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By Elizabeth Holtzman and Cynthia L. Cooper
$10.17
By Daniel Ellsberg
$11.56
$22
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Imagine enduring five years of imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay, finally winning your release and then learning you had no place to go. Eighty-two detainees have been cleared for release by the U.S., but remain at the facility, either because their home countries refuse to take them or they would face torture if repatriated. What’s worse, the U.S., Europe and other allies have all but washed their hands of the situation.
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Did the CIA torture an Iranian diplomat? The Red Cross head in Tehran says he saw wounds on Jalal Sharafi’s body—and after the Bush administration’s defense of torture, anything is possible.
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American officials have rejected claims made by Iranian diplomat Jalal Sharafi that he was tortured “day and night” by members of the CIA after being captured in February while stationed in Baghdad.
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AP Photo / Brennan Linsley
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By Robert Scheer — The Supreme Court may not be interested in applying American values to Guantanamo Bay, but at least one soldier has taken a principled stand against the prison’s tortured justice system.
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By Marie Cocco — Like a terminally ill animal, the Guantanamo prison is soon to be put to death. It will be an ugly execution, played out against the sophomoric non sequiturs that are the unofficial soundtrack of the war on terror.
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usip.org
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Robert Gates urged Congress on Thursday to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, acknowledging that the international community was likely to doubt the credibility of tribunals held there: “My own view is that because of things that happened earlier at Guantanamo there is a taint about it.”
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By Amy Goodman — David Hicks pleaded guilty Monday to supporting terrorism, probably to escape the living hell of Guantanamo Bay, with its show trials and “interrogation” chambers that continue to shame America at home and abroad.
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When the phrase “speaking on ground rules of anonymity” appears in The New York Times, we tend to get nervous, but a set of anonymous reports just caught our eye. According to those reports, our new defense secretary, right out of the gate (forgive the pun), argued for closing Guantanamo because its reputation had hurt the war effort. Robert M. Gates also reportedly argued that the detainees there should be brought to the U.S.
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By Marie Cocco — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales suddenly finds himself in hot water over the U.S. attorneys scandal, but the truth is, the Senate should never have confirmed him in the first place.
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theyoungturks.com
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British and Iraqi forces raided a National Iraqi Intelligence Agency detention center on Sunday and discovered 30 prisoners, including two children, “many of whom showed signs of torture and abuse.” Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the raid as an “illegal and irresponsible act” and has ordered an investigation.
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Jose Padilla has been ruled competent to stand trial, a rebuke to his lawyers. The defense had sought to have him treated for PTSD before the trial began. Padilla has been held in isolation for three and a half years, during which time he was subjected to varying kinds of interrogation and, very likely, torture.
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dw-world.de
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The Washington Post has an inside look at “black sites,” the secret detention centers operated by the CIA that hold abducted terror suspects, one of whom describes a world of interrogation, torture and misery.
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By Amy Goodman — If Lady Liberty wasn’t bolted down, she would get up and walk away, having witnessed the abusive imprisonment that America’s broken immigration system imposes on the asylum seekers, torture victims and innocent families who had the criminal impulse to search for a better life.
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The Department of Defense plans to build an $18-million facility at Guantanamo Bay in anticipation of mass migration following the eventual death of Fidel Castro. Administration officials say the housing center will be needed for interdicted Cuban migrants now that space normally used in such an event is taken up by the detention and interrogation facility that holds suspected terrorists.
(h/t: Boing Boing)
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An Italian judge has decided to go forward with the first criminal trial of extraordinary rendition. Twenty-six Americans and five Italians—including the former head of military intelligence—have been indicted and ordered to stand trial for the abduction of an Egyptian cleric who was detained and allegedly tortured in Cairo.
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spyflight.co.uk
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The European Parliament has condemned 14 member states for either ignoring or assisting the U.S. policy of “extraordinary rendition.” The report, which won approval by a wide margin, says the CIA carried out 1,245 flights of abducted suspects, sometimes to nations where the detainees could expect torture.
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Olbermann put Joel Surnow in his hall of shame for ducking a meeting with the head of West Point, who wanted “24” to tone down its constant “torture works” message. Watch the video, and read about the West Point meeting.
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The U.S. military insists that Abu Ghraib was an isolated abuse, but at least one soldier suggests a wider system of torture is at work: “I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking.”
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Germany has issued arrest warrants for 13 suspected CIA agents for their roles in the “extraordinary rendition” of Khaled al-Masri. Meanwhile, as public outrage in Europe over the abduction and torture of terror suspects grows more intense, court proceedings in Italy could lead to the indictment of 25 alleged CIA agents.
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stanfordalumni.org
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A court in Italy will decide whether to charge 25 alleged CIA agents for participating in an act of “extraordinary rendition.” The trial, should it go ahead, will be the first to address the heinous tactic, by which the United States or its allies kidnap terror suspects in order to remove them to torture-friendly nations.
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wikipedia.org
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Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has expressed her sorrow following the death of brutal Chilean dictator Agusto Pinochet, a friend until the end. Victims of Pinochet’s atrocities have also expressed sadness, now that the tyrant will escape trial for years of abuses against his people, including torture and the disappearance of some 3,000 individuals.
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New York Times
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By Robert Scheer — The Founding Fathers won a war, but their true contribution to human history was to tackle head-on the reality that humans and their institutions can so easily become that which they despise.
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nytimes.com
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Recently released video footage of Jose Padilla for the first time reveals life as an “enemy combatant” in U.S. custody. The footage shows Padilla, manacled and deprived of vision and hearing, en route to a dental appointment. Padilla was denied access to a lawyer for 21 months, testing the extent of the Bush administration’s executive power.
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Watch this harrowing personal account of the extraordinary rendition and torture of a Guantanamo detainee. (h/t: COA News)
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The CIA has argued that allowing detainees to publicly describe interrogation techniques used against them would endanger national security.
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Scotsman.com
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A new report from Human Rights Watch accuses the British government of softening protections against torture, abdicating its responsibility to pressure the U.S. against the practice and knowingly deporting terror suspects to countries where they are likely to suffer abuse.
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From the AP: “Several governments around the world have tried to rebut criticism of how they handle detainees by claiming they are only following the U.S. example in the war on terror, the U.N. anti-torture chief said Monday.”
This is what happens when you preach freedom and liberty, but practice torture.
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The International Committee of the Red Cross will contact the White House to address concerns over U.S. torture policy’s compliance with the Geneva Conventions.
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Former attorney general and amateur singer/songwriter John Ashcroft appeared Wednesday on “The Daily Show” to defend the president’s various abuses of power, including torture, which he characterized as stern questioning.
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From CNN
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Despite public statements to the contrary, Hillary Clinton now says she is amenable to the idea of the government using torture in some circumstances. The N.Y. Daily News’ Ben Smith has the details.
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It’s official. We just got medieval. The Associated Press calls it “tough interrogation.” We call it the indefinite-detainment, unyielding-torture, habeas-corpus-suspending, mortgage America’s bedrock principles upon the altar of anti-terrorism bill.
But different strokes for different folks.
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Keith Olbermann responded to the passage of the torture bill with this tongue-in-cheek investigative report on habeas corpus. (Video & Transcript)
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From Salon.com
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Guantanamo guards are bragging in bars about things like slamming detainees heads into cell doors, according to a Marine sergeant’s sworn statement, surfaced by the AP. (Above picture not of guard described in article.)
Don’t miss Rolling Stone’s riveting, sickening blow-by-blow account of these practices
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By Marie Cocco — The GOP’s coverup of Mark Foley’s Internet escapades is actually the party’s least shocking shirking of responsibility.
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From Matt Groller / Rolling Stone
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Rolling Stone presents one of the most harrowing stories we’ve read all year: a blow-by-blow description of the experience of a teenage jihadist who has been tortured by Americans in Gitmo for the past four years.
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While we wait for the Supreme Court to invalidate Bush’s torture law, we offer up a little satire on the issue. In this piece, a Nation writer hilariously re-imagines our new Military Commissions Act. (Or let Jon Stewart take it away.)
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As expected, the Senate sent the despicable detainee interrogation bill to the president’s desk last night. See its horrifying provisions here.
As long as this law stands, we too shall stand in forfeit of the moral high ground in this struggle. It’s a sad day for our once-proud republic.
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When Bush asserts that the Geneva Convention is vague, because it prohibits “outrages upon human dignity,” the host of “The Daily Show” tees off.
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The interrogation bill headed for Bush’s desk would allow him to detain anyone indefinitely and decide (privately) what constitutes torture; it eliminates habeas corpus and judicial review, and it permits coerced evidence. The N.Y. Times calls it “our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts.”
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A provision that would grant President Bush the discretion of deciding what is and isn’t torture is likely to land on his desk by the weekend unless there’s a legislative miracle.
We can only hope that the Supreme Court will toss out this travesty.
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