Tag: Torture

WORDS AND DEEDS

June 9, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

Despite being hosted by an authoritarian regime that practices torture and crushes dissent, the words delivered in Cairo by the master orator were at times thoughtful, wise, empathetic, measured and hopefully game changing.

Obama’s speech was clearly a reversal of the previous administration’s crusader mentality. Obama greeted the audience in Arabic, outlined the bountiful scientific and cultural contributions of Islamic civilization, and noted that “Islam has always been a part of the American story.”  In short, he proposed to “seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”

Moreover, no president has ever publicly admitted to the U.S. role in the 1953 overthrow of Mohammed Mosaddeq, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran. And no recent president has spoken so firmly on the need for Israel to acknowledge the right of Palestine “to exist”, even going so far as to say that “the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.” And he even recognized Iran’s right “to access peaceful nuclear power.”

This is all worthy of approbation, of course, but there were other moments where Obama continued to speak with the blind hypocrisy of the American exceptionalist…

For example, Obama pledged to “ruthlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our national security.  Because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women and children.”

Coming from the man who protects the violent extremists in the previous administration from accountability, and who has himself ordered drone attacks on Afghan villages that predictably kill innocent men, women and children, these word are hypocrisy pure and simple.

The hypocrisy of deploring the “violent extremists” who have “killed in many countries” and who have “killed people of different faiths” and whose “actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings” is too obvious to require elucidation.  Without a hint of irony, Obama said that he supports “transparent government” and that “violence is a dead end” and that “it is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children”.

Obama said that “we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan” and that “we seek no military bases there”.  And yet he is sending an additional 17,000 troops there, not including the 68,197 private mercenaries under Department of Defense contracts, and is building gargantuan “embassies” in Kabul and Islamabad.

Obama said that “we would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can.”

To translate: “We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home just as soon as hell freezes over.”

Obama got applause when he reiterated his pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo (where detainees are still being tortured and are commiting suicide in dispair), but that action is irrelevant since “unlawful combatants” are now simply shipped to the extrajudicial prison in Bagram.

I could go on. If you want more, check out Chomsky or Hedges. If you want to see what drunk Zionists thought of Obama’s speech, go here.

CONTINUITIES 3

May 19, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

Obama cheers at his daughter’s soccer game while children of lesser consequence recover from the deadly U.S. air strikes by unmanned drones in the Farah province of Afghanistan.

Honestly, it is hard to keep up with all of the ways the Obama administration represents continuity with the Bush Administration. Here are some more things to add to the list….

Under the Obama administration, as under the Bush administration,attack on Afghan villages by U.S. drones are still a common occurrence– and it looks like these attacks will only increase.

Here is a report about another instance of a drone strike in North Waziristan, where 29 people were killed in the village of Mirali on May 16.

These deadly robots are remote controlled by brave soldiers sitting in air conditioned trailers at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.(USA today posted a softball piece about the training program here.)

Prisoners at Guantanamo are still being stripped of their rights and tortured by brutal extrajudicial “Immediate Reaction Force” thugs.  See here and especially here.

Obama is resorting to a modified version of Bush style military commissions to try Guantanamo detainees, instead of in civilian courts which suffer from an inadmissibility of evidence beaten out of those who would be presumed innocent. See also here.

Obama is continuing the cover-up Bush crimes. I have already posted about how Obama’s DOJ has been been trying to evoke the “state secrets privilege” to block evidence of the U.S. torture regime under Bush.

Now he is refusing to release another batch of “prisoner abuse” photos. See also here. (John Dean thinks that Obama was forced to block release of the photos by “National Security” bereaucrats.)

The Obama administration has also threatened the British government to keep torture evidence concealed.

CONTINUITIES 2

May 2, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

After 100 days in office it is clear that the candidate who ran on “change” is continuing, and even amplifying, many of the worst policies of the Bush years: continued war and occupation of Iraq, escalation of war in Afghanistan, expansion of war into Pakistan, increased military funding, using “state secrets” to block torture victims from having their day in court, continuing the practice of rendition, expanding the American gulag at Bagram, and arguing against prosecution for war criminals.

Regarding this last point, Obama has rendered himself as incoherent as his predecessor ever was.  Upon the release of the torture memos, he issued a statement that included the following two contradictory claims:

  1. “The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals.”
  2. “In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.”

You can’t coherently maintain that the U.S. is a nation of laws AND that U.S. government officials who break the law should not be subject to prosecution.  (Even if they were torturing people “in good faith”.)

And it is mind numbingly hypocritical to say that your administration “will always act in accordance with those laws” and in the very same speech assert your intention to break them. Here are the relevant quotes from Article 2 of the U.N. Convention Against Torture, signed by Reagan in ’88 and ratified by Congress in ’94:

“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or athreat of war, internal political in stability or any other publicemergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

“An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.”


In his remarks to the C.I.A., Obama has (again) exposed himself as a liar, a hypocrite and, now, a criminal.

CONTINUITIES

March 19, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

So far, there are at least 6 legal cases in which Obama’s Department of Justice has embraced Bush’s positions on civil liberties and executive power:

1. I have already posted on Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, where Obama’s DOJ sought to use the “state secrets privilege” to block (alleged) victims of rendition and torture from suing the transport company used by the CIA.

2. The Obama DOJ again invoked the state secrets privilege in the case of Al-Haramain v. Obama, this time in order to block a judicial ruling on Bush’s illegal surveillance program.

After this argument was rejected by the court Obama appealed again – this time embracing Cheney / Addington theories of executive power and asserting that no court can challenge the President’s decision to withhold classified documents.

Here is Glenn Greenwald’s exegesis:

In the context in which Obama is now invoking this theory, think about what it means:  if, as happened here, the President breaks the law,then he can just label the relevant evidence “classified” and refuse toturn it over to a court which is attempting to rule on the legality of the President’s actions.  Once the President decrees that a court isbarred from reviewing the relevant evidence because the President claims it is “classified,” that’s the end of that.

In both of the above cases, Obama adopted the Bush innovation of using the state secrets privilege to throw out entire lawsuits, rather than just sensitive pieces of evidence.

3. In the case of Al-Marri v. Spagone, Obama’s DOJ successfully blocked a Supreme Court ruling on the legality of Bush’s practice of detaining U.S. residents as “enemy combatants” indefinitely without charges or trial.

They blocked the ruling by finally bringing criminal charges against Al-Marri, and then convincing the Supreme Court that the questions regarding the legality of his 6 year detention were thereby rendered moot.

On the positive side, Al-Marri is finally getting his day in court. Here is a video update from Al-Marri’s lawyer.

4. On top of all of this, last month Obama sided with Bush in asserting that “enemy combatants” held at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan  have no rights to challenge their detention in U.S. courts.

This means that Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo becomes almost irrelevant,since detainees can now just be taken to Bagram for indefinite,extralegal detention. About 600 prisoners are now held at Bagram, and it is about to undergo a $60 million expansion. Bagram threatens to become Obama’s Guantanamo.

5. Then there is the email case,where Obama’s DOJ is siding with the former administration in “trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails.”

6. And finally the DNA case,where Obama’s DOJ “turned down a request… to disavow a Bush Administration stance on prisoner’s access to DNA evidence in post-conviction proceedings.”

RENDITION, TORTURE AND STATE “SECRETS”

February 17, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

Obama’s administration is following Bush’s in using sweeping “state secret” privileges to block victims of the CIA’s illegal rendition and torture program from having their day in court.  (Embedded map of CIA rendition flights by T. Paglen)

From the LA Times:

A Justice Department attorney, Douglas Letter, told the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the Obama administration was taking “exactly” the same position as the previous White House in calling for dismissal of a lawsuit by five terrorism suspects snatched by U.S. agents in foreign countries and delivered to secret detention sites in other countries.

The suit, Mohamed et al vs. Jeppesen DataPlan Inc. of San Jose, accused the flight services company of knowingly “participating in the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program” and delivering dozens of men to foreign venues where they were subjected to torture and other treatment impermissible under U.S. law.

From the N.Y. Times:

“Is there anything material that has happened that might have caused the Justice Department to shift its views,” asked Judge Mary M.Schroeder, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter, coyly referring to the recent election.

“No, your honor,” Mr. Letter replied.

Judge Schroeder asked, “The change in administration has no bearing?”

Once more, he said, “No, Your Honor.” The position he was taking in court onbehalf of the government had been “thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration,” and “these are the authorized positions,” he said.

…

The court papers describe horrific treatment in secret prisons. Mr.Mohamed claimed that during his detention in Morocco, “he was routinely beaten, suffering broken bones and, on occasion, loss of consciousness.His clothes were cut off with a scalpel and the same scalpel was then used to make incisions on his body, including his penis. A hot stinging liquid was then poured into open wounds on his penis where he had been cut. He was frequently threatened with rape, electrocution and death.”

The lead plaintiff in the case is Binyam Mohamed.  The ACLU is representing him and presents Mohamed’s narrative on their website:

In July of 2002, Ethiopian native Binyam Mohamed was taken from Pakistan to Morocco on a Gulfstream V aircraft registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as N379P. Flight and logistical support services for this aircraft were provided by Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. In Morocco, Mohamed was handed over to agents of Moroccan intelligence who detained and tortured him for the next 18 months. In 2004, Mohamed was rendered to a secret U.S. detention facility in Afghanistan. Flight and logistical support services for this aircraft, a Boeing 737 business jet, were also provided by Jeppesen. In Afghanistan Mohamed was tortured and inhumanely treated by United States officials. Later that same year Mohamed was rendered a third time by U.S. officials, this time to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba where he is presently.

Read more about Mohamad here, and more analysis here and here.

UPDATE (Feb 23):

Binyam Mohamad has finally been released from Guantanamo, although Obama’s Dept. of Justice is still trying to block him from suing the companies that rendered him to other countries for torture.  He has released a statement through his lawyers.  Here is a short quote:

“I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares. Before this ordeal, “torture” was an abstract word to me. I could never have imagined that I would be its victim. It is still difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways – all orchestrated by the United States government.”
Here is an interview with his sister.

OBAMA TAKES THE REINS

January 28, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

After U.S. foreign policy blew back in the form of suicide airline hijackers on Sept 11, 2001, a shocked country looked to the Bush Administration for leadership. How would the United States respond?

The answer came on October 7, 2001 in the form of an aerial bombing campaign that killed over a thousand civilians, with many thousands more dying of starvation, exposure and injuries in the following months.

The government called this “Operation Enduring Freedom,” a first step in the much wider “War on Terror”.

Once on the ground, the U.S. forces rounded up a bunch of people and sent them to extra-legal prisons where they could be tortured at leisure. Many innocent people rot there still, even seven years later, as the Obama Administration takes the reins of executive power.

On January 22, two days after being inaugurated, Obama initiated a clear shift away from Bush policies on torture and rendition by signing four executive orders, one of which ordered the closing of Guantanamo within one year.

However, while Obama’s shift on torture and rendition policies are certainly worthy of approbation, he is continuing Bush’s policy of aerial bombings of villages. On January 24, just four days after taking power, Obama approved air strikes by unmanned Predator drones against two villages in Waziristan, killing at least 15 people, three of them children. (Video here.)

PEOPLE WHO ARE FIXING TO GET AWAY WITH MASS MURDER, TORTURE, AND OTHER WAR CRIMES

January 24, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

As newly sworn-in president Obama paraded toward the White House, former president George W. Bush flew to Midland, Texas where he attended a “welcome home” rally. He told an adoring crowd of 20,000 that during his presidency he had maintained “faith in some fundamental truths” and that he had “followed a set of clear principles”, first among which were this:

Watch it here.

This man, who lied the country into an expensive war of aggression against Iraq, resulting in the untold suffering of millions and the death of many, and who approved the use of torture, resulting in the enduring shame of us all, said that he will not regret what he sees when he looks in the mirror. Then he talked about his plans “to make Laura coffee, skim the newspaper, call some friends, read a book, feed the dogs, go fishing, and take a walk.”

Iraq Body Count web counter

Not everyone gets away with murder, however. Back when Bush was governor of Texas, he signed the execution warrants for 152 prisoners – more people than any other Governor in the history of that fair minded state.

THE VICHY DEMOCRAT SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE

November 1, 2008: J. Rosencrantz


Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is the Representative of 8th Congressional District of California, but her seat is being challenged by Cindy Sheehan. Sheehan lost a son to the Iraq War, and her campaign is motivated by Pelosi’s collaboration with the Bush regime.

Before she became the Speaker of the House, Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi pledged that Bush would get no more “blank checks” for his Terror War. Since she became speaker in 2006, war appropriations have gone up $350 billion.

As Speaker of the House, Pelosi announced that impeachment of Bush was “off the table.”

In 2008, she voted to legitimize Bush’s warrant-less spying program and to grant retroactive immunity to the telecoms who collaborated with it. And she pushed the Wall Street bailout. And she capitulated on offshore drilling.


Pelosi was also one of the Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee briefed by the CIA on torture procedures in 2002, and kept it a secret from the public despite her pledge to defend the Constitution.

From an interview of Sheehan by Matt Gonzales:

“On a very personal and tragic level, the policies of torture at Abu Ghraib was one of the factors that led to a Shi’a uprising that killed my son, Casey, in Sadr City, Baghdad on April 4, 2004. Even with saying all that, my candidacy is not about vengeance, but about justice. Our elected officials from both parties must be held accountable for their crimes against humanity and our democracy.”

On Impeachment:

“I will work diligently to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney even when they are out of office. As long as a President, or Vice President takes any Federal help, such as a pension, or Secret Service protection, he can be impeached.”

FACTORY FARMING AND PIG TORTURE

October 3, 2008: J. Rosencrantz

THE U.S. TORTURE PROGRAM

April 24, 2008: J. Rosencrantz

As if we didn’t know already, but now it is official: The President of the United States condoned the use of torture, and his top advisors discussed in detail and approved what they call “enhanced interrogation techniques”.


Remember when they tried to blame it on “a few bad apples”?

Jan Crawford Greenburg broke this story on ABC. You can see it here.

Kieth Olberman discusses the story and its legal implications with Jonathan Turley here.

People’s reporter Helen Thomas confronts White House Spokesliar about torture here.

Brave New Films put out a nice little piece mixing ABC story with the various false testimonies of Dr. Rice:

And here is F.B.I Director Robert Mueller testifying about his lackluster response to the Administration’s use of torture. Rep. Robert Wexler does a nice job pushing the question — why didn’t the F.B.I. do more to stop the C.I.A. or the D.O.D from using torture?

Republican Nominee and U.S. Senator John McCain was tortured when he was a prisoner of the North Vietnamese, and has long spoken out against torture. But now that he is running for president McCain voted AGAINST an anti-torture bill.

The Colombian artist Fernando Botero has produced a series of paintings inspired by spoken testimonies of the torture at Abu Ghraib. Here are a couple of samples of his work:

Botero_Abu_Ghraib

Standard Operating Procedure a film about the U.S. Torture Program by the great documentarian Errol Morris, opens in L.A. on May 2.

And the ACLU is pushing for accountability for the U.S. Torture Program. You can send a letter to your representatives here.