US Judge confirms torture used to obtain false confessions ( to justify war in Iraq )

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    In a startling article at huffingtonpost.com by Andy Worthington, author of “The Guantanamo Files”, puts together an absolute must read in my opinion.

False confessions obtained through torture

   The judge also noted the significance of the evidence in the record indicating that al-Rabiah “subsequently confided in interrogators [redacted] that he was being pressured to falsely confess to the allegations discussed above,” and also the significance of the fact that, although “al-Rabiah’s interrogators ultimately extracted confessions from him,” they “never believed his confessions based on the comments they included in their interrogation reports.”

    After noting — again with a palpable sense of incredulity — that “These are the confessions that the Government now asks the Court to accept as evidence in this case,” Judge Kollar-Kotelly proceeded to demolish them all . . .

From Huffingtonpost.com

Bold added by diarist

     More below the fold

     I took the liberty of adding ( to justify the war in Iraq ) to the title because that is why the Bush/Cheney Administration tortured people. The reason for all the torture? The Big Enchilada, The BIG War Crime, Iraq, where the oil runs right into Haliburton’s wallet.

    Mr. al-Rabia was a Kuwaiti man who had worked a desk job at Kuwaiti Air for the last 20 years and took it upon himself to make trips to other parts of the impoverished Muslim world. This has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt to be legit. In the Fall of 2001 al-Rabia found himself in Afghanistan. When the borders were shut down he found no way to get out. Soon afterwards al-Rabia was labelled a terrorist despite the fact that he had not attacked US troops or been proven to have been involved with al Qaeda or the Taliban, and then he was whisked away to Guantanamo bay, Cuba, where he would be tortured and left to rot for the next 7 years.

    And while he was rotting, al-Rabia was interrogated over and over, incriminating himself and other because that was what he was told to do, and he did it until he began to believe it himself.

    More from Mr. Worthington.

     Judge Kollar-Kotelly proceeded to demolish them all, breaking them down into three periods: the first, when “there were no allegations directed toward al-Rabiah and al-Rabiah provided no confessions”; the second, when the supposed eyewitnesses “made their now-discredited allegations and al-Rabiah was told of the allegations against him, but al-Rabiah nevertheless made no confessions”; and the third (which, shockingly, continued “until the present”), when “al-Rabiah confessed to the now-discredited allegations against him, as well as to other ‘evidence’ that interrogators told him they possessed, when, in fact, such evidence did not exist.”

huffingtonpost.com

     In the now Unclassified but highly redacted case, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, presiding over the US District Court for the District of Columbia in Fouad Mahmoud Al Rabiah, et al. v United States, et al, cofirms the FACT that during the Bush/Cheney Administration innocent people were tortured in order to create false confessions that could be used to further the Bush/Cheney Administrations political goals.

     Some evidence of this can be seen in the case itself here.

    Al-Rabiah’s confessions all follow the same pattern: Interrogators first explain to al-Rabiah the “evidence” they have in their possession (and that, at the time, they likely believed to be true). Al-Rabiah then requests time to pray (or to think more about the evidence) before making a “full” confession. Finally, after a period of time, al-Rabiah provides a fill confession to the evidence through elaborate and incredible explanations that the interrogators themselves do not believe. This pattern began with his confession that he met with Osama bin Laden, continued with his confession that he undertook a leadership role in Tora Bora, and repeated itself multiple other times with respect to “evidence” that the Government has not even attempted to rely on as reliable or credible.

Fouad Mahmoud Al Rabiah, et al. v United States, et al ,

Summed up in a shorter version.

    They tortured people

To get false confessions

To fraudulently justify

Invasion of Iraq!

    But in the words, of Judge Kollar-Kotelly, it sounds more official.

    So you have one prisoner incriminating one guy, another prisoner incriminating another, and sooner or later you end up with a whole prison full of people who claim to have met bin Laden and will swear that everyone else has been involved too. And then the Bush/Cheney Administration can say “They ARE all terrorists”. The lies become truths and the part that doesn’t fit goes down the memory hole.

    Wash, rinse, repeat, ad infinitum, until soneone says Osama bin Laden is working with Saddam Hussein to get WMD’s in Iraq.

     And while you push bullcrap evidence derived from torture testimonies with one hand, you surpress expert evidence that proves your crazy Saddam/WMD/al Qaeda claim is entirely wrong with the other.

    And, yet again, a US Judge has stepped in to set the record straight.

    A federal judge ruled Thursday that the FBI must publicly reveal much of its notes from an interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney during the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative.

huffingtonpost.com

    Have you had just about enough bullcrap yet? After 9 months, maybe it is time for Attorney General Holder to say we are going after ALL of the Bush/Cheney War Criminals, starting at the top.

    Please, contact Attorney General Holder today and demand full accountability for the War Crime called the Iraq War. To those who would say such efforts are in vein, may I direct you tot the fact that we arre thisclose to getting a Public Option in health care reform because of the same sort of advocacy.

    You’ll never get what you want if you don’t ask, and if you are going to ask you might as well Yell Louder!

You can contact Attorney General Eric Holder and demand accountability, starting AT THE TOP of the Bush/Cheney Administration. here

BY MAIL

   U.S. Department of Justice

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   Washington, DC 20530-0001

BY PHONE:

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Office of the Attorney General – 202-353-1555

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    You can Contact President Barack Obama’s White House to demand accountability STARTING AT THE TOP of the Bush/Cheney Administration here

    CALL The White House at 202-456-1111 and E-Mail the WH here

     Under Bush/Cheney America committed war crimes, war crimes that youu, I and every other American citizen are responsible for redressing, and that includes YOU, President Obama.

     It is the patriotic thing to do, to demand justice.

     You want us to have hope? We want you to give us accountability!

     Because now it isn’t just us, even the Judges are saying . . .

They tortured people

to get false confessions

     and we can add the next part ouurselves using that pesky reality based concept called logic.

    They tortured people

To get false confessions

To fraudulently justify

Invasion of Iraq!

    Also crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com