Newsweek Exclusive: Secret Memo—Send to Be Tortured

[understandinglife]

Exclusive: Secret Memo—Send to Be Tortured

Newsweek

August 8, 2005 edition

An FBI agent warned superiors in a memo three years ago that U.S. officials who discussed plans to ship terror suspects to foreign nations that practice torture could be prosecuted for conspiring to violate U.S. law, according to a copy of the memo obtained by NEWSWEEK. The strongly worded memo, written by an FBI supervisor then assigned to Guantanamo, is the latest in a series of documents that have recently surfaced reflecting unease among some government lawyers and FBI agents over tactics being used in the war on terror. This memo appears to be the first that directly questions the legal premises of the Bush administration policy of "extraordinary rendition"—a secret program under which terror suspects are transferred to foreign countries that have been widely criticized for practicing torture.

In a memo forwarded to a senior FBI lawyer on Nov. 27, 2002, a supervisory special agent from the bureau's behavioral analysis unit offered a legal analysis of interrogation techniques that had been approved by Pentagon officials for use against a high-value Qaeda detainee. After objecting to techniques such as exploiting "phobias" like "the fear of dogs" or dripping water "to induce the misperception of drowning," the agent discussed a plan to send the detainee to Jordan, Egypt or an unspecified third country for interrogation. "In as much as the intent of this category is to utilize, outside the U.S., interrogation techniques which would violate if committed in the U.S., it is a per se violation of the U.S. Torture Statute," the agent wrote. "Discussing any plan which includes this category could be seen as a con-spiracy to violate " and "would inculpate" everyone involved.

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Peter Muhly / AFP-Getty Images

More at the link:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8769416/site/newsweek/

Pertinent related links:

"I know George Bush is legendary for how he fended off the Cong in Texas ... "

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4220096

Carter: Guantanamo Detentions Disgraceful

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/07/30/international/i133941D11.DTL

"the greatest gifts bestowed upon bin Laden by Bush .. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4220096&mesg_id=4227560

And, if you have any illusion that Bolton as America's ambassador to the UN will be helpful in this matter, please think again, and do something as suggested here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4227040&mesg_id=4227040

Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us - How ever long it takes, the day must come when tens of millions of caring individuals peacefully but persistently defy the dictator, deny the corporatists their cash flow, and halt the evil being done in Iraq and in all the other places the Bu$h neoconster regime is destroying civilization and the environment in the name of "America."

[DBoon]

1. Law? There is no law.

There is only power.

What part of fascism don't you understand.

[Why Syzygy]

20. And who thinks

that these brutes don't get thier rocks watching, dreaming of torture.

A bunch of sick-os have the Power. To maim, kill and brutalize our planet.

That's why we're here. To stop them. Now.

Not in my name.

[merh]

2. They just don't care, they are above the law.

"In as much as the intent of this category is to utilize, outside the U.S., interrogation techniques which would violate if committed in the U.S., it is a per se violation of the U.S. Torture Statute," the agent wrote. "Discussing any plan which includes this category could be seen as a con-spiracy to violate " and "would inculpate" everyone involved."

The RICO statutes wer written with the evil acts of the criminals in mind.


Not.In.My.Name! :cry:

[understandinglife]

3. Outsourcing Torture: Secret History (FBI v. CIA)

This dKos diary by SusanHu in Feb. 2005 remains a useful reference.

"Besides the abdication of U.S. and international law -- creating "rights-free" prisoners, as Yale law dean Harold Koh said at the Gonzales confirmation hearing -- certain elements of the CIA rendition story have puzzled me. The hot-off-the-presses New Yorker piece spurred me to try to piece the puzzle together for myself and you.

FOCUS: Why has the Bush administration committed to torture instead of skilled interrogation?

More at the link:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/8/104121/3571

Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[understandinglife]

5. Helen Thomas: "U.S. must stamp out view America tolerates torture"

U.S. must stamp out view America tolerates torture

By HELEN THOMAS

July 29, 2005

President Bush — who bills himself as a "compassionate conservative" - refuses to rule out cruel, abusive treatment of prisoners of war and detainees.

In fact, he has gone so far as to threaten to veto the vital $491 billion defense bill if an amendment barring mistreatment of prisoners is attached to it.

And this is the president who — along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — was shocked last year when he when saw photographs of leashed naked prisoners under U.S. guard at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. The stunning pictures were published around the world. There have been hints that there are even more devastating photos not yet seen by the public.

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Meantime, consideration of the defense legislation, including the controversial amendments, has been put off until this fall. Let's hope wiser and kinder heads prevail by then.

More at the link:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3288513

Yes, we do need to do some major "photo-shop" on our current image.


Emad Hajjaj, Al-Ghad Newspaper, Amman, Jordan


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[Poiuyt]

28. America tolerates torture?

Hell, we EMBRACE it!

[snot]

13. It's telling: they don't want to win the "war on terror"; they want

to destroy everything they can't control.

[JohnyCanuck]

4. The more I think about this,

the more I get the feeling that those PNAC inspired fuckers are doing the torture thing to intentionally piss off the Arabs and Muslims in order to provoke them into terrorist type attacks against the US, rather than because they expect to find any really useful information. The idea of course would be to provide an excuse for the US military to stay in the Middle East and assert control over all that black gold.

[understandinglife]

6. If perpetual war is part of your business plan, then you need incentives

... and Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are major league incentives for folk to perpetuate attacks that Bush and the neoconsters can readily label as 'terrorist.'

Violating the law is not a path to peace, ever.

America needs a different business plan. We need to export something other than arms and violence. The day we begin doing that will be the day folk within America will have every reason to be hopeful and less fearful.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[wli]

8. that sounds plausible

It's the sort of twisted logic they would use.

My other thought is they might be trying to "brainwash" the detainees by raping them a la Griggs in order to use them as spies and/or terrorists for MIHOP's or covert operations against various Middle Eastern countries.

[MisterP]

10. oh, certainly! what will they do without "foes"?

that and there's nothing sweeter to their ears than screams of agony and mortal fear, blood-spots, the moans of a mother cradling her infant's splintered ribcage, and the smell of burning kindergartens and kindergartners

[Child_Of_Isis]

11. What part of "Bring it on" don't you understand?

Sorry, I couldn't help myself:silly:

That's like "We are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here." Can't you just hear a "Bring it on" in that little line? Expect "The war on terror" to be "Here" soon.

This is a bunch of agitating motherfuckers! Our troops will be home soon.

[Why Syzygy]

21. I think it's all about

sexual deviations and perversions thereof. They wouldn't be so (publicly) uptight about these things if they didn't have some deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep daaaaaaark secrets. Our minds cannot wrap themselves around this kind of aberrant behavior. Thank goddess.

Jesus advocates torture, I guess.

Not in my name.

[understandinglife]

7. The World Can't Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime! - Nov 2, 2005

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4206696


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[understandinglife]

9. Bush torture policies: Suffer the little children...

Bush torture policies: Suffer the little children...

July 30, 2005

Via Scotland’s Sunday Herald:

It was early last October that Kasim Mehaddi Hilas says he witnessed the rape of a boy prisoner aged about 15 in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets," he said in a statement given to investigators probing prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib. "Then, when I heard the screaming I climbed the door... and I saw who was wearing a military uniform."

In another witness statement, passed to the Sunday Herald, former prisoner Thaar Salman Dawod said: " two boys naked and they were cuffed together face to face and was beating them and a group of guards were watching and taking pictures and there was three female soldiers laughing at the prisoners. The prisoners, two of them, were young."

Proof of the widespread arrest and detention of children in Iraq by US and UK forces is contained in an internal Unicef report written in June. (via Sunday Herald, 01 August 2004)

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More at the link:

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7270

Whether the ACLU prevails in a week or a month or .... the truth is recorded and the horrors of what has been done in America's name will never be forgotten.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[understandinglife]

31. Neil MacKay: Iraq's Child Prisoners

Iraq's Child Prisoners

A Sunday Herald investigation has discovered that coalition forces are holding more than 100 children in jails such as Abu Ghraib. Witnesses claim that the detainees – some as young as 10 – are also being subjected to rape and torture

By Neil Mackay

August 1, 2005

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The Norwegian government, which is part of the “coalition of the willing”, has already said it will tell the US that the alleged torture of children is intolerable. Odd Jostein Sæter, parliamentary secretary at the Norwegian prime minister’s office, said: “Such assaults are unacceptable. It is against international laws and it is also unacceptable from a moral point of view. This is why we react strongly … We are addressing this in a very severe and direct way and present concrete demands. This is damaging the struggle for democracy and human rights in Iraq.”

In Denmark, which is also in the coalition, Save the Children called on its government to tell the occupying forces to order the immediate release of child detainees. Neals Hurdal, head of the Danish Save the Children, said the y had heard rumours of children in Basra being maltreated in custody since May.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it was “extremely disturbed” that the coalition was holding children for long periods in jails notorious for torture. HRW also criticised the policy of categorising children as “security detainees”, saying this did not give carte blanche for them to be held indefinitely. HRW said if there was evidence the children had committed crimes then they should be tried in Iraqi courts, otherwise they should be returned to their families.

Unicef is “profoundly disturbed” by reports of children being abused in coalition jails. Alexandra Yuster, Unicef’s senior adviser on child detention, said that under international law children should be detained only as a last resort and only then for the shortest possible time.

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More at the link:

http://www.sundayherald.com/print43796

No keeping a lid on this stuff.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[understandinglife]

12. "Agiza’s mother, said: “The mattress had electricity . . ."

The Gulfstream flew them to Egypt, where both prisoners claimed they were beaten and tortured with electric shocks to their genitals. Despite liberal Swedish laws on freedom of information, diplomatic telegrams on the case released to the media were edited to conceal the complaints of torture.

Hamida Shalaby, Agiza’s mother, said: “The mattress had electricity . . . When they connected to the electricity, his body would rise up and then fall down and this up and down would go on until they unplugged electricity.”

A month before the Swedish extradition, the same Gulfstream was identified by Masood Anwar, a Pakistani newspaper reporter in Karachi. Airport staff told Anwar they had seen Jamil Gasim, a Yemeni student who was suspected of links to Al-Qaeda, being bundled aboard the jet by a group of white men wearing masks. The jet took Gasim to Jordan, since when he has disappeared.

“The entire operation was so mysterious that all persons involved in the operation, including US troops, were wearing masks,” a source at the airport told Anwar.

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The CIA and Premier declined to discuss the allegations over the planes. The American government, however, denies it is in any way complicit in torture and says it is actively working to stamp out the practice.

From US accused of ‘torture flights’

by Stephen Grey

November 14, 2004

More at the link:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1357699_1,00.html

Get the -- "denies it is in any way complicit in torture and says it is actively working to stamp out the practice." -- as is evidenced by war criminal and commander-in-torture-chief Bush's threat to veto the Senate's $442 billion appropriations for defense programs if it moves to regulate the Pentagon's treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere.

And, note the date of the article. You betcha they needed to count the votes in secret with proprietary software; you betcha they will never allow a valid election to ever happen, again. You betcha.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[understandinglife]

14. German TV news report (take a deep breath, folks): Children at Abu Ghraib

Just so we all remember what was alreay available well before the November 2, 2004 catastrophe for America and humanity:

German TV news report (and take a deep breath, folks): Children at Abu Ghraib

July 8, 2004

(Note: this entry posted by Bob Harris)

Three days ago, a German TV newsmagazine called Report Mainz broadcast an eight-minute segment reporting that the International Red Cross found at least 107 children in coaliton-administered detention centers in Iraq.

The report also quotes from a yet-unpublished June 2004 UNICEF report, which (as near as I can tell through my crappy German) confirms that children were routinely arrested and "interned" in a camp in Um-Qasr. UNICEF seems particularly vexed with the "internment" status, since that means indefinite detention.

Another storm seems about to begin. Possibly a large one.

Even if you have no German at all, hit the link and watch the video. (Click where it says "Beitrag ansehen" and you'll get a RealVideo stream. I'd include a direct link but the server seems to require you to link from the page.) There's some footage of the internment camps here that you're not likely to see on American TV. The link also includes a complete transcript, in German.

In addition to the Red Cross and UNICEF concerns, Report Mainz broadcast an original interview with U.S. Army Sgt. Samuel Provance, who was stationed for six months at Abu Ghraib and later quite famously blew the whistle about abuses there and the subsequent cover-up. In this interview, Provance confirms the presence of teenagers in Abu Ghraib, describing the torture-by-cold-and-exposure of a teenage boy in order to get his father to talk.

The General Secretary of Amnesty International in Germany, Barbara Lochbihler, is finally shown demanding a full accounting from the U.S. government, describing the information as "scandalous."

A few caveats: I haven't found where Provance mentioned young people at Abu Ghraib until now, and another witness in the report describes "hundreds" of pre-pubescents at Abu Ghraib, which tingles my smell detector. Then again, I wouldn't have believed in Stack-The-Iraqis at first, either.

There's also the point that a 15-year-old can damn sure fire a gun. But even so, since 70-90 percent of those at Abu Ghraib were innocent, if at least 107 kids were locked up, the best-case scenario is still that the U.S. has interned a boatload of innocent Iraqi kids. That's still bad.

The worst-case, meanwhile, if the German TV report is even close... is a lot worse.

Meanwhile, there's not a damn thing -- I mean, not a single word I can find -- about this yet in the U.S. media, but it's starting to pick up speed on the rest of our tiny planet, so far showing up in Der Spiegel (roughly Germany's equivalent to Time), an Australian ABC Radio report, and TV2 and NRK television in Norway, where the story might even lead to a change in Norway's participation in the U.S.-led coalition.

If you're an American news reporter led here by a reader, but you need a hook that doesn't place the incendiary charges in the lead (for whatever reason), OK, here's your story on a platter: Bush may even lose another ally over this. Hit the Norwegian links, and you'll find that the local Amnesty International has stated that "Norway can not continue its military collaboration with the US in light of the alleged torture of children." Norway actually listens to its activists; you'll find that the Prime Minister's office says it plans to address the situation with the U.S. "in a very severe and direct way."

If this ain't news, I don't know what the hell is.

I've Google-rigged an English version of the Der Spiegel article. This is a good place to get the gist of what the world is starting to read, even through the machine translation, which parses the headline as "US Soldiers Are To Have Abused Arrested Children."

This is gonna travel pretty fast. Let me look again... yup. New headlines have appeared just since I started writing this.

In Pakistan right this minute, they're reading "Over 100 Children Abused in Custody in Iraq".

Factual conflation aside -- that's not what the original report stated -- it hurts like hell that it's no longer a perceptual leap to assume the worst. When I think of the outpouring of love for America post-9/11... it's just stunning how far we have fallen. This is really what the world sees now.

Still, we need to know. My thanks to reader Thomas for the tip that started me on this.

If you'd like to know more than a guy with bad German, worse Norwegian, and a laptop can find out in an hour, give the major newspapers and cable networks an email or a holler. I understand they have actual reporters and stuff.

Link:
http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/mtarchives/week_2004_07_04.html#001637

Seymour Hersh says the US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking," the reporter told an ACLU convention last week. Hersh says there was "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher."

July 14, 2004

Link to much more:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2004/7/14/193750/666

November 2, 2004 - the day that confirmed that Scalia's actions on Dec 9 2000 and the SCOTUS actions a few days thereafter killed "America."

Bush's neoconster regime is the enemy and the enemy has destroyed "America." Our only option now is to remove the enemy and begin building an enlightened new version of the Republic.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.

[fooj]

16. OMG! The truth is seeping through the cracks...

UL, this is bad, bad, bad...

This country will be outraged! This is what eventually destroyed Hitler, isn't it? The torture of innocent children. Such evil cowards!

My heart is heavy.:cry:

[EFerrari]

19. Thank God (or don't). Out the b@stards

all over the world. They deserve no less.

[understandinglife]

15. W.N. Grigg: "Casting Aside Justice"

Casting Aside Justice

by William Norman Grigg

August 8, 2005

By claiming the power to imprison terrorist suspects without trial, or to send them abroad to be tortured by foreign secret police, President Bush is creating precedents that imperil the rights of U.S. citizens.

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

— O'Brien, torture specialist in George Orwell's 1984

Roughly a century and a half before Orwell published 1984, his cautionary tale of endless dictatorship through perpetual war, British statesman Edmund Burke warned that "criminal means, once tolerated, are soon preferred." That which we authorize our government to do to anyone, it can do to everyone. If we permit the government supposedly protecting us to ignore the constitutional limits on its powers, it will quickly become the single greatest threat to our own lives and liberties.

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While many esteemed President Adams as a model of piety and rectitude, Jefferson warned that "confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism — free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence .... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

If we do not act soon to shackle our government in the metaphorical chains of the Constitution, we will in short order find ourselves bound by the very tangible chains of despotism.

Much more at the link including a detailed analysis of the Padilla Case, rendition and torture tactics:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_1903.shtml

It's not as if it's hard to find folk who get it.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Maddy McCall]

18. Nuke whom?

Very insightful post there. :eyes:

[H2O Man]

24. Sometimes

I almost wish there was a "hall of fame" for deleted posts. They should not be where they interfere with an intelligent conversation. But kind of a humor cluster.

[Peace Patriot]

22. Thanks for the Jefferson quotes, understandinglife! God I live that man's

quotes! (And God how I wish he could've won the argument about banning slavery in the Dec of Independence! What a tragedy for him--who wrote of the psychological damage of slavery and who saw the holocaust coming--to be trapped within his time, by its laws and mores, like giant Gulliver tied down by the Liliputians! Virginia law said that freed slaves could not remain in Virginia--thus, to free his slaves, he would have to break up his family or leave his beloved Montecello. He reminds me of Oedipus and Hamlet--trapped, trapped...).

Torture. From my comment at the other post on this Newsweek story...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1665879

There was a poll last year--May '04--indicating that 63% of Americans oppose torture UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

That's the America I know and love--a people that is not easily scared, and that is sticking to its sense of justice, and lawfulness and ethics, despite all the fearmongering.

And I hope one day to wake up and see the news monopolies finally ask the question: How the hell did this regime get "re-elected" when EVERY opinion poll on the issues shows overwhelming American disapproval of every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic. You name it. Torture. The war in Iraq (since BEFORE the invasion). Social Security. The deficit. Women's rights. The great majority of Americans disagree--way up in the 60% to 70% range--and have done so for over a year (and, on Social Security, since the specter of "privatization" was raised).

Where is this regime's SUPPORT? Where are Karl Rove's "invisible get-out-the-vote campaign" voters?

I hope they ask that some day soon. Because those of us here at DU and elsewhere who have worked on the 2004 election fraud evidence have the answer. Karl Rove's "invisible" voters did not exist. And this illegitimate regime does not represent the majority of Americans.

----------

I am particularly galled by the appointment of torture memo writer Alberto Gonzales as the chief law enforcement officer of the U.S.--and by a couple of Democrats who touted him for the Supreme Court! Unbelievable!

[understandinglife]

26. "In defiance of centuries of Anglo-Saxon common law, the Bush ...

... administration claims that the president has the power to render any individual an "un-person" with respect to the protection of the law by designating him an "enemy combatant." Those thus designated may be imprisoned, without legal recourse of any kind, for as long as the president sees fit, and be treated in any manner the president deems suitable. This could include the delivery of such hapless people into the hands of foreign governments — such as those ruling Egypt, Syria, Morocco, or Uzbekistan — that employ torture as a means of interrogation.

None of this is theoretical. Our government is doing these things today, and anticipates making use of these criminal means for the foreseeable future. And, once again, under the doctrines being devised by the administration, U.S. citizens could be subject to such treatment at the president's discretion.

<clip>

From Casting Aside Justice by William Norman Grigg

Referenced and linked, above.

In this outstanding exposition, the above two paragraphs precede an accounting of the 'hapless American citizen' - Jose Padilla.

This is real evil, 24/7.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[Mnemosyne]

23. NOT in my name. Ever.

:cry: :kick:

[moodforaday]

25. kick (n/t)

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

27. And the hard hitting story on MTP, an interview with the astronauts.

[understandinglife]

29. DSB, Sep 2004: Muslims do not hate our freedom ... they hate our policies.

Again, all of the contents of this report existed well before November 2, 2004. In the case of the Pentagon's Defense Science Board (DSB) report, Bush and his neoconster zealots suppressed its release until December 13, 2004:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3982913

As I build each of these threads, documenting the ongoing crimes of the Bush regime and the failures of the corporate media and our elected representatives (to the extent we have any confidence of anyone occupying office legitimately), I am trying to provide links to past relevant threads just to make it as easy as possible for folk to find references.

And, to make it clear that much is and has been known about the crimes of Bush and his gang.

Knowledge is necessary but it is not sufficient to save our Republic and humanity.

We must act on our knowledge of the vast crimes of Bush and the neoconsters.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[BeFree]

30. A "TOP SECRET" revealed:

It is the

Bush administration policy of "extraordinary rendition"?a secret program under which terror suspects are transferred to foreign countries that have been widely criticized for practicing torture.

Throw in the policies of Gitmo, add Abu Gharib, to a glass of other "extraordinary" actions, and what do you have?

A very deadly brew. An anti-human, life destroying concoction that will kill off the US as we know it. And that, my friends, is the "TOP SECRET".

[understandinglife]

32. "we will 'have changed the DNA of what it means to be an American.'

Who We Are

By BOB HERBERT

August 1, 2005

You won't find many people willing to accuse John McCain, John Warner or Lindsey Graham of being soft on terrorism. But the three Republican senators are giving the White House fits with their attempt to get legislation approved that would expressly prohibit cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.

There was a dramatic encounter during the floor debate last week when Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, spoke out against the legislation, saying there was no need for it because, as he put it, the detainees are not prisoners of war, "they are terrorists."

Senator McCain, of Arizona, argued that the debate "is not about who they are. It's about who we are." Americans, said Mr. McCain, "hold ourselves" to a higher standard.

The stakes in this confrontation are high. Senators McCain, Warner and Graham are all influential members of the Armed Services Committee (Senator Warner is the chairman), and they have introduced the legislation in the form of amendments to the nearly half-trillion-dollar Pentagon authorization bill for fiscal 2006.

<clip>

More at link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/01/opinion/01herbert.html

Just who are 'we Americans.'


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[understandinglife]

33. Marjorie Cohn: Bush Defies Military, Congress on Torture

Bush Defies Military, Congress on Torture

by Marjorie Cohn

August 1, 2005

After the grotesque torture photographs emerged from Abu Ghraib prison in April 2004, Bush said, "I shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated." He vowed the incidents would be investigated and the perpetrators would "be taken care of."

Bush seemed shocked to learn of torture committed by US forces. But then someone leaked an explosive Department of Justice memorandum that had been written in August 2002. The memo presented a blueprint explaining how interrogators could torture prisoners and everyone in the chain of command could escape criminal liability for war crimes. It said the President was above the law. That memo set the stage for the torture of prisoners in US custody.

Now we learn that, in early 2003, several senior uniformed military lawyers from each of the services voiced vigorous dissents to the policies outlined in the Justice Department's 2002 memo.

<clip>

A group led by Democratic Senator Carl Levin seeks an amendment calling for an independent commission, like the 9/11 Commission, to investigate the Bush administration's interrogation policies and mistreatment of prisoners. This amendment is probably the most threatening to Bush and his deputies. A truly independent investigation would likely uncover criminal liability all the way up the chain of command to the White House.

More at the link:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080105I.shtml

Marjorie Cohn, a contributing editor to t r u t h o u t, is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.

Mr Bush's should be memorialized by a monument I hope they erect someday at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo along with a simple message - "An American President who lied, tortured and killed and never admitted he'd done anything wrong, ever."


Peace.

www.missionnotaccmplished.us

[understandinglife]

34. Robert Weiner: 'The prison torture decisions "came from the top,"'

Prison Abuse Decisions Came from the Top

t r u t h o u t | Press Release

August 1, 2005


Washington, DC - The prison torture decisions "came from the top," asserts Robert Weiner, a former Clinton White House senior public affairs official. "No matter where these prisons are, so long as our policy is the same, torture will take place - closing Guantánamo or Abu Ghraib will not stop the outbreak of abuses and torture."

In an op-ed in today's Cleveland Plain Dealer, Weiner, now president of a public affairs issues strategies company, contends, "The orders to torture came from the top down. In the pyramid of power, first and foremost was President Bush's Jan. 25, 2002 executive order disavowing the Geneva Conventions for the 'new' kind of war we are fighting. Moreover, then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez (now Attorney General) assisted in writing the 2002 memo, which also asserted that the Geneva Conventions - respected worldwide - were 'quaint' and 'obsolete.' Last May, before all our eyes in televised hearings, Department of Defense Under Secretary for Intelligence Dr. Stephen Cambone, who coordinates DOD intelligence policy, visibly waived off and interrupted key parts of Major General Antonio Taguba's testimony before the U.S. Senate on the depths of abuses."

In the piece, Weiner and co-author Emma Dick, a human rights analyst for Weiner's issue strategies company, contend that "calls to close the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay have diverted attention from the policies that have made both Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib infamous." They call it "astounding" that "the White House is claiming it would 'restrict the president's authority' to pass bipartisan legislation prohibiting the 'cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment' of detainees, and that Vice President Cheney is meeting with Congress saying the president will veto any such bill." Cheney has even stated that "if we didn't have that facility at Guantánamo to undertake this activity, we'd have to have it someplace else," words which Weiner and Dick say "send a chill to the human rights community".

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Weiner and Dick assert, "Torturing prisoners, making people pile up naked, electric shock in private areas, using vicious dogs to bite, holding people in secret in perpetuity and denying them access to their families and the legal process are not the human rights values this nation stands for. As prisoners' families, colleagues and countrymen hear of the abuses, support swells rather than diminishes for Jihad against us. We have dramatically reduced our national reputation as a human rights leader."

Link to the t r u t h o u t press release:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080105Q.shtml

Link to the Cleveland Plain Dealer Op-Ed:

http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/opinion/112280238170610.xml?ocoth&coll=2

What we need to do is close the jail cell door with Bush, Gonzales, Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Gen Miller and others inside.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[Supersedeas]

35. it is not just Air Force prosecutors speaking out!!!

[understandinglife]

36. "..arrested at Karachi airport on April 10 2002; flown by US plane to ..."

...HELL...

'One of them made cuts in my penis. I was in agony'

August 2, 2005

The Guardian

Benyam Mohammed travelled from London to Afghanistan in July 2001, but after September 11 he fled to Pakistan. He was arrested at Karachi airport on April 10 2002, and describes being flown by a US government plane to a prison in Morocco. These are extracts from his diary.

They cut off my clothes with some kind of doctor's scalpel. I was naked. I tried to put on a brave face. But maybe I was going to be raped. Maybe they'd electrocute me. Maybe castrate me.

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It only gets worse at the link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1540549,00.html

...festering, ooozing, expanding, ....., and it is going to burst ... those pictures and more and more stories will make it inescapble that America is into torture, big-time.

And, we already have enough evidence to send Bush and Gonzales and others to trial.

Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[understandinglife]

37. "Torturing Prisoners? Not by the book"

Torturing Prisoners? Not by the book

by Marie Cocco

August 2, 2005

Surely it is not as subversive as your average freshman reading list. It wasn't authored by Karl Marx or Che Guevara and hasn't the shock value once associated with the work of Norman Mailer.

The Army Field Manual is a straightforward document. It amounts to a list of procedures and expectations and ideals that troops are to live by and that they have, by and large, for decades and with honor.

The White House finds this book altogether too threatening. The commander in chief refuses to agree that his military must abide by its own manual when it questions detainees in the "war on terror."

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But decipher the logic. We cannot release the images of our depraved abuse of Muslims because to do so would provoke a violent backlash that would put our troops - not to mention straphangers in the subways - in harm's way. But neither will we agree to abide by a rule or two that would prevent the cruelties, or at least make it sound as though the president thinks they're out of bounds.

If, as an American, you are confused about the message we send about ourselves, do not worry. The Muslim world is not.

Link:

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opcoc024367606aug02,0,2372094,print.column?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines

I'm only confused by the fact that Bush and his fellow neoconster criminals are not already being prosecuted.

Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us