BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Dec 14 - 06:14 PM

The torture itself may have ceased, at least for now, but the mindset that engaged in it hasn't gone.

Here's an extract from a story about the six Guantanamo prisoners who, after years in captivity without at any time even being charged with a crime, let alone convicted were this week sent to freedom in Uruguay.

"The harsh treatment lasted up to the moment the prisoners descended from the US military plane in Montevideo early on Sunday.
The men spent their entire nine-hour flight to freedom in handcuffs, shackles, blindfolds and "ear defenders", their lawyers said.

"When they arrived, the Uruguayans refused to let them walk off the plane in shackles, they insisted that they be allowed to take their first step on Uruguayan soil as free men," said Mone.

That wasn't some effort to extract information. It was plain and simply arbitrary and pointless cruelty. Recreational cruelty on behalf of the American state. And of President Obama we sadly have to assume.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Dec 14 - 06:03 PM

More to the point, we're entitled to information about what our people did to assist in all this.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 12 Dec 14 - 04:31 PM

You're still not addressing the point about the US thinking it's a purely internal affair, though. WHY do they even begin to think that, WHERE are they coming from? A Nation which can be so ignorant of anything outside of its borders must be a menace to us all.
Given we've had more than a bit from over there about how wonderful they are, I think we are entitled to an explanation!

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Dec 14 - 12:24 PM

dick cheney ... wouldn't do it on his own.

Sure he would - in a New York minute.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 12 Dec 14 - 11:23 AM

if ordinary people did not agree to do these barbaric acts, they just wouldn't happen. dick cheney or whoever wouldn't do it on his own.some people continue to agree to perform whatever inhumane acts of torture they are told to. (leaving aside the milgram stuff) seriously - who are the people who would do that, nobody is forced to join these 'special forces' or the CIA. presumably they get some enjoyment out of the job - is it the case that the more extreme is your sadism the better you are at the work? such criminal tendency should be enough of a character flaw to disqualify them from any respectable employment.
'it's a dirty job but someone has to do it' - no, they don't

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Dec 14 - 09:59 AM

Seems the whatsit's about to hit the fan here in "neutral" Ireland,
Our local airport, Shannon, has been allowing U.S. military planes carrying potential torture victims through on their way to their torture sessions without bothering to check who was on board, while at the same time locking up the protesters.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Stu
Date: 12 Dec 14 - 08:21 AM

"Hence the outsource"

None of this evidence is about outsourcing. It's about US officials from the CIA being directly involved in torture. Any legal issues were circumvented by the renditioning of prisoners to countries where they had no rights at all and could be tortured by anyone with impunity. The CIA created the programme and implemented it. They are responsible, not some war hungry mercenary.

Of course, the sad fact is the US were aided and abetted by lots of other countries that allowed rendition flights to land at their airports; the UK and Ireland included. No fucker comes out of this smelling of anything but shit and gore, and to think otherwise is an act of self-delusion.

These people are a different breed, believe me.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Dec 14 - 08:19 AM

A key sentence from that article by Frank Foley in the BBC News Mafazine:

"A fundamental underpinning of the post-9/11 interrogations was a belief among security officials that their brutal treatment of detainees would remain largely secret."

And that is why openness is so important at this stage. "Everyone already knows about it, so why drag it up now" misses the point. The perpetrators at all levels are still protected, the lower level ones by continuing secrecy, the higher up ones by the untouchability that clings to those who are seen as important. And in the case of foreign leaders such as Tony Blair and Jack Straw ( among many others), by both secrecy and status.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: GUEST,Under the bar-guest
Date: 12 Dec 14 - 05:20 AM

Read this Why it's so rare to hear an apology for torture and be informed why US learnt from the Brits, Why it's so rare to hear an apology for torture on the BBC News MAGAZINE.,

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 12 Dec 14 - 12:16 AM

McGrath of Harlow has it clocked....most sane people knew this, or a variation has been going on for years....and this administration, has also known about it(for years).. The 'releasing' of the documents at this time, with all the renewed media coverage, should have your flags up, as to motive, not just for doing it, in the first place, but as to the timing....and what this is getting us ready for.


GfS

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: LadyJean
Date: 12 Dec 14 - 12:12 AM

My friend Nils who worked as an army interrogator during the Cold War, says, "Torture is what you use to make the person you're interrogating confess that he's the Queen of England."

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 11:06 PM

The other day I got to thinking about 'truth serum'. If it were predictably accurate - which it is NOT - would using it be banned because of being forced to testify against oneself?

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Janie
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 09:44 PM

I am puzzled by the dialog and debate about whether torturing detainees produced information/intelligence that was useful. Not puzzled. Horrified. As if that would justify torturing people.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 08:15 PM

The claim that things had "gone beyond what was approved" is an effort to pass the blame down to the lowest possible level, as was done in the case of Abu Ghraib.

It always happens like that - "a few bad apples", don't blame us.

"We were just obeying orders" is no kind of excuse for the people lower down. But it's a true enough claim, and is an indictment of the people who give the orders and authorised them.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 05:55 PM

"He refused to acknowledge that it was, indeed, torture.."

Of course not.

He did acknowledge that some had "gone beyond what was approved".... and then just 'noted' that everyone will call the result what they choose.

There is some slight, sadistic pleasure in watching him squirm.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 04:47 PM

We of the tinfoil hat brigade knew this shit was happening a decade ago. People who didn't want to know didn't bother to find out.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 04:06 PM

and doing some dodging

Dodging be damned. He refused to acknowledge that it was, indeed, torture. Another weasel.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 03:37 PM

If you want to see how those ultimate arbiters of correctness, the political cartoonists, view the whole thing, look here. It goes on for pages... and they are not kind.

John Brennen of the CIA was on all the networks this afternoon, 'enduring' questions and doing some dodging.... but also some admitting.

I am beyond aghast that ANYONE from my country went down that path.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Ed T
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 03:30 PM

From the report:

'Rectal feeding'

CIA operatives subjected at least five detainees to what they called "rectal rehydration and feeding".

One CIA cable released in the report reveals that detainee Majid Khan was administered by enema his "'lunch tray' consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts and raisins was 'pureed and rectally infused'". One CIA officer's email was in the report quoted as saying "we used the largest Ewal [sic] tube we had".

Rectal feeding is of limited application in actually keeping a person alive or administering nutrients, since the colon and rectum cannot absorb much besides salt, glucose and a few minerals and vitamins. The CIA administered rectal rehydration to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed"without a determination of medical need" and justified "rectal fluid resuscitation" of Abu Zubaydah because he "partially refus[ed] liquids". Al-Nashiri was given an enema after a brief hunger strike.

Risks of rectal feeding and rehydration include damage to the rectum and colon, triggering bowels to empty, food rotting inside the recipient's digestive tract, and an inflamed or prolapsed rectum from carless insertion of the feeding tube. The report found that CIA leadership was notified that rectal exams may have been conducted with "Excessive force", and that one of the detainees, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, suffered from an anal fissure, chronic hemorrhoids and symptomatic rectal prolapse.

The CIA's chief of interrogations characterized rectal rehydration as a method of "total control" over detainees, and an unnamed person said the procedure helped to "clear a person's head""

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Musket
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 02:26 PM

Keel hauling goes back at least to Henry VIII. It is down as a naval punishment from 1531.

Water boarding is little different.

Looking at the history of state crime and where methods started doesn't have any bearing on this, either from embarrassed Americans or romanticising Fenians.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 02:10 PM

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1470200/waterboarding

Waterboarding did not start in the Korean War, it's documented as far back as the Spanish Inquisition, and has been used during various conflicts since. It certainly was not invented by the British during the Irish 'troubles' as Olive claimed.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 12:15 PM

The origin of these abuses was NOT in the British Army, but in North Korea, and particularly among their Russian Advisers, during the Korean War. The discovery of the techniques came from the in-depth American study of brainwashing, and passed into all NATO to a various degree, including the British. Most nations trained in them fairly routinely during ths Cold War, using these techniques on themselves as a training tool to resist interogation if the Russians ever captured you - I don't know how much it went on in the line troops, I didn't spend much time in those circles, but I'm very familiar with stress positions, from the wrong side - as I think is Teribus. From there, it was probably second nature for the more brutal types to use them on the Irish, as they were at that time seen as an implacable enemy. That got out of control, however, and so with the arrival of the Red Fog of War doctrine (ie don't succumb to it) it was stopped. It's now seem as brutally stupid.

Yes, I do own The Guineapigs, having bought it before it was squashed - it was a Penguin Special and was on sale for a very short time before the Government had it delisted. It was a propaganda tool, so I'd be careful about using it as a historical document about what actually happened: I don't think you'd have found waterboarding on the scale of intensity more recently known, for example - and I say that in full knowledge of what the Army did use at the time. Another thing you must be careful about is legal anachronism, the Law by which this is being pursued now did not exist then and so the troops cannot be criticised for acting illegally, or even immorally in the context of the time. We've grown up a bit, and softened a bit, and that's not necessarily a good thing in the long term, but is in the short term. I don't call my training torture, for example, but character building - as you know I'm no pushover.

Anyway, the point is not the UK then, but the US now. In my first reply, I pointed out the hypothetical situation of the US refuting action - but it's now happened. That has just given al-Qaida and IS a big boost, I fear: they can now turn around and say this is what their enemy is like in its own words. And that's a disaster, given it was certain to fail.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Ed T
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 12:03 PM

In an hour and a half, the CIA Director is making a statement and will answer media questions-check CNN

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 11:23 AM

Cheney said he had not read the 6,000-page classified document, drafted by Democrats and their staffs on the Senate Intelligence Committee, or the 500-page declassified and redacted executive summary. But he unequivocally said its findings were flawed and an affront to members of the CIA.

Classic Cheney, I ain't read it, but its "full of crap". Funny(?), coming from a real PIECE of crap.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: olddude
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 11:22 AM

Hence the outsource

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: olddude
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 11:16 AM

Stu true prior to the 70's not true after that. They had a leash put on them

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Ed T
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 10:19 AM

On CNN today Cheney stated something like, contrary to the report, then President Bush was regularily advised of all CIA operations, including interrogation, and that he would authorize the same actions again, if faced with the same situations.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 10:15 AM

Waterboarding, including the nasty trick of using a hose-pipe to fill the victim's oesophagus and stomach with water, was a favourite torture method of the Japanese in WW2, a long time before the Irish 'troubles' of the '70s and beyond.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 10:09 AM

Here is the thread Paper trail: from Northern Ireland's hooded men to CIA's global torture, Slugger O,Toole

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 10:05 AM

All the Slugger O,Toole webs, the US learned the tricks from the Brits.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Stu
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 04:03 AM

"A CIA field office cannot do this no cia agent would do this not because of morality but because they can be charged."

The idea that CIA agents simply outsourced all their torture requirements to third parties to avoid prosecution is dangerously naive. This organisation is unaccountable and operates beyond the law, and what counts for us simply doesn't count for them. CIA (and MI6) agents were directly involved in the torture and killing of people, some of them cases of mistaken identity who died lonely, terrifying deaths in squalid conditions (google the Salt Pit).

I could say more about the CIA from family experience, but in all honesty they scare the living fuck out of me.

By the way, the Gestapo perfected water boarding.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 03:59 AM

Oh!..Pretend to be shocked and indignant...

Is there really anyone on here who DIDN'T know before, or even figure out that this stuff was going on?????

...and guess what??..the provisions of the NDAA gives them leeway to do it to anyone.....without even being charged, or allowed to see a lawyer.

'The Political Waltz'...and both parties are dancing partners.....


GfS

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 02:39 AM

http://cms.fightforthefuture.org/pardonjohn/

http://cms.fightforthefuture.org/pardonjohn/

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: GUEST,ollaimh
Date: 11 Dec 14 - 12:15 AM

the American learned thr water boarding from the uk. the british perfected these techniques for the "special treatment" they gave a number of irish they thought on bad info, were ira. none were but most were destroyed for life. the great anglo empire goes on. they torture folks. face facts. they pretend to have moral high ground for internal political reasons, just like putin, but the wolr d knows they both torture.

the british used wide spread torture in Kenya, and in basra to a lesser extent more recently. and of course all over Africa and he new world. they introduced scalping, and did ethnic cleansing in the new world. oh yeah the quarter million irish taken as slaves and sold to carribean plantations.   

face it the americans and the british are part of the military capitalist , permant warfare state,(they call it laissez faire capitalism or free enterprize) that means torture and genocide if convient.
American and british voters have to stop voting for the jingoist parties who wave the flag if they want it to stop.   that probably means the green party in the us, unless the democrats change. and the peace and freedom party in the uk.   however the anglo saxon extreme nationalism makes this unlikely.

I think Obama would have done more without the extreme obstructionist congress, but the real problem is American flag waving stupid nationalists who just voted republican, thinking that will change something. they voted for the party that made the deficit mess and the Iraq and torture mess, with no memory at all.

of course, the cia still fans the war fare option. schuer was on television saying the problem is Obama won't use the military to solve problems, with no apparent awareness of the irony that without the invasion of Iraq there would be no isis and many fewer problems and a few trillion dollars less debt.

yaeh a lot of them should be prosecuted, but so should a lot of british torturers. and as john p says a lot of catholics(hopefully William lynn will lose his appeal) and a lot of people who tortured native children in residential schools. but the evil ones are in power and they know how to keep that power.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 09:39 PM

Except that for those of us in the countries where our government collaborated in all this it's not "all out".

America needs to stop covering up that stuff. Covering up criminal activity just makes it certain it will happen again.

Americans shouldn't be the only ones in the dock over this. And that shouldn't be a merely metaphorical dock either - Tony Blair and Jack Straw should be up alongside Cheney and Bush in a real dock.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: olddude
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 07:16 PM

Yeah listened to the son of a Bitch. Cheney would have done well in Nazi Germany would he not. Listen it doesn't work Torture never once worked never and we got jack shit from it but why would we suspect he wouldttell the truth.
At least it is all out maybe some good can come of it all

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 05:58 PM

Gonzales was just on the TV, Ebbie, saying that Dumbya new all about it & what's the problem? & that yes, they kept the facts from Colin Powell deliberately.

Also Michael Hayden, Dumbya's CIA director saying yeah, so what's the big deal? - Gonzales said it was OK! & trying to weasel-word his way out of the fact that it was torture.

Guess Hayden & the CIA "vass only following orders", ja?

What a bunch of scumbags, scuttling around like cockroaches when the light's turned on..

Can't wait for Cheney to be interviewed - THAT should be a REAL travesty.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 05:22 PM

No doubt Juan Peron had suitable training from the CIA!!!

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 05:21 PM

Remember him?

"Alberto Gonzales is currently the Dean of Belmont University College of Law, in Nashville, Tennessee where he currently teaches Constitutional Law, Separation of Powers, National Security Law and First Amendment Law. He is also counsel at a Nashville-based law firm, Waller, where he advises clients on special matters, government investigations and regulatory matters."

To my mind, if anyone is indicted/prosecuted for this travesty, so should Gonzales be. He was the US Attorney General who assured the Bush administration that, hey, it is all legal.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 05:13 PM

Sadly it isn't easy just to say no when the government has the press in it's pocket and the money men hold the government by the balls. Propaganda and campaigns to get people to hate whoever they deem to be the enemy, rather than see who the real criminals are, are very powerful tools to get people on your side. It happened not that many years ago in Germany. It is still happening today in the US, UK and all over Europe.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: olddude
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 04:50 PM

Amen ach so very true

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 04:06 PM

if decent blokes didn't sign up to do whatever evil bastards and corrupt governments tell them to do, then none of this shit would happen. it's easy - just say 'no'

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 04:05 PM

Bush and his ilk got away with a lot of crap under the guise of "patriotism" - to the extent that many voted with him in the early days because to not do so would mean an outcry about various elected officials not being patriotic. There was a herd mentality in place.

Those who didn't like Bush already still didn't trust him but were outnumbered, and with Cheney by his side, the two got away with murder in so many ways. The spying, torture, rendition, and monitoring of Americans on American soil are the legacy of the Baby Bush administration.

The Diane Rehm Show (WAMU-FM in Washington, D.C.) discussed this 6700 page report today.

One wonders if anyone will manage to read the entire thing and report based upon that knowledge, vs those who will dip in and take things out of context.

Yesterday a conversation on NPR considered the possibility of Obama pardoning some of these folks - not because they don't deserve to be tried, but because trials would take a very long time and a lot of money, and IF THEY ARE PARDONED THEY ARE BRANDED AS CRIMINALS (who just happened to be pardoned). It might be the best we can hope for.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: olddude
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 04:03 PM

Last thing you want free reign, get a letter from the oval Office saying all actions are necessary for national security and immune to procecution and you can do anything you want

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: olddude
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 03:54 PM

Think of that prison abuse who did they go after, a couple of low rank uniformed soldiers but who ran the prison.. Blackwater any of them in jail?

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: olddude
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 03:46 PM

And if you're looking for justice forget it before blackwater took the first dime of the millions of dollars they wanted a get out of jail free letter from the oval Office and you can take that to the bank they got it. Thank god we have people that will release the report.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: olddude
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 03:39 PM

I said before a cia field agent that is not a hired merks then has to try an clean up the shit of bad political leaders who ever they be. They will get an order to try and mend fences. Which will be next to impossible in our arab allies

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: olddude
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 03:32 PM

Like it don't believe it or not it is an administration problem. The next director can get an order from the next Cheney that it is legal to use poison gas and some merks will be hired to do it cause field agents won't knowing it would be jail time for them
Merks nope they already have a get out of jail free card before they agree

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 02:44 PM

This story is not over.

Subject: RE: BS: CIA torturers (God Bless America)
From: Ed T
Date: 10 Dec 14 - 02:38 PM

"Torture and other forms of abusive or coercive techniques often serve to strengthen an individual's resolve to resist, deepen his commitment to a cause, serve as a foundational theme for recruiting campaigns designed to attract others to violent extremism, and generate a lingering division among allies and international partners," wrote the signatories of today'sstatement. "In sum, it not only undermines an interrogator's ability to elicit useful information, it also undermines our nation's ability to counter threats to its security. Torture makes our nation less secure."
Source- News release from seventeen of US of As most respected interrogation and intelligence professionals -Oct. 1, 2014:




Intelligence Professionals Take Stand against Torture