Obama: 'We've got to stop torturing people' Cheney: 'If we don't torture some A-rabs, we're all gonna die!!!!'

Dick Cheney: still evil

In an address at the National Archives, President Obama defended his proposal to close the prison at Guantanamo and detain many of its inmates in federal prisons in the US, as well as his decision to end the practice of torture:

Faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions... instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, too often we set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford.

In other words, we went off course. And this is not my assessment alone. It was an assessment that was shared by the American people who nominated candidates for President from both major parties who, despite our many differences, called for a new approach -- one that rejected torture and one that recognized the imperative of closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
...
The decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable -- a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass. And that's why I took several steps upon taking office to better protect the American people.

First, I banned the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the United States of America.

I know some have argued that brutal methods like waterboarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more. As Commander-in-Chief, I see the intelligence. I bear the responsibility for keeping this country safe. And I categorically reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation. What's more, they undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. In short, they did not advance our war and counterterrorism efforts -- they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all.

In a rebuke to senators who voted overwhelmingly against his plan to house Guantanamo detainees in the US, Obama pointed out that there has never been an escape from a federal supermax prison. All told, he made an effective case for fighting terrorism without resorting to torture and without abrogating our commitments as set forth in the Geneva Conventions.

Shortly after Obama finished speaking, former Vice President Cheney took the stage at the American Enterprise Institute to defend torture, indefinite detention without trial, and warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.

Not surprisingly, Cheney's address was full of the bile and divisive combativeness that have long been a hallmark of his political broadsides.

And lies. Full of the bile, combativeness, and lies that Cheney is known for. Roy Edroso of the Village Voice caught a couple of Cheney's fabrications:

He said, "I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program," and claimed it "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people." He also said his enemies were trying to smear him and his friends in the CIA with Abu Ghraib.

Cheney professed outrage that "US taxpayer dollars will be used to support" the relocation of detainees proposed by Obama, as if their detention had previously been funded by a lottery or collection taken up at Bohemian Grove. He also suggested that the detainees are supervillains who will escape from our puny maximum security prisons.

Huh? Torturing people saved hundreds of thousands of lives? I don't think Cheney can even begin to defend that statement. One thing's for sure, though: thanks to Bush and Cheney, hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed in Iraq:



Edroso caught a bit of Cheney's fibbing, but when the fact-checkers from McClatchy Newspapers went looking for lies, they really hit the motherlode:

Cheney quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair , as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country."

In a statement April 21 , however, Blair said the information "was valuable in some instances" but that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general's investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.

FBI Director Mueller Robert Muller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn't think that the techniques disrupted any attacks.
***
Cheney said that the Bush administration "moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and their sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks."

The former vice president didn't point out that Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahri , remain at large nearly eight years after 9-11 and that the Bush administration began diverting U.S. forces, intelligence assets, time and money to planning an invasion of Iraq before it finished the war in Afghanistan against al Qaida and the Taliban .

There are now 49,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan fighting to contain the bloodiest surge in Taliban violence since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention, and Islamic extremists also have launched their most concerted attack yet on neighboring, nuclear-armed Pakistan.
***
Cheney denied that there was any connection between the Bush administration's interrogation policies and the abuse of detainee at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which he blamed on "a few sadistic guards . . . in violation of American law, military regulations and simple decency."

However, a bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to the approval of the techniques by senior Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
***
Cheney accused Obama of "the selective release" of documents on Bush administration detainee policies, charging that Obama withheld records that Cheney claimed prove that information gained from the harsh interrogation methods prevented terrorist attacks.

"I've formally asked that (the information) be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained," Cheney said. "Last week, that request was formally rejected."

However, the decision to withhold the documents was announced by the CIA , which said that it was obliged to do so by a 2003 executive order issued by former President George W. Bush prohibiting the release of materials that are the subject of lawsuits.
***
Cheney said that only "ruthless enemies of this country" were detained by U.S. operatives overseas and taken to secret U.S. prisons.

A 2008 McClatchy investigation, however, found that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.
***
Cheney said that, in assessing the security environment after 9-11, the Bush team had to take into account "dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists."

Cheney didn't explicitly repeat the contention he made repeatedly in office: that Saddam cooperated with al Qaida , a linkage that U.S. intelligence officials and numerous official inquiries have rebutted repeatedly.

The late Iraqi dictator's association with terrorists vacillated and was mostly aimed at quashing opponents and critics at home and abroad.

The last State Department report on international terrorism to be released before 9-11 said that Saddam's regime "has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President ( George H.W.) Bush in 1993 in Kuwait."

And so on. Lie after lie after lie. As he did throughout the Bush presidency, Cheney distorted facts and fabricated evidence to support the notion that the only way to defend Americans from despots and terrorists is to spy on Americans, start wars that kill tens and even hundreds of thousands, and torture people in secret prisons. In his view, the terrorists present an even greater threat than Hitler did in 1941, and the only way to defeat them is to become more like the Soviet Union.

It now looks as though the Republican Party is lining up behind Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh, and most party leaders are ready to openly endorse practices like warrantless wiretapping, secret detention without trial, torture, and waging wars of aggression. Which means that President Obama must now fight on two fronts: abroad against terrorists unconcerned with the rule of law, human rights, and human life, and at home against Republicans unconcerned with the rule of law, human rights, and human life.
***
Bear in mind that we do not yet know the full extent of the torture that was used on detainees at Guantanamo. Air Force Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, who has been assigned to defend one of the detainees, says that waterboarding is just the tip of the iceberg:


***
Remember when former military officers, including Republican Senators McCain and Graham, told the Bush administration that torturing detainees would make it more likely that American soldiers would be tortured? The Taliban recently announced that they have waterboarded three American soldiers. I have to assume that Cheney and his apologists think that's OK.
***
Inconveniently for Cheney, four terrorists were arrested yesterday after an investigation that involved no torture, illegal wiretaps, or wars of aggression.
***
Cheney's defenders have been claiming that a soon to be released Pentagon report indicates that one in seven former Guantanamo detainees has returned to terrorism. Turns out, that's not exactly true. While reporters who have seen a draft of the report say that it does say that one in seven former detainees have since been tied to terrorism, they point out that the overwhelming majority of Guantanamo detainees had not previously been involved in terrorism.

In other words, it appears that detainees became drawn to terrorism after being detained for years without trial and, in some cases, tortured. And we should bear in mind the fact that we don't yet know how directly those former detainees were involved in terrorism, and we won't know how accurate the Pentagon report is until it's been vetted by independent analysts.

(cross posted at appletree)

Olbermann goes Overboard

I knew he'd lose it as soon as he didn't have Bush to kick around anymore

I've long been a fan of Keith Olbermann. Of all the political commentators on TV, he was the only one who seemed to muster the appropriate amount of outrage in the face of the abuses and crimes of the Bush administration. That said, I've long thought that Olbermann is a bit of a blowhard. He often seems overly self-righteous and eager to be angry, and he often comes across more as less of a crusading journalist and more of a self-aggrandizing fop.

Here's the sort of thing I'm talking about:



The problem here is not Olbermann's tone per se. If he had gotten his facts right, his tone would be exactly right. The problem here is that Olbermann appears to have selected and massaged the facts to fit his tone.
Read more »

The Bush Administration in a nutshell

This cartoon neatly captures the legacy of the Worst President Ever

Here's a couple of stories that illustrate just how stupid and just how brutal the Bush Administration was:

Buy High, Sell Low

The federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation decided to shift its holdings from bonds to equities, just about the time the bottom fell out of the stock market.

A finance professor who had previously advised the agency not to make the switch away from bonds compared the move to an insurance company writing policies to cover hurricane damage and then investing the premiums in beachfront property.

Bush was able to do for the PBGC what he tried and failed to do for Social Security.

Bush's Torture Rationale Debunked

Abu Zubaida was the alpha and omega of the Bush administration's argument for torture.

That's why Sunday's front-page Washington Post story by Peter Finn and Joby Warrick is such a blow to the last remaining torture apologists.

Finn and Warrick reported that "not a single significant plot was foiled" as a result of Zubaida's brutal treatment -- and that, quite to the contrary, his false confessions "triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms."

Zubaida was the first detainee to be tortured at the direct instruction of the White House. Then he was President George W. Bush's Exhibit A in defense of the "enhanced interrogation" procedures that constituted torture. And he continues to be held up as a justification for torture by its most ardent defenders.

But as author Ron Suskind reported almost three years ago -- and as The Post now confirms -- almost all the key assertions the Bush administration made about Zubaida were wrong.

Zubaida wasn't a major al Qaeda figure. He wasn't holding back critical information. His torture didn't produce valuable intelligence -- and it certainly didn't save lives.

Betray every ideal that America was supposed to stand for, and stupidly flush billions of dollars down the toilet. All in pursuit of long-debunked theories of economics and interrogation techniques that were based on the sort of simplistic reasoning that appeals to children. Greater risk brings greater reward. Inflict enough pain, and you'll get to the truth.

It's as if we were governed for eight years by teenagers who were raised on a steady diet of "24" and "Wall Street". Except that I think the teenagers might have gotten better results for their efforts.

(cross posted at appletree)

The Gitmo Clusterf***

Detainee abuse at Guantanamo continues to shame America

Lawrence B. Wilkerson, chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, has finally admitted the obvious. Many of the detainees at Guantanamo are innocent:

Wilkerson, who first made the assertions in an Internet posting on Tuesday, told the AP he learned from briefings and by communicating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many Guantanamo detainees were innocent but nevertheless held them in hopes they could provide information for a "mosaic" of intelligence.

"It did not matter if a detainee were innocent. Indeed, because he lived in Afghanistan and was captured on or near the battle area, he must know something of importance," Wilkerson wrote in the blog. He said intelligence analysts hoped to gather "sufficient information about a village, a region, or a group of individuals, that dots could be connected and terrorists or their plots could be identified."

In his posting for The Washington Note blog, Wilkerson wrote that "U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released."

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney fought efforts to address the situation, Wilkerson said, because "to have admitted this reality would have been a black mark on their leadership."

How could this have happened? Apparently, the incompetence that marked the early stages of our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan extended to the taking of prisoners:

Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel, said vetting on the battlefield during the early stages of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan was incompetent with no meaningful attempt to discriminate "who we were transporting to Cuba for detention and interrogation."

Wilkerson told the AP in a telephone interview that many detainees "clearly had no connection to al-Qaida and the Taliban and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pakistanis turned many over for $5,000 a head."

Some 800 men have been held at Guantanamo since the prison opened in January 2002, and 240 remain. Wilkerson said two dozen are terrorists, including confessed Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was transferred to Guantanamo from CIA custody in September 2006.

To summarize, only about 3% of those who have been held at Guantanamo (and only 10% of those still being held) are terrorists. And most of the information that was coerced from the innocent detainees was probably false and counterproductive.

This is no minor crime. Remember that Bush and his cronies wanted to hold these men (and boys) without charge for the duration of the war on terror. In other words, Bush wanted to lock up hundreds of innocent men for life, just to avoid trials that would demonstrate that many had been abused and most were innocent.

As one might expect, many of those in the Department of Defense who are responsible for this sorry state of affairs have been pushing back. The most recent attempt to deflect attention from their crimes came in the form of a report which alleged that 62 former Gitmo detainees later "returned to the battlefield" to fight American troops. Predictably, the report was quickly debunked.

It's time for the Obama administration to release or charge all detainees in American custody. Obama seems to be on the right track so far, announcing plans to release more detainees from Guantanamo and continuing a program, initiated by the Bush administration, to release detainees held in Iraq. But that doesn't go nearly far enough. If the US is to stand once again for justice, then the Obama administration has to initiate an aggressive investigation to find out who was responsible for imprisoning innocent men for years at a time, who gave the orders to torture the detainees, and who tried to cover up these crimes.

***

Just last week, terrorists in Afghanistan assassinated a former detainee who had been released when it was determined that he was not a terrorist. Jawed Ahmad, 23, had worked as a journalist for Canadian media outlets and as a translator for American military forces, which is probably the reason he was killed.

Meanwhile, the glorious democratic government that the US is propping up in Kabul sentenced a journalism student to 20 years in prison for the crime of blasphemy. Parwez Kambakhsh had asked questions about women's rights during class. Earlier, Kambakhsh had been sentenced to death, but Afghanistan's Supreme Court decided that the lesser sentence was more appropriate. Kambakhsh was not represented by a lawyer during his trial.

I wonder whether the Afghan justice system was modeled after Bush's detainee policy, or if Bush modeled his detainee policy after Afghanistan's justice system.

(cross posted at appletree)

Long live Austria's abominal animal, Josef Fritzle : Really, really, really, long, long, long

Short and (bitter) sweet post today.

So, here's all we're saying regarding such a super-sickening subject as this is ~~ apart from "Hip, hip, hooray!"

If ever anyone deserved to serve out a (long, long, long) life sentence, without a shadow of a doubt it must surely be this absolute 'abomination' incarnate, who, for a couple of dozen years or so, has been masquerading as a 'man' in Austria.

What everyone already knew is now official: US tortures prisoners

From the Washington Post:

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.

It's important that a Bush administration official has finally confirmed that the US tortures prisoners, but I think at this point you'd have to be dumber than six cans of dirt to believe otherwise.

You'd also have to be pretty stupid to miss the fact that our treatment of prisoners is hampering the fight against terrorism. A former military prosecutor confirms that treatment of prisoners is one of the reasons that prosecutors may not be able to secure convictions against detainees:

A former military prosecutor said in a declaration filed in federal court yesterday that the system of handling evidence against detainees at Guantanamo Bay is so chaotic that it is impossible to prepare a fair and successful prosecution.

Darrel Vandeveld, a former lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, filed the declaration in support of a petition seeking the release of Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who has been held at the military prison in Cuba for six years. Jawad was a juvenile when he was detained in Kabul in 2002 after a grenade attack that severely wounded two U.S. Special Forces soldiers and their interpreter.

Vandeveld, who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was the lead prosecutor against Jawad until he asked to be relieved of his duties last year, citing a crisis of conscience. He said the case has been riddled with problems, including alleged physical and psychological abuse of Jawad by Afghan police and the U.S. military, as well as reliance on evidence that was later found to be missing, false or unreliable.

In his declaration, Vandeveld said Afghan police had made Jawad place his thumbprint on a statement written in Farsi, a language that the defendant, who is functionally illiterate, does not speak. To extract an admission, and before he was turned over to U.S. forces, the Afghans allegedly threatened to kill Jawad and his family, Vandeveld said in the declaration.

Later, Jawad also made a statement to U.S. interrogators, which was recorded, Vandeveld said. But despite an extensive search, Vandeveld said, he was not able to obtain the videotape.

A military judge last year threw out Jawad's statement to U.S. forces, saying it was tainted as a result of his treatment at the hands of the Afghans. The government the appealed decision, and the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review heard arguments on the matter yesterday. A decision is expected within 30 days.

Vandeveld and Jawad's attorneys have catalogued a pattern of abuse in the case, including an incident in June in which Jawad was said to have been "beaten, kicked and pepper-sprayed while he was on the ground with his feet and hands in shackles, for allegedly not complying with guards' instructions," according to a filing in federal court.

So some of the detainees who may have been connected to acts of terror may walk free because the US has been torturing prisoners, including juveniles. Did I say that you'd have to be an idiot not to see that this is hurting America's efforts to fight terrorism? It seems that Glenn Beckkk and Fox News' lobotomy trio are determined to prove me right:



Yes, they really said that we should keep torturing people because it works on TV. And they said that calling for the prosecution of torturers is the same as McCarthyism.

(cross posted at appletree)

Crap Coney Island Insane Crassness ...

"Only in America!"

Yes, we know it's an oft overused, corny old quote - that's why we almost always avoid using it.

However, from time to time we absolutely, positively have to make an exception.

Today, is one of those times.

WATER BOARDING AN ATTRACTION AT AMUSEMENT PARK

NEW YORK (Reuters)

A man with a black hood pours water on the face of a prisoner in an orange jumpsuit strapped to a table: no, it's not Guantanamo Bay naval base, but New York's Coney Island amusement park.

Amusement?

Jeezus H. suffering Christ!

Just how sodding sadistic can some slimy, sick shits get?

Read the revolting rest of this Reuters' report, right here.



(Cross posted at 'appletree')

British Soldiers' 'Baha Mousa' Slaying Shame ...

Well, we've been beaten to it today by one of our old Brit brother bloggers, R.J. Adams at 'sparrow chat'.

Beaten to what?

Beaten to this bit of bloody barbarity.

God Bless The ‘Special Relationship’

Few in America will have heard the name, Baha Mousa. That’s a pity, because Baha Mousa was living proof the ’special relationship’ between Britain and the United States is as strong and endurable as ever.

Baha Mousa is no longer ‘living proof’. He’s been dead five years: tortured to death by British troops in Basra, following arrest and detention along with a number of others Iraqis, in September 2003.

Mousa was a hotel receptionist whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Read the rest right here.

Since it seems 'sparrow chat''s already said it all for us - and so succinctly too - we're simply going to put a face to a name:the name of Baha Mousa, deceased.



Shocked?

You should be. Since that's what it looks like when an innocent man's been brutally beaten to death ... by a bunch of (brave?) young British soldiers.

Nice one, boys.

Eh?

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

(Cross posted at 'appletree')

America, Diego Garcia, Britain, Torture, and some slimy Brit poli-turds talking utter tripe ...

*



Good question, eh?

What a pity most of it's many millions of (allegedly), God fearing, good clean living, so called Christians have yet to come up with any sensible, civilised and/or adequate answers.



No matter. Most of the rest of the world already knows almost all of the honest answers .

So, what about Britain?

Well, here's a taste of some of the silly shit we saw reported today.

UK 'must check' US torture denial

The report calls for an analysis of US interrogation techniques

The British government should not rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, a report by MPs says.

The foreign affairs select committee said the UK and US differ on their definitions of what constitutes torture and it urged the UK to check US claims.

It recommended the government carry out an "exhaustive analysis of current US interrogation techniques."

(snip)

Given the clear differences in definition, the UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, and we recommend that the government does not rely on such assurances in the future."

The MPs also challenged the government to check more actively that Britain had not been used by the Americans for so called "rendition" flights - when detainees are taken to countries where bans on torture may not apply.

The UK had repeatedly accepted assurances that it had not, but it was discovered earlier this year that two rendition planes refuelled on the ...



... British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian
Ocean.

Read the rest of the relevant report.



Now, here's another good question.

What do our own lousy, lying leaders say they'll do if they do discover that America actually has been abusing/torturing fellow human beings - on British soil?

Yeah. Right. We know.

Sweet Fanny Adams fuck all. That's what. Sodding squat!

(Coss posted at 'appletree')

Amnesty International's Waterboarding Video ...

*

Via all three bottom links (below), you can watch the actual/awful torture technique of WATERBOARDING.

But only if you want to.

(clip)

Malcolm Nance, who trained hundreds of US servicemen and women to resist interrogation by putting them through "waterboarding" exercises, demanded an immediate end to the practice by all US personnel.

He said: "They seem to think it is worth throwing the honour of 220 years of American decency in war out of the window. Waterboarding is out-and-out torture, and I'm deeply ashamed President Bush has authorised its use and dragged the US's reputation into the mud."

Read the rest of this revealing 'Independent' report and see the video, right here.

N.B.
Credit and kudos also due to Amnesty International. And, to uruknet.info

*(Cross posted at appletree)

'Public Committee Against Torture in Israel' : Special Indictment Edition ...

*

We don't suppose it's any sort of 'scoop' to say that a special relationship between the US and Israel has been discovered ...



... nor, to a slightly lesser extent, lots of long standing, shameless UK-Israel joint bloody ventures.



However, it may come as a surprise to certain parties, to be informed of some of Israel's ever increasing 'invisible imports'- especially, some shipped across the Atlantic from some of their so patently supremacist/racist, ever over-eager to assist, 'big-bucks-boys' brothers and/or allies in America.



Including (criminal), collective punishment practices.

As well as, apparently, some old fashioned low-life, low-tech, low-cost, torture techniques.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli security services use family members of Palestinian prisoners to apply "illegal psychological pressure" and force detainees to confess, a new report on torture released on Sunday said.

The 83-page report by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel revealed the use of interrogation methods condemned as torture or ill treatment under international law, which "cause severe psychological suffering to interrogees and to their innocent relatives," it said in a statement.

It cited six detailed cases and said agents of Israel's internal security service Shin Beth often told prisoners that loved ones were also in detention and being tortured.

In one case, such pressure led the prisoner to attempt suicide several times, the report said.

Read the rest of the relevant report right here.

But before we sign off, we want to state as plainly and clearly as we possibly can that we're making no apology for publishing this particularly appalling photograph, once again.



Remember this poor Palestinian kid? The little lad so petrified by some despicable, pathetic pricks in the IDF, that he quite literally peed his pants?

The truth is that over the years we've learned that many, many big brave IDF poorly trained, undisciplined conscripts have long had habits of forging some special relationships of their own. And, perhaps not too surprisingly, so often so many of these shameful relationships seem to involve showing their 'strength' by shoving around innocent, civilian infants.



We wonder what this lovely little Palestian boy will be when he grows up. Eh?

Always assuming of course, that the lad's lucky enough to be allowed to.

Incidentally, we used to have a couple of authentic videos filed away on our previous PC showing children being used by Israeli soldiers as human shields. Maybe a reader can help us out/back us up on this.

For the record, one video shows a child being forced (by some IDF heroes), to enter houses/buildings about to be seached - in front of said heroes themselves.

Another shows a kid sat/stuck on the bonnet/hood of one of their patrol vehicles, and securely strapped there by being bound (by his arm), to the front windscreen's metal grill.

Quite a lot longer ago we watched with horror the video footage of a hidden TV cameraman's irefutable evidence of the work of the worst of the IDF's uniformed neanderthals.

A kid had thrown some stones at their patrol then run away. Several of them - chased and eventually caught the kid. Some of them forced the lad onto his knees and held him there while others, using large heavy rocks, deliberately, systematically and mercilessly pounded the lad's wrists, arms, elbows, shoulders and shoulder blades.

We never did get to see the victim's actual injuries at close quarters, nor did we ever learn what happened to him afterwards. But of one thing you can be certain, those injuries must have been horrific. At the very least, the lad must have been maimed for life. At worst, unless treated expertly and quickly, they may well have (eventually), proved fatal.

We'll never know the final outcome for the unfortunate victim involved. And we'll never forget what unforgivable wanton wickedness we witnessed.

We swear, by whatever and/or whoever anyone wants us to, that what we've just said we saw ... is true.

So help us.

*** UPDATE ***

Our sincere thanks to 'MO' who just emailed some "human shield" links.

*(Cross posted at appletree)

The Not So Straight Side Of Senator John McCain ...

Anyone still stubbornly insisting US Republican presidential candidate John McCain can be relied upon to do (when it matters), the right and honourable thing, obviously hasn't yet seen a certain story in today's British 'Sunday Mail.'

How war hero John McCain betrayed the Vietnamese peasant who saved his life

In all the tales of wartime courage peppering John McCain's presidential campaign trail, perhaps the most outstanding example of selfless heroism involves not the candidate but a humble Vietnamese peasant.

(snip)

And when a furious mob at the water's edge began to beat and stab the captured pilot, Mr On drove them back.

Nearly three decades later, a Vietnamese government commission confirmed he was indeed the rescuer and, in a 1996 meeting in Hanoi, McCain embraced and thanked Mr On and presented him with a Senate memento.

From that brief encounter to his death at the age of 88 two years ago, Mr On never heard from the senator again, and three years after their meeting, McCain published an autobiography [Faith of my Fathers]that makes no mention of his apparent debt to Mr On.

It is a snub Mr On took to his death.

His widow, Bui Thi Lien, 71, said: “In his last years, my husband was very sad sometimes.

He would say, 'Mr McCain has forgotten me.'

”Mr McCain would be dead if it weren't for my husband. He would never have returned to his family and he wouldn't be in the presidential race today.”

(snip)

“McCain listened but there was no dramatic response. He just nodded, said, 'Thank you very much,' and gave Mr On a little Senate seal.

“It was the kind of thing you buy in the souvenir shop in the Senate basement.

“But Mr On, to the day he died, treated it as if it were a Congressional Medal of Honour.”

But although McCain appeared to believe the story, it was one he would later seem to ignore in his autobiography and there was no more contact between the two men.

When Mr On died in 2006, an email was apparently sent to McCain's office requesting a message of condolence for the family. There was no response.

Whether or not McCain believed Mr On is unclear.

But his refusal to acknowledge his heroism is likely to fuel other, more damaging allegations that McCain exaggerated elements of his PoW ordeal in Hoa Lo prison.

Before you read the rest we want to make it abundantly clear that the UK's 'Mail' can in no way, shape or form be described as either a 'lefty' or even liberal national newspaper.

*(Cross posted at Appletree)

Abu Ghraib's Infamous Lynndie England : Unmissable 'Stern' Interview ...

*



Remember the whole wide world's revulsion regarding a certain candid-camera kind of compilation?



Remember Lynndie England?

An American soldier who - by her contemptable complicity in the torturing at Abu Ghraib prison - shamed, disgraced and disgusted so many members of the human race? You know, one of the (so called), Christian soldiers sent by George Bush & Co from the United States -- supposedly to set the poor Iraqi people free from their sufferings under Saddam?



Well... if you thought that by now, especially since she became a mother, she must have become seriously and sincerely contrite... well, judge for yourselves.



The snips which follow below are from an amazing (recent), interview with the German magazine 'Stern' - and while we like to believe that any article we highlight here is well worth reading - we genuinely believe this particular one is, in a word, brilliant.

One might, in all honesty, even say "unmissable"

Thousands of Americans?
Both. I guess after the picture came out the insurgency picked up and Iraqis attacked the Americans and the British and they attacked in return and they were just killing each other. I felt bad about it, ... no, I felt pissed off.

If the media hadn't exposed the pictures to that extent then thousands of lives would have been saved.

(snip)

But you took the photos.
Yeah, I took the photos but I didn't make it worldwide. Yes, I was in five or six pictures and I took some pictures, and those pictures were shameful and degrading to the Iraqis and to our government. And I feel sorry and wrong about what I did. But it would not have escalated to what it did all over the world if it wouldn't have been for someone leaking it to the media. Hell, I was at Fort Bragg when the pictures came out and I had no idea.

Can you tell us about the day you heard the pictures had been made public?
The pictures came out on a Thursday, April 27 or 28. I called my Mom on Saturday. I was pregnant at the time, I didn't have a car, I didn't get the newspaper, I didn't have a TV, I didn't have a radio. I called my Mom from a payphone and she said, "There's a hundred reporters out in the front yard. You're all over the news, your face is in the papers, on CNN." I just said, "What are you talking about?" I didn't believe it. She started talking about the pictures and describing them. And I'm like, "Oh shit, how did they get out?"

Were you scared when you realized the pictures were out there?
I didn't really believe it. It was kind of like I was still in shock. I was like "No, me?"

But you knew at that stage that the investigation had been underway since January?
Yeah, but I didn't know it was so public with America, or even the world. So I went to this buddy I knew in the barracks, and I looked it up on the Internet and thought, "Oh my God." I couldn't believe it. And then I started getting paranoid. I was really getting scared at that point and thinking somebody's gonna beat the shit out of me. And I was only three months pregnant and I wasn't showing so they could beat the hell out of me and I could have lost the baby.

See 'STERN's amazing (seven page), Lynndie England interview in it's riveting entirety.

And discover some (special), others she says she blames.

*(Cross posted at Appletree)

Abu Ghraib Atrocities Again : Latest Revolting Revelations Re; American Torture/War Crimes ...

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How much more will the world put up with up?

Whenever one thinks things couldn't possibly get any worse ... they get worse.

Huge hat-tip to 'Nick the News Guy' at 'The Liberal Avenger'.

NEW REPORT: ABU GHRAIB PRISONERS PACKED IN ICE WATER-FILLED GARBAGE CANS AND SENT INTO SHOCK, MILITARY POLICE SAY

Submitted by david swanson on Mon, 2008-03-17 16:26.

Evidence

By Sherwood Ross

Muslim prisoners held in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison were submerged in water-filled garbage cans with ice or put naked under cold showers in near-freezing rooms until they went into shock, Sgt. Javal Davis, who served with the 372nd Military Police Company there, has told a national magazine.

Davis, from the Roselle, N.J., area, said while stationed at the prison he also saw an incinerator with “bones in it” that he believed to be a crematorium and said some prisoners were starved prior to their interrogation.

Another soldier that had been stationed at Abu Ghraib, M.P. Sabrina Harman---who gained dubious fame for making a thumbs-up sign posing over the body of a prisoner she believed tortured to death---said the U.S. had imprisoned “women and children” on Tier 1B, including one child was as young as ten.

“Like a number of the other kids and of the women there, he was being held as a pawn in the military’s effort to capture or break his father,”

Read the revolting rest right here.

Impeach?

How about impale?

UK Top Cop Michael Todd's Sudden Death : Further Questioning Required?

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Simple straightforward question for Home Secretary, Jaqui Smith (seen below).



Seeing as stuff such as we've clipped & pasted below is starting to surface in public (concerning the Chief Constable of our country's second largest police force), what we want to know is how and why he was able and/or allowed - by you - to remain in the job regardless ?

The BBC has also learnt that Mr Todd suffered from bouts of depression, and had previously threatened suicide.

Shouldn't you, being his boss, now be (to coin a phrase), brought in for questioning?

And, wouldn't you concur, the quicker the bloody better?



And what about your boss, Brown?



Shouldn't he too be required to say something suitably sensible and plausible on such a serious score (of scandalous proportion), as this shocking story so obviously is?

And, shouldn't he be standing up and saying it as soon as sodding possible?

*(Cross posted at Appletree)

Michael Todd : UK's Top "CIA Extraordinary Rendition/Torture" Cop's Dead Body Discovered ...

A body found at a beauty spot in North Wales has been identified as that of the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police ~ Britain's second largest police force.



Michael Todd QPM M Phil BA (Hons)

Mr Todd was the man in charge of the 'rendition for torture' investigation into the alleged use of British territory by America's C.I.A.

Just nine months ago (June 07), the resulting report ruled that there was no evidence ... etc, etc, blah, blah, blah ...

Nevertheless, only last month (Feb 08), Prime Minister Gordon Brown's new, New Labour Government admitted that the US had indeed used UK territory in the furtherance of C.I.A. 'extraordinary rendition'. Which, as almost everyone with a modicum of common sense knows, is merely a modern "Made in USA" euphemism for torture.

And yes, before anyone bothers blasting us, we are well aware that there could indeed be no dots whatsoever to be joined.

And yes, it could all just as easily be complete coincidence - and therefore not connected in any way at all, with any kind of conspiracy ; either real or imagined.

Right?

Time alone will might tell.

* (Cross posted at Appletree)

Special 'Short, Sharp, Shock' Sorta-Semi-Sacred Supplement ...

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Here's the shortest, torturous thousand word picture post we've ever published.

And we give TEN thousand thanks to Gordo across at Appletree, for originally writing the remarkably wonderful words which inspired us.



So, we wonder if the phony, self appointed & anointed, pontificating prick, Tony Blair will be teaching this particular parable when he takes up his (latest) 'God-given' (well paid) position at America's Yale University?

Yeah, sure he will.

As surely as we're touch-typing this article on an ancient abacus, with our respective pairs of black & blue big toes. Which, by the way, have both been bound tightly behind our backs, since our last (shared) Sunday supper in September 07.

And incidentally (as well as almost miraculously), we're accomplishing all these amazing acts as we're actually 'ascending'.

Here endeth the lesson.

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Video Tapes and Lies: CIA Continues Coincidence/Conspiracy/Carelessness Crap ...

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Cor blimey, Charlie. Can you Adam & Eve it?

(For the none intelligent intelligence types (lagging behind) among us, that's Cockney rhyming slang.

Take all the time you need to try to figure it out for yourself if you can't comprehend all that quickly. Since from here on in, we're staying schtum on said subject. After all, who ever said we were here to educate enemies? Especially, enemies within.

(Sarcastic British black humour ends.)



Unfortunately, much as we'd cherish the chance to show certain special things, we can't.

But we can show you - and speak shout out about - what follows below, since it's now in the public domain.

CIA destroyed interrogation tapes

The CIA destroyed the tapes when being scrutinised over secret prisons The CIA has confirmed that it destroyed at least two video tapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects.

According to the intelligence agency, the tapes were destroyed to protect the identity of CIA agents and because they no longer had intelligence value.

But civil liberties lawyers have refused to accept this, saying the CIA previously denied such tapes existed.

They say the move appears to be an attempt to destroy evidence that could have brought CIA agents to account.

The New York Times, which broke the story, quotes current and former government officials as saying the CIA destroyed the tapes in 2005 as it faced Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention program.

Officials feared the tapes could have raised doubts about the legality of the CIA's techniques, the newspaper says.

Well now, slap us in the kisser with wet flat fish and flatten us all with that fabled feather duster! Surprise, surprise. NOT.

They can recognise a vehicle registration plate from satellites circling in space. They can examine at will every single one of everyone's emails with ease. They can continually listen in to (and tape), all of our telephone talks.

Yet they can't (like even the most unsophisticated civilian TV techies do daily), simply blank or fuzz out faces?

Yeah, sure. And the band played 'Believe me if you like'.

Call this continual load of lying crap what you want to - coincidence, conspiracy, careless - or perhaps to put it more politely, a clear cut (and dried) case of economy of truth.

Whatever you care to call it, remember the famous literary line, "A Rose by any other name" ?

There are also questions over whether CIA agents withheld information from the courts and a presidential commission.

The CIA's failure to make the tapes available to a federal court hearing the case of the terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui or to the 9/11 Commission could amount to obstruction of justice, according to the New York Times.

Well, we say the CIA are shower of shitty serial liars. What's more, we challenge absolutely anyone to prove us wrong.



Read the rest of this report.

*(Cross posted at Appletree)

Diego Garcia 'Black Site' Shame: UK & US Accused Of Crimes Against Humanity ...

The hugest of hat-tips for the heads-up today goes out to Gordo, one of our bestest buddy US bloggers across the Atlantic at his 'Appletree' blog.

Claims of secret CIA jail for terror suspects on British island to be investigated

· Legal charity urges action on Diego Garcia claims

· Prisoners may have been held in ships off coast

Go to the 'The Guardian' to read the (revolting), rest of this report -- and go there right now.

C.I.A. Scandal(s) Shock ...

We're way too wound up to say too much on this stinking score.

So see some of this shit for yourself.

CIA lawyer -- yes, that may be an oxymoron

John Rizzo, acting general counsel for CIA "from November 2001 until October 2002 and from August 2004 until today," -- i.e., during the let's-legalize-torture glory months of Yoo and Addington -- had his confirmation hearing yesterday. Here's the AP wrapup, and here are two posts by Spencer Ackerman, who happily was at the hearing for TPM.

The CIA's top lawyer said Tuesday he did not object to a 2002 memo authorizing interrogation techniques that stop just short of causing a sensation of impending organ failure or even death. [Because, you know, a sensation of drowning isn't a sensation of death, or even impending death ... just don't look up "drown" in the dictionary, okay? -- TBA.]

Yet John Rizzo, who is serving as the agency's temporary general counsel, said he later found the document to be an "aggressive, expansive" reading of U.S. law. * * *

"As with most legal memos, my reaction was it was an aggressive, expansive reading," Rizzo said. "But I can't say I had any specific objections to any specific parts of it."

What does that mean, "as with most legal memos"? Most of the torture memos?

Read the rest right here.

Then take a look at this lousy little lot.

CIA airs decades worth of spy documents

By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Little-known documents now being made public detail illegal and scandalous activities by the CIA more than 30 years ago: wiretappings of journalists, kidnappings, warrantless searches and more.

The documents provide a glimpse of nearly 700 pages of materials that the agency plans to declassify next week. A six-page summary memo that was declassified in 2000 and released by The National Security Archive at George Washington University on Thursday outlines 18 activities by the CIA that "presented legal questions" and were discussed with President Ford in 1975.

Among them: .................

Now hit this link to learn a lot more.

And here's a BBC bit about it all.

"This is about telling the American people what we have done in their name," Gen Hayden told a conference of foreign policy historians.

See that? See what he said?

Done in the American people's name.

Next, access all that illuminating article.

Okay. Plenty have reported. Now you decide.

Now we're shutting up and quitting while we're ahead, since we've still got some especially good American friends -- and we'd not like losing any.

Help!! We've been held hidden away here by our government(s), for years & years.

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