"...Say It Shows That The CIA Interrogation Program Was Far More BRUTAL Than Previously Understood"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.bigstory.ap.org/article/some-torture-report-denied-chance-read-it

Jul 26, 3:51 AM EDT

SOME IN 'TORTURE' REPORT DENIED CHANCE TO READ IT

BY KEN DILANIAN
AP INTELLIGENCE WRITER

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) -- About a dozen former CIA officials named in a classified Senate report on decade-old agency interrogation practices were notified in recent days that they would be able to review parts of the document in a secure room in suburban Washington after signing a secrecy agreement.

Then, on Friday, many were told they would not be able to see it, after all.

Some of them were furious, while Democratic Senate aides were angry that they were given the chance in the first place.

- snip -

Several people who have read the full report, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss still-classified material, say it shows that the CIA interrogation program was far more brutal than previously understood, and that CIA officials repeatedly misled Congress and the Justice Department about what was being done to al-Qaida detainees. The report asserts that no unique, life-saving intelligence was gleaned for the harsh techniques.

MORE

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. CIA officials repeatedly misled Congress and the Justice Department

CIA ran secret torture jail in Poland, rules European Court of Human Rights

The court case was brought by two men, Saudi-born Abu Zubaydah, and Saudi national Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who alleged they were flown in secret to a CIA-run jail in a Polish forest and subjected to treatment that amounted to torture.

The two men, who are now in Guantanamo Bay, the US military prison on Cuba, brought the case against Poland for failing to prevent their illegal detention and torture and for failing to prosecute those responsible.

The Strasbourg-based court ruled that Poland had violated Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights that cover torture, the right to liberty, and the right to an effective remedy for victims of crime.

It ordered Poland to pay al-Nashiri €100,000 in damages and €130,000 to Zubaydah. The court ruling did not cover the United States, which is outside its jurisdiction.

http://www.euractiv.com/sections/global-europe/cia-ran-secret-torture-jail-poland-rules-eu-court-human-rights-303696
6

[Uncle Joe]

2. I believe your link has been scrubbed or something?

I don't get an article when I click on it.

Thanks for the thread, Hissyspit.

[Hissyspit]

4. Fixed. nt

[Uncle Joe]

7. Thanks, Hissyspit and this is important to note.

http://www.bigstory.ap.org/article/some-torture-report-denied-chance-read-it

For months, the former officials who are implicated in the report have strategized about how to rebut it. Many of them sincerely believe that they did what the country asked of them after Sept. 11 and that they are being impugned now because the political winds have shifted.

(snip)

Several people who have read the full report, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss still-classified material, say it shows that the CIA interrogation program was far more brutal than previously understood, and that CIA officials repeatedly misled Congress and the Justice Department about what was being done to al-Qaida detainees. The report asserts that no unique, life-saving intelligence was gleaned for the harsh techniques.

It's long been known that the CIA used slapping, stress positions, sleep deprivation and other harsh tactics on several detainees and a near-drowning technique known as water boarding on three of them. The CIA's use of water boarding has drawn particular scrutiny since it is considered the harshest technique on the list of those used, but the report asserts that the other tactics, as applied, were extremely harsh and brutal.

Torture is illegal under U.S. law. CIA officials dispute that water boarding amounted to torture.



1. Just following orders is no defense, it didn't work for the Germans at Nuremberg.

2. Anyone believing these techniques, slapping, stress positions, sleep deprivation and near death drowning aren't torture is seriously deluding themselves.

There is no legal opinion that can justify or change the definition of torture and there should never have been an attempt to do so.



http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/torture?s=t


tor·ture
Show IPA
noun
1.
the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty.
2.
a method of inflicting such pain.
3.
Often, tortures. the pain or suffering caused or undergone.
4.
extreme anguish of body or mind; agony.
5.
a cause of severe pain or anguish.

Synonyms
6. See torment.


torment
? Use Torment in a sentence
tor·ment
Show IPA
verb (used with object)
1.
to afflict with great bodily or mental suffering; pain: to be tormented with violent headaches.
2.
to worry or annoy excessively: to torment one with questions.
3.
to throw into commotion; stir up; disturb.
noun
4.
a state of great bodily or mental suffering; agony; misery.
5.
something that causes great bodily or mental pain or suffering.
6.
a source of much trouble, worry, or annoyance.
7.
an instrument of torture, as the rack or the thumbscrew.
8.
the infliction of torture by means of such an instrument or the torture so inflicted.

[Enthusiast]

9. PLUS ONE!

[jwirr]

17. They would be more accurate if they understood that it was not the country asking them to torture.

It was the bush/chaney administration.

[sabrina 1]

22. It's not possible that Congress didn't know how brutal the torture was. They were given access to

the photos from Abu Ghraib, AND airc, Gibmo where supposedly there were thousands of videos. We only saw a few of those phostos.

Sy Hersch had reported that they were torturing children, raping women etc.

During the hearings re Abu Ghraib, there was an argument over whether to release all the other, much worse photos in Congress. To try to make a decision, members of Congress were allowed to view them.

Rummy himself stated that they were so bad making them public might create a huge amount of anger.

After viewing the photos, with Dick Cheney all over the media criticizing the process, trying to distract and quash it, Linsey Graham (who seems to have been properly re-educated since then) emerged after viewing the photos.

The press asked him what he thought of Cheney's criticism. His face was white, he looked shaken, he replied (paraphrased) 'Mr Cheney let us do our job, we are talking about rape and murder here'. He was clearly angry.

The argument over the release of the photos continued, in court, for several years. Whenever a ruling in favor of releasing was handed down, the Bush gang went back to court to stop it.

We followed the process for years until finally it was no longer discussed publicly. I imagine they got the ruling they wanted, don't know.

But to say that things 'were more brutal than they realized, is just a lie. They knew, they failed to prosecute the torturers and in fact, protected them.

[noise]

3. We know how this plays out

The CIA will complain that they are being unfairly criticized for having the gall to protect the country from terrorist attacks. The Democrats will say the public needs to know what was done in their name while avoiding any sort of tangible form of accountability. The Republicans will talk of witch hunts and hindsight.

Meanwhile the Congressional report on Saudi support (i.e. Saudi government agents who assisted the hijackers) is still classified. In what Universe does it make sense to champion or apologize for torture while continuing to conceal and protect direct links to the hijackers? The torture program was a bad faith political stunt that is in no way defensible except by those who have no respect for basic human decency.

[merrily]

5. I call bs. It was totally understood.

Nonetheless, President Obama and the D of J decided not to prosecute anyone whose ass had been covered by "legal advice," even if the advice was not so legal and not even sought until after the acts had begun. The so-called legal advice was that interrogation techniques up to and including death of the person being interrogated did not violate applicable law.

The two Attorneys most involved in the "legal advice," aside from Gonzo, were Yoo and Bybee.

Bybee had called Gonzo about getting a judgeship. Gonzo told him to come to work giving these legal opinions and then people would see about his judgeship. After giving his bullshit cya legal opinions, Bybee was nominated and confirmed for a seat on the US Circuit Court of Appeals, where he now sits for life, unless and until someone prosecutes and/or impeaches him. Guess what? Neither has happened.

Yoo went on to--wait for it--teach law. Also to write books and law review articles, both of which may well get cited in legal opinions (if they have not already been), as well as get credence from students and scholars. Bybee and Yoo are well worth your reading their full wikis and otherwise researching, along with how the Obama administration used their legal opinions to exonerate everyone who supposedly had relied on them.


As to Yoo:

In June 2004, another of Yoo's memos on interrogation techniques was leaked to the press, after which it was repudiated by Goldsmith and the OLC.[18]

Yoo's contribution to these memos has remained a source of controversy following his departure from the Justice Department;[19] he was called to testify before the House Judiciary Committee in 2008 in defense of his role.[20] The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) began investigating Yoo's work in 2004 and in July 2009 completed a report that was sharply critical of his legal justification for waterboarding and other interrogation techniques.[21][22][23][24] The OPR report cites testimony Yoo gave to Justice Department investigators in which he claims that the "president's war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be 'massacred'"[25]

The OPR report concluded that Yoo had "committed 'intentional professional misconduct' when he advised the CIA it could proceed with waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques against Al Qaeda suspects", although the recommendation that he be referred to his state bar association for possible disciplinary proceedings was overruled by David Margolis, another senior Justice department lawyer.[25]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo

No one would even send a letter to the bar associations of Yoo and Bybee suggesting that the bar association might want to look into their actions. And by the way, the degree of evidence necessary to back up such a suggestion is zero.

Now, if legal opinions that were leaked said waterboarding, even death, of the "suspect" was legal, even massacring a village would be legal, what exactly was not previously understood about the degree of brutality of the interrogations by the CIA?

And, while I know Abu Ghraib was not about interrogations or the CIA, wasn't that a fucking clue to everyone in the world, including Congress and the Obama administration, that gambling brutality just might have gone on in Rick's Casino the Bush Administration?

Why do we continue to accept this lame, corrupt bullshit?

When are we going to demand return to the rule of law?

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. I knew we were in Wonderland when Berkeley!! gave Yoo a job.

And the protest was weak and muffled.

but, as our President says...gotta look forward, not look back.

[Enthusiast]

10. +1! I call it Bizarro World.

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[kelliekat44]

11. Can this list be considered a list of war criminals? nt

[Mopar151]

12. History shows, repeatedly, that kicking the crap out of prisoners does'nt help.

In Chicago, or Moscow, or Abu Ghraib - If you pound on anyone long enough and hard enough, they'll tell you what you want to hear - if they know enough to know what you want to hear.

IMHO, if such techniques are known to be ineffective, then the rationale for their use has far more to do with the sadistic nature of those directly involved in said torture, and the desire of those in command (Dick Cheney, et al) to live out base and brutal fantasies voyeuristically. Whaddya think Dickie was doing in his "undisclosed location"? He was watching torture porn! Custom produced, at the cost of trillions of our money, and the lives of uncounted thousands.

[DeSwiss]

13. ''...and that CIA officials repeatedly misled...''

- That's what a government unto itself, does. It's been doing it for a while, although I'm still not surprised that ''others'' are surprised.

That's happened before as well......

K&R

[center]

[/center]

[Ichingcarpenter]

14. Kicked and recommended

[johnnyreb]

15. My deep thanks to all who keep this issue alive.

K&R

[woo me with science]

16. Reccing to further publicize the brutality,

although I think Merrily's post/observation is correct.

[Comrade Grumpy]

18. These people and their bosses need to be in prison. n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Obama Reluctant to Look Into Bush Programs NYT/2009

Well, we surely wouldn't want anyone looking over the CIA's shoulders while they're performing their patriotic and much appreciated humanitarian work around the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/us/politics/12inquire.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

President-elect Barack Obama signaled in an interview broadcast Sunday that he was unlikely to authorize a broad inquiry into Bush administration programs like domestic eavesdropping or the treatment of terrorism suspects.

In the clearest indication so far of his thinking on the issue, Mr. Obama said on the ABC News program “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” that there should be prosecutions if “somebody has blatantly broken the law” but that his legal team was still evaluating interrogation and detention issues and would examine “past practices.”

Mr. Obama added that he also had “a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

“And part of my job,” he continued, “is to make sure that, for example, at the C.I.A., you’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got spend their all their time looking over their shoulders.”

[JoeyT]

20. I'm not sure it could get more brutal than what we thought it was.

I'd be amazed if anything in it actually comes as a shock. It may have been more extensive than we thought, but not more brutal.

[bvar22]

21. We have become what we say we hate.

So has Israel.

[GeorgeGist]

24. We won the cold war ...

so Republicans think that they are now free to be themselves; ASSHOLES.

[GeorgeGist]

23. Aspen, Colo?

Are the roots connected?