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
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.
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.
The following is just coming across the wires here. This is about an ongoing battle to get top secret records on the torture of prisoners at Gitmo and probably other secret jails that were used as we were grabbing so called terrorists all over and most not caught on some "in theater battle field".
This is just on one British citizen who was Ethiopian born and grabbed in 2002 in Pakistan, not Afghanistan nor Iraq. And this is only seven short paragraphs on his, Binyam Mohamed's, treatment while in U.S. custody and incommunicado with anyone thousands of miles from home and family.
This is disturbing enough, of course, and should lead to robust calls for an independent inquiry, but the problem may be that almost every branch of the government appears to be implicated in the cover-up that followed the deaths.
Andy Worthington guests on on Democracy NOW! Jan 08, 2010: After Years in Guantanamo Prison Without Charge, Future Even More Uncertain for Yemeni Detainees
ANDY WORTHINGTON: You know, and the Pentagon consistently produces these kind of-this kind of information at useful times. I mean, it really makes me wonder who's running the show here. Who in the Pentagon is making this kind of material available the day after Barack Obama has backed down on releasing any more Yemenis, which is clearly part of a whole story that makes it more and more difficult to close Guantanamo? Whose side are they on? Whose agenda is being set here?
When the newly inaugerated President Obama signed that EO ordering the closing of G'mo last January I cheered. Right alongside many here at Docudharma who wrote countless detailed and compassionate essays on the whole subject. I thank you for my education and your vigilance ... Jeff Kaye (Valtin), PDND, Buhdydharma, and more.
Today, activists and Guantanamo lawyers mark the anniversary by demanding that President Obama make good on his pledge to close the prison as first step towards restoring the rule of law. Further, the group opposes any plan for holding prisoners without charge or trial in the U.S. and denounces the White House's expansion of Bush-style detention in Afghanistan.
Last night on Hardball, when discussing why he was opposed to bringing Gitmo detainees over to a supermax prison in Thomson, Illinois, freshman Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL) defended the use of waterboarding on detainees -- with a slight twist.
Schock: "I would not limit our intelligence agencies' ability to get information from people. If they have a ticking time-bomb or some critical piece of information that can save American lives, I don't believe that we should limit waterboarding or quite frankly any other alternative torture technique, if it means saving Americans' lives."
For the moment, leaving aside Schock's boilerplate right-wing justifications for why he believes waterboarding is a good thing, I will give him a small, small modicum of credit for admitting what Dick Cheney will not -- that waterboarding does, in fact, constitute torture. I would even argue that Schock went one step further than even NPR, whose ombudsman Alicia Shepherd explicitly banned the use of the word "torture" when referring to waterboarding or other brutal interrogation methods authorized by the Bush Administration.
That said, Schock still has no idea what the hell he's talking about, and calling it torture instead of "enhanced interrogation techniques" is mostly a cosmetic change when he's still advocating for a reprehensible method of interrogating detainees. He engages in the same denialism that Cheney does by stating earlier in the interview that "there have been no torture techniques, no alternative interrogation techniques, nothing negative in a bad way has happened at Guantanamo Bay," despite the evidence from multiplereports that say otherwise. He also justifies the use of torture with the "ticking time bomb" theory, even though counterterrorism experts have roundly debunked that scenario as a myth, and the fact that torture does not yield accurate or reliable information anyway (to say nothing of the evil and moral repugnance of the practice itself).
Still, while I doubt this young Republican's admission will have any appreciable effect on the public's opinion of torture (which, sadly, is supported either "often" or "sometimes" by a majority of Americans, including 47% of Democrats), Schock's words do clearly illuminate exactly what right-wingers are cheerleading. If only every major media outlet would muster up the same honesty to call torture precisely what it is and the courage to unequivocally condemn anyone who supports it.
It's been about ten weeks since I fell and broke both wrists on August 18th. I am just now finally almost back to normal functioning. Whatever that means. While there has not been a whole lot going on in my visible outer world, there's a lot going on in my own little mind. Still churning and brewing.
Meanwhile. August on, it's been Health Care Insurance Not Reform farce and the rise of Grayson and lots of other fun stuff.
Guess what has been churning and brewing behind the MSM radar scenes in torture/justice news? I don't know, somehow I quit paying attention. Thank goodness, the usual suspects did not.
The men in this video were held at Guantanamo for years without charge and denied any meaningful opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention. But now they are finally free. This is their story.
(ACLU adds this note: "Please note that by playing this clip You Tube and Google will place a long-term cookie on your computer. Please see You Tube's privacy statement on their website and Google's privacy statement on theirs to learn more. To view the ACLU's privacy statement, click here."
It's become more or less common knowledge that US forces have been using music as an operational tool for some time now, and I've begun seeing lists of the songs that are being used either to inflict pain, to demoralize, or to just generally disorient various people in various sorts of situations.
There are others, wiser than I, who will opine as to the questions of efficacy and the moral issues surrounding these kinds of operations; I will opine, instead, as to the quality of the songs used.
Frankly, had anyone asked, I could have put the torturers onto much better musical choices, just by selecting from my own "My Music" folder--which left me thinking: "hey, it's the weekend...why not do exactly that?"
Got any psychological warfare mission planned for the weekend? Expecting to have to direct amplified sound at an angry mob in a defensive maneuver Saturday night? Planning a Halloween haunted house that goes a bit...fuurther?
Come along with me then, soldier, and I'll provide you a playlist that should do the trick in almost any foreseeable emergency.
This report looks at those recent charges, and reveals that experiments by a CIA researcher on human subjects undergoing SERE training went unreported in the legal memos the Bush administration drafted to approve their torture program. It will also connect major military and intelligence figures to the SERE experiments, and tie some of them to major science and "experimental" directorates at the CIA and Special Operations Command.
Good Saturday morning, I hope everyone takes the time to go read, if you missed them, several pieces (links below) on the new News of Jawad's case, "Mohammed Jawad, the Afghan boy seized {2002} for allegedly throwing a grenade at U.S. troops and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay ever since, may be on his way home to Afghanistan within three weeks."
A federal judge, ruling for the first time that the U.S. government must release a detainee who once faced terrorism charges, on Thursday told officials to free a young Guantanamo prisoner by Aug. 21 or 22 so that he can return to his home country, Afghanistan.
snip
In a formal order expected to be issued later Thursday (7/30), Judge Huvelle said, the government will be given seven days to prepare a report to Congress that is now required before any Guantanamo detainee is to be freed. Then, 15 days after that, the government must complete plans for Jawad's transfer out of Guantanamo, the judge indicated.
By Aug. 24, a written report is due on Jawad's status, the judge said. "By then, I hope he's en route to Afghanistan," she commented.
The blogosphere seems to be a-buzz, I haven't looked at any MSM just yet.
ALERT: Glenn Greenwald promises a podcast today of an interview with ACLU's lawyer:
I'm going to have a podcast interview posted here tomorrow {Saturday} morning with Jawad's lawyer, the ACLU's Jonathan Hafetz, but for now, I want to emphasize one point. When Congress passed the Military Commissions Act in 2006, they explicitly denied the right of habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees. In other words, they tried to bar these detainees from having the very judicial hearings which are resulting in findings that there was no evidence to justify the accusations against them.
I will include more links for you below, but if you do nothing else this weekend, go read this in full (pdf) ((bring Kleenex)):
How Guantanamo's prisoners were sold The president of Pakistan's [Pervez Musharraf] attempts to publicise his memoirs throw light on the flawed and dishonest processes that the US uses in bringing "terrorists" to justice
by Clive Stafford Smith - NewStatesman - 09 October 2006
The payments help us see why so many innocent prisoners ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Musharraf writes that "millions" were paid for 369 prisoners - the minimum rate was apparently $5,000, enough to tempt a poor Pakistani to shop an unwanted Arab to the Americans, gift-wrapped with a story that he was up to no good in Afghanistan.
A large coalition of human rights groups has planned rallies and marches in major U.S. cities, including a rally in Washington, D.C.'s John Marshall Park at 11 a.m. followed by a noon march to the Justice Department where some participants will risk arrest in nonviolent protest if a special prosecutor for torture is not appointed. Torture Accountability
For those who are not able to go to Washington, D.C., rallies are also planned for San Francisco, CA; Pasadena, CA; Thousand Oaks, CA; Boston, MA; Salt Lake City, UT; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; Las Vegas, NV; Honolulu, HI; Tampa, FL; Philadelphia, PA; and Anchorage, AK, with details available online: Events Across the U.S. Hopefully, some of you will be able to attend one of these very important rallies.
Of interest, in San Francisco and Pasadena, citizens will submit a formal judicial misconduct complaint against 9th Circuit Court Judge, Jay Bybee, former Assistant Attorney General. I can only think of this as a positive move in this maze of affiliates of considered, acted upon, carried out TORTURE!
June 25 is Torture Accountability Day. At the close of this diary, you will learn how you can submit evidence of torture to the Department of Justice. You will also learn how you can help initiate a California State Bar investigation of Donald Rumsfeld's torture lawyer, William Haynes.
In today's TNR, we will cover breaking news on a Guantanamo detainee release, and ongoing revelations about the mysterious death of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi in a Libyan jail, a story first announced in the U.S. by Daily Kos Torture News Roundup on May 10, following a report by UK journalist Andy Worthington. Meanwhile, the long-awaited release of the CIA's Inspector General report on torture was delayed another week. Other revelations this past week include new information about a leading psychologist working for both the CIA and the Mitchell-Jessen torture firm; a British policy of covering up U.S. torture; ongoing political shenanigans over releasing hundreds of torture photos; human rights reports on torture centers in Zimbabwe; and more.
They once were terrorism suspects, but even after U.S. authorities determined the men weren't a threat to the United States, they were kept at the Guantanamo Bay prison for years because no nation would take them - until a few days ago, when Bermuda agreed to let them in as refugees.
"When we didn't have any country to accept us, when everybody was afraid of us ... Bermuda had the courage and was brave enough to accept us," said Abdulla Abdulgadir, who at 30 is the youngest of the four men who relished their first weekend of freedom in seven years.
Abdulgadir eagerly embraced his new island home. "We are not moving anywhere," he said.
From almost the moment that Camp X-Ray opened, prisoners embarked on hunger strikes as the only means available to protest about the conditions of their detention: specifically, their day-to-day treatment, the treatment of the Koran, and the crushing uncertainty of their fate, as they remained imprisoned without charge and without trial, with the ever-present possibility that they would be held for the rest of their lives.
According to the New York Times, the Obama Administration may modify the military commission rules to permitrequire have Gitmo prisoners plead guilty and be executed:
The Obama administration is considering a change in the law for the military commissions at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that would clear the way for detainees facing the death penalty to plead guilty without a full trial.
The provision could permit military prosecutors to avoid airing the details of brutal interrogation techniques. It could also allow the five detainees who have been charged with the Sept. 11 attacks to achieve their stated goal of pleading guilty to gain what they have called martyrdom.
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
