OMNI
TORTURE
NEWSLETTER # 10, TORTURE, WAR CRIMES,
LAWLESSNESS, January 26, 2015.
Compiled
by Dick Bennett, Building a Culture of Peace.
(#1 October 5, 2007; #2 May
9, 2011; #3 June 26, 2011; #4 Oct. 21, 2011; #5 Feb. 25, 2012; #6 June 12,
2012; #7 Feb. 23, 2013; #8 June 23, 2013; #9 April 16, 2014).
What’s at stake: “if the United
States is to come to terms with its involvement in institutionalized state
torture, there must be a full and official accounting of what has been done,
and those responsible at the highest levels must be held accountable.” Rebecca Gordon
OMNI
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL DAYS PROJECT
JUNE
IS UN TORTURE AWARENESS MONTH
JUNE
26 IS UN INTERNATIONAL DAY IN SUPPORT OF VICTIMS OF TORTURE
JULY
17 IS UN INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE DAY, INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC)
OMNI
EVENTS
UN TORTURE AWARENESS MONTH, June 22, 2013: us TORTURE
and MURDER PROTEST AT FEDERAL BLDNG, FAYETTEVILLE
UN
INTERNATIONAL DAY IN SUPPORT OF VICTIMS OF TORTURE, JUNE 26, Film at OMNI, War on Whistleblowers
UN
International Justice Day, July 17, Book Forum
My blog: War Department/Peace Department
My Newsletters:
Index:
See Atrocities,
Bush, Cheney, Civil Liberties, Constitution, Genocide, Lawlessness, Militarism,
NDAA newsletters, Obama, Rice (Condoleezza).
CONTENTS OF NOS. 4-9 AT END
Contents Torture Newsletter #10
Books
Mainstreaming
Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States by Rebecca
Gordon (2014)
Gordon (2014)
(Books already discussed in earlier newsletters:
David Luban, Torture, Power and Law.
Jane Mayer, The Dark Side)
Senate
Torture Report
McCoy, How to Read It
Davies,
and US War Crimes?
Pushing for
Prosecution of the Highest Responsible and Accountable
Democracy Now!
Prosecute Cheney and Bush
Firedoglake Petition
Roots Action, Sign Petition to Spain to Prosecute Bush, Cheney,
and
Rumsfeld
Watchdog.net, Support Senate Report Publication
Urge Senator Udall to Read the Report into the Record
VFP v. War Crimes
Kathy Kelley
McGovern
Laurence Lewis
New York Times
Torture USA
Gordon, Torture Normal USA
Karen Greenberg, Yes Normal
Health Professionals’ Active Participation
Cheney and Contemporary Acceptance of Torture
Drake, Nazi Torture
Engelhardt, Too Big to Jail
William Blum, President Obama and Torture
Mark Hosenball,, Torture Not Necessary
Amy Davidson, Many Liabilities of Torture
OPPONENT HEROES OF TORTURE
By Jon Wiener, The
Nation blog, posted December 15, 2014
Additional Background to Invasion, Occupation, Torture
Democracy Now
Z Magazine, US, Torture, and Latin
America
Historians Against the War (HAW)
Give to the Center for Victims of Torture
Recent OMNI Newsletters
Contact President Obama
Numbers 4-9
For OMNI’s newsletters go to:
http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/). Knowledge of the full, including worst
reality strengthens the search for the best.
Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical
Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States By Rebecca Gordon. OUP USA.
22 May 2014. 240 pages
Explains and offers new insight into the concept of institutionalized
state torture.
Explores how Americans have been conditioned to react to threats of
terrorism, real and imagined.
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 reopened what many people in
America had long assumed was a settled ethical question: Is torture ever
morally permissible? Within days, some began to suggest that, in these new
circumstances, the new answer was yes. Rebecca Gordon argues that September 11
did not, as some have said, change everything, and that institutionalized state
torture remains as wrong today as it was on the day before those terrible
attacks. Furthermore, U.S. practices during the war on terror are rooted in a
history that began long before September 11, a history that includes both
support for torture regimes abroad and the use of torture in American jails and
prisons. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 reopened what Gordon
argues that the most common ethical approaches to torture: utilitarianism and
deontology (ethics based on adherence to duty) do not provide sufficient
theoretical purchase on the problem. Both approaches treat torture as a series
of isolated actions that arise in moments of extremity, rather than as an
ongoing, historically and socially embedded practice. She advocates instead a virtue
ethics approach, based in part on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre. Such an
approach better illumines torture’s ethical dimensions, taking into account the
implications of torture for human virtue and flourishing. An examination of
torture's effect on the four cardinal virtues: courage, temperance, justice,
and prudence (or practical reason) suggests specific ways in which each of
these are deformed in a society that countenances torture many people in
America had long assumed was a settled. Mainstreaming
Torture concludes with the observation that if the United States is to come
to terms with its involvement in institutionalized state torture, there must be
a full and official accounting of what has been done, and those responsible at
the highest levels must be held accountable.
SENATE’S TORTURE REPORT (via
Historians Against the War, HAW)
By Alfred W. McCoy, History
News Network, posted December 21
The author teaches history at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison and has written two books on US torture policy.
By Nicolas J. S.
Davies, Huffington Post, posted December 17
The author wrote Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and
Destruction of Iraq.
PROSECUTE
CHENEY AND BUSH
Democracy Now! Dec. 23, 2014
Calls
are increasing for the prosecution of George W. Bush administration officials
tied to the CIA torture program. On Monday, the American Civil Liberties
Union ... Read More →
Since the release of Senate
findings earlier this month, the assumption that the CIA's torture program's
sole motive was post-9/11 self-defense has gone virtually ... Read
More →
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Samuel, Nov. 21, 2014
The Senate Intelligence Committee's "torture report" is expected to detail shocking abuse of prisoners at the hands of the CIA during the Bush administration, and even possible CIA lies to Congress to cover it up. Unsurprisingly, the CIA is trying to prevent much of the report from seeing light of day. But we can help compel its release -- click here to help make it happen.
As we understand it, the report
of course covers waterboarding and other torture that's euphemistically been
called "enhanced interrogation", but also makes it clear that the
CIA engaged in even more grotesque, unreported acts as well. All in our
names.
But seven months after the
Senate Intelligence Committee voted overwhelmingly to release the report to
the American people, the White House is stonewalling Congress and demanding
"redactions"—blacked-out sections that make the report
unintelligible—before making its contents public.
We have a real chance to have
the report released before the end of the year, when Senator Mark Udall
leaves office.
Here's how: Members of Congress
have an absolute right to free speech, and a member could release the report
in its entirety without fear of prosecution.
This is just as the Pentagon
Papers, disclosing lies that underpinned our involvement in Vietnam, were
released in 1971.
That's exactly what transparency
advocates are calling on the outgoing, staunchly anti-torture and
pro-transparency Senator Udall to do -- and he's made it clear that he's
actively considering doing so.
This is would be a courageous
act that would incur the ire of very powerful interests -- so we need to make
sure that Udall knows countless people will support him if he chooses to move
forward.
We have a real chance to make
history -- and hold the Bush administration and the CIA's torturers
accountable. Let's get it done.
- Watchdog.net & Demand
Progress
David Segal,
Watchdog.net <info@watchdog.net>
30 Ritchie Ave Silver Spring, MD 20910
Release the
Torture Report Now! 12-1-14
Add your name
Sign the petition: Enter the
CIA torture report into the Congressional Record http://releasethetorturereport.com/?code=Nation&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email_nation&utm_campaign=Activism%20-Torture%20report%20to%20EmailNation&utm_content=A
The Senate Intelligence
Committee's "torture report" is expected to detail shocking abuse
of prisoners at the hands of the CIA during the Bush administration, and even
possible CIA lying to Congress.
But seven months after the
Senate Intelligence Committee voted overwhelmingly to release the report to
the American people, the White House is stonewalling Congress and demanding
"redactions"—blacked-out sections and information—before making its
contents public.
But there's a way around
that—and before the end of the year, we have a rare chance to make it happen.
Members of Congress have an
absolute right to free speech, and a member could enter the report into the
Congressional Record in its entirety—just as the Pentagon Papers were in
1971—without fear of prosecution.
That's exactly what
transparency advocates are calling on outgoing, staunchly anti-torture and
pro-transparency Sen. Mark Udall to do.
Sign the petition to Sen. Mark
Udall: If you enter the torture report into the Congressional Record, we'll
have your back. http://releasethetorturereport.com/?code=Nation&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email_nation&utm_campaign=Activism%20-Torture%20report%20to%20EmailNation&utm_content=A
Our Message to Sen. Mark Udall:
Before leaving office, please
submit the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report to the
Congressional Record. We know that you are considering undertaking this
heroic and courageous act, and we and countless others will support you if
you choose to do so.
We will deliver a copy of this
petition and a list of signers to Sen. Mark Udall, Senate Intelligence
Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein and President Obama to make sure our message
is heard.
Bill of Rights Defense
Committee
Blue America
Code Pink
CREDO
Daily Kos
Demand Progress
Digby's Hullabaloo
Fight for the Future
Just Foreign Policy
The Nation
RH Reality Check
RootsAction.org
USaction
Win Without War
Note: When you
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Torture’s Time for Accountability: Despite a Fearful Obama
By Ray McGovern (former CIA analyst), December 20, 2014
https://consortiumnews.com/…/tortures-time-for-accountabil…
By Ray McGovern (former CIA analyst), December 20, 2014
https://consortiumnews.com/…/tortures-time-for-accountabil…
Kathy Kelly’s Conviction & Ray McGovern’s Confrontation with
former chair of House Intelligence Committee
The United States tortures people http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/14/1351217/-The-United-States-tortures-people
New York Times calls for Cheney and Bush
officials to be indicted for Torture http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/12/22/new-york-times-calls-for-cheney-arrest/
TORTURE USA
By Rebecca
Gordon, Informed
Comment blog, posted April 22
Based on the author's newly published book, Mainstreaming Torture.
Karen J. Greenberg | The Road From Abu Ghraib
Karen J. Greenberg, TomDispatch , Reader Supported News, April 28, 2014
Greenberg writes: "It's mind-boggling. Torture is still up for grabs inAmerica
READ MORE
Karen J. Greenberg, TomDispatch , Reader Supported News, April 28, 2014
Greenberg writes: "It's mind-boggling. Torture is still up for grabs in
READ MORE
MEDICAL
PROFESSIONALS AT THE CENTER OF THE TORTURE, 2 Articles
Bill
Berkowitz, “The Role of Health Care Workers in the Bush Torture Project.” Z
Magazine (Feb. 2015)
The 500-page
US Senate Intelligence summary of its investigation of George W. Bush’s
administration’s torture program revealed health professionals’ facilitation of
the program. The company two
psychologists founded, for example, made $180 million. A new report from Physicians for Human Rights
reveals even more involvement by health care workers: “Doing Harm: Health Professionals’ Central
Role in the CIA Torture Program.”
Democracy Now! Daily Digest, Dec. 23, 2014
Physicians for Human Rights is calling for a federal commission
to investigate, document and hold accountable all health professionals who took
part in CIA ... Read More →
Dick Cheney's Sadistic
America: Why Torture
Persists Post-W
(illustration: FOX)
Rebecca
Gordon, TomDispatch, Reader
Supported News,13 July 14
Gordon writes:
"Once upon a time, if a character on TV or in a movie tortured someone, it
was a sure sign that he was a bad guy. Now, the torturers are the all-American
heroes."
READ MORE
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Alfred Hitchcock and the art of
Enhanced Interrogation
Richard S. Drake/Jan. 18. 2015
http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/streetjazz/
While watching the brilliant Hitchcock film Foreign Correspondent tonight on Turner Classic Movies, this scene came up when the Nazi villains have a man captive, and they are trying to get information out of him.
Okay, so nobody says outright that they are Nazis, but we all understand who they are, and who they work for. Maybe audiences were smarter in those days, and didn’t need someone to deliver messages with a hammer and chisel.
Digression aside, how are the Nazi devils trying to get the information they need?
Bright lights, the brightest they can find, are shone directly into their victim’s face, and band music is played at top volume relentlessly. Behind the lights, a group of grim-faced men watch the helpless prisoner as he begs for release, no pity on their faces.
Ah, torture.
No, I corrected myself - it’s enhanced interrogation. After all, haven’t the finest politicians, the most astute lawyers, and the lost eloquent cable commentators in our nation all declared that such practices - and other things too grotesque to mention here - are not torture, but merely interrogation of the most enhanced kind?
Sort of makes you wonder why the idea of Nazis enhancing their interrogations makes us so uncomfortable when we see it on screen. Except . . .
. . . Except that when a British reporter played by the inimitable George Sanders (who, by the way, gets all the best lines in the movie) is forced to watch as even more enhanced interrogation takes place - the looks of revulsion both on his face, and on the face of the woman who has brought him at gunpoint into the room are far more eloquent than any clumsy shots of an interrogator at work.
And the woman watching alongside George Sanders, who can barely stomach what she is seeing . . . is a Nazi.
It is a telling scene, both in the realization that our enhancers at Gitmo got their ideas from Nazis, and that even a Nazi (at least in a movie) might be repulsed by what was done in the name of her Homeland.
It is the sort of scene which makes me wonder how actual defenders of torture view the scene; are they even aware of their spiritual bond with Nazis, and do they even care?
Or do they just dismiss it with a casual, “It’s only a movie.”
Richard S. Drake/Jan. 18. 2015
http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/streetjazz/
While watching the brilliant Hitchcock film Foreign Correspondent tonight on Turner Classic Movies, this scene came up when the Nazi villains have a man captive, and they are trying to get information out of him.
Okay, so nobody says outright that they are Nazis, but we all understand who they are, and who they work for. Maybe audiences were smarter in those days, and didn’t need someone to deliver messages with a hammer and chisel.
Digression aside, how are the Nazi devils trying to get the information they need?
Bright lights, the brightest they can find, are shone directly into their victim’s face, and band music is played at top volume relentlessly. Behind the lights, a group of grim-faced men watch the helpless prisoner as he begs for release, no pity on their faces.
Ah, torture.
No, I corrected myself - it’s enhanced interrogation. After all, haven’t the finest politicians, the most astute lawyers, and the lost eloquent cable commentators in our nation all declared that such practices - and other things too grotesque to mention here - are not torture, but merely interrogation of the most enhanced kind?
Sort of makes you wonder why the idea of Nazis enhancing their interrogations makes us so uncomfortable when we see it on screen. Except . . .
. . . Except that when a British reporter played by the inimitable George Sanders (who, by the way, gets all the best lines in the movie) is forced to watch as even more enhanced interrogation takes place - the looks of revulsion both on his face, and on the face of the woman who has brought him at gunpoint into the room are far more eloquent than any clumsy shots of an interrogator at work.
And the woman watching alongside George Sanders, who can barely stomach what she is seeing . . . is a Nazi.
It is a telling scene, both in the realization that our enhancers at Gitmo got their ideas from Nazis, and that even a Nazi (at least in a movie) might be repulsed by what was done in the name of her Homeland.
It is the sort of scene which makes me wonder how actual defenders of torture view the scene; are they even aware of their spiritual bond with Nazis, and do they even care?
Or do they just dismiss it with a casual, “It’s only a movie.”
By Tom
Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com,
posted April 21
On the erosion of accountability, except for the one crime of
whistleblowing
The United States and Torture by
William Blum. The Anti-Empire Report
#131, Official website of the author, historian, and U.S. foreign policy
critic. Published August 11th, 2014.
Two of the things that governments tend to cover-up
or lie about the most are assassinations and torture, both of which are widely
looked upon as exceedingly immoral and unlawful, even uncivilized. Since the
end of the Second World War the United States has attempted to assassinate more
than 50 foreign leaders and has led the world in torture; not only the torture
performed directly by Americans upon foreigners, but providing torture
equipment, torture manuals, lists of people to be tortured, and in-person
guidance and encouragement by American instructors, particularly in Latin
America.
Thus it is somewhat to the credit of President
Obama that at his August 1 press conference he declared “We did a whole lot of
things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things
that were contrary to our values.”
And he actually used the word “torture” at that
moment, not “enhanced interrogation”, which has been the euphemism of
preference the past decade, although two minutes later the president used
“extraordinary interrogation techniques”. And “tortured some folks” makes me
wince. The man is clearly uncomfortable with the subject.
But all this is minor. Much more important is the
fact that for several years Mr. Obama’s supporters have credited him with
having put an end to the practice of torture. And they simply have no right to
make that claim.
Shortly after Obama’s first inauguration, both he
and Leon Panetta, the new Director of the CIA, explicitly stated that
“rendition” was not being ended. As the Los Angeles Times reported at
the time: “Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has
authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and
transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United
States.”
The English translation of “cooperate” is
“torture”. Rendition is simply outsourcing torture. There was no other reason
to take prisoners to Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Somalia,
Kosovo, or the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, to name some of the known
torture centers frequented by the United States. Kosovo and Diego Garcia – both
of which house large and very secretive American military bases – if not some
of the other locations, may well still be open for torture business. The same
for the Guantánamo Base in Cuba.
Moreover, the Executive Order referred to, number
13491, issued January 22, 2009, “Ensuring Lawful Interrogations”, leaves a
major loophole. It states repeatedly that humane treatment, including the
absence of torture, is applicable only to prisoners detained in an “armed
conflict”. Thus, torture by Americans outside an environment of “armed
conflict” is not explicitly prohibited. But what about torture within an
environment of “counter-terrorism”?
The Executive Order required the CIA to use only
the interrogation methods outlined in a revised Army Field Manual. However,
using the Army Field Manual as a guide to prisoner treatment and interrogation
still allows solitary confinement, perceptual or sensory deprivation, sensory
overload, sleep deprivation, the induction of fear and hopelessness,
mind-altering drugs, environmental manipulation such as temperature and noise,
and stress positions.
After Panetta was questioned by a Senate panel,
the New York Times wrote that he had “left open the possibility that
the agency could seek permission to use interrogation methods more aggressive
than the limited menu that President Obama authorized under new rules … Mr.
Panetta also said the agency would continue the Bush administration practice of
‘rendition’ – picking terrorism suspects off the street and sending them to a
third country. But he said the agency would refuse to deliver a suspect into
the hands of a country known for torture or other actions ‘that violate our
human values’.”
The last sentence is of course childishly absurd.
The countries chosen to receive rendition prisoners were chosen precisely
because they were willing and able to torture them.
No official in the Bush and Obama administrations
has been punished in any way for torture or other war crimes in Iraq,
Afghanistan and the other countries they waged illegal war against. And, it
could be added, no American bankster has been punished for their indispensable
role in the world-wide financial torture they inflicted upon us all beginning
in 2008. What a marvelously forgiving land is America. This, however, does not
apply to Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, or Chelsea Manning.
In the last days of the Bush White House, Michael
Ratner, professor at Columbia Law School and former president of the Center for
Constitutional Rights, pointed out:
The only way to prevent this from happening again
is to make sure that those who were responsible for the torture program pay the
price for it. I don’t see how we regain our moral stature by allowing those who
were intimately involved in the torture programs to simply walk off the stage
and lead lives where they are not held accountable.
I’d like at this point to once again remind my dear
readers of the words of the “Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment”, which was drafted by the United
Nations in 1984, came into force in 1987, and ratified by the United States in
1994. Article 2, section 2 of the Convention states: “No exceptional
circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal
political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a
justification of torture.”
Such marvelously clear, unequivocal, and principled
language, to set a single standard for a world that makes it increasingly
difficult for one to feel proud of humanity.
The Convention Against Torture has been and remains
the supreme law of the land. It is a cornerstone of international law and a
principle on a par with the prohibition against slavery and genocide.
“Mr. Snowden will not be tortured. Torture is
unlawful in the United States.” – United States Attorney General Eric
Holder, July 26, 2013
John Brennan, appointed by President Obama in
January 2013 to be Director of the CIA, has defended “rendition” as an
“absolutely vital tool”; and stated that torture had produced “life saving”
intelligence.
Obama had nominated Brennan for the CIA position in
2008, but there was such an outcry in the human-rights community over Brennan’s
apparent acceptance of torture, that Brennan withdrew his nomination. Barack
Obama evidently learned nothing from this and appointed the man again in 2013.
During Cold War One, a common theme in the rhetoric
was that the Soviets tortured people and detained them without cause, extracted
phony confessions, and did the unspeakable to detainees who were helpless
against the full, heartless weight of the Communist state. As much as any other
evil, torture differentiated the bad guys, the Commies, from the good guys, the
American people and their government. However imperfect the US system might be
– we were all taught – it had civilized standards that the enemy rejected.
Senate Report: Bush Era Torture
Was Unnecessary
Mark Hosenball, Reuters, Reader Supported News, August 2, 2014
Hosenball writes: "A U.S. Senate committee report will conclude that the CIA's use of harsh interrogation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks yielded no critical intelligence on terrorist plots that could not have been obtained through non-coercive methods, U.S. officials familiar with the document said."
READ MORE
Mark Hosenball, Reuters, Reader Supported News, August 2, 2014
Hosenball writes: "A U.S. Senate committee report will conclude that the CIA's use of harsh interrogation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks yielded no critical intelligence on terrorist plots that could not have been obtained through non-coercive methods, U.S. officials familiar with the document said."
READ MORE
VFP eNews: Veterans Call for
Prosecution of Those Responsible for U.S. Torture Program & More
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Friday, December 12,
2014
Veterans
Call for Prosecution of Those Responsible for U.S. Torture Program
 Veterans
For Peace praises the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence release of
theirCommittee Study of
the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program. VFP
calls for a full investigation and accountability of officials at the highest
levels for the authorizations and execution of torture techniques by the CIA
and its international partners. The U.S. Senate report clearly outlines a
pattern of systemic denial of human rights and trampling of U.S. values as
outlined in the U.S. <More>
From December 10 to 15, a
coalition of organizations from across the US are co-sponsoring a week of
grassroots actionto highlight crimes by government intelligence agencies,
including CIA torture, NSA spying, and profiling & violence with impunity
by local police departments.
Vigils, protests, workshops, and other events will start nationwide on International Human Rights Day (December 10th) and conclude on Bill of Rights Day (December 15th). |
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ATTORNEY GENERAL: PROSECUTE TORTURE
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Dear Dick,
Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to resign
soon, and President Obama is considering his replacement.1
It's been many years since the American public
first learned about our government's illegal use of torture against detainees
in the war on terror. Yet the only person to go to prison is John Kiriakou --
the whistleblower who exposed the program.
It's no secret that the US government has not lived
up to the public's expectations in this regard. As Kevin Gosztola recently
reported, our government has admitted to the UN that there has been an
unwillingness and failure at the Department of Justice to prosecute torture.2
The longer we wait, the more difficult it will be
to hold torturers accountable. Already, those responsible have tried to protect
themselves by destroying evidence and obstructing senate investigators from
informing the public of our unfortunate history in the war on terror.
It's not clear who the President will tap for the
next Attorney General, but it's critical that we take a stand now and demand
that whoever he chooses will pursue justice for illegal torture.
Thank you for standing up against torture.
In Solidarity
Brian Sonenstein
Campaign Director
Firedoglake.com
Campaign Director
Firedoglake.com
Sources:
1. Eric Holder Stepping Down As Attorney General, DSWright, FDL News Desk, 9/25/2014.
2. In Report to UN Committee Against Torture, US Government Touts Division That Doesn’t Really Prosecute Torturers, Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter, 10/15/2014.
1. Eric Holder Stepping Down As Attorney General, DSWright, FDL News Desk, 9/25/2014.
2. In Report to UN Committee Against Torture, US Government Touts Division That Doesn’t Really Prosecute Torturers, Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter, 10/15/2014.
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OCTOBER 7, 2010
Who
Needs Torture?
BY AMY
DAVIDSON
Some of the responses to the exclusion of a witness from the trial
of Ahmed Ghailani—let’s take Liz Cheney’s, for an easy, blatant example—seem to
assume that if torture plus due process equals difficulty getting a conviction,
then there is a problem with due process. No: there is a problem with torture.
There are many problems with it, actually (moral, epistemological, political).
But we are all weak and the idea of beating up or drowning a person can be
tempting, apparently. That is why the penalties for torture have to be very
high. One practical reason not to torture people is that it messes up
prosecutions.
Liz
Cheney wrote to TPM that
By insisting
on trying Ahmed Ghailani in civilian court with full constitutional rights,
instead of by military commission, President Obama and Attorney General Holder
are jeopardizing the prosecution of a terrorist who killed 224 people at U.S.
Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania…. If the American people needed any further
proof that this Administration’s policy of treating terrorism like a law
enforcement matter is irresponsible and reckless, they received it today.
Really, we
received proof that the Bush Administration’s use of torture was irresponsible
and reckless. What is Cheney actually saying about military commissions? If the
exclusion of evidence gained by torture is “proof” of the need for military
commissions, does that mean that they are necessary because they allow us to
torture? All the more reason to avoid them. (And there are some limits even
there: Charles Stimson, a former Bush Administration official, told the Washington Post that “It’s
not clear the outcome would have been any different in a commission.”) What is
so desirable about torture that we would create contorted legal structures—and
throw away ones that have served us well—as tools for torturing?
Let’s even assume, for the sake of argument, that the information
you get from torture is sometimes accurate. When someone will say anything to
make torture stop, how do we know which things he says are good or not? More
torture?
The defense, by the way, does not just get to cry torture and get
things thrown out. From Judge Lewis Kaplan’s order:
The Court
has had the benefit of extensive evidentiary submissions, a three-day hearing
at which Abebe and representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the
CIA, the Tanzanian National Police testified, legal briefs, and skilled
argument. On the basis of that record—including importantly its assessment of
the credibility of the only witnesses called to testify who actually were
present when Abebe was persuaded to confess his role, to implicate Ghailani,
and to cooperate with authorities—it now finds and concludes that the
government has failed to prove that Abebe’s testimony is sufficiently
attenuated from Ghailani’s coerced statements to permit its receipt in
evidence.
The issue was attenuation because the prosecution did not even
contest that Ghailani had been “coerced.” (One also wonders how Abebe, who was
expected to testify that he had sold TNT to Ghailani, was “persuaded.”) More
from Kaplan:
The Court
has not reached this conclusion lightly. It is acutely aware of the perilous
nature of the world in which we live. But the Constitution is the rock upon
which our nation rests. We must follow it not only when it is convenient, but
when fear and danger beckon in a different direction. To do less would diminish
us and undermine the foundation upon which we stand.
When you lose a game because
of fairly called penalties you don’t blame the penalties; you blame the fouls. And
it’s not like this game is over: Ghailani is still on trial, and one would
think that the government has some other evidence against him. It should: it
won an indictment against him in 1998, and chased him for six years before even
learning Abebe’s name. If we’d caught him in the beginning, without the benefit
of secret prisons or Guantánamo, we still could have dealt with him, in America
and on American terms. He has been in New York for several months now, and the
city is doing all right.
It is also interesting
to contrast the discreet exclusion of a single witness because of torture—while
the prosecution itself proceeds—with the way both the Bush and Obama
Administrations have been able to get entire cases thrown out by invoking the
state-secrets privilege. Courts do know how to act surgically, if they are
allowed to.
So why does it bother Liz Cheney and others so much that an
accused murderer would be tried for his crimes in a real, solid court? Is it
simply because it belies the need for fake courts and indefinite detention?
(That setup has yielded hardly any completed prosecutions.) Or is the idea that
we have to use military commissions so that no one will know what we did in the
years after September 11th? Building a system that, going forward, will
undermine the rule of law is no way to deal with the past. Courts can do that,
too.
Amy Davidson
is a New Yorker staff writer. She is a regular Comment contributor
for the magazine and writes a Web column, in which she
covers war, sports, and everything in between.
They Said ‘No’ to
Torture: The Real Heroes of the Bush Years. Jon Wiener on
December 15, 2014 - 12:57 PM 
Demonstrators in Washington call for President Obama to close US
Military Detention Facility in Guantánamo Bay. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Hidden
in the Senate torture report are stories of some heroes—people inside the CIA
who from the beginning said torture was wrong, who tried to stop it, who
refused to participate. There were also some outside the CIA, in the military
and the FBI, who risked careers and reputations by resisting—and who sometimes
paid a heavy price. They should be thanked and honored.
But
President Obama hasn’t mentioned
them. Instead, he praised the CIA officials who presided over the torture
regime as “patriots.”
We
should “celebrate the ones who stood up for what was right,” says David
Luban of the Georgetown University law school, author of Torture, Power
and Law. Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, author of the
definitive book on Bush administration torture, The Dark Side, calls them
“the real torture patriots.”
The
opposition to torture within the CIA was so strong, Mayer reports, that the CIA
Inspector General, John Helgerson, “conducted a serious and influential
internal investigation.” That led the Justice Department to “ask the CIA to
suspend the torture program”—at least “until it could be reconciled with the
law.”
The
heroes in the torture report include Ali Soufan, former FBI agent and
interrogator of terrorists who, according to Lawrence
Wright in The Looming Tower, came closer than anyone to preventing
the 9/11 attacks. Soufan has argued publicly against torture and in favor of
“rapport-building” as the best technique to get information from suspects. The
CIA heavily censored his memoir The Black Banners in what
Wright called an
effort “to punish a critic and to obscure history.” He was featured in a Frontline documentary
made by Martin Smith and James Gilmore.
Another
hero: Alberto Mora. As general counsel of the Navy in 2004, Jane Mayer reported, he
tried to stop the torture program. He told his superiors at the Pentagon that
the Bush torture policy violated the Geneva Conventions’ prohibition of torture
and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading
treatment.” He described the Bush program as “unlawful” and “dangerous,” and
warned that the torturers could face criminal prosecution. He was featured in
the documentary Taxi to the Dark Side by Alex Gibney (which
won the Best Documentary Oscar in 2007).
Some
of the heroes were ordinary soldiers, like Sgt. Joe Darby, who first revealed
the Abu Ghraib abuses. As a result,” Luban points out,
he “had to live under armed protection for six months.” Others were high
officials, like Philip Zelikow, an adviser to Condoleezza Rice, who, Luban
reports, wrote an “anti-torture memo” that the White House “attempted to
destroy.”
And
there was Ian Fishback, an army captain who reported that his own unit was
abusing Iraqi prisoners. Eventually he wrote an open letter to Senator John McCain, asking, “Do we
sacrifice our ideals in order to preserve security?” His answer: “I would
rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is
‘America.’ ”
Finally
we have the case of Guantaánamo prosecutor Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, who
refused to prosecute a teenager who had been abused in US detention in
Afghanistan and Guantánamo. For that decision, Jameel Jaffer and Larry Siems report,
Vandeveld was “barred from the prosecutors’ office, confined to his residence
and threatened with dismissal from the Army.”
The
Senate torture report describes CIA personnel “profoundly affected…to the point
of tears” by witnessing torture, but it doesn’t reveal the names of those whose
protests led to the inspector general’s internal investigation. We need to know
who they are—so we can thank them for trying to do the right thing.
Obama has made it clear from the
beginning that there will be no criminal prosecutions of the torturers, even
though their actions violated the federal Torture Act. The least he could do is
publicly honor those who tried to stop the crimes conducted in our name.
The ACLU has set up a web page with
a petition to President Obama to “honor those who said no to torture.”
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND and CONTEXTS TO INVASION, OCCUPATION,
TORTURE
Daily Digest 12/23/2014
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TWO (OF THE
THREE) ARTICLES ON TORTURE IN Z MAGAZINE
FEB. 2015
US, TORTURE,
AND LATIN AMERICA (--Dick)
Edward S. Herman, “Speaking Truth to Power or to the Powerless?”
His and
Chomsky’s 1979 book The Washington
Connection and Third World Fascism (2nd ed. 2014) provides a
chart showing the connections between the US and 26 torture-employing clients,
expenditures, and security personnel trained.
Herman reminds his readers, not to soften criticism of Bush-Cheney-Rice-Yoo-Obama
crimes, but to ask when the public will finally demand prosecution of
torturers.
Paul Street, “Latin America Takes the Lead in Opposing Torture.”
“Over the many decades of its unmatched global
power, Washington has decided that millions of citizens across the planet don’t
really deserve freedom, comfort, and even life itself. As the first
global region to feel the imperial presence and fury of the United States and
to see US power embedded in its own social and political life – as the (US of)
American Empire’s “workshop” – Latin America logically leads the world in
rejecting US power both “soft” and hard – both the “Washington consensus”
neoliberal economic model and the Washington war of terror and surveillance –
in the deadly “neoliberal” era.”
To read the full article:
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/latin-america-leads-in-opposing-us-torture-and-surveillance/
ADDITIONAL WRITINGS on TORTURE VIA HISTORIANS AGAINST THE WAR
By John Prados, History
News Network, posted December 14
The author is a senior fellow of
the National Security Archives and director of its CIA Documentation Project.
By Andrew Cockburn, The
Independent, posted December 14
By Rebecca Gordon, TomDispatch.com,
posted December 14
The
author's book Mainstreaming
Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States was published this year by Oxford University
Press.
By Andrew Sullivan, ReaderSupportedNews.org,
posted December 13
By Andrew J.
Bacevich, Boston Globe, posted Demember 10
The author, retired from teaching
history at Boston University, is a fellow of Columbia University's School of
Public and International Affairs.
By Kara Breandeisky and
Sisi Wei, ProPublica, posted December 9
LETTER FROM CENTER FOR VICTIMS OF
TORTURE 4-18-14
Dear Mr. Bennett,
Thank you for your recent
gift to the Center for Victims of Torture. I received your note regarding
our program in Jordan Jordan
Thank you so much for your
inquiry and please let me know if you have any additional questions.
Warm regards,
Ashley Gotreau
Senior Development Associate
Direct: 612.436.4892
The Center for Victims of
Torture
CVT: Restoring the Dignity
of the Human Spirit
RECENT OMNI NEWSLETTERS
RECENT OMNI NEWSLETTERS.
Look at these subjects. All relate some more some less to US militarism, imperialism,
and war-making and to their consequences, and to protest.
Anti-War #4, 1-26
MLKJR DAY, 1-20
Iran #25,
1-17
Cuba #4,
1-16
Vegetarian
Action #15, 1-14
Democracy
#3, 1-12
Flag
Patriotism #2, 1-9
Fossil Fuels
#3, 1-4
Write or Call the White House
President Obama is committed to creating the
most open and accessible administration in American history. That begins with
taking comments and questions from you, the public, through our website.
Call the President
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Comments: 202-456-1111
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Write a letter to
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make sure your message gets to the White House as quickly as possible.
1. If
possible, email us! This is the fastest way to get your
message to President Obama.
2. If you write a letter, please consider typing it on an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of paper. If you hand-write your letter, please consider using pen and writing as neatly as possible.
3. Please include your return address on your letter as well as your envelope. If you have an email address, please consider including that as well.
4. And finally, be sure to include the full address of the White House to make sure your message gets to us as quickly and directly as possible:
2. If you write a letter, please consider typing it on an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of paper. If you hand-write your letter, please consider using pen and writing as neatly as possible.
3. Please include your return address on your letter as well as your envelope. If you have an email address, please consider including that as well.
4. And finally, be sure to include the full address of the White House to make sure your message gets to us as quickly and directly as possible:
The White
House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington , DC 20500
Contents of #4
Prosecute Bush et al.
Hunsinger, Book, People of Faith Speak
Marjorie Cohn, Book , US
Danner.
Book: US History
UN Torture Report
Oppose Torture:
Leahy
Former Contractor Suing Donald Rumsfeld
Physicians, Report: Medical Evidence for Torture
Film: Taxi
to the Dark Side
Film: Five
Fingers, CIA Torture
Olbermann on Gen. Petraeus and Torture
Prosecutors Drop Case Against CIA “Advanced
Interrogators”
Torture in California
War, Torture, Execution: Displays of Sovereign
Power
Contents
of #5
Philippe
Sands
Interview by Bill Moyers
Two Books:
Torture Team and Lawless World
Global
Guantanamo
Morris
Davis, Crimes of War Project
Nat
Hentoff on Obama
Contents
of #6
Film:
Prosecute Cheney
Aleazis,
Cheney’s Secret Torture Memo
Scahill,
7 Points on Cheney
Molloff,
Last War Crime Movie
Swanson,
Foundations of Torture
Contents of
#7
McCoy,
CIA and Torture 2006
Dickerson,
From Bush/Cheney to Obama
McCoy,
Obama Impunity Article
McCoy,
Torture and Impunity Book 2012
Baker Review of Siems, Torture documents of Post-9/11 US Torture System
Theoharis and Sassen, Supermax Prison, ADX in Florence , CO
Torture Whistleblower Kiriakou
Danner, How US Chose Torture, and How to Change
Contents #8
Call
for Release of Charged Prisoners, and Trial of Charged, Close Guantanamo
Write,
Call for John Kiriakou
Amy
Goodman: Task Force Confirms Torture
Under Bush Administration
Review
of McCoy’s New Book, Torture and
Impunity, by Jeremy Kuzmarov
Lancaster,
Rev. of Mayer, The Dark Side
Ratner,
Prosecute Cheney
Grey,
CIA Rendition System
Begg,
“Enemy Combatant”
Google
Search
American
Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
Friends Committee for National Legislation (F
Contents
Torture Newsletter #9
Glaser, Obama and CIA Covering Up Bush War Crimes Torture
Klaidman, Senate Intelligence Committee vs. CIA
New York Times Editorial,
Secrecy Continues, Release the Reports
Hawkins, Issue Won’t Go Away
Early CIA Torture, New Bio of Dulles Brothers
John Perry, Religious Ethics and
National Security
Hajjar, Torture and Human Rights
Nazi Torture and Murder ????
Rejali, Torture and Democracy
Guenther, Solitary Confinement
Coll: Bush, CIA FORMAT
END TORTURE, WAR CRIMES NEWSLETTER #10 January 26, 2015
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