Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tag: Guantanamo
Jan 19 2010
Witness Vigil :: Worthington & Horton report
I’ve slacked off the past several days, due to multiple distractions. mea culpa. The ever faithful journalists, thankfully, have not.
Murders at Guantanamo by Andy Worthington, published this morning at Common Dreams, discusses Horton’s bombshell piece.
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.
Jan 12 2010
Vigil Witness: Worthington on Democracy NOW!
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?
Here’s the video… thank you edger!
Jan 11 2010
Vigilance
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.
h/t to jimstaro (he embedded in his comments in his essay), the Miami Herald has this compelling video.
Today marks the first day of the Witness Against Torture effort by these folks who begin today in D.C. with a rally:
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.
Dec 17 2009
Republican Calls Waterboarding “Torture”, Still Likes It
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 multiple reports 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.
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Cross-posted at Daily Kos
Nov 27 2009
Inside a Prison Outside the Law
Mother Jones {MoJo} Drumbeat brings the link to the site for the book The Guantanamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law
Read exclusive excerpts from narratives by the attorneys who have represented Guantanamo Detainees, at above link
Nov 03 2009
Justice?
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.
First up, ACLU has this new video up. Go to their site to view it.
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.”
Oct 25 2009
On Being A Government DJ, Or, “Torture? You Call That Torture?”
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.
Sep 17 2009
CIA Experiments on U.S. Soldiers Linked to Torture Program
Originally posted at The Public Record and Truthout
A number of new articles have been published recently that have highlighted evidence of illegal human experimentation on U.S.-held “terrorism” prisoners undergoing torture. These articles followed the release of a “white paper” by Physicians for Human Rights [PHR], Aiding Torture: Health Professionals’ Ethics and Human Rights Violations Demonstrated in the May 2004 Inspector General’s Report.
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.
Aug 01 2009
Is this our “foot in the door”?
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)):
Closing Argument at Guantanamo: The Torture of Mohammed Jawad, Major David J.R. Frakt.
Jul 15 2009
If you can’t Find the “Terrorists” — you can always Buy them!
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.
(emphasis added)
http://www.newstatesman.com/20…
I guess this is the True Meaning of Capitalism — if you can’t find the “bad guys” — Buy Them!
Jun 25 2009
Torture Accountability Action Day! June 25, 2009!
h/t David Swanson
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!
Keep going!