The Ratio

This interview with Charlie Gibson is really pretty amazing. Just read it and see. If I have to sum it up his line seems to be "just trust us."

Tags: Torture

If the Bush/Blair bombing memo turns out to be true, it would certainly be evidence of Conspiracy to commit criminal acts, and the panicked behaviour of the British government would seem to suggest that it is for real.

The attorney general last night threatened newspapers with the Official Secrets Act if they revealed the contents of a document allegedly relating to a dispute between Tony Blair and George Bush over the conduct of military operations in Iraq.

Juan Cole has a useful review of Bush's sorry relations with Al-Jazeera. What he points out is that Al-Jazeera is really not that far out there. They are relatively fair and balanced. I'm baffled as to why the Bushies don't try luring them into bed instead. The Judy Millerization of Al-Jazeera. Perhaps they've already tried and were kicked to the curb, with blue balls and a broken heart.

Tags: War Crimes

Retired U.S. Army Col. Larry Wilkerson tells it like it is:

"There's no question in my mind that we did. There's no question in my mind that we may be still doing it," Wilkerson said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"There's no question in my mind where the philosophical guidance and the flexibility in order to do so originated -- in the vice president of the United States' office," he said. "His implementer in this case was [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department."

At another point in the interview, Wilkerson said "the vice president had to cover this in order for it to happen and in order for Secretary Rumsfeld to feel as though he had freedom of action."

His saying it is a "pleasant" surprise, but the implications are neither pleasant nor a surprise. What was a surprise was the reported retort from Cheney to earlier remarks from Stansfield Turner:

In a statement responding to Turner's remark, Cheney said his views "are reflected in the administration's policy. Our country is at war and our government has an obligation to protect the American people from a brutal enemy that has declared war upon us."

"We are aggressively finding terrorists and bringing them to justice and anything we do within this effort is within the law," the statement said, adding that the United States "does not torture."

Sure its the kind of doublespeak that flows from Cheney's forked tongue like milk from a she-goat's teat; but compare it to Bush's statement in Panama:

Anything we do ... to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is
within the law. We do not torture

They are stating quite clearly that they consider themselves above the law.

Tags: Torture

Porter Goss:

"This agency does not do torture. Torture does not work," Goss said. "We use lawful capabilities to collect vital information and we do it in a variety of unique and innovative ways, all of which are legal and none of which are torture.

There are a variety of unique and innovative ways in which these sadistic fucks continue to ignore the fact that the cat is out of the bag. The world knows, the american public knows. The question is do they care?

Tags: Torture

Paul Craig Roberts reports on the Blair government's attempt to silence leakers by charging them with violating the Official Secrets Act.

In England it is not Blair who is on trial for participating in what he knew was a wrongful act that has resulted in thousands of deaths.
It is not the crimes committed in secret that get punished. The people who are punished are the ones who leak memos that reveal wrongdoing has occurred.

This seems to me to be not coincidentally parallel to the recent Bush administration attacks on those who accuse the administration of tweaking or fabricating the intelligence. When Dan Bartlett says:>

Even during times of war we should have disagreement; we should debate and argue. But one thing we shouldn't do is have a debate based on false charges.

The type of political rhetoric we're hearing today does send the wrong signal to our troops; it does send the wrong signal to our enemies.

he is trying to preclude the possibility that administration officials will be held responsible for crimes by disallowing making the charge of crimes. Bartlett is really a piece of work.

Tags: War Crimes

Billmon has much more about the Salvadoran option. The Iranian angle is interesting. There is a lot of chatter about the Iranian influence in Iraq but I don't get the impression that much of it is very authoritative. It's mainly westerners speculating or repeating leaks from anonymous pentagon officials or former CIA agents. Related: John Burns peers into the shadows.

Tags: Death Squads

ABC has some details. No Blood for Hubris looks at the techniques described in light of the Geneva Conventions. It would seem to be pretty difficult to not view these techniques as torture, but if you simply redefine them as Enhanced Interrogation Techniques then the problem is resolved. I've been meaning to re-read "1984" for a while now. I think the time is right.

Tags: Torture

25 years later in Memphis. What this article doesn't mention is that Carranza was a CIA operative. Remember when Negroponte was sent to Baghdad and there was talk of El Salvador and Nicaragua being models for the way to deal with the insurgency? Are we beginning to see the fruits of that policy come to light?

Tags: Torture

This article discusses recent developements concerning UN investigations into the torture bunker in Baghdad, and Gitmo. Not surprising that the US is not cooperating with the Gitmo investigation. It will be interesting to see what the official position is on the Baghdad investigation. Here's more from the Guardian

None of this should come as a surprise to the Americans or anyone else. Here is a January 05 report from Human Rights Watch.

Tags: Torture

After reading this article from The Independent on the recent Baghdad torture revelations, what I take away from it, although it isn't explicitly stated, is the CIA and US Military have trained and are directing the death/torture squads. Was this what Negroponte was up to, in his time in Baghdad?

Tags: Torture

Phillippe Sands raises the wonderful possibility that members of the Bush administration could actually be held responsible for complicity in torture, or at least be forced to limit their travels and in effect become international fugitives.

Tags: Torture

You guessed it: Dick Cheney. I'm still skeptical of every transmission that emanates from the LaRouchian nut-hive, nonetheless, this is quite interesting, regarding Dick's involvement in covering up the Frank Olsen affair. Furthering the cause of medical/military experimentation on human subjects, Josef was pleased I'm sure.

Tags: Torture

Anything we do ... to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is
within the law. We do not torture

We are the law and the law is us. Its not torture, its therapy!

Tags: Torture