Those interested in the history of American uses of torture should check out the free, online pamphlet “Torture, American Style”, put together last year by Historians Against the War, an organization I’m involved with.

Posted by: BenA | Jun 17 2005 1:54 utc | 4

great material lately, billmon. let’s hope for & inspire other decent pols to find enough sense of their own humanity to act w/ no other motive than pure outrage. it’ll be tough in a society fabricated on the negation of humanity, granted, but some still have it w/i themselves. the written word eventually supplants memory. let’s not let the bastards get all the ink.

Posted by: b real | Jun 17 2005 2:18 utc | 6

“They tell us they’re teaching Democracy. We say ‘How do you teach democracy throught the barrel of a GUN ?” – F. Roy Bourgeois
Raw declassified sources:
The Posada File: Part II
Posada Boasted of Plans to “Hit” Cuban Plane, CIA Document States. Served as Instructor, Informant for Agency for more than a Decade. Other Documents Highlight Creation of Exile Terrorist Umbrella Group; Subsequent Acts of Terrorism and Violence attributed to Orlando Bosch
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 157
Related Posting
May 10, 2005
Luis Posada Carriles:
The Declassified Record
Washington D.C. June 9, 2005 – Luis Posada Carriles spoke of plans to “hit” a Cuban airliner only days before Cubana flight 455 exploded on October 6, 1976, killing all 73 passengers aboard, according to a declassified CIA document from 1976 posted by the National Security Archive today. The unusually detailed intelligence was provided by a source described as “a former Venezuelan government official” who “is usually a reliable reporter,” according to the secret report.
About the SOA/ WHINSEC
The US Army School of Americas (SOA), based in Fort Benning, Georgia, trains Latin American security personnel in combat, counter-insurgency, and counter-narcotics. SOA graduates are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Among the SOA’s nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Lower-level SOA graduates have participated in human rights abuses that include the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the El Mozote Massacre of 900 civilians. (See Grads in the News.)
In an attempt to deflect public criticism and disassociate the school from its dubious reputation, the SOA was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) in 2001. The name change was a result of a Department of Defense proposal included in the Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal 2001, at a time when SOA opponents were poised to win a congressional vote on legislation that would have dismantled the school. The name-change measure passed when the House of Representatives defeated a bi-partisan amendment to close the SOA and conduct a congressional investigation by a narrow ten-vote margin …

Virtual Truth Commission
Telling the Truth for a Better America
U. S. Army School of the Americas, Fort Benning, Georgia
Summary Page
———————————————————————-
The United States Army School of the Americas, located at Fort Benning, adjacent to Columbus, Georgia, trains commissioned and non-commissioned officers from Latin American militaries. Many of its graduates have returned to their home countries and committed such atrocities as rapes, disappearances, torture, and assassination; they have organized death squads and paramilitaries to counter insurgencies and maintain power. The SOA is accused of including torture in its curriculum, an accusation its defenders deny, although such a torture manual released to the public in 1991. The “Hall of Fame” at the SOA includes dictators and human rights abusers, and a number of guest instructors were invited to the school’s faculty after they had committed atrocities …

Posted by: Outraged | Jun 17 2005 2:51 utc | 8

I don’t wanna sound like some holier than thou jerkoff but guilt isn’t the most positive emotion to channel in this situation.
After the WTC massacre a great many muslims were ashamed that their first reaction was jubilation that someone had struck back at the oppressor rather than sorrow at the loss of life. This shame probably muted their initial outrage when the Arab American roundup occurred.
I remember seeing somewhere that in the initial 3 months of the Patriot Act over 1500 Arab/American males were held without charge in California alone.
Who knows what the ‘correct’ figure is/was I do remember that at the time there were no denials mass arrests were taking place.
Ultimately people have to trust themselves, if one is living in a nation that is imprisoning and oppressing part of it’s citizenry then the best one can do is try and shed a little light oneself.
I am sure that there are still people being held without charge on the US mainland and it would be good to try and make sure that this wasn’t happening in one’s immediate environ.
People that have been held unjustly and incommunicado in other times and places have commented about how uplifting it can be to learn that someone/anyone out there is taking an interest.
It’s important not to be deluded about this. The easiest targets for oppression are already marginalised people. It is unlikely there will be many ‘saints’ amongst those held in breach of their constitutional rights. That certainly doesn’t mean that they are terrorists either but it does mean that one shouldn’t get sidetracked arguing about their criminality, desperation, stupidity or poverty.
One of the links in Billmon’s article discusses an Iraqi counter-insugency commando led by one Adnan Thabit. Thabit a former officer in the Hussein regime is a Sunni whose nephew happened to be Interior Minister in the interim puppet government. The article by an american about the time of the ‘election’ discusses the commandos’ brutal methods and compares Thabit to Brando in the godfather.
I was sufficiently fascinated by this to google the man in order to find out what he was up to now.
I am unsuprised to learn he is no longer extant but mildly suprised to discover that it appeared to be a rather altruistic act that bought him undone.
It appears Thabit was the general who exposed the hoax of the hostage crisis in al-Mada’in. Some may remember claims by the newly elected/appointed Iraqi govt that a large number of Shia had been taken hostage by Sunni guerillas. Thabit called a press conference and claimed this was a beat up by pro-Iranian forces in the new government and was got by a hit squad shortly afterwards.
Perhaps it was an act of self preservation, certainly it was the likes of Thabit that Rumsfeld had in mind when he counselled ‘‘It’s important that the new government be attentive to the competence of the people in the ministries, and that they avoid unnecessary turbulence.’’ on his last visit to Iraq. BushCo was worried that the anti-Sunni sentiments being espoused by some in government would lead to a purge of former Ba’athists in the security forces.
I wonder which side his commandos are on now?

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 17 2005 3:15 utc | 10

Democracy: \De*moc”ra*cy\, n 1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives. 2. My ass.
“The Iran/contra investigation will not end the kind of abuse of power that it addressed any more than the Watergate investigation did. The criminality in both affairs did not arise primarily out of ordinary venality or greed, although some of those charged were driven by both. Instead, the crimes committed in Iran/contra were motivated by the desire of persons in high office to pursue controversial policies and goals even when the pursuit of those policies and goals was inhibited or restricted by executive orders, statutes or the constitutional system of checks and balances.”
—Final Report of the Independent Counsel on Iran/Contra

Posted by: Outraged | Jun 17 2005 3:31 utc | 12

For weeks now I’ve been after the U.S. Bishops of the Methodist Church to write a letter to W and decry the torture we now sponsor. Only one, the New Jersey Bishop has finally agreed to write him. The rest sit on their hands for whatever reason. I sent you article to them in whole (with proper attribution), to try once again to get the message home.
They keep telling me that the General Conference has spoken to the issue, and there’s a resolution in the Methodist Discipline. I keep pointing out that apparently our Methodist President either hasn’t read the Discipline of his Church, or has elected to ignore, and that as spiritual leaders, they are called to point this out to him.
I cry for Christendom. We Christians sit here and applaud this shit.

Posted by: John | Jun 17 2005 18:25 utc | 14

I don’t know much about Dick Durbin
Never thought I’d see the mighty Billmon admitting that he doesn’t know Dick. (ba-dum-bum-tish!)

Posted by: Mr. Mordant | Jun 18 2005 15:33 utc | 16