Palestinian Torture

PA has been torturing prisoners for years, UK group says


By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
01/22/2011 17:15



Ramallah official dismisses report as ‘full of lies,’ says Arab Organization for Human Rights affiliated with Hamas.

The Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank have been using torture on a widespread and systematic basis for several years, according to a report by the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Britain.

Torture techniques used in PA prisons included shabh (hanging) of all kinds, beatings with cables, pulling out nails, suspension from the ceiling, flogging, kicking, cursing, electric shocks, sexual harassment and the threat of rape, the report found.

A top PA official in Ramallah dismissed the report as “unreliable” and “full of lies.”

The official claimed that the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Britain was affiliated with Hamas and other Islamic fundamentalist groups.

At least six Palestinians have died under torture in PA prisons and many former detainees have permanent physical disabilities, the report found.

The human rights organization said that it has documented such “crimes” for three years – from October 2007 to October 2010.

During that period – the report said – PA security forces in the West Bank detained 8,640 Palestinians at a rate of eight arrests per day.

“Every one of those detainees has been subject to humiliating and degrading treatment and stayed in cells for more than 10 days,” the report said. “The analysis shows that an astonishing 95 percent of the detainees were subjected to severe torture, others feeling the detrimental effects on their health for varying periods.”

The report also found that 77% of those who had been detained by the PA security forces had been arrested in the past by Israel.

Representatives of the organization met with victims, or their relatives, and distributed a questionnaire, in secret, to detainees who were held in PA prisons.

“Men and women from all sectors of Palestinian society have been subject to arrest and torture,” the report said. “These include students, workers, teachers, doctors, engineers, university professors and lawyers.”

The study quoted detainees as complaining that the torture most were exposed to was shabh in its various forms (some reported that they were hung from the second floor, upside down, like a slaughtered animal). It said that many others also complained about severe beatings with sticks and hoses, threats of rape and sleep deprivation for lengthy periods.

“In order to put pressure on detainees, close relatives, even minors, are brought to the interrogation center, where they may be tortured in front of the detainee in order to try to force a confession of guilt,” the report said. “Charges laid against detainees by the PA are often the same as those used by the Israeli occupation forces, namely membership in a militia, terrorism, sedition and organizing against the PA.”

The report named the Preventive Security Service as the group responsible for most of the detentions and torture. This group has 17 detention centers.

It’s followed by the General Intelligence Service, which also has 17 detention centers, and the Military Intelligence Service, with only 11 detention centers.

“The detention centers of all security services have one thing in common – they all operate outside the law,” the human rights organization concluded. “Under the current laws in the PA areas, reform and rehabilitation centers are the only places where detention is permitted. Those run by the security services are not subject to any judicial control.”

The organization called for bringing to trial all those alleged to have committed acts of torture. It also urged the donor countries, particularly the EU, to act accordingly.

“However, political considerations and influence means that little is being done in this respect,” the group’s report charged.

“The EU’s response is not consistent with the obligations of states on both the legal and moral levels, where its support for the PA, despite the prevalence of torture, is contrary to international law and the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Convention in Europe of 1950.”

The report pointed out that the PA had admitted practicing torture when, at the beginning of October 2009, it announced that it was stopping torture in its prisons.

But, the report said, “it turns out that torture has not been stopped; rather, it has grown more frequent and intense. The PA’s announcement was window-dressing and deception.”

In 2008, two detainees died during torture in PA prisons. The following year another four died in PA prisons. In all cases, the PA denied responsibility, claiming that the cause of death was suicide or illness.

The six men were identified as Majd Barghouti, Shadi Shaheen, Muhammad al- Haj, Haitham Amr, Kamal Abu Ta’eima and Fadi Hamadna.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
torture

No Misconduct, No Crimes

Many times the claims have been made of crimes committed.  This case about closes all that.  Very little left except your opinion Sullivan et al.




DOJ: No misconduct for Bush interrogation lawyers




Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press Writer
February 19, 2010



WASHINGTON – Justice Department lawyers showed "poor judgment" but did not commit professional misconduct when they authorized CIA interrogators to use waterboarding and other harsh tactics at the height of the U.S. war on terrorism, an internal review released Friday found.

The decision closes the book on one of the major lingering investigations into the counterterrorism policies of George W. Bush's administration. President Barack Obama campaigned on abolishing the simulated drowning technique of waterboarding and other tactics that he called torture, but he left open the question of whether anyone would be punished for authorizing such methods.

While Friday's decision ends the debate within the Justice Department and the Obama administration, Democrats indicated they aren't finished discussing it. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he was "deeply offended" by the legal memos and planned hold a hearing Feb. 26.

An initial review by the Justice Department's internal affairs unit found that former government lawyers Jay Bybee and John Yoo had committed professional misconduct, a conclusion that could have cost them their law licenses. But, underscoring just how controversial and legally thorny the memos have become, the Justice Department's top career lawyer reviewed the matter and disagreed.

"This decision should not be viewed as an endorsement of the legal work that underlies those memoranda," Assistant Deputy Attorney General David Margolis wrote in a memo released Friday.

Margolis, the top nonpolitical Justice Department lawyer and a veteran of several administrations, called the legal memos "flawed" and said that, at every opportunity, they gave interrogators as much leeway as possible under U.S. torture laws. But he said Yoo and Bybee were not reckless and did not knowingly give incorrect advice, the standard for misconduct.

The Office of Professional Responsibility, led by another veteran career prosecutor, Mary Patrice Brown, disagreed.

"Situations of great stress, danger and fear do not relieve department attorneys of their duty to provide thorough, objective and candid legal advice, even if that advice is not what the client wants to hear," her team wrote in a report that criticized the memos for a "lack of thoroughness, objectivity and candor."

The internal report also faulted then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and then-Criminal Division chief Michael Chertoff for not scrutinizing the memos and recognizing their flaws, but the report did not cite them for misconduct.

Yoo is now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Bybee is a federal judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco. The decision spares them any immediate sanctions, though state bar associations could independently take up the matter.

The memos authorized CIA interrogators to use waterboarding, keep detainees naked, hold them in painful standing positions and keep them in the cold for long periods of time. Other techniques included depriving them of solid food and slapping them. Sleep deprivation, prolonged shackling and threats to a detainee's family were also used.  

[Unfortunately, this information is both accurate and false - simplistic in its presentation and given the intent of the article - malicious]



The memos have been embroiled in national security politics for years. The memos laid out a broad interpretation of executive power, one the previous administration also used to authorize warrantless wiretapping and secret prisons. Democrats say the Bush administration used shoddy lawyering to legitimize such policies.

Republicans said the memos, authored by two well-respected attorneys, gave the CIA the authority it needed to keep America safe in the panic-filled months after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The memos were hurriedly put together in days, and supporters of Yoo and Bybee note that investigators have had years to dissect them.

Many have criticized the Obama administration for trying to politicize legal advice.

"We can only hope that the department's decision will establish once and for all that dedicated public officials may have honest disagreements on difficult matters of legal judgment without violating ethical standards," Bybee's lawyer, Maureen Mahoney, said Friday.

Yoo's lawyer, Miguel Estrada, was more pointed. During the lengthy investigation, Estrada accused internal investigators of trying to be "Junior Varsity CIA" that second-guessed intelligence decisions. Friday, he said the two lawyers never deserved to be investigated in the first place.

"The only thing that warrants an ethical investigation out of this entire sorry business is the number of malicious allegations against Professor Yoo and Judge Bybee that leaked out of the department during the last year," Estrada said.

Obama has said CIA interrogators who relied on the memos will not face charges for their behavior. A separate criminal inquiry is under way into whether a handful of CIA operatives crossed the line, leading to the death of detainees.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
terror

Our Way of Life, or Them: Survival of our Civilization or Death by Stupidity. American prison treatment versus their way.

If you have the inclination to visit, say ... Iran, you may wish to ensure you (as a female) cover your head before you leave the aircraft, or rather, if you wish to leave the aircraft, you must ensure you have your head covered.  There are consequences if you do not.  Mind you, there are also consequences if you wander around Tehran (any part) wearing tight fitting jeans, t-shirt, and a hijab.  The t-shirt and jeans have to go, or they must be covered with a manteau-type top (covering your rear-end).  If you do not, there will be consequences and if you are one of those enlightened Western women, the consequences will be truly primitive to your standards.

If you are gay, living in Tehran (and like people everywhere), you wish to meet and greet other gays, requiring you to go to parks or places typically inhabited by gays, you may wish to be careful.  Quite often the police will arrest you, take you back to their station where you will be repeatedly raped, before you may end up released.  This also applies to prostitutes, although a little different.  The police have a temporary marriage form filled out first, then they rape you, and send you on your way.  There are consequences. 

In Iran, many of the protestors from the June and December protests against the mullah-led regime, have reported arrests, beatings, and ongoing rape while they are held in the dreaded Evin prison.  Many protestors (both male and female) who end up being released, tell of being raped regularly throughout the day by groups of men (guards).  They tell of terrible humiliation - having photos taken (particularly of the men) being raped or forced to perform oral sex on guards, and then when released, threatened with the exposure of the photos.  Those released are the lucky ones - many have simply disappeared in Evin.  There are consequences. 

In Egypt, the stories that are told of prison experiences make the events seen in 'Midnight Cowboy' appear downright desirable.  A gay Arab, living in Israel, traveled to Egypt for a vacation that according to him was not for sex, rather just for rest.  He was arrested, taunted, humiliated, and finally after several weeks thrown into a prison cell 6x6, in his underwear.  He shared the cell with rats, roaches and all kinds of maggots.  Even when an officer of the guard reprimanded the guards for allowing the Arab-Israeli guy to sit in maggots, rats, and shit, little changed - he received a very thin mattress, a shirt and pants, and a plastic trashcan that he could use as a toilet.  Eventually after 40 or so days, the man was released.   

You do not want to violate Ramadan in Egypt either - breaking Ramadan - eating or smoking during the month could get you arrested and thrown into prison, or fined up to $2,000.  There are consequences.

In Pakistan, you surely do not want to violate Ramadan, or prison will be your future.  During the 2009 Ramadan, estimates are that more than 3,300 people were arrested for eating or smoking during Ramadan (in public).  Of these, 76 were foreigners.  Depending upon when you are arrested, your visit to the court could be considerably much later.  Spending one day in a Pakistani prison is worse than any time in a Turkish cell.

You most certainly do not want to go to Pakistan and make it known you are a Christian.  Abid Javed Francis was 31 years old when he was arrested and beaten in front of his mother for not paying a bribe.

It was not simply the beating by one police officer, more than 11 were involved in the actions against Francis.  The police demanded $125 from his family, who could not afford it, only to have the bribe increase to $625.  His family lives in one of the slum settlements in Karachi.

The police upped the ante by charging Francis with illegal arms dealing - several days after he was arrested.  Shortly after the illegal arms charge was filed, it was amended - Francis was charged with stealing a motorbike instead.

Francis was left in a cell in his underwear for a couple weeks, beaten constantly, and when his mother was told she could see him, he was stripped to his underwear, on a stretcher in an open area, exposed to chill.  He died a few days later from internal injuries sustained while in custody.  There are consequences.

One could go on all day and go through another thirty countries with these exact same, or worse stories, but it is truly a wasted effort, not to remember the lives taken by barbarians, but because it does not and will not change.  If you plan on visiting Saudi Arabia, you might wish to leave your Bible at home.  Some people do carry their Bible, perhaps because it is better reading than most novels, or perhaps because they wish to find a closeness with the past and with God that only the Bible, not Time magazine, can provide.  If you do take your Bible with you, understand that at the airport you arrive at, you will be searched.  Very much like the way you are searched leaving LAX or any American airport, you are searched as you ENTER the Saudi Kingdom.  If they find a Bible on your person or in your cases, it will be, in front of you, put into a shredder.  This is actually a better option than what could happen.  If you have two or more Bibles, you are arrested, and put into a Saudi prison - perhaps Al Hayar.  And for several days you could be chained to the door so that you cannot sit down or sleep.  Sleep deprivation will then play havoc with your mind.  In one case, one prisoner faced 5 days, then 11 days, then 14 days at different intervals, of sleep deprivation. There are consequences.  Your cell is no different than the one in Egypt, and your food appears through a hatch in the door, a concrete slab serves as a bed and fluorescent lights beat down on you 24 hours a day. I would think that is preferable to nail extractions, or whippings, electric shock, or cigarette burns, which all occur.

You could end up in a Saudi prison for any number of reasons - as a Westerner, you sit down with a female who is an acquaintance from work, to talk about your family or your work, and bing bang bong, you are arrested.  You cannot speak to a female who is not your wife, sister, mother.  There are consequences.

The torture in Saudi prisons is perhaps more refined than you find in Pakistan, but no less deadly - beatings,  punching, kicking, being thrown around the room, having your testicles stood on, being lain down on the floor in a hog-tied position, hands shackled behind your back and attached to your ankles, and then beaten over the soles of your feet, followed up perhaps by falanga - where you are strapped over a metal bar and hung upside-down off the floor so that your feet and buttocks are prominently exposed, and then you are beaten across the soles off the feet, across the buttock, and then every once in a while if you are unlucky, a quick shot into the scrotum.

Not that your Saudi captors care when they rape you (males) in an office down the hall from the cells, in the next room are dozens of officers or agents sitting and talking while you are raped.  Everyone knows what happens and what goes on - in fact a few may take turns doing you, before you are returned to your cell.   There are consequences.

Now, compare that to Guantanamo Bay.

Halal food, more than a dozen choices of food, three meals a day, time to worship, a Koran, doctors on call 24 hours a day, visits by the International Red Cross, attorney visits (all without American guards in the room during these visits).

This does not mean it is a paradise, certainly not.  A window, bed, sheets, heating and air, food, toilet (to their specifications), clothing ... of course it is not a paradise.  The majority of the 300 or so men held in Guantanamo were caught attempting to kill American soldiers and or as a result of direct links to terrorist groups or individuals.  Is there anyone innocent among the 300 or so.  It is not impossible, but it is not likely.

Use common sense, which I understand is in short supply by 30-40% of the American electorate and quite likely a larger percent of the world body, but try.  Why would CIA or the army, or whoever it is that puts people into Guantanamo, spend the energy, time, and money to put someone who has, with 100% certainty, no connection to terrorism or anyone involved in terrorism into a prison that will fill space and cost money.  Ok, so they don't care about the cost.  Flying a plane across the world with a few people on it, fuel costs to transport to Cuba, the food and upkeep for the guy while he stays in Guantanamo, and the eventual release of details about the prisoner ... all for no reason.  I apologize, but I do not believe CIA works that way as a matter of policy.  Nor does anyone in our system.  Now, in Egypt, the cost to keep the guy is maybe a gallon of gruel a month - reasonable, and doable.  Not going to break any bank.

Now to Abu Ghraib - what happened at Abu Ghraib.  Humiliation.  Simulated sex.  Prisoners forced to perform oral sex or simulated oral sex on other prisoners.  Fear tactics - prisoners were made to believe they could be electrocuted.  Most was psychological.  The dogs did not bite them, rape them, eat them, or piss on them.  The guards did not beat them nor rape them.  Abu Ghraib is a prison divided in two.  One half of the prison is for criminals, run by the Iraqis.  Common criminals get put into the Abu Ghraib prison.  In the middle is the administrative, medical section.  And on the other end is the terrorist prisoner side.  Common run of the mill criminals did not get put into the political section run by the Americans, BUT which included Iraqi doctors who would visit the prisoners or care for any prisoner taken to them for medical issues.  Several doctors who were involved in working at Abu Ghraib have written about their knowledge of events and how disproportionate the coverage by the US media of killers and terrorists. 

I do not suggest the images show tolerable behavior by American guards, rather they should have been relieved of duty and dishonorably discharged.

The electrical threat - not real.  It was imaginary, unlike the electrical shocks that did occur in Saudi Arabia.  It was intended to make them believe ... and they did.  Was it torture - it was certainly very strong psychological intimidation, right before they got to return to their cells, get dressed, eat, and sleep on their bunk.

It does not in any way, remotely come close to the actions in ANY country I mentioned above or for that matter in any of the other 30-40 I could go into detail about.

The men in this section of the prison were not common people - were any innocent, more likely yes, given how some of them ended up in Abu Ghraib (as compared to Guantanamo). Many of the men involved were within the Saddam regime, torturers, or involved in efforts to undermine US control and kill Americans.

Do I feel bad for any of them?  IF any were truly innocent of any and all charges, yes.  For the rest - no.

Americans were held hostage by the Iraqis.  When the US invaded Iraq, we moved so quickly that supply lines had to catch up, and a few times, were lost and attacked.  Lori Piestewa was the driver of one such truck part of the 507th, a mechanical repair team, used to service or repair vehicles.  In the front seat with her was Jessica Lynch.  Lori Piestewa was the first female and first mother, murdered in Iraq.  I understand that for the bleeding hearts, she isn't a part of any story - but she should be.

When their vehicle came under attack, she was wounded.  When she and Lynch realized they could not continue the fighting, along with several other males in their group, they surrendered.  Piestewa was wounded, but alive when they surrendered.  The Iraqi killers, shot her dead, in the vehicle, and took Private Lynch.  Lori Piestewa was not only the first female and first American mother murdered in Iraq, but she was also a Hopi and Mexican.  She had two children, and she bravely fought off the murderers until the very end.  Unfortunately, Lori did not look like her friend.  Jessica Lynch was also wounded, but she was blonde, blue eyed, and fair skinned.  She was of more interest to the Iraqi killers than Piestewa. 

Several other men were taken with Lynch.  Wounded, perhaps, but alive.  How do we know this?  The murderers had little time before US forces would arrive on the scene.  They had to act quickly and carrying away dead bodies is not an easy task. 

We also saw how these prisoners were treated by the Iraqi government and their killers.

They were all dead, while the above fool, marched around lifting and picking at the soldiers dead bodies all the while smiling for the camera.  This was shown on Iraqi TV in the hours before US forces ended the regime of death.

Perhaps you have seen the above image, perhaps the ones in color.  It shows an odd image of several dead Americans, with their pants undone at the button or zipper.  Odd.  Almost as if someone was inspecting them under their pants, either before they were executed or after.  Of course the Iraqis claim the men were not executed.  Hard to believe when the soldier has a hole in his head - you know, the place where his helmet was.  Our military investigated these images and the events, after we took Baghdad and had access to these people - the men were indeed executed, and then hastily buried in a shallow grave, in a pile.

When Lynch was freed, the Americans involved located the bodies, and without implements, dug up the bodies by hand, all the while acting as quickly as possible given the bombings and shooting outside the hospital, to take them home. 

Jessica Lynch has never spoken or written of the events in the room she was held, and that is her right - no one should have to relive it.  In all likelihood, the men involved were killed and are now being diddled by Satan. 

There is a difference in how Iraqis were treated in Abu Ghraib and how American war prisoners were treated by the Iragi Government, how terrorists are treated in Guantanamo, and how foreigners are treated in Arab prisons.  The media ignore some, play down others, and blow up into a mountain only what Americans did in Abu Ghraib.  As a result of the US media blowing Abu Ghraib up into an atrocity to end all atrocities, more than a dozen people died in rioting and attacks around the world, when that information became public.  It became a rallying cry for every anti-American on earth, and more recently, resulted in the deaths of a half-dozen Americans in Afghanistan - at least, according to the bombers wife.

CIA bomber's wife says war must go on against US

By SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jan 8, 7:24 am ET

ISTANBUL – The Turkish wife of a Jordanian doctor who killed seven CIA employees in a suicide attack in Afghanistan says her husband was outraged over the treatment of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison and the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defne Bayrak, the wife of bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, said in an interview with The Associated Press that his hatred of the United States had motivated her husband to sacrifice his life on Dec. 30 in what he regarded as a holy war against the U.S.

Bayrak also said Friday, "I think the war against the United States must go on."

Turkish police questioned and released Bayrak on Thursday. But she says police confiscated a book she had written called "Osama bin Laden the Che Guevera of the East."



There are consequences for your actions.  There are only two sides (with slight degrees of variation on one side and none on the other) - you are either on one side or the other, you are not unbiased in a war that can end one of two ways.  For me, it is clear - I want my family, my children, my grand children, my civilization to survive, and I accept the necessary actions that must be taken to ensure the survival of our way of life.  Winston Churchill said it long before, and I am certain scores of historical figures before him - we need those men who will do, what the rest of us will not, to ensure we can sleep safely in our beds at night.

I understand the philosophical argument - we are better, we must show we are better, we ... and we will lose while we show how great we are, our children will be enslaved or killed, and our culture destroyed.  But, you will be able to write in a journal, that will be hidden away for several hundred years, that we did not infringe upon anyones liberty or wants, wishes, or feelings.

I am cognizant of the emotional reaction opponents will have to my comparisons - they will argue I have no idea or clue what I am saying, that nothing is similar, and I am conflating issues that are wholly unrelated.  I would argue that they are related and more so, show Americans as a great deal more compassionate and tolerant than any Arab prison / country, even at the worst of Abu-Ghraib.  Yes, bibles and sexual preference, and eating during Ramadan are different from terrorism and from war criminals.  I would expect the preferential Bible eater to be treated better (I combined them intentionally).  A country that imprisons someone for possessing a Bible, beats and tortures them for whatever their crime, beheads them, or rapes them repeatedly for being gay, and fines and imprisons people for eating during Ramadan (which is not by the way, religiously sanctioned by the Koran - the actions which are taken by police) - will be even more horrifying in the treatment of political prisoners or terrorists.  They do not humiliate, they rape.  The humiliation we were shown, was bad, but does not come close to anything we know of the treatment people face every day in Arab prisons.  We are also not selecting random people to imprison, individuals selected or collected are far less innocent than their lawyers claim.  After all, OJ's lawyers forever claimed he was innocent, still do.  The proof is in what happens when these killers, I mean innocent men, are released from their 1 Star lodging in Guantanamo.  They very nearly and immediately go off and blow themselves up, trying to kill as many innocents as possible.  I hope their lawyers can sleep.


There are consequences in the war against terror, and for those individuals who do not understand we are at war with a fascist ideology, they need to stand aside and allow those 'rough men' Churchill spoke of, to do their duty.  Even if the individuals do not want to be saved, the 'rough men' will save them anyway, because that is what they do.  They know the consequences if they don't.

American prisons

CIA: NO to releasing Details.

Obama plegded, promised - he would be the most transparent administration in history. He would close Guantanamo Bay, stop the use of torture, and investigate cases of toture conducted by Americans.



Promises, promises.



Torture contines, the Bay is still around and will be for some time, and NO to revealing anything about CIA activities.



Change. A lot of it. But none that addresses the promises made.















Tuesday, 9 June 2009

BBC



CIA warns over terror documents



CIA Director Leon Panetta has warned that releasing certain documents on the interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects would gravely damage US security.


Mr Panetta made the submission in court papers presented to a US federal judge on Monday.
The CIA chief argued that releasing CIA information describing the tough interrogation methods used would reveal too much to America's enemies.


Civil liberties activists have brought a lawsuit seeking the details.


Dozens of cables


Legal action has already led to the unveiling of memos issued by the former Bush administration which authorised harsh interrogation methods such as simulated drowning - known as water-boarding.


But the CIA is trying to prevent the release of further documents including dozens of cable communications.


These describe in detail the methods used against terror suspects and what information was obtained from them.


In his submission to the court, Mr Panetta wrote: "I have determined that the disclosure of intelligence about al-Qaeda reasonably could be expected to result in exceptionally grave damage to the national security by informing our enemies of what we knew about them, and when, and in some instances, how we obtained the intelligence."


The CIA chief also acknowledged that the CIA destroyed 92 video tapes of detainee interrogations which took place in 2002.


Officials have already said that some of the tapes showed the "enhanced interrogation techniques", which critics of the measures regard as torture.


A criminal investigation is underway into why they were destroyed.


Last month the CIA turned down a request by former Vice-President Dick Cheney to release secret documents as part of a campaign to show that harsh interrogation techniques had yielded key intelligence.


President Barack Obama is also attempting to block a court decision ordering the release of photos showing American troops abusing prisoners - reversing a previous decision to allow them to be published.


Mr Obama said last month he feared that publication would further inflame anti-American feelings in Iraq and Afghanistan.















Obama

Guantanamo - The Innocent Speak 2

A previous post on the Attorney General going down to Guantanamo, MUST be read before this article.

Why? because Eric Holder says the prisoners are being well treated. Obama, the man who spoke of torture and the need for the US to close Guantanamo because of torture ... sent HIS man to view the place and HE came back and said the detainees were being treated well. Suddenly NO MORE TORTURE. Amazing that.

Now this lawyer, Ahmed Ghappour, says it is worse. And who tells him it is worse - al qaida and other useless sorts. Of course they would not exaggerate. Truth tellers all.

Exclusive: Lawyer says Guantanamo abuse worse since Obama
Wed Feb 25, 2009 6:23pm EST

By Luke Baker




LONDON (Reuters) - Abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has worsened sharply since President Barack Obama took office as prison guards "get their kicks in" before the camp is closed, according to a lawyer who represents detainees.


Abuses began to pick up in December after Obama was elected, human rights lawyer Ahmed Ghappour told Reuters. He cited beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper and over-forcefeeding detainees who are on hunger strike.


The Pentagon said on Monday that it had received renewed reports of prisoner abuse during a recent review of conditions at Guantanamo, but had concluded that all prisoners were being kept in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.


"According to my clients, there has been a ramping up in abuse since President Obama was inaugurated," said Ghappour, a British-American lawyer with Reprieve, a legal charity that represents 31 detainees at Guantanamo.


"If one was to use one's imagination, (one) could say that these traumatized, and for lack of a better word barbaric, guards were just basically trying to get their kicks in right now for fear that they won't be able to later," he said.













Obama

Torture and Use of Torture

C. Torture known terrorists if they know details about future terrorist attacks in the U.S.

2005 Jan 7-9
Willing 39%
Not willing 59%
No opinion 2

2001 Oct 5-6
Willing 45%
Not willing 52%
No opinion 2%

Taken from gallup.com

I would expect that another poll, with more recent numbers, exists.



I understand Jessica Lange and John Cussack oppose torture at any cost ... well, I don't really think they do, I think they say they do, in part because they have no backbone and it is easier to align yourself with other losers than think for yourself. In any event, I will (until I explain why they are hypocrites) accept them at their word, and the fact that, according to the poll, between 52-59% of Americans oppose torture.

I will admit - I am very happy that there are rough men who will do what is necessary in order that I live, in order that my family lives, in order that hundreds of millions of others do what they do each day without missing a heartbeat thinking about how close they have come to becoming a terrorism statistic.

I am very happy knowing these men will do whatever is necessary to ensure they do not win.

The 59% of Americans feel the same way, they just don't understand what is at stake.

It is always easier in the abstract to be opposed to torture, spanking, divorce, or the death penalty. Abstract. When Americans are confronted with the question and it is held in the abstract, they will side with what Americans have always been known for, their compassion and humanity. Fewer than 1/2 a percent of Americans think torture is a good idea. The rest of us oppose it, and we sleep well believing that as Americans we uphold a standard, an ideal - that forbids us from applying torture to our list of methods to get answers.

In the real world, the results would be different and Americans would become much more realistic - what if a terrorist is caught, and enough information is discovered at the scene to suggest there were 15-20 others, and their plans involve malls, buses, and elementary schools, in at least 12 cities across the US. Several dates were written on various papers, but all of them in the very immediate future.

We know they are terrorists because bin Ladens photo is on the wall, they have written 'jihad is our mission' on the walls, and evidence exists of ablution having been done recently.

You caught one person. He spits at you and tells you he would rather die than talk. He wants to meet Allah, and he wants you to die. He tells you that soon he and others will be in paradise and blood will run in the streets.

What do you do?
Arrest him?
Handcuff him?
Read him his Miranda rights?
Call him an attorney?

And wait?

His attorney will not be arriving for 1-2 hours.

You cannot speak to him, not even to ask him where he was born. Can't do it. In fact, asking him if he wants something to drink may well be problematic, but would be overlooked at trial.


I'll change it a bit.

You find documents that mention C-4 and electronic devices to detonate bombs, plans for buildings that you cannot tell for sure what they are, but they include ventilation systems, Blue Bus, MTA, LAUSD, a number of private schools, 1-2 universities, a number of buildings in downtown Los Angeles, LAX, Burbank/Glendale Airport, John Wayne Airport, and something about a water treatment plant and gases.

I suppose you could: close all schools servicing 12 million people, shut down the bus lines in LA County, close three airports, close universities, evacuate buildings downtown, shut down water plants in Los Angeles ... and the cost would be easily $50 million lost, in a blink. At a time when the city is short $400 million. I DOUBT IT.

I assume waht Jessica Lange and Cussack would say is - use your police, detective work ... and then BOOM.

Scores of buses, a mall, a univserity, five middle schools, an airport - all blown up. Thousands dead.

And the police - had just begun their detective work. Now they won't need to. What they can do, is use the time to notify the families that their relatives will not be going home because torture is unAmerican.

I am sure they will understand.


Let's assume for a moment that Jessica's son and her daughter were at the airport. Lange's other son, was at the local university when it was attacked. None survived.

Mr. Cussack was a bit more fortunate - his nephew was at school and the school was bombed, but his nephew did survive.


The police who wouldn't have much else to do, could go around and do notifications.

Here is where the hypocrisy comes in - if someone took Cussack's nephew or Lange's son - and buried them alive. I have absolutely no doubt, both of them would tear the perpetrators eyes out if it got them their loved one back. I am certain, beyond a doubt - and I don't know either of them.


Our intelligence services do not collect people who were strolling along the road picking flowers. Use the gray matter you have to grapple with this idea - collecting some useless piece of garbage to store for years, at taxpayer cost, in a facility where he might be set free and or might pass along information on his location, and or get an attorney and or make the story known ... just grapple with that for a moment. These men who have done intelligence work, been trained in at least 3-4 foreign countries ... are fucking rock hard stupid. Is that what you are suggesting Mr. Cussack. They collect sweet innocent little boys off the streets, having no clue why or what they will do with them ... that these men cannot distinguish between bad and reasonably innocent. That is what you are saying Cussack/Lange/Streisand et al. It is you who are rock hard stupid.

The hypocrisy is and would be deafening.

These men will do what is necessary, regardless of what Obamessiah says, to ensure it does not happen - to ensure you and your unworthy ilk, are not slaughtered at the alter of hate, by those who desire your deaths (far ahead of mine given what it is you do - paid prostitutes). When you are begging for your life, they will not offer you a tea to calm your nerves or dullen the pain - for you are unworthy of that small gesture. They will butcher you - even while you protest at the top of your lungs how much you hate Bush.

There are moments when I wonder why - why you can't get a fucking clue, why the men who protect us, bother. Most of us are not worth it.

terror

Panetta (Obama): No to prosecuting CIA

Liberals must be livid.

They voted for a guy who would bring change - he has not.
They voted for a guy who would clean up the messs - he has not.
They voted for a guy they said would end torture - he won't, and has not.
They voted for a guy because he said he would prosecute when actions were criminal and torture was criminal - Panetta says they won't.

His honeymoon ended almost before he started. The obituary is premature, but we can get the pen and paper out.

Honestly, you are running out of reasons, quickly.




Panetta: No prosecution for CIA interrogators

By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer
February 6, 2009


WASHINGTON – The Obama administration will not prosecute CIA officers who participated in harsh interrogations that critics say crossed the line into torture, CIA Director-nominee Leon Panetta said Friday.

Asked by The Associated Press if that was official policy, Panetta said, "That is the case."

It was the clearest statement yet on what Panetta and other Democratic officials had only strongly suggested: CIA officers who acted on legal orders from the Bush administration would not be held responsible for those policies. On Thursday, he told senators that the Obama administration had no intention of seeking prosecutions for that reason.

Panetta, in an interview with the AP after a second day of confirmation hearings with the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that he arrived at that conclusion even before he began meeting with CIA officials.

"It was my opinion we just can't operate if people feel even if they are following the legal opinions of the Justice Department" they could be in danger of prosecution, he said.

Panetta demurred on saying whether the Obama administration would take legal action against those who authorized or wrote the legal opinions that, for a time, set an extremely high legal bar for an action to constitute torture.

"I'll leave that for others," Panetta said.

Panetta, a former chief of staff in the Clinton administration and an ex-congressman from California, is expected to be confirmed by a wide margin next week.

Panetta told the committee that the Obama administration will continue to hand foreign detainees over to other countries for questioning, but only if it is confident the prisoners will not be tortured in the process.

That has long been U.S. policy, but some former prisoners subjected to the process — known as "extraordinary rendition" — during the Bush administration's anti-terror war contend they were tortured. Proving that in court has proven difficult, as evidence they are trying to use has been protected by the president's state secret privilege.

"I will seek the same kind of assurances that they will not be treated inhumanely," Panetta said during his second day before the Senate Intelligence Committee. "I intend to use the State Department to be sure those assurances are implemented and stood by, by those countries."

Some critics worry that any gray area in delineating policy on renditions could allow for abuses.

A detainee could be handed over to another country for reasons other than harsh or coercive questioning. Some prisoners may not have intelligence of value to the United States in its effort to break up global terrorist groups, but they might yield intelligence valuable to another government's more localized security problems.

How such renditions work and what happens after prisoners are handed over are secrets, and it is unclear that the Obama administration would have any more tools to assure humane treatment than its predecessor.

The options are limited: refuse to transfer prisoners to governments that have a history of torture or human rights abuses; require prisoners be allowed regular visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross; or demand that U.S. officials have access to the prisoners after the transfer. Each option carries with it the potential of harming or complicating relationships with foreign intelligence agencies.

Panetta formally retracted a statement he made Thursday that the Bush administration transferred prisoners for the purpose of torture.

"I am not aware of the validity of those claims," he said.

Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., chastised Panetta for careless words. "You cannot be making statements or making judgments based on rumors and news stories," he said.

Because he has not yet been confirmed, Panetta has not been briefed on the details of the secret program.
Panetta said he believed the Bush administration was trying to protect the country from terrorists with its use of secret prisons, renditions and harsh interrogations.

"I think they made some wrong decisions, I think they made mistakes," he said. "I think sometimes they believe the ends justifies the means, and that's where people sometimes go wrong."

Panetta said he thinks that in the fear of another Sept. 11-style attack, Bush administration officials thought, "We can't be bothered with legalisms."

Panetta said, however, that he believes the greatest weapon the United States has against terrorists is its moral authority and commitment to the rule of law.

[You Mr. Panetta SHOULD NOT be confirmed. You have no fucking clue.]









CIA

Torture

What is torture. I asked this question today. For one person, water boarding and forcing men to pile on each other blindfolded. For me - seriously, having to deal with some of the stupidest people on earth - would qualify as torture. They test your mental faculties, they cause you insomnia, they cause you heartburn, they cause you indigestion, you lose weight, you have nightmares ... you wake up angry and bitter at having to go to work. Or maybe, you walk into the Courtroom and dread that moment where you are forced to defend the indefensible - and you win, which means we all lose. We, the people, have evil thrust upon us, due to the due diligence of the lawyer. Torture.

Torture is in large part subjective. Not debatable, I am not interested in negotiating or discussing whether it is, it is.

No good comes of me being forced to deal with a lot of ne'er do wells.

Does the end justify the means? Does it matter.



torture