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| I, Enemy Combatant... |
 Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:22 am |
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Compared to our home-grown state-sponsored terrorists, the Taliban are
like choir boys playing with matches behind the rectory.
On Sat, 18 Apr 2009 12:50:41 -0700 (PDT), Bongblaster
<bongblaster at (no spam) peoplepc.com> wrote:
Quote: Drug smuggling, extraordinary renditions, political assassinations,
domestic wiretapping, media manipulation: all have combined to make
the CIA the "World's Greatest Terrorist Organization" and it is
recognized as such; however, the Murder-Robot adds the additional
title of "Most Advanced Terrorist Organization" previously held by al-
Qaeda for their use of the high-tech utility knife with the seriously
sophisticated secret compartment holding five extra blades.
Congratulations Spooks! You're #1 in everything now!
*oink*oink*
Bongblaster, you left out "torture" from your rant.
Torturing a fellow human being to the brink of death - or beyond - is
the worst thing any terrorists can do, IMHO.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Torture Memos Gave CIA Legal O.K. to Bring Detainees to Brink of Death
http://www.truthout.org/041709A
Friday 17 April 2009
by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Report
CIA interrogators were given legal authorization to slam an
alleged "high-value" detainee's head against a wall, place insects
inside a "confinement box" to induce fear and force him to remain
awake for 11 consecutive days, according to a closely guarded August
1, 2002, legal memo released publicly by the Justice Department for
the first time on Thursday.
The memo, signed by the former head of the Justice Department's
Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), Jay Bybee, was written about a week
after Bybee's office had given the CIA verbal authorization that
subjecting the detainee to seven other brutal interrogation methods
would not violate torture laws.
"This letter memorializes our previous oral advice given on July
24, 2002 and July 26, 2002, that the proposed conduct would not
violate the prohibition against torture," wrote Bybee, who now has a
lifetime judgeship on the Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals. CIA
interrogators would not be in violation of torture laws, Bybee wrote,
because they would not be acting with the intent to inflict "severe
pain or suffering" by subjecting detainees to the brutal interrogation
methods outlined in the memo.
"To violate the [torture] statute, an individual must have the
specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering," Bybee wrote.
"Because specific intent is an element of the offense, the absence of
specific intent negates the charge of torture.
"Based on the information you have provided us, we believe that
those carrying out these procedures would not have the specific intent
to inflict severe pain or suffering. The objective of these techniques
is not to cause severe physical pain. First, the constant presence of
personnel with medical training who have the authority to stop the
interrogation should it appear it is medically necessary indicates
that it is not your intent to cause severe physical pain."
However, Bybee added, "we wish to emphasize that this is our best
reading of the law; however, you should be aware that there are no
cases construing this statute, just as there have been no prosecutions
brought under it."
Three other torture memos, written in May 2005 by Steven Bradbury,
the former acting head of OLC, were also released on Thursday as part
of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit the ACLU filed against the
Bush administration.
The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility
investigated Bradbury, Bybee and former OLC attorney John Yoo, who is
believed to be the principal author of the memo Bybee signed. The
probe is said to have concluded that all three provided the Bush
administration with poor legal advice and acted as advocates for
administration policy rather than independent lawyers.
Bradbury's reinstated the torture methods and their legal
justification after his predecessor, Jack Goldsmith, withdrew the
torture memos in 2004. Goldsmith said the torture memos were "sloppily
reasoned" and "legally flawed."
One of Bradbury's memos said, "Interrogators may combine water
dousing with other techniques, such as stress positions, wall
standing, the insult slap, or the abdominal slap."
Intense Debate
The release of the memos followed weeks of intense debate and pit
the White House and Justice Department against the CIA, which argued
against releasing the documents. Unnamed CIA officials were quoted as
saying that releasing the memos would provide al-Qaeda with a
recruitment tool despite the fact that much of the information in the
documents has been known for some time.
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden sharply criticized President
Barack Obama's decision to release the memos, telling The Associated
Press the documents will now "deter other governments from cooperating
with the United States because it shows the US can't keep anything
secret.
Bybee's August 1, 2002, memo is one of two legal opinions that was
written on that date. Another memo, written by Yoo, had provided the
Bush administration with the legal framework for torturing prisoners
and has been previously released. Yoo relied upon an obscure 2000
health benefits statute to narrow the definition of torture in a way
that permitted waterboarding.
The August 1, 2002, memo released on Thursday authorized specific
techniques CIA interrogators could use to try and extract information
from prisoners.
That memo indicates that it was written specifically to allow CIA
interrogators to use ten techniques against Abu Zubaydah, an alleged
al-Qaeda lieutenant, who was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and
flown to a CIA "black site" prison where he was tortured. Zubaydah's
systematic torture was documented in a February 14, 2007, report
prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which was
published in its entirety a couple of weeks ago.
Interrogation Methods
Bybee's memo contains choreographed instructions from the CIA on
how the techniques would be administered to Zubaydah.
"For walling, a flexible wall will be constructed," Bybee wrote.
"The individual is placed with his heels touching the wall: The
interrogator pulls the individual forward and then quickly and firmly
pushes the individual into the wall. It is the individual's shoulder
blades that hit the wall. During this motion the head and neck are
supported with a rolled hood or towel that provides a c-collar effect
to help prevent whiplash."
In describing the use of waterboarding, Bybee wrote:
"You have also orally informed us that it is likely that this
procedure would not last more than twenty minutes in any one
application. As we understand it, when the waterboard is used, the
subject's body responds as if the subject were drowning - even though
the subject may be well aware that he is in fact not drowning. You
have informed us that this procedure does not inflict actual physical
harm. Thus, although the subject may experience the fear or panic
associated with the feeling of drowning, the waterboard does not
inflict physical pain.
"As we explained in the Section 2340A Memorandum, 'pain and
suffering' as used in Section 2340 is best understood as a single
concept, not distinct concepts of 'pain' as distinguished from
'suffering'.... The waterboard, which inflicts no pain or actual harm
whatsoever, does not, in our view, inflict 'severe pain and
suffering.' Even if one were to parse the stature more 'finely' to
attempt to treat suffering as a distinct concept, the waterboard could
not be said to inflict severe suffering. The waterboard is simply a
controlled acute episode, lacking the connotation of a protracted
period of time generally given to suffering."
On using sleep deprivation against Zubaydah, Bybee said:
"You have indicated that your purpose in using this technique is
to reduce the individual's ability to think on his feet and, through
the discomfort associated with lack of sleep, to motivate him to
cooperate. The effect of such sleep deprivation will generally remit
after one or two nights of uninterrupted sleep. You have informed us
that your research has revealed that, in rare instances, some
individuals who are already predisposed to psychological problems may
experience abnormal reactions to sleep deprivation.
"Even in those cases, however, reactions abate after the
individual is permitted to sleep. Moreover, personnel with medical
training are available to and will intervene in the unlikely event of
an abnormal reaction. You have orally informed us that you would not
deprive Zubaydah of sleep for more than eleven days at a time and that
you have previously kept him awake for 72 hours, from which no mental
or physical harm resulted."
On using insects, Bybee said:
"You would like to place Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box
with an insect. You have informed us he has a fear of insects. As we
understand it, no actually harmful insect will be placed in the box.
Thus, though the introduction of an insect may produce trepidation in
Zubaydah it certainly does not cause physical pain."
However, Bybee wrote, the CIA "must inform [Zubaydah] that the
insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe
pain." Ultimately, this technique was never used against Zubaydah.
According to Zubaydah's account to the International Committee of
the Red Cross, he was subjected to brutal methods.
"Two black wooden boxes were brought into the room outside my
cell. One was tall, slightly higher than me and narrow," Zubaydah told
an ICRC representative, according to the organization's report.
"Measuring perhaps in area [3 1/2 by 2 1/2 feet by 6 1/2 feet high].
The other was shorter, perhaps only [3 1/2 feet] in height. I was
taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel
around my neck, they then used it to swing me around and smash me
repeatedly against the hard walls of the room. I was also repeatedly
slapped in the face....
"I was then put into the tall black box for what I think was about
one and a half to two hours. The box was totally black on the inside
as well as the outside.... They put a cloth or cover over the outside
of the box to cut out the light and restrict my air supply. It was
difficult to breathe.
"When I was let out of the box I saw that one of the walls of the
room had been covered with plywood sheeting. From now on it was
against this wall that I was then smashed with the towel around my
neck. I think that the plywood was put there to provide some
absorption of the impact of my body. The interrogators realized that
smashing me against the hard wall would probably quickly result in
physical injury."
Bush "Obsessed"
In his book "The One Percent Doctrine," author Ron Suskind
reported that President George W. Bush had become obsessed with
Zubaydah and the information he might have about pending terrorist
plots against the United States.
"Bush was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth,"
Suskind wrote. Bush questioned one CIA briefer, "Do some of these
harsh methods really work?"
Besides the use of insects, Bybee's memo said the authorized
interrogations methods included the near-drowning technique
waterboarding, slamming the detainee's head against a wall (referred
to as "walling"), "facial hold," "facial slap (insult slap)," "cramped
confinement," "wall standing," "stress positions" and "sleep
deprivation."
"Our advice is based upon the following facts, which you have
provided us," says Bybee's memo sent to John Rizzo, then the CIA's
acting general counsel. "Zubaydah is currently being held by the
United States. The interrogation team is certain that he has
additional information that he refuses to divulge. Specifically, he is
withholding information regarding terrorist networks in the United
States or Saudi Arabia and information regarding plans to conduct
attacks within the United States or against our interests overseas.
"Zubaydah has become accustomed to a certain level of treatment
and displays no signs of willingness to disclose further information.
Moreover, your intelligence indicates that there is currently a level
of 'chatter' equal to that which preceded the September 11 attacks. In
light of the information you believe Zubaydah has and the high level
of threat you believe now exists, you wish to move the interrogation
into what you have described as an ‘increased pressure phase.'"
Approved by Top Bush Officials
At the time OLC provided verbal authorization to the CIA,
according to documents released by a Senate committee last year,
senior Bush administration officials met to discuss the specific
techniques to use against detainees.
In July 2002, a meeting was convened at the White House, where
former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, Justice Department
attorney John Yoo, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's attorney David
Addington and unknown CIA officials discussed whether the CIA could
interrogate Zubaydah more aggressively in order to get him to respond.
It was at this July 2002 meeting that Yoo, Gonzales and Addington
gave the CIA the green light to use a wide variety of techniques,
including waterboarding, on Zubaydah and other detainees at several
secret prisons to "break" them and force them to cooperate with
interrogators, according to an account published in Newsweek in late
December 2003.
Additionally, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his legal
counsel, William Haynes, solicited input from military psychologists
about developing harsh methods that interrogators could use against
detainees who were being held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba.
"Mr. Haynes was not the only senior official considering new
interrogation techniques for use against detainees," the report said.
"Members of the President's Cabinet and other senior officials
attended meetings in the White House where specific interrogation
techniques were discussed."
John B. Bellinger, the legal adviser to National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice, said he recalled participating in meetings with
Ashcroft and Rumsfeld in July 2002 about an Army and Air Force
survival training program called Survival, Evasion, Resistance and
Escape (SERE); SERE was meant to prepare US soldiers for abuse they
might suffer if captured by an outlaw regime. But it was reverse
engineered and used against detainees.
According to Bybee's memo, under this new "phase" of
interrogation, Zubaydah would only have contact with a new
"interrogation specialist" and a psychologist who specialized in the
military's SERE program "who has been involved with the interrogations
since they began."
"This phase will likely last no more than several days but could
last up to thirty days," Bybee's memo says.
Zubaydah Mentally Ill
According to Suskind, Zubaydah's captors soon discovered that
their prisoner was mentally ill and knew nothing about terrorist
operations or impending plots. That realization was "echoed at the top
of CIA and was, of course, briefed to the President and Vice
President," Suskind wrote.
Still, in public statements, President Bush portrayed Zubaydah as
"one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction
on the United States" and added, "So, the CIA used an alternative set
of procedures" to get Zubaydah to talk.
The president did not want to "lose face" because he had stated
Zubaydah's importance publicly, Suskind wrote.
Zubaydah was strapped to a waterboard and, fearing imminent death,
he spoke about a wide range of plots against a number of US targets,
such as shopping malls, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty.
Yet, Suskind wrote, Zubaydah's information under duress was judged not
credible.
Still, that did not stop "thousands of uniformed men and women
[who] raced in a panic to each ... target," Suskind wrote. "The United
States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap,
screaming, at every word he uttered."
CIA Interrogators Protected
Moments before the memos were released, the White House issued a
statement from Obama, who was in Mexico on Thursday, which said that
CIA interrogators who carried out the torture of 28 of the 94
"high-value" detainees and who relied "in good faith upon legal advice
from the Department of Justice ... will not be subject to
prosecution."
"This is a time for reflection, not retribution," Obama said in a
statement released by the White House. "I respect the strong views and
emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and
painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and
disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and
energy laying blame for the past."
However, documents released by the Justice Department last week in
connection with a separate lawsuit the ACLU filed over the destruction
of interrogation videotapes says the CIA began videotaping
interrogations of two alleged "high value" terrorist detainees in
April 2002, four months before Bybee issued his memo.
Attorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday he told the CIA that
the federal government would provide legal representation "to any
employee, at no cost to the employee, in any state or federal judicial
or administrative proceeding brought against the employee based on
such conduct and would take measures to respond to any proceeding
initiated against the employee in any international or foreign
tribunal, including appointing counsel to act on the employee's behalf
and asserting any available immunities and other defenses in the
proceeding itself."
"To the extent permissible under federal law, the government will
also indemnify any employee for any monetary judgment or penalty
ultimately imposed against him for such conduct and will provide
representation in congressional investigations," Holder said. "It
would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to
protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the
Justice Department."
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said the methods
used by CIA interrogators, "read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April
2009, appear graphic and disturbing. As the President has made clear,
and as both CIA Director Panetta and I have stated, we will not use
those techniques in the future. But we will absolutely defend those
who relied on these memos and those guidelines."
"Truth Commission"
Two members of Congress said the contents of the memos beg for
some sort of investigation. The memos were shared with members of
Congress before they were released on Thursday.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy reiterated his
calls for a bipartisan "truth commission."
"The Bush administration not only ran roughshod over our values
and law, they undercut the public trust of the American people and
tarnished American's prestige and authority throughout the world,"
Leahy said. "These legal memoranda demonstrate in alarming detail
exactly what the Bush administration authorized for 'high value
detainees' in US custody. The techniques are chilling. This was not an
'abstract legal theory,' as some former Bush administration officials
have characterized it. These were specific techniques authorized to be
used on real people.
"We cannot continue to look the other way; we need to understand
how these policies were formed if we are to ensure that this can never
happen again. This is why my proposal for a Commission of Inquiry is
necessary. We must take a thorough accounting of what happened, not to
move a partisan agenda, but to own up to what was done in the name of
national security, and to learn from it."
But Leahy has previously said that such a committee would never
get off the ground without the support of Republicans.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan), who chairs the Senate Armed Services
Committee, said, "If we are to retain our status as a leader in the
world, we must acknowledge and confront these abuses. Only then can we
credibly object to the use of abusive tactics on our troops when they
are captured."
Levin's committee is expected to release the full-declassified
report on the roles senior Bush administration officials played in
implementing torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. The report, which
is 200 pages and contains 2,000 footnotes, is in the process of being
declassified by the Defense Department.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, who requested a
couple of weeks ago that Holder appoint a special prosecutor to begin
a criminal investigation into the Bush administration's use of
torture, did not renew those calls following the release of the memos.
"The legal analysis and some of the techniques in these memos are
truly shocking and mark a disturbing chapter in our nation's history,"
Conyers said. "Hopefully these practices have been ended for all time.
Critical questions still remain, including the role and legal
culpability of high-ranking officials in the former administration in
directing and approving the use of these troubling techniques. I urge
the administration to continue to ensure that the rule of law is
upheld concerning this matter."
War Crimes
Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project,
said Bybee's memo along with three others written in May 2005 by
former acting OLC head Steven Bradbury "are based on legal reasoning
that is spurious on its face, and in the end these aren't legal memos
at all - they are simply political documents that were meant to
provide window dressing for war crimes."
Before leaving the vice presidency, Cheney acknowledged that he
personally "signed off" on the waterboarding of al-Qaeda suspect Abu
Zubaydah and two other alleged terrorist detainees and personally
approved brutal interrogations of 33 others.
"I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping
get the process cleared, as the [Central Intelligence] Agency, in
effect, came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do,"
Cheney said in an interview last December with "ABC News." "And they
talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do.
And I supported it." |
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| I, Enemy Combatant... |
| Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 5:24 pm |
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Guest
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On Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:49:38 -0400, Nathan Bedford Forrest
<NBF at (no spam) HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
Quote: Yeah, cutting of your head isn't torture; you don't feel it after the
first few... ...<snip>.
I hear that song playing again:
...............................................
RAW HEAD !
(sung to the tune of "Rawhide")
Keep heads Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'
Al Qaeda to embolden
Keep them heads a rollin'
Raw Head !
Don't try to understand 'em
Just catch 'em, cut, and sand 'em.
Soon we'll be living high and wide
We'll keep them heads a rollin'
They'll think we took up bowlin'
They don't need their heads when they have died
Al Qaeda's calculatin'
My freedom will be waitin'
Be waiting with my sword by my side
Bring 'em on, head 'em up
Cut it off, roll it out
Stick it out, cut it off
Raw Head !
ROUND 'EM UP, TIE 'EM UP
STICK IT OUT, LOP IT OFF
CUT THE HEAD, ROLL .... IT .... OUT
R A W H e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e A D
EEYAHH ! <SWISH>
EEYAHH ! <SWISH>
R A W H e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e A D
EEYAHH ! <SWISH>
EEYAHH ! <SWISH>
#############################
Iran vs. Israel
Iran would be loyal
And send us cheap oil,
But the wolf in disguise
Can send only spies.
The Mossad In America Spying
http://judicial-inc.biz/84vmossad_in_america.htm
===Jewish CIA pigs are SCUM, but not just any kind of scum===
Not the kind of yellow pollen scum you see in mud puddles after a
rain, and not the kind of foamy scum floating on the Pee Dee River
downstream from Sanoco, but the kind of thick crusty scum that forms
in the bowl of a toilet that hasn't been flushed in over a year -
rough and hard on the top, smooth and slimy on the bottom. That's
what I'm talking about.
===Jewish CIA pigs are yellow-bellied cowards===
A Jewish CIA pig will never enter into a fair fight. When confronted
with a level playing field, the Jewish CIA pig will cut and run to
the nearest army base and hide in the PX, underneath the cash
register ...
The Mossad in the CIA
http://tbrnews.org/Archives/a2608.htm#005
====== KA - CHING ! ======
.... and feel as safe as a baby in its mother's arms. |
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