Senate report on CIA torture claims spy agency lied about 'ineffective' program

Senate report on CIA torture claims spy agency lied about 'ineffective' program

Report released by Senate after four-year, $40m investigation concludes CIA repeatedly lied abou

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/cia-torture-report-released

By: Spencer Ackerman, Dominic Rushe, and Julian Borger
Date:

The full extent of the CIA’s interrogation and detention programmes launched in the wake of the September 11 terror attack was laid bare in a milestone report by the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday that concluded the agency’s use of torture was brutal and ineffective – and that the CIA repeatedly lied about its usefulness.

The report represented the most scathing congressional indictment of the Central Intelligence Agency in nearly four decades. It found that torture “regularly resulted in fabricated information,” said committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, in a statement summarizing the findings. She called the torture programme “a stain on our values and on our history”.

“During the brutal interrogations, the CIA was often unaware the information was fabricated.” She told the Senate the torture program was “morally, legally and administratively misguided” and “far more brutal than people were led to believe”.

The report reveals that use of torture in secret prisons run by the CIA across the world was even more extreme than previously exposed, and included “rectal rehydration” and “rectal feeding”, sleep deprivation lasting almost a week and threats to the families of the detainees.

Federal judge allows former CIA detainees to sue over torture

Federal judge allows former CIA detainees to sue over torture

http://www.latimes.com/world/afghanistan-pakistan/la-na-cia-torture-lawsuit-20160422-story.html

By: Brian Bennett
Date: 2016-04-22

For the first time, a federal judge is letting a civil lawsuit proceed against two CIA contract psychologists who designed and supervised brutal interrogation tactics that critics called torture.

The ruling allows two former CIA detainees and the family of another who died in agency custody to try to win damages in federal court for the abuse they suffered at then-secret CIA prisons in the early 2000s.

In a ruling from the bench at federal district court in Spokane, Wash., Senior Judge Justin L. Quackenbush said he would deny a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against James E. Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. 

CIA Chief Who Did Nothing to Stop Waterboarding Now Says He'd Quit if Agency Asked to Resume

Clerk Note: Torture, known to be ineffectual, is one of the hypocritical favorites of supposedly Christian leaders. Coming to a police department near you, if Trump has his way.

+++

CIA Chief Who Did Nothing to Stop Waterboarding Now Says He'd Quit if Agency Asked to Resume

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/07/14/cia-chief-who-did-nothing-stop-waterboarding-now-says-hed-quit-if-agency-asked

By: Nika Knight
Date: 2016-07-14

CIA director John Brennan on Wednesday vowed to resign if he was ordered by the next president to have the CIA resume waterboarding detainees—but the agency could still take up the practice.

Juvenile Justice Military Style

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

http://humanraceandothersports.com/columns/542#comment

Juvenile Justice Military Style

O neglectful nature, wherefore art thou thus partial, becoming to some of thy children a tender and benignant mother, to others a most cruel and ruthless stepmother?
— Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks

It’s a valuable lesson we’re being taught by the administration. We are learning that 15-year olds may be treated as adults when they misbehave if those pretending to be adults believe that is appropriate punishment for the children. We are learning that 15-year olds may be punished as adults even though they are not old enough to drive, drink, vote, or do any of the other fun things that adults get to do. And that’s not all we, and Omar Khadr, are learning.

We are learning that even if you are at war with someone and are on the battlefield, if you kill someone you have been taught to believe is your enemy and get caught, you may be charged with murder and other crimes.

That is going to come as a surprise to lots of people in the military who thought it was OK to shoot and kill the person you believe to be your enemy when you are on the battlefield. Indeed, it is even OK to kill your friends so long as you don’t do it on purpose. Omar Khadr is teaching us about 15-year olds. Pat Tillman’s death has taught us about the lack of consequences of killing your friends.

Proposal Would Delay Hearings in Terror Cases

Vatic Note: If anyone has been following the ACLU, I don't believe, in reality, that Anthony Romero opposes anything Obama does, lip service only. I believe for the left, that plants have been inserted into these organizations, just like the NRA on the right. They have been taken over and coopted. Everytime you see the phrase "Obama is considering asking Congress", Just change it to "Obama and congress have been TOLD to do this" by their owners the international bankers and Israel (Joe Lieberscum, PHD in Treason). This issue is just another "frog in the slow heating pot of water" and we are not suppose to notice and as CLG, Lori Price so appropriately put it "It's the Obusha 'Friday Night Extra-constitutional Bad News Dump' -- so big, the dumping actually crossed into Saturday morning!" She does have a good sense of the sublime, doesn't she? What this is indicatiing is that our Bill of Rights has almost been completely gutted and all that is left is the first amendment and the second amendment, that was passed by our founding fathers to protect that first Amendment, so watch for that as it will be a signal that we have to get off our duffs and begin the process of claiming back our civil liberties and protections from just such tyrants as we see occupying our Government. They are still torturing that poor guy who it turns out is innocent but that is another story, and they are keeping him in serious INHUMANE CONDITIONS in a box without leg room or light.


I have to say, I had hoped Obama would not show the same inhumane soul as his predecessor, but I should have guessed otherwise when he selected the mossad agent as his chief of staff, Rahm. Obama is CIA as we have been shown after his Occidental University so called attendance and joined the CIA for work in Pakistan and Afghanistan, so what we are seeing here, is, OUR COUNTRY IS BEING RUN BY THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES and foreign occupying agents of another country  through their banking system. Its finally coming together. I can't imagine how things could be any different than they are when you have those "perfect storm" conditions that promote the chaos and war that is going on, since both agencies and Israel are all trained to do nothing but that for their occupations and way of running their own country. Its why they will never run the world, since they lack fundamentals to do so successfully. What else did we expect.

SOLUTION: Carry a copy of the Miranda rights with you and offer them to the police to use in compliance with the Bill of Rights, and ask them to not support illegal laws and give you your rights and see if it works, then if they do not, REMEMBER THEIR NAMES and keep them hard in your mind and when its over, write them down and pass them along to everyone you know in your community along with a list of what they did in violation of their oath of office, its becoming apparent that we are going to have to do what Alexander Solzeneitzen said and that is to turn the tables back on them and make them understand what they are doing will not be a free ride and could and will cost them in the end. Then their choices become a lot harder to make than they are right now where its so easy since we are so still in shock over what we are seeing. Time to reach down into that healthy anger and begin turning the tables. Anyone associated with someone treated that way also take that info of WHO DID IT on the police force and cooperated with the tyrants and traitors and have that passed on and tell everyone to keep passing that information on and on, REMEMBER, THEY LIVE AMONG US, THEY ARE OUR NEIGHBORS AND THEY ARE NOT IMMUNE TO CONSEQUENCES FOR THEIR CHOICES IN ALL OF THIS. JUST ASK THEIR WIVES, CHILDREN, PARENTS, SISTERS, BROTHERS, FRIENDS, AND NEIGHBORS AND SEE IF THEY CAN'T TALK SOME SENSE INTO THEM.

Proposal Would Delay Hearings in Terror Cases
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/us/politics/15miranda.html

By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Source to Vatic: CLG Newsletter, Lori Price, Editor
Published: May 14, 2010

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s legal advisers are considering asking Congress to allow the government to detain terrorism suspects longer after their arrests before presenting them to a judge for an initial hearing, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions.

Anthony Romero, of the A.C.L.U., opposes the plan.

The Caucus

The latest on President Obama, his administration and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion.

More Politics News

If approved, the idea to delay hearings would be attached to broader legislation to allow interrogators to withhold Miranda warnings from terrorism suspects for lengthy periods, as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. proposed last week.

The goal of both measures would be to open a window of time after an arrest in which interrogators could question (VN:  Torture) a(n American) terrorism suspect without an interruption that might cause the prisoner to stop talking. It is not clear how long of a delay the administration is considering seeking.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the proposal is still being developed, cautioned that it was not clear what the final proposal would include. Several aides to leading Democratic members of Congress said the administration had not approached their offices for detailed discussions of the matter, and the administration declined to comment on the internal deliberations.

Benjamin Wittes, a terrorism policy specialist at the Brookings Institution, said the issue of the timing of a Miranda warning was generating much more political attention because people were familiar with Miranda rights from television shows. But, he said, the need for an early “presentment” hearing is even more likely to disrupt an interrogation (VN:  Torture session) because it involves transporting a suspect to a courtroom for a formal proceeding.

U.S. soldier 'waterboarded his own daughter, 4, because she couldn't recite alphabet'

Vatic Note:   This is the condition the military is sending our men home to us.   Trust me, this is way worse than Viet Nam.   We had post traumatic Stress Disorder back then but at lease they got treatment if they sought it,  not so today.    This is truly a scandel and an example of how they are a danger to their loved ones without that treatment that the VA is refusing to give them.  What has happened to our leaders that they have no humanity about the suffering of those who fought for their greed and satanic agenda.  They definitely have the advantage over us because they completely lack a soul.  

U.S. soldier 'waterboarded his own daughter, 4, because she couldn't recite alphabet'


By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 7:12 AM on 8th February 20, 2010


A soldier waterboarded his four-year-old daughter because she was unable to recite her alphabet.
Joshua Tabor admitted to police he had used the CIA torture technique because he was so angry.

As his daughter 'squirmed' to get away, Tabor said he submerged her face three or four times until the water was lapping around her forehead and jawline.

Tabor, 27, who had won custody of his daughter only four weeks earlier, admitted choosing the punishment because the girl was terrified of water.   Human rights activists demonstrate waterboarding in front of the Justice Department. A soldier father stands accused of waterboarding his daughter because she couldn't recite the alphabet

The practice of waterboarding was used by the CIA to break Al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Detainees had water poured over their face until they feared they would drown. President Barack Obama has since outlawed the practice.

Tabor, a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Washington, was arrested after being seen walking around his neighbourhood wearing a Kevlar military helmet and threatening to break windows.

Police discovered the alleged waterboarding when they went to his home in the Tacoma suburb of Yelm and spoke to his girlfriend.

She told them about the alleged torture and the terrified girl was found hiding in a closet, with bruising on her back and scratch marks on her neck and throat.  Asked how she got the bruises, the girl is said to have replied: 'Daddy did it.'

During a police interview Tabor allegedly admitted grabbing his daughter, placing her on the kitchen counter and submerging her face into a bowl of water. Sergeant Rob Carlson said the punishment was carried out because the girl would not recite the alphabet.

Police have not revealed Tabor's military service, but his base is home to units that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.   Tabor has been charged with assault and ordered to remain on his base and have no contact with his daughter or girlfriend, who has not been named. He is due to appear in court this week.

The girl has been taken into care. Her natural mother lives in Kansas but Tabor had been granted custody by a court.

---

The article is reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and is for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

Not Just Guantanamo: US Torturing Muslim Pretrial Detainee in New York City

Title:    Not Just Guantanamo: US Torturing Muslim Pretrial Detainee in New York City
http://www.truthout.org/not-just-guantanamo-us-torturing-muslim-pretrial-detainee-new-york-city58304
By:   Bill Quigley, t r u t h o u t

Report
Date:   April 5, 2010

Today, in New York City, the US is torturing a Muslim detainee with no prior criminal record who has not even gone to trial.


For the last almost three years, Syed Fahad Hashmi has been kept in total pretrial isolation inside in a small cell under 24-hour video and audio surveillance. He is forced to use the bathroom and shower in full view of the video. He has not seen the sun in years. He takes his meals alone in his cell. He cannot see any other detainees and he is not allowed to communicate in any way with any prisoners. He cannot write letters to friends and he cannot make calls to anyone but his lawyer. He is prohibited from participating in group prayer. He gets newspapers that are 30 days old with sections cut out by the government. One hour a day, he is taken into another confined room where he is also kept in total isolation.

Children are taught that the US Constitution protects people accused of crimes. No one is to be punished unless their guilt or innocence has been decided in a fair trial. Until trial, people are entitled to the presumption of innocence. They are entitled to be defended by an attorney of their choice. And the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

The punishment of Hashmi has been going on for years while he has been waiting for trial. In addition to the punitive isolation he is subjected to today, he was denied the attorney of his choice. He was allowed only counsel investigated and preapproved by the government. He is not allowed to look at any translated documents unless the translator is preapproved by the government. He is not allowed any contact with the media at all. One member of his family can visit through the heavy screen for one hour every other week unless the government takes away those visits to further punish him. The government took away his family visits for 90 days when he was observed shadow boxing in his cell and talked back to the guard who asked what he was doing.

Study: Magnetic Waves Alter Moral Compass - Part IV (Tavistock group)

Vatic Note:   This was put up for several reasons.   First of all MIT is heavily connected to the Tavistock Group, (See Vatic series on Tavistock Institute and Mind control) even though they are a thoroughly American Institute, they are subservient to the needs of Tavistock and you can check out the connect here     http://www.educate-yourself.org/nwo/nwotavistockbestkeptsecret.shtml   Scroll down the page until you see the MIT segment and its connection to Tavistock.    The Second reason this was put up is the potential impact of systemic use of HARP on our psychi's and the implications of that use to whole populations social structure based on cultural moral compass.   It has to be asked,  "how could Americans so readily accept Torture of little children and others when they never had before?"   It is sufficient to ask the question, in light of this information.   Please just keep all this in mind and over time, we may be able to connect the dots.  Follow a long and stay in touch. Was our use of torture on our bogus enemies experimental for mind control?  Remember, a Bush White House staffer exposed the fact that most in Gitmo were innocent.  Its why they had to use the military tribunals to cover up the fact these were guinie pigs and not real terrorists.   I keep remembering the panty bomber who was in GITMO, released per Cheney and then not on the Watch list.   Lots to connect here.     
Part I
Part II
Part III

Title:   Study: Magnetic Waves Alter Moral Compass

MIT Researchers Find That Magnetic Pulses Directed at Brain http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/30/tech/main6347079.shtml
By:   By Alex Sundby,  CBS News
Date:    04/2010  

A device that emits an invisible beam affecting a person's ability to tell right from wrong might sound like the kind of weapon a comic book villain would use to wreak havoc around the world.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say such a device allowed them to observe the effects magnetic rays have on a person's sense of morality.

In a new study, volunteers were subjected to magnetic pulses just above and behind of the right ear, focusing on the area of the brain believed to be the area controlling morality. The pulses were intended to block cell activity that contributed to the volunteers' sense of right and wrong.

MIT's researchers explain the study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"You think of morality as being a really high-level behavior," Dr. Liane Young, the study's lead researcher, told the British Broadcasting Corporation. "To be able to apply a magnetic field to a specific brain region and change people's moral judgments is really astonishing."

To see what effect a 500 millisecond magnetic pulse had, researchers gave the 20 volunteers a series of tests. In one test, the volunteers were given an ethical dilemma: should a man let his girlfriend walk across a bridge he knew wasn't safe?

The volunteers based their answers on how the scenario played out. If the girlfriend crossed with bridge safely, the man wasn't at fault. The volunteers based their decision on the outcome of the dilemma, not the moral principle, because of the magnetic pulse, the researchers wrote.

In another test, volunteers were exposed to 25 minutes of weak electric currents that prevent brain cells from functioning normally. They then had to read stories about morally questionable characters and judge whether the characters' actions caused harm. Researchers found that the volunteers accepted morally dubious actions that resulted in a "happy" ending.

IS THERE A CONNECTION TO HAARP?

Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney Fearmonger in a Desperate Neocon Plot to Take Over Washington

Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney Fearmonger in a Desperate Neocon Plot to Take Over Washington

By Matthew Duss, The Nation

Posted on March 21, 2010

I'm sure not many fathers think about whether their children will defend them one day from accusations that they ordered torture. Dick Cheney would probably be one of the few who has--and how nice that he got that lucky. Since her father left office, Liz Cheney has been his most visible and effective advocate. She's given speeches at conservative gatherings, written op-eds for publications like the Wall Street Journal and made dozens of television appearances, all aimed at defending her father's record and carrying his standard. And occasionally she finds herself having to claim that a technique developed by torturers as a method of torture (waterboarding) was not really torture when her father approved it.

To a lesser extent than his daughter, but still at an unprecedented level for a former vice president, Dick Cheney has also taken a highly public role, popping up regularly to attack the Obama administration's national security decisions. This past May, explaining her father's inordinately high profile, Liz said on MSNBC, "I don't think he planned to be doing this, you know, when they left office in January," but the administration's policy shifts, as well as the concern that "perhaps [Obama] would even be prosecuting former members of the Bush administration," had necessitated the former VP's re-emergence. During this period, the Washington Monthly's Steve Benen counted "12 appearances, in nine and a half days, spanning four networks" for the younger Cheney.

The right's most famous father-daughter act has also been active behind the scenes. Liz has allied with neoconservative mover Bill Kristol to found Keep America Safe, infamous of late for its ads attacking as traitorous Justice Department lawyers who once "represented or advocated for terrorist detainees." The ad was so scurrilous that even Republican lawyers and Bush administration officials like former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former Solicitor General Ted Olson condemned it. But whatever blowback the neocon attack machine may suffer for this particular overreach, the "Department of Jihad" smear is nonetheless a startling declaration that they just don't give a damn. (After all, what's a bit of rank dishonesty in an effort to head off almost certain Islamofascist doom?) With the Cheneys on board, neocons have become increasingly brazen in their accusations that President Obama is "inviting the next attack" by not sufficiently embracing the fact that "we are at war."

Banned in 160 Nations… Yet U.S. FDA Regards it as Safe?

Vatic Note:  One of the places where all of us are under attack, besides those that are obvious, is our very surivival needs in the area of Water, Food, and air.   All of these are under attack, through GMO's seeds, Chemtrail poisoning,  illegal and legal drugs in our water supply along with much much more, including chemical poisoning of our bodies.   Vatic has decided to start two programs this Friday, the first is a column on Social Credit to be run Friday, each week for our education and consideration for when we experience the coming collapse and the other is the attack on our health, bodies and our very lives.  So watch each day for something related to either food, water or air.   Feel free to comment and share any additional info you may have.

Source:  Dr. Mercola's Newsletter

Title:    Banned in 160 Nations… Yet U.S. FDA Regards it as Safe?

By:       by Dr. Mercola, provided to vatic by Jim Kirwan, contributor

Date:    March 06 2010
A livestock drug banned in 160 nations and responsible for hyperactivity, muscle breakdown and 10 percent mortality in pigs has been approved by the FDA.


The beta agonist ractopamine, a repartitioning agent that increases protein synthesis, was recruited for livestock use when researchers found the drug, used in asthma, made mice more muscular.

Ractopamine is started as the animal nears slaughter.

How does a drug marked, "Not for use in humans. Individuals with cardiovascular disease should exercise special caution to avoid exposure. Use protective clothing, impervious gloves, protective eye wear, and a NIOSH-approved dust mask" become "safe" in human food? With no washout period?

The drug is banned in Europe, Taiwan and China, and more than 1,700 people have been "poisoned" from eating pigs fed the drug since 1998, but ractopamine is used in 45 percent of U.S. pigs and 30 percent of ration-fed cattle.

America's Secret Prisons

Title: America's Secret Prisons
By: Stephen Lendman
Date: 3-16-10

On January 28 in TomDispatch.com, Anand Gopal headlined, "Night Raids, Hidden Detention Centers, the 'Black Jail,' and the Dogs of War in Afghanistan," recounting unreported US media stories about killings, abductions, detentions, interrogations, and torture in "a series of prisons on US military bases around the country." Bagram prison, for example, is "a facility with a notorious reputation for abusive behavior," including brutalizing torture and cold-blooded murder.

Even worse is the "Black Jail," a facility consisting of individual windowless concrete cells with bright 24-hour lighting, described by one former detainee as "the most dangerous and fearful place" in which prisoners endure appalling treatment.

The pattern is predictable. US/NATO convoys are attacked or reports of Taliban forces are received. Americans respond accordingly, rounding up suspects, mostly innocent civilians, and detaining them for interrogations, torture, abuse and degrading treatment - not just in Afghanistan but in secret black sites globally, according to a January 26 UN Human Rights Council (HRC) report detailing practices engaged in by various countries including America, by far the world's worst offender in its war on terror - one waged against humanity for unchallengeable power and total global dominance.

Cheney Exposes Torture Conspiracy

Source: Consortium News

Title: Cheney Exposes Torture Conspiracy

Cheney admits crime of torture?   Just a reminder of how we got here to criminal prosecution of Rumsfeld
By:   Robert Parry
Date:   02/14/2010

If the United States had a functioning criminal justice system for the powerful – not just for run-of-the-mill offenders – former Vice President Dick Cheney would have convicted himself and some of his Bush administration colleagues with his comments on ABC’s “This Week.”


On Sunday, Cheney pronounced himself “a big supporter of waterboarding,” a near-drowning technique that has been regarded as torture back to the Spanish Inquisition and that has long been treated by U.S. authorities as a serious war crime, such as when Japanese commanders were prosecuted for using it on American prisoners during World War II.

What Torture Is and Why It's Illegal and Not "Poor Judgment"

Source:  Truthout.org

Title:    What Torture Is and Why It's Illegal and Not "Poor Judgment"
http://www.truthout.org/what-torture-is-and-why-its-illegal-and-not-poor-judgment57622?print
By:    Andy Worthington, Truthout, news analysis
Date:    03/01/2010

It's now over two weeks since veteran Justice Department (DOJ) lawyer David Margolis dashed the hopes of those seeking accountability for the Bush administration's torturers, but this is a story of such profound importance that it must not be allowed to slip away.


Margolis decided that an internal report into the conduct of John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, who wrote the notorious memos in August 2002, which attempted to redefine torture so that it could be used by the CIA, was mistaken in concluding that both men were guilty of "professional misconduct," and should be referred to their bar associations for disciplinary action.

Instead, Margolis concluded, in a memo that shredded four years of investigative work by the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), the DOJ's ethics watchdog, that Yoo and Bybee had merely exercised "poor judgment." As lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which is charged with providing objective legal advice to the executive branch on all constitutional questions, Yoo and Bybee attempted to redefine torture as the infliction of physical pain "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death," or the infliction of mental pain which "result[s] in significant psychological harm of significant duration e.g. lasting for months or even years."

Court Allows Torture Suit Against Rumsfeld

Source:   Global Research,  Huffington post

Title:    Court Allows Torture Suit Against Rumsfeld

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18062

By:    Andy Thayer

Date:   March 11, 2010


Federal Judge Wayne R. Andersen issued a historic ruling Friday allowing a suit charging former Defense Secretary with authorizing torture.

The Human Cost of Guantanamo

Source: http://www.truthout.org/1203091

Title: The Human Cost of Guantanamo
By: Sari Gelzer and Troy Page
Date: Wednesday 02 December 2009

Andy Worthington has spent the past several years exposing the stories of the hundreds of men who were taken to Guantanamo prison.

The British journalist, who is also a contributing reporter to Truthout, produced a groundbreaking book, "The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison," the only book published that meticulously pieced together the stories of all the men who have been detained in the US prison.

Now Worthington has released a new documentary, "Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo," co-directed with filmmaker Polly Nash. The film provides intimate interviews with two former detainees, Omar Deghayes and Moazzam Begg, and their lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith and Tom Wilner. Deghayes and Begg describe how they ended up in US custody, the gruesome conditions they faced while being held by the US and the impact this experience has had on their personal lives.

DOJ Report on Torture Memo: Yoo Said Bush Could Order "Massacre" of Civilians

Source: http://www.truthout.org/doj-report-torture-memos-released-yoo-bybee-offficials-cleared-congress-plans-hearings57039

DOJ Report on Torture Memo: Yoo Said Bush Could Order "Massacre" of Civilians


Friday 19 February 2010

by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t

Former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo argued that President George W. Bush’s commander-in-chief powers were so sweeping that he could willfully order the massacre of civilians, yet Yoo’s culpability in Bush administration abuses was deemed “poor judgment,” not a violation of “professional standards.”

Cheney Admits to War Crimes, Media Yawns, Obama Turns the Other Cheek

Source: http://www.truthout.org/cheney-admits-war-crimes-media-yawns-obama-turns-other-cheek56924

Title: Cheney Admits to War Crimes, Media Yawns, Obama Turns the Other Cheek
By: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

Dick Cheney is a sadist.

On Sunday, in an exclusive interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News' "This Week," Cheney proclaimed his love of torture, derided the Obama administration for outlawing the practice, and admitted that the Bush White House ordered Justice Department attorneys to fix the law around the administration's policy interests.

"I was a big supporter of waterboarding," Cheney told Karl, as if he were issuing a challenge to officials in the current administration, including President Barack Obama, who said flatly last year that waterboarding is torture, to take action against him. "I was a big supporter of the enhanced interrogation techniques..."

The America Where They Do Prosecute Torture

By Sam Ferguson

Last week, 15 men entered a courthouse facing, amongst other crimes, 181 counts of torture. Their story, tragically, is familiar: in a fight against terrorism, the men allegedly kidnapped and held detainees in unknown black sites. They subjected the prisoners to brutal forms of interrogation, such as waterboarding, sensory deprivation and simulated executions. They denied the detainees all legal recourse, and they defended their secret practices as essential to combating an elusive enemy who refused to play by the rules.

But the courtroom is not in the United States, and the defendants are not members of the Bush administration. The defendants - retired officials from Argentina's last dictatorship - are on trial in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

...

It has been more than three months since Attorney General Eric Holder announced his probe into torture under the Bush administration, an investigation which seems to quickly be going nowhere. ... He may be inspired, however, by how some Latin countries have proceeded in the face of similar concerns.

One common argument against prosecution is that torture is effective, and we should not prosecute those who helped protect America.

This, however, was the same logic used by Latin America's military governments: they had to wage a "dirty war" on their enemy's terms. No doubt, the danger there was real, as it is in the United States. Leftist groups had killed hundreds before the wave of coups claimed the lives of thousands. But in retrospect, the dirty wars did more damage to the legal order than had the enemy it was fighting. Our southern neighbors have rejected the argument that one may break the law to save the law. They have restored the law by prosecuting those who broke it.

Another argument against prosecution is the supposed impossibility of figuring out who is responsible. Are those at the top, such as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or White House counsel John Yoo, responsible? Or should blame fall only on those who carried out the offensive practices?

In Latin America, the answer is both. Argentina's Supreme Court, in the 2005 Simon decision, held that torture is manifestly illegal and that no excuse justifies either giving or following orders to torture. Commander and commanded are equally responsible.

...

Finally, some excuse the Bush administration by saying what they did was not torture. Waterboarding is simply an "enhanced interrogation technique," as former Vice President Dick Cheney described it this August while defending the practice.

But this is a lexical sleight of hand. The debate is a nonstarter in Latin America. Though waterboarding is known by another name - the "submarino" - it is decidedly considered torture. Courts have repeatedly convicted defendants for subjecting prisoners to this "method," citing domestic and international prohibitions on the use of the practice. Ironically, our own government, lead by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, sanctioned Argentina in the late 1970s for using this very practice (amongst other concerns).

...

For centuries, the democracies of Latin America have looked north for inspiration: how to write their constitutions, how to design their government buildings, how to structure their economies. Perhaps it is time for us to look south.