Tag: Torture (page 4)

News is out about a 2007 secret report by Red Cross officials who visited the 14 "high-value" detainees transferred to Gitmo after stays in CIA secret black hole prison.

The 14 detainees, who had previously been kept in isolation in CIA prisons overseas, gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding, or simulating drowning.

Read the details about Abu Zubaydah and the others. The take-away from the report: [More...].

Huffington Post has an exclusive interview with Yemen citizen Mohamed Farag Bashmilah:

From October 2003 until May 2005, I was illegally detained by the U.S. government and held in CIA-run "black sites" with no contact with the outside world. On May 5, 2005, without explanation, my American captors removed me from my cell and cuffed, hooded, and bundled me onto a plane that delivered me to Sana'a, Yemen. I was transferred into the custody of my own government, which held me -- apparently at the behest of the United States -- until March 27, 2006, when I was finally released, never once having faced any terrorism-related charges.

He's never gotten an explanation and all of his attempts to obtain documentation have been ignored or rejected. Why is he coming forward at Huffpo today? As part of an effort underway to get President Obama to establish a commission. [More...]

Scott Horton in Harper's writes about former Guantanamo prison guard Brandon Neely's "tell-all" about his experience. Neely was a guard during the first year of Gitmo. Bottom line: Neely says "“The stuff I did and the stuff I saw was just wrong.”

You can read Neely's 15,000 word version (put together by law students at the University of California) here.

Horton says three things stood out to him: [More...]

Just a few weeks ago, liberals hailed the selection of Leon Panetta for Director of the CIA - mcjoan described him as "a[s] much of a departure from torture as you could want."  It looked like the ticking time bomb hypothetical was on its way out.  Obama at the announcement of Panetta for D/CIA said "We must adhere to our values as diligently as we protect our safety with no exceptions."

Unless, that is, someone asks us a hard question in a confirmation hearing.

Binyan Mohamed's allegations of torture while at Guantanamo are making their way through the British courts. In a joint ruling, two British Judges issued a ruling blasting the U.S. for not releasing evidence that would show if British agents were complicit in torturing Mohammed and for threatening Britain.

The ruling implies that torture has taken place in the Mohamed case, that British agencies may have been complicit, and most important of all, that the United States Government has threatened our High Courts that if it releases this information, the US Government will withdraw its intelligence co-operation with the United Kingdom on matters of security.

More...

On the subject of the CIA, Digby writes a very good piece on torture - referring to a piece by BTD "Why The Torture Issue Can't Be Swept Under the Rug."  To quote mutual source Hayden from the LA Times again:

"These techniques worked," Hayden said of the agency's interrogation program during a farewell session with reporters who cover the CIA. "One needs to be very careful" about eliminating CIA authorities, he said, because "if you create barriers to doing things . . . there's no wink, no nod, no secret handshake. We won't do it."

For the first time, a Bush Administration official has admitted a Guantanamo detainee was tortured.

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

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Spencer Ackerman links to me today in his piece, "Do We Really Have to Call Steve Kappes a Torturer?" He picks up on the central charge of my post, that Kappes signed off on the rendition of Abu Omar. He writes as follows:

"The most serious charge against Kappes, as best I can tell, comes from his role in the abduction and rendition of Abu Omar, the Egyptian cleric taken by the CIA off the streets of Milan and tortured in Egypt. A 2007 article from The Chicago Tribune about the rendition reports briefly that Kappes was "one of those who signed off on the Abu Omar abduction." (h/t TalkLeft.) No doubt that's troubling. Extraordinary rendition is legally and morally problematic. Italy is prosecuting in absentia the CIA agents involved in the Abu Omar rendition."

The Power of One
by Nightprowlkitty, Docudharma, December 26, 2008
Also at Docudharma, Daily Kos, My Left Wing, Open Left, They gave us a republic, Show Me Progress, The Sanctuary, Edgeing and OOIBC

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Give Bush and Cheney a fair trial -- something they have not bothered with since they stole office.

It's funny how the powers that be in the media and government are running around with their big fat excuses as to why we can't hold these criminals accountable for their crimes.  It all boils down to "It's too hard!!!"

It's too hard.  It would affect too many people.  It would interfere with the crucial work of restoring our economy.  Blah blah blah.  Not one of these folks say, however, that no crime has been committed, no law has been broken.  No one says that.

I find that stunning.  We all know, at least those of us who have been paying attention, that Bush and his crew of crooks have broken the law over and over again.

And Cheney says "What you gonna do about it?"  And Cheney says "oh, the Dems knew about this and approved it, hell they wanted us to be even tougher than we were!"

And we should believe Cheney ... why?

I don't want speculation any more.  I want the truth, the facts, what really happened.  Only a special prosecutor can get that information, someone who is inured to the politics of Washington D.C. by being given the independent power to investigate.

It has been reported (here and here) that Stephen Kappes, current Deputy Director of the CIA, is a leading candidate for Director of the CIA under President-Elect Barack Obama. The NY Daily News goes so far as to say that "Some Democrats on Capitol Hill have strongly advocated" the nomination of Kappes.

Critics of the bloggers who were against John Brennan's nomination to a top intelligence position frequently whined that he was getting a bad rap (see Greenwald's article "The CIA and its reporter friends: Anatomy of a backlash"). One critic goes so far as to say "Brennan's hands were not very dirty at all. He was apparently thrown under the bus because some ill-informed bloggers thought they were [dirty] and the transition folks didn't have the will to explain that they were wrong." (as quoted by Greenwald from Jeff Stein's CQ article).

Let's see how they choose to defend Stephen Kappes. There can be no vague denials that Kappes had dirty hands - at his feet rests the responsibility for the bungled and unnecessary rendition of Muslim cleric Osama Mustafa Hasan Nasr aka Abu Omar.

In Glenn Greenwald's recent Salon article, "Some observations after being involved in a Fox News report," he discusses his attempt to set the record straight when it comes to the left blogs' John Brennan critique. I believe he is mostly right when he says:

"Specifically, the case against John Brennan as CIA Director - from the beginning - was based almost exclusively on comments he made on television, after he left the CIA, in which he supported rendition and what he called 'enhanced interrogation tactics.'" [bolding Greenwald's]

That was indeed the basis for the Brennan critique. John Brennan, basically, did this to himself - he was the one who stood up and acted as a mouthpiece for the Bush administration's tactics. The mass media doesn't understand this for some reason. Despite the fact that Brennan's statements are out there for the world to see, the MSM did little to present them to their viewers/readers.  But even if Brennan hadn't put his foot in his mouth, I believe he would've been, by virtue of his former place in the chain of command, disqualifed for the CIA Director position.

Crossposted from Docudharma


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"The Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendements to the Constitution of the United States prohibit cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment."

With that sentence begins the documentary film "Torturing Democracy", a documentary to be aired on PBS television stations nationwide on January 21st, 2009, one day after President Bush leaves office.

One day after President Bush leaves office will be the first day of President-Elect Barack Obama's new administration.

Between today and that day, we have a date with Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder and President-Elect Barack Obama. Everyday.

As netizens reading this at the founding site of the Citizens Petition for a Special Prosecutor to Investigate and Prosecute Bush War Crimes we have a date every day with those two men as we work to generate as many signatures to the petition that we can possibly generate to bring the war criminals in the Bush administration to justice. Principally Mr. Bush himself, Vice President Richard Cheney, and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. They were the leaders. The instigators. And the approvers. But there are many others as well, and they all deserve fair trials. it is the very least we can do for them, and for the world.

These crimes are being euphemistically referred to as "abusive interrogation techniques" by such respected figures as Senator John McCain. These are euphemisms for torture. Torture is a War Crime. Waterboarding is a War Crime. The CIA has admitted waterboarding detainees. Recently, Vice President Cheney has brazenly admitted authorizing the program that led to waterboarding, other forms of torture too numerous to list, and ultimately, the deaths by homicide of detainees.

As is often the case, we are because of our insatiable interest, curiosity and determination to be as well informed as we can be, much farther ahead of the millions of people who will see Torturing Democracy on January 21st, 2009.

Before the PBS broadcast the documentary in its entirety can be viewed at TorturingDemocracy.org

This short intro video is the first eight and a half minutes of the full documentary. You can watch the full program at the link above.