of course i'm loving this editorial in the nyt

as well as my previous posting from wapo
The Torture Papers

The Obama administration has taken important steps toward repairing the grievous harm that President George W. Bush did to this nation with his lawless and morally repugnant detention policies. President Obama is committed to closing the Guantánamo Bay camp and creating legitimate courts to try detainees. He has rescinded the executive orders and the legal rulings that Mr. Bush used to excuse the abuse of prisoners. The Defense Department has taken the important step of reversing policy and notifying the International Committee of the Red Cross of the identities of militants who were being held in secret at camps in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Attorney General Eric Holder has appointed a prosecutor to investigate the interrogation of prisoners of the Central Intelligence Agency, whose inhuman treatment was detailed in a long-secret report written by the agency’s inspector general in 2004 and released on Monday..........

wow, two dudes

in the good ol' boy network WITH STONES

Two Bush officials fire back at Cheney ‘fearmongering’

By Agence France-Presse

Two top Bush-era officials on Friday rejected ex-vice president Dick Cheney’s scathing criticism of US President Barack Obama, saying the country’s national security was not in jeopardy.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who served in the same post under former president George W. Bush, and Tom Ridge, the former head of homeland security, both voiced disagreement with Cheney a day after he attacked Obama’s performance as the new commander-in-chief.

Gates said in an interview that opponents of Obama’s decision to close the “war on terror” prison at Guantanamo were engaging in “fear-mongering,” a reference to Cheney’s stance on the issue.

Defending the president’s decision to shut the detention center at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Gates said the prison was damaging America’s image and served as a propaganda tool for Al-Qaeda..........

just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water

you discover it's not. the sharks boone is STILL lurking about

Pat Boone says in letter to President ‘mama inflicted more actual physical pain than waterboarding'

Ron Moore

Go to Ron's Home Page

In his weekly WorldNetDaily column Pat Boon begins and ends an open letter to President Obama with a positive and one hopes sincere pledge to pray for him. Then the column devolves into an odd defense of torture claiming that:

May I tell you that my own mama inflicted more actual physical pain on me and my brother Nick – raising welts on our butts with a sewing machine belt when we got really out of line – than any of the techniques, including "waterboarding," that detainees of the U.S. military have endured

He further suggests a good option for Guantanamo is Antarctica:

So – and I'm very serious – why not load all these guys into a transport plane and fly them to deep Antarctica? Deposit them in barracks and drop food and necessary items by parachute once in a while. Let them compare being on their own in that snowbound environment with the three meals a day and "harsh treatment" they experienced in Cuba. Any better ideas? I didn't think so. Then shut the base, or convert it to a Motel 6..............

never thought about it this way

but larisa sure does have one hell of a good point here. think about it. she HAS to be right here (not that they're not terrorists. i'm not saying that)

We are being spoon-fed stupid again...

Can someone explain to me how 5 suspected members of Al Qaeda (although there is no question regarding KSM) suddenly got their own PR machine from inside Gitmo and at the hands of a military judge, not to mention getting a world stage through which to frighten Americans some more? And the media? Well, they are too well versed is stupid to ask any sensible questions:

"Five Guantanamo prisoners accused in the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S. staunchly defended their actions, calling the operation "blessed" and "great" and the accusations against them "badges of honor."

"You are the last nation that has the right to speak about civilians and killing civilians," the five said in a response this month to the U.S. government's war crimes charges...........................

..................

Okay, now someone explain the following to me:

1. How did 5 alleged Al Qaeda members come together to form this statement, given that they are being held each in isolation at Gitmo? Are they allowed to meet and discuss various topics, including their alleged joy at bombing the United States? Somehow I don't think so. We know that some of their own attorneys were not even aware of this filing or what it said. So was this done telepathically?..........

this is a VERY good article

i have said this before and i'll say it again. i am ALL FOR punishing terrorists (or criminals for that matter). but this is the united states. people have rights here. it's a free nation. we have a constitution and laws and rules we're bound to follow. we also agreed to follow the geneva conventions. we CANNOT keep someone locked up for years and years with NO CHARGES and NO TRIAL. if they are guilty they SHOULD 'pay', however, doesn't it say SOMEWHERE innocent UNTIL proven guilty (or is that my imagination)?

Obama’s “Humane” Guantánamo Is A Bitter Joke
-Andy Worthington
The “War on Terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where the majority of the remaining 241 prisoners have been held for seven years without charge or trial, “complies with the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva Conventions,” according to a government official who spoke to the New York Times after reading an 85-page report prepared for President Obama by Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, the vice chief of naval operations.

The report was commissioned by the President, on his second day in office, as part of an Executive Order dealing with the closure of Guantánamo. In it, he directed defense secretary Robert Gates to ensure that the Guantánamo prisoners were being held in conditions that comply with the Geneva Conventions regarding the humane treatment of prisoners, adding, “Such review shall be completed within 30 days and any necessary corrections implemented immediately thereafter.”

According to the government official, the report’s only recommendations for improving conditions at Guantánamo are “to increase social contact among the 16 prisoners described by the Bush administration as ‘high-value detainees,’” who are held in seclusion in Camp 7, and to allow more communal recreation time for prisoners in Camps 5 and 6.

The former, modeled on the Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana, and used, initially at least, to house non-compliant prisoners and those regarded as being of significant intelligence value, was long regarded as the most oppressive of Guantánamo’s cell blocks (outside of the specific isolation blocks, including the notorious Camp Echo, where a small number of prisoners are held in permanent solitary confinement), but it soon lost its reputation after Camp 6 opened in December 2006...............

'they're living in the tropics

i didn't even read the article

(yet) but i just LOVE LOVE LOVE this headline. what a GREAT thing to see first thing in the morning when you wake up (i'm not a fool. i KNOW i'm not going to love everything president obama does. i don't agree with him on some things ALREADY. but i have hope and i have pride and i have a dream for all of us). i am almost delirious with delight


Obama Starts Reversing Bush Policies
Guantanamo Order Readied; Lobbying Rules Tightened

By Michael D. Shear

Washington Post Staff Writer
President Obama moved swiftly yesterday to begin rolling back eight years of his predecessor's policies, ordering tough new ethics rules and preparing to issue an order closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which has been at the center of the debate over the treatment of U.S. prisoners in the battle against terrorism.

Acting to address several promises he made during his campaign, Obama met with top generals about speeding the withdrawal from Iraq and gathered his senior economic advisers as he continued to push for a massive spending bill to create jobs.

He also signed a series of executive orders and directives intended to slow the revolving door between government service and lobbying, and ordered his administration to share information more freely with the public............

but we DON'T torture

bbc video at the link below

Former guard on Guantanamo 'torture'

A former guard at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay has spoken in his first television interview about the brutality he witnessed to inmates.

Chris Arendt told the BBC what he saw amounted to ''torture'' and that some of his fellow guards were so violent as to be ''psychotic.''............

Ex-gitmo guard who saw 'torture' calls co-workers 'psychotic'
Jeremy Gantz
As the Guantanamo Bay detention center reached its seventh birthday this week, a U.S. veteran said he witnessed cell beatings, forced head shavings and interrogation tactics--including sleep deprivation, floor shackles and loud music--while guarding detainees there.

"It's torture," Chris Arendt, who worked at Guantanamo when he was 19, told the BBC in this video. "It's a means of extracting information that I didn't even believe these people probably had. It's a means of making their lives more miserable."

Arendt, who joined the U.S. military when he was 17, testified at the Winter Soldier Hearings in Washington D.C. last March.

Wearing an Iraq Veterans Against the War sweatshirt, Arendt told the BBC that many people he worked with at the camp thought of their Guantanamo posting as "vacation."

"...This was the opportunity that they'd always wanted, to be violent and awful people...because they are genuinely pyschotic. And for others, it's just a job," Arendt said............

just because someone shoots their mouth off

tells a few tales, perhaps an embellishment here or there, DOESN'T MEAN THEY SHOULD BE TORTURED. it doesn't mean they should be kidnapped from a foreign land, sent to another foreign land, not be charged with any crimes what so ever (EVER) but be tortured and kept in prison WITH NO CHARGES I REPEAT. who did all of this? the united states did. we have become THEM. we are the monsters here. i hope and pray this administration will NOT be the last one. i hope this one will not only be human and humane BUT follow the law (i also hope they arrest and punish the current administration for crimes against humanity, war crimes and everything in between)

Ex-Detainee of U.S. Describes a 6-Year Ordeal
By JANE PERLEZ, RAYMOND BONNER and SALMAN MASOOD

LAHORE, Pakistan — When Muhammad Saad Iqbal arrived home here in August after more than six years in American custody, including five at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he had difficulty walking, his left ear was severely infected, and he was dependent on a cocktail of antibiotics and antidepressants. In November, a Pakistani surgeon operated on his ear, physical therapists were working on lower back problems and a psychiatrist was trying to wean him off the drugs he carried around in a white, plastic shopping bag.........

......................... Mr. Iqbal was never convicted of any crime, or even charged with one. He was quietly released from Guantánamo with a routine explanation that he was no longer considered an enemy combatant, part of an effort by the Bush administration to reduce the prison’s population.

“I feel ashamed what the Americans did to me in this period,” Mr. Iqbal said, speaking for the first time at length about his ordeal during several hours of interviews with The New York Times, including one from his hospital bed in Lahore........

'splain this to me lucy

how can we torture if we DON'T torture?

hmmmmmmmmm

oh and please note how the united states prosecuted japanese soldiers for using the very same method(s) the united states is using at gitmo. another hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Cheney admits authorizing detainee's torture
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Outgoing VP says Guantanamo prison should stay open until end of terror war, but has no idea when that might be.
Monday, outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney made a startling statement on a nation-wide, televised broadcast.

When asked by ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl whether he approved of interrogation tactics used against a so-called "high value prisoner" at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison, Mr. Cheney, in a break from his history of being press-shy, admitted to giving official sanctioning of torture.

"I supported it," he said regarding the practice known as "water-boarding," a form of simulated drowning. After World War II, Japanese soldiers were tried and convicted of war crimes in US courts for water-boarding, a practice which the outgoing Bush administration attempted to enshrine in policy............

but we DON'T torture!

we have become those we hate. those we call savages. those we want to thrust our idea of democracy upon.

we have become the bad guys

can we become the good guys again?

Former interrogator slams torture: Torture has cost nearly as many lives as 9/11.»

In a Washington Post op-ed today, a former Special Operations interrogator who worked in Iraq in 2006 sharply criticizes American torture techniques as ineffective and dangerous. “Torture and abuse cost American lives,” he writes:

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. … It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me — unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans..........

the wapo article:



By Matthew Alexander
I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I'm still alarmed about that today.......

one would think the assholes at faux 'news'

would have better things to say in the wake of what happened in mumbai. well, one would HOPE they would. just when you thought they were actually HUMAN...they knock you back over with their stupidity, evilness, bullying AND their INSTIGATING. that's what they do best ... INSTIGATE

Fox: Will Mumbai attacks delay Gitmo closing?
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Fox News' Alisyn Camerota appears to be hoping that in the wake of Thursday's terrorist attacks in India, Barack Obama might rethink his campaign pledge to close down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

"President-elect Barack Obama condemns the attacks in Mumbai and promises to root out terrorism, but he also promises to close down Guanatanamo Bay," Camerota noted, as the Fox banner asked "Obama's Guantanamo Paradox: Can he close Gitmo after India attacks?"

Camerota spoke with Democratic political consultant Bob Beckel and former Republican Senator Rick Santorum about Guantanamo on Friday, asking, "Is it hard to get a handle on exactly where Barack Obama stands on how he would handle terrorists?"
.......

i believe terrorists and criminals

must pay for their actions. i believe in our united states constitution and our united states laws. i believe our civilian and our military law enforcement systems do NOT have the right to torture prisoners. i believe a person must be charged with a crime in order to be in prison. i believe a person should KNOW their charges. i believe we must have evidence in order to charge someone with a crime. i believe all those who are charged with a crime have the right to legal defense AND A TRIAL.
i believe it's illegal to spy on the citizens of the united states of america without a proper warrant.

can barack obama undo all the unjust and illegal things king george and his court did? most likely not but they can sure try. oh, and it seems like they ARE going to try

Guantanamo Closure Called Obama Priority
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Obama administration will launch a review of the classified files of the approximately 250 detainees at Guantanamo Bay immediately after taking office, as part of an intensive effort to close the U.S. prison in Cuba, according to people who advised the campaign on detainee issues.
Announcing the closure of the controversial detention facility would be among the most potent signals the incoming administration could send of its sharp break with the Bush era, according to the advisers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak for the president-elect. They believe the move would create a global wave of diplomatic and popular goodwill that could accelerate the transfer of some detainees to other countries. ..........

and WE are not savages?

you KNEW they weren't going to ACTUALLY RELEASE THEM right?

i sure did.

we keep INNOCENTS LOCKED UP FOR SEVEN YEARS. NO CHARGES, NO NOTHING. WE KNOW THEY'RE NOT GUILTY OF ANYTHING including being TERRORISTS. they're away from their families, in a foreign land. they will be killed (or worse) if we send them home. what do we do to make amends for OUR torture of them (isn't being locked up incommunicado for seven years torture?) WE KEEP THEM LOCKED UP. savages. we are savages

Appeals Court Halts Release of 17 Guantanamo Detainees

By Del Quentin Wilber

Washington Post Staff Writer
A federal appeals court Monday blocked the release of 17 Chinese Muslims into the United States from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until it can hear further legal arguments in the case.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stayed a federal judge's order releasing the men, and it ordered oral arguments in the government's appeal, to be heard Nov. 24.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina ordered the government Oct. 7 to release the men, all Uighurs, who have been held at Guantanamo Bay for nearly seven years. The same panel temporarily stayed Urbina's order a day later.

The government has been trying to find new homes for the Uighurs for years. It no longer considers them enemy combatants and provided no evidence in court that they posed a security risk. The men cannot be returned to their homeland because they face the prospect of being tortured and killed. China considers the men terrorists.......

i do love everything lewis carroll

so this is especially poignant to me. oh AND SO VERY TELLING
this is a pretty good story

Judges cite nonsense poem in Guantanamo case
The Associated Press
By MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court reviewing evidence at Guantanamo Bay compared a Bush administration legal argument to one made by a hapless, dimwitted character in a 19th century nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit cited the 1876 poem, "The Hunting of the Snark," in ruling that the military improperly labeled a Chinese Muslim as an enemy combatant. The ruling was issued last week but an unclassified version of the opinion was released only Monday.........

more (as if we needed it -

since NOTHING is going to be done) on the savagery we have perpetrated. yes, even on innocents (yes, some were terrorists, but SOME ARE INNOCENT). no matter what, torture as a rule DOESN'T WORK. if and that's a BIG IF people 'talk' because they are being tortured, chances are they are going to spew what they think YOU want to hear.

we are human beings. we have laws in place. we cannot turn our backs on the laws nor can we revert back to terrorism ourselves. we MUST STOP THIS AND WE MUST PUNISH THOSE WHO ARE GUILTY. and by those i don't mean some private or corporal somewhere. i mean the bush kingdom. all of 'em. they should be brought up on charges immediately and punished accordingly (lock them up forever and throw away the key)
CIA Played Larger Role In Advising Pentagon
Harsh Interrogation Methods Defended
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer

A senior CIA lawyer advised Pentagon officials about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on detainees at Guantanamo Bay in a meeting in late 2002, defending waterboarding and other methods as permissible despite U.S. and international laws banning torture, according to documents released yesterday by congressional investigators.

Torture "is basically subject to perception," CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman told a group of military and intelligence officials gathered at the U.S.-run detention camp in Cuba on Oct. 2, 2002, according to minutes of the meeting. "If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong."

The document, one of two dozen released by a Senate panel investigating how Pentagon officials developed the controversial interrogation program introduced at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002, suggests a larger CIA role in advising Defense Department interrogators than was previously known. By the time of the meeting, the CIA already had used waterboarding, which simulates drowning, on at least one terrorism suspect and was holding high-level al-Qaeda detainees in secret prisons overseas -- actions that Bush administration lawyers had approved.

The new evidence, along with hours of questioning of former Pentagon officials at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, shed light on efforts by top aides to then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to research and reverse-engineer techniques used by military survival schools to prepare U.S. service members for possible capture by hostile forces. ..........

this isn't really news

we know about it. we've known about it awhile. we either ignore it or deny it. we don't care. it's not US it's happening to. yet let someone else do it to our sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers. we're up in arms.

what WOULD be news is if someone was made accountable for these crimes. they ARE crimes.

Report Questions Pentagon Accounts

Officials Looked Into Interrogation Methods Early On

By Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writer

A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command, according to congressional sources briefed on the findings.

The sources said that memos and other evidence obtained during the inquiry show that officials in the office of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld started to research the use of waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices in July 2002, months before memos from commanders at the detention facility in Cuba requested permission to use those measures on suspected terrorists.

The reported evidence -- some of which is expected to be made public at a Senate hearing today -- also shows that military lawyers raised strong concerns about the legality of the practices as early as November 2002, a month before Rumsfeld approved them. .........

there ARE people with souls

in the government. it's just that no one listens to them
Interrogation Tactics Were Challenged at White House

By Carrie Johnson and Josh White Washington Post Staff Writers
Five years ago, as troubling reports emerged about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a career lawyer at the Justice Department began a long and relatively lonely campaign to alert top Bush administration officials to a strategy he considered "wrongheaded."
This Story
Interrogation Tactics Were Challenged at White House
Thursday, May 22 at 12:30 p.m.: Dana Priest on National Security and Intelligence
Bruce C. Swartz, a criminal division deputy in charge of international issues, repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of harsh interrogation tactics at White House meetings of a special group formed to decide detainee matters, with representatives present from the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA. ..........

and abc news reports this (if true, it's far far far worse than we can ever imagine). and NOTE the fbi are the one who are reporting these instances of abuse. (sort of makes me feel a BIT better about the fbi)


Report: U.S. Soldiers Did 'Dirty Work' for Chinese Interrogators
Alleges Guantanamo Personnel Softened Up Detainees at Request of Chinese Intelligence
By JUSTIN ROOD
U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay allegedly softened up detainees at the request of Chinese intelligence officials who had come to the island facility to interrogate the men -- or they allowed the Chinese to dole out the treatment themselves, according to claims in a new government report.
Buried in a Department of Justice report released Tuesday are new allegations about a 2002 arrangement between the United States and China, which allowed Chinese intelligence to visit Guantanamo and interrogate Chinese Uighurs held there.
According to the report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, an FBI agent reported a detainee belonging to China's ethnic Uighur minority and a Uighur translator told him Uighur detainees were kept awake for long periods, deprived of food and forced to endure cold for hours on end, just prior to questioning by Chinese interrogators.
Susan Manning, a lawyer who represents several Uighurs still held at Guantanamo, said Tuesday the allegations are all too familiar. ......

raise your hand if you're surprised by this

anyone? come on, anyone? anyone at all surprised by this? SOMEONE must be surprised by this? janie, you're in the first grade and i'm guessing you don't read the newspaper every morning or listen to the nightly news. janie, EVEN YOU'RE not surprised by this? i'm shocked (notttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt)

Audit Finds FBI Reports Of Detainee Abuse Ignored
Tactics Continued Against Detainees

By Carrie Johnson and Josh White Washington Post Staff Writers
Complaints by FBI agents about abusive interrogation tactics at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other U.S. military sites reached the National Security Council but prompted no effort to curb questioning that the agents considered ineffective and possibly illegal, according to an internal audit released yesterday.
Reports that Guantanamo detainees were being subjected to extreme temperatures, religious abuses and nude interrogation were conveyed at White House meetings of senior officials in 2003, yet these questionable tactics remained in use, a lengthy report by the Justice Department's inspector general concluded.
In one instance, colleagues of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft reported that he personally aired concerns about Defense Department strategy toward a particular detainee with Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, while other Justice managers shared similar fears with the council's legal adviser in November 2003, the report said. .........

a GOD among men

well HE thinks he is. a citizen above suspicion.
Cheney lawyer claims Congress lacks power to conduct oversight over vice president
John Byrne
'I trust you will not turn your back' on respecting Congress, Democrat says
In what appears yet another effort to strengthen his position in the executive branch, the attorney for Vice President Dick Cheney said in a letter released by Congress Thursday that the Congress "lacks the constitutional power" to conduct oversight over his job.
The letter came in response to requests that Cheney's chief of staff David Addington testify about the his role in approving harsh interrogation tactics -- which some see as torture -- at Guantanamo Bay.
Cheney has long battled Congress over oversight. In particular, Congress has sought, and failed, to acquire information from his office regarding his meetings with oil company executives to discuss energy policy in 2001. Cheney was also the subject of a Washington Post series which detailed his attempts to strengthen the position of the vice presidency as a bulwark against inquiry..............