Torture "widespread" under U.S. custody: Amnesty

[rodeodance]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060503/ts_nm/rights_amnesty_dc;_ylt=AsC6fLEOH1hxOf9tRIGoTDys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-
Torture "widespread" under U.S. custody: Amnesty

By Richard Waddington Wed May 3, 1:07 AM ET

GENEVA (Reuters) - Torture and inhumane treatment are "widespread" in U.S.-run detention centers in Afghanistan,Iraq, Cuba and elsewhere despite Washington's denials, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.


In a report for the United Nations' Committee against Torture, the London-based human rights group also alleged abuses within the U.S. domestic law enforcement system, including use of excessive force by police and degrading conditions of isolation for inmates in high security prisons.

"Evidence continues to emerge of widespread torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees held in U.S. custody," Amnesty said in its 47-page report.

It said that while Washington has sought to blame abuses that have recently come to light on "aberrant soldiers and lack of oversight," much ill-treatment stemmed from officially sanctioned interrogation procedures and techniques........

[rodeodance]

1. I just can not wrap this around my head anymore (if I ever could)--report

after report--says the same thing--the US is a torture nations. How can this go on?--

....."The U.S. government is not only failing to take steps to eradicate torture, it is actually creating a climate in which torture and other ill-treatment can flourish," said Amnesty International USA Senior Deputy Director-General Curt Goering.

The U.N. committee, whose experts carry out periodic reviews of countries signatory to the U.N. Convention against Torture, is scheduled to begin consideration of the United States on Friday. The last U.S. review was in 2000.

It said in November it was seeking U.S. answers to questions including whether Washington operated secret detention centers abroad and whether
President George W. Bush had the power to absolve anyone from criminal responsibility in torture cases.

The committee also wanted to know whether a December 2004 memorandum from the U.S. Attorney General's office, reserving torture for "extreme" acts of cruelty, was compatible with the global convention barring all forms of cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment.

[Theduckno2]

3. The part that really gives me the creeps is....

"...whether President Bush had the power to absolve anyone from criminal responsibility in torture cases.". This is what the "decider" does?

It wouldn't be so bad if Bush would step up and accept both responsibility and punishment for those under his command. Yeah, like that is ever going to happen.

If he has poweres of absolution, could the presenting of Medals of Freedom be his first attempts at exercising his powers of beatification?

:sarcasm:

[saigon68]

5. Using Anal Rape as an interrogation technique

They are truly Beasts

[0007]

27. Beasts have more class.

[ninkasi]

7. Nor can I

Rodeodance, I can't wrap my head around it either. I have lived 63 years thinking of us as the "good guys". The other side, the one we were fighting, was the side who committed inhuman acts of torture. Indeed, the fact that they were evil enough to use torture was commonly one of the reasons we were opposing that particular enemy.

It would be bad enough, and still inexcusable, if Saddam Hussein had managed to use one of his mythical WMDs to attack us, even then I would expect us to fight for our country without stooping to torture. The fact, however, is that we were not attacked by Iraq, and on the flimsiest of excuses Bush lied us into a war which is destroying the reputation and soul of America.

Osama bin Ladin could ask for no better a recruitment tool than the one Bush has provided to him, and other radical groups. Bush is now doing the things these men were accusing us of back when they were lying. Because of Bush, their accusations are now true. Bush is leading the world into a destructive, bloody future, one which holds little hope for peace and security.

[LisaLynne]

14. Exactly.

I've long thought that many of those who support Bush no matter what think that those of us who oppose him and his stupid wars simply don't see that there are those would would harm us if given the change. I have always maintained that we do indeed understand that -- probably better than they do -- but we also have the courage to not stoop to inhumane means to protect ourselves. We, as a nation, should be better than that.

[Daphne08]

15. Same here. I'm 56 and I just cannot believe this is happening.

[bennywhale]

25. I don't know why its such a surprise. America has been torturing

captured enemies for a long time. In Vietnam, Central America and in Germany 1945-46. I imagine it was long before that as well. The view of American 'uniqueness' brings an arrogance and superiority with it that lends itself inhumane treatment of those of other (lesser) countries and races.

Why have the British not been systematically torturing their prisoners? I believe because they don't have a messianic view of themselves and their mission that many American administrations and armed forces have and have had.

[Judi Lynn]

2. A-I made a point which deserves consideration, in this article:

Amnesty listed a series of incidents in recent years involving torture of detainees in U.S. custody, noting the heaviest sentence given to perpetrators was five months in jail.

This was the same punishment you could get for stealing a bicycle in the United States, it added.

"Although the U.S. government continues to assert its condemnation of torture and ill-treatment, these statements contradict what is happening in practice," said Goering, referring to the testimony of torture victims in the report.
(snip/)

_Bush and his assortment simply mean to overpower everything in their road, using their ill-gotten authority and the obligation of U.S. soldiers to obey their orders or lose their jobs, or worse.

The volume of lies and slimey propaganda crafted by their mouthpieces and published in the media, trying to control and direct public opinion against leaders and governments they want to destroy would make a maggot gag.

Wish we could throw them ALL in one of their new faith-based, privatized, wildly expensive private prisons built by Republican-owned companies.

[0007]

4. We're living in times that are truly unbelievably sick.

We are witnessing a man that rates with Hitler and Stalin. And a society that is no better than a herd of sheep.

[Judi Lynn]

22. You'd better believe it! It's like a bad dream, for sure. n/t

[wicket]

6. kick

:kick:

[undergroundpanther]

8. Bullies and sociopaths

the "alphas" the predatory,THEY are the problem ,THEY are who live to get off on power and like reducing victims to helplessness!
________________________________________________________________________
It's empathy that makes us as human as we are, while helping us to manage our most violent feelings. We don't kill others or ourselves because we still see the human being in others, and ourselves and feel sympathy or caring. When our sense of connection is gone, then any kind of violence can be unleashed. People who torture others have lost touch with their own humanity. No longer able to care about themselves, they grow to hate others. Desperate to have any kind of feeling, they torture feelings out of others.

The Nazis, through clever exploitation of their victims' unconscious guilt after poking into the back corners of their minds, were often able to convert courageous resistance fighters into meek collaborators....
...The sudden outbreak of hidden moral flaws and guilt can bring a man to tears and complete breakdown. He regresses to the dependency and submissiveness of the baby.
_______________________________________________________________________


Why the tortureres do it...


The denial of human freedom..
and equality lifts the authoritarian man beyond his mortal fellows. His temporary power and omnipotence give him the illusion of eternity. In his totalitarianism he denies death and ephemeral existence and borrows power from the future.(the thief of everyone else's tomorrows) He has to invent and formulate a final Truth and protective dogma to justify his battle against mortality and temporariness. From then on, the new fundamental certainty must be hammered into the minds of adepts and slaves.
_______________________________________________________________________
I know there are many sociopath personalities abusing people in this world .Destroying Because they can get away with it.

http://www.ninehundred.net/control/mc-ch4.html

[Al122]

9. This Kind of Stuff Has Been Going on For a Long Time

Read Jennifer Harbury's "Truth Torture and the American Way." The CIA, U.S. military and State Department have been supporting, training and, at times, participating in torture regimes in Greece, Vietnam, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Uruguay and elsewhere for almost 60 years now. Many of the techniques that were used at Abu Ghraib and that are now being used at Guantanamo, and countless other secret toruture chambers, were pioneered in Vietnam and Central America.

We Americans are going to have to take a long hard look at ourselves if we have any hope of ever making this country right.

[smoogatz]

10. Well said.

And welcome to DU.

[Mandate My Ass]

21. well said

We've been exporting torture for decades and helping despots overthrow democratically elected leaders who put their countries' interests before our elites'. :thumbsup:

[bennywhale]

26. What is unravelling is one of the biggest lies in history. That being

'America is a beacon of freedom and democracy' The illusion that America has portrayed to Americans and the rest of the world of it being a benign kind country only retalliating under attack and upholding the highest standards of human decency has long been exposed as false in the rest of the world, and now in America itself.

It is a dangerous lie leading to less scrutiny of the administration and the army than in other countries and it has led to the view of other countries and races as inferior and therefore lending itself to their inhumane treatment.

The upmost scrutiny of all government and army actions must be a priority from now on of any American reputation can be salvaged from the blood and humiliation

[smoogatz]

11. Torture is the policy of the Bush administration.

Obviously. They've signed onto Machiavelli's creed that it's better to be feared than loved.

[Gregorian]

12. Where is the enforcement?

I keep wondering what good the Geneva Convention is, or the latest international laws that were passed in 1996. For those being tortured, there might as well be no laws. Bush should be stopped now. If not, why not? Did we just have the Geneva Convention for show?

[pat_k]

13. Great summary of the timeline and players in the Bush syndicate's War Crim

. . .and the source is Alberto Mora, outgoing general counsel of the United States Navy

The criminally insane fascist fantasies of John Yoo
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=503566

Jane Mayer reports on a twenty-two-page memo written by Alberto Mora, outgoing general counsel of the United States Navy. Her article is the best factual summary I've seen of the timeline and players in the Bush regime's War Crimes.

At the heart of it all, we find John Yoo's criminal insanity.
. . .

[flamingyouth]

16. Kick

[Hissyspit]

17. AP: U.N. Will Question U.S. Over Torture

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/UN_US_TORTURE?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

U.N. Will Question U.S. Over Torture

By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER
Associated Press Writer

GENEVA (AP) -- The U.N.'s watchdog agency on torture will question U.S. officials over their compliance with a global ban on prisoner abuse, focusing on allegations of secret CIA prisons and flights transferring suspects for possible torture in other countries.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture, which oversees a 22-year-old global treaty, will quiz U.S. officials Friday and Monday on a series of issues ranging from Washington's interpretation of the absolute ban on torture to its interrogation methods in prisons such as Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The United States, like the 140 other signatories to the Convention Against Torture, must submit reports to the committee showing how it is applying the rules.

- snip -

In its 87-page report filed in January - some four years behind schedule - Washington insisted it is "unequivocally opposed" to torture and that its commitment to the ban "remains unchanged" since the U.S. Senate ratified the convention in October 1994.

MORE

[Stockholm]

18. About time!

:toast:

I hope there will be a way to watch this.

[bullimiami]

19. when the us lies and denies, what are they going to do?

[rodeodance]

20. oh yeah--and we expect Bolton/Rummy et al will be truthful.

yaddy yah

[struggle4progress]

23. UN to quiz Washington on torture (BBC)

... Thirty senior officials from the departments of state, defence, justice and homeland security will testify in public at the hearing in Geneva ... which, as a signatory to the UN Convention against Torture, it is required to do.

Ten legal experts will cross-examine the US team, led by state department legal adviser John Bellinger in public hearings that are due to continue until Monday ...

According to a UN document, the committee will demand to know the number and nationalities of those being held.

It will also ask for details of those taken abroad to third countries, in a process known as extraordinary rendition ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4974852.stm

[UpInArms]

24. kicking this back to the top

:kick:

U.N. grills U.S. on torture ban

GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The U.N. was grilling the United States on its compliance with the global ban on torture Friday for the first time since Washington declared war on terrorists, focusing on allegations of secret CIA prisons and flights transferring suspects for possible torture in other countries.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture, the global body's watchdog for a 22-year-old treaty forbidding prisoner abuse, was asking U.S. officials about a series of issues ranging from Washington's interpretation of the absolute ban on torture to its interrogation methods in prisons such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

U.S. State Department lawyer, John B. Bellinger III, who was leading the U.S. delegation at the hearing, defended Washington's commitment to its international obligations and said it would try to answer the committees questions.

However, he said the delegation may not be able to answer all questions because much of the information relates to intelligence activities.

"We welcome this dialogue and we're committed to answering your questions," Bellinger told the committee in his opening address. "Torture is clearly and categorically prohibited under both human rights treaties and the law of armed conflict."

...more...

Trials in the Hague for all of these criminal!