Former Guantanamo Interrogator: Torture is "Unnecessary, Cruel, And Counterproductive."
vruz: unless you’re dick cheney. the whole business paid off handsomely for him.
Reblogged from Letters To My Country
Waterboarding …
—via cheguevaraslovechild:
“To call something an ‘enhanced interrogation technique’ doesn’t alter the fact that we thought it was torture when the Japanese used it on American prisoners, we thought it was torture when the North Koreans used it, we thought it was torture when the Soviets used it. You know, it’s the moral equivalent of saying that rape is an enhanced seduction technique. ” ~ Ted Koppel
Reblogged from Diadoumenos
Al Jazeera: Human Rights Watch calls for Criminal Investigation into Bush Admin Torture Policies
—via geopoliticus:
Human Rights Watch has called on Barack Obama, the current US president, to order a criminal investigation into alleged detainee abuse by his predecessor, George W Bush, and senior figures from his administration.
“There are solid grounds to investigate Bush, [former vice president Dick] Cheney, [former secretary of defence Donald] Rumsfeld, and [former CIA director George] Tenet for authorising torture and war crimes,” Kenneth Roth, HRW’s executive director, said.
In a 107-page report entitled, “Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees,” the rights watchdog said inaction was denting America’s standing in the world.
“The US is right to call for justice when serious international crimes are committed in places like Darfur, Libya, and Sri Lanka, but there should be no double standards,” Roth said.
“When the US government shields its own officials from investigation and prosecution, it makes it easier for others to dismiss global efforts to bring violators of serious crimes to justice.”
If we are to believe in the rule of law, than the lawmakers and enforcers must be held accountable to their violations as well. The largest abuses against the law are committed by those who create or enforce it, as they believe no one will punish them, and their acts are massive. Hold leaders accountable: preserve the rule of law.
Reblogged from 1STIMPRESSIONS
Pretending WikiLeaks Doesn’t Exist: Government Secrecy Reaches Absurdity
ACLU
Yesterday, the ACLU filed a lawsuit after the State Department failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking the declassification of 23 State Department cables disclosed by WikiLeaks and widely disseminated online and in the press. The cables we seek reveal the diplomatic cost of policies that the Bush and Obama administrations have tried to keep secret from the American public.
Several of the cables describe high-level efforts by the government to pressure Spain and Germany into dropping investigations of the CIA’s torture of detainees. The cables show that the U.S. expended significant diplomatic resources in order to try and guarantee impunity for officials responsible for the abduction and torture of victims including Khaled El-Masri, an entirely innocent German citizen. At home, the Bush and Obama administrations have invoked legal fictions such as the “state secrets” privilege to prevent U.S. courts from addressing cases of innocent people tortured and rendered by the CIA; these cables reveal the secret ways in which the government worked to defeat accountability abroad.
We believe the American people have a right to know about the government’s efforts to shield from liability those officials who violated domestic and international law by engaging in abduction, rendition, and torture.
[…]
The ACLU’s lawsuit comes on the anniversary of another famous leak. On Monday, June 13, 2011, the United States will release the declassified Pentagon Papers — 40 years after they were first leaked. The fact that for 40 years after their original release the government maintained the pretense that release of the Pentagon Papers would cause damage to U.S. national security shows just how divorced from reality the U.S. approach to secrecy has become. Americans should not have to wait 40 more years for the government to declassify vital information that the whole world is already discussing.
Senate Intel Chair: Torture Did Not Lead To Bin Laden In Any Way
by Brian Beutler, TPM
More and more evidence suggests a key piece of intelligence — the first link in the chain of information that led U.S. intelligence officials to Osama bin Laden — wasn’t tortured out of its source. And, indeed, that torture failed to produce it.
“To the best of our knowledge, based on a look, none of it came as a result of harsh interrogation practices,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee in a wide-ranging press conference.
Moreover, Feinstein added, nothing about the sequence of events that culminated in Sunday’s raid vindicates the Bush-era techniques, nor their use of black sites — secret prisons, operated by the CIA.
“Absolutely not, I do not,” Feinstein said. “I happen to know a good deal about how those interrogations were conducted, and in my view nothing justifies the kind of procedures that were used.”
This is a mix of fresh, on-the-record information and push back against Republicans — many of them former Bush administration officials — who are twisting themselves in knots to claim that Bush’s interrogation policies got the ball rolling on the bin Laden killing.
