America as Torture Central: From Prisons to “Black Sites”

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2014/05/america-central-prisons.html

America as Torture Central: From Prisons to “Black Sites”
By Juan Cole | May. 18, 2014
(By Sarah Lazare)

~snip~



In the United States, 32 percent of respondents expressed such a fear—which, according to the report, has merit.

"In some maximum security isolation or segregation facilities across the USA, many thousands of inmates are held in solitary confinement in small cells for 22 to 24 hours a day. Many have little access to natural light or out-of-cell recreation time which amounts to cruel inhuman or degrading treatment," reads the study.

U.S. torture is not confined within its borders. "The U.S. government is also failing to ensure accountability for torture and enforced disappearances committed in the context of counter-terrorism operations. No one responsible for the use of interrogation techniques such as 'water-boarding,' prolonged sleep deprivation, and stress positions in Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-run secret detention centres around the world has been brought to justice. The U.S. Select Committee on Intelligence has conducted a review of the now-terminated CIA programme, but its 6,000-plus page report remains classified."

Rebecca Gordon, author of Mainstreaming Torture and lecturer at University of San Francisco, told Common Dreams that the U.S. climate for torture has only grown more permissive since the beginning of the War on Terror. "One of the things we've seen polls show that almost 13 years out from September 11th, 2001, people are more willing to approve of torture as a tool of 'security' than a decade ago," she said.

[bemildred]

1. Welcome to Neocon-world, where everything sucks permanently. nt