Omar Suleiman- Torturer-in-Chief

I always had a feeling that Omar wasn't any better than Mubarak, because Mubarak picked him. DemocracyNow tells us that he isn't. From their link:

During his televised speech on February 10, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak delegated some of his presidential authority to handpicked Vice-President Omar Suleiman. Professor Lisa Hajjar of the University of California, Santa Barbara chronicles Suleiman’s record, including his role in the U.S. extraordinary rendition program, his close ties to Israel and his personal involvement in the torture of prisoners.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss: Iraq running secret prison again?

Nothing in Iraq happens without the approval of Al-Maliki. Nothing. So when the Human Rights Watch group and a Los Angeles Times writeup both accuse the military of either running secret prisons and/or of torture, Maliki is also complicit in these charges. FromJurist:

Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] on Tuesday accused military officials [HRW report] overseen by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki[BBC profile; JURISTnews archive] of running a secret jail in Iraq that is not subject to inspection by international groups and torturing suspects [JURIST news archive] in another detention center. The report claims that the Iraqi Army’s 56th Brigade controls the secret prison located in Camp Justice, and that Iraqi authorities ordered 280 detainees transferred there from Camp Honor in November 2010 days before international inspectors were to visit Camp Honor. The HRW report found that the 56th Brigade tortured suspects at Camp Honor, echoing a Los Angeles Times report [text] from last week. The Times found that the Camp Honor jail is run by the 56th Brigade rather than the Ministry of Justice, that prisoners face inhumane conditions, are held indefinitely and are often denied access to family members and lawyers. According to the HRW report, personnel in the overcrowded Camp Honor extracted confessions from suspected terrorists by beating them, suffocating them and making threats against their families. Deputy Justice Minister Buso Ibrahim denied the Times report [AFP report] last week, claiming that inmates can communicate with lawyers and family members and that they do not face torture or inhumane conditions. Ibrahim claimed the International Committee of the Red Cross [advocacy website] had visited Camp Honor, but the ICRC denied this, saying that it canceled the planned visit because the Iraqi government wanted to restrict its ability to talk to prisoners. Deputy Middle East director at HRW Joe Stark commented, “Revelations of secret jails in the heart of Baghdad completely undermine the Iraqi government’s promises to respect the rule of law. The government needs to close these places or move them under control of the justice system, improve conditions for detainees, and make sure that anyone responsible for torture is punished.”

In October, UN High Commissioner for Civil Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] called for the US and Iraq toinvestigate and prosecute [JURIST report] those responsible for alleged abuses that came to light afterWikiLeaks [website] released documents showing extensive human rights abuses in Iraq and accusing US forces of turning prisoners over to Iraqi forces despite knowing those prisoners were likely to face torture. Days earlier, HRW called for the Iraqi and US governments to launch an investigation [JURIST report] and prosecute those responsible for alleged detainee abuse. The group said the WikiLeaks reports detail the US military’s failure to prevent abuses, including beatings, burnings and lashings, of Iraqi detainees at the hands of their captors. In September, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] accused the Iraqi government [JURIST report] of illegally detaining over 30,000 people and torturing many of them. Last April, HRW accused Iraqi authorities of torturing detainees [JURIST report] in another secret prison.

Nothing will ever change in Iraq it seems. There have been centuries of hate and overthrowing empires. What is pathetic however is that we, via Bush43,  have put in power another group that is no different than the one we deposed. Obama seems to be turning a blind eye to this and I can only hope that changes…soon.

Obama doesn’t slam the door on prosecuting Bush and Company..

This just in, from MSNBC:

President Barack Obama is leaving the door open to possible prosecution of Bush administration officials who devised harsh terrorism-era interrogation tactics.

He also said Tuesday that he worries about the impact of high-intensity hearings on how detainees were treated under former President George W. Bush.

But Obama did say, nevertheless, he could support a congressional investigation if it were conducted in a bipartisan way.

Obama has said he does not support charging CIA agents and interrogators who took part in waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics, acting on advice from superiors that such practices were legal. But he also said that it is up to the attorney general whether to prosecute Bush administration lawyers who wrote the memos approving these tactics.

But..Rahm said this weekend that Obama wouldn’t go after the Bush Lawyers. How does this new statement fit with that one?

Your guess is as good as mine, m’dear reader….

“justice delayed is justice denied.” - Or so sayeth Holder.

And to that end, Eric Holder will not be investigating 'war crimes' committed by Bush and his administration.

I shit you not. Jonathan Turley says so here. I will snip the important part:

In a major decision, Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that he has found that the Justice Department has acted improperly in barring any criminal investigation of well-documented war crimes committed by the Bush Administration in the torture program. To punish the failure of the Department to act in a timely fashion, he has announced that no criminal charges will be pursued regarding torture to teach prosecutors a lesson that “justice delayed is justice denied.”

On April 1, 2009, Holder held a press conference in which he was angry over the failure over Acting Associate Attorney General Daniel Marcus and Lanny Breuer, head of the Criminal Division, to even investigate the commission of war crimes despite a public record of the crime.

I am flummoxed folks. What.A.Bunch.Of.Horseshit.

Video when available.

Maj Gen.Taguba supports a torture commission.

Retired Maj. Gen. Tony Taguba investigated the abuses at Abu Gharib for the military and the Bush Administration. He now supports a commission to investigate all the horseshit done in the name of George Bush, with regard to torture and other abuses of prisoners. Salon has an interview up with Major General Taguba, who was treated horribly after his report was issued. Below is an exerpt from the writeup. It's a worthwhile read folks, check out the whole article.

On Thursday, 18 human rights organizations, former State Department officials and former law enforcement and military leaders asked the president to create a nonpartisan commission to investigate those allegedly abusive detention practices.

Retired Maj. Gen. Tony Taguba, who investigated the famed abuses at Abu Ghraib, signed on to the effort. He explained his support in an interview with Salon. Taguba agrees with many attorneys who think it would be difficult, and perhaps impossible, to prosecute former Bush administration officials. A nonpartisan fact-finding commission, however, might provide some degree of accountability for official U.S. detention and interrogation policies that Taguba called misguided and illegal.

Taguba would like to see a broad mandate for the commission, including a study of administration claims that abuse gleans good intelligence, which he fervently disputes. And while he believes the commission should look at the decisions of military and civilian policymakers, he has a particular interest in getting to the bottom of civilian leaders' claims for the legality of the administration's interrogation and detention policies, which he called "despicable and questionable." The retired general would also like to see the commission empowered to make recommendations for the future, to help ensure such abuses never occur again.

You are best known for doing an honest investigation of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. You suffered some consequences for that. Is that fair to say?

As far as consequences are concerned, the report and testimony were not going to be well received. I followed my conscience and integrity -- the best I could do to honor the Army uniform I had the privilege of wearing for over 34 years.

They parked you at the back of the Pentagon in retribution, right?

I was disappointed in my assignment back to the Pentagon to be on Rumsfeld's staff. I was suspicious about the assignment. But I served at the pleasure of the president and performed as expected. It was conveyed to me by close friends that I had to be watched closely by senior leaders.

Can you describe this torture commission that you and others are advocating?

I would not refer to it as a torture commission. [It remains to be decided] if it is to be a truth and reconciliation commission, or a presidential commission, or a congressional commission, or a private commission ... Interest groups have talked about establishing a special prosecutor in that regard. I feel we have to come to terms with policies that have gained such notoriety and have been debated about whether they were in the best interest of our national security, and whether those who created these policies were pressured by their senior leadership.

Personally, I advocate putting them ALL on trial for war crimes and after they do the perp walk on national tv, they spend the rest of their lives and the afterlife in the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. This place should not be confused with the Penitentiary at Ft. Leavenworth, although I really don't care which of the facilities Bush and his cronies end up in.

Click graphic for larger, readible image.

Tags: Tony Taguba, Torture Commission

Gates tells the Pentagon to start planning the closing of Gitmo

From Jurist:

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has ordered the Pentagon to draft a proposal for shutting down the military prison at Guantanamo Bay in preparation for a possible order from President-elect Barack Obama, a Pentagon spokesperson said Thursday. Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters that Gates wants to have a plan in place in the event Obama issues an order shortly after his inauguration to close the facility. Morrell said:

[Gates] has asked his team for a proposal on how to shut it down [and] what would be required specifically to close it and move the detainees from that facility, while at the same time ensuring that we protect the American people from some very dangerous characters.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] Executive Director Anthony Romero applauded the move [press release], saying:

The fact that Defense Secretary Gates is finally taking steps to close down Guantanamo and its unconstitutional military commissions is a welcome and encouraging sign that President-elect Obama intends to fulfill his campaign pledge. This is an important first step toward turning the page on eight years of shameful policies that allowed torture and violations of domestic and international law.

Also Thursday, the ACLU, along with Amnesty International USA, Human Rights First, and Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a letter to Obama calling on him not to create a similar detention system, should he close Guantanamo and end the military commissions system.

It can not happen soon enough for those still languishing there. Obama must end the torturing of this individuals as well as provide them with due process. Gates is stepping up to the plate on this issue and I do applaud him for that move.

Navy into torture as well.

From Jurist:

Six US sailors have been charged for allegedly abusing Iraqi detainees held at Camp Bucca. The six are said to have physically assaulted at least two detainees whom they were guarding, and locked eight others in a cell that had been covered with pepper spray. Seven other sailors reportedly faced non-judicial punishment for their involvement in the incidents. Al Jazeera has more. CNN has additional coverage.

Camp Bucca was at the center of controversy in 2003 when the so-called Taguba report (pdf) detailed instances of detainee abuse and found that the detention camp was well over its carrying capacity. Many former Abu Ghraib detainees were transferred to Camp Bucca after reports of detainee abuse in the Baghdad prison surfaced. In July, four former Abu Ghraib detainees filed lawsuits against two private US military contractors and three of their employees, alleging torture, war crimes and civil conspiracy. The former detainees said that employees of CACI International and L-3 Communications, which performed interrogation and interpretation work for the US military, violated the Geneva Convention, the Army Field Manual and US law by torturing and conspiring to torture the detainees. They also alleged that CACI and L-3 were negligent in failing to prevent the torture.

Torture a United States military tradition....across all branches apparently.

Tags: Camp Bucca, CACI, L3

Report from British Government doubts Bush is truthful on torture.

From Jurist:

The Human Rights Annual Report 2007 [PDF] released Sunday by the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee recommended that the UK not rely on any assurances made by the US that it does not use torture. The report also calls on the UK to fully investigate US interrogation tactics to ensure that no torture techniques are being used on US detainees. The report's section on torture focuses on waterboarding and the disconnect between US statements that the practice does not constitute torture and testimony by UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband that "water-boarding amounts to torture." The Foreign Affairs Committee wrote in the report:

We conclude that the Foreign Secretary's view that water-boarding is an instrument of torture is to be welcomed. However, given the recent practice of water-boarding by the US, there are serious implications arising from the Foreign Secretary's stated position. We conclude that, given the clear differences in definition, the UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, and we recommend that the Government does not rely on such assurances in the future. We also recommend that the Government should immediately carry out an exhaustive analysis of current US interrogation techniques on the basis of such information as is publicly available or which can be supplied by the US. We further recommend that, once its analysis is completed, the Government should inform this Committee and Parliament as to its view on whether there are any other interrogation techniques that may be approved for use by the US Administration which it considers to constitute torture.

BBC News has more. I really don't have anything to add this early in the AM on a Monday. Its just the wonderful start to another week of BushCo bullshit.

But WAIT!!! It gets better:


Earlier this month, the Foreign Affairs Committee denounced what it termed "false US assurances" about rendition flights through the UK Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia. The committee also said the "failure of the United States Administration to tell the truth resulted in the UK Government inadvertently misleading" the committee and House of Commons about US operations on a military base located on the island. Lawyers for Reprieve, a UK legal charity representing some of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, alleged (PDF) last year that UK overseas territories have been used "to support illegal interstate transfer, enforced disappearance and torture in the context of the 'war on terror'" and urged UK lawmakers to question US and UK officials about the allegations. In 2005, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak said there had been allegations that the US was secretly detaining prisoners on military vessels at the Diego Garcia naval base.

Have a good week!!! ;p

Red Cross says US committed War Crimes.

An International Red Cross report states that America has truly stepped in it..the universal 'we' have committed war crimes. A book coming out lays all the horror at our feet. From the NYT writeup:

Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.

The book says that the International Committee of the Red Cross declared in the report, given to the C.I.A. last year, that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, the first major Qaeda figure the United States captured, were “categorically” torture, which is illegal under both American and international law.

Jonathan Turley says it very plainly. Watch the video if you missed him on Countdown. Just because John Yoo told Bush he could torture doesn't make it legal under International Law. Again from the NYT writeup:

Citing unnamed “sources familiar with the report,” Ms. Mayer wrote that the Red Cross document “warned that the abuse constituted war crimes, placing the highest officials in the U.S. government in jeopardy of being prosecuted.” Red Cross representatives were not permitted access to the secret prisons where the C.I.A. conducted interrogations, but were permitted to interview Abu Zubaydah and other high-level detainees in late 2006, after they were moved to the military detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The book says the C.I.A. shared the report, which Ms. Mayer first described last year in less detail in The New Yorker, with President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Amazing..so disgustingly amazing. Will BushCo get away with it? Probably..but I wouldn't want to be caught outside the US borders after he leaves office, if I were him. We have been saying for years that Bush and his underlings should be tried for War Crimes and we didn't even have access to the same information the International Red Cross did.

Can you say rendition? I knew you could..

From The Guardian:

Information about the operation of prison ships has emerged through a number of sources, including statements from the US military, the Council of Europe and related parliamentary bodies, and the testimonies of prisoners.

The analysis, due to be published this year by the human rights organisation Reprieve, also claims there have been more than 200 new cases of rendition since 2006, when President George Bush declared that the practice had stopped.

Since Georgie lied about torture, it isn’t a stretch to believe he lied about this as well is it?

Condi must GO..

From BraveNew Films..a nice little vignette of the bullshit and bravado by Condi over the years regarding torture:



Visit CondiMustGo.com for more on the petition drive to remove this disgusting war crimes committing bitch. Sign the petition..what do you have to lose?

Turley on Team Torture

As Ashcroft said, and I concur: History will not treat this kindly

Team Torture?

Watching KO tonight, and using his phrase as my post title..his biggest story for me was about the ABC newstory last night that there was actually a "Team Torture" which met in the White House and included all the central players discussing which torture methods to use on which terrorists. From the ABC report:

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The ABC news story video below.


As Jonathan Turley said tonight on Countdown..its not a question of whether war crimes were committed..its a question of whether anything will be done about it.

Tags: Principles Committee, Torture methods

Conyers schedules hearing with Yoo as the star.

I doubt that Yoo will appear..after all, executive privilege is one of the buzz phrase's of the Bushie Adminstration..but here is the writeup by TPM muckraker:

House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) wants to former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo to discuss his now-infamous March 14, 2003 memo that broadly authorized the use of torture by military interrogators of unlawful combatants.

Conyers has gone ahead and scheduled a hearing for May 6th on the memo and invited Yoo in a letter today. But it's apparent from the letter that Yoo is not too enthusiastic about the prospect of testifying to Congress. He's apparently raised concerns to committee staff that the topics covered might "implicate executive confidentiality interests" and generally indicated that he'd rather not appear.

Considering how little press this memo(here's Part I and Part II) has received, I wonder how much press the hearing will get.

Tags: John Yoo, Torture memo

Americas use of waterboarding..through the centuries.

Yes, that title is not incorrect..we, the universal we, through the ages, have used and obsessed about Waterboarding my dear reader. Nothing makes that point clearer than the picture you see below these words you are now reading. That is a picture of American’s waterboarding a Filipino in 1901. We are even doing it in his own country in that graphic.

Isn’t that fucking special?

George W. Bush’s veto of the bill that expressly forbids this type of activity today just reeks of bullshit and bravado. So it is quite apropos that this writeup by Paul Kramer at the NewYorker hit my inbox this morning. The Title: Annals of American History,The Water Cure debating torture and counterinsurgency—a century ago `~ Damn thats a long-assed title isn’t it? Just a taste of his article:

Aguinaldo and some of his advisers, who had been inspired by the United States as a model republic and had greeted its soldiers as liberators, became increasingly suspicious of American motivations. When, after a period of mounting tensions, a U.S. sentry fired on Filipino soldiers outside Manila in February, 1899, the second war erupted, just days before the Senate ratified a treaty with Spain securing American sovereignty over the islands in exchange for twenty million dollars. In the next three years, U.S. troops waged a war to “free” the islands’ population from the regime that Aguinaldo had established. The conflict cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos and about four thousand U.S. soldiers.

Ah yes..torture and nation building..in the 1800’s! God, I love our history as aggressors..don’t you? How about the graphic below to get your juices flowing this fine Saturday afternoon. Its during the Vietnam War and the soldiers involved in this activity were summarily court-martialed and drummed out of the military.

Thank you George Bush..thank you for continuing the tradition of allowing our soldiers and minions to torture people of the world. I hope you love your legacy so much you fucking choke on it.

Please take the time to read Mr. Kramer’s piece today..its long but its one helluva history lesson. We are not the first to scream, bitch and gnash our teeth over torturing people. Not by a long-friggin-shot. And something tells me that we sadly won’t be the last…

TOP PHOTOGRAPH of Filipino waterboarding: ATTRIBUTED TO CORPORAL GEORGE J. VENNAGE/OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY RARE BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS LIBRARY

McCain votes FOR torture..

Its a long strange trip evidently when your running for the office of President. Take John 'Weathervane' McCain. He was against torture..and suddenly, now that he is the Rethug choice for our next Commissar...he thinks torture is just fucking dandy!! He voted no on the bill to ban torture as a method of interrogation. From the NYT writeup:

Mr. McCain, a former prisoner of war, has consistently voiced opposition to waterboarding and other methods that critics say is a form torture. But the Republicans, confident of a White House veto, did not mount the challenge. Mr. McCain voted "no" on Wednesday afternoon


My take on his vote? The old fucker is in the throes of Alzheimer's, ala Ronnie Rayguns. Its either that or he is a lying sack of sheep shit who will sell his soul for pretty much anything Presidential.

The picture below was taken during the Vietnam War. These gents were summarily court-martialed and kicked out of the Army for waterboarding this guy. Just wanted to send McCain a reminder of what he used to be against before he sold-out for a crack at being President. The last vestige of respect I had for McCain is now gone. He is a creepy old bag of bat guano that just turns my stomach now..like all the rest of the Rethugs in office.

Tags: McCain, Torture Bill, McCain sells his soul

Canada warns about US torture policies..

Bout damn time too! Bush and his Bushies might not call it torture but everyone else in the friggin world does..



I want the world and all our so-called allies to bring it up. They need to say it loud. The Asshat-in-Chief thinks we progressives are nuts..but what about his buddies in the war on terrah?

Those lying scumbags..

The boyz at the CIA must of gotten a woody whilst watching the torture videos from Gitmo, don't ya think?

Once they realized what would happen if they fell into the 'wrong hands' they quickly destroyed them. What fuckwittery is this; "a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A's secret detention program, according to current and former government officials". More from the NYT writeup:

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said.

*snip*

The recordings were not provided to a federal court hearing the case of the terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui or to the Sept. 11 commission, which had made formal requests to the C.I.A. for transcripts and any other documentary evidence taken from interrogations of agency prisoners.

Read the rest yourself..its so disgusting, I can't even deal with it right now. Processing this bullshit on a stick takes intestinal fortitude I don't currently possess.

The story of Daniel Levin and KO's Special Comment

From ThinkProgress..on the eve of the vote on Mukasey..we hope..dare we pray, that this question will be at the forefront of the vote to deny this man the office of Attorney General of these United States; Is waterboarding torture Mr. Mukasey and do you support it? 24 Intel officials say DO NOT confirm this man in a letter to committee chair.

Last night, ABC World News reported that in 2004 then-acting assistant attorney general Daniel Levin was so concerned about the administration's use of waterboarding that he went to a military base near Washington and underwent the procedure himself.

Levin took over former Office of Legal Counsel Jack Goldsmith's job when he resigned and immediately began reassessing the administration's interrogation techniques. Levin released a new memo in Dec. 2004 that replaced the 2002 Bybee memo. Levin's memo declared that "Torture is abhorrent" but also cautioned in a footnote that his memo was not declaring the administration's previous opinions illegal. "The White House, with Alberto Gonzales as the White House counsel, insisted that this footnote be included in the memo."

ABC reported that after Levin personally experienced waterboarding, he told the White House that it could be considered torture:

After the experience, Levin told White House officials that even though he knew he wouldn't die, he found the experience terrifying and thought that it clearly simulated drowning.

Levin, who refused to comment for this story, concluded waterboarding could be illegal torture unless performed in a highly limited way and with close supervision. And, sources told ABC News, he believed the Bush Administration had failed to offer clear guidelines for its use.

Levin was working on a second memo that would have imposed tighter controls on the use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding. While working on that memo, ABC reported "Levin was forced out of the Justice Department when Alberto Gonzales became Attorney General." Watch it:


ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg reported, "Sources said Levin was seen as too independent by the Bush administration — not someone who could be counted on to endorse White House policies."

The Swamp's Mark Silva writes, "Perhaps Mukasey should take the water-board for a test-ride, too."

Keith Olbermann has a special comment tonight on torture, Mukasey and waterboarding..its a must see my dear reader. I will put the video up later, but for now..a piece of his SC:

On Daviel Levin, the former U.S. Acting Assistant Attorney General, who was himself waterboarded to determine whether or not the act constituted torture and was therefore counter to the claims of the Bush Admininstration that it was not.

Water-boarding, he said, is torture.

Legally, it is torture .

Practically, it is torture.

Ethically, it is torture .

And he wrote it down.

Wrote it down somewhere, where it could be contrasted with the words of this country's 43rd President: "The United States of America does not torture."

Made you into a liar, Mr. Bush.

Made you into, if anybody had the guts to pursue it, a criminal.
Entire transcript of KO's SC here on the msnbc website.

Tags: Daniel Levin, waterboarding, Mukasey

Is waterboarding torture? You tell me..

Watch this video and figure it out. From the video: "What does the controversial interrogation method called waterboarding actually look like? Kaj Larsen finds out in this 25 minute uncut version."



It has been considered torture throughout the ages, and its still torture. Ask the Vietnam Vets that were tried and convicted for using this method of interrogation.

tags: waterboarding, Kaj Larsen,