Tag: MI5

Mar 11 2010

House Votes To Stay In Afghanistan, Chalabi De-Baths Again, MI5 Hides in Court

Four War on Terra stories for a Wednesday afternoon:

1. The House of Representatives just voted No on a resolution to direct the President to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan within 30 days, or by Dec 31, 2010 if a later date is safer.  65 to 356.  H Conn RES 248 was sponsored by Dennish Kucinich of Ohio and had 19 co sponsors.     http://clerk.house.gov/evs/201…

Patrick Kennedy (D, RI) is down as a NO vote inspite of this story on HuffPo where he yells at the MSM for not paying attention to this national debate.   “We’re talking about war and peace, $3 billion, 1,000 lives and no press! No press !”  WTF?  No vote, dude!  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

The Yes on withdrawal votes were as follows.  We thank the 5 Republicans who also voted for this (marked with ••).

Baldwin

••Campbell, John, CA 48

Capuano

Chu

Clarke

Clay

Cleaver

Crowley

Davis (IL)

DeFazio

Doyle

••Duncan John TN- 2

Edwards (MD)

Ellison

Farr

Filner

Frank (MA)

Grayson

Grijalva

Gutierrez

Hastings (FL)

Jackson (IL)

Jackson Lee (TX)

••Johnson Timothy  (IL- 15)

Johnson, E. B.

••Jones Walter NC -3

Kagen

Kucinich

Larson (CT)

Lee (CA)

Lewis (GA)

Maffei

Maloney

Markey (MA)

McDermott

McGovern

Michaud

Miller, George

Nadler (NY)

Napolitano

Neal (MA)

Obey

Olver

••Paul, Ron, TX 14

Payne

Pingree (ME)

Polis (CO)

Quigley

Rangel

Richardson

Sánchez, Linda T.

Sanchez, Loretta

Schakowsky

Serrano

Speier

Stark

Stupak

Tierney

Towns

Tsongas

Velázquez

Waters

Watson

Welch

Woolsey

Feb 11 2010

British Judge: Gov Can’t Hide Torture of Binyam M. by US

A British Court of Appeals has ruled against the Foreign Secretary David Milliband, that the British government can no longer refuse to disclose what MI5 knew about the torture of Binyam Mohamed while in US custody, according to an article published today in the Guardian UK.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…

UK Foreign Secretary Milliband concured with the ruling only because of previous disclosures in a US Court, which would then preserve the “control principle” of one country doesn’t turn loose intelligence without the cooperation of the other, if they share intelligence.


“The foreign secretary spoke last night to Hillary Clinton. He stressed to her that the court had strongly supported the control principle and would have agreed with HMG [her majesty’s government] had it not been for the Kessler judgment in the US court last December, which had effectively disclosed the material in the seven paragraphs.

An MI5 officer known only as Witness B is being investigated by the Metropolitan police over his alleged role in questioning Mohamed incommunicado in a Pakistan jail.

Mohamed was detained in 2002 in Pakistan, where he was questioned incommunicado by an MI5 officer. The US flew him to Morocco, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay, where he says he was tortured with the knowledge of British agencies.

The 7 paragraphs that the British Government were trying to hide are below, below the fold.  As noticed by commenters under another story at FDL, there are 2 dates.  The date in the Guardian story says 17 May 2002 in the first paragraph.  The date in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office dot gov dot uk site, has the date as 17 May 2001, with a disclaimer that “we have alerted the Court to a typographic error.”  

Oh, those pesky typos. What’s a year, here or there ?   ask Bush & Cheney.

Mar 10 2009

Torturers To Binyam: “We’re going to change your brain”

David Rose at the British paper The Mail got the scoop that was former Guanatanamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed’s “world exclusive” post-release interview. Entitled “How MI5 colluded in my torture: Binyam Mohamed claims British agents fed Moroccan torturers their questions”, the article presents a brief biography of Mr. Mohamed’s troubled life, including the experience of racial prejudice in the United States (Binyam is Ethiopian-born), abandonment by his father, and later the adoption of his mother’s religion, Islam.

But the article’s most sensational sections describe his torture by Pakistani, Moroccan, and U.S. officials, who all the while were in collaboration with British intelligence services, who not only were feeding them questions, but also withholding exculpatory evidence as well. The torture was horrendous: