The torture tape fingering Bush as a war criminal

The Washington Post reported that “current and former officials” said the torture lasted weeks and even, according to some, months, and that the techniques included hypothermia, long periods of standing, sleep deprivation and multiple sessions of waterboarding. All these “alternative procedures”, as Bush described them, are illegal under US law and the Geneva conventions. They are, in fact, war crimes. And they were once all treated by the US as war crimes when they were perpetrated by the Nazis. Waterboarding has been found to be a form of torture in various American legal cases.

And that is where the story becomes interesting. The Bush administration denies any illegality at all, insists it does not “torture” but refuses to say whether it believes waterboarding is torture or not. But hundreds of hours of videotape were recorded of Zubaydah’s incarceration and torture. That evidence would settle the dispute over the extremely serious question of whether the president of the United States authorised war crimes.

And now we have found out that all the tapes have been destroyed...........

........ This is not, of course, the first big scandal to have emerged over the administration’s interrogation policies. You can fill a book with the sometimes sickening details that have come out of Guantanamo Bay, Bagram in Afghanistan, Camp Cropper in Iraq and, of course, Abu Ghraib.

The administration has admitted that several prisoners have been killed in interrogation, and dozens more have died in the secret network of interrogation sites the US has set up across the world. The policy of rendition has sent countless suspects into torture cells in Uzbekistan, Egypt, Jordan and elsewhere to feed the West’s intelligence on jihadist terrorism.

But this case is more ominous for the administration because it presents a core example of what seems to be a cover-up, obstruction of justice and a direct connection between torture and the president, the vice-president and their closest aides.

Because several courts had pending cases in which testimony from Zubaydah’s interrogation was salient, the destruction of such evidence triggers a legal process that is hard for the executive branch to stymie or stall - and its first attempt was flatly rebuffed by a judge last week.

Its key argument is a weakly technical one: that the interrogation took place outside US territory - and therefore the courts do not have jurisdiction over it. It’s the same rationale for imprisoning hundreds of suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba - a legal no man’s land. But Congress can get involved - especially if it believes that what we have here is a cover-up.

What are the odds that a legal effective interrogation of a key Al-Qaeda operative would have led many highly respected professionals in the US intelligence community to risk their careers by leaking top-secret details to the press?

What are the odds that the CIA would have sought to destroy tapes that could prove it had legally prevented serious and dangerous attacks against innocent civilians? What are the odds that a president who had never authorised waterboarding would be unable to say whether such waterboarding was torture?

What are the odds that, under congressional grilling, the new attorney-general would also refuse to say whether he believed waterboarding was illegal, if there was any doubt that the president had authorised it? The odds are beyond minimal.

Any reasonable person examining all the evidence we have - without any bias - would conclude that the overwhelming likelihood is that the president of the United States authorised illegal torture of a prisoner and that the evidence of the crime was subsequently illegally destroyed.

It is clear to me that most Americans simply don't care what the government does to these people, choosing to believe the propaganda that paints these people as somehow less human than us, less civilized, allowing them to achieve some sort of twisted justification in their minds for allowing this to continue. However, if basic humanity isn't enough to spur an outcry against this cruelty, perhaps self interest will be. The government has already begun to treat its "free citizens" savagely, and the brutality that is perpetrated in our names in the secret CIA prisons, Gitmo, Iraq, and Afghanistan has begun to travel home, and when it does, they will have perfected their techniques. Our society bears more resemblance to that of Saddam Hussein's Iraq ...the man that, of course, our CIA sponsored into power...than the free nation it claims to be.... It won't be long until Americans are waterboarded...in the name of "National Security"...and "for our own good", of course.

US Accused of Torture

Ian Munro Herald Correspondent in New York
October 31, 2007

THE United States's willingness to resort to harsh interrogation techniques in its so-called war on terror undermined human rights and the international ban on torture, a United Nations spokesman says.

Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, said the US's standing and importance meant it was a model to other countries which queried why they were subject to scrutiny when the US resorted to measures witnessed at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison.

Mr Nowak was speaking after releasing his finding that the use of torture was routine and widespread in Sri Lanka ,despite laws against it.

"I am very concerned about the undermining of the absolute prohibition of torture by interrogation methods themselves in Abu Grahib, in Guantanamo Bay and others, but also by rendition and the whole CIA secret places of detention. All that is really undermining the international rule of law in general and human rights but also the prohibition of torture," said Mr Nowak.

"(Other countries) say why are you criticising us if the US, the most democratic country with the oldest history of human rights, if they are torturing you should first go there. It has a negative effect because the US is a very powerful and important country and many other countries take the US as a model."

Shameful...and we have the nerve to spout all sorts of rhetoric about human rights abuses in other countries...and Bush can manage it with a straight face, while he has who knows how many prisoners locked in secret CIA prisons around the world first kidnapped, then tortured.

CIA resumes use of secret prisons

The CIA has resumed its use of overseas secret prisons, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

In the last six months, five new terrorism suspects have been transferred to the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. One of the new detainees, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, spent months in CIA custody overseas, Pentagon officials told the Post.

On Sept. 6, 2006, the White House announced the CIA's secret prisons had been emptied for the time being and 14 al-Qaida leaders shipped to Guantanamo. There has been no official statement of what happened to nearly 30 other "ghost prisoners" held by the CIA for extended lengths of time, the Post reported.

Details of the secret prisons remain classified, though it is believed some of the prisoners were transferred secretly to their home countries and remain imprisoned, while other have simply vanished, said human rights groups and lawyers for the detainees.

Most of the ghost prisoners were captured in Pakistan, where they fled after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Well now, if we Americans continue to allow these criminals to "disappear" people without consequence, it won't be long before our own citizens begin to vanish in the night. French human rights groups seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation...why are ours so meek in their response to the kidnapping and torture of human beings? We should be deeply ashamed.....

How the Applause Meter Rates Bush’s Pressure on Cuba

There’s no science to gauge how President Bush’s speech on Cuba will play around the world. However, if a large part of diplomacy is theater, audience reaction seems an appropriate first indicator.

“These are just a few of the examples of the terror and trauma that is Cuba today,” Mr. Bush said after introducing the women. “The socialist paradise is a tropical gulag. The quest for justice that once inspired the Cuban people has now become a grab for power. And as with all totalitarian systems, Cuba’s regime no doubt has other horrors still unknown to the rest of the world.”

“Once revealed,” Mr. Bush added, “they will shock the conscience of humanity.”

Imagine this man, with his own gulag full of political prisoners on the very island he is speaking of, spouting this propaganda with a straight face...it must have been quite a sight.

Mr. Bush demanded that the country try a new way, making a daring pitch to the Cuban military.

“When Cubans rise up to demand their liberty, you’ve got to make a choice,” Mr. Bush said. “Will you defend a disgraced and dying order by using force against your own people? Or will you embrace your people’s desire for change?”

I certainly hope our own military will heed this very wise advice given by the Commander in Chief if faced with the same decision at home.

He reiterated his staunch support for the economic embargo that has been the centerpiece of United States policy on Cuba for more than 40 years. He acknowledged that much of the rest of the world disapproves of it, but encouraged other governments to put aside their differences and work together with him to establish a multibillion-dollar fund to help rebuild Cuba’s badly dilapidated infrastructure once a democratic transition is under way.

“We will know there is a new Cuba when opposition parties have the freedom to organize, assemble and speak with equal access to the airwaves,” he said. “We will know there is a new Cuba when a free and independent press has the power to operate without censors. We will know there is a new Cuba when the government removes its stranglehold on private economic activity. Above all, we will know there is a new Cuba when authorities go to the prisons, walk to the cells where people are being held for their beliefs and set them free.”

I bet the prisoners held for years without charge and tortured in Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and all of those secret CIA gulags around the world would love to see this moronic hypocrite practice what he preaches.

Pelosi Makes Excuses on Fox "News"

The United States appears to be illegally torturing terror suspects contrary to denials by President George Bush, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday.

The country's highest ranking Democrat also said she still hoped to get most US troops out of Iraq by the end of next year, despite the party's repeated failure to win over enough Republicans in Congress to an exit strategy.

Interviewed on Fox News Sunday, Pelosi said reported interrogation tactics such as simulated drowning, head slapping and exposure to extreme temperatures all amounted to banned torture.

"There is a legal definition of torture that I believe this would fit. The president says it is not," she said.

But the House speaker said she had received only limited briefings from the Bush administration on its interrogation tactics, and had not seen a controversial memo issued in 2005 by the Justice Department.

She didn't get the memo...ha ha ha .....It is her job to know what the executive branch is doing...checks and balances and all that....these spineless democrats have turned a blind eye to these issues willfully...after all, the fear mongering helps keep the sheeple subservient, which will be to their benefit when the reins of power over the American dictatorship pass to them in 2008, with the added benefit of being able to blame Bushco for it all...let us not forget that every one of these people in Congress has allowed these abuses to go on, complicit in them by direct action in some cases and by inaction in others...therefore, they are just as guilty as the Bush/Cheney cabal for each and every one.

"I Helped MI5. My Reward: Brutality and Prison"

When Bisher al-Rawi agreed to work for the British government, he thought he was doing the right thing. He spent four gruelling years at Guantanamo Bay for his efforts. In this remarkable interview he breaks his silence and tells his extraordinary story to David Rose.

James Bond used to interview informants in nightclubs and luxury hotels. Le Carré's George Smiley preferred park benches, or safe houses in Belgravia. But when Bisher al-Rawi met the men from MI5, they chose somewhere more prosaic: a table in the basement of the Kensington High Street McDonald's, just to the left of the stairs. 'I always had a Filet-o-Fish,' al-Rawi says drily. 'They would only drink. One supposes they didn't like the food.'

It wasn't the only difference between Britain's real and fictional spies. Having risked his life and reputation to tell MI5 about Islamic radicalism in London in the months after 9/11, al-Rawi has told The Observer the sensational story of his betrayal.

A secret telegram was sent from the British Security Service to the CIA, in which they told the Americans that al-Rawi was carrying a timing device for a bomb - in reality, an innocuous battery charger from Argos - on a business trip to Gambia. Al-Rawi, the telegram added, was an 'Iraqi extremist' associate of the preacher Abu Qatada, later described as Osama bin Laden's ambassador to Europe and now in a British jail

It did not, however, mention the fact that al-Rawi had been seeing Qatada at the request of MI5.

The usual reward for collaborating with the State....welcome to the Fourth Reich