Ronald Reagan's Torture

[L. Coyote]

Here is a brief portion of a long review of U. S. torture history.

Also, I recommend this Deja DU from Dec-12-07:
George Bush Sr. May Face Charges: Conspiring to Kidnap and Murder Political Activists
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2459135

I was nearly killed in Central America, while investigating illegal aid to the Contras just before
Iran-Contra broke in the news. I personally still want to see these killers brought to Justice.

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Ronald Reagan's Torture
By Robert Parry - September 8, 2009 - http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/090809.html


Lost amid the attention given George W. Bush’s “war on terror” torture policies was the CIA’s cryptic admission that it also engaged in interrogation abuses during Ronald Reagan’s anti-leftist wars in Central America, another era of torture and extra-judicial killings.
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The 2004 CIA Inspector General’s report, released last month, referenced as “background” to the Bush-era abuses the spy agency’s “intermittent involvement in the interrogation of individuals whose interests are opposed to those of the United States.” The report noted “a resurgence in interest” in teaching those techniques in the early 1980s “to foster foreign liaison relationships.”

The report said, “because of political sensitivities,” the CIA’s top brass in the 1980s “forbade Agency officers from using the word ‘interrogation” and substituted the phrase “human resources exploitation” in training programs for allied intelligence agencies.

The euphemism aside, the reality of these interrogation techniques remained brutal, with the CIA Inspector General conducting a 1984 investigation of alleged “misconduct on the part of two Agency officers who were involved in interrogations and the death of one individual,” the report said (although the details were redacted in the version released last month).

In 1984, the CIA also was hit with a scandal over what became known as an “assassination manual” prepared by agency personnel for the Nicaraguan contras, a rebel group sponsored by the Reagan administration with the goal of ousting Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government.

Despite those two problems, the questionable training programs apparently continued for another two years. The 2004 IG report states that “in 1986, the Agency ended the HRE training program because of allegations of human rights abuses in Latin America.”

While the report’s references to this earlier era of torture are brief – and the abuses are little-remembered features of Ronald Reagan’s glorified presidency – there have been other glimpses into how Reagan unleashed this earlier “dark side” on the peasants, workers and students of Central America.

Project X

A sketchy history of the U.S. intelligence community’s participation in torture and other abuses surfaced in the mid-1990s with the release of a Pentagon report on what was known as “Project X,” ..........

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[L. Coyote]

1. Reagan On Torture Prosecutions - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

There is a counter-reality aspect to Republicanism: Say one thing to supply cover for doing the opposite. Especially if it is a crime!


http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/reagan-on-torture-prosecutions.html

24 Apr 2009 03:39 pm
Reagan On Torture Prosecutions

From his signing statement ratifying the UN Convention on Torture from 1984:

"The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called 'universal jurisdiction.' Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution."

[L. Coyote]

2. .