How waterboarding got the green light from Bush.
Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
The Bush administration approved the use of “waterboarding” on Al Qaeda detainees after receiving reports from government psychologists that it was “100 percent effective” in breaking the will of U.S. military personnel subjected to the technique during training, according to documents released today by [...]
Christopher Hitchens lasted seconds under waterboarding. And they say it isn’t torture
Until recently, “waterboarding” was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the special forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as Sere (survival, evasion, resistance, escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and [...]
by Jason Leopold
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has admitted for the first time that she led high-level discussions beginning in 2002 with other senior Bush administration officials about subjecting suspected al-Qaeda terrorists detained at military prisons to the harsh interrogation technique known as waterboarding, according to documents released late Wednesday by Carl Levin, the Democratic [...]
By Jason Burke
After years in detention, Afghan returnees have bitter memories as they face new hardships. Jason Burke reports from Kabul
Abdul Nasir, right, and his brother in Kabul. Photograph: Jason Burke
They call them the Bandi Guantánamo, the Guantánamo returnees, and their welcome home is far from warm. All across Afghanistan in recent months, scores [...]
Ameziane, who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo since February 2002 without being charged with crimes, told his lawyer Wells Dixon that guards at the base placed a water hose between his nose and mouth and ran it for several minutes. Ameziane said they repeated the procedure several times, nearly suffocating him.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — [...]
..Can we try Ashcroft by “Military Commission”? No? Why not? It’s not legal? But…
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding has served a “valuable” purpose and does not constitute torture, former Attorney General John Ashcroft told a House committee Thursday.
Testifying on the Bush administration’s interrogation rules before the House Judiciary Committee, Ashcroft defended [...]
Vanity Fair August 2008
what more can be added to the debate over U. S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture? Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resist—not inflict—it.
by [...]
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, masters of evil John Yoo and David Addington pop back up, like Jason or a platter of undercooked pork, to tell the U.S. Congress how much they’d really like to take that water and pour it over your blindfolded and Saran-wrapped face.
Happy Birthday, U.S.A.!
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By Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — For years, congressional Democrats dreamed of getting a crack at a man they saw as a key player behind the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods against detainees in the war on terrorism — methods the critics say amount to torture.
On Thursday, [...]
Lawyers defending Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, and four other Guantanamo detainees have asked for the presiding military judge to dismiss their cases, saying the timing is politically motivated.
The men are to stand trial over the attacks on September 15, according to the court filing quoted by AP.
However the men’s lawyers say [...]
Testimony to Congress Comes as Report Released About Abuses Witnessed by FBI
By JASON RYAN
Murat Kurnaz told members of Congress today he was subjected to “water treatment,” electric shocks and other abuse during the almost five years he spent in U.S. custody, putting a face to the Justice Department’s inspector general report released today, detailing abuses [...]
By BEN FOX
Associated Press Writer
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - The alleged “20th hijacker” in the Sept. 11 attacks tried to kill himself at Guantanamo last month, his lawyer disclosed Tuesday, saying the Saudi prisoner was distraught over a possible death sentence for charges later dropped by the Pentagon.
Mohammed al-Qahtani cut himself at least three [...]
By Tom Burghardt
Global Research, Antifascist Calling…
Antifascist Calling…
Newly declassified documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from the Department of Defense (DoD) expose the role played by psychologists in the illegal interrogation of prisoners at CIA and Pentagon detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
According to ACLU staff attorney Amrit Singh,
“The documents [...]
By Sharon Keller to Huffington Post
Four years ago, the world learned that American soldiers had tortured Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison. In addition to the human cost in pain, suffering, and humiliation that was captured on film, an accounting of the harm done by the incidents at Abu Ghraib must include the price of having [...]
By Andy Worthington
The latest diclosures further erode claims by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that prisoner abuses at Gardez – or the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib – were isolated acts by a few ‘bad apples’, says Jason Leopold. John Yoo and some other Bush administration lawyers who [...]
By Jason Leopold
Newly released U. S. government documents, detailing how Bush administration officials punched legalistic holes in the Geneva Convention’s protections of war captives, stand in stark contrast to the outrage some of the same officials expressed in the first week of the Iraq War when Iraqi TV interviewed several captured American soldiers.
Then, Defense Secretary [...]
A human rights organisation has launched a graphic advertisement depicting the controversial practice of waterboarding to pressure the US government into abandoning the interrogation technique.
Amnesty International’s short film shows a victim bound to a board with their head and body strapped down as water is forced into the nose and mouth to simulate the sensation [...]
Overcoming Denial
By Hannah Tennant-Moore
For the last two years, my mother has flown to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, every few months to meet with her pro bono client, a 32-year-old Algerian man named Abdul Aziz Naji. When she explains to friends and acquaintances how Aziz ended up in Guantánamo, where he has been held for nearly six [...]
By Aditya Rajagopalan
News Staff Writer
For years, Americans have responded in outrage when hearing of the jailing of monks, the incessant scourge of Tibetan cities, or the reprehensible human rights violations persisting in Tibet. And with the recent uprisings that have proliferated across Tibet, Americans have rightfully sought to “free Tibet,”; many have even called [...]
by Nat Hentoff
If the deciders at the White House, the Justice Department, and the CIA who are responsible for war crimes ever face the equivalent of the Nuremberg trials—or at least an unsparing Congressional investigation—an essential witness against them will be Murat Kurnaz. His book, Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantánamo [...]
It was the young officials at Guantánamo who dreamed up a list of new aggressive interrogation techniques, inspired by Jack Bauer from the TV series, 24. But it was the politicians and lawyers in Washington who set the ball rolling. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail right to the top
By Philippe Sands
Philippe Sands QC uncovers [...]
John Yoo’s legal opinions and questions about culpability and timing.
By Scott Horton
John C. Yoo likes the limelight, but it’s causing him some grief. Of the half a dozen lawyers who played important roles in a Bush administration decision to legalize the use of highly coercive interrogation techniques, only Yoo has emerged as the public face [...]
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union obtained documents today from the Department of Defense confirming the military’s use of unlawful interrogation methods on detainees held in U. S. custody in Afghanistan. The documents from the military’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID), obtained as a result of the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, [...]
By LARA JAKES The Associated Press
Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, The Associated Press has learned.
The officials also took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation [...]
Detailed Discussions Were Held About Techniques to Use on al Qaeda Suspects
By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG, HOWARD L. ROSENBERG and ARIANE de VOGUE
In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high- value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the [...]
Guantanamo Bay News
