Rights group wants US officials probed for ordering torture

[maddezmom]

Source: AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A Nobel-prize-winning rights group said US officials committed war crimes by ordering what the group says was torture of detainees, and called for them to be probed and prosecuted.

"There must be a complete and independent investigation of what happened in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other places where terrorist suspects were detained," Allen Keller of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) told a briefing in the US House of Representatives Thursday.

"We urge that a full investigation in the form of an independent non-partisan commission that has access to all documents and has subpoena power to obtain relevant documents as well as the testimony of officials," PHR president Leonard Rubenstein said.

"There must be accountability... accountability must include prosecuting individuals who have committed war crimes, whatever their place in the chain of command," he added.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080725/wl_mideast_afp/usiraqguantanamorightstorture_080725053320

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New torture memo from 2002 is disclosed
Interrogators would be on safe ground if they had an 'honest belief' that suspects would suffer no 'prolonged mental harm,' the Justice Department told the CIA.
From Times Wire Services
July 25, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department in 2002 told the CIA that its interrogators would be safe from prosecution for violations of anti-torture laws if they believed "in good faith" that harsh techniques used to break prisoners' will would not cause "prolonged mental harm."

That heavily censored memo -- obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, which released it Thursday -- approved the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques method by method, but warned that if the circumstances changed, interrogators could run afoul of anti-torture laws.

Although an honest belief need not be reasonable, such a belief is easier to establish where there is a reasonable basis for it," said the memo, dated Aug. 1, 2002, and signed by then-Assistant Atty. Gen. Jay Bybee, the Washington Post reported.

The memo was issued the same day he wrote a memo for then-White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales defining torture as "extreme acts" causing pain akin to death or organ failure. The legal opinion defining torture was withdrawn more than two years later.

more:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cia25-2008jul25,0,4303614.story

[Lint Head]

1. Criminals in our country TORTURED. People need to get a

frigging clue. No one was as evil and brutal as the Nazis. During WWII our military fed the Nazis steak dinners and played chess with them. The Nazis revealed secrets during these meals and games. Our country was not established by criminals. :dem:

[ixion]

2. This is the ONLY way we will be able to restore our standing in the eyes of the world

we must hold those who committed war crimes accountable.

[bemildred]

3. Send them all to The Hague.

Let the ICC sort them out.

[MasonJar]

4. I ditto that suggestion, although I do think that we, the people, and our

Congress have a responsibility to hold these criminals accountable too.

[LynnTheDem]

5. Forget the "probing"...waterboard the MFers.

Then let's see them declare it ain't torture when we do it.