Where’s the Outrage?

Michael Jackson update — the cops are looking for a second physician.  Jackson’s primary physician Dr. Conrad Murray has lawyered up.  Randy Jackson appears to be making the funeral plans.  (Randy is the youngest brother.)  Michael Jackson will be on the cover of Time magazine.  The Jackson family may be looking to get a second autopsy. (TMZ has been two to four hours ahead of the MSM on this story.)

Last night the Washington Post reported that president Barack Obama was looking into writing an Executive Order continuing indefinite detention, without trial, on several detainees.  My stomach is beginning to turn.  Glenn, Joan and others have extensively commented on this craziness.  I understand about the responsibility to keep us safe.  I also understand about the rule of law.  Getting Congress to change the laws in spite the fact that these guys have been in our custody for several years just doesn’t smack of American justice.

Enbattled Governor Mark Sanford has stated clearly that he will not resign… some sort of biblical analogy involving King David which really did not fit the situation.  Furthermore, I think that he has completely lost his ability to quote the Bible to anybody.  He needs to just sit down and read it for while.  He may comprehend some of its teachings and lessons.  (Psst… Governor. Start with the 10 Commandments.)  Sanford should be the second governor to be impeached this year for dereliction of duty.  Now I have not read the South Carolina Constitution but I’m sure it has something in it about being a complete moron.

The violence in Iraq appears to be escalating.  Motorcycle bombs killed 20 in separate attacks.  More than 250 people died in attacks this week.  It is sad that we’ve done such a poor job at creating an environment for peace.  We created a great environment from which Bectel, Halliburton and Blackwater can extract millions of dollars.

In a bizarre story, the wife of Representative John Conyers, the chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, pled guilty to one count of corruption in Detroit yesterday.  Monica Conyers accepted two cash bribes of at least $3000 each.  Really? Seriously?  I mean, it if they don’t hand you a suitcase that has enough money in it for you to live in a Caribbean island the rest of your life, what’s the point?

The swine flu slowly but surely continues to march on.  It should not be forgotten nor taken lightly.  Currently in the United States there are 27,717 cases with 127 deaths.  I’ve not heard anything new on the vaccine.  It seems to me that it is very likely that the swine flu will spike again as winter approaches.  We must be diligent.  Frequent handwashing.  Stay home when sick.  This could be a huge problem.

Tags: Civil Rights, Domestic Issues, Entertainment, Healthcare, House of Representatives, Iraq, Torture by ecthompson
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Now, this is good stuff.

My special guest is Marcy Wheeler who scooped the mainstream media I actually reading the torture memos. She was one of discovered that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded over 100 times. I discussed with my producer, Agnes, who’s back from a long hiatus, the importance of people being involved in the government.

Marcy Wheeler and I go into some detail about the torture memos. This should not be missed. Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

From the Bybee memo:

Our advice is based upon the following facts, which you have provided to us. We also understand that you do not have any facts in your possession contrary to the facts outlined here, and this opinion is limited to these facts. If these facts were to change, this advice would not necessarily apply.  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 in 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 interrogations into what you have described as an “increased pressure phase.’”

We spend some time discussing this paragraph.  It is very important.  I think that it shows, since none of the criteria were met, that even under the Bush torture memos, we violated even that standard.  This is a great interview.  enjoy!

 

 The Errington Thompson Show 4-25-09 [47:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Podcasts, State and Local Politics, Torture by ecthompson
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There is more evidence that we tortured and/or abused prisoners at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan. This is so un-American.

From the BBC:

Bagram has held thousands of people over the last eight years and a new detention centre is currently under construction at the camp.

Some of the inmates are forcibly taken there from abroad, especially Pakistanis and at least two Britons.

Since coming to office US President Barack Obama has banned the use of torture and ordered a review of policy on detainees, which is expected to report next month.

But unlike its detainees at the US naval facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the prisoners at Bagram have no access to lawyers and they cannot challenge their detention. (more… )

From Human Rights Watch:

# In November 2002, the CIA was reportedly involved in the torture and killing of a detainee in Afghanistan. A CIA case officer at the “Salt Pit,” a secret U.S.-run prison just north of Kabul, ordered guards to “strip naked an uncooperative young Afghan detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets,” the Washington Post reported on March 3, after interviewing four government officials familiar with the case. According to the article, Afghan guards “paid by the CIA and working under CIA supervision” dragged the prisoner around the concrete floor of the facility, “bruising and scraping his skin,” before placing him in a cell for the night without clothes. An autopsy by a medic listed “hypothermia” as the cause of death, and the man was buried in an “unmarked, unacknowledged cemetery.” A U.S. government official interviewed told the Post: “He just disappeared from the face of the earth.”
# Two detainees were killed in December 2002 at Bagram airbase. These cases were previously reported by Human Rights Watch and were the subject of an exhaustive investigation by the New York Times. According to documents obtained by Human Rights Watch and a criminal investigation file obtained by the Times, two Afghan detainees named Dilawar and Habibullah died at Bagram airbase after being chained to the ceiling and severely beaten by U.S. guards and interrogators. Military intelligence officers knew of the pattern of abuses at the time, but failed to stop them. Although several soldiers were eventually charged with assault—in the wake of continued reporting on the case by Human Rights Watch—no personnel have been charged with homicide. In the months after the deaths, the U.S. military continued to tell journalists that the detainees had died of natural causes. (more… )

Tags: Afghanistan, Torture, War on Terror by ecthompson
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This is a great show.  It takes place after the famous tea bagging parties, so  I go out of my way not to talk about tea, tea bags, tea baggers, taxes, tax cuts or anything else that has to do with tea bagging.  The subject has been done so many times.  We can’t go there anymore.

Aaron is preparing to go to a broadcast convention in Las Vegas.  We spend a little time talking about Vegas and some of the great comedians that I’ve seen in Vegas, including Bill Cosby, Jackie Mason and Bob Newhart.  I also talk about some of the great shows which can be seen in Vegas, which would include Cirque du Soleil.

The torture memos, four separate documents, were released this week.  The first is a memo by Jay Bybee, who at the time was Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel.  The second memo was written approximately three years later by Stephen Bradberry, acting Assistant Attorney General at the Office of Legal Counsel.  Steven Bradbury has a second memo from that same date, May 10, 2005.  This is the third of the four memos.  Finally, Stephen Bradberry writes a last memo on May 30, 2005.  These memos are eye-opening.  I have had an opportunity to read all of them.  Of course, Marcy Wheeler has.

A new law in Afghanistan is passed in which a man does not need to have consent in order to have sex with his wife.  This is crazy with a capital “C.” I’m figuring the phrase “human rights” and “Afghanistan” don’t belong in the same sentence… at least not at this time.

Susan Boyle.

Elizabeth Warren, who is overseeing the TARP funds, is on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  They’re in the middle of an interesting yet depressing discussion about how we have handed billions of dollars to these large corporations with little or no accountability.  Just as I think Jon Stewart’s head is about to explode (and mine), Professor Warren launches into a thoughtful history of banking regulation in the United States since the early 1800s.  It is a famous explanation and I play her whole discussion point.  It is extremely insightful.  As Jon Stewart said, “That was like financial chicken soup for me.”

Credit default swaps, no-money-down mortgage loans, deregulation… I spend a good deal of time trying to make sense out of the craziness in the financial system.  Basically, I don’t think that there’s any one thing that has caused our financial implosion.  Instead, I believe it was a series of things.  I guess the point of my discussion is that we need more regulation of the financial industry in order to prevent meltdowns like this in the future.  Expect a financial institutions to push back against any regulation.  There’s going to be significant opposition both from Democrats and Republicans over reigning in the banks.

Why is everything so complex? I discuss some recent trouble I’ve had with my blog.  I’ve had trouble posting and updating my blog.  My computer gurus were somewhat stumped at what was wrong.  I’m not sure that there’s anything else in American society that can be so frustrating as a computer or computer program that is not working as it should.  I’m not sure why it’s so frustrating but it is.  By the way, we did figure out the problem with my blog and it’s now up and running.

I cover these topics and more.  My podcasts are also available on iTunes.  Enjoy!

 

 The Errington Thompson Show 4-18-09 [47:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Domestic Issues, Podcasts, The Daily Show, Torture by ecthompson
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Paul Krugman had an outstanding column which posted on Thursday.  He discussed the engine that may be driving all of this violent extremism which has resulted in the shooting at the Holocaust Museum and the cold-blooded murder of Dr. George Tiller.  Krugman said, “Conservatives were outraged (at the Department of Homeland security report).  The chairman of the Republican national committee denounced the report as an attempt to ’segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration’ and label them as terrorists.”  He went on to say, “Today, as in the early days of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.”  Krugman hit the nail on the head.

One of the tactics that the conservatives use is what I’ll call the Diana Ross Doctrine — Upside Down.  Hopefully, some you are old enough to remember Diana Ross’ hit single Upside Down.  It is a nice tune in which she describes being disoriented by her lover.  She is in fact turned — upside down.  Conservatives have taken what is obviously a right wing extremist and applied the Diana Ross doctrine.  Now, magically we’re supposed to believe that a white supremacist who hated Jews and Blacks was a left-wing extremist.  I thought left-wing extremists were like ecoterrorists?

What the hell is going on in Iran?  Both sides have claimed victory.  Extremely confusing.

Great Healthcare summary here.  BTW, the Swine Flu is still here and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.  There are now over 17,000 cases and 45 deaths.  The World Health Organization has declared a pandemic and the MSM yawned.

EmptyWheel has an excellent post on the Senate Select Committee On Intelligence.  Both she and I shared a skepticism over Senator Dianne Feinstein’s ability to truly investigate torture.  She seemed to be somewhat of a Bush administration cheerleader.  Yet, it appears that she is slowly but surely performing a thorough investigation.  In a separate post Marcy, who loves lists, sets out the chronology that led up to the May 10, 2005 memos on torture.  Marcy is incredibly detail oriented.  She compiles information that can’t be found almost anywhere else.  (By the way, why is Senator Dianne Feinstein chairman of the Senate select committee on intelligence?  Why isn’t Senator Rockefeller?  What happened?  I’m just asking.)

I saw a snippet of the report that President Obama had fired the Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service (whatever that is).  Well, Talking Points Memo has the background story.  It appears that the Inspector General, Gerald Walpin, was doggedly pursuing Kevin Johnson, a big Obama supporter, who is also the mayor of Sacramento, for misappropriation of funds through a charity that he runs called St. Hope Academy.  The whole story is rather intricate, but it appears that the US Attorney General thought there was no case, yet Gerald Walpin continued to pursue Johnson.

Glenn Greenwald has had a series of posts which relate to one of the basic tenants of conservatism, at least conservatism as it is practiced in the United States.  Conservatives like to say that their ideals are being prosecuted.  They like to protect themselves as a persecuted minority instead of the most prosperous and privileged among us.  Glenn has more.

Finally, there’s some good criticism about President Obama’s economic plans.  As in any democracy, there is supposed to be and give-and-take.  At the beginning of the economic stimulus discussion there seem to be a lot of excellent ideas on spending.  These would have been long-term investments into our infrastructure.  Many of these great ideas, including high-speed rail, which in my opinion would have paid dividends down the line, were tossed out in the sake of fiscal responsibility, party unity or whatever. Von of Obsidian Wings has a great post on how we are missing our economic targets.  I fear that we may be looking at another jobless recovery.  The jobless rate for new graduates is ridiculously high.  We have to figure out a way to produce jobs or Obama will be a one-term president.

Oh, by the way, a new painting by Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered… sort of.  The painting appears to be a copy of the long-lost original which many have been based on a nude Mona Lisa.

Updates: I forgot that the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup yesterday. I’m sorry. I grew up in Dallas. I still don’t get hockey and I have this problem with Pittsburgh. Still.

The shuttle was scheduled to takeoff today (Saturday), but there appears to be a hydrogen leak. This is a problem.

Tags: Economy, Healthcare, Iran, National Intelligence, Obama administration, Party Politics, Terrorism, Torture by ecthompson
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I’ve mentioned high-value terrorists. I wrote about Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Mohammed Al-Qahtani (most of this story comes from Jane Mayer’s book, The Dark Side). In August 2001, prior to September 11, Al-Qahtani arrived at the Orlando airport in Florida.  He had $2800 in cash and no luggage.  He came here on a one-way ticket from Saudi Arabia and was refused entry into the country.  Further detective work, after 9/11, showed that Mohammed Atta was waiting for him in the parking lot.  Al Qahtani was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan in December of 2001.  He was in United States custody for almost 7 months before he was fingerprinted and identified as an Al Qaeda operative.  He was the 20th hijacker.  He was at the famed Malaysia meeting in 2000. (Why we didn’t get better intelligence at the Malaysia meeting is still a mystery to me.  Why we allow the Malaysian intelligence agency to take the lead is mind-boggling.)

FBI interrogator Ali Soufan, who interrogated Abu Zubaydah before he was taken away by the CIA, was called into question Al-Qahtani.  He got a lot of information in a short period time.  He even identified a sleeper cell located in Chicago.  This wasn’t enough information for US officials, who “knew” that Al Qahtani was holding out.  Tougher measures were needed.  My question is why would officials assume that a low-level screw-up who’d been captured twice in less than six months would have a treasure trove of information?  I’m just asking.  It is clear that there was a lot of outside pressure being placed on US officials.  In April of 2002 there was a terrorist attack on a synagogue in Tunisia.  The US Consulate in Karachi was attacked in June.

It is clear that towards the end of 2002, the FBI backed out of the picture.  There’s a steady stream of information from Washington to Guantánamo and back to Washington.  Donald Rumsfeld and the commander of Guantánamo Major General Dunlevy had what was described as “close and constant contact.”  By November of 2002, the gloves indeed came off.  For 48 of the next 54 days, Al-Qahtani was only allowed to sleep for four hours a day.  Besides being stripped naked, he was strip-searched and forced to undergo enemas in front of females.  He was intentionally touched by females, making it impossible for him to pray (you can’t pray if you’re unclean and you’re unclean if you’re touched by female).  He was forced to stand so long his feet and hands swelled.  He needed to have his hands and feet bandaged and elevated to treat the painful swelling.  At one point, he was treated like a dog, which included being placed in a leash and forced to jump around.  There was more degrading treatment.  He became so dehydrated at one point the physician had to start a special IV.

What did we learn from these harsh interrogations of Al-Qahtani?  Nothing.  The process was slow and time-consuming. I’m forced to scratch my head and ask the question, “Why?”  We learned nothing.  We should’ve known he knew nothing.  Now my question is, how do we try this guy? How do we put him in jail, where he belongs, for the rest of his life?

Tags: Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, Bush Administration, Torture by ecthompson
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Matthew Alexander is a former interrogator. He was in Iraq and interrogated over 300 prisoners. He was told time and time again that the torture of Muslims motivated Muslims to pick up arms against the United States. So who do you think is lying… Cheney or this former interrogator, Matthew Alexander? It seems to me that VP Cheney is trying to keep himself out of jail.

Tags: Al Qaeda, Bush Administration, Iraq, Torture by ecthompson
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I just saw the movie Angels and Demons. It was much better than The Da Vinci Code. Tom Hanks has lost 35 or 40 pounds and he looks good. The movie lacks those dull, slow parts that so dominated the first one. It’s very entertaining and, in my opinion, more respectful of religion.  It is well worth the admission price.

North Korea proved that they are less respectful of the rest of the international community by setting off some sort of nuclear device earlier today. It will take several days to analyze the data, but it seems clear that North Korea set off some sort of large device. Now what? Should there be consequences for defying the international community? Who should enforce those consequences? The United States? Should the United States try to enforce something unilaterally? That sounds a lot like what the Bush administration did with Iraq. The international community will not go for the US going its own way, again. Should the United States, Russia, China and the European Union try to do something jointly? It is important to remember that no matter what we do, North Korea has the ability to retaliate, not against us, but against the South Korean civilians. It will be interesting to see if President Obama will be able to forge a coalition that will actually force North Korea into some sort of international compliance.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell went on the offensive yesterday to combat charges that several Republicans, including Dick Cheney, have thrown at him (remember, Powell left the Republican party). He argued that he is still Republican. To paraphrase his argument, the Republican Party needs to, dare I say it, change. Now there are a lot of Americans who still believe that Colin Powell can save the Republican Party. I don’t know. Maybe he can. I know it’s a long way to the 2012 elections, but I don’t see Colin Powell as a viable candidate. I believe that his reputation is too tainted with the stain of Iraq. I just don’t see how the Republican Party can move forward without dealing with some of their more radical elements. This would include Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Dick Cheney.

Many progressives are upset that Barack Obama has decided to push ahead with military commissions. Personally, I think that military commissions set a terrible precedent. Putting precedent aside, though, I understand that President Obama is in a terrible situation. People like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the so-called “20th hijacker” Al-Qahtani are clearly terrorists. If given the opportunity, they would try to wreak havoc either on the United States or United States interests around the world. They need to be tried and jailed for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, both of them were subjected to harsh interrogations (torture). There’s no court in the United States that would try these guys. Most, if not all, of the evidence would be thrown out. So what do you do with them? Indefinite detention without charges seems repugnant to me. If we could find a way to try Terry McVeigh and the so-called Blind Sheik, then we should be able to find a way to try and convict these two terrorists. We have to have some evidence that was not obtained by illegal means. We must. (I hope.)

Finally, Ryan Leaf has been arrested. I’m not laughing at the misfortune of others, but… just a little over 10 years ago, Ryan Leaf was the number two draft choice for the San Diego Chargers. He went from the anointed one to a bum in less time than Sarah Palin has. The former NFL quarterback has been indicted on drug and burglary charges. This says something about our society and about Ryan Leaf. Maybe putting athletes up on a pedestal is not the best idea.

Oh, this is a great Memorial Day story.

Tags: Civil Liberty, Domestic Issues, Movies, North Korea, Obama administration, Party Politics, Torture by ecthompson
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On one hand I like to commend this guy, conservative talker Eric “Mancow” Muller for being brave enough to be waterboarded. On the other hand, though, when you read descriptions about it, it’s clear that waterboarding is torture. I don’t have to hit my head against the wall to know that it’s going to hurt. I have no desire to jump out of a speeding car to find out that I could break bones. I have no desire to have somebody put a wet cloth over my nose and mouth while I aspirate water. I feel pretty confident that that’s drowning. Also… what took him so long? The United States has been waterboarding since 2002 and I posted my first video of somebody getting themselves waterboarded back in 2006. That was three years ago. Where’s this guy been?

Watch the video:

From TP:
Turns out the stunt wasn’t so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,”Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”

“I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture,” Mancow said. “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face…I got voted to do this but I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off.’”

Tags: Party Politics, Torture by ecthompson
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I’ve become somewhat overwhelmed by what my country, the United States, has done. While I’m still struggling with the definition of “torture,” I believe that some abuse (most of the things that I’ve read) can be classified as torture. We have a long history in our country of delineating good treatment from bad treatment of detainees (prisoners or soldiers).

I’ve come across a story of Khaled el-Masri (I found the story in Jane Mayer’s book, the Dark Side. Other accounts of this tale can be found here and here.)  El-Masri was a Muslim of Lebanese descent but became a German citizen in 2003. He had a German passport. Going across from Macedonia into Serbia for a vacation from the family, he was stopped at a checkpoint. For 13 days he was held by Macedonian authorities. He was not allowed to call his family. He was not allowed access to a lawyer. As it turns out, he has the exact same name as a terrorist the United States government was looking for. As a twist of fate, this happened around the holidays so the Macedonian authorities had difficulty verifying the new German passport.

Almost immediately the CIA was alerted of his capture. The CIA wanted him transferred to a prison in Afghanistan. So, basically we have a man who was stopped at a checkpoint. He is arrested and detained for 13 days without Macedonian authorities verifying that the redesigned passport was indeed an official German passport. United States officials, the CIA, desperately wanted to talk with this man.

After 13 days, El-Masri believed that he was going to be released. He was taken to the airport, where he was blindfolded and led into a small room. In this room, he was stripped of all his clothes, photographed and beaten. Earplugs were placed in his ears, a hood is thrown over his head and he was thrown on a jet, tranquilized and sent to Afghanistan. Over the next 149 days, a debate raged within the CIA. The head of the counterterrorism division believed that he, el-Masri, was in fact a terrorist, even though she has never seen or spoken with this man. CIA agents, in Afghanistan and at Langley, argue that they have no evidence against him. In Afghanistan, el-Masri was thrown in a cold dank cell. The water was foul and the food was even worse. He developed chronic diarrhea. He lost some 40 to 50 pounds. He was given frequent enemas.  According to reports, he was threatened with death. “You’re in a country where no one knows about you. There is no rule of law. If you die, you will be buried here. No one will ever know.”

After 149 days, El-Masri was released as only the CIA could do it. There is no explanation. He was simply flown to Albania. He was driven down the long winding road and given back his possessions, told to walk and not look back. He was met by three men who gave him some food and took him to the Tirana airport. From there he was flown home.

I have a problem understanding how you can whisk somebody away from their family for almost five months without one shred of evidence. I find this completely mind-boggling, nauseating and stupid.  One CIA officer call the program of rendition - Kidnap, Inc.

Tags: Bush Administration, Security, Torture by ecthompson
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Torture has been very difficult for me to get my arms around. In spite of the relatively clear definitions of torture there are these odd words that appear in the definition like “prolonged.” How long is prolonged? And, as a friend of mine pointed out, being put in jail will surely cause mental suffering. Is that torture? I guess my answer is that society decides what is torture and what isn’t. We’ve decided that it is not acceptable to slap prisoners.

One of the problems in this “war on terror” is that we allowed the Bush administration to label terrorists as enemy combatants. We were allowed to dehumanize people who were captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Once you dehumanize someone, it becomes much easier to torture.

If I have some time later on this afternoon, I hope to provide more clarity. Scott Horton, who has been on my radio show several times, has an excellent post on one of the extremes of torture –

In a recent television appearance, one of the nation’s foremost retired military leaders, General Barry McCaffrey, said: “We should never, as a policy, maltreat people under our control, detainees. We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A.” The fact of dozens of homicides is frankly acknowledged in discussions with military and intelligence experts, but the press seems to regard the subject as taboo.

Writing at the Daily Beast, John Sifton takes us on a tour of the deaths that resulted from the Bush Administration’s torture policies. The Bush Justice Department knew about these homicides and did nothing. Here’s one that resulted from a formally approved practice that Capt. Ian Fishback described as “smoking a PUC,” a person under control, or prisoner:

in December 2003, a 44-year-old Iraqi man named Abu Malik Kenami died in a U.S. detention facility in Mosul, Iraq. As reported by Human Rights First, U.S. military personnel who examined Kenami when he first arrived at the facility determined that he had no preexisting medical conditions. Once in custody, as a disciplinary measure for talking, Kenami was forced to perform extreme amounts of exercise—a technique used across Afghanistan and Iraq. Then his hands were bound behind his back with plastic handcuffs, he was hooded, and forced to lie in an overcrowded cell. Kenami was found dead the morning after his arrest, still bound and hooded. No autopsy was conducted; no official cause of death was determined. After the Abu Ghraib scandal, a review of Kenami’s death was launched, and Army reviewers criticized the initial criminal investigation for failing to conduct an autopsy; interview interrogators, medics, or detainees present at the scene of the death; and collect physical evidence. To date, however, the Army has taken no known action in the case.

more of Scott’s post.

Tags: Bush Administration, Torture by ecthompson
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Prisoner forced to wear womens underwear on his head

Under the War Crimes Act, which was signed into law in 1996, torture is defined as

The act of a person who commits, or conspires or attempts to commit, an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control for the purpose of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or any reason based on discrimination of any kind.

Many of the things that Republicans have argued now don’t seem to apply.  Placing one in jail can be mental suffering but it is not intended to obtain information or a confession.

So, this photo…  a prisoner who was stripped naked and forced to wear women’s underwear on this head.  Is this torture?

Tags: Torture by ecthompson
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There seems to be a lot of intentional confusion over who said what. Republicans, including former CIA chief and minority leader of the House Intelligence Committee, Porter Goss, have been accusing Nancy Pelosi of lying. Marcy Wheeler has an absolutely fabulous summation.

[Read more →]

Tags: Congress, Domestic Issues, Torture by ecthompson
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Greg Sergent interviews one of my favorite people, Bob Graham, former senator from Florida. Senator Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee when 9/11 happened, keeps a personal diary which is very detailed.  If anyone would know what was said when, it would be him.

From Plumline:

Former Senator Bob Graham, who received a classified briefing on terror detainees during the same month in the fall of 2002 as Nancy Pelosi, was not briefed about the use of either waterboarding or enhanced interrogation techniques during the meeting, he claimed in an interview with me.

Graham’s assertion — his first public comments since the release of the intelligence document detailing torture briefings given to members of Congress — directly contradicts the document’s claim that he had been briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques, or EITs. Graham is now the second Dem official to deny on the record the document’s contents and raises questions about its claim that Pelosi had been told, which she has denied.

“I do not have any recollection of being briefed on waterboarding or other forms of extraordinary interrogation techniques, or Abu Zubaydah being subjected to them,” Graham told me by phone moments ago, in a reference to the terror suspect who had been repeatedly waterboarded the month before.

Graham is the only other Dem aside from Pelosi to get briefed in 2002, so they are both in effect asserting that no Dem was briefed on the use of EITs that year. The date of the next briefing was in February 2003.

Graham claimed he would have remembered if he’d been told about the use of torture. “Something as unexpected and dramatic as that would be the kind of thing that you would normally expect to recall even years later,” he said. (more…)

Tags: Domestic Issues, Senate, Torture by ecthompson
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I just spent 90 minutes on the phone with Dell Computers, excluding the 30 minutes that I spent on Dell Chat. Have I got my computer problem solved? No. Do I feel as if I’ve been wasting my time? Maybe. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.  Man, I’m growing to hate corporate America.

• President Barack Obama has promised an era of “open government.” He promised us a government that was going to be more transparent. Well, today’s revelation seems to be less transparent. It seems to be more George Bush and less candidate Obama. The White House was set to release torture photos. Somehow, at the last minute, these photos were not released. The White House stated that they did not want to further endanger our troops. Our troops are already in harm’s way. Personally, I would like for all of our troops to come home. But, if the president and his advisers have decided we need to be in Afghanistan then I will reluctantly support our president in this endeavor. I will always support our troops but I don’t see how withholding the truth, no matter how despicable that truth is, is in our best interest. Showing the world that we don’t hide our mistakes… wouldn’t that be a good thing? It seems to me, as a nation, we need to stop living a lie.

• So we had the torture hearings today. I’m not exactly sure what we learned. Prominent Republicans are trying to find ways to justify the torture that was done. Prominent Democrats are outraged… at least sort of. Possibly the only major breakthrough was that a long time FBI interrogator clearly stated that torture does not work. Sen. Russ Feingold (in my opinion one of the finest senators in the Capital) stated that he would like the intelligence committee and the White House to release not only the documents that VP Cheney has asked for but many other documents. He states he’s read these documents and they clearly show that torture does not work. Again, we know this from various sources. We know that the techniques used by the CIA are intended to elicit false confessions rather than accurate, actionable intelligence.

Watch the video:

Tags: Al Qaeda, Bush Administration, Obama administration, Senate, Torture by ecthompson
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I still don’t understand how this guy got elected as Governor of Minnesota.  It makes my head spin.  He was a Navy Seal.  Now, this I can believe. Ventura is a different kind of guy.  He clearly speaks his mind.

From TP:

One of the most repeated lines from conservatives in the debate over interrogations is that waterboarding is not torture because it is performed on U.S. troops as part of training. Yesterday on CNN’s Larry King Live, former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura — a former Navy SEAL who has been waterboarded — poured cold water on this talking point, saying that waterboarding is in fact “drowning.” Ventura said he could waterboard Vice President Cheney and get him to admit to anything:

KING: You were a Navy SEAL.

VENTURA: That’s right. I was water boarded, so I know — at SERE School, Survival Escape Resistance Evasion. It was a required school you had to go to prior to going into the combat zone, which in my era was Vietnam. All of us had to go there. We were all, in essence — every one of us was water boarded. It is torture.

KING: What was it like?

VENTURA: It’s drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you — I’ll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

“Even though you know it’s not going to happen — even though before it, you know you’re not going to drown,” King stated. “You don’t know it. If it’s done wrong, you certainly could drown. You could swallow your tongue. You could do a whole bunch of stuff. If it’s it done wrong or — it’s torture, Larry. It’s torture,” Ventura responded.

Update: Great Post by Cenk on DK.

Tags: Domestic Issues, Torture by ecthompson
8 Comments »

I don’t know… maybe it’s me. I find it offensive that someone would say, as Liz Cheney did, that the torture program was done carefully and responsibly. What? That may not be the craziest mumbo-jumbo that’s ever been spoken, but it has to be close. As far as I know, there are no exceptions in law for being “careful.” When you break the law, you’ve broken the law.

If you’ve noticed, the defense of torture has taken three separate avenues. Republicans have argued that torture helped save the country because it got “actionable” intelligence. Others have argued that in the hysteria of the immediate post-9/11 period, the CIA, the Defense Department and others in the Bush administration were under enormous pressure to stop the next attack… by any means necessary. Finally, conservatives have argued that the law was never broken and that this is simply partisan policy differences. No one should be prosecuted for differences in policy.

This is all horse hockey. Torture statutes are very simple. They can be understood by anyone who can read English.

(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
(3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.

Waterboarding, “walling” and stress positions are all clearly torture. No exception should be made for having a doctor in the room. (I question whether that doctor should have his/her license removed since this is a clear violation of every ethics code that I know.) There is no exception for protecting the subject’s neck to prevent him from breaking his neck as you throw him against the wall. This whole torture debate is simply crazy. What we did was wrong. Those who did it, those who sanctioned it and those who authorized it need to be sentenced and jailed. I understand there’s an open cells in Guantánamo.

Crooks and Liars has more.

Tags: Bush Administration, Torture by ecthompson
10 Comments »

I have been reviewing some of Bill O’Reilly’s Talking Points because I think they are pure garbage. I don’t think that O’Reilly can get through one without making a major error - a lie. He depends on his audience to be passive and not look up his lies. Tonight C&L does the honors for me.

For some time now, Bill O’Reilly has been so desperate to prove that the Bush administration’s use of extreme tactics in the “war on terror” — including torturing detainees and killing civilians — that he’s even been willing to smear the memories of American veterans of World War II to make that point. Last night on his Fox News show, he added Winston Churchill to the list of smear victims.

We all remember the Malmedy smear, for which O’Reilly has never either apologized or corrected the record:

In Malmedy, as you know, U.S. forces captured S.S. forces who had their hands in the air and were unarmed and they shot them dead, you know that. That’s on the record. And documented.”

O’Reilly in fact had it completely reversed: At Malmedy, it was American troops who were massacred by SS guards, not the other way around.

Not only did O’Reilly never correct the insulting gaffe, a year later he repeated it:

In Malmedy, as you know, U.S. forces captured SS forces who had their hands in the air, and they were unarmed, and they shot them down. You know that. That’s on the record, been documented. In Iwo Jima, the same thing occurred. Japanese attempted to surrender, and they were burned in their caves.

As Robert Parry observes:

O’Reilly also engages in historical revisionism with his explanation that the small number of Japanese POWs at Iwo Jima and other Pacific battles is proof that U.S. Marines committed systematic murder. According to most historical accounts, the Americans wanted the Japanese soldiers to surrender but they chose to fight to the death.

So last night he wandered into the same waters, claiming that Winston Churchill was likely a war criminal under the standards “the far left” wants to impose on the Bush administration. What started all this was President Obama citing Winston Churchill’s views on torture:

O’Reilly: And since then, the Factor has been investigating Winston Churchill’s position on waging war and interrogating the enemy. Via Boston University professor Cathal Nolan, we have found out the following:

Churchill actually wanted to use poison gas on the Germans in violation of the Geneva Convention, but was stopped by the British War Cabinet.

The Royal Air Force killed hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of civilians by targeting non-military sites.

And the British operated a number of military interrogation centers during and after World War II, including one called the “London Cage,” where German prisoners were beaten, deprived of sleep, and threatened with death.

Another center was opened in Bad Nenndorf on German soil after Churchill left power. It was almost like a concentration camp. British government documents detailed terrible torture inflicted on the Germans. Some of the inmates were branded human skeletons.

Well, is O’Reilly right? Er, as you might expect given his track record — No.

It’s not as egregious a smear as the Malmedy/Iwo Jima claims, but close.

Let’s run through these:

– Yes, the RAF targeted civilian areas. So did the United States — see, most notoriously, not just Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also the firebombings of Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo, which actually resulted in more civilian casualties. Yet the fact is that this is not a war crime. Is Bill O’Reilly suggesting that it is — and that American troops, by extension, are also war criminals? Need we even mention the word “Vietnam” in the context of this matter?

– Was Churchill responsible for the “London Cage” abuses? Probably not. ABC’s Political Punch has a reasonably good rundown, duly noting that President Obama’s Churchill quote that sparked this O’Reilly rant was probably overdrawn. As for Churchill’s war-crimes culpability, there’s this:

“We don’t know what detail he knew about what was happening in interrogation centers,” Cobain said. “Clearly, he would have known there were interrogation centers. There’s no evidence that Churchill knew that people were being tortured there. And of course, Churchill was himself a prisoner of war, and during the Boer War, and wrote at length about his horror of war and his horror of imprisonment.”

– What about Bad Nenndorf? Well, first: Churchill had no responsibility for it. Second: It was in fact widely viewed as criminal, and was dealt with as such: “Four of the camp’s officers were brought before courts-martial in 1948 and one of the four was convicted on charges of neglect.”

Indeed, Churchill after the war penned this observation in response to the Bad Nenndorff scandal:

“The use of instruments of torture can never be regarded by any decent person as synonymous with justice.”

In other words, O’Reilly is smearing yet another hero of World War II just so he can claim that it was OK for Bush to create a torture regime because hey, Churchill did it too.

Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens have more.

Tags: Bush Administration, Party Politics, Torture by ecthompson
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Glenn nails this one:

There’s been a major editorial breach at The New York Times today, in this obituary of an American fighter pilot who was captured by the Chinese:

Harold E. Fischer Jr., an American Flier Tortured in a Chinese Prison, Dies at 83. . . .

From April 1953 through May 1955, Colonel Fischer — then an Air Force captain — was held at a prison outside Mukden, Manchuria. For most of that time, he was kept in a dark, damp cell with no bed and no opening except a slot in the door through which a bowl of food could be pushed. Much of the time he was handcuffed. Hour after hour, a high-frequency whistle pierced the air.

After a short mock trial in Beijing on May 24, 1955, Captain Fischer and the other pilots — Lt. Col. Edwin L. Heller, First Lt. Lyle W. Cameron and First Lt. Roland W. Parks — were found guilty of violating Chinese territory by flying across the border while on missions over North Korea. Under duress, Captain Fischer had falsely confessed to participating in germ warfare.

So that’s torture now? To use the prevailing American mindset: a room that doesn’t meet the standards of a Hilton and some whistling in the background is torture? My neighbor whistles all the time; does that mean he’s torturing me? It’s not as though Fischer had his eyes poked out by hot irons or was placed in a coffin-like box with bugs or was handcuffed to the ceiling.

Also, using the editorial standards of America’s journalistic institutions — as explained recently by the NYT Public Editor — shouldn’t this be called “torture” rather than torture — or “harsh tactics some critics decry as torture”? Why are the much less brutal methods used by the Chinese on Fischer called torture by the NYT, whereas much harsher methods used by Americans do not merit that term? Here we find what is clearly the single most predominant fact shaping our political and media discourse: everything is different, and better, when we do it. In fact, it is that exact mentality that was and continues to be the primary justification for our torture regime and so much else that we do.
(more…)

Also Andrew Sullivan tackles this subject:

You will notice how the NYT defines torture when it comes to foreign governments - isolation, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation. Much milder than anything the US did to one of its own citizens, Jose Padilla. But the parallel is almost perfect: these are, after all, the exact Chinese Communist techniques that were reverse engineered from the SERE program. So you have a perfect demonstration of the NYT’s double-standard. If Chinese do it to Americans, it’s torture; if Americans do it to an American, it’s “harsh interrogation.” Does Jill Abramson really expect us to take this lying down?

You will also notice the quality of the intelligence procured through methods milder than the Bush administration’s:

“He wanted me to admit that I had been ordered to cross the Manchurian border,” Captain Fischer told Life magazine. “I was grilled day and night, over and over, week in and week out, and in the end, to get Chong and his gang off my back, I confessed to both charges. The charges, of course, were ridiculous. I never participated in germ warfare and neither did anyone else. I was never ordered to cross the Yalu. We had strict Air Force orders not to cross the border.”

“I will regret what I did in that cell the rest of my life,” the captain continued. “But let me say this: it was not really me — not Harold E. Fischer Jr. — who signed that paper. It was a mentality reduced to putty.”

Dick Cheney believes that a “mentality reduced to putty” is the best source of reliable intelligence; that methods designed to give you false confessions should be the basis for national security assessments. (more… )

Hypocrisy revealed.

Tags: Bush Administration, Obama administration, Torture by ecthompson
1 Comment »

Lyndie England

Linda Monk is a Constitutional scholar and frequent guest on my show. She wrote a great op-ed in the Washington Post refuting a clueless column by David Broder. Linda Monk eloquently argues that David Broder has lost his senses and that torture is wrong for a number of reasons.This is a must read.

From WaPo:

Not ‘Scapegoating,’ Simply Justice

It is dismaying that a man of David S. Broder’s wisdom and integrity would imply that a president is above the law ["Stop Scapegoating," op-ed, April 26]. We did not accept that argument for Richard Nixon, and neither should we for George W. Bush or Barack Obama. The main job description of the president is to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” He does not have the discretion to turn his back on massive violations of the law.

The Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture are, under the Constitution, “the supreme law of the land” and require signatories to prosecute those who commit torture. Ronald Reagan endorsed the U.N. convention against torture enthusiastically, and our highest military officers support those standards. Lawyers, too, take an oath to “defend the Constitution of the United States” in their government service as well as in their admission to the bar. If anyone should be accountable for upholding legal standards, it is the lawyers in the Justice Department who are sworn to enforce the law, not just for their boss the president but for the American people, whom they represent. Those torture memos were not mere intellectual debates by academics; they were legal opinions rendered by practicing lawyers who are subject to the standards of the profession. It is just as illegal to advise someone to commit an unlawful act as it is to commit one.

The real scapegoats in this ugly scenario are soldiers such as then-Pvt. Lynndie R. England, who went to prison in 2005 for her role in the Abu Ghraib scandal, although, according to her lawyer, she suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome resulting in a below-average IQ. Now it is clear that Abu Ghraib was the predictable result, as some military lawyers warned at the time, of loosening standards for torture at Guantanamo. So why shouldn’t lawyers suffer the same consequences as the soldiers they imperil?

LINDA R. MONK

Tags: Bush Administration, Legal, Media, Obama administration, Torture by ecthompson
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