Laughing as I go...

5 زين القصة

2009-06-12T00:47:00.000-07:00

وهناك قصة زين

بينا من قبل كامدن الدقة ، العد خمسة
مدير المدرسة ، ومعسكر أحلم كابال

خطير لشاب وجدت الصراعات في منتصف القرن العشرين لأميركا مربكة. ذهب إلى العديد من الناس يبحث عن سبل لحل داخل نفسه المضطربة التي تعارضها معه ، ولكنه بقي المضطربة.

ليلة واحدة في مقهى ، ذاتي رسامة زين ماستر قال له : "اذهب إلى القصر المتداعية ستجد على هذا العنوان الذي كنت قد كتبت لك بانخفاض لا أتكلم لأولئك الذين يعيشون هناك ، يجب عليك التزام الصمت حين يرتفع القمر مساء غد. اذهب إلى غرفة كبيرة على حق الردهة الرئيسية ، ونجلس في موقف اللوتس فوق الانقاض في الركن الشمالي الشرقي ، ومواجهة وشيكة ، والتأمل ".

انه كما زين ماستر تعليمات. وقال إن التأمل في كثير من الأحيان بسبب المخاوف. إنه قلق من وجود أو عدم وبقية دول السباكة والتركيبات سوف يسقط من الطابق الثاني للانضمام إلى دورة المياه والأنابيب وغيرها من النفايات كان يجلس. وأعرب عن قلق فكيف له أن يعرف متى رفعت على سطح القمر ليلة المقبلة. انه قلق بشأن ما الذين ساروا من خلال الغرفة وقال عنه.

له كانت مثيرة للقلق والانزعاج عند التأمل ، وكأنه في اختبار لإيمانه ، ودنس سقطت من الطابق الثاني الى له. في ذلك الوقت شخصين دخل الغرفة. أول طلب من الرجل الثاني الذي كان يجلس هناك. ردت الثانية "يقول البعض انه هو الرجل المقدس. ويقول آخرون انه يمثل رأس الخراء".

جلسة الاستماع هذه ، ان الرجل المستنير. لإيداعه فقط

4 خمسة الوصايا (خماسي القيء)

2009-06-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

الوصايا الخمس (الخماسي القيء)

الخماسي القيء واكتشف من قبل ناسك الرسول زارا - جلجل في السنة الخامسة من كاتربيلر. وجد منها منحوتة في الحجر مذهب ، في حين أن بناء شرفة الشمس للكهف ، ولكن لاستيراد فقد كانت مكتوبة على دعامات سايفر غامض. ولكن ، بعد 10 أسبوعا و 11 ساعة للتدقيق مكثف انه به أن الرسالة التي يمكن أن يقرأ من خلال الوقوف على رأسه ومشاهدة رأسا على عقب.

معرفة يي هذا يا رجل يتحلى بالايمان!

أنا -- ليست هناك آلهة ولكن الالهة وهي إلهة الخاصة بك. لا يوجد ايريس بين الحركة ولكن ايان ايريس بين حركة ايان وهو ايريس - ايان الحركة. وكل فيلق الذهبي أبل هو الوطن الحبيب من دودة الذهبي.

ثانيا -- الخلاف بين ايان دائما استخدام الرسمية الخلاف بين ايان ثيقة نظام الترقيم.

ثالثا -- الخلاف هو بين ايان المطلوبة في وقت مبكر خلال الإضاءة للتفجير وحده & إشترك بسعادة من نقانق في يوم الجمعة وذلك للاحتفال عبادي إحتج الشعبية ضد الوثنية = من يوم : المسيحية الكاثوليكية (أي اللحم يوم الجمعة) ، واليهودية (أي لحوم من لحم الخنزير) ، والهندوس والشعوب (أي من لحوم الأبقار ، والبوذيين (أي لحوم الحيوانات) ، والخلاف بين بنا (أي الكعك الساخن الكلب).

رابعا -- يجب أن الخلاف بين ايان ولم يشارك الكلب الكعك الساخن ، وهذا هو العزاء للآلهة لدينا عندما كانت في مواجهة مع الأصل الرفض.

خامسا -- الخلاف هو بين ايان المحظورة وإيمانا من ما يقرأ.

فمن خطية! فليكن. يرحبون الخلاف بين ألف! وسيكون المدعي العام تجاوز تنفذها.

اختبار مسألة من أعلى أنغا كابال الإثنتي عشرة
مشاهير بوذا العقول المدرسة : واذا كانت لدينا
الاخوة ، فكيف لا يمكننا أن نأكل منها؟

(3) تشاو المقدسة (توضيح)

2009-06-12T00:13:00.000-07:00

فأنا أقول لك : لا بد للمرء
ما زالت الفوضى في
ان نمنح الحياة ل
نجمة الرقص! -- نيتشه

أبدى المجمع المقدس
تشاو

قائمة المحتويات

2009-06-12T00:06:00.000-07:00

(3) تشاو المقدسة (توضيح)
4 خمسة الوصايا (خماسي القيء)
5 زين القصة
6 برقية الى الرب
7 الميلاد من ايريس بين حركة ايان
11 معركة من الترتيلة ايريس المملكة
12 وفي الصلاة
13 السماء انخفض...
14 نورتون أموال
15 ايريس -- اليونانية علم الأنساب
16 قانون الخمسات
17 أسطورة من تفاحة الخلاف
19 - ايان ايريس الترتيلة
ص 20 - هاء الرسم البياني
ص 21 - هاء الرمز
ص 22 - هاء
23 استمارة
ص 24 - هاء الكهنة
26 - ايريس التأكيد ايان
27 شهادة الجندي
27 شارع جول ايك
28 كيف تبدأ ص - هاء كابال وبدون تقديم الطعام مع نحو بولي بين الأب
29 بالتعميد المنسك
الغموض القسم 31
(32) الخلاف بين جمعية ايان
(33) أبل الفيلق الذهبي
خامسا تسجيل الرقم 33
34 التقويم
35 الأسماء المقدسة
البابا 36 بطاقات

37 المثل المريرة من الشاي
38 خطبة عن الأخلاقيات & الحب
39 من الرسل ايريس
41 كيف أمين كتاب كشف الحقيقة
42 لعنة غراي وجه
43 محدد
44 الكوزمولوجيا (كتاب من الرحم)
46 أوامر من الخلاف بين ألف
الانتروبيا 47 (نوربرت فينر)
48 - زارا جلجل 'sالتنوير
49 تشاو المقدسة (النص)
52 هودج / بركة الوحل محول
53 براونسشوييج المزار
54 ستار باك الأحجار
ايريس 3125 خلال 55 سنة (البرازيل رسالة)
56 - كوسمو سلالته (الباطلة بنات)
سي - 59 - دا وهو من الأمراض المنقولة بالاتصال الجنسي بين الأنشودة
60 تصنيف القديسين
61 الخارقة أو الفوق طبيعية
62 النجوم
63 غراي وجه والسلبية
تركيا (64) لعنة
65 الحجج لالدعاة
66 "غرقت" (لعبة)
67 سلسلة رسالة (بذل جهود مشتركة)
68 شخصية لتصنيف
69 الرسالة إلى المذعور
71 سوبر الشفرة السرية على دعامات سايفر قانون
72 لواء لايت (الرسالة)
الخلاص 74

المباديء الخلاف بين ألف

2009-06-11T23:48:00.001-07:00

-- جوشوا نورتون كابال --
السرياليون ، المهرج ، سخيفة وأعلى الفنان المعركة

ص - هاء
هو أحد مظاهر
الخلاف بين جمعية ايان
الذي
ستتعلم المزيد
وفهم
أقل

نحن
هي قبيلة
من الفلاسفة وعلماء دين
السحرة والعلماء
والفنانين والمهرجون ،
وما شابهها من المجانين
الذين مفتون
مع
ايريس
إلهة ارتباك
و
ملكها
الصحيحة ،

المباديء الخلاف بين ألف

2009-06-11T23:35:00.000-07:00

الطبعة الرابعة من الغريب # الثاني / 2 ، والثاني عشر ؛ 68 تشيس 3136

المباديء الخلاف بين ألف
أو
كيف وجدت & آلهة ما فعلته لصاحبة
عندما وجدت لها

وابتداء من كونها مقدمة
فإن ايريس بين ايان الألغاز

وهو الأكثر إثارة للاهتمام

--> <--

كما كشف إلهيا
بلادي العليا تبجيل جمع المواد الأصغر ، ش. م. ك
المهيمنة وبولي بين الخير والد البكارة في الذهب
وكان عراب
شبه ثيو بين الجيش الوطنى الافغانى الفوقية بين صوفي باطني هود للايريس (ص - هاء)

يرحبون ايريس! --> <-- كا ل ل - جيم بين منظمة الشفافية الدولية --> <-- يرحبون الخلاف بين كل ألف!

مخصص لأجمل واحدة

---

الضجة من جهة التصفيق

وابتداء من كونها مقدمة
فإن ايريس بين ايان الألغاز

وهو الأكثر إثارة للاهتمام

--> <--

كما كشف إلهيا
بلادي العليا تبجيل جمع المواد الأصغر ، ش. م. ك
المهيمنة وبولي بين الخير والد البكارة في الذهب
وكان عراب
شبه ثيو بين الجيش الوطنى الافغانى الفوقية بين صوفي باطني هود للايريس (ص - هاء)

يرحبون ايريس! --> <-- كا ل ل - جيم بين منظمة الشفافية الدولية --> <-- يرحبون الخلاف بين كل ألف!

مخصص لأجمل واحدة

الضجة من جهة التصفيق

المباديء الخلاف بين ألف

2009-06-11T23:15:00.000-07:00

!
مقتطفات من مقابلة مع لجمع المال من خلال الشباب العاصمة الكبرى نعم أو بكالوريوس يندا ذكرت صحيفة هيرالد صن منبر - الجلسات ارسال بالوظائف وسان فرانسيسكو الخلاف بين ايان جمعية كابال النشرة المجرات تقرير & البابا أنبوب
=================================

أنبوب الكبرى : هل أنت جاد فعلا أم ماذا؟
المادة 2 : أغتنم الفكاهة في بعض الأحيان على محمل الجد. في بعض الأحيان وأغتنم بظرافة جدية. اما الطريقة التي ليست ذات صلة.

سباق الجائزة الكبرى : ربما أنت مجنون فقط.
المادة 2 : والواقع! ولكن لا نرفض هذه التدريس زور لانني مجنون. والسبب في ذلك هو أنا مجنون لأنها صحيحة.

سباق الجائزة الكبرى : هل صحيح ان ايريس؟
المادة 2 : كل ما هو الصحيح.
سباق الجائزة الكبرى : وحتى في أمور خاطئة؟
المادة 2 : حتى كاذبة الامور الحقيقية.
سباق الجائزة الكبرى : كيف ذلك؟
المادة 2 : لا أعرف الرجل ، وأنا لم نفعل ذلك.

سباق الجائزة الكبرى : لماذا تتعامل مع الكثير من السلبيات؟
المادة 2 : حل لها.
سباق الجائزة الكبرى : هل تضع هذه النقطة؟
المادة 2 : لا.

سباق الجائزة الكبرى : هل هناك معنى أساسي وراء ص - هاء؟
المادة 2 : زين وثمة قصة عن الطالب الذي طلب الماجستير في شرح معنى البوذية. الماجستير في الرد ان "ثلاثة من الكتان ليرة".
سباق الجائزة الكبرى : هل هذا هو الجواب على سؤالي؟
المادة 2 : لا ، بالطبع لا. ان مجرد التوضيح. الجواب على سؤالك هو خمسة أطنان من كتان!

بتهمة الإبادة

المباديء الخلاف بين ألف

2009-06-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

لدى ماغنوم من المواد الأفيونية جمع الشباب

المباديء الخلاف بين ألف

أو

كيف وجدت وآلهة ما فعلته لبلدها وعندما وجدتها

حيث شرح
وورث كل شيء عليم
عن أي شيء على الاطلاق

ألف جرة نبيذ ،
ساقه من الضأن
وأنت!
بجانبي
صفير في
الظلام

يي أن لا تضيع من بين مبادئ النظام...

كتاب الرحم 1 (5) ؛

The Suing of The Torturers of Abu Ghraib Begins... Also News On The Uighurs Of Guantanamo

2008-06-30T18:35:00.000-07:00

Just a quick follow up to the news I posted back in may:

Private Contractor Stephen Stefanowicz Sued For Abu Ghraib Torture

Former Iraqi detainees sue U.S. military contractors

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Four Iraqi men are suing U.S. military contractors who they say tortured them while they were detained in Abu Ghraib prison, according to lawsuits being filed at U.S. federal courts on Monday.

The lawsuits allege the contractors committed violations of U.S. law, including torture, war crimes and civil conspiracy.

...

The four plaintiffs, all later released without charge, described their experiences to Reuters on Monday at an Istanbul hotel, where they periodically meet their U.S. legal team. They gave accounts of beatings, electric shocks and mock executions.

...

The first suit was filed on Monday in Seattle, Washington, and the others were being filed in Maryland, Ohio and Michigan, where the contractors reside.

CACI provided interrogators at Abu Ghraib and L-3 provided translators at the prison.

...

Iraqis alleging Abu Ghraib abuse file first in series of lawsuits

Among the former prisoners who allege abuse is Emad al-Janabi. He is not one of the four civilians who are part of the initial series of lawsuits, but his allegations are similar to those of the other Iraqi men.

"They tried to pull my eyes out, the interrogator's fingers were in my eyes putting pressure," he told CNN in May. "I screamed and begged them to stop, but they wouldn't let go."

The 43-year-old said he was later released without charge, and now lives outside the country.

"The worst moment was when they took my clothes," he also told CNN. "And with their hands they would pinch me ... in my private parts. ... They asked me to stand motionless facing the wall and said if I moved I would be shot."

Abu Ghraib inmates sue contractors, claim torture

...

Allegations of abuse at the Baghdad prison first erupted in 2004 with the release of pictures of grinning U.S. soldiers posing with detainees, some naked, being held on leashes or in painful and sexually humiliating positions. Eleven U.S. soldiers were convicted of breaking military laws, and five others were disciplined in the scandal.

...

The contractors named as defendants in the lawsuit are CACI International Inc. of Arlington, Va., and New York-based L-3 Communications Corp., formerly Titan Corp.

Three of the complaints were filed in U.S. district courts in Seattle, Greenbelt, Md., and Columbus, Ohio, jurisdictions where three former workers reside. The fourth was filed in Detroit, where L-3 recruited heavily for translators, according to that complaint.

...

Three of the lawsuits name individual employees of those companies as defendants. They are Adel L. Nakhla, a former L-3 translator, of Montgomery Village; Daniel "DJ" Johnson of Renton, Wash., who worked as a CACI interrogator, and Timothy L. Dugan of Pataskala, Ohio, who also worked as a CACI interrogator, according to the complaints.

...

Burke said all four plaintiffs were released from Abu Ghraib without charges after they were held for as long as four years and four months in the case of Dugan's accuser, Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shimari, an Iraqi farmer.

Al Shimari claims he was subjected to electric shock, beaten, deprived of food and sleep, threatened with dogs, stripped naked, forcibly shaved and forced to watch Dugan and others choke another prisoner.

He claims Dugan, 48, beat an Iraqi civilian suspected of terrorism, threw him handcuffed and hooded from a vehicle, and dragged him across rocks.

Nakhla's accuser, Wissam Abdullateff Sa'eed Al-Quraishi, 37, of Amman, Jordan claims that Nakhla held Al-Quraishi down while a coconspirator poured feces on him.

Al-Quraishi also claims Nakhla and others stripped Al-Quraishi and other prisoners naked and piled them atop one another, separated by boxes.

Al-Quraishi also claims he watched Nakhla hold down a 14-year-old boy while an unidentified coconspirator sodomized the boy with a toothbrush.

Sa'adoon Ali Hameed Al-Ogaidi, a 36-year-old Arabic teacher from Baghdad, claims he was beaten by an unidentified L-3 translator, threatened with execution and stripped naked and paraded before other prisoners.

Johnson's accuser is Mohammed Abdwaihed Towfek Al-Taee of Baghdad. He claims an unidentified L-3 translator forced him to consume so much water that he vomited blood several times and then fainted. He claims the translator and others later tied a plastic line around his penis, preventing urination, and made him drink more, nearly killing him.

...

Meanwhile, the Uighurs in Guantanamo are still there, but a have been declared to have been improperly held there as enemy combatants by a federal appeals court::

Court Is Skeptical of U.S. Evidence in Guantánamo Case

In the first case to review the government’s secret evidence for holding a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a federal appeals court found that allegations against an ethnic Chinese man held for more than six years were based on bare and unverifiable claims, according to the decision released Monday.

With some derision for the Bush administration’s arguments, a three-judge panel said the government contended that its allegations against a detainee should be accepted as true because they had been repeated in at least three secret documents.

The court compared that to the absurd declaration of a Lewis Carroll character: “I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”

“This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true,” said the panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The unanimous panel overturned as invalid a Pentagon determination that a detainee, Huzaifa Parhat, a member of the ethnic Uighur Muslim minority in western China, was properly held as an enemy combatant.

...

Uighurs at Guantanamo

...

Walking in Circles

The appellate court’s opinion in Parhat’s case has not yet been released because it, too, contains classified information, but a redacted version is being prepared. Importantly, in the one-page order that has so far been released, the court told the government either to release or transfer Parhat, or—in what would be a pointless and agonizing exercise at this point—to hold a new set of administrative proceedings for him.

In the meantime, Parhat is living a life of useless tedium. He recently described his daily routine to his lawyer, who wrote:

Wake at 4:30 or 5:00. Pray. Go back to sleep. Walk in circles—north, south, east, west—around his 6-by-12 foot cell for an hour. Go back to sleep for another two or more hours. Wake up and read the Koran or look at a magazine (written in a language that he does not understand). Pray. Walk in circles once more. Eat lunch. Pray. Walk in circles. Pray. Walk in circles or look at a magazine (again, in a foreign language). Go back to sleep at 10:00 p.m.

Abdusemet, another Uighur at Guantanamo, has described days on end of doing nothing more than eating, praying, pacing, and sitting on his bed. “I am starting to hear voices, sometimes. There is no one to talk to all day in my cell and I hear these voices,” Abdusemet told his lawyer, worriedly.

“What did we do?” he asked. “Why do they hate us so much?”

{UPDATE}

http://politicalfleshfeast.com/showComment.do?commentId=114365

*[new] asdf (0.00 / 0)
Here's a slight technical note. The D.C. Circuit didn't say that Parhat was improperly held; instead, they said the government presented insufficient evidence at the tribunal for the tribunal to have properly determined that Parhat was an enemy combatant. The court gave the government three options: "to release Parhat, to transfer him, or to expeditiously convene a new Combatant Status Review Tribunal to consider evidence submitted in a manner consistent with this opinion." At the same time, the court said Parhat could go ahead with a habeas petition in federal district court, as provided for by the Supremes recently in Boumediene.
by coyote @ Mon Jun 30, 2008 at 19:35:43 PM PDT

Thanks coyote...

Keeping Track...

2008-06-19T04:56:00.000-07:00

Guantanamo: Beyond The Law

ABOUT THIS SERIES
An eight-month McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad.

Justice...

2008-06-19T03:50:00.000-07:00

LAW SCHOOL TO ORGANIZE BUSH WAR CRIMES TRIAL

A conference to plan the prosecution of President Bush and other high administration officials for war crimes will be held September 13-14 at the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover .

"This is not intended to be a mere discussion of violations of law that have occurred," said convener Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounder of the school. "It is, rather, intended to be a planning conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth."

"We must try to hold Bush administration leaders accountable in courts of justice," Velvel said. "And we must insist on appropriate punishments, including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top German and Japanese war-criminals in the 1940s."

...

Surveillance Changes Behavior

2008-06-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

Data Retention Effectively Changes the Behavior of Citizens in Germany

A recent survey (German) by the well-known German Forsa institute now showed the social effects of this data retention law: Communication habits are indeed changing.

1.003 individuals have been questioned on May 27th and 28th. These are the results:

* 73% know about the data retention
* 11% said that they had already abstained from using phone, cell phone or e-mail in certain occasions
* 6% believe to receive less communication since the beginning of the data retention
* 52% said they probably would not use telecommunication for contacts like drug counselors, psychotherapists or marriage counselors because of data retention

And the sad fact: 48% still think that data retention is a necessary step for crime prevention.

"The deterring effects of this law is life threatening, for example if people do not call a drug counselor or psychotherapist" claims Patrick Breyer of Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung, a network of civil rights and privacy activists.

Thomas Dreesen of the association of German specialized journalists is also worried: “Against the background of [the abuse of communication data by Germany’s largest telephone provide] it is obvious how easily such data can be abused to spy out journalists and expose whistle blowers. The law […] therefore threatens the freedom of press in Germany”

It's not all bad though... If you look at the survey (PDF):

Knapp die Hälfte der Bundesbürger (48 Prozent) hält die sechsmonatige
Speicherung ihrer Verbindungsdaten für eine notwendige Maßnahme zur
Verbrechensbekämpfung.

Fast ebenso viele (46 Prozent) halten jedoch die Speicherung für einen
unverhältnismäßigen und unnötigen Eingriff in die eigenen Freiheits-
rechte.

Almost half of the citizens (48%) consider the 6 month retention of their call data a necessary measure due to crime.

Almost as many (46%) consider it a disproportionate and unnecessary violation upon their civil rights and liberties.

Private Contractor Stephen Stefanowicz Sued For Abu Ghraib Torture

2008-05-06T05:59:00.000-07:00

Back in 2004 a question was asked:

Private Contractors Who Torture

But what of the civilian contractors who worked hand in glove with the military at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison? Will the atrocities they committed be, at most, bad for their careers - a source of negative letters in their employment files? Or will the civilians who shared responsibility for the criminal abuse meted out to detainees at Abu Ghraib be tried, convicted, and sent to prison?

I highly suggest reading the rest of this article as well.

Given the immunity law in place at the time that was only lifted January this year and the obvious reluctance of US civilian authorities to prosecute the offenders the answers to these questions are no they will not be sent to prison.

One may however be hit in the pocket book.

A 43 year old blacksmith Emad Al-Janabi is suing:

US contractors accused in Abu Ghraib torture suit

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Employees from US military contractors helped torture Iraqi civilians detained at Abu Ghraib prison five years ago, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Los Angeles on Monday.

Lawyers for Emad Al-Janabi said the 43-year-old blacksmith and other prisoners were subjected to months of abuse while being held at the notorious Baghdad jail following his arrest in September 2003.

Al-Janabi was later released without charge in July 2004.

According to the lawsuit, Al-Janabi was subjected to physical and mental torture which included being shown a mock execution of his brother and nephew, being repeatedly deprived of food and sleep and threatened with dogs.

The lawsuit is lodged against defense contractors CACI International Inc, CACI Premier Technology, L-3 Communications Titan Corporation, and former CACI contractor Stephen Stefanowicz.

...

And according to the Associated Press...

Iraqi alleges Abu Ghraib torture, sues US contractors

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An Iraqi man sued two U.S. military contractors, claiming he was repeatedly tortured while being held at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison for more than 10 months.

Emad al-Janabi's federal lawsuit, filed Monday in Los Angeles, claims that employees of CACI International Inc. and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. punched him, slammed him into walls, hung him from a bed frame and kept him naked and handcuffed in his cell beginning in September 2003.

Also named as a defendant is CACI interrogator Steven Stefanowicz, known as "Big Steve." The suit claims he directed some of the torture tactics.

...

... the suit claims that "Big Steve" directed some of the torture.

Thing is, it's not just the suit. So did the article 15-6 investigation of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prepared by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba by orders of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez who was the senior military official in Iraq at the time.

Known as the "Taguba Report" below are the excerpts from the executive summary mentioning Stephen Stefanowicz.

The "Taguba Report" On Treatment Of Abu Ghraib Prisoners In Iraq

ARTICLE 15-6 INVESTIGATION
OF THE
800th MILITARY POLICE BRIGADE

...

11. (U) That Mr. Steven Stephanowicz, Contract US Civilian
Interrogator, CACI, 205th Military Intelligence Brigade,
be given an Official Reprimand to be placed in his
employment file, termination of employment, and
generation of a derogatory report to revoke his security
clearance for the following acts which have been
previously referred to in the aforementioned findings:

* Made a false statement to the investigation team
regarding the locations of his interrogations, the
activities during his interrogations, and his knowledge of
abuses.

* Allowed and/or instructed MPs, who were not trained in
interrogation techniques, to facilitate interrogations by
"setting conditions" which were neither authorized and in
accordance with applicable regulations/policy. He clearly
knew his instructions equated to physical abuse.

...

13. (U) I find that there is sufficient credible information
to warrant an Inquiry UP Procedure 15, AR 381-10, US Army
Intelligence Activities, be conducted to determine the
extent of culpability of MI personnel, assigned to the
205th MI Brigade and the Joint Interrogation and
Debriefing Center (JIDC) at Abu Ghraib (BCCF).
Specifically, I suspect that COL Thomas M. Pappas, LTC
Steve L. Jordan, Mr. Steven Stephanowicz, and Mr. John
Israel were either directly or indirectly responsible for
the abuses at Abu Ghraib (BCCF) and strongly recommend
immediate disciplinary action as described in the
preceding paragraphs as well as the initiation of a
Procedure 15 Inquiry to determine the full extent of
their culpability. (ANNEX 36)

...

Hrrrm...

2008-04-04T14:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/107849.html

Israelis to receive new gas masks

Published: 04/02/2008

Israeli citizens will be given new gas masks.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Security Cabinet authorized Wednesday a plan to issue the population upgraded gas masks as part of preparations for a possible future, non-conventional war.

Most citizens had gas mask kits from the 2003 Gulf war, when Israel feared it might come under Iraqi Scud missile salvos.

The masks were collected in recent months to undergo inspections and upgrades.

Israeli officials said the kits would be reissued by year's end and cautioned the public not to assume the move is connected to any anticipated conflict with Iran or Syria.

Israel to distribute gas-masks as report claims Syria fears attack

Israel remains tense, but does not expect war

Mideast countries prepare for war

Heh...

2008-04-02T22:56:00.000-07:00

Badr Inducted into Army as Thousands fired for Mutiny;

Hrrrm...

2008-03-17T01:59:00.000-07:00

From Tibet:

From India:

So about that Olympics thing...

And, did you know? A couple of days ago was the anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death. This footage was shot two days before she was killed:

You haven't heard of Insurge?...

2008-03-11T22:38:00.000-07:00

... that makes you the lamest of the lame, a loser among losers.

Just watch these two video clips and you'll be fixed.

There you go, right as new...

Just How Smart Are Humans Anyway?

2008-03-02T21:07:00.000-08:00

In other news, straight from Auntie Beeb:

An Iranian in the Green Zone
This has been a state visit by motorcade, and mostly behind closed doors.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad travelled from Baghdad airport to the city centre in a black BMW with a heavily armed escort.

He was welcomed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani at his compound near the River Tigris. They stood solemnly side by side as a band played the national anthems of each country, starting with Iran's.

...

Venezuela 'sends tanks to border'
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is sending thousands of troops and tanks to the border with Colombia, marking a sharp escalation in regional tensions.

Speaking on his weekly television show, President Chavez also said Venezuela's embassy in Colombia would close.

Mr Chavez said he was reacting to the "cowardly murder" of a leading Farc rebel by Colombian forces in a raid just inside Ecuador on Saturday.

Later, Ecuador recalled its ambassador to Bogota in protest at the incursion.

Raul Reyes and at least 16 other rebels were killed in the operation, which took place about 1.8km (one mile) inside Ecuadorean territory.

...

The Costs Of Torture...

2008-02-26T06:03:00.000-08:00

Guantánamo guards suffer psychological trauma

...

Amnesty International UK spokesperson Neil Durkin pointed out that the psychological trauma inflicted on the Guantánamo inmates should not be overlooked. "With numerous suicide attempts and reports of Guantánamo prisoners on the edge of psychosis, we are extremely concerned that even those eventually released from the camp will be mentally scarred for the rest of their lives," he said. "Over 200 of the Guantánamo prisoners are now held in solitary confinement - and after years of detention without charge or trial this is taking a heavy toll."

There have been few scientific studies of the psychological effects of working as a prison guard, but classic experiments in the 1960s and 1970s showed how easy it is to prompt ordinary people to perpetrate extremely cruel acts given the right conditions.

In the so-called 'Stanford prison experiment' in 1971, college students were asked to act out roles as guards and detainees in a mock prison in the basement of the university's psychology department. Both groups quickly adapted to their roles and the guards became increasingly sadistic and cruel in their treatment of the prisoners. The results were so shocking the experiment was stopped early.

"It's not that we put bad apples in a good barrel. We put good apples in a bad barrel. The barrel corrupts anything that it touches," the experiment's author Dr Philip Zimbardo is quoted as saying on the American Psychological Association's website.

Also,

Only Connect

Last week I received an email from a dear friend. The email came from Sweden, on Valentine’s Day. I have spent the better part of this week trying to craft a response. I have failed. This post is my attempt at a response.

This blog is anti-torture. There is a logo on the sidebar of this blog that declares the unequivocal position of this blog and its author. Being anti-torture seems to me to be a commonsense position to hold. It is however not a position that is universally held. There are torturers in this world and there are those who aid and abet the torturers. Then there are the victims. My friend, Tasneem Khalil, is a torture victim.

...

These are among the many costs of torture...

Read both stories.

Oh Dear...

2008-02-20T11:39:00.000-08:00

Rigged Trials at Gitmo

When asked if he thought the men at Guantánamo could receive a fair trial, Davis provided the following account of an August 2005 meeting he had with Pentagon general counsel William Haynes -- the man who now oversees the tribunal process for the Defense Department. "[Haynes] said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time," recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, something that had lent great credibility to the proceedings.

"I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process," Davis continued. "At which point, [Haynes's] eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can't have acquittals, we've got to have convictions.'"

(Hat'tip to the War Room)

Breaking: "Wikileaks Under Attack: California Court Wipes Wikileaks.org Out of Existence" (Updated)

2008-02-18T06:29:00.000-08:00

Psyche, Science, and Society reports that a Wikileaks Under Attack: California Court Wipes Wikileaks.org Out of Existence:

One of the most important web sites in recent months has been Wikileaks.org. Created by several brave journalists committed to transparency, Wikileaks has published important leaked documents, such as the Rules of Engagement for Iraq [see my The Secret Rules of Engagement in Iraq], the 2003 and 2004 Guantanamo Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures, and evidence of major bank fraud in Kenya [see also here] that apparently affected the Kenyan elections. Wikileaks has upset the Chinese government enough that they are attempting to censor it, as is the Thai military junta.

Now censorship has extended to the United States of America, land of the First Amendment. As of Friday, February 15, those going to Wikileaks.org have gotten Server not found messages. Today I received a message explaining that a California court has granted an injunction written and requested by lawyers for the Cayman Island’s Bank Julius Baer. It seems that the bank is trying to keep the public from accessing documents that may reveal shady dealings. Wikileaks was only given a couple of hours notice “by email” and was not even represented at the hearing where a U.S. judge took such a drastic step attempting to totally shut down an important information outlet. The result was this totally unprecedented attempt to totally wipe out the existence of Wikileaks:

“Dynadot shall immediately clear and remove all DNS hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name and prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court.”

There have, of course, been previous attempts by the U.S. Government and others to block publication of particular documents, most famously in 1971 when the Nixon administration attempted to stop publication by the New York Times of excerpts from the Pentagon Papers, leaked by Daniel Ellsberg. But trying to close down an entire site in this way is truly unprecedented. Not even the Nixon administration, when they sought to block publication of the Pentagon Papers, considered closing down the New York Times in response.

If this injunction stands, it will set an incredible precedent for all of us who use the web to unveil misbehavior by the rich and powerful. Fortunately, Wikileaks is fighting this unconstitutional attack on press freedom, aided by six pro bono attorneys in San Francisco. While Wikileaks has so far not issued any particular call for support, all who value freedom should stand ready to offer whatever support they need.

Meanwhile, Wikileaks still exists. Its founders, knowing that governments and institutions will go to extreme lengths to censor the truth, have created an extensive network of cover names from which one can access their materials or continue leaking the secrets of governments and the corrupt rich and powerful. Thus, everything is available at Wikileaks.be, among other names. Let the leaks continue!

The Wikileaks press release:

Wikileaks.org under injunction

Wikileaks Press Release

WIKILEAKS.ORG DOWN AFTER EX-PARTE LEGAL ATTACK BY CAYMAN ISLANDS BANK

http://wikileaks.be/wiki/Wikileaks.org_under_injunction

Contacts: http://wikileaks.be/wiki/Contact

Mon Feb 18 00:00:00 GMT 2008

The following release has not been proofed due to time constraints.

Transparency group Wikileaks forcibly censored at ex-parte Californian hearing -- ordered to print blank pages -- 'wikileaks.org' name forcibly deleted from Californian domain registrar -- the best justice Cayman Islands money launderers can buy?

When the transparency group Wikileaks was censored in China last year, no-one was too surprised. After all, the Chinese government also censors the Paris based Reporters Sans Frontiers and New York Based Human Rights Watch. And when Wikileaks published the secret censorship lists of Thailand's military Junta, no-one was too surprised when people in that country had to go to extra lengths to read the site. But on Friday the 15th, February 2008, in the home of the free and the land of the brave, and a constitution which states "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press", the Wikileaks.org press was shutdown:

BANK JULIUS BAER & CO. LTD, a
Swiss entity; and JULIUS BAER BANK
AND TRUST CO. LTD, a Cayman Island ORDER GRANTING
entity, PERMANENT INJUNCTION

WIKILEAKS, an entity of unknown form;
WIKILEAKS.ORG, an entity of unknown
form; DYNADOT, LLC, a California
limited liability company; and DOES 1
through 10, inclusive,

[..]

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:

[..]

Dynadot shall immediately clear and remove all DNS hosting
records for the wikileaks.org domain name and prevent the
domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or
any other website or server other than a blank park page,
until further order of this Court.

The Cayman Islands is located between Cuba and Honduras. In July 2000, the United States Department of the Treasure Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an advisory states stating that there were "serious deficiencies in the counter-money laundering systems of the Cayman Islands", "Cayman Islands law makes it impossible for the supervisory and regulatory authority to obtain information held by financial institutions regarding their client's identity", "Failure of financial institutions in the Cayman Islands to report suspicious transactions is not subject to penalty" and that "These deficiencies, among others, have caused the Cayman Islands to be identified by the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (The 'FATF') as non-cooperative in the fight against money laundering". As of 2006 the U.S. State Department listed the Cayman Islands in its money laundering "Countries of Primary Concern".

The Cayman's case is not the first time Wikileaks has tackled bad banks. In the second half of last year Wikileaks exposed over $4,500,000,000's worth of money laundering including by the former president of Kenya, Daniel Arap Moi (see http://wikileaks.be/wiki/The_looting_of_Kenya_under_President_moi which became the Guardian's front page story in September 2007 and swung the Kenyan vote by 10% leading into the December 2007 election and http://wikileaks.be/wiki/A_Charter_House_of_horrors reported in the Nairobi paper The Standard and now the subject of a High Court Case in Kenya).

To find an injunction similar to the Cayman's case, we need to go back to Monday June 15, 1971 when the New York Times published excepts of of Daniel Ellsberg's leaked "Pentagon Papers" and found itself injuncted the following day. The Wikileaks injunction is the equivalent of forcing the Times' printers to print blank pages and its power company to turn off press power. The supreme court found the Times censorship injunction unconstitutional in a 6-3 decision.

The Wikileaks.org injunction is ex-parte, engages in prior restraint and is clearly unconstitutional. It was granted on Thursday afternoon by California district court judge White, Bush appointee and former prosecutor.

The order was written by Cayman Island's Bank Julius Baer lawyers and was accepted by judge White without amendment, or representations by Wikileaks or amicus. The case is over several Wikileaks articles, public commentary and documents dating prior to 2003. The documents allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures used for asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion. The bank alleges the documents were disclosed to Wikileaks by offshore banking whistleblower and former Vice President the Cayman Island's operation, Rudolf Elmer. Unable to lawfully attack Wikileaks servers which are based in several countries, the order was served on the intermediary Wikileaks purchased the 'Wikileaks.org' name through -- California registrar Dynadot, who then used its access to the internet website name registration system to delete the records for 'Wikileaks.org'. The order also enjoins every person who has heard about the order from from even linking to the documents.

In order to deal with Chinese censorship, Wikileaks has many backup sites such as wikileaks.be (Belgium) and wikileaks.de (Germany) which remain active. Wikileaks never expected to be using the alternative servers to deal with censorship attacks, from, of all places, the United States.

The order is clearly unconstitutional and exceeds its jurisdiction.

Wikileaks will keep on publishing, in-fact, given the level of suppression involved in this case, Wikileaks will step up publication of documents pertaining to illegal or unethical banking practices.

Wikileaks has six pro-bono attorney's in S.F on roster to deal with a legal assault, however Wikileaks was given only hours notice "by email" prior to the hearing. Wikileaks was NOT represented. Wikileaks pre-litigation California council Julie Turner attended the start of hearing in a personal capacity but was then asked to leave the court room.

White signed the order, drafted by the Cayman Islands bank's lawyers without a single amendment.

The injunction claims to be permanent, although the case is only preliminary.

Wikileaks remains available publishing from non-US, non-Chinese jurisdictions including http://wikileaks.cx/ and http://wikileaks.be/. See http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Wikileaks:Cover_Names for more.

http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Bank_Julius_Baer_vs._Wikileaks

http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/images/Dynadot-injunction.pdf

http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Die_Akten_des_Hurricane_Man

http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Clouds_on_the_Cayman_tax_heaven

This is big.

Spread the word.

...

The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

-- John Gilmore

[UPDATE]:

Interestingly...

Wikileaks survives a fire, but is under Temporary Restraining Order partial censorship

It seems that there has been a fire in an Uninterruptible Power Supply, which took the WikiLeaks web servers offline for much of Saturday, at their Swedish co-location hosting company, PRQ Inet, which has experience of attempts at censorship, through their former hosting of the peer to peer filesharing and political phenomenon, The Pirate Bay.

[editor: shortly before the fire unknown persons launched a 500Mbps distributed denial of service attack. It is not known if or how the attack is related to the other events described in this article].

How suss does that sound hunh?

Putting Two and Two Together Again:

2008-02-15T05:03:00.000-08:00

Britons will keep on fearing the worst

Kids' commissioner calls for ban on Mosquito, ultrasonic anti-teen device

Wough...

2008-02-14T06:41:00.000-08:00

Maverick Fails The Test: McCain Votes Against Waterboarding Ban

What just happened?

Doesn't this go against everything he believes in?

"Valerie Plame Wilson Describes Sibel Edmonds Disclosures as 'Stunning'"

2008-02-12T19:36:00.000-08:00

From BradBlog:

Valerie Plame Wilson Describes Sibel Edmonds Disclosures as 'Stunning'

Now that's interesting.

(hat'tip to Madman in the Marketplace over at Marisacat's)

Oh my god...

2008-02-11T18:18:00.000-08:00

Just In Case You Didn't Already Know, I'm On The Bipolar Spectrum.

Soldier, After Bipolar Treatment and Suicide Attempts, Sent Back to War Zone:

FORT CARSON A Fort Carson soldier who says he was in treatment at Cedar Springs Hospital for bipolar disorder and alcohol abuse was released early and ordered to deploy to the Middle East with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team.

...

In the December e-mail, Tebo tells brigade leaders: “Evidently, while at Cedar Springs, he was started on psychiatric medications that should have made him non-deployable, but somehow no one was notified. He may have been pending a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, but that information was not passed on at discharge. He deployed with his unit and has not been doing well here.”

In Kuwait, the soldier isolated himself. He said he had “racing thoughts” and couldn’t keep still.

“I was ... burning my fingertips with cigarettes, just anything to keep my mind off of things,” the soldier said. “I had homicidal thoughts. I don’t know at the time if I intended on doing anything. But at the time, it was there, I had homicidal and suicidal thoughts.”

I've been there, not the homicidal thoughts, but then I wasn't in a warzone at the time.

I remember the manic state, racing thoughts, the suicidal thoughts, burning myself with cigarettes just out of a weird curiosity just to see whether I could still feel pain. I could sense it, but I just didn't feel it and it nearly did my head in.

I can't even imagine what being like that would be like in a warzone. It does my head in just trying to think about it.

Oh my god...

Oh my fucking god...

How could they? How dare they. That's just insane.

And people say we're the psycho's...

Reading Assignment:

2008-02-11T18:05:00.000-08:00

Go read these two essays in order:

Why I Hate WW II By Gary Brecher

War Is A Racket By Major General Smedley Butler

Something inside my head just clicked when I read them together.

An interesting clip...

2008-02-09T13:03:00.000-08:00

(hat'tip Home of the Brave)

whimper (Updated)

2008-02-09T12:09:00.000-08:00

Straight from the pages of Haaretz, Israel's oldest daily newspaper.

Twilight Zone / Cut short By Gideon Levy

Here's a short excerpt:

And to all Israelis, al-Adam says: "Our neighbors are not the Europeans or the Americans. You are our neighbors and we have to watch out for one another. We're living here and not hurting anyone. For years I brought up my children to live together [with Israelis], telling them we have to live together, and now they don't believe me anymore." The farmer says these things while standing amid the ruins of his land, which he had worked and nurtured for two years, having transformed the rocky ground into fruit orchards and fields of vegetables and grains. But it was short-lived: A few weeks ago, bulldozers dispatched by the Civil Administration showed up and destroyed all of his fields and his neighbors'. There went the grapevines and the young fruit trees - all uprooted. The magnificent terraces al-Adam had built were destroyed along with the wells they had dug. Just a few days before Tu Bishvat, Jewish Arbor Day, Israel showed them just how much regard it really has for trees.

The European Union had provided generous aid to these farmers in Beit Ula as part of an extensive development project covering almost 100 dunams (25 acres). The farmers invested their own money and much toil in the project, but in the end, all it took was a few hours of work by the Civil Administration's bulldozers - accompanied by foreign workers hired as an auxiliary destructive force for Israel - to trample it into oblivion.

It's not your average Israel vs. Palestine story and it's heartbreaking.

Just go read it. You'll understand.

(hat'tip Cranky Old Bitch)

[UPDATE]:

This is probably something like what it looked like:

I've submitted the haaretz article to digg BTW. If you can, please digg it.

Two Interesting Papers

2008-02-09T02:49:00.000-08:00

Leadership, Followership, and Beliefs About the World: Theory and Experiment (PDF), Eric S. Dickson

Neural Bases of Motivated Reasoning: An fMRI Study of Emotional Constraints on Partisan Political Judgment in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election (PDF)
Drew Westen, Pavel S. Blagov, Keith Harenski, Clint Kilts, and Stephan Hamann

Put them together and what have you got?

Bibbity Bobbity Boo!

(Hat'tip to Ormond Otvos)

Universal Jurisdiction & Private Contractors Engaged In Torture (Updated)

2008-02-08T19:10:00.000-08:00

(Hat'tip to Marisacat's Cats... They give good thread.)

U.N. says waterboarding should be prosecuted as torture

...

"I would have no problems with describing this practice as falling under the prohibition of torture," the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, told a news conference in Mexico City.

Arbour made her comment in response to a question about whether U.S. officials could be tried for the use of waterboarding that referred to CIA director Michael Hayden telling Congress on Tuesday his agency had used waterboarding on three detainees captured after the September 11 attacks.

Violators of the U.N. Convention against Torture should be prosecuted under the principle of 'universal jurisdiction' which allows countries to try accused war criminals from other nations, Arbour said.

"There are several precedents worldwide of states exercising their universal jurisdiction ... to enforce the torture convention and we can only hope that we will see more and more of these avenues of redress," Arbour said.

...

Arbour referred to an arrest warrant issued in 1998 by a Spanish judge for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who died in 2006, on charges of torture, murder and kidnapping in the years that followed his 1973 coup.

Latin American dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s were known to use waterboarding on political prisoners.

...

Banana Republic anyone?

And guess who's going to be particularly vulnerable to this.

CIA Likely Let Contractors Perform Waterboarding

...

Washington - The CIA's secret interrogation program has made extensive use of outside contractors, whose role likely included the waterboarding of terrorist suspects, according to testimony yesterday from the CIA director and two other people familiar with the program.

Many of the contractors involved aren't large corporate entities but rather individuals who are often former agency or military officers. However, large corporations also are involved, current and former officials said. Their identities couldn't be learned.

...

In testimony before the House yesterday, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden was asked whether contractors were involved in waterboarding al Qaeda detainees. He replied: "I'm not sure of the specifics. I'll give you a tentative answer: I believe so." An agency spokesman declined to clarify the answer.

...

If I were them I'd be turning witness and throwing myself at the mercy of the courts in the hope of a deal.

Wouldn't you?

[UPDATE]:

Just to make it clear...

It's all laid out at the The Dream Antilles:

Waterboarding: Those Who Cannot Remember The Past

Here's the quick summary:

Waterboarding: A Tortured History

In the war crimes tribunals that followed Japan's defeat in World War II, the issue of waterboarding was sometimes raised. In 1947, the U.S. charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

Waterboarding Historically Controversial

Twenty-one years earlier, in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

Waterboarding or the more accurate term for it Water Torture, and other forms of torture are War Crimes.

It really is that simple.

Leading Psychiatrist Kenneth S. Pope Resigns From The American Psychological Association. Publishes Open Letter.

2008-02-08T10:51:00.000-08:00

From Counterpunch:

An Open Letter to Alan E. Kazdin

Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association

By KENNETH S. POPE

The following letter was sent to APA President Alan Kazdin via FedEx on February 6, 2008, and to members of the APA Council of Representatives via the Council listserv Thursday morning, February 7.

Alan E. Kazdin, Ph.D.
President,
American Psychological Association
750 First Street, NE Washington, DC 20002-4242

Dear Alan,

With sadness I write to resign from the American Psychological Association. My respect and affection for the members, along with my 29 year history with APA, make this a hard and reluctant step. Chairing the Ethics Committee, holding fellow status in 9 divisions, and receiving the APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Service, the Division 12 Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Clinical Psychology, and the Division 42 Award for Mentoring reflect a few chapters in my APA history. I respectfully disagree with decisive changes that APA has made in its ethical stance during the past 6+ years. These changes moved APA far from its ethical foundation, historic traditions, and basic values, and beyond what I can in good conscience support with my membership.

I would like to note two examples of disagreement. First, the years since 9-11 brought concern over psychologists' work that affects detainees. APA has stressed psychologists' "vital role" regarding "the use of ethical interrogations to safeguard the welfare of detainees" and ways that psychologists "help advance the cause of detainee welfare and humane treatment." Yet in its ethics code, APA chose not to recognize any humane treatment requirements governing psychologists' work with detainees as enforceable standards.

Historically, when concerns arose about the impact of psychologists' behavior on groups at risk, APA moved decisively to create specific requirements and limitations in the ethics code's enforceable standards. These groups included persons "for whom testing is mandated by law or governmental regulations," "persons with a questionable capacity to consent," research participants, "subordinates," clients, students, supervisees, and employees. Facing concerns about the impact of psychologists' behavior on research animals, for example, APA created an enforceable standard supporting the "humane treatment" of laboratory animals. But for detainees, APA chose not to adopt any enforceable standards in the ethics code mandating humane treatment.

The code's numbered ethical standards "set forth enforceable rules of conduct." The code emphasizes that although other code sections should be given consideration, even the code's "Preamble and General Principles are not themselves enforceable rules..." APA's decision to adopt an enforceable standard regarding "humane treatment" of animals but not to adopt an enforceable standard regarding "humane treatment" of detainees turns APA away from its ethical foundation, historic traditions, and basic values that should endure even in the midst of post-9-11 risks and realities.

My second area of disagreement concerns the ethics code that Council adopted August 21, 2002 (which took effect June 1, 2003). The 2002 code echoes the earlier code in setting forth the following enforceable standard: "If psychologists' ethical responsibilities conflict with law, regulations, or other governing legal authority, psychologists make known their commitment to the Ethics Code and take steps to resolve the conflict." But the 2002 code created a new enforceable standard: "If the conflict is unresolvable via such means, psychologists may adhere to the requirements of the law, regulations, or other governing legal authority" (Standard 1.02).

This new enforceable standard, in my opinion, contradicts one of the essential ethical values voiced in the Nuremberg trials. Even in light of the post-9-11 historical context and challenges, I believe we can never abandon the fundamental ethical value affirmed at Nuremberg.

An attempt to modify Standard 1.02 was placed only in the nonenforceable section. In the 5 years since creating this new enforceable ethical standard in a sharp break with the past, APA chose to make no qualifications, restrictions, or other modifications to Standard 1.02 in the code's enforceable section.

The code's 89 enforceable standards identify diverse ethical responsibilities, some representing the profession's deepest values. The code recognizes that these ethical values can stand in stark, irreconcilable conflict (no matter what steps the psychologist takes to resolve the conflict) with a regulation, a law, or governing legal authority. APA's creation of an enforceable standard allowing psychologists to violate these fundamental ethical responsibilities in favor of following a regulation, a law, or a governing legal authority clashes with its ethical foundation, historic traditions, and basic values.

Such changes in APA's approach to its enforceable ethical standards over the past 6+ years embrace issues of enormous complexity and conflicting values. I've tried during these years to read as widely and carefully as possible in these diverse areas, comparing secondary sources to primary sources and evaluating claims in light of evidence. On one narrow topic, for example, I've read and maintained an archive of citations of over 220 published works (including those from APA) that specifically address the controversy over physicians and psychologists participating in the planning and implementation of detainee interrogations. (The archive is at: http://kspope.com/interrogation/index.php.

Over the decades I've written articles and books examining APA's earliest discussions about ethical responsibilities and accountability, the choice to create an ethics code, the innovative methods used to create a unique code, the revisions and controversies over the years, and APA members' ethical views, dilemmas, and behavior. During the code's distinguished history, it has set forth APA's essential ethics and the standards to which members agree to hold themselves accountable through the Ethics Committee's formal enforcement. For me, the two examples above represent defining issues for APA. Steps that APA has taken or avoided since 9-11 mark a sharp shift in values and direction. I respectfully disagree with these changes; I am skeptical that they will work as intended; and I believe that they may lead to far-reaching unintended consequences.

These changes take APA so far away from its ethical foundation, historic traditions, and basic values, and from my own personal and professional view of our responsibilities, that I cannot support them with my membership. In light of my respectful disagreement with APA about these fundamental changes, it is with great sadness and regret that I resign my membership.

Sincerely,

Ken Pope

Kenneth S. Pope is a psychologist in Los Angeles and a recepient of the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Service. He is the author of Ethics in Psychotherapy and Counseling (with Melba Vasquez). He can be reached through his website: http://www.kspope.com. Pope also maintains the very useful website Resources for Companion Animals, Assistance Animals and Special Needs Animals.

This isn't the first...

See also:

Why I'm Leaving APA

And:

Noted psychologist Beth Shinn resigns from American Psychological Association

The Debate isn't about torture, it's about War Crimes

2008-02-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

As laid out by Scott Horton:

Torture Groundhog Day

For those of you who missed the week’s big news—of course it wasn’t Super Tuesday—it was the day before, when Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog appeared just before dawn to announce that we face another six weeks of winter. But the Bush Administration is nothing but a series of Groundhog Days, just the sort to which Bill Murray finds himself condemned in the movie of that name. And the cycle that the Bush White House serves up is torture, and particularly waterboarding, 24/7. Let’s just look at the ways it’s figured in the press in the last few days.

...

Is the Torture Discussion Too Narrow?
Questioning and discussion continues to focus on waterboarding. Alabama’s Jeff Sessions says he just doesn’t understand all this focus on waterboarding since it’s closely controlled and rarely used. The debate focuses on it for a simple reason: if Attorney General Mukasey and his sidekick Steve Bradbury can conclude that waterboarding—which is iconic torture—is lawful, then there is very little that they won’t be able to approve. In effect, the practice of waterboarding is being used to bash through the prohibition against torture altogether. But in another sense, Sessions is right. Other torture practices are far more widespread and therefore arguably still more important. I’d focus on four techniques which are plainly torture and are being used by the CIA today:

• Hypothermia

• Long-time standing

• Sleep deprivation in excess of 2 days

• Psychotropic drugs

In addition to these techniques, there are the almost ubiquitous Kubark techniques, which used a combination of sensory deprivation followed by sensory overload and which can effectively turn their subject into a vegetable. The application of the first four certainly constitute criminal acts under U.S. law. The Kubark process probably does as well. And on these points, a debate has hardly even been engaged.

Brace yourself. Groundhog day is likely to last until next winter.

(Hat'tip to Home of the Brave whose updated post I ganked this link from)

The Media MetaNarrative Making Torture A Topic Open For "Debate"

2008-02-07T10:58:00.000-08:00

There's a new blog in town called Home of the Brave.

Anyway,

There's a really insightful post up on there discussing the mass media spin that's trying to turn torture into a "debatable"[1] topic.

Framing The Admission of Torturing as a Debate: The “Free” Press Propaganda Campaign

Well worth the read.

[1]Which of course it isn't, whether torture is ok or not is as "debatable" as whether child molestation is ok or not.

Well...

2008-02-07T07:50:00.000-08:00

As an addendum to this post talking about Obama's endorsement by lawyers for Gitmo detainees I feel like I should mention this:

Clinton vs. Obama on the Cluster Bomb Vote by Brad Jacobson

Go read it.

Also worth reading is this:

Sen Barack Obama Reacts to US Bill Approving Torture From Deborah White

Seriously, you lot.

The guy's probably the best shot you'll ever have of getting a vaguely decent human being in the Whitehouse.

Don't throw that away.

"I don't want to know about it. I don't ask about it"

2008-02-06T21:28:00.000-08:00

AP confirms secret camp inside Gitmo By ANDREW O. SELSKY

For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby also provided a few details about the maximum-security lockup.

Camp 7 hunh? A sooper-dooper sekrit facility.

Awoogadaboogadaboogada!

PHEAR!

Heh...

Army Col. Larry James, whose team of psychologists assists interrogators, said he does not want to know where Camp 7 is.

"I learned a long, long time ago, if I'm going to be successful in the intel community, I'm meticulously — in a very, very dedicated way — going to stay in my lane," he said. "So if I don't have a specific need to know about something, I don't want to know about it. I don't ask about it."

Hrrrm...

Why I'm Leaving APA

*** APA continues to propagate a position that it knows is not true, specifically that psychologists operate in interrogation settings to prevent abusive interrogations. While sometimes citing the compelling conclusions about context and behavior outlined by Zimbardo, and stemming from his famous Prisoner Experiment, it twists the representation of this research by making psychologists into a quasi-police force monitoring abusive interrogations. On the contrary, the Zimbardo research leads to a more unsettling conclusion, i.e., that human beings in general are susceptible to participation in abusive behavior based upon contextual factors. In fact, the Zimbardo research argues, as Dr. Zimbardo himself has done, against participation in these kinds of interrogations.

"So if I don't have a specific need to know about something, I don't want to know about it. I don't ask about it."

-- Army Col. Larry James (whose team of psychologists assists interrogators)

Well, there goes that excuse...

Heh...

War Crimes

2008-02-05T16:36:00.000-08:00

I'm sure if you've been paying attention you'll have heard CIA chief Michael McConnell's admission and naming of three victims of torture.

Here's an interesting catch from GreyHawk:

CIA Chief Names 3 Who Were Waterboarded; Bush Signed Off On It:

Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, who also testified at the hearing, said waterboarding remains a technique in the CIA's arsenal, according to The Associated Press. He said it would require the president's consent and legal approval from the attorney general, the AP reported.

Heh...

Go read GreyHawk's piece.

Spreading It Real Good...

2008-02-05T15:45:00.000-08:00

More than one million Iraqis dead since 2003 invasion: study 6 days ago

LONDON (AFP) — More than one million Iraqis have died because of the war in Iraq since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to a study published Wednesday.

A fifth of Iraqi households lost at least one family member between March 2003 and August 2007 due to the conflict, said data compiled by London-based Opinion Research Business (ORB) and its research partner in Iraq, the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies (IIACSS).

...

The highest rate of deaths throughout the country occurred in Baghdad, where more than 40 percent of households had lost a family member.

According to a July 2007 estimate by the United States, Iraq's population is around 27 million.

...

Just try to comprehend it a moment.

Then go read the whole article and try and comprehend that.

40% of households have lost a family member in Baghdad due to this totally fucking illegal invasion and occupation... Try to comprehend living in that situation.

I can't... I just go blank and numb trying to think about it.

(hat'tip to cryptogon)

Spreading Freedom and Democracy, Right?

2008-02-05T11:42:00.000-08:00

Iraqi Women Face Greater Danger, Fewer Rights by Anne Garrels

All Things Considered, January 29, 2008 · Most everyone in Iraq has suffered because of violence, but the lives of women have been, perhaps, affected the most.

Their right to go where and do what they wish has been dramatically restricted by the rise of Islamist parties and extremist groups.

Women's rights groups report that in the past six months, more than 100 women have been killed in the city of Basra for wearing make-up or what is deemed Western clothing. Those who dare to defend them have also been attacked and, in some cases, killed.

It's important to note that woman's rights were more respected under the rule of Saddam Hussein:

Iraq women's rights better under Saddam: survey David Shucosky at 12:02 PM ET Thursday, April 13, 2006

[JURIST] Women in Iraq had better quality of life and received more respect for their rights under Saddam Hussein's regime than the current system, according to a survey conducted by the Baghdad-based Woman Freedom Organization [advocacy website]. According to the group, women's rights were guaranteed in the constitution under Saddam, and women held important government positions. Now, however, security concerns have forced many women to remain at home, and the Islamic law making up the foundations of the new constitution [JURIST news archive] has been applied so as to suppress women [advocacy op-ed], the group complains. Officials within the government disagree, claiming that women can more readily express their political views and now hold positions in government that had been denied them under Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive].

The survey also noted an increase in unemployment and poverty levels for women. The number of widows has gone up as well, compounding a problem that has existed since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. IRIN has more.

Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights By Kim Sengupta

A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet. The sentence is then upheld by the country's rulers. This is Afghanistan – not in Taliban times but six years after "liberation" and under the democratic rule of the West's ally Hamid Karzai.

The fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has led to domestic and international protests, and deepening concern about erosion of civil liberties in Afghanistan. He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.

Mr Kambaksh, 23, distributed the tract to fellow students and teachers at Balkh University with the aim, he said, of provoking a debate on the matter. But a complaint was made against him and he was arrested, tried by religious judges without – say his friends and family – being allowed legal representation and sentenced to death.

The Independent is launching a campaign today to secure justice for Mr Kambaksh. The UN, human rights groups, journalists' organisations and Western diplomats have urged Mr Karzai's government to intervene and free him. But the Afghan Senate passed a motion yesterday confirming the death sentence.

...

You can at least do a little about this by signing The Independant's Petition:

How you can save Pervez

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh's imminent execution is an affront to civilised values. It is not, however, a foregone conclusion. If enough international pressure is brought to bear on President Karzai's government, his sentence may yet be overturned. Add your weight to the campaign by urging the Foreign Office to demand that his life be spared. Sign our e-petition at www.independent.co.uk/petition

It'll take you all of 3 seconds, and it may not do much, but what is it going to cost you?

So Sign the Petition.

Spreading freedom and democracy, right?

Is that something like spreading peanut butter and jelly?

(Hat'tip to david seth michaels)

"Torture flights finally investigated?"

2008-02-04T14:58:00.000-08:00

Just spotted this on the European Tribune:

Torture flights finally investigated?

We may finally have a shot at real investigations into the kidnapping and torture programme carried out by various US agencies, militias and mercenaries during the Global War on Liberty. So far, the allegations that US agencies have engaged in such illegal activities have been merely that: Allegations. No smoking gun has been found, for the very simple reason that no serious investigation has been forthcoming from the only quarters that could realistically make such an investigation happen: The European Union.

Unfortunately, the various Union states seem to be neck-deep in the programme themselves - and to have been so for such a long time that any investigation would dig up dirt on the current opposition as well as the incumbents in most European countries. This, I believe, is one of the two most important reasons why this atrocity has been documented worse than any other recent crime against international law that you might care to mention (the other reason I allude to is the mindless atlanticism afflicting many European political 'leaders').

There have, however, over the past few days been rumours in the Danish press that the Greenland Home Rule is strongly considering starting up investigations.

These rumblings began with a documentary aired by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, providing strong indications that the Nassasuaq airfield in Greenland has been used in the Bush regime's kidnapping and torture programme(s).

As usual, the Fogh Rasmussen government went into full denial mode: Claim that there is no evidence, claim that DR is biased, claim that the documentary is politically motivated, claim that it's a smear campaign and throw a general temper tantrum for good measure. Nothing new under the sun. They've done that before - on several occasions, in fact - most recently with a documentary that convincingly documented that the Danish mission in Afghanistan had turned prisoners of war over to the United States of America without taking adequate measures to protect said prisoners against being tortured by the Americans - despite the use of torture being official American policy at the time. (As I write this, I realise how sad it is that it should even be necessary to 'take adequate measures' to protect someone from being tortured at the hands of our American allies. But I digress.)

Back then, their coalition with the Popular Party held, and they weathered the storm. But this time, there are three - maybe four - differences.

...

Read the whole thing...

Interesting...

Very interesting...

Interesting...

2008-02-04T12:13:00.000-08:00

Melodic Rhetoric
Posted on: February 4, 2008 10:34 AM, by Jonah Lehrer

This video is shamefully manipulative. It's just a bunch of celebrities, from Scarlett to John Legend, harmonizing over a particularly eloquent Obama speech. The rhetoric is beautiful, poetic and vapid. The camera work is a little too artful. The crescendo at the end is a little too obvious.

And yet, it works. The short video manipulates you even though you know you're being manipulated. I'm not a big fan of celebrities mixing with progressive politics, but I still got shivers at the end of the song, right when the "Yes we can!" chorus picks up speed.

Those shivers are the sole message of the video. To paraphrase Walter Pater, every political speech aspires to the condition of music, and this short video fulfills that aspiration. No ideas or policy proposals interfere with its emotions: it works on our feelings directly. But what interests me most about the video is that it reveals the strong element of music existing just below the surface of the best speeches. It makes the implicit melody of the words explicit. I hope this is the start of a new mash-up genre.

He's right, although it's simpler than that.

74. Musical Scales Mimic the Sound of Language
The harmonics of human vocalization may generate the frequencies used in music.
by Susan Kruglinski

Throughout history, humans of many cultures have found approximately the same small set of sound frequencies musically appealing, as in the 12-note chromatic scale played on the black and white keys of a piano. The frequency of every note occurs in a simple ratio to those of other notes, such as 3:2 or 2:1.

Dale Purves, a neuroscientist at Duke University, set out to understand if there was a biological origin to this tonal preference, and struck a chord in April when he reported (pdf) that the tones of the chromatic scale are dominated by the harmonic ratios found in the sound of the human voice.

“Tonality in nature seems to come only from vocalization,” Purves says, but previous researchers had found no evidence of music-like intervals in the rise and fall of speech. So he looked at the harmonics of vowel sounds, which are created when air passes through vocal folds that can be controlled with a precision similar to the range of a musical instrument. He discovered that when the tonal intervals, or harmonics, of a single vowel sound were broken down, the frequency ratios of our familiar music scales are usually found.

“If this really holds water, it’s an entry into the whole question—and it’s a very divisive question—of what human aesthetics is all about,” says Purves, who usually studies the neuroscience of vision. “The implicit conclusion in this work is that aesthetics is reduced to biological information, and that is not what musicians and philosophers want to hear.”

In a way, when we speak, we speak in music.

I've heard theories that music came first, then language.

Tazing Is Torture...

2008-02-02T10:27:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit behind the curve with this one but I think it's worth a mention...

Back in November 2007 both Amnesty International and the U.N. Committee Against Torture expressed concerns about tazers:

Amnesty International: A Taser victim's penalty 'should not be death' by David Edwards and Jason Rhyne
(Monday November 26, 2007)

Police use of Tasers to subdue suspects can rise to the level of torture, according to Amnesty International USA's executive director, Larry Cox, whose organization is calling for a moratorium on the electroshock devices.

Cox appeared on CBS's Early Show to discuss a dramatic spike in Taser-related deaths -- a total of six people died after being Tasered in separate incidents last week in the US and Canada -- and to urge the continued study of potential dangers he says are inherent to law enforcement reliance on Tasers.

"You have people who are often in custody, and when they are in custody and it's being used repeatedly on them, it's hard to describe it as anything else but torture," said Cox. Amnesty International USA first raised concerns that some Taser practices amounted to torture in 2006.

...

U.N. Torture Panel Singles Out Tasers By Mike Nizza
(November 26, 2007, 9:41 am)

All news reports about deaths that follow Taser shocks seem to come with two accompaniments: outrage over police brutality on the one hand, and a lack of definitive proof that the weapon was to blame on the other. A man’s death in Vancouver, B.C., on Saturday was no different. But it happened to come a day after a United Nations panel appeared to take a stand against Tasers.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture singled out Tasers at the end of a conference in Geneva, expressing concern that the most popular model caused so much pain that use of it “constituted a form of torture.”

...

It's not just in various black prison sites around the world, in Guantanamo bay, in psychiatric institutions in China, in Burma or what have you.

Police forces all around the world, especially in so called "first world" or "developed" nations are carrying around a device that exists to inflict pain and use it to enforce compliance, and it seems most people are Aye Oh Kaye with that.

Think about it...

(hat'tip 300 Americans Tortured to Death but Nobody Cares by Stephen Crane)

"Myanmar Arrests Blogger, Watchdog Says"

2008-02-02T09:12:00.000-08:00

Myanmar Arrests Blogger, Watchdog Says

The blogger, Nay Myo Latt, was taken into custody in Yangon on Wednesday after writing about the suppression of freedoms following last fall's crushing of pro-democracy demonstrations, Reporters Without Borders said.

...

The arrested blogger, a member of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, owns three Internet cafes, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in a release seen Thursday.

Myanmar authorities have stepped up their surveillance of the Internet since the beginning of the month, pressuring Internet cafe owners to register personal details of all users and to program screen captures every five minutes on each computer, the release said.

This data apparently is sent to the Ministry of Communications, it said.

(Hat'tip to Turkana)

Picked up from the comments section of Turkana's post:

Burma/Myanmar: After the Crackdown (International Crisis Group)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The violent crushing of protests led by Buddhist monks in Burma/Myanmar in late 2007 has caused even allies of the military government to recognise that change is desperately needed. China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have thrown their support behind the efforts by the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy to re-open talks on national reconciliation, while the U.S. and others have stepped up their sanctions. But neither incomplete punitive measures nor intermittent talks are likely to bring about major reforms. Myanmar’s neighbours and the West must press together for a sustainable process of national reconciliation. This will require a long-term effort by all who can make a difference, combining robust diplomacy with serious efforts to address the deep-seated structural obstacles to peace, democracy and development.

...

China arrests leading rights activist

Chinese state security forces have arrested one of the country's most prominent civil rights activists in an apparent crackdown on dissent ahead of the Olympics.

Hu Jia - who used blogs, webcasts and video to expose human rights abuses - is expected to face charges of inciting subversion of state power, his lawyers said today.

His formal arrest comes after he was seized by police from an apartment in east Beijing on December 27. In the month since, his wife, Zeng Jinyan, and their two-month-old daughter have been prevented from leaving their home or contacting outsiders.

Anyway, here's the actual report from Reporters Without Borders:

Blogger arrested as regime steps up online surveillance

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association firmly condemn the arrest of blogger and writer Nay Myo Latt yesterday at his home in the Rangoon district of Thingankyun.

“This hounding of bloggers is unacceptable,” the two organisations said. “We do not know where Nay Bone Latt is being held. We urge the authorities to release him and to stop this persecution.”

A member of the outlawed National League for Democracy, Nay Myo Latt uses his blog (http://www.nayphonelatt.net/) to record the difficulties encountered by young Burmese when trying to express themselves, especially since last autumn’s protests against the military regime that were led by Buddhist monks. He also owns three Internet Cafés in Burma and one of them is located in Thingankyun.

Those arrested during the protests included blogger Thar Phyu (www.mogokemedia.blogspot.com), who was held for several hours just for posting photos of monks and demonstrators in the streets. His website has been closed.

The Burmese authorities have stepped up their surveillance of the Internet since the start of January, reportedly pressuring Internet café owners to register the personal details (name, address and so on) of all users and to programme (and save) screen captures every five minutes on each computer. All this data is apparently then sent to the communication ministry.

The Burmese exile news agency Mizzima quoted one Internet café owner as saying: “No one wants to submit to these measures but those who are most scared definitely will have complied.”

The only blog platform that until recently had still been accessible within Burma, the Google-owned Blogger (http://www.blogger.com), has been censured by the regime since 23 January. Bloggers are no longer able to post entries unless they use proxies are other ways to circumvent censorship.

“This blockage is one of the ways used by the government to reduce Burmese citizens to silence,” Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association said. “They can no long post blog entries or disseminate information. Burma is in danger of being cut off from the rest of the world again.”

When contacted by Mizzima reporters, local officials had no explanation for Blogger’s inaccessibility, saying they had received no orders on the subject. Local bloggers say the authorities also leave comments on blogs to dissuade other Internet users from reading them, or sometimes redirect them to other sites. Visitors to Niknayman (http://niknayman.blogspot.com/), one of the most popular sites last autumn, were redirected to a porn site.

In Case You Didn't Already Know, I'm On The Bipolar Spectrum

2008-01-31T07:35:00.001-08:00

http://politicalfleshfeast.com/showComment.do?commentId=60541

you're seriously holding to a (0.00 / 0)
'why is a head on appraoch better than acting like you weren't asked a question in the first place" approach? Good Lord who are you and how pompous can you get in your bipolar state, Kraant? Seriously, you are a fucking psychotic piece of shit. I don't use those terms non-literally. You are fucking psychotic. GET HELP. In Australia you have access to health care, even mental, quite readily. Go get it and stop imposing your insanity on others, you piece of shit.

That's not a comment, it's an order, psycho. When it's free to you, it's amazing that you are still pounding your pyschosis on those in this nation. It's truly awe inspiring.

Jackass, get the help that you need. Period. That's an order. I don't give a rat's ass what others say about you anywhere. Get fucking help cuz you are fucking psychotic....and you thank your stars you don't live near me. :) That's not a joke.

as to your jacking off about answering your question, something you hold a serious double standard about....amazing.... or not....god you're a hypocrite lol......

head on approach? i didnt' expect you to give one, douchebag. passive-agressive psychosis is your way of life you stupid fuck. most don't know that but some do. some knmow it very well. :)
by Because I Said So @ Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 02:06:20 AM PST

Yeap, I am indeed on the Bipolar Spectrum. Comparatively it's not that bad, the only time I've really gone off my rocker is when I was fed antidepressants which really totally and utterly fucked up my life well and good. I actually coped quite fine with life before that except for one severe bout of depression which was what got me on the anti-depressants in the first place.

Post antidepressants, I don't function quite as well as I used to, but I kind of get along.

I don't take meds because I can sort of (barely) function without them and I've had very bad experiences with them.

Sure sometimes I can get bouts of depression out of nowhere or a little hypomanic sometimes, but you know what? Sometimes I get depressed for a reason, not because I'm a "psycho" and I can tell the difference. I've got enough insight into my condition for that.

Sure that I'm bipolar probably makes the normal human depression (not the medical kind) I can also get over actual things that have gone wrong in my life worse and more intense than it might be for the average bear, but you know what, here's how I can tell the difference.

When it's normal human depression I know it's caused by something or some situation I'm in. When I get myself out from that situation or it gets resolved the depression clears.

When it's the medical kind there's no help or relief like that. It's just there and there's no escaping it and I know that when that happens I need to get help. Mostly those bouts of depression aren't that bad. A bit worse than the blues I'd say, and the only time one has gotten so unbearable that I've needed help was the time I went and got help and got put on the damn antidepressants in the first place. If something like that ever hits me again I know what to do. I'll get help, and I know where to find it. I've got the phone numbers in my wallet for situations like that.

Probably the cruelest thing anyone can ever do to me is hurt me, then blame my feelings over it on my problem and tell me to get help.

Things like that are a problem I have because of my disorder, but they're not part of my disorder. I guess it just comes with the territory. It happens, you learn to deal with it.

Anyway, unlike some people out there, I know I have a problem, I have some insight into that. I admit it. I acknowledge it. I do my best to compensate for it and most importantly...

I'm open about it, I deal with it, and I live with it.

(How's that for direct?)

Wow...

2008-01-29T06:45:00.000-08:00

Lawyers for Gitmo detainees endorse Obama

More than 80 volunteer lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees today endorsed Illinois Senator Barack Obama's presidential bid.

The attorneys said in a joint statement that they believed Obama was the best choice to roll back the Bush-Cheney administration's detention policies in the war on terrorism and thereby to "restore the rule of law, demonstrate our commitment to human rights, and repair our reputation in the world community." The attorneys are representing the detainees in habeas corpus lawsuits, which are efforts to get individual hearings before federal judges in order to challenge the basis for their indefinite imprisonment without trial.

...

Several Boston lawyers were among the signatories to the endorsement statement, including P. Sabin Willett, Stephen H. Oleskey, Jason Pinney, and Neil McGaraghan. Other names on the list included Washington lawyer Thomas Wilner, retired federal appeals court judge John Gibbons, Center for Constitutional Rights president Michael Ratner, and retired Rear Admiral Donald Guter, who was the Navy's top JAG officer from 2000 to 2002 and who is now the dean of the Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh.

From he joint statement itself:

...

Some politicians are all talk and no action. But we know from first-hand experience that Senator Obama has demonstrated extraordinary leadership on this critical and controversial issue. When others stood back, Senator Obama helped lead the fight in the Senate against the Administration's efforts in the Fall of 2006 to strip the courts of jurisdiction, and when we were walking the halls of the Capitol trying to win over enough Senators to beat back the Administration's bill, Senator Obama made his key staffers and even his offices available to help us. Senator Obama worked with us to count the votes, and he personally lobbied colleagues who worried about the political ramifications of voting to preserve habeas corpus for the men held at Guantanamo. He has understood that our strength as a nation stems from our commitment to our core values, and that we are strong enough to protect both our security and those values. Senator Obama demonstrated real leadership then and since, continuing to raise Guantanamo and habeas corpus in his speeches and in the debates.

...

Wow...

Just wow...

" Sudan's ex-Guantanamo prisoners demand payout" and also Sami al-Hajj's wife speaks...

2008-01-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

Sudan's ex-Guantanamo prisoners demand payout

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A group of Sudanese released from the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay demanded cash payouts and an apology from the United States on Saturday, for mental and physical torture suffered during years spent in jail there.

"We have asked for compensation and an apology," aid worker Adil Hassan Hamad told a conference in Khartoum, which was organized by local rights groups to demand the release of seven Sudanese still held at Guantanamo Bay.

Hamad, freed just over one month ago, wore orange overalls like those worn by detainees in the U.S. prison camp. He was working with refugees when arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and taken to Afghanistan and then the U.S. camp in Cuba.

He said his U.S. lawyer would seek compensation in the U.S. courts. One of Hamad's daughters died during his detention because his wife could not afford medical treatment. Two other inmates were also seeking compensation, he said.

...

Let's hope they get it.

Aygol Ismailova, Sami al-Haj's wife spoke at the conference...

Many attending the Khartoum conference broke down in tears when addressed by the wife of al Jazeera journalist Sami al-Hajj, the most high-profile of the around 300 detainees still in the prison on the Caribbean island.

He has been on hunger strike for 400 days but is force fed twice a day in a manner his lawyer told the conference was tantamount to torture.

"TORTURE"

His wife Aygol Ismailova, who is from Azerbaijan, wept as she told the gathering how Hajj has been urinating blood and was suffering from other health problems.

"His son Mohamed always asks me: 'Where is my father, who took him? What is prison? What do they do there?' And I don't know how to answer him," Ismailova told Reuters.

"Do people know that I have no way to contact my husband other than letters that reach him late and are censored? For more than six years I've not heard his voice, not seen him," she said. "This is torture."

All Guantanamo detainees deserved compensation and an apology, she said, adding that Sudanese government officials had told her they hoped Hajj would be released by the end of March.

March could be too late.

Not that there ever was a justification, but what's the justification for holding him still?

Just a quick reminder on MKULTRA

2008-01-28T07:55:00.000-08:00

I'm eternally surprised when I realize that there are people out there who know nothing about MKULTRA...

Here's a quick summary from wikipedia...

Project MKULTRA:

Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a CIA mind-control research program that began in 1950, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence.[1][2][3]. There is much published evidence that the project involved the use of many types of drugs, as well as other methodology, to manipulate individual mental states and to alter brain function.[4]

Here are some primary sources:

Entire CIA MKULTRA Collection

Declassified MK-Ultra Project Documents:

When the whole thing was originally brought to light:

Start reading from this page of the Church Committee Report and keep reading:

XVII. TESTING AND USE OF CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL AGENTS BY THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY (p. 385)

The first mention of MKULTRA itself would be on page 389:

http://www.aarclibrary.org/...

You'll also want to look at:

PROJECT MKULTRA, THE CIA'S PROGRAM OF RESEARCH IN BEHAVIORAL MODIFICATION

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1977<

U.S. SENATE,
SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE,
AND SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH
AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
OF THE COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
Washington, D.C.

Prepared Statement of Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence

Now I'm sure there's a bunch of idiots who'd like to do the hand wavey thingy and waaail "conspiracy theory", but they can't. It's too well documented.

Shit like this does and has happened.

Deal with it.

Valtin leaves the APA

2008-01-27T21:50:00.000-08:00

Straight from the blog you should be reading instead of this one, Why I'm Leaving APA.

On Geneva France...

2008-01-26T23:03:00.000-08:00

Mansfield woman free after drug conviction based on lies
26 cases tied to informant, DEA agent who manipulated system

Geneva France walked out of federal prison with $68 and a bus ticket home. That's all the government had to offer a woman who had served 16 months of a decade-long prison sentence for a crime she didn't commit.

The mother of three returned to her family, but her youngest child -- who was 18 months old when France was sent to prison -- didn't recognize her.

And France, 25, had no home to return to.

Her landlord had evicted her from the rental during her incarceration, and everything she owned had been tossed on the street.

France's case is the nightmare scenario for a system that critics say sometimes dispenses justice differently for rich and poor.

...

See also:

I Beg You... by Jay Elias

And,

She's a Star-Spangled Harlot! (complete with pootie pix!) by Bouldergeist

"Administration pays witness $5 million in secret ceremony"

2008-01-26T19:08:00.001-08:00

Administration pays witness $5 million in secret ceremony

The trial of terrorism suspect Zaccharias Moussaoui, the alleged "20th hijacker," was marred by administration misconduct, the trial being halted after a prosecution attorney was accused of witness tampering. More recently, the CIA admitted destroying evidence requested by Moussaoui's attorneys. Then, this week, we learned that a prosecution witness received a whopping $5 million reward from the State Department, paid at a secret ceremony. Witnesses who were not called to testify in the trial received lesser rewards: nothing. Rightly or wrongly, the action has an unseemly implication, that testimony was purchased. That, in turn, has disturbing implications for the future of the justice system and national security.

...

"US and Thailand: Allies in torture"

2008-01-24T22:22:00.000-08:00

US and Thailand: Allies in torture By Shawn W Crispin

BANGKOK - Months before the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington, the US and Thailand established the Counterterrorism Intelligence Center (CTIC), a secretive unit presciently which joined the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Thai intelligence officials to gather information about regional terror groups.

Now the unit and its associated staff and directors could one day find themselves on trial for war crimes over recent revelations first reported in the Washington Post and later confirmed during a congressional hearing, that the CIA ran a secret interrogation

facility at a Thai military base where at least two terror suspects from Pakistan and Afghanistan were transported and later tortured.

The revelations, made in the context of the CIA's destruction of tapes made of their torture sessions, represent the latest bombshell to explode over the US's prosecution of the so-called "war on terror" and the first to drag in directly a Southeast Asian ally.

Political analysts and diplomats in Thailand suspect that the prison was, and perhaps still is, situated at a military base in the northeastern province of Udon Thani from where the US launched its bombers during the Vietnam War and is currently believed to monitor regional radio communications, including inside China.

And dammit... I've forgotten about Burma...

Stupid stupid!

"Padilla vs Yoo"

2008-01-24T13:43:00.000-08:00

Just up on Dispatches from the Culture Wars:

Padilla vs Yoo

An interesting lawsuit has been filed by attorneys for Jose Padilla, the American citizen accused of being an Al Qaeda operative and traitor who was held for several years in a military prison without any rights whatsoever. The government said they had to do this because he was a terrorist who tried to build a "dityr bomb", until the Supreme Court forced the Bush administration to either charge him or release him and they ended up charging him with a bunch of things totally unrelated to a dirty bomb.

The suit has been filed against John Yoo and follows on the heels of a similar suit filed against John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld. Yoo is the former White House counsel who provided the legal justification - such as it was - for Padilla's detention. The suit is asking for $1 in damages and declaratory relief, so this is clearly not a suit about money but principle.

Yoo has responded in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, but I'm afraid he does himself far more harm than good. For instance, he is arguing in favor of qualified immunity, the principle that generally protects those in political office from being sued in court for actions they took pursuant to their official duties. And I agree that qualified immunity is generally a good thing, but there are limits on it and Yoo admits to them:

...

I'll try to write a bit more on this in a bit...

I never thought I'd be saying this...

2008-01-23T23:15:00.000-08:00

But hurrah for Rupert Murdoch...

Brad Blog just got a well-deserved scoop... I'll let it speak for itself...

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Covering Up the Coverage - The American Media's Complicit Failure to Investigate and Report on the Sibel Edmonds Case

In an Exclusive BRAD BLOG Op-Ed, the Legendary 'Pentagon Papers' Whistleblower Calls on the Media to Perform Their First Amendment Obligations, on Congressional Leaders to Perform Their Oversight Duty, and for Insider Sources to Come Forward to the American Public...

-- Guest BRAD BLOG Op-Ed by Daniel Ellsberg

For the second time in two weeks, the entire U.S. press has let itself be scooped by Rupert Murdoch's London Sunday Times on a dynamite story of criminal activities by corrupt U.S. officials promoting nuclear proliferation. But there is a worse journalistic sin than being scooped, and that is participating in a cover-up of information that demands urgent attention from the public, the U.S. Congress and the courts.

For the last two weeks --- one could say, for years --- the major American media have been guilty of ignoring entirely the allegations of the courageous and highly credible source Sibel Edmonds, quoted in the London Times on January 6, 2008 in a front-page story that was front-page news in much of the rest of the world but was not reported in a single American newspaper or network. It is up to readers to demand that this culpable silent treatment end.

Just as important, there must be pressure by the public on Congressional committee chairpersons, in particular Representative Henry Waxman and Senator Patrick Leahy. Both have been sitting for years on classified, sworn testimony by Edmonds --- as she revealed in the Times' new story on Sunday --- along with documentation, in their possession, confirming parts of her account. Pressure must be brought for them to hold public hearings to investigate her accusations of widespread criminal activities, over several administrations, that endanger national security. They should call for open testimony under oath by Edmonds --- as she has urged for five years --- and by other FBI officials she has named to them, as cited anonymously in the first Times' story.

And this is the time for those who have so far creditably leaked to the Times of London to come forward, accepting personal risks, to offer their testimony --- and new documents --- both to the Congress and to the American press. I would say to them: Don't do what I did and waste months of precious time trying to get Congressional committees to act as they should in the absence of journalistic pressure. Do your best to inform the American public directly, first, through the major American media.

...

And like I said, hurrah to Rupert Murdoch for one of his papers breaking this story...

Quick Notes...

2008-01-23T16:33:00.000-08:00

Over at Invictus the blog you should be reading instead of this one there's a post you should be reading instead of this one:

Down the Rabbit Hole: HIV, Guantanamo, "Dirty Bombers" & the Devolution of the U.S. into a Torture State

Meanwhile:

PRISON BREAK! FREEDOM!

whimper

2008-01-23T01:44:00.000-08:00

Chertoff Do-over Will Send Man Home to Torture, Death or Both by SmileySam

Frank Enwonwu was a Snitch, or rather became a informant when he was busted 22 yrs ago smuggling Heroin for a "Nigerian military officer who offered to buy him a plane ticket". His story is way more complicated than it sounds at first blush. Enwonwu was duped into the smuggling and spent months helping the US bust the higher ups, was never sent to prison, and had a number of Judges say he should be allowed to stay in the USA for a number of reasons. Yet today he is on notice that he could be and will be sent back to Nigeria where numerous influential people have long memorys of what he did.

Now, he weeps in a room at a homeless shelter he shares with his 13-year-old son, fearful that any day he could be sent back to Nigeria to be tortured or killed as drug dealers with long memories seek retribution for his work as an informant.

"Trust me, no one there has forgotten what I did - even after 22 years. I'll be killed there before I even have the ability to see daylight," he said.

...

[UPDATE] A note from SmileySam who wrote the original post:

SmileySam said...

Thanks for posting and linking to my diary kraant. I wish it had gotten more attention. I was contacted by some of those involved in helping Frank and they asked that we direct calls for help to to both Sen. Kerry and Kennedy. This is info I did not have when I posted the diary.
January 23, 2008 3:48 PM

Can you pardon yourself...

2008-01-22T23:11:00.000-08:00

... from warcrimes and crimes against humanity?

The bill in question is this BTW:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.4986:

Look for SEC. 1083. TERRORISM EXCEPTION TO IMMUNITY.

(Hat'tip d3n4l1)

Again a little late...

2008-01-22T22:44:00.000-08:00

I should have posted this before... Anyway I think this whole thing needs to be reproduced in full:

http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=23086

A Letter from Guantánamo
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17/01/2008

Today, the Associated Press reports on a letter from Guantánamo written by al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj. The letter is dated December 27, 2007, and has just been declassified by the Pentagon’s censors. It was translated from the Arabic by his lawyers at the London-based legal charity Reprieve, which represents dozens of the Guantánamo detainees.

Mr. al-Haj was captured by Pakistani forces, acting on behalf of the United States, in December 2001, as he prepared to resume the Arabic TV station’s coverage of Afghanistan with the rest of his team. As Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve’s legal director, explained after visiting him at Guantánamo last September, he was seized “because the US thought he had filmed al-Jazeera’s famous [Osama] bin Laden interview. As has so often been the case of late, the US was wrong (though name me a journalist who would turn down a bin Laden scoop).”

In Guantánamo, Mr. al-Haj has been subjected to an extraordinary array of vague allegations for which the administration has failed to provide any evidence. At his administrative review in September 2006, it was alleged that he had transported $220,000 to Azerbaijan “for what he was told was told was a humanitarian mission which instead was destined for Chechen rebels,” and that, when he worked for a company called the Union Beverage Company, he “interacted with the individual in charge of distribution of juice in Azerbaijan,” who “was under investigation for possible ties to terrorism.”

Referring to his first assignment in Afghanistan with al-Jazeera, the authorities also decided that interviews allegedly conducted by Mr. al-Haj and a co-worker with “the Treasury Minister of the Taliban, the Minister of Electricity, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs,” and with “a man who identified himself as a member of the al-Qaeda (sic)” constituted a connection or an association with terrorism. Throughout his detention, other claims – including an allegation that he “arranged for the transport of a Stinger anti-aircraft system from Afghanistan to Chechnya” – have been dropped from the “evidence” against him.

Confirming that these allegations are nothing more than a smokescreen, the authorities in Guantánamo have focused almost exclusively on Mr. al-Haj’s association with al-Jazeera. In an interview with Democracy Now on January 15, his younger brother, Asim, spoke to Amy Goodman from Khartoum, and explained that his brother is “a victim of a political operation against al-Jazeera, which Washington does not approve of.” He added that, throughout the 130 interrogations to which he has been subjected in Guantánamo, “the interrogations were all about al-Jazeera and alleged relations between al-Jazeera and al-Qaeda. They tried to induce him to work as a spy for American intelligence in return for US citizenship for him and for his family and to help him even write a book, on the condition that he would spy on his colleagues at al- Jazeera. For example, if you look at the allegation that he was involved in sales of rockets or missiles to Afghanistan, I mean, how could a reporter or a media person traveling to a country he’s never been to before carry this? Would he carry these in his luggage or what?”

In Guantánamo, Mr. al-Haj has been a tireless campaigner for justice. He has been prominent in campaigns demanding that the detainees be freed or subjected to a fair trial, and has provided detailed information (declassified by the Pentagon) about his fellow detainees, and about the various hunger strikes that have plagued the administration.

As a result of his principled stand, Mr. al-Haj is regarded with particular suspicion by the authorities, and has been subjected to appalling treatment over the years. In despair at the treatment not only of himself, but of all the other detainees, he embarked on a hunger strike on January 7, 2007, and has now gone without food for 374 days. The authorities’ response to the hunger strikes has been brutal, as Clive Stafford Smith explained in October. “Medical ethics tell us that you cannot force-feed a mentally competent hunger striker, as he has the right to complain about his mistreatment, even unto death,” Stafford Smith wrote in the Los Angeles Times. “But the Pentagon knows that a prisoner starving himself to death would be abysmal PR, so they force-feed Sami. As if that were not enough, when Gen. Bantz J. Craddock headed up the US Southern Command, he announced that soldiers had started making hunger strikes less ‘convenient.’ Rather than leave a feeding tube in place, they insert and remove it twice a day. Have you ever pushed a 43-inch tube up your nostril and down into your throat? Tonight, Sami will suffer that for the 479th time.”

Stafford Smith also noted a serious decline in his client’s mental and physical health, and is worried that he may die in Guantánamo. “Sami looked very thin,” he wrote in October. “His memory is disintegrating, and I worry that he won’t survive if he keeps this up. He already wrote a message for his 7-year-old son, Mohammed, in case he dies here.” On Democracy Now, his brother added, “if Sami dies, who will be responsible for this? And to who would we … if we were to file suit, that would be against whom? The most difficult thing for a human being is to be subject to injustice against which you cannot do anything, for yourself or for in support of others.”

In the hope of providing a small gesture to keep the plight of Sami al-Haj in the public eye, I reproduce the full text of his letter below.

Sami al-Haj’s letter from Guantánamo, December 27, 2007

It is with great pleasure that I pass on my warmest greetings and gratitude for all your efforts in regards to the case of the prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. Also I would like to pass on our wishes for the New Year and asking God to make it a successful and prosperous one.

As for our news, we remain here for more than six years, and we still seek to proclaim truth, freedom and world peace.

All of this takes place in a world which knows what is happening but remains silent and does little more than watch this sorry theatre.

By now, surely everyone knows that truth. The US was the country that prided itself by bringing peace; now, sadly, instead it rains down violence and discord. Guantánamo is the most obvious example of this.

We prisoners entered Guantánamo alive, many have left it alive, and some of us remain in it, seemingly alive ourselves. However, those who remain die every second of every day that we are here. Each of us suffers new physical pain, and our injured hearts suffer from a psychological pain that can not be described.

All of this happens and the world remains silent. And, as it has been written, it is true of us:

I am alive and will listen if you call

But there will soon be no life for us who you call;

And if you blew at the embers now they would light up

But wait and you will find that you blow into ashes

Sami al-Haj

For further information about Sami al-Haj, and about the hunger strikes at Guantánamo, see my book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison. Click here for the campaign to free Sami al-Haj.

SOURCE: www.andyworthington.co.uk

Well... They always said sunlight is the best disinfectant...

2008-01-22T20:12:00.000-08:00

I should have mentioned this earlier, but I've been a bit down about personal stuff makes it a little hard to keep up with my bloggerly duties.

No excuse I know...

But anyway, it seems that under pressure, America has been removed from the Canadian list of countries that torture.

Interestingly the editorial board of the Toronto Star thinks that's a good thing...

That tricky torture file

...

In future, Canada's "Torture Awareness Workshop Reference Materials" will be carefully purged of references to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, and of any other mention of the U.S. or Israel that might give offence. On balance, that's probably just as well. The checklist was not a brilliant idea. Only nine countries were named. Far more dabble in torture. Diplomats shouldn't need a list to be watchful.

But Bernier's scramble to say sorry for "the embarrassment caused" raises the question of who really deserves that fulsome apology.

The U.S., which only recently outlawed waterboarding? Israel, which reserves the right to use "moderate physical pressure" during interrogations? Prime Minister Stephen Harper's risk-averse government, for being caught with its pinstripes down? Or Canadians, who were mortified by this bungling and abject backflip?

...

I guess it's understandable... There's this mention from the Seattle Post Intelligencers board of Trudeau famous sleeping next to an elephant analogy...

Torture: Sad but true

...

The list is included in the internal government manual intended for Canadian diplomats to guide them in cases where Canadians have been tortured by foreign governments (it happens. See: Maher Arar). But oh, they didn't mean to list the U.S., with whom neighborly relations are tricky (former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau likened being next door to the U.S. to sharing a bed with an elephant) but must nonetheless be maintained. U.S. and Israeli ambassadors were shocked and offended to be on the same list as Iran and China. And so began the process to take the U.S. -- and possibly other countries -- off the list. Hey, Iran also calls the list biased. Our government maintains that it doesn't torture anyone. Funny thing about those who condone torture while under the guise of fighting a war to spread freedom and democracy around the world -- they're reluctant to admit to said torture.

...

This topic seems to be generating a lot of editorial opinion... Here's another one from The Hartford Courant:

Turning A Mirror On U.S.

Neatly summarizing what needed to be said in the last line:

...

The Bush administration got an unexpected glimpse in the mirror and didn't like what it saw. But instead of addressing the problem, it's arranging to have the mirror removed.

The Globe and Mail has a report that should be read all the way through:

Detainee torture remains a reality, reports show
Document tells of Canadian official finding instruments of torture beneath a chair in interrogation room of an Afghan police prison

PAUL KORING

January 22, 2008

Compelling evidence that Canadian-transferred detainees are still being tortured in Afghan prisons emerged yesterday from the government's own follow-up inspection reports, documents it has long tried to keep secret.

In one harrowing account, an Afghan turned over by Canadian soldiers told of being beaten unconscious and tortured in the secret police prison in Kandahar. He showed Canadian diplomats fresh welts and then backed up his story by revealing where the electrical cable and the rubber hose that had been used on him were hidden.

"Under the chair we found a large piece of braided electrical cable as well as a rubber hose," reads the subsequent diplomatic cable marked "secret" and distributed to some of the most senior officials in the Canadian government and officers in the Canadian military.

...

Another report on that from The Canadian Press:

B.C. Civil Liberties release documents detailing alleged Afghan torture

VANCOUVER - The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is releasing documents it says were sent to federal government officials detailing reports of torture against Afghan detainees.

The heavily censored documents describe interviews with several detainees who claimed they had been "whipped with cables, shocked with electricity and/or otherwise hurt" after they were transferred from the Canadian military into Afghan custody in Kandahar.

The association says the papers leave no doubt that Ottawa knows that Canadian-transferred detainees are subsequently tortured by Afghan authorities.

The government documents were released as part of court attempts by Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association to stop transfers of prisoners taken by Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

...

The Toronto Star:

Documents reveal evidence of Afghan prisoner abuse

OTTAWA–His name is shielded from the public, but proof of his abuse at the hands of his Afghan jailers was literally right before the eyes of Canadian officials.

According to newly released documents from a court case brought by human rights groups, a Canadian human rights officer discovered last Nov. 5 an electrical cable and rubber hose alleged to have been used by Afghan jailors in the torture of a prisoner turned over by Canadian forces. The officer, in an interrogation room at the secret police facility in Kandahar, examined a 10-centimetre bruise on the man's back.

"He ... pointed to a chair and stated that the implements he had been struck with were underneath it," reads the court document in the case brought by rights groups seeking to halt the transfer of Canadian detainees to Afghan prisons. "Under the chair we found a large piece of braided electrical wire as well as a rubber hose. He then showed us a bruise on his back that could possibly be the result of a blow."

...

And The Jurist has the nitty gritty at:

Canada documents detail continued Afghan mistreatment of transferred detainees

I guess freedom of the press isn't totally dead...

I'd also like to point your attention to a heartfelt piece by Ralph Lopez:

20 Years: What Political Prisoners Can Expect in the Future

The Bush administration has managed to carve out an illegal authority to pick anyone up off the street, lock us up incommunicado for at least a few years, and send us to trial knowing that, after what they did, we'd be pretty much useless in our own defense. Today's sentencing of Jose Padilla is not about Padilla. This is about you. After the next terror attack, it will be easy to include any bothersome political diarists, who keep raising inconvenient facts or whose words manage to rile people up against the gummint, when they sweep a few hundred American citizens suspected of harboring sympathies for the Taliban. If they're against the US goverment in time of war, who knows what else they did? Better lock them up.

Of course they'll be able to lie about you. You don't even have the right to see a lawyer, never mind defend yourself in the press. As long as the allegations are related to terrorism, and the gummint invokes Bush's doctrine of wartime powers in a war defined as having "no end," they can waterboard you...

...

Although I would like to point out that on a very real level, it's not about you or me, it's about them, the people who have been tortured and are being tortured right now.

Whether the privileged like you or I are at risk of being tortured has no bearing on the unconscionable reality that anyone anywhere is being tortured...

Anymore than that being rich and privileged and thus being free of the fear of starvation mitigates the horror that tens of thousands of people die of starvation every day.

With rising food prices, it is getting to the point where us privileged are quite literally taking the food from their mouths even more so than it ever was.

Historically, at least within this capital driven era, most famines have not being caused by the lack of food but rather the inability of people to afford it. If you look, you'll find that even during the worst of famines the areas suffering famine were still exporting food for profit even as people starved.

Nevertheless, this is a small point and shouldn't detract from an excellent piece that should provoke some empathy even from the most hardened and bitter.

Ralph Lopez has his own website Ralph Lopez World which is an excellent resource. I'd suggest paying attention to it.

Denying Pain

2008-01-18T16:44:00.000-08:00

Full disclosure:

I've got an old injury in my left leg. Specifically the ankle, knee, and hip joints. Probably a sports injury. It's a constant ache. Not enough to justify medication. I can cope with it, but there's never a moment in my life that I'm free of pain. I guess you could say that pain is an old friend of mine.

Anyway...

I was browsing around when I stumbled on ABC News'On Call + Pain Management

As I read the articles my blood pressure started to rise:

Beating Back the Stigma of Pain Treatment

"I guess I wasn't screaming enough; I told them I was in pain, but I guess I should have been yelling at them," said Janice Dallas, a Type 1 diabetic who suffers from "fire and lightning" pain due to a degenerative nerve disease called neuropathy.

"It started out in '94 with neuropathy, it wasn't diagnosed until 2000," said Dallas. Part of Dallas' six-year wait for a diagnosis was an odd condition: She felt pain in her trunk, as opposed to the more common areas of hands and feet.

But part of Dallas' challenge to get diagnosed might have also been doctors' heightened scrutiny of anything that might resemble drug-seeking behavior.

In response to the rising Oxycontin abuse, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration started the official Action Plan to Prevent the Diversion and Abuse of Oxycontin in 2003.

Whites Get More Pain Meds Than Minorities, Study Says

Julie Posey, a 65-year-old retiree, said her arthritis caused her to live with debilitating, chronic pain for nine years before her primary-care physician prescribed her any pain medication stronger than Tylenol.

...

Specifically, over the 13-year survey period, the likelihood that a white patient complaining of pain would receive the pain medications from an emergency room doctors was 31 percent, while black and Hispanic patients only received the drugs 23 percent and 24 percent of the time, respectively.

In 2005, opioid-prescribing rates in the emergency department were 40 percent for white patients and 32 percent for all other patients.

Sickle Cell Sufferers Face Uncommon Pain

"Society doesn't acknowledge how severe of a disease it is and how horrible these pain crises are," said Dr. Rebecca Kruse-Jarres, a professor of hematology at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans.

Davis has been in school when a pain crisis has hit and her teacher did not believe she was in pain.

In fact, the frequency with which sickle cell disease can land patients in the emergency room with crippling pain stigmatizes people with sickle cell disease as chronic complainers and drug seekers.

This last one doesn't even need a quote. It's title says it all:

A Legitimate Pain? Fibromyalgia Debate Persists

Anyone with even a skerrick of empathy who's ever met someone with fibromyalgia can tell that they're in pain.

So I went off to find out just how common this abuse of prescription drugs that demands draconian legislation and the labeling of suffering people as "drug seekers" is but then I stumbled upon this page.

Vicodin Addiction, Abuse and Treatment

What makes someone likely to abuse Vicodin?

...

The majority of the individuals who were dependent on opiates were likely to have some sort of other drug dependence. In fact in the mentioned study, 83% had another type of drug addiction and 45.1% had additional psychiatric disorders. Over 60% had a history of addiction treatment and had been previously admitted for psychiatric illness. It has been found that Vicodin is utilized more often then Oxycodone. The biggest predictor of Vicodin abuse is alcoholism or another type of drug addiction. For patients who are in need of the pain relief provided by opiates that have a history of drug abuse, expert assessment and monitoring is required.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT'S HOLY! THEY'RE IN PAIN! OF COURSE THEY'RE FUCKING DEPENDENT ON THE DRUGS THAT RELIEVE THEM OF IT.

A LOT OF THE TIME THEY'VE SUFFERED QUIETLY FOR YEARS BEFORE FINALLY FINDING A DOCTOR THAT EVEN BELIEVES THEY'RE IN PAIN LET ALONE IS WILLING TO TREAT THEM!

Imagine the worst pain you've ever felt... Now imagine that it's constant and unrelenting for months and years.

Is it any surprise that someone in that situation who isn't treated might turn to "illicit" substances to ease their suffering?

Even when they're getting treated a lot of the time the focus is just on easing the pain enough to make them functional. Even with the pain meds they're still hurting far more than I do everyday.

I mean who cares if they're suffering, as long as they're functional enough to man a cash register right?

To call people who take more pain meds than they should or use "illicit" substances (like cannabis which is from what I've seen a godsend to sufferers of chronic pain) so they can have a few moments of existence free of pain "drug abusers" is a sick fucking Catch 22 of a joke.

If they can't get relief from pain legitimately what on earth are they supposed to do? And of course if they're a "drug abuser" the pain treatment is going to be even more lackadaisical so where are they going to turn?

For that matter, is it at all a shocking thought that people WHO LIVE IN PAIN CONSTANTLY might have a few psychiatric problems?

Like I said the whole concept of drug abuse as it relates to the treatment of pain is a sick Catch 22 of a joke.

It gets worse:

Overdosing Risks

Vicodin contains a high amount of acetaminophen or Tylenol. This keeps a lot of potential addicts from using Vicodin in excessive amounts. Acetaminophen is very damaging to the liver if consumed in excessive amounts over long periods of time. Ten to fifteen grams of acetaminophen in a twenty four hour period can result in severe liver toxicity. Fifteen to twenty grams in one day can be fatal.

Since Vicodin is water soluble, it is possible to extract some of the acetaminophen by using hot or cold water which in turn makes the drug more palatable. Extracting the acetaminophen involves crushing the tablets and then allowing them to dissolve in hot water. The mixture is then cooled and ran through a coffee filter. In thirty minutes, most of the acetaminophen has been removed from the solution. This makes the mixture much safer to consume. In order to avoid all of these potentially devastating side effects, many addicts use opiates that contain one substance such as OxyContin.

Oh noes!

People might abuse the drug or overdose or sumthin' so lets add an ingredient that damages their liver. Liver damage being a death sentence in slow motion if there ever was one.

But hey! For anyone who actually really wants to abuse the drug, there's an easy way to remove it.

~~Seriously, the sadistic fuck who thought of this shouldn't be allowed near stray animals let alone human beings.~~ (A note from tjekanefir: acetaminophen isn't added as a deterrent or punishment it's actually added as a pain killer in itself)

A society that worries more about someone somewhere having an illicit high than about people suffering pain, and believe you me pain is real, is sick at a deep and fundamental level.

Thinking on that I don't think it's a shocking conclusion that such a society. One that doesn't even care about the pain of its own would have no compunctions about inflicting pain on the foreigner, the Other, the alien.

Perhaps it might even revel in it...

A post I think you should read...

2008-01-18T11:11:00.000-08:00

THE SKY IS FALLING! by scribe

Let's say ALL the dire warnings about an economic collapse come true and a DRASTIC change in lifestyle will no longer be a choice, but a mandate, for all but the richest among us.

I believe all but the most vulnerable would not only survive it, but would emerge from it incredibly richer than they were going in. Richer in what really counts: the intangible, immeasurable richness of learning how to actually "live together" again. I think the long lost spirit of collaboration and concern for the "common good" would get resurrected from it's premature grave, and rise up to take it's rightful place among us.

While I long ago saw the futility of maintaining faith in any of the man made systems and political structures that make up the foundation of this country, the only thing I have never lost faith in is the awesome power of the individual human spirit that is present in all of us, that when called upon, can and does rise from ANY pile of ashes. Always has, and always will.

...

Canada Has U.S. on Torture Watch List

2008-01-18T03:01:00.000-08:00

Canada puts U.S. on torture watch list: CTV

...

Canada's new focus on torture was ordered by the inquiry into Maher Arar's nightmare in Syria. U.S. authorities sent Arar -- a Canadian of Syrian ancestry -- to Syria after he made a brief stopover in New York in 2002. They wrongly accused him of having links to terrorism in large part because of information provided by the RCMP.

Arar was sent to a Syrian prison where he was tortured for nearly a year. An inquiry into the Arar affair ordered a new focus on torture, and CTV News has learned that, as part of a "torture awareness workshop," diplomats are now being told where to watch for abuse.

The goal of the workshop was to teach diplomats who visit Canadians in foreign jails how to tell if they've been tortured. It also listed countries and places with greater risks of torture. The list includes Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, and China. But surprisingly, it also included the United States, Guantanamo Bay, and Israel.

It notes specific "U.S. interrogation techniques," which include "forced nudity, isolation, and sleep deprivation." The U.S. has repeatedly denied allegations by international groups that it tortures prisoners captured in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. However, U.S. officials have refused to comment on the Canadian list.

But international observers say they are heartened by the specificity of the Canadian list. Alex Neve of Amnesty International says he is surprised that Canada would risk offending allies by naming countries that potentially torture prisoners.

"These are countries where, sadly, the record is clear -- torture and ill treatment happens," said Neve.

...

I don't actually see what's so surprising about it. Perhaps irony was intended?

Hat'tip to STOP George.

That Kiriakou Confession

2007-12-21T14:13:00.000-08:00

This is the interview on ABC news from John Kiriakou...

At the end of it is a White House Press flack Dana Perino. I don't know about you but the smile she wears as she stonewalls questions makes my skin crawl.

[UPDATE]

Watch Kiriakou's eyes there...

Eye Direction and Lying
Eye Movement and Direction and How it Can Reveal the Truth or a Lie

Torture Is Classified Information...

2007-12-21T13:06:00.000-08:00

To recap... If you only read one thing today, read this: THE CIA OFFICIAL WHO OVERSAW TORTURE: Cofer Black by leveymg

Anyway,

Groundhog Day for Bush on CIA Tapes, Iran NIE (dkos version here)

Asked Thursday about his previous knowledge of and support for the 2005 destruction of secret CIA detainee interrogation tapes, President Bush did what comes naturally - he played dumb:

"The first recollection is when Mike Hayden briefed me. That's pretty clear. Secondly, I am confident that the preliminary inquiry conducted by the AG and the IG of the CIA, coupled with the oversight provided by the Congress, will end up enabling us all to find out what exactly happened. And therefore, over the course of these inquiries and oversight hearings, I'm going to reserve judgment until I find out the full facts."

President Bush first debuted his version of Alberto Gonzales' Sgt. Schultz defense regarding the CIA torture tapes 9 days earlier during an interview with ABC's Martha Raddatz:

"My first recollection of whether the tapes existed or whether they were destroyed was when [CIA Director] Michael Hayden briefed me," Bush said.

"There's a preliminary inquiry going on and I think you'll find that a lot more data, facts will be coming out," he said, "that's good. It will be interesting to know what the true facts are."

(It is worth noting that President Bush's pleas of ignorance were central to the White House's attack on the New York Times on Wednesday. When the Times reported that top administration lawyers were involved in meetings with the CIA leadership over the tapes, press secretary Dana Perino cited Bush's "no recollection" statement to successfully counter the charge that the "White House Role Was Wider Than It Said.")

...

I'd suggest reading through This Amnesty International Report particularly point 3.

And also a timeline from cooperative research (Who are currently doing a fundraising drive, they're a great resource so if you have some to spare throw a little money their way)...

Context of 'September 15, 2001: CIA Director Presents Bush and his Cabinet with Extensive Plan for Combating Terrorism Worldwide'

To see how heavily involved in the planning for torture Bush was, making the denials and stonewalling ring a little hollow.

While we're at it it appears that: Testifier on CIA tactics now in criminal probe(A CIA 'criminal referral' has led to a probe into whether one of its former officers went too far in his testimony on the agency's interrogation techniques.)

See also the TPMmuckraker report:

Today's Must Read
By Spencer Ackerman - December 21, 2007, 9:03AM

A lot of people want to talk to John Kiriakou. After the leader of the team that interrogated senior al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah in 2002 -- one of the detainees whose interrogation was secretly recorded -- went public, a lot of confusion remained. Did Abu Zubaydah really break after 35 seconds of waterboarding, as Kiriakou said? Or, as the FBI's Dan Coleman and others have said, did Abu Zubaydah's interrogation yield the best information through non-coercive techniques? Very few people are sure of the answer. Many want to ask Kiriakou more questions.

Not least of whom: the Justice Department.

Jonathan Landay of McClatchy reports that the CIA has referred Kiriakou's case to the Justice Department. No, the department isn't investigating whether Kiriakou's role in Abu Zubaydah's interrogation was potentially illegal. That would be an admission that the torture apparatus established after 9/11 is illegal, and you know that Michael Mukasey and Mark Filip can't make up their minds about that. Rather, the FBI wants to know if Kiriakou criminally disclosed classified information by speaking to ABC News about the interrogation.

What's more, Kiriakou's former employer, the CIA -- which surely wasn't happy about seeing Kiriakou confirm on TV that his team waterboarded Abu Zubaydah and then call waterboarding torture -- won't confirm that it dimed him out.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment when asked if the agency had sought a criminal probe of Kiriakou. But the spokesman, George Little, added, "Separate and apart from any specific instance, when the agency has reason to believe there has been a possible violation of the law, such as the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, it has an obligation to refer the matter to the Department of Justice."

...

It appears that torture is classified information...

Excuse me while my brain breaks...

Devilstower has a good summary on Kiriakou: Kiriakou's 15 Minutes of Shame while ShawnGBR points out The thing with videos is: more copies.

MPAA playing politics with torture? And other sordid tales...

2007-12-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

If you didn't have enough reason to dislike the heavy-handed approach of the MPAA it seems they're also playing a game of heavy-handed political censorship.

MPAA rejects Gibney's 'Dark' poster
Org objects to hood on torture docu's one-sheet
By ANNE THOMPSON

'Taxi to the Dark Side'
The MPAA has rejected the one-sheet for Alex Gibney's documentary "Taxi to the Dark Side," which traces the pattern of torture practice from Afghanistan's Bagram prison to Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay.

ThinkFilm opens the pic, which is on the Oscar shortlist of 15 docs, on Jan. 11.

The image in question is a news photo of two U.S. soldiers walking away from the camera with a hooded detainee between them.

It seems this isn't the first time they've played these reindeer games either:

The MPAA also rejected the one-sheet for Roadside Attractions' 2006 film "The Road to Guantanamo," which featured a hooded prisoner hanging from his handcuffed wrists. At the time, according to Howard Cohen, co-president of Roadside Attractions, the reason given was that the burlap bag over the prisoner's head depicted torture, which was not appropriate for children to see.

Well at least they're not pretending it isn't torture...

"Not permitting us to use an image of a hooded man that comes from a documentary photograph is censorship, pure and simple," said producer, writer and director Gibney. "Intentional or not, the MPAA's disapproval of the poster is a political act, undermining legitimate criticism of the Bush administration. I agree that the image is offensive; it's also real."

If the image is offensive then how much moreso the act?

The "Taxi" ad art is actually an amalgam of two pictures. The first, taken by Corbis photographer Shaun Schwarz, features the hooded prisoner and one soldier. Another military figure was added on the left. Ironically, the original Schwarz photo was censored by the military, which erased his camera's memory. The photographer eventually retrieved the image from his hard drive.

"It's the photo that would not die," Gibney said. "This movie is not a horror film like 'Hostel.' This is a documentary and that image is a documentary image."

Heh...

Also while we're at it leveymg shines a light on a particularly sordid tale in THE CIA OFFICIAL WHO OVERSAW TORTURE: Cofer Black

It seems that Cofer Black is now Vice Chairman of the mercenary group Blackwater:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 4, 2005

Ambassador Cofer Black Becomes Vice-Chairman at Blackwater USA

Blackwater USA proudly announces that Ambassador Cofer Black, former Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the U. S. State Department, and former Director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center has joined our team as Vice Chairman.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Erik Prince stated, "Ambassador Black brings with him 30 years of experience in combating terrorism around the globe and absolute devotion to freedom and democracy and the United States of America. We are honored to have him as part of our great team"

...

Not to mention that he's an advisor for Romney and was a Bin Laden specialist...

Oh... Fer fooks sake!

Interesting...

2007-12-21T03:14:00.000-08:00

Congress Subpoenas Ex-CIA Official
Congressional Panel Subpoenas Ex-CIA Official Who Ordered Destruction of Interrogation Tapes

By PAMELA HESS Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON Dec 20, 2007 (AP)

The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena Thursday for Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA official who directed that secret interrogation videotapes of two suspected terrorists be destroyed.

The panel ordered Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, to appear for a hearing on Jan. 16. Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said Rodriguez "would like to tell his story but his counsel has advised us that a subpoena would be necessary."

...

Very interesting...

At the top of google news right now...

2007-12-19T05:47:00.000-08:00

Destruction of CIA tapes may have violated a court order
By ichard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 19, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Over the objections of the Justice Department, a federal judge said Tuesday he would explore whether the U.S. had violated a court order to preserve evidence when the CIA destroyed videotaped interrogations of two terrorism suspects in 2005.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. set a hearing for Friday in Washington in response to a request from Yemeni prisoners who are challenging their detention by the U.S. at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Much of the evidence against the defendants consists of accusations by other prisoners, whom the lawyers think may have been coerced.

The issue of coercive interrogations has taken on new primacy after disclosures this month that the CIA had destroyed videotapes of interrogations of purported Al Qaeda members Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

The tapes were destroyed by a CIA official in November 2005, at a time of growing congressional and public concern about U.S. tactics in the war on terrorism, including interrogation techniques.

It was also five months after Kennedy, in the case of the Yemeni prisoners, issued an order requiring that the U.S. preserve and maintain "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment and abuse of detainees now" at Guantanamo Bay. According to court papers, government lawyers said at the time that a formal order was not necessary because they were "well aware of their obligation not to destroy evidence that may be relevant in pending litigation."

Destroying evidence relevant to a legislative or judicial proceeding could constitute obstruction of justice. Kennedy could also sanction the government in the case of the Yemeni defendants if he found that the U.S. had violated his order.

In court papers filed last week, the Justice Department argued that the videos weren't covered by the order because at the time Zubaydah and al-Nashiri were being held in secret CIA prisons overseas. The men were later transferred to the Guantanamo Bay prison.

...

Say what?

Kuala Lumpar and the destroyed Torture Tapes...

2007-12-17T08:19:00.000-08:00

Working through a timeline from Cooperative History Commons:

Context of 'January 5-6, 2000: CIA Liason with FBI Who Just Learned About Almihdhar’s US Visa Twice Fails to Tell FBI about It'

leveymg argues that what connects all the subjects of the Torture Tapes is a CIA surveilled meeting in Kuala Lumpar that was the subject of a turf war between the CIA and FBI:

Who Got Water Boarded and Why: What Tortured CIA Detainees Had In Common. (dkos)
WHO GOT WATERBOARDED AND WHY: What Tortured Detainees Had In Common (DU)

Backgrounder on Torture Tapes...

2007-12-16T07:14:00.000-08:00

Rain has a good backgrounder on the Torture Tapes up over at Street Prophets: Waterboarding, Torture, and “Plausible Deniability”

The Thought Is Free

2007-12-15T18:30:00.000-08:00

I have heard it said, many times, that it's better to die on your feet than live on your knees as if it means something. I hear high minded calls for liberty and justice, but never do I see it. I see people talking of justice when they mean vengeance and talk of liberty?

Hah!

We buy the products of slave labor never giving it a second thought until some faddish campaign appears. So we avoid those products the fad tells us to, until we forget. All the while continuing to buy that cheap T-Shirt, that interesting gadget.

Our medicines and cosmetics are the fruit of the torture. Animals, orphans, convicts and all those others unrespected by society. Vivisected, restrained, abused through no will of their own.

I've heard it said that it's better to die on your feet than live on your knees in song, and it moved me. But I tell you this, we have been living on our knees since the moment we were born.

And those who say it? What they are really saying is die for me and my cause.

Power corrupts, there is no escape from this. There is no saying "Oh power corrupted all these other people but me? I'll use my power for good." It corrupts all from the pettiest of bureaucrats or mailing list moderators to the rulers of nations, and most of all it corrupts us.

Do not fool yourselves with protestations that we are powerless. This is a cop-out. We have power. We have power over our families, our pets, our friends, our acquaintances, our enemies. Yet more we have power over people in far away places who have done nothing to us. Our simple everyday decisions on what we buy, what we do, what we say, how we vote for has the power of life or death over millions, and yet we make these decisions without giving them a second thought. We reduce them to trite slogans.

Who among us can honestly say we have not abused power? I know I cannot. So while we may criticize and condemn our leaders, we only do so to differentiate ourselves from them. To tell ourselves that we are good and they are bad. Their faults are our own.

That is why nothing ever changes.

'Imagine' A World Of Peace,Understanding,Tolerance: What Really Were In The Tapes and Why The Destruction!

2007-12-15T13:29:00.000-08:00

A veteran who's gone through SERE training thinks the reason the torture tapes were destroyed was because they demonstrate the ineffectiveness of torture.

'Imagine' A World Of Peace,Understanding,Tolerance: What Really Were In The Tapes and Why The Destruction!

...

This above apparently to suggest that during the previous three to four weeks of questioning we were giving him cake and ice cream, cigarettes if he smoked, plenty of rest, frequent trips to the local Starbucks by other agents for Zubaydah's favorite coffee mixture................., and all that just wasn't working.

So

Kiriakou describes the process of waterboarding, his own experience being waterboarded and how it took only 35 seconds once the technique was employed for Zubaydah to start talking.

Bam, strap him to a board, cover face with cloth, pour water, and this Hardened Terrorists Breaks in 35seconds and gives a bunch of Real Useful Intelligence where American lives were saved as a result of the information the CIA learned through this singular technique of interrogation.

Yet no one seems willing, already known how this terrific intelligence information was gathered, what Exactly it Was and What The Targets were, Nobody!!

It reminds me of Collin Powel at the UN, or Rummy saying the Administration knew exactly where the WMD's were, in Iraq, yet when the Inspectors kept asking for the Known locations the Administration kept saying they couldn't pass that on as it would give away their intelligence sources.

Now my first thoughts were that the tapes show One Hell of Alot More than just Waterboarding was taking place!

My second thought was that they would also show that Absolutely No Relative Intelligence was gathered, no matter How Much We Tortured, these Suspects weren't giving up a Damn Thing, couple that with the Illegality of Torture would make this Extremely Damning for any and all involved!!

...

That's without mentioning that one of the tapes might have shown a screaming FBI agent holding waving a gun demanding it stop or something. (hat'tip to Little)

FBI agent threatened to arrest CIA interrogators in 2002. (Think Progress)

helmut testifies to congress on torture

2007-12-14T21:49:00.000-08:00

Torture Hearing

UPDATE: Here's the set of statements from the hearing, including a better version of mine than the one below.

Yours truly gave testimony on torture this morning to the Helsinki Commission, chaired by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL). Here's the transcript of my statement passed out to everyone at the hearing.

Historically, torture has been used to suppress dissent, force renunciation of beliefs, extract confessions or punish, force denunciation of others, intimidate or humiliate a wider population, and gather information through physical and psychological abuse.

Recently, the sole purpose being advanced by some to justify torture is the gathering of information. They argue that the information gained from torture is of greater moral significance than the torture of a human being who may have such information. Torture, they say, is a necessary evil in the fight against a greater evil. Since cruelty – of which torture is the epitome – is the worst side of human nature, the moral threshold for moral significance of information is very high. The ticking time bomb example, so corrosive of our moral imagination in the public discourse on torture, provides a crude utilitarian justification for the use of torture: torturing one bad man vs. saving many innocent people. This serves to trump the claims of the moral absolutist. But why stop there? If the potential information is of great moral significance, why not torture the one bad man’s family, or his children? A state of necessity has been used historically to justify the greatest atrocities. All torturers claim a state of necessity.

...

Read it all!

(Hat'tip Mike the Mad Biologist)

smintheus slams FISA bill...

2007-12-14T21:04:00.000-08:00

smintheus who recently and most deservedly became a front pager on the Great Orange Satan slams the FISA bill. He slams it good and hard.

Stop the FISA sellout by smintheus

There’s no good reason why Democrats should stand idly by while Sen. Harry Reid helps to push a terrible FISA bill through the Senate early next week. It is Sen. Rockefeller’s bill granting retroactive immunity for telecoms, a grant that Reid admits is “unwise” and one he opposes, but one Reid has found parliamentary reasons for preferring over the better Judiciary Committee bill that excludes telecom immunity. And this despite the fact the House has passed a bill that excludes immunity.

It’s a sellout.

And it’s a pretty strange week for Reid to be endorsing Sen. Rockefeller’s judgment. Just a few days ago Rockefeller revealed that he can’t even remember what he was told and when about the CIA’s videotaping of torture sessions. This is the man whom Reid wants us to follow off a cliff?

The Senate needs to dump the Rockefeller bill. We should leverage the outrage that many people feel about this betrayal, and bring it to bear on the Senate.

There’s more background here on the FISA scandal, and here on what Reid has done in leading with the worse, rather than the better, bill.

It would be an understatement to describe Rockefeller’s bill as a disgrace. Retroactive immunity for the telecoms is an appalling precedent as legislation. It also represents an abject surrender by the Legislative Branch to the “right” of the Unitary Executive to commit crimes and then legalize them ex post facto.

Rockefeller’s bill also will obstruct a current lawsuit against the telecoms that might otherwise succeed in extracting from the Bush administration actual information about whom it is spying upon without warrant, how, where, and why. The lawsuit threatens to expose the kind of information that Congress so far has signally failed to get from the Unitary President.

That, surely, is why the Bush administration is so determined that Congress must grant retroactive immunity to the telecoms. The corporations would not need immunity if they had not broken the law, and if they broke the law, it was because they preferred to take orders from the Executive Branch.

It’s hard to escape the impression that Bush is calling the tune here.

...

Front-Paging him is probably the best thing kos has done in a long time...

Bush plans to veto ban on torture

2007-12-14T20:28:00.000-08:00

House Votes to Ban Harsh CIA Methods PAMELA HESS | December 13, 2007 06:46 PM EST | (Associated Press)

...

Most of the bill itself also is classified, although some portions were made public. One provision requires reporting to the committees on whether intelligence agency employees are complying with protections for detainees from cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. Another requires a report on the use of private contractors in intelligence work.

It is the first intelligence authorization conference bill Congress has produced in three years.

The White House threatened to veto the measure this week in a lengthy statement, highlighting more than 11 areas of disagreement with the bill.

The administration particularly opposes restricting the CIA to interrogation methods approved by the military in 2006. That document prohibits forcing detainees to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner; placing hoods or sacks over detainees' heads or duct tape over their eyes; beating, shocking, or burning detainees; threatening them with military dogs; exposing them to extreme heat or cold; conducting mock executions; depriving them of food, water, or medical care; and waterboarding.

Waterboarding is a particularly harsh form of interrogation that involves strapping down a prisoner, covering his mouth with plastic or cloth and pouring water over his face. The prisoner quickly begins to inhale water, causing the sensation of drowning.

...

Well of course...

While we're at it, it appears that the CIA official who ordered the destruction of the Torture Tapes has lawyered up:

As spotted by TPMmuckraker in a NYTimes piece:

Mr. Rodriguez has hired Robert S. Bennett, a well-known Washington lawyer, to represent him in Congressional and Justice Department inquiries into his handling of the tapes.

Mr. Bennett has represented a number of high-profile clients — among them former President Bill Clinton, Caspar W. Weinberger, the former defense secretary, and Paul D. Wolfowitz, the former deputy defense secretary and World Bank president.

Failure Cascades

2007-12-14T18:56:00.001-08:00

I just found this article:

Riding the Failure Cascade

It's about MMORPGs but I think the analysis is also spot-on for the dynamic of group blogs.

Group blogs are just MMORPGs for people who'd never admit to playing a MMORPG anyway.

Television Lies

2007-12-14T17:18:00.000-08:00

Just spotted this...

The Most Dangerous Appliance In Your Home: The Television

The idol who we sit and worship every day in our living rooms is in fact a dastardly manipulative double agent. TV, the boob tube, television, telly, the babysitter, (or whatever you want to call it) is more than just a portal into daily news and entertainment. TV is Big Brother.

The average American watches more than 4 hours of TV per day. I could rant about how this is terrible, but I am actually more concerned that He knows exactly what I am watching at any moment and how much time I spend watching Him. It may seem irrational to single out TV because the internet is full of tracking software, cookies, spyware, etc. all created just to observe my net surfing behavior, however television is almost universally watched by all Americans and very centralized. (Besides I’ll save the net for another post.)

...

I strongly suggest reading it all.

And now for some of that evil brainwashing television:

15 Minutes of Fame by Sheep on Drugs.

Great band. If you get a chance I suggest you see them live.

I wonder if they've still got that powersupply I lent them after all these years. Heh...

Oh, and here's a little more brainrot for your viewing pleasure:

"I did it myyyy waaaaaaay...."

2007-12-14T15:53:00.000-08:00

An associated press article available on, a darkly amusing given the situation, website called "My Way News" reports that Mukasey's DOJ is stonewalling a house inquiry into the destruction of tapes that recorded the torture of inmates at Guantanamo Bay[1]

The article in question:

AG Denies Details in CIA Tapes Inquiry Dec 14, 5:35 PM (ET) By LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused Friday to give Congress details of the government's investigation into interrogations of terror suspects that were videotaped and destroyed by the CIA. He said doing so could raise questions about whether the inquiry is vulnerable to political pressure.

In letters Friday to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees that oversee the Justice Department, Mukasey said there is no need right now to appoint a special prosecutor to lead the investigation. The preliminary inquiry currently is being handled by the Justice Department and the CIA's inspector general.

...

In a letter Thursday to CIA Director Michael Hayden, the House panel asked the CIA to hand over by Friday all documents and cables regarding the interrogation tapes and their destruction. But the Justice Department since has advised the CIA to refuse the request, a committee official said Friday on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for the committee.

The committee official said the Justice Department asked the panel "to stand back while they do their investigation" - suggesting it will block the testimony of acting CIA General Counsel John Rizzo and Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the National Clandestine Service. Both have been summoned to testify to the committee on Dec. 18. Rodriguez ordered the tapes destroyed.

(hat'tip to minorityusa)

Quick notes:

2007-12-14T13:45:00.000-08:00

Guantanamo inmate represented by Portland lawyers is released (Hat'tip varro)

Guantanamo staff trashing web sites and spreading propoganda

by Stephen Soldz Page 1 of 1 page(s)

http://www.opednews.com

The Wikileaks group have struck again. Today they revealed that Guantanamo staff have been engaged in a campaign of propaganda, revising the web encyclopedia Wikipedia entries, including removing detainee IDs from Wikipedia, and posting pro-Guantanamo propaganda around the web. He, or they, have posted repeated encouragement for readers of various web sites to go the the "JTF GTMO" web site, Wikileaks reports. For example, in response to the Wired article reporting the Wikileaks release of the 2004 Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures manual, an GTMO IP address posted:

...

Former Critic of Military Tribunals is Now the Chief Judge at Gitmo by Mary Shaw

House Passes Ban On Waterboarding

The Padilla Tapes by Ralph Lopez

CIA Torture Jet wrecks with 4 Tons of COCAINE

Railroading A Journalist In Iraq By Tom Curley Saturday, November 24, 2007; Page A17 (The WaPo)

At long last, prize-winning Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein may get his day in court. The trouble is, justice won't be blind in this case -- his lawyer will be.

Bilal has been imprisoned by the U.S. military in Iraq since he was picked up April 12, 2006, in Ramadi, a violent town in a turbulent province where few Western journalists dared go. The military claimed then that he had suspicious links to insurgents. This week, Editor & Publisher magazine reported the military has amended that to say he is, in fact, a "terrorist" who had "infiltrated the AP."

We believe Bilal's crime was taking photographs the U.S. government did not want its citizens to see. That he was part of a team of AP photographers who had just won a Pulitzer Prize for work in Iraq may have made Bilal even more of a marked man.

In the 19 months since he was picked up, Bilal has not been charged with any crime, although the military has sent out a flurry of ever-changing claims. Every claim we've checked out has proved to be false, overblown or microscopic in significance. Now, suddenly, the military plans to seek a criminal case against Bilal in the Iraqi court system in just days. But the military won't tell us what the charges are, what evidence it will be submitting or even when the hearing will be held.

...

“Bilal Is No Insurgent” (A Daily News photographer rallies behind his jailed Iraqi colleague.) by Morgan A. Zalot

You can hear it in his voice—pain that transcends oceans and spans time, evidence of memories of war played on a continuous loop in his mind.

And when Jim MacMillan speaks of Bilal Hussein, a comrade from his time in Iraq whose photographs of the war might cost him his life, you can almost see the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“He was a man full of joy, and his work was exemplary, outstanding,” says MacMillan, 46, a 16-year veteran Philadelphia Daily News photographer who also worked at the Baghdad bureau of the Associated Press from May 2004 to April 2005. “His pursuit was no less than heroic.”

When MacMillan was in Iraq, he met Hussein, 36, one of 14 children of a prominent family from Fallujah. The two were among the group of 11 AP photographers awarded the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography in 2005.

...

Judge Orders Bilal Hussein Hearing Kept Secret December 09, 2007 By Daryl Lang

Bilal Hussein, the Iraqi Associated Press photographer who has been held as a security detainee for nearly 20 months, was present for most of a seven-hour hearing Sunday in a Baghdad court.

Beyond those basic facts, nothing else about the hearing was made public. A judge ordered the proceedings be kept secret.

The U.S. military planned to presented evidence against Hussein at the investigative hearing, the first step toward a criminal trial in the Central Criminal Court in Iraq (CCCI).

In a statement Sunday, the AP's director of media relations Paul Colford said Hussein and his lawyers were allowed to view the materials presented at the hearing but not given copies to take with them.

...

The True Spirit of Christmas.

2007-12-13T23:25:00.000-08:00

Reading the indomitable Pharyngula I came across this: A Jew, a Muslim, and 10 Christians walk onto a train…

Now I'm a man of few means who can't afford to give presents, but it occurred to me that this story makes an excellent Christmas story and writing stories is one thing that I can do. So I'm going to write that story. Anyway, right now if I don't write I'm going to cry but I'll try not to let that affect my tone. Using these articles as sources:

Muslim hero breaks up train beating BY MELISSA GRACE
US Muslim breaks up Christmas-Hanukkah fight (Saves Jewish group from Christian gang)
Helper 'A Hero' in NYC Subway Attack
Muslim saves Jews in subway attack
Muslim helps Jews attacked on New York subway From Nkechi Nneji

So without further ado in the spirit of giving I release the story below to the public domain. It's yours now, you can copy it, reprint it, read it to a roomful of young'uns freely and without restriction.

The True Spirit Of Christmas

One day, on the fourth day of Hanukkah and the seventh day of Christmas, in New York a young Jewish couple and their friends were riding a train to Brooklyn.

On the way someone called out "Merry Christmas". To which the young Jewish man responded "Happy Hanukkah" which it was.

Inexplicably 10 youths started abusing them with language I won't repeat here. Then as the young man tried to intercede he was punched.

Things looked grim, the young Jewish man was heavily outnumbered and the woman with him in danger when suddenly a young Muslim pushed one of the youths away from her.

In return for his troubles, he was grabbed, he was grabbed by youths and beaten.

But, thanks to him the young Jewish man had a chance to hit the emergency brakes alerting the police.

Later, the jew invited the muslim, his new friend to celebrate the Festival of Lights with him. They broke bread together, and commiserated over their injuries.

Good will towards all, and to all a good night.

Laughing as I go...

5 زين القصة

4 خمسة الوصايا (خماسي القيء)

(3) تشاو المقدسة (توضيح)

قائمة المحتويات

المباديء الخلاف بين ألف

المباديء الخلاف بين ألف

المباديء الخلاف بين ألف

المباديء الخلاف بين ألف

The Suing of The Torturers of Abu Ghraib Begins... Also News On The Uighurs Of Guantanamo

Keeping Track...

Justice...

Surveillance Changes Behavior

Private Contractor Stephen Stefanowicz Sued For Abu Ghraib Torture

Hrrrm...

Heh...

Hrrrm...

You haven't heard of Insurge?...

Just How Smart Are Humans Anyway?

The Costs Of Torture...

Oh Dear...

Breaking: "Wikileaks Under Attack: California Court Wipes Wikileaks.org Out of Existence" (Updated)

Putting Two and Two Together Again:

Wough...

"Valerie Plame Wilson Describes Sibel Edmonds Disclosures as 'Stunning'"

Oh my god...

Reading Assignment:

An interesting clip...

*whimper* (Updated)

Two Interesting Papers

Universal Jurisdiction & Private Contractors Engaged In Torture (Updated)

Leading Psychiatrist Kenneth S. Pope Resigns From The American Psychological Association. Publishes Open Letter.

The Debate isn't about torture, it's about War Crimes

The Media MetaNarrative Making Torture A Topic Open For "Debate"

Well...

"I don't want to know about it. I don't ask about it"

War Crimes

Spreading It Real Good...

Spreading Freedom and Democracy, Right?

"Torture flights finally investigated?"

Interesting...

Tazing Is Torture...

"Myanmar Arrests Blogger, Watchdog Says"

In Case You Didn't Already Know, I'm On The Bipolar Spectrum

Wow...

" Sudan's ex-Guantanamo prisoners demand payout" and also Sami al-Hajj's wife speaks...

Just a quick reminder on MKULTRA

Valtin leaves the APA

On Geneva France...

"Administration pays witness $5 million in secret ceremony"

"US and Thailand: Allies in torture"

"Padilla vs Yoo"

I never thought I'd be saying this...

Quick Notes...

*whimper*

Can you pardon yourself...

Again a little late...

Well... They always said sunlight is the best disinfectant...

Denying Pain

A post I think you should read...

Canada Has U.S. on Torture Watch List

That Kiriakou Confession

Torture Is Classified Information...

MPAA playing politics with torture? And other sordid tales...

Interesting...

At the top of google news right now...

Kuala Lumpar and the destroyed Torture Tapes...

Backgrounder on Torture Tapes...

The Thought Is Free

'Imagine' A World Of Peace,Understanding,Tolerance: What Really Were In The Tapes and Why The Destruction!

helmut testifies to congress on torture

smintheus slams FISA bill...

Bush plans to veto ban on torture

Failure Cascades

Television Lies

"I did it myyyy waaaaaaay...."

Quick notes:

The True Spirit of Christmas.

whimper (Updated)

whimper