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TORTURE USA
the following from a Press Briefing
by Scott McClellan
- James S. Brady Press
Briefing Room
- read text
- Real Movie
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Q Does the President know about, and approve of, this probe that's being announced by the House and Senate of the leak of the story about the CIA secret prisons --
MR. McCLELLAN: I just saw the announcement on that. That was a decision made by the Speaker and the Majority Leader.
Q I want to know what the President thinks about it.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we just found out about it not long ago.
Q Well, does he think that's a good idea?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think that you've heard him express his views. The leaking of classified information is a serious matter and ought to be taken seriously. But this is a congressional prerogative, and it was a decision that was made by those leaders, and that's the way I would describe it.
Q I just wondered whether the White House basically endorses this under the circumstances.
MR. McCLELLAN: It was their decision, Bill, is the way I would describe it. You might want to ask them questions about their decisions.
[snip]
Q I'd like you to clear up, once and for all, the ambiguity about torture. Can we get a straight answer? The President says we don't do torture, but Cheney --
MR. McCLELLAN: That's about as straight as it can be.
Q Yes, but Cheney has gone to the Senate and asked for an exemption on --
MR. McCLELLAN: No, he has not. Are you claiming he's asked for an exemption on torture? No, that's --
Q He did not ask for that?
MR. McCLELLAN: -- that is inaccurate.
Q Are you denying everything that came from the Hill, in terms of torture?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, you're mischaracterizing things. And I'm not going to get into discussions we have --
Q Can you give me a straight answer for once?
MR. McCLELLAN: Let me give it to you, just like the President has. We do not torture. He does not condone torture and he would never --
Q I'm asking about exemptions.
MR. McCLELLAN: Let me respond. And he would never authorize the use of torture. We have an obligation to do all that we can to protect the American people. We are engaged --
Q That's not the answer I'm asking for --
MR. McCLELLAN: It is an answer -- because the American people want to know that we are doing all within our power to prevent terrorist attacks from happening. There are people in this world who want to spread a hateful ideology that is based on killing innocent men, women and children. We saw what they can do on September 11th --
Q He didn't ask for an exemption --
MR. McCLELLAN: -- and we are going to --
Q -- answer that one question. I'm asking, is the administration asking for an exemption?
MR. McCLELLAN: I am answering your question. The President has made it very clear that we are going to do --
Q You're not answering -- yes or no?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, you don't want the American people to hear what the facts are, Helen, and I'm going to tell them the facts.
Q -- the American people every day. I'm asking you, yes or no, did we ask for an exemption?
MR. McCLELLAN: And let me respond. You've had your opportunity to ask the question. Now I'm going to respond to it.
Q If you could answer in a straight way.
MR. McCLELLAN: And I'm going to answer it, just like the President -- I just did, and the President has answered it numerous times.
Q -- yes or no --
MR. McCLELLAN: Our most important responsibility is to protect the American people. We are engaged in a global war against Islamic radicals who are intent on spreading a hateful ideology, and intent on killing innocent men, women and children.
Q Did we ask for an exemption?
MR. McCLELLAN: We are going to do what is necessary to protect the American people.
Q Is that the answer?
MR. McCLELLAN: We are also going to do so in a way that adheres to our laws and to our values. We have made that very clear. The President directed everybody within this government that we do not engage in torture. We will not torture. He made that very clear.
Q Are you denying we asked for an exemption?
MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, we will continue to work with the Congress on the issue that you brought up. The way you characterize it, that we're asking for exemption from torture, is just flat-out false, because there are laws that are on the books that prohibit the use of torture. And we adhere to those laws.
Q We did ask for an exemption; is that right? I mean, be simple -- this is a very simple question.
MR. McCLELLAN: I just answered your question. The President answered it last week.
Q What are we asking for?
Q Would you characterize what we're asking for?
MR. McCLELLAN: We're asking to do what is necessary to protect the American people in a way that is consistent with our laws and our treaty obligations. And that's what we --
Q Why does the CIA need an exemption from the military?
MR. McCLELLAN: David, let's talk about people that you're talking about who have been brought to justice and captured. You're talking about people like Khalid Shaykh Muhammad; people like Abu Zubaydah.
Q I'm asking you --
MR. McCLELLAN: No, this is facts about what you're talking about.
Q Why does the CIA need an exemption from rules that would govern the conduct of our military in interrogation practices?
MR. McCLELLAN: There are already laws and rules that are on the books, and we follow those laws and rules. What we need to make sure is that we are able to carry out the war on terrorism as effectively as possible, not only --
Q What does that mean --
MR. McCLELLAN: What I'm telling you right now -- not only to protect Americans from an attack, but to prevent an attack from happening in the first place. And, you bet, when we capture terrorist leaders, we are going to seek to find out information that will protect -- that prevent attacks from happening in the first place. But we have an obligation to do so. Our military knows this; all people within the United States government know this. We have an obligation to do so in a way that is consistent with our laws and values.
Now, the people that you are bringing up -- you're talking about in the context, and I think it's important for the American people to know, are people like Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh -- these are -- these are dangerous killers.
Q So they're all killers --
Q Did you ask for an exemption on torture? That's a simple question, yes or no.
MR. McCLELLAN: No. And we have not. That's what I told you at the beginning.
Q You want to reserve the ability to use tougher tactics with those individuals who you mentioned.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, obviously, you have a different view from the American people. I think the American people understand the importance of doing everything within our power and within our laws to protect the American people.
Q Scott, are you saying that Cheney did not ask --
Q What is it that you want the -- what is it that you want the CIA to be able to do that the U.S. Armed Forces are not allowed to do?
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not going to get into talking about national security matters, Bill. I don't do that, because this involves --
Q This would be the exemption, in other words.
MR. McCLELLAN: This involves information that relates to doing all we can to protect the American people. And if you have a different view -- obviously, some of you on this room -- in this room have a different view, some of you on the front row have a different view.
Q We simply are asking a question.
Q What is the Vice President -- what is the Vice President asking for?
MR. McCLELLAN: It's spelled out in our statement of administration policy in terms of what our views are. That's very public information. In terms of our discussions with members of Congress --
Q -- no, it's not --
MR. McCLELLAN: In terms of our members -- like I said, there are already laws on the books that we have to adhere to and abide by, and we do. And we believe that those laws and those obligations address these issues.
Q So then why is the Vice President continuing to lobby on this issue? If you're very happy with the laws on the books, what needs change?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, you asked me -- you want to ask questions of the Vice President's office, feel free to do that. We've made our position very clear, and it's spelled out on our website for everybody to see.
Q We don't need a website, we need you from the podium.
MR. McCLELLAN: And what I just told you is what our view is.
Q But Scott, do you see the contradiction --
MR. McCLELLAN: Jessica, go ahead.
Q Will the President pledge not to pardon Lewis Libby?
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- JSCOPE 2003 - A JOINT SERVICES CONFERENCE ON PROFESSIONAL ETHICS Anti-Terrorist Operations and Homeland Defense
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One thing not considered by any of the coverage of the 'rendition programme'
is that the flights themselves might well 'be the torture'...an aircraft is basically a tube which is flown at an altitude potentially hostile environment to humans, if the plane is depressurised all sorts of torture scenarios would come into play.
Long haul flights are not nice at the best of times, jet lag, fears of thrombosis, cramped conditions affect ordinary passengers everyday. Imagine what conditions
kidnapped prisoners are being kept in.
imagine no longer - This photo below is part of a set anoymously sent to several mainstream and alternative news organizations, according to CNN. It was radio host Art Bell who first published them on his Website, in the early morning hours of 8 November 2002 - now on memoryhole
 notice the masks and the earphones...sensory deprivation & control
During the Nazi era experiments were made involving depressurising human subjects in tanks
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High altitude experiments. In early 1942 prisoners at Dachau concentration camp were tortured so the Nazi German Air Force (Luftwaffe) could find out the capacity of the human body to endure and survive high altitude. A low-pressure chamber was used where conditions at altitudes of up to 68,000 feet could be duplicated. Victims of the experiments were forced to suffer these simulated altitudes within the chamber.
Freezing experiments. Later in 1942 prisoners at Dachau concentration camp suffered experiments so the Luftwaffe could learn how to treat hypothermia. One set of experiments forced victims to endure a tank of ice water, sometimes for as long as 3 hours. Victims rapidly developed extreme rigor. Unsurprisingly many of these unfortunate victims died. Nazi experimenters assessed different ways of rewarming survivors. Other prisoners at Dachau concentration camp were forced to remain naked in the open for several hours with temperatures below freezing.
- wikipedia.org
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This type of human experimentation was continued during the CIA MK Programme, which involved NASA and the Dept of Energy
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Project MKULTRA was the code name for a CIA mind control research program lasting from the 1950s to 1970s. It was first brought to wide public attention, including a U.S. Congress (the Church Committee) and a presidential commission (the Rockefeller Commission). To quote Ted Kennedy, who served on one of the investigating committees: "The Deputy Director of the CIA revealed that over 30 universities and institutions were involved in an 'extensive testing and experimentation' program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens 'at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign.' Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to 'unwitting subjects in social situations.' At least one death, that of Dr. Olson, resulted from these activities. The Agency itself acknowledged that these tests made little scientific sense. The agents doing the monitoring were not qualified scientific observers."
The "evil genius" involved in these experiments was Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, though due credit should go to CIA director Allen Dulles who issued the order in April 1953, officially in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean uses of mind control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea. The CIA wanted to use similar methods on their own captives, hoping in the final analysis to be able to manipulate foreign leaders with such techniques, including Cuba's Fidel Castro, who was America's pet obsession of the 1960s - like Saddam Hussein of the 1990s, or Qaddafi in the 1980s.
It is remarkable that the highly classified MKULTRA project and Condon's novel overlap, including such details as the Korean POWs being a prime problem. We can only wonder whether Condon "knew" and decided to fictionalise what he must have known could never be aired at the time in any other format.
By the 1970s, the renewed spirit of the late 1960s not only resulted in Nixon's resignation over a scandal, it also meant that scandalous projects such as MK-ULTRA - which in essence were a continuation of Nazi experiments on World War II POWs and/or Jews - would come out. No wonder then that most of the MKULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1972 by order of CIA Director Richard Helms, so that it would be impossible to have a complete understanding of the more than 150 individually funded research projects sponsored by MKULTRA and the related CIA programs.
What we do know is that Gottlieb was known to torture victims by locking them in sensory deprivation chambers while dosed on LSD, or to make recordings of psychiatric patients' therapy sessions, and then play a tape loop of the patient's most self-degrading statement over and over through headphones after the patient had been restrained in a straitjacket and dosed with LSD.
Gottlieb was not the only evil genius. The experiments were even exported to Canada when the CIA recruited Albany, New York doctor Ewan Cameron, author of the psychic driving concept which the CIA found particularly interesting. In it he described his theory on correcting madness, which consisted of erasing existing memories and rebuilding the psyche completely; brainwashing. He commuted to Montreal every week to work at the Allan Memorial Institute and was paid $69,000 from 1957 to 1964 to carry out MKULTRA experiments. As he used non US citizens, the CIA's hands were officially washed clean, as their remit forbids working on their own soil.
Cameron was not some little known scientist. While carrying on the work of men like Mengele, he became known worldwide as the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Association, as well as president of the American and Canadian psychiatric associations. Cameron had actually been a member of the Nuremberg medical tribunal only a decade earlier.
All of this work was paid for by a secretive arrangement that granted a percentage of the CIA budget: 6% of the CIA operating budget in 1953, without oversight or accounting.
In December 1974, in the aftermath of Watergate and with a new attitude to cut through the government secrecy to reveal "the truth" to the US citizens, The New York Times reported that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities, which resulted by the summer of 1975 of the first official hearings.
One of the most notorious revelations was how Frank Olson, an Army biochemist and biological weapons researcher, was given LSD without his knowledge or consent in 1953 as part of a CIA experiment and apparently committed suicide a week later following a severe psychotic episode. Olson's son disputes even this version of events, and maintains that his father was murdered for far worse knowledge on MK-ULTRA, due to his knowledge of the sometimes-lethal interrogation techniques employed by the CIA in Europe, used on cold war prisoners. Frank Olson's body was exhumed in 1994 and cranial injuries suggested Olson had been knocked unconscious before being thrown out of the window.
- Philip Coppens
- The Search for the Manchurian Candidate - John Marks
- more
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CIA Experiments with Mind Control on Children
by Jon Rappoport
When the sickening shock starts to wear off, deeply disturbing
questions flood one's mind: just what was this CIA program? How
extensive was it? What was its purpose?
From what I have been able to discover so far, many American
children, as well as children from Mexico and South America,
were used over a period of about 40 years, starting around 1948.
In fact, the program may still be going on. Doctors and agents
who administered it wanted to obtain control over the minds of
these children, ostensibly to create superagents who wouldn't
remember even what missions they carried out, because of
hypnotically induced amnesia (which could be removed by their
controllers and reinstalled at will). (1)
Children were trained as sex agents, for example, with the job
of blackmailing prominent Americans -- primarily politicians,
businessmen and educators. A great deal of filming was done for
this purpose. Eventually, people from the inner core of the CIA
program filmed each other, and some of the centers where
children were used as sex agents got out of control and turned
into CIA-operated sex rings.
Some children were considered expendable and simply murdered.
[snip]
"[Dr. Greene] used me in radiation experiments both for the
purpose of determining the effects of radiation on various
parts of my body and to terrorize me as an additional trauma in
the mind-control experiments. [She was eight years old.]
"The rest of the experiments took place in Tucson, Arizona, out
in the desert. I was taught how to pick locks, be secretive,
use my photographic memory to remember things and a technique to
withhold information by repeating numbers to myself. [She is
obviously talking about being trained as an agent.]
"Dr. Greene moved on to wanting me to kill dolls that looked
like real children. I stabbed a doll with a spear once after
being severely tortured, but the next time I refused. He used
many techniques but as I got older I resisted more and more.
He often tied me down in a cage, which was near his office.
Between 1972 and 1976 he and his assistants were sometimes
careless and left the cage unlocked. Whenever physically
possible, I snuck -into his office and found files with reports
and memos addressed to CIA and military personnel. Included in
these files were project, subproject, subject and experiment
names with some code numbers for radiation mind-control
experiments which I have submitted in my written documentation.
I was caught twice and Dr. Greene tortured me ruthlessly with
electric shock, drugs, spinning on a table, putting shots in my
stomach, in my back, dislocating my joints and hypnotic
techniques to make me feel crazy and suicidal..."
- read whole thing here
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disgusting evidence of child abuse / torture
in Abu Ghriab courtesy of memory hole
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Considering the nature if the allegations of child abuse against the Bush nexus...
against the CIA & the elite members of 'the board'. It should be noted that this mechanism is being
utilized on so-called 'terror suspects' worldwide.
If these people are capable of the Okaying the Rendition program - & Abu Ghriab
can we rule out Child kidnapping and ritual abuse rings?
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links to D.C Pedophile/abduction ring
The Bush administration's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy." U.S. intelligence sources who served in Iraq report that after photos from Abu Ghraib prison surfaced of naked male prisoners who were forced by their U.S. guards to form human pyramids and masturbate, the U.S. military went into total denial mode. "It was a 'don't ask, don't tell policy,'" according to one intelligence source who was assigned to both the Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca prisons. Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein has ordered the Pentagon to release to the American Civil Liberties Union 74 photos and 3 videotapes taken at Abu Ghraib in 2003. However, the Pentagon is resisting the judge's order.
U.S. intelligence sources: Sexually-explicit photos at Abu Ghraib special ordered by a homosexual and pedophile ring inside the Bush White House
There is good reason for the embarrassment of the Pentagon in the affair. The orders to take the sexually-oriented photos and videos, some of which involve teenage Iraqi boys and girls and sodomization by their guards, came directly from a pedophile and closeted male homosexual ring operating in the White House, according to the intelligence sources. Copies of the tapes and photos were sent directly to the White House for the entertainment of senior members of the Bush White House, including officials in the Vice President's office and the Executive Office of the President.
When the photos at Abu Ghraib became public, the senior military command structure in Iraq "went nuts," according to an individual who witnessed the cover-up of the affair. "They ordered an immediate policy of denial about details of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib," said the source. The source added that senior officers were disgusted that lower ranking guards were prosecuted and jailed when the order for the mistreatment came directly from the White House.
Wayne Madsen
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| when child soldiers are labelled 'enemy combatants'
NO CHILD will be safe from the 'rendition program'
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Canada: The time to speak on Khadr is now
Jan. 9, 2006. 01:00 AM RICK WILSON AND MUNEER AHMED
As the new year begins, 19-year-old Canadian Omar Khadr continues his fourth year in American captivity at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Only 15 at the time U.S. troops took him prisoner, for the past three years Khadr has been held in solitary confinement, virtually incommunicado, without charge, and subject to torture and abuse during continuous interrogation by his captors.
The U.S. has now charged Khadr with alleged war crimes, and plans to try him before a military commission beginning Wednesday. Despite international condemnation of the commission as fundamentally unfair, the Canadian government, regrettably, has kept silent on Khadr's prosecution.
What is at stake on Wednesday is not only Khadr's future, but Canada's reputation as a defender of human rights and the rule of law.
When the military commission commences, Khadr will become the first individual in the modern history of any international tribunal, to be tried for war crimes for conduct allegedly committed as a juvenile.
This ignoble precedent of prosecuting children for war crimes - something not done at Nuremburg after World War II, in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, or Sierra Leone, Kosovo or East Timor - will be established through American prosecution of a Canadian child.
As Khadr's American lawyers, we are well aware of the negative publicity that swirls around the Khadr family. But we have seen something that few in Canada ever have: Khadr himself.
For all the stories about the Khadrs, it is easy to forget that Omar was just a boy when he was taken prisoner, and is still a boy now. He wears a scraggly beard - something he couldn't even grow when he first got to Guantanamo - and like any adolescent, he has gone through a rapid growth spurt.
The image of Khadr as a trained terrorist and a hardened killer doesn't square with the soft-spoken boy who has been trapped at Guantanamo for nearly a fifth of his young life.
Just as the Bush administration insists that neither domestic nor international law apply to Guantanamo, it defends a military commission process that fails to comport with basic standards of due process. Rather than use an established court or even a court martial, the administration has fashioned the commissions from whole cloth, making up the rules as it goes along.
The U.S. attempts to disguise the unfairness of the commission process with a presumption of innocence and the provision of counsel. But the commission rules permit the use of evidence obtained through torture of Khadr and others.
They also allow the exclusion of Khadr from portions of his own trial and deny him the opportunity to confront his accusers. The rules authorize the government to eavesdrop on attorney-client communications and allow evidence to be withheld from civilian counsel, despite security clearances.
To date, no Canadian lawyer has been permitted to see Khadr. His appointed military counsel is a 31-year-old U.S. army captain who has never represented a defendant at trial.
These deficiencies in the military commission, and many others, expose the lie of the Bush administration's promise that Khadr is innocent until proven guilty. No matter how they dress it up, the military commission is still a sham.
The military commissions have been roundly condemned by human rights organizations, and even by foreign governments.
Britain stated unambiguously its belief that the commissions were "unacceptable" for their failure to meet international standards. As British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said, "There are certain principles on which there can be no compromise ... Fair trial is one of those." Subsequently, all nine Britons at Guantanamo, including two designated for military commissions, were released.
Are Britain's standards for due process higher than Canada's?
Private diplomacy may have been warranted in the past, but the time has come for the Canadian government to speak out on behalf of Khadr.
The window of opportunity for Canadian influence is about to close: Once the hearings begin, Canada's public silence will properly be interpreted as tacit approval of the use of an illegal, fundamentally unfair process against one of its citizens.
In the days remaining before Khadr's commission begins, Ottawa must answer publicly one simple question: Does it believe that the military commissions meet Canadian standards of due process for the trial of its child-citizen for war crimes?
For Canada to remain silent now is to be complicit in the show trial of one of its citizens, and to abandon Canadian claims to leadership on human rights and the rule of law. - .thestar.com |
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The children of Guantanamo Bay
By Severin Carrell - Published: 28 May 2006 - UK Independent on Sunday
The notorious US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay has been hit by fresh allegations of human rights abuses, with claims that dozens of children were sent there - some as young as 14 years old.
Lawyers in London estimate that more than 60 detainees held at the terrorists' prison camp were boys under 18 when they were captured.
They include at least 10 detainees still held at the US base in Cuba who were 14 or 15 when they were seized - including child soldiers who were held in solitary confinement, repeatedly interrogated and allegedly tortured.
The disclosures threaten to plunge the Bush administration into a fresh row with Britain, its closest ally in the war on terror, only days after the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, repeated his demands for the closure of the detention facility. It was, he said, a "symbol of injustice".
Whitehall sources said the new allegations, from the London-based legal rights group Reprieve, directly contradicted the Bush administration's assurances to the UK that no juveniles had been held there. "We would take a very, very dim view if it transpires that there were actually minors there," said an official.
One child prisoner, Mohamed el Gharani, is accused of involvement in a 1998 al-Qa'ida plot in London led by the alleged al-Qa'ida leader in Europe, Abu Qatada. But he was 12 years old at the time and living with his parents in Saudi Arabia.
After being arrested in Karachi in October 2001, aged 14, he has spent several years in solitary confinement as an alleged al-Qa'ida-trained fighter.
One Canadian-born boy, Omar Khadr, was 15 when arrested in 2002 and has also been kept in solitary confinement. The son of a known al-Qa'ida commander, he is accused of killing a US soldier with a grenade in July 2002 and was placed top of the Bush administration's list of detainees facing prosecution.
"It would surely be really quite stupid to allow the world to think you have teenagers in orange jumpsuits and shackles, spending 23 hours a day locked up in a cage," a source added. "If it's true that young people have been held there, their cases should be dealt with as a priority."
British officials last night told the IoS that the UK had been assured that any juveniles would be held in a special facility for child detainees at Guantanamo called Camp Iguana. But the US admits only three inmates were ever treated as children - three young Afghans, one aged 13, who were released in 2004 after a furore over their detention.
The row will again focus attention on the Bush administration's repeated claims that normal rules of war and human rights conventions do not apply to "enemy combatants" who were al-Qa'ida or Taliban fighters and supporters. The US insists these fighters did not have the same legal status as soldiers in uniform.
Clive Stafford Smith, a legal director of Reprieve and lawyer for a number of detainees, said it broke every widely accepted legal convention on human rights to put children in the same prison as adults - including US law.
"There is nothing wrong with trying minors for crimes, if they have committed crimes. The problem is when you either hold minors without trial in shocking conditions, or try them before a military commission that, in the words of a prosecutor who refused to take part, is rigged," he said. "Even if these kids were involved in fighting - and Omar is the only one who the military pretends was - then there is a UN convention against the use of child soldiers. There is a general recognition in the civilised world that children should be treated differently from adults."
Because the detainees have been held in Cuba for four years, all the teenagers are now thought to have reached their 18th birthdays in Guantanamo Bay and some have since been released.
The latest figures emerged after the Department of Defense (DoD) in Washington was forced to release the first ever list of Guantanamo detainees earlier this month. Although lawyers say it is riddled with errors - getting numerous names and dates of birth wrong - they were able to confirm that 17 detainees on the list were under 18 when taken to the camp, and another seven were probably juveniles.
In addition, said Mr Stafford Smith, they had credible evidence from other detainees, lawyers and the International Red Cross that another 37 inmates were under 18 when they were seized. One detainee, an al-Jazeera journalist called Sami el Hajj, has identified 36 juveniles in Guantanamo.
A senior Pentagon spokesman, Lt Commander Jeffrey Gordon, insisted that no one now being held at Guantanamo was a juvenile and said the DoD also rejected arguments that normal criminal law was relevant to the Guantanamo detainees.
"There is no international standard concerning the age of an individual who engages in combat operations... Age is not a determining factor in detention. [of those] engaged in armed conflict against our forces or in support to those fighting against us."
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| Bush Advisor Says President Has Legal Power to Torture Children
By Philip Watts 01/08/06 "revcom.us" -- -- John Yoo publicly argued there is no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody - including by crushing that child's testicles.
This came out in response to a question in a December 1st debate in Chicago with Notre Dame professor and international human rights scholar Doug Cassel.
What is particularly chilling and revealing about this is that John Yoo was a key architect post-9/11 Bush Administration legal policy. As a deputy assistant to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, John Yoo authored a number of legal memos arguing for unlimited presidential powers to order torture of captive suspects, and to declare war anytime, any where, and on anyone the President deemed a threat.
It has now come out Yoo also had a hand in providing legal reasoning for the President to conduct unauthorized wiretaps of U.S. citizens. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole wrote, "Few lawyers have had more influence on President Bush's legal policies in the 'war on terror' than John Yoo."
This part of the exchange during the debate with Doug Cassel, reveals the logic of Yoo's theories, adopted by the Administration as bedrock principles, in the real world.
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Cassel: If the President deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?
Yoo: No treaty.
Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.
The audio of this exchange is available online at revcom.us
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Yoo argues presidential powers on Constitutional grounds, but where in the Constitution does it say the President can order the torture of children ? As David Cole puts it, "Yoo reasoned that because the Constitution makes the President the 'Commander-in-Chief,' no law can restrict the actions he may take in pursuit of war. On this reasoning, the President would be entitled by the Constitution to resort to genocide if he wished."
What is the position of the Bush Administration on the torture of children, since one of its most influential legal architects is advocating the President's right to order the crushing of a child's testicles?
This fascist logic has nothing to do with "getting information" as Yoo has argued. The legal theory developed by Yoo and a few others and adopted by the Administration has resulted in thousands being abducted from their homes in Afghanistan, Iraq or other parts of the world, mostly at random. People have been raped, electrocuted, nearly drowned and tortured literally to death in U.S.-run torture centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo Bay. And there is much still to come out. What about the secret centers in Europe or the many still-suppressed photos from Abu Ghraib? What can explain this sadistic, indiscriminate, barbaric brutality except a need to instill widespread fear among people all over the world?
It is ironic that just prior to arguing the President's legal right to torture children, John Yoo was defensive about the Bush administration policies, based on his legal memo's, being equated to those during Nazi Germany.
Yoo said, "If you are trying to draw a moral equivalence between the Nazis and what the United States is trying to do in defending themselves against Al Qauueda and the 9/11 attacks, I fully reject that. Second, if you're trying to equate the Bush Administration to Nazi officials who committed atrocities in the holocaust, I completely reject that too…I think to equate Nazi Germany to the Bush Administration is irresponsible."
If open promotion of unmitigated executive power, including the right to order the torture of innocent children, isn't sufficient basis for drawing such a "moral equivalence," then I don't know what is. What would be irresponsible is to sit by and allow the Bush regime to radically remake society in a fascist way, with repercussions for generations to come. We must act now because the future is in the balance. The world cannot wait. While Bush gives his State of the Union on January 31st, I'll find myself along with many thousands across the country declaring "Bush Step Down And take your program with you." Mathaba
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In the mid 70's Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney -- were aides to the new president, Gerald Ford. At that time Rumsfeld and Cheney were persuading Ford to veto one of the most important Watergate-inspired reforms, an enhanced Freedom of Information Act
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Rumsfeld & Cheney - torture masters....
Secret documents have revealed US Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld are "linked to the murder" of a senior CIA scientist. Frank Olson, who was a key member of the CIA's secret brainwashing programme MK-ULTRA, was sent plunging from a New York hotel window after he had threatened to reveal the CIA involvement in "terminal experiments" in post-war Germany.
The importance of the documents are not only their historic significance. They could play an important role in the race for the White House this November. Ironically it falls due on the 51st anniversary of Olson's murder.
Frank Olson's son, Eric, a psychologist, believes that fact will not be overlooked by President Bush's opponents as they search for further evidence that Rumsfeld and Cheney have a long history of news management and hiding the truth that could be highly embarrassing to the White House.
The documents reinforce how Rumsfeld and Cheney have honed their skills over the past thirty years to ensure that today they have so far managed to keep the current scandal of US torture in Iraq - and elsewhere - from ensnaring themselves and President Bush.
- Gordon Thomas
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Rumsfeld Can Authorize Exceptions To New "Humane" Interrogation Directive
Washington (AFP) Nov 09, 2005 - US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld can authorize exceptions to a new Defense Department policy on military interrogations that bars torture and calls for "humane" treatment of detainees, a spokesman said Wednesday. The new directive lays out broad policy governing interrogations of detainees in Defense Department custody, but leaves the definition of "humane" to a separate, yet to be released directive that is still being debated within the administration. A little noticed loophole in the directive, which was made public Tuesday, gives the secretary of defense or his deputy authority to override the policy.
"Intelligence interrogations will be conducted in accordance with applicable law, this directive and implementing plans, policies, orders, directives, and doctrine developed by DoD components and approved by USD (I), unless otherwise authorized, in writing, by the secretary of defense or deputy secretary of defense," the directive states. "USD (I)" refers to the undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said there was nothing unusual about the caveat because a defense secretary always has the authority to change or modify policy he has made.
"Any deviation from the policy would have to be approved," he told reporters. "The secretary can make an exception to any policy."
The language in the directive echoes a struggle between the White House and members of Congress over a proposed amendment to the defense spending bill that would ban outright "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners in the detention of the US government."
Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly has pressed Senator John McCain, the amendment's sponsor, to exempt the CIA from the ban. The White House denied Tuesday it is seeking an "exemption for torture" for the CIA, despite President George W. Bush's threat to veto the legislation.
The New York Times, meanwhile, reported Tuesday that a classified report last year warned that some interrogation procedures approved by the CIA after the September 11 attacks might violate some provisions of the United Nations Convention Against Torture. The report by CIA inspector general John Helgerson listed 10 procedures approved in early 2002 for use against terror suspects, including one known as "waterboarding" in which a detainee is made to feel as if he is drowning, the Times said. Helgerson did not conclude that those procedures constituted torture, but found they did appear to constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under the convention, the Times said. The debate also has been fueled by a Washington Post report that the CIA has kept top al-Qaeda captives hidden away in a network of secret prisons around the world under conditions that might be considered cruel and inhuman.
The CIA has requested that the Justice Department investigate the leak of classified information contained in the Post report, a US official said. Republican leaders in Congress on Tuesday also called for an investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees into who leaked the information. But other members of Congress, including some Republicans, said any investigation should probe the prisons themselves.
spacewar.com
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Report: Cheney advocated U.S. torture
Monday 21st November, 2005 (UPI)
The U.S. practice of using torture on terror detainees was rooted in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, a former senior State Department official claims.
Retired U.S. Army Col. Larry Wilkerson, who served as former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, made the allegation to CNN, and said it was possible the practice was still going on.
"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."
Cheney is lobbying against a bill in Congress that would outlaw cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, and wants an exception for the CIA in cases that involve a detainee who may have knowledge of an imminent attack.
Earlier this month, President George Bush flatly denied there was a security policy of torture, saying: "We do not torture." - Big News Network.com
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