins of 9/11 should not be aggressively pursued? Of course not. But this is precisely what the Bush administration is doing. And now the cover-up is enhanced by the CIA’s destruction of Zubaydah’s interrogation tapes.
The American public deserves no less than the complete truth about 9/11. And those CIA officials now complicit in hiding the truth by destroying key evidence should be held responsible.
Related News:
Man Held By CIA Says He Was Tortured
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/washin…./hArvvL67u7/dpvA
McCain: No Investigation Needed
http://politicalinquirer.com/2007/1…stigation-needed/
Congress Looks Into C.I.A. Obstruction As Calls for Justice Inquiry Rise
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/washi….Uioe%2BjiIYg
‘Well-Informed’ Source Tells CBS That Tapes Were Destroyed To Prevent Prosecution
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/08/cbs-source-tapes/
Lee Hamilton Says the CIA Obstructed the 9/11 Commission
http://www.911blogger.com/node/12894
Inquiry into CIA interrogation tapes’ destruction begins
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Inquiry_…s_1208.html
CIA destroyed video of ‘waterboarding’ al-Qaida detainees
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2223738,00.html
C.I.A. Destroyed Tapes of Interrogations
C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations
CIA admits destroying interrogation tapes
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, 9/11 whistleblowers, Abu Ghraib, colorado, Dissent, Guantanamo, heckled, inside job, Iraq, john ashcroft, Patriot Act, Protest, sibel edmonds, Torture, waterboarding, We Are Change
We Are Change confronts John Ashcroft
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-825912082256624261&hl=en-GB
John Ashcroft: I’m Willing To Be Waterboarded
http://noworldsystem.com/200…g-to-be-waterboarded/
Filed under: 9/11, Abu Ghraib, Dissent, Guantanamo, heckled, Iraq, john ashcroft, Patriot Act, Protest, Torture, waterboarding
John Ashcroft: I’m Willing To Be Waterboarded
Rocky Mountain News
November 28, 2007
Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft on Tuesday night defended the need for the USA Patriot Act, saying that since Sept. 11, 2001, there has been a new “paradigm of peril.”
“The old type of systems allowed to happen to us what happened to us on 9/11,” he said.
Ashcroft spoke to more than 800 students and community members at Macky Auditorium Tuesday night at the University of Colorado.
Members of Students for Peace and Justice staged a silent protest at Ashcroft’s speech, and a number of people heckled Ashcroft, sometimes snorting in derision, at other times shouting challenges. In many cases, the heckler was escorted out of the auditorium by student ushers.
Ashcroft talked about the events that led to the Patriot Act. The day after 9/11, “the president said, ‘Do not let this happen again,’ ” Ashcroft said.
“Let’s look at the law and see what we can do that would help us. We need to think differently, think outside the box . . . never think outside the Constitution.”
When that comment was met with boos, Ashcroft responded: “Whooping and hollering in an auditorium will not get that done.”
Ashcroft said that the Patriot Act “makes perfect sense.”
This is the kind of thing that we have lived comfortably with in fighting organized crime and drug dealers. We hadn’t understood the need . . . to fight against terror.”
Ashcroft also responded to questions from the audience. The first question came from a woman who asked if Ashcroft would be willing to be subjected to waterboarding.
“The things that I can survive, if it were necessary to do them to me, I would do,” he said.
Ashcroft was also asked if he knew during his tenure about abuse in Abu Ghraib prison. “How was I to know what was happening in a prison in Iraq?” he said. “The Justice Department does not run prisons in foreign lands.”
However, he apologized for what did occur there. “I’m sorry about Abu Ghraib – it was hurting the United States,” he said.
Ashcroft also defended the incarceration of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay. “Yes, it’s a good place for them,” he said. “You detain people you don’t want to enter the stream of battle. It’s a new kind of battle: They don’t wear uniforms; they attack civilians.”
Filed under: 9/11 Truth, Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Meyer, code pink, Dissent, florida, Fox News, Geneva Convention, glenn beck, Hillary Clinton, Oppression, pain compliance, police brutality, Police State, Propaganda, Protest, Psyops, Ron Paul, Taser Guns, Torture, waterboarding, We Are Change
Fox Host Says Dissenters Should Be Tased
Kilmead laments that people who confront politicians aren’t “beaten to a pulp,” as establishment continues to sell war on anyone who disagrees with authority
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
November 20, 2007
During a discussion about a Code Pink member heckling Hillary Clinton at a recent event, Fox News host Brian Kilmead said that people who confront politicians are “threatening” and should be Tased or “beaten to a pulp,” as the establishment media continues to sell the idea that anyone who disagrees with authority should be brutally punished.
A segment on the Fox and Friends morning show yesterday turned into an opportunity for Kilmead to share his dictatorial fetish that dissenters be dealt with in the proper manner, as footage aired of Clinton’s heckler being removed from the event by security.
“They should Tase this guy,” Kilmead says. “At one point with security so high and tensions on edge, don’t you think they’re going to get at the very least Tased or beaten to a pulp by somebody? These people look threatening.”
Watch the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj94zmK9JKk
A number of other recent high profile public confrontations were reeled off, some of which involved We Are Change members, to paint a picture of a growing threat that needed to be quashed.
As the screams of tasered University of Florida student Andrew Meyer played in the background, the presenters seemed to react with glee, after which Kilmead concluded, “I would be for Tasing anyone in Code Pink,” adding “I’m pro-Pink Tasing.”
As we have reported in-depth, this is all part of an intimidation campaign to silence dissent as the apparatus of the police state turns against anyone who questions authority.
Since Tasing is all part of “pain compliance,” otherwise known as torture, why not go the whole hog and waterboard these potential terrorists? After all, if Ron Paul supporters are a terrorist threat, as CNN’s Glenn Beck has so enthusiastically pushed recently, then how far should we go to protect America?
If it was good enough for the Nazis to torture their political foes then it’s good enough for us, as Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz made clear last week.
“There are some who claim that torture is a nonissue because it never works — it only produces false information,” wrote Dershowitz in the Wall Street Journal. “This is simply not true, as evidenced by the many decent members of the French Resistance who, under Nazi torture, disclosed the locations of their closest friends and relatives.”
Wonderful – forget about those antiquated Geneva Conventions – let’s use what the Nazis did as a role model for how to conduct ourselves and see where it gets us.
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!
Filed under: Alan Dershowitz, Coup, Detainees, false information, Fascism, Guantanamo, Hitler, Iran, Iraq, Joe Scarborough, military strike, Nazi, Torture, waterboarding, ww4
Alan Dershowitz argues we should torture because it was effective for the Nazis
Here is a snippet from Mr. Dershowitz’s oped piece in the Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2007:
Although I am personally opposed to the use of torture, I have no doubt that any president–indeed any leader of a democratic nation–would in fact authorize some forms of torture against a captured terrorist if he believed that this was the only way of securing information necessary to prevent an imminent mass casualty attack. The only dispute is whether he would do so openly with accountability or secretly with deniability. The former seems more consistent with democratic theory, the latter with typical political hypocrisy.
There are some who claim that torture is a nonissue because it never works–it only produces false information. This is simply not true, as evidenced by the many decent members of the French Resistance who, under Nazi torture, disclosed the locations of their closest friends and relatives.
Dershowitz calls for ‘accountable’ waterboarding, says torture ‘works sometimes’
Raw Story
November 19, 2007
Law professor Alan Dershowitz has become notorious since 2001 for his advocacy of legalizing torture and his insistence that it is fully constitutional as long as it is not used to compel self-incrimination. He has also been arguing since 2004 for a pre-emptive attack on IranLaw professor Alan Dershowitz has become notorious since 2001 for his advocacy of legalizing torture and his insistence that it is fully constitutional as long as it is not used to compel self-incrimination. He has also been arguing since 2004 for a pre-emptive attack on Iran
“I think the people in the United States want to see the Democrats be just as strong but smarter than the Republicans in fighting terrorism, fighting in Iran, fighting Iraq, fighting all the enemies of America,” Dershowitz said Thursday on MSNBC.
“If Democrats do that in order to win, they might be going against what they believe in,” responded MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski. “Perhaps what we really need to be doing is rebuilding our moral standing.”
“I agree,” said Dershowitz. “I think we should take a stand on waterboarding. We should say, never should it be permitted as a routine matter.”
He then cited the hypothetical “ticking bomb” situation, arguing that any leader would order torture under those circumstances, so “we’re just kidding ourselves by putting the issue underneath the table and coming up with extreme statements that we know we would never follow in practice.”
“If you torture, then what separates you from — the Nazis, or somebody else?” asked Brzezinski.
“Every government faced with a ticking bomb would, in fact, torture, and we would do it in order to get information to save lives,” Dershowitz answered. “The essence of a democracy, if you’re going to do something, you have to admit you’re doing it and you have to have control over it and you have to have restrictions on when it can be done. … If it’s going to be done in a democracy, then you have to make everybody accountable for it.”
“It’s been found that torture doesn’t cough up good information at all times,” Brzezinski pointed out.
“That’s just dead wrong,” Dershowitz stammered. “It works sometimes.”
Dershowitz concluded by insisting again that most world leaders would use torture to prevent another 9/11 but would do it “under the table and hide it. That is the worst response for a democracy. The best response is, if you’re going to do something that’s god-awful, like torture, at least acknowledge it.”
The following video is from MSNBC’s Morning Joe, broadcast on November 15, 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss2QxT7-M3U
Here’s What Waterboarding looks like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITJSVQjd9BE
The Road to Guantanamo
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-599098805530677622&hl=en-CA
Thousands protest US torture training
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=31653§i..3510203
Guantanamo document confirms psychological torture
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Guantanamo_document_confirms_psychological_torture
Filed under: 2-party system, Dianne Feinstein, Geneva Convention, left right paradigm, mukasey, Neolibs, Protest, Torture, waterboarding
Dianne Feinstein interrupted during live Interview at CNN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHPcZn_uL-k
Filed under: army, Conditioning, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Jags, Military, mukasey, Propaganda, Psyops, Torture, Troops, waterboarding, White House
US General to School Kids – We Need To Waterboard
AGC
November 2, 2007
Army General Russel Honore said the general public shouldn’t be so quick to condemn the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique.
“I don’t know much about it, but I know we’re dealing with terrorists who do some very awful things to people,” he said after Friday morning’s speech to about 900 students at Flat Rock Middle School in Tyrone. “I know enough about [waterboarding] that the intent is not to kill anybody. We know that terrorists that we deal with, they have no law that they abide by. They have no code, they kill indiscriminately, like they did on 9/11.”
Honore, a no-nonsense three-star who commands the Fort Gillem-based First Army, also spoke of his plans to leave the army in the upcoming months and perhaps teach at a university. The 37-year Army veteran also hinted at a possible future run for political office.
The issue of waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, has been the raging debate surrounding Michael Mukasey, President Bush’s nominee for attorney general.
Mukasey has refused to define the technique — generally described as strapping a detainee down, wrapping his face in a wet towel and dripping water on it to produce the sensation of drowning — as torture during recent congressional testimony.
Torture is considered a war crime by the international community. CIA interrogators are believed to have used waterboarding against detained terror suspects.
Honore, however, emphasized the military will always remain within the limits of the law, but warned that stiffer interrogation methods may sometimes be necessary in the war on terror.
“If we picked up a prisoner that could tell us where the next 9/11 plot was, we could sit there and treat him nice, and that may not work,” he said. “We could sit there and give him water and we could be politically correct.
“But if we have to use sources and methods that get information that not only save American lives, but save other people’s lives or could prevent a major catastrophe from happening, I think the American people can decide [whether to allow waterboarding].”
Honore became a national folk hero of sorts in 2005 after taking command of the government’s embarrassingly slow response to the devastated residents of the Gulf Coast in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin once described him as “a John Wayne dude who gets things done.”
That applies to fighting the war on terror as well.
“As long as we’re responsible for hunting those SOBs down, finding them and preventing them from killing our sons and daughters,” Honore said, “I think we’ve got an obligation to do what the hell we’ve got to do to make sure we get the mission done.”
Retired JAGs Send Letter To Leahy: “Waterboarding is inhumane, it is torture, and it is illegal.”
http://www.crooksandliars.com..torture-and-it-is-illegal/
Bush Administration Blocked Waterboarding Critic
http://noworldsystem.com/2007/…ocked-waterboarding-critic/
Filed under: Alberto Gonzales, Chuck Schumer, Donald Rumsfeld, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, John Bolton, mukasey, Torture, waterboarding, White House
Bush Administration Blocked Waterboarding Critic
Former DOJ Official Tested the Method Himself, in Effort to Form Torture Policy
ABC
November 2, 2007
A senior Justice Department official, charged with reworking the administration’s legal position on torture in 2004 became so concerned about the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding that he decided to experience it firsthand, sources told ABC News.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcO3gRhCihc
Daniel Levin, then acting assistant attorney general, went to a military base near Washington and underwent the procedure to inform his analysis of different interrogation techniques.
After the experience, Levin told White House officials that even though he knew he wouldn’t die, he found the experience terrifying and thought that it clearly simulated drowning.
Levin, who refused to comment for this story, concluded waterboarding could be illegal torture unless performed in a highly limited way and with close supervision. And, sources told ABC News, he believed the Bush Administration had failed to offer clear guidelines for its use.
Bush Administration Blocked Critic
The administration at the time was reeling from an August 2002 memo by Jay Bybee, then the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, which laid out possible justifications for torture. In June 2004, Levin’s predecessor at the office, Jack Goldsmith, officially withdrew the Bybee memo, finding it deeply flawed.
When Levin took over from Goldsmith, he went to work on a memo that would effectively replace the Bybee memo as the administration’s legal position on torture. It was during this time that he underwent waterboarding.
In December 2004, Levin released the new memo. He said, “Torture is abhorrent” but he went on to say in a footnote that the memo was not declaring the administration’s previous opinions illegal. The White House, with Alberto Gonzales as the White House counsel, insisted that this footnote be included in the memo.
But Levin never finished a second memo imposing tighter controls on the specific interrogation techniques. Sources said he was forced out of the Justice Department when Gonzales became attorney general.
Critics Decry Waterboarding as Torture
Critics say waterboarding should never be used.
According to retired Rear Adm. John Hutson, “There is no question this is torture — this is a technique by which an individual is strapped to a board, elevated by his feet and either dunked into water or water poured over his face over a towel or a blanket.”
The legal justification of waterboarding has come to the forefront in the debate swirling around Michael B. Mukasey’s nomination for attorney general.
While Democrats are pressing him to declare waterboarding illegal, he has refused to do so. He calls it personally “repugnant,” but he is unwilling to declare it illegal until he can see the classified information regarding the technique and its current use.
U.S. weighs plan for closing Guantanamo
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSB31892920071104
Book Traces Torture To Rumsfeld & Bush
http://www.fmnn.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=51012
Benchmarking Schumer on John Bolton and Mukasey/Addington
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002475.php
U.S. weighs plan for closing Guantanamo
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSB31892920071104
Here’s what waterboarding looks like
http://current.com/pods/controversy/PD04399
Mukasey: Waterboarding is Torture if it’s Torture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt8v_GAgOK4
Video: What Happens in Guantanamo Bay?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1403370850111668271&hl=en
Filed under: Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, human rights, kaj larsen, mukasey, Oppression, Torture, War On Terror, waterboarding
Here’s what waterboarding looks like
A Lesson For Mukasey: Why I Had Myself Water-Boarded
Kaj Larsen
Huffington Post
October 31, 2007
As a journalist for Current TV, a former military officer, and a student of public policy I have been involved in the debate about the War on Terror from the frontlines in Afghanistan to the policy discussions of academia. In the spring of 2006 a battle was brewing between the Bush Administration and some influential members of Congress over the use coercive interrogation techniques. The conflict over what techniques were legally and morally permissible had been a subtext of the War on Terror for years, but for the most part the debate was occurring inside of the intelligence community, the human rights community, and in small legal circles. It was outside the purview of the American public.
By April of 2006 the debate about coercive interrogation and its most controversial technique, water-boarding, had started to spill into the headlines. I was in graduate school at the time. As I watched the debate unfold, and listened to both pundits and policymakers give their opinion on whether this technique constituted torture, I was struck by the strangeness of the debate. All of these people were lobbying opinions about a subject they had never seen or witnessed, and that struck me as problematic in a healthy democracy. See, in full disclosure I had a unique knowledge of water-boarding. I had the technique performed on me during my time in the service as part of my SERE training (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape). I, like all Special Forces operatives who deploy overseas, was sent to a training camp where we learned to resist interrogation and survive captivity, god forbid that ever happened to us overseas. Ironically, one of the many techniques we learned during this training was to assert our rights as told under Article III of the Geneva Convention. So, because I was familiar with water-boarding, I was intrigued by this national conversation that was going on about this thing that few people really understood. But, like many Americans, the pre-occupations of everyday life, for me the pressure of mid-terms and exams, pushed the controversy to the back of my mind.
Then, in mid March I traveled to Cambodia for Spring Break. While there I visited the Tuol Sleng (also known as S-21) prison in Phnom Penh. The Tuol Sleng prison had been converted to a museum and memorial for the victims of the Cambodian Genocide under the Pol Pot regime. As I walked through the museum and saw the photographs of the victims of the genocide, I was shocked to see a picture of the Khmer Rouge Water-boarding a Cambodian villager. At that moment I saw a throughline between the debate we were having domestically and the picture I was standing in front of. I was spurred into action, and upon my return to the United States, I decided to have myself water-boarded, this time on national TV, as a public service, so that this controversial technique could be judged in the court of public opinion.
Mukasey: Waterboarding is Torture if it’s Torture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt8v_GAgOK4
The Guantanamo Guidebook (2005)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1403370850111668271&hl=en
Filed under: Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Alberto Gonzales, CIA, Congress, Detainees, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, House, Iraq, John McCain, michael hayden, Torture, War On Terror, waterboarding, White House
Bush says U.S. ‘does not torture people’
President responds to report that 2005 memo relaxed interrogation rules
MSNBC
October 5, 2007
WASHINGTON – President Bush defended his administration’s detention and interrogation policies for terrorism suspects on Friday, saying they are both successful and lawful.
“When we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we’re going to detain them, and you bet we’re going to question them,” he said during a hastily called appearance in the Oval Office. “The American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That’s our job.”
Bush was referring to a report on two secret memos in 2005 that authorized extreme interrogation tactics against terror suspects. “This government does not torture people,” the president said.
The two Justice Department legal opinions were disclosed in Thursday’s editions of The New York Times, which reported that the first 2005 legal opinion authorized the use of head slaps, freezing temperatures and simulated drownings, known as waterboarding, while interrogating terror suspects, and was issued shortly after then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took over the Justice Department.
That secret opinion, which explicitly allowed using the painful methods in combination, came months after a December 2004 opinion in which the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” and the administration seemed to back away from claiming authority for such practices.
A second Justice opinion was issued later in 2005, just as Congress was working on an anti-torture bill. That opinion declared that none of the CIA’s interrogation practices would violate the rules in the legislation banning “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of detainees, The Times said, citing interviews with unnamed current and former officials.
“We stick to U.S. law and international obligations,” the president said, without taking questions afterward.
‘Highly trained professionals’
White House and Justice Department press officers have said the 2005 opinions did not reverse the 2004 policy.
Bush, speaking emphatically, noted that “highly trained professionals” conduct any questioning. “And by the way,” he said, “we have gotten information from these high-value detainees that have helped protect you.”
He also said that the techniques used by the United States “have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress” — an indirect slap at the torrent of criticism that has flowed from the Democratic-controlled Congress since the memos’ disclosure.
“The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack,” Bush said. “And that’s exactly what this government is doing. And that’s exactly what we’ll continue to do.”
The 2005 opinions approved by Gonzales remain in effect despite efforts by Congress and the courts to limit interrogation practices used by the government in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The authorizations came after the withdrawal of an earlier classified Justice opinion, issued in 2002, that had allowed certain aggressive interrogation practices so long as they stopped short of producing pain equivalent to experiencing organ failure or death. That controversial memo was withdrawn in June 2004.
The dispute may come down to how the Bush administration defines torture, or whether it allowed U.S. interrogators to interpret anti-torture laws beyond legal limits. CIA spokesman George Little said the agency sought guidance from the Bush administration and Congress to make sure its program to detain and interrogate terror suspects followed U.S. law.
Democrats want memos
Senate and House Democrats have demanded to see the memos.
“Why should the public have confidence that the program is either legal or in the best interests of the United States?” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., wrote in a letter to the acting attorney general.
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., promised a congressional inquiry.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he was “personally assured by administration officials that at least one of the techniques allegedly used in the past, waterboarding, was prohibited under the new law.”
A White House spokesman, meanwhile, criticized the leak of such information to the news media and questioned the motivations of those who do so.
“It’s troubling,” Tony Fratto said Friday. “I’ve had the awful responsibility to have to work with The New York Times and other news organizations on stories that involve the release of classified information. And I can tell you that every time I’ve dealt with any of these stories, I have felt that we have chipped away at the safety and security of America with the publication of this kind of information.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kWGwOVuLBY
CIA detention program still active: official
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenew….TERROGATIONS.xml
White House Says US Does Not Torture
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/news/2007/intell-071004-voa01.htm
The Guantanamo Guidebook (2005)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1403370850111668271&hl=en
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