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Edited by Cynthia E. Cohen, Roberto Gutiérrez Varea and Polly O. Walker
$21.95
By Bob Woodward
$15.00
$20
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The U.N.‘s chief anti-torture expert, Manfred Nowak, says: “The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein.” Sectarian violence has filled the Baghdad morgue with bodies bearing evidence of brutal torture. More
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NPR/Patrick Kovarik
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In an interview with NPR’s “Morning Edition,” former President Bill Clinton vigorously argued against Bush’s torture plans, citing both moral and practical reasons: “We have a system of laws here where nobody should be above the law, and you don’t need blanket advanced approval for blanket torture.”
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By Marie Cocco — If John McCain, John Warner and Lindsey Graham are so intent on keeping Bush from legalizing torture, why did they vote to confirm Alberto Gonzales, the architect of Bush’s terror policy, as attorney general?
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By Joe Conason — “Clearly, Bush cannot comprehend the damage he is doing to American dignity, credibility and prestige…. His public negotiations with the dissident senators over torture techniques have created one of the worst spectacles in modern political history.”
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By Molly Ivins — The Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition told Sen. John McCain that he can forget about the evangelical Christian vote if he doesn’t support Bush’s torture bill. I’d like to see an evangelical vote on that one.
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NBC reporter David Gregory uses a smart hypothetical scenario to challenge Bush on his interrogation policy; Bush ducks it and keeps to his talking points—as usual, but Gregory keeps up.
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The USA show “The 4400” featured this dramatized depiction of “waterboarding,” in which victims are made to feel as though they are drowning. Andrew Sullivan says it’s time to look at what our government is doing and call it by its proper name.
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By Robert Scheer — A day before Bush paid lip service to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in his U.N. address, a Canadian government commission accused the U.S. of “rendering” a Canadian to Syria for almost a year of torture.
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Courtesy MHP Books
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By Onnesha Roychoudhuri — The authors of the new book “Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA?s Rendition Flights” tell Truthdig guest interviewer Onnesha Roychoudhuri how they pieced together the first comprehensive look at the largest covert CIA operation since the Cold War—a program run not only by shadowy government contractors in the darkest corners of Afghanistan, but also by unassuming America family lawyers in places like Dedham, Mass.
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Only last week, the president drew a line in the sand over his proposed interrogation rules, threatening to cancel the CIA interrogation program altogether if a trio of rebellious Republicans refused to pass his version. In a total reversal, the Bush administration has reestablished talks with the defiant senators, hoping to work out a deal and pass the stalled legislation.
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On Monday, Stephen Colbert went after Bushs proposed re-imagining of the Geneva Convention by inviting the president to come on the Report and demonstrate his preferred interrogation techniques. Mocking the presidents assertion that the treaty banning torture lacks clarity, Colbert observed: I personally think the image of the president saying specifically what, to him, is not an outrage on human dignity will make everyone see his position very clearly….
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In case you’re wondering what people like Sen. John McCain and Colin Powell are fighting against in Bush’s interrogation legislation, read about the euphemistically named “temperature extremes” treatment here.
Also, despite denials, Bush is likely pushing on for the use of “water-boarding.”
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This week, our selection of the best Truthdig-flavored videos contains Keith Olbermann’s iconic Ground Zero diatribe against President Bush; Matt Lauer’s harsh questioning of the president on torture and secret CIA prisons; and George Clooney’s impassioned plea to the U.N. to act against the looming threat of genocide in Darfur.
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During the president’s Rose Garden press conference, NBC reporter David Gregory asked Bush how he would feel if a country like Iran or North Korea kidnapped an American citizen, tortured him and then tried him without letting him see any evidence. Bush’s answer was a nonsensical non sequitur. (Read it) (Salon post - ad required)
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GOP Sen. Lindsay Graham is telling reporters that White House officials effectively forced military lawyers to sign a letter supporting President Bush’s new legislation on harsh interrogation tactics—after the lawyers previously testified publicly against those measures.
Watch the video.
Andrew Sullivan called the move “breathtaking and shameless.”
This article gives needed background to this complicated issue.
Posted on Sep 14, 2006
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NBC host Matt Lauer confronts President Bush on a fundamental apparent inconsistency in his interrogation policy: If it’s legal, why are we doing it in secret CIA prisons abroad? Cornered, Bush doesn’t answer straight. Watch the fireworks.
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Illustration by Peter Scheer
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In 2002 Abu Zubaydah, a captured Bin Laden henchman, experienced two radically different kinds of interrogation as the FBI and the CIA secretly engaged in a debate that continues today. As one official put it: ?When you rough these guys up, all you do is fulfill their fantasies about what to expect from us.?
Posted on Sep 9, 2006
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Legislation put forward by the Bush administration this week would legalize the same torture techniques recently banned by the Army. By selectively interpreting the Geneva Conventions, the legislation would allow CIA operatives and even the Army, should it decide to revert to previous rules, to conduct interrogations using unsavory methods.
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europa.eu
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Members of the European Union?s parliament have been fuming over the existence of secret European prisons, following Bush?s recent admission about the facilities. In response to the discovery and to previous denials by European leaders who may have played host to the detention centers, one lawmaker said: ?Bush exposes not only his own previous lies. He also exposes to ridicule those arrogant government leaders in Europe who dismissed as unfounded our fears about extraordinary rendition.?
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Associated Press
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Yielding to pressure from humanitarian groups, Congress and the Supreme Court, the U.S. Army will release a new field manual that affords all detainees protection from torture under the Geneva Convention. The new document will ban several ?interrogation? methods that have drawn criticism, including simulated drowning and the use of dogs to terrorize detainees.
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The Water Torture--Facsimile of a woodcut in J. Damhoudre's "Praxis Rerum Criminalium:"
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Christine Axsmith, a software contractor for the CIA, was fired when she posted a blog entry to the agency’s closed network stating her opposition to torture. The post started like this: “Waterboarding is Torture and Torture is Wrong.” Such a sad confirmation of our government’s dismal human rights policies that so obvious a statement qualifies as grounds for termination.
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From MSNBC
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He’s been described as “the most powerful person you’ve never heard of,” and “Cheney’s Cheney.” He’s David Addington, the vice president’s chief of staff, and he’s behind the legal arguments to support presidential-sanctioned torture, the attempt to discredit Joe Wilson, and the bogus Niger uranium story. The New Yorker has a must-read profile.
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ABC News gets an extremely rare (maybe unprecedented) look at the inside of Guantanamo Bay. Watch it.
The head interrogator denies all use of torture, and even refers to his interrogations as “custodial interviews.”
The room pictured above—which has a plush lazy chair—is supposedly one of the interrogation rooms.
This sugar-coated look at Gitmo feels sort of like the tours of North Korea that Westerners sometimes get.
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Specifically, today’s Supreme Court ruling held that the president overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.
But more important, Think Progress interprets the ruling to mean that “the Authorization for the Use of Military Force—issued by Congress in the days after 9/11—is not a blank check for the administration.”
Also, SCOTUSblog says the ruling means that the Geneva Convention does apply to the conflict with Al Qaeda, and consequently “this almost certainly means that the CIA’s interrogation tactics of waterboarding and hypothermia (and others) violate the War Crimes Act.”
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In his new book, ?The One Percent Doctrine,? Ron Suskind details how America’s torture of a mentally ill prisoner led the White House to pursue false leads in the war on terror.
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From MSNBC
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It’s David Addington, Dick Cheney’s new chief of staff, who has been instrumental in fashioning legal arguments to support presidential-sanctioned torture, the attempt to discredit Joe Wilson, and the bogus Niger uranium story. U.S. News has the goods in this fantastic profile.
Sickened by those “signing statements” that Bush uses to essentially ignore the laws Congress has passed? Addington has his fingerprints all over those.
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A United Nations panel on torture isn’t buying President Bush’s assurances that America does not send suspected terrorists to countries known for using torture to extract information. The panel also recommended the closing of America’s Guantanamo military prison in Cuba.
Posted on May 19, 2006
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From prisonplanet.com
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Truthdig salutes Ray McGovern, the 27-year CIA veteran who articulated the outrage of a nation by publicly and heroically challenging Donald Rumsfeld’s lies about Iraqi WMD.
Click here for the full report.
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Amnesty International’s report says the U.S. has failed to eradicate “widespread” torture in its jails in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba. Also, no senior U.S. officials have been held accountable for the practices.
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By Molly Ivins — It’s nice to know that the investigative reporter Jack Anderson is still under investigation, although seriously dead.
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Fox Broadcasting
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Adam Elkus —
In championing ?24,? Pat Buchanan and Bush administration apologists oversimplify a complex depiction of counter-terrorism and also use an idealized fictional violence to justify real-world abuses of the law and authority.
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From The Washington Post
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U.S. inspectors are not removing from Iraqi jails prisoners who show signs of being tortured by Iraqi jailers—as the U.S. has pledged to do.
This is progress—of a sort. Now, instead of torturing the prisoners ourselves, we’re turning a blind eye to Iraqi-on-Iraqi torture.
Posted on Apr 24, 2006
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By Tom Hayden — The social and political activist discusses the war in Iraq, U.S.-Cuba relations, and America’s war on drugs. (translated from a Cuban newspaper)
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By Molly Ivins — The more that administration leaders play games with definitions of democracy and weasel wording about torture, the less they can be believed about anything. So if they someday tell the truth, no one will believe them.
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From Max Becherer / Polaris / The New York Times
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As Baghdad’s murder rate triples from 11 to 33 a day, bodies are turning up with horrific signs of torture. “This is sectarian cleansing,” says a Kurdish member of parliament.
Posted on Mar 25, 2006
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You may want to swallow your food before reading this….
Just as he did with the anti-torture law, Bush placed an addendum on the Patriot Act saying he doesn’t have to obey parts of the law.
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From the NY Times
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The New York Times uncovers the story of a top-secret detention center in Baghdad where American jailers “used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball.”
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From The New York Times
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The photo of him in a hood, arms outspread and with electrical wires trailing from his body became the definitive image of the prison abuse scandal.
He is now heading up a prisoners’ rights organization.
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From nndb.com
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Think Progress puts together an in-depth cheat sheet on all the ways Roberts has shrunk from his responsibilities as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Posted on Mar 9, 2006
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Naomi Klein —
Bush’s choice of Panama to make his declaration that America does not torture “is a little like dropping by a slaughterhouse to pronounce the United States a nation of vegetarians.”
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In a rare interview with the BBC, the Guantanamo detainee says that the force-feeding of hunger strikers amounts to torture: “Death in this situation is better than being alive and staying here without hope,” he says.
Posted on Mar 3, 2006
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Truly shocking: White House lawyers are arguing that the new law banning cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees does not apply to people held at Guantanamo.
Of course, we should have seen this coming when Bush, upon signing the law, brushed off Congress and America by reserving the right to ignore the law under his powers as commander in chief.
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A legendary South African journalist calls himself “appalled” at the way America’s policies of wiretapping and torture are beginning to resemble those of apartheid Cape Town. (Video available.)
Posted on Feb 24, 2006
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Fox News via Crooks and Liars
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We stood up and cheered when we saw this one: Sean Hannity needles Arianna Huffington about something Alec Baldwin said, and Arianna throws it back in his face by listing some of the indefensible and “toxic” things Ann Coulter has said over the years. Good one, Arianna.
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Two years before the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the Navy’s general counsel warned the Pentagon that its wink-and-nod policies on torture would invite abuse, reports The New Yorker.
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Too Soon to Tell: The Case for Hope, Continued
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