U.S. waterboarded Libyan opponents of Gadhafi, report says

Who are "We"?
And what have "We" become?

Human Rights Watch says it has uncovered evidence of a wider use of waterboarding in American interrogations of detainees than has been acknowledged by the United States, in a report that details further brutal treatment at secret CIA-run prisons under the Bush administration-era U.S. program of detention and rendition of terror suspects.

The report Thursday also paints a more complete picture of Washington's close co-operation with the regime of Libya's former dictator Moammar Gadhafi in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. The U.S. handed over to Libya the Islamist opponents of Gadhafi that it detained abroad with only thin "diplomatic assurances" that they would not be mistreated, and several of them were subsequently tortured in prison, Human Rights Watch said.

'The scope of the Bush administration abuse appears far broader than previously acknowledged.'—Laura Pitter, Human Rights Watch

The 154-page report features interviews by the New York-based group with 14 Libyan dissident exiles. They describe systematic abuses while they were

Poland’s secret CIA prisons

And tomorrow is September 5TH and the world is watching, Poland.
The question has been asked “was the applicant (Mr Al Nashiri) detained in a secret detention facility in Poland? …[was he] subjected to torture … while in U.S. custody on Polish territory?” and the European Court of Human Rights is demanding an answer.

An American diplomatic cable dated December 13th 2005 reads: “[The] rendition and ‘CIA prisons’ issue will continue to dog the Polish government, despite our and the Poles’ best effort to put this story to rest.” The existence of “black sites” in “East European countries” where the CIA practised torture was revealed at the time by the Washington Post. Later Human Rights Watch specifically named Poland along with Romania. Back then the authorities in Warsaw denied everything : no sites, no torture, just “speculation”.

Four years into the investigation in Poland and nine years since the alleged tortures, neither government acknowledges anything much about what amounted to American-Polish complicity in violating basic and inalienable human rights. However, many institutions did their own research on rendition and CIA prisons and none of their conclusions has ever been challenged. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, the UN’s Committee Against Torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Inspector General of the CIA, Open Society Justice Initiative and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Warsaw are all in agreement that “stuff happened”.

According to these sources, between December 2002 and September 2003, the CIA flew

Gorden's torture torment

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/18/gordon-brown-torture-guidelines

Gordon is on the hot seat I see
Right where Blair left him.


Gordon Brown today broke a promise to publish new guidelines for British intelligence officers dealing with the torture and abuse of detainees held abroad after MPs and peers privately warned that existing guidance was unsatisfactory.

The prime minister was locked in a bitter dispute tonight with the parliamentary body set up to monitor the intelligence agencies over his refusal to publish its criticisms of the new guidance.

The Guardian has learned that members of the intelligence and security committee have expressed serious concern to Brown about the lack of clarity and "ambiguities" in the new guidance on interrogation techniques drawn up for MI5, MI6, and military intelligence officers after revelations in the Binyam Mohamed case.

The committee was assured by Brown last week that the guidance – and its own criticism of it – would be published before a Commons debate on the issue today.

White House wants suit against Yoo dismissed

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/12/08/MN061AVC89.DTL

What change would this be? It looks to me like it's more a case of
"Getting by with a little help from my friends"
Obama is just as morally corrupt as the rest of them.


The Obama administration has asked an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing former Bush administration attorney John Yoo of authorizing the torture of a terrorism suspect, saying federal law does not allow damage claims against lawyers who advise the president on national security issues.


Such lawsuits ask courts to second-guess presidential decisions and pose "the risk of deterring full and frank advice regarding the military's detention and treatment of those determined to be enemies during an armed conflict," Justice Department lawyers said Thursday in arguments to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Other sanctions are available for government lawyers who commit misconduct, the department said. It noted that its Office of Professional Responsibility has been investigating Yoo's advice to former President George W. Bush since 2004 and has the power to recommend professional discipline or even criminal prosecution.

The office has not made its conclusions public. However, The Chronicle and other media reported in May that the office will recommend that Yoo be referred to the bar association for possible discipline, but that he not be prosecuted.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/12/08/MN061AVC89.DTL#ixzz0ZP2wvFTt

Bombshell report on CIA interrogations is leaked

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/22/cia-interrogation-report-leaked

How much is to much and how far are you really willing to overlook it


Findings suppressed since 2006 detail death threats against prisoners and other methods that may constitute tortutre

CIA interrogators threatened a captured al-Qaida leader with a power drill and a pistol in what was described as a mock execution, according to a long-suppressed report due to be released on Monday.

Details of the report by the spy agency's inspector general have emerged in the Washington Post and Newsweek. The full findings on the CIA's interrogation programme are to be made public after a federal judge upheld an appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union for their release.

The report is understood to describe mock executions where interrogators tried to get detainees to talk by firing a gun in an adjoining room to pretend another prisoner had been killed.

According to leaked information from the report, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was threatened with a drill and gun during his detention at one of the CIA's so-called black site prisons after his capture in 2002. He was subjected to the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding, as were two other al-Qaida leaders.

Nashiri, who remains in detention at Guantánamo Bay, has been accused of masterminding the 1999 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors.

Sources familiar with the report told the Washington Post that Nashiri was threatened with death or grave injury during his questioning. A CIA officer showed Nashiri a gun and suggested he would be shot, and a power drill was held near Nashiri's body and repeatedly turned on and off. US law on torture prohibits a US national from threatening anyone in his custody with imminent death.

The disclosures come as the CIA faces intense scrutiny. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, has been examining

Bagram detainees allege abuse by US soldiers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/24/bagram-inmates-claim-torture

Well it would seem lightening strikes twice. Lets all remember Abu Ghraib
and all the liberties that were taken there.
You know how bad it was just for the simple fact they won't release the pictures.

More than 20 former prisoners at a US detention centre in Afghanistan have alleged they were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with dogs, according to a BBC report.

The BBC interviewed 27 people who were held at the Bagram military base between 2002 and 2008. None of them was ever charged or tried.

The former inmates made repeated allegations of ill-treatment, saying they were subjected to physical abuse, excessive temperatures and loud noise, forced into stress positions and ordered to undress in front of female soldiers. Four detainees claim they were threatened with death at gunpoint.

"They did things that you would not do against animals, let alone to humans," said one inmate. "They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer. They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death. They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you."

The BBC's allegations were put to the Pentagon, which denied them and insisted that all Bagram inmates were treated humanely.

Lieutenant Colonel Mark Wright, a spokesman for the US secretary of defence, said conditions on the base met

http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-4136-0-3-3--.html

That's a pretty heavy precaution taken for supposed simulated drownings

Additionally, Sifton notes the CIA may have had some close calls with detainees nearly dying during interrogations: the May 10, 2005, Bush Administration torture memo by Stephen Bradbury notes that doctors were nearby to perform a tracheotomy if during waterboarding the suspect is approaching death.

Condoleezza Rice forced to defend Bush-era interrogation tactics to children

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-children.html


I just love her last statement, don't worry about what's out there.

Perhaps it is more fitting to actually worry about what leaders like her and Bush and Cheney have done to our constitutional rights, because everything she described you can be subject to also, under the Patriot Act.