John
C Yoo
|
Torture
TORTURE News:
20080618
War
Crimes - Criminal
- Politicians
- US
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Guantanamo
Bay - Cuba
- Military
- Intelligence
- Prison
- Torture
- Human
- Human
Rights - Law
- Medical
- Psychological
- Science
"General
who probed Abu Ghraib says [Republican President] Bush officials committed
war crimes." ... "The Army general who led the investigation
into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison accused the [Republican
President] Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and
called for those responsible to be held to account." ... "The remarks by
[Major General] Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who's now retired, came in a
new report that found that [United States] U.S. personnel tortured and
abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings,
electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices." ... ""After
years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports
from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether
the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The
only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered
the use of torture will be held to account."" ... "Taguba, whose 2004 investigation
documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior
official to have accused the administration of war crimes. "The commander
in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture,"
he wrote." ... "The group Physicians for Human Rights, which compiled the
new report, described it as the most in-depth medical and psychological
examination of former detainees to date." ... "Also this week, a probe
by the Senate Armed Services Committee revealed how senior Pentagon officials
pushed for harsher interrogation methods over the objections of top military
lawyers. Those methods later surfaced in Afghanistan and Iraq." -By
Warren
P. Strobel -McClatchyDC.com
Special
Report - Noteworthy
- US
- Guantanamo
Bay - Cuba
- Military
- Intelligence
- Torture
- War
Crimes - Prison
- Investigation
- Legal
- Rights
- Religious
- Terrorism
- School
- Politics
"Guantanamo
Bay detainees investigation." ... "An eight-month
McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the [September]
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the [United States] U.S. imprisoned
innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights
and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba into a school for jihad."
"
-McClatchyDC.com
Torture
- Crimes
- Unlawful
- US
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Guantanamo
Bay - Cuba
- Military
- Intelligence
- Prison
- Terrorism
- War
Crimes - Politics
- Human
- Rights
- Medical
- Psychological
- Science
"Broken
Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by
the US." ... "About: Broken Laws, Broken Lives shows the
human consequences of harsh and unlawful US interrogation practices. This
landmark report reveals the excruciating pain and continued suffering of
men who, never charged with any crime, endured torture at US detention
facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay [Cuba]. Based
on internationally accepted standards for clinical assessment of torture
claims, the report documents practices used to bring about long-lasting
pain, terror, humiliation, and shame for months on end." -Physicians
for Human Rights -BrokenLives.info
20080605
John
McCain - Corporate
- Military
- Government
- Telecommunications
- Surveillance
- Amnesty
- Politics
- Intelligence
- John
Yoo - Torture
- Detainee
- Human
Rights - Enforcement
- Florida
- 2008
Election
"McCain
tangled in flip-flop flap over wiretapping immunity."
... "A series of statements about immunizing telecommunications companies
that violated federal wiretapping laws have become something of an embarrassment,
and perhaps even a problem, for [2008 Election Republican] John McCain's
presidential campaign." ... "The statements revolve around whether McCain,
like [Republican] President Bush, supports legislation that could be voted
on this month extending retroactive immunity to those companies and perhaps
many more." ... "In 2005, at least, McCain was in favor of letting
the courts decide whether
AT&T
and other telecos violated the law." ... "... [Late December 2007]
McCain told
the Boston Globe this: "I think that presidents have the obligation to
obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by
the president, no matter what the situation is."" ... "But after McCain
became the all-but-official nominee, his political principles appear to
have become more malleable. He voted
in February for retroactive immunity -- even though there were no explicit
statements telling AT&T and other telecommunications companies that
this is not a "blessing." There were no deals providing for "oversight
hearings." And there certainly were no "provisions" to ensure this won't
happen again." ... "Our story may have ended there. Except that campaign
representative Chuck Fish (not an actual campaign lawyer, as has been incorrectly
reported, but a surrogate) subsequently suggested
that his candidate still wanted "hearings," which The Washington Post
picked
up on last week. McCain's campaign fired off a nastygram to the Post
saying that their candidate's "position on immunity has not changed.""
... "Meanwhile, McCain was questioned about his position at a town hall
meeting the next day -- he replied that Congress needs to "have hearings"
-- which The Wall Street Journal dutifully reported.
The fuss became enough to prompt the conservative National Review
to begin questioning McCain's the-executive-can-wiretap-as-it-pleases credentials.
Salon entered
the fray too." ... "[Florida Democratic Representative] Rep. Robert
Wexler of Florida, who is a member of the House Judiciary committee, sent
us this statement on Wednesday:"
"I
am appalled by Senator John McCain's reaffirmation of support for the use
of warrantless wiretapping on American citizens. Senator McCain has once
again chosen to align himself with President George Bush, whose reprehensible
spying program on Americans is a grave threat to our Constitutions guarantees
of privacy and limited executive power. It is clear that Senator McCain,
President Bush, and their Republican allies in Congress will continue to
use scare tactics and fear mongering to claim that a president can simply
chose to ignore America's laws... Senator McCain opposes a bipartisan House
compromise bill that preserves appropriate court review of all surveillance
of US citizens and gives judges the discretion to review all the necessary
documents related to telecom lawsuits without offering blanket immunity."
"Yet
there's a more important issue here, which is why the neo-cons are pressing
McCain to adhere to the Bush administration's line. And that's the administration's
theory of the so-called unitary
executive, which says that the president's use of military force cannot
be reviewed by courts." ... "McCain's earlier statements -- especially
where he says presidents must "obey and enforce laws that are passed by
Congress" -- seem to question the administration's interpretation. Beyond
wiretapping, that touches on topics such as John Yoo's so-called torture
memos, the applicability of the Geneva Convention to detainees, Bush's
signing statements, and military commissions. Questioning the justifications
for Bush's warrantless wiretapping means questioning the rest; no wonder
McCain seems a little worried about where this may lead." -By
Declan
McCullagh -CNET
[note: The conservative/Republican
opinion magazine National Review supports lawless surveillance.]
20080602
US
- Military
- Intelligence
- Government
- Politics
- Unlawful
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Torture
- Prisons
- History
- Book
"Lt.
Gen Sanchez: [Republican President] Bush Administration Guilty of "Gross
Incompetence and Dereliction of Duty"." ... "In [retired
Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez's book] "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's
Story," [General] Gen. Sanchez goes into detail about various military
blunders that led to where we are today." ... "In one excerpt, published
by TIME,
Sanchez explains why there were inadequate troop levels in Iraq for a time:"
[From
retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez's book, "Wiser in Battle: A
Soldier's Story:]
""CENTCOM
had originally called for twelve to eighteen months of Phase IV activity
with active troop deployments. But then CENTCOM had completely walked away
by simply stating that the war was over and Phase IV was not their job.""
... ""That decision set up the United States for a failed first year in
Iraq. There is no question about it. And I was supposed to believe that
neither the Secretary of Defense nor anybody above him knew anything about
it? Impossible! Rumsfeld knew about it. Everybody on the NSC [National
Security Council] knew about it, including Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet,
and Colin Powell. [Republican] Vice President Cheney knew about it. And
[Republican] President Bush knew about it."" ... ""There's not a doubt
in my mind that they all embraced this decision to some degree. And if
it had not been for the moral courage of [General] Gen. John Abizaid to
stand up to them all and reverse Franks's troop drawdown order, there's
no telling how much more damage would have been done."" ... ""In the meantime,
hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and
worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American
soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In
my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence
and dereliction of duty.""
"In
an excerpt published on NPR's
website, Sanchez writes[:]"
[From
retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez's book, "Wiser in Battle: A
Soldier's Story:]
""In
the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I watched
helplessly as the [Republican President] Bush administration led America
into a strategic blunder of historic proportions. It became painfully obvious
that the executive branch of our government did not trust its military.
It relied instead on a neoconservative ideology developed by men and women
with little, if any, military experience. Some senior military leaders
did not challenge civilian decision makers at the appropriate times, and
the courageous few who did take a stand were subsequently forced out of
the service...I saw the cynical use of war for political gains by elected
officials and acquiescent military leaders. I learned how the pressure
of a round-the-clock news cycle could drive crucial decisions.
I witnessed those resulting political decisions override military requirements
and judgments and, in turn, create conditions that caused unnecessary harm
to our soldiers on the ground..."" ... ""Over the fourteen months of my
command in Iraq, I witnessed a blatant disregard for the lives of our young
soldiers in uniform. It is an issue that constantly eats away at me.["]"
"And
regarding Abu Ghraib, Sanchez writes -- according to Eli Lake of the New
York Sun -- that the [United States] U.S. was torturing prisoners."
... "A remarkable admission."
[From
retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez's book, "Wiser in Battle: A
Soldier's Story:]
"During
the last few months of 2002, while the highest levels of the U.S. government
were sparring with Saddam Hussein and setting up the case for an invasion
of Iraq, there is irrefutable evidence that America was torturing and killing
prisoners in Afghanistan...In retrospect, the Bush administration's new
policy triggered a sequence of events that led to the use of harsh interrogation
tactics against not only al Qaeda prisoners, but also eventually prisoners
in Iraq—in spite of our best efforts to restrain such unlawful conduct.""
-By
Jake Tapper -ABCNEWS.com
20080527
-
Barack
Obama - History
- Author
- Foreign
- Military
- Terrorism
- Torture
- Guantanamo
- Cuba
- Iraq
- US
- 2008
Election - "Fukuyama
backs Obama for US presidency." ... "He is one of
America's most famous neo-conservatives and his ideas on the spread of
democracy have informed the [Republican President] Bush administration's
foreign policy." ... "But Francis Fukuyama, the author of The End of History
and Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University,
is now a sharp critic of US President George W Bush and has even come out
as a supporter of [2008 Election] Democrat frontrunner Barack Obama for
president." ... "ELEANOR HALL: So what advice do you have for the next
president of the United States on foreign policy?" ... "FRANCIS FUKUYAMA:
I think that the US as a result of Iraq has really alienated itself from
a good deal of the global public. Not just people in the Middle East where
anti-Americanism is at an all-time high but from its European allies, from
a lot of publics in places where there ought to be a lot of sympathy."
... "So I think the United States needs to reconnect with the world. It
needs to do some symbolic things like, we shouldn't torture people, so
as a first symbolic gesture I think the new president ought to close Guantanamo
[Cuba] and I think in general what you need is a shift." ... "There needs
to be great downplaying of the whole war on terrorism. To call it a war
I think has over-militarised our objectives and the means that we have
used to prosecute it, and I think there has to be a greater shift to the
use of soft power in projecting American influence and then there are large
areas of the world where we have kind of neglected thinking about things
like east Asia where you have obviously got some very big changes going
off. " -By Eleanor Hall
-Yahoo
20080520
-
US
- Chinese
- Torture- Intelligence
- Politics
- Guantanamo
Bay - Cuba
- Military
- Government
- Prison
- Investigation
- Law
- "Report:
U.S. Soldiers Did 'Dirty Work' for Chinese Interrogators:
Alleges Guantanamo Personnel Softened Up Detainees at Request of Chinese
Intelligence." ... "U.S. [United States] military personnel at Guantanamo
Bay [Cuba] allegedly softened up detainees at the request of Chinese intelligence
officials who had come to the island facility to interrogate the men --
or they allowed the Chinese to dole out the treatment themselves, according
to claims in a new government report." ... "Buried in a Department of Justice
report released Tuesday are new allegations about a 2002 arrangement between
the United States and China, which allowed Chinese intelligence to visit
Guantanamo and interrogate Chinese Uighurs held there." ... "According
to the report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, an FBI
[Federal Bureau of Investigation] agent reported a detainee belonging to
China's ethnic Uighur minority and a Uighur translator told him Uighur
detainees were kept awake for long periods, deprived of food and forced
to endure cold for hours on end, just prior to questioning by Chinese interrogators."
... "Susan Manning, a lawyer who represents several Uighurs still held
at Guantanamo, said Tuesday the allegations are all too familiar." ...
"U.S. personnel "are engaging in abusive tactics on behalf of the Chinese,"
she said Tuesday. When Uighur detainees refused to talk to Chinese interrogators
in 2002, U.S. military personnel put them in solitary confinement as punishment,
she said." ... ""Why are we doing China's dirty work?" Manning said. "Surely
we're better than that." " (1, 2)
-By Justin Rood -ABCNEWS.com
20080424
-
Criminal
- Torture
- Secret
- Military
- Prison
- Censored
- Intelligence
- Law
- Politics
- Federal
- New
York
- "CIA
Foresaw Interrogation Issues: Agency Considered Investigations
'Virtually Inevitable'." ... "The CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] concluded
that criminal, administrative or civil investigations stemming from harsh
interrogation tactics were "virtually inevitable," leading the agency to
seek legal support from the Justice Department, according to a CIA official's
statement in court documents filed yesterday." ... "The CIA said it had
identified more than 7,000 pages of classified memos, e-mails and other
records relating to its secret prison and interrogation program, but maintained
that the materials cannot be released because they relate to, in part,
communications between CIA and Justice Department attorneys or discussions
with the [Republican President Bush] White House." ... "Nineteen of those
documents were withheld from disclosure specifically because the Bush administration
decided they are covered by a "presidential communications privilege,"
according to the filings, made in federal court in Manhattan [New York].
Some were "authored or solicited and received by the President's senior
advisors in connection with a decision, or potential decision, to be made
by the president."" ... "Although the precise content of the documents
is unknown, the agency's statements illustrate the extent to which senior
White House officials were involved in decision-making on CIA detentions,
interrogations, and renditions, a term for forced transfers of prisoners."
-By Dan Eggen with contributions by Julie Tate
-WashingtonPost
20080417
-
-
- Media
- Politics
- Corporate
- Network
- 2008
Election -
-
-
-
- Torture
-
- Human
Rights -
- Consumer
-
-
- Safety
-
-
-
- Death
Penalty - "Okay,
Now I'm Bitter." [Mary Mapes on what
DISNEY/ABC didn't cover in the 2008 Election Democratic Presidential
Candidate debate in Pennsylvania with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama]
... "In Iraq, we've seen a rebound in suicide bombings and gotten the disquieting
information that Iraqi soldiers have been fleeing the battlefield in frightening
numbers." ... "Americans learned that detailed discussions of torture techniques
had been held in the [Republican President] White House -- our White House
-- and President Bush revealed that he knew this and approved." ... "[Home]
Foreclosure rates have spiked to frightening levels." ... "U.S. [United
States] shoppers were told that food prices in this country are rising
at a higher pace than at any time in the past 17 years." ... "The airline
industry floundered through dreadful days of groundings, amidst safety
concerns, economic ailments and passenger anger." ... "Oil prices are setting
new records almost every day and $4 a gallon gas is coming soon to a service
station near you." ... "The anguish over China's human rights record and
its handling of Tibet turned the Olympic torch relay into a cross between
Spain's Running of the Bulls and 3rd grade keep-away." ... "[2008 Election
Republican Presidential Candidate] John McCain, acting like a mean old
man trying to chase those pesky voters off his lawn, refused to endorse
a new GI bill that would help those currently serving our country get a
college education." ... "The Supreme Court issued a fractured opinion on
the death penalty that for the first time in years raises the real possibility
of a national debate on the value and morality of the ultimate punishment."
... "And we are in the middle of what is clearly the most important, most
consequential election of my lifetime -- and I'm no spring chicken." ...
"Instead, I sat in front of my TV open-mouthed, listening to a hodgepodge
of juvenile questions about flag jewelry, the possibility of a "dream"
ticket, elderly radicals, Charlie Gibson's personal tax concerns and ministers
who emote too much. What, no time for a question about Cindy McCain's purloined
pork chop recipe?" -By Mary Mapes
-HuffingtonPost.com
20080414
-
Media
- Opinion
- Dick
Cheney
- Torture
- War
Crimes - Criminal
- Government
- Military
- Intelligence
- Law
- US
- International
- Politics
- "Bush
OK'd Torture Meetings." ... "[Republican] President
Bush says he was aware that his top aides met in the White House basement
to micromanage the application of waterboarding and other widely-condemned
interrogation techniques. And he says it was no big deal." ... ""I'm aware
our national security team met on this issue. And I approved," Bush told
ABC News' Martha Raddatz on Friday. "I don't know what's new about that;
I'm not so sure what's so startling about that."" ... "It's true that it
has been widely assumed and occasionally reported that the CIA's [Central
Intelligence Agency's] use of brutal interrogation techniques could be
traced back to the White House on a general level. But it was most definitely
new last week when ABC
News reported that a group of Bush's top aides, including [Republican]
Vice President Cheney, took part in meetings where they explicitly discussed
and approved -- literally blow by blow -- tactics such as waterboarding.
And while Bush has previously defended these tactics -- vaguely, and insisting
against all evidence that they did not amount to torture -- he had not,
until now, acknowledged that he personally OK'd them beforehand." ... "If
you consider what the government did to be torture, which is a crime according
to U.S. [United States] and international law, Bush's statement shifts
his role from being an accessory after the fact to being part of a conspiracy
to commit." ... "The mainstream media by and large seem to agree with Bush
that the ABC News Report wasn't so startling, and they have given Bush's
remarks almost no coverage. There was no mention of Bush's admission in
the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or the Los Angeles Times. There
was nothing on the major wire services. And nothing on CNN, CBS or NBC."
(1, 2,
3,
4,
5)
-By Dan Froomkin -WashingtonPost

-
Barack
Obama - Law
- Enforcement
- Torture
- Politics
- 2008
Election - "Obama
would ask his AG to “immediately review” potential of crimes in Bush White
House." ... "Tonight I had an opportunity to ask
[2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate] Barack Obama a question
that is on the minds of many Americans, yet rarely rises to the surface
in the great ruckus of the 2008 presidential race -- and that is whether
an Obama administration would seek to prosecute officials of a former [Republican
President] Bush administration on the revelations that they greenlighted
torture, or for other potential crimes that took place in the White House."
... "Obama said that as president he would indeed ask his new Attorney
General and his deputies to "immediately review the information that's
already there" and determine if an inquiry is warranted -- but he also
tread carefully on the issue, in line with his reputation for seeking to
bridge the partisan divide. He worried that such a probe could be spun
as "a partisan witch hunt." However, he said that equation changes if there
was willful criminality, because "nobody is above the law."" ... "Here's
his answer, in its entirety:"
"What
I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General
immediately review the information that's already there and to find out
are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because
we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are
right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're
also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived
on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've
got too many problems we've got to solve." ... "So this is an area
where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly
from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out
there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed
to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things
we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing
betyween really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal
activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall
meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful
to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be
reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there
were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged
in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic
principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's
roughly how I would look at it."
"
-Philly.com -By Will
Bunch
20080411
-
Dick
Cheney - John
Ashcroft - Torture
- Government
- Military
- Intelligence
- Terrorism
- Politics
- US
- International
- Law
- War
Crimes - "Bush
Aware of Advisers' Interrogation Talks: President
Says He Knew His Senior Advisers Discussed Tough Interrogation Methods."
... "[Republican] President Bush says he knew his top national security
advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al
Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency,
according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday." ... ""Well,
we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people."
Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And yes,
I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.""
... "These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top
al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of
sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources
told ABC news." ... "At the time, the [National Security Council's] Principals
Committee included Vice President Dick Cheney, former National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary
of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney
General John Ashcroft." ... "The so-called Principals who participated
in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques
-- using different techniques during interrogations instead of using one
method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break,
sources said." ... "Critics at home and abroad have harshly criticized
the interrogation program, which pushed the limits of international law
and, they say, condoned torture." (1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Jan Crawford Greenburg, Howard L. Rosenberg and
Ariane de Vogue -ABCNEWS.com

-
Dick
Cheney - John
Ashcroft - Jay
Bybee - Michael
Mukasey
- Torture
- War
Crimes - Government
- Military
- Intelligence
- Terrorism
- Politics
- Secret
- Law
- History
- US
- Overseas
- "Cheney,
Others OK'd Harsh Interrogations." ... "[Republican
President] Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney
on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected
terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality,
The Associated Press has learned." ... "The officials also took care to
insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA [Central Intelligence
Agency] interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates
drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved." ... "Between 2002 and
2003, the Justice Department issued several memos from its Office of Legal
Counsel that justified using the interrogation tactics, including ones
that critics call torture." ... "The meetings were held in the White House
Situation
Room in the years immediately following the [September] Sept. 11 attacks.
Attending the sessions were Cheney, then-Bush aides Attorney General John
Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and
national security adviser Condoleezza Rice." ... "The principals eventually
authorized physical abuse such as slaps and pushes, sleep deprivation,
or waterboarding. This technique involves strapping a person down and pouring
water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning."
... "The Office of Legal Counsel issued at least two opinions on interrogation
methods." ... "In one, dated [August] Aug. 1, 2002, then-Assistant Attorney
General Jay Bybee defined torture as covering "only extreme acts" causing
pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure. A second,
dated March 14, 2003, justified using harsh tactics on detainees held overseas
so long as military interrogators did not specifically intend to torture
their captives." ... "Both legal opinions since have been withdrawn." ...
"The department issued another still-secret memo in October 2001 that,
in part, sought to outline novel ways the military could be used domestically
to defend the country in the face of an impending attack. The Justice Department
so far has refused to release it, citing attorney-client privilege, and
Attorney General Michael Mukasey declined to describe it Thursday at a
Senate panel where Democrats characterized it as a "torture memo."" -By
Lara Jakes Jordan and Pamel Hess contributed to by Pete Yost
-AP via -SeattleTimes
20080410
-
Investigation
- Classified
- Military
- Intelligence
- Torture
- Prisons
- US
- Afghanistan
- Guantanamo
- Cuba
- Iraq
- International
- "Exclusive:
Pentagon delays report on FBI role in detainee abuse."
... "The release of a report on the FBI's [Federal Bureau of Investigation]
role in the interrogations of prisoners in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay
[Cuba] and Iraq has been delayed for months because the Pentagon is reviewing
how much of it should remain classified, according to the Justice Department's
watchdog." ... "Glenn Fine, the Justice Department's inspector general,
told McClatchy that his office has pressed the Defense Department to finish
its review, but officials there haven't completed the process "in a timely
fashion."" ... "Fine is investigating whether FBI employees participated
in detainee abuse, whether they witnessed or reported incidents of abuse,
and how such reports were handled by the bureau." ... "Fine launched his
investigation into the FBI's role in the interrogations in early 2005 amid
disclosures that FBI agents had witnessed and complained about harsh interrogation
practices of detainees, including seeing Guantanamo Bay detainees who had
defecated and urinated on themselves and who had been chained on the floor
for more than 24 hours without food or water in more than 100 degree temperatures."
... "The delays come as the [Republican President] Bush administration
is under fire for its legal justifications of harsh interrogation practices,
which critics say equated to an endorsement of torture prohibited by U.S.
[United States] and international laws." -By
Marisa
Taylor -McClatchyDC.com
20080409
-
Dick
Cheney
- John
Ashcroft - Jay
Scott Bybee - Torture
- War
Crimes - Military
- Government
- Intelligence
- Terrorism
- US
- International
- Law- Secret
- Politics
- Prisoners
- "Sources:
Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation':
Detailed Discussions Were Held About Techniques to Use on al Qaeda Suspects."
... "In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the [Republican President
Bush] White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed
and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would
be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News."
... "The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved
the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques
during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist
suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said." ... "Highly placed
sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA [Central
Intelligence Agency] would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether
they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated
drowning, called waterboarding." ... "The high-level discussions about
these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources
said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down
to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic." ... "The
advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee,
a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President
Bush on issues of national security policy." ... "At the time, the Principals
Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State
Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General
John Ashcroft." ... "Critics at home and abroad have harshly criticized
the interrogation program, which pushed the limits of international law
and, they say, condoned torture. Bush and his top aides have consistently
defended the program. They say it is legal and did not constitute torture."
... "Lawyers in the Justice Department had written a classified memo, which
was extensively reviewed, that gave formal legal authority to government
interrogators to use the "enhanced" questioning tactics on suspected terrorist
prisoners. The August 2002 memo, signed by then head of the Office of Legal
Counsel Jay Bybee, was referred to as the so-called "Golden Shield" for
CIA agents, who worried they would be held liable if the harsh interrogations
became public." (1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Jan Crawford Greenburg, Howard L. Rosenberg and
Ariane de Vogue -ABCNEWS.com
20080406
-
John
C Yoo - Torture- War
Crimes - Criminal
- Military
- Intelligence
- Law
- Language
- Politics
- Terrorism
- Government
- Prisoners
- Human
Rights - California
- Indiana
- "Permissible
Assaults Cited in Graphic Detail." ... "Thirty pages
into a memorandum discussing the legal boundaries of military interrogations
in 2003, senior [Republican President Bush's deputy Office of Legal Counsel]
Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo tackled a question not often asked
by American policymakers: Could the president, if he desired, have a prisoner's
eyes poked out?" ... "Or, for that matter, could he have "scalding water,
corrosive acid or caustic substance" thrown on a prisoner? How about slitting
an ear, nose or lip, or disabling a tongue or limb? What about biting?"
... "These assaults are all mentioned in a U.S. [United States] law prohibiting
maiming, which Yoo parsed as he clarified the legal outer limits of what
could be done to terrorism suspects as detained by U.S. authorities. The
specific prohibitions, he said, depended on the circumstances or which
"body part the statute specifies."" ... "But none of that matters in a
time of war, Yoo also said, because federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming
and other crimes by military interrogators are trumped by the president's
ultimate authority as commander in chief." ... "It [Yoo's memorandum] repeats
an assertion in another controversial Yoo memo that an interrogation tactic
cannot be considered torture unless it would result in "death, organ failure
or serious impairment of bodily functions."" ... "Yoo, who is now a law
professor at the University of California at Berkeley [California], also
uses footnotes to effectively dismiss the Fourth and Fifth amendments to
the Constitution, arguing that protections against unreasonable search
and seizure and guarantees of due process either do not apply or are irrelevant
in a time of war." ... "Written opinions by the Office of Legal Counsel
have the force of law within the government because its staff is assigned
to interpret the meaning of statutory or constitutional language. Yoo's
2003 memo has evoked strong criticism from legal academics, human rights
advocates and military-law experts, who say that he was wrong on basic
matters of constitutional law and went too far in authorizing harsh and
coercive interrogation tactics by the Defense Department." ... ""Having
81 pages of legal analysis with its footnotes and respectable-sounding
language makes the reader lose sight of what this is all about," said Dawn
Johnsen, an OLC chief during the [Democratic President Bill] Clinton administration
who is now a law professor at Indiana University [Indiana]. "He is saying
that poking people's eyes out and pouring acid on them is beyond Congress's
ability to limit a president. It is an unconscionable document."" -By
Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost
20080405
-
Noteworthy
- Media
- John
Yoo - Mike
Mukasey
- Torture
- Lawbreaking
- Surveillance
- Military
- Intelligence
- Terrorism
- Political
- Enforcement
- Barack
Obama - Pennsylvania
- US
- Iraq
- "The
U.S. establishment media in a nutshell." ... "In
the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice
memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential
lawbreaking. It was revealed that the [Republican President Bush] Bush
administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be
inapplicable to "domestic military operations" within the U.S. [United
States] The U.S. Attorney General [Michael Mukasey] appears to have fabricated
a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements
about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling
in Pennsylvania and had a low score." ... "Here are the number of times,
according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media
over the past thirty days:" ... ""Yoo and torture" - 102" ... ""Mukasey
and 9/11" -- 73" ... ""Yoo and Fourth Amendment" -- 16" ...
""Obama and bowling" -- 1,043" ... ""Obama and Wright" --
More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)" ... ""Obama and patriotism"
- 1,607" ... ""Clinton and Lewinsky" -- 1,079" ... "And as Eric
Boehlert documents,
even Iraq -- that little five-year U.S. occupation with no end in sight
-- has been virtually written out of the media narrative in favor of mindless,
stupid, vapid chatter of the type referenced above." ... "Think about it
this way: if you were a high government official and watched as -- all
in a couple of weeks time -- it is revealed, right out in the open, that
you suspended the Fourth Amendment, authorized torture, proclaimed yourself
empowered to break the law, and sent the nation's top law enforcement officer
to lie blatantly about how and why the 9/11 attacks happened so that you
could acquire still more unchecked spying power and get rid of lawsuits
that would expose what you did, and the political press in this country
basically ignored all of that and blathered on about Obama's bowling score
and how he eats chocolate, wouldn't you also conclude that you could do
anything you want, without limits, and know there will be no consequences?
What would be the incentive to stop doing all of that?" -By
Glenn
Greenwald -Salon
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