Torture Week – Moon of Alabama

June 20, 2008

Torture Week

It was torture week, with a few hearings and a bit of remarkable reporting on the issue.

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."
Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba (ret.)

There is not much to add to that.

I recommend everyone to read McClatchy’s series written by Tom Lassiter on torture and Gitmo, the Warren Strobel story with the above Taguba quote and the one on how cases like this may now proceed through the courts:

The Taliban tortured Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak al Ginco. They thought he was a U.S. spy. Then, U.S. soldiers called the Syrian native an enemy and shipped him to Guantanamo.

… where he was again tortured.

Declaring torture illegal was one of the big cultural achievements of mankind. This administration and this Congress have taken us back to the middle ages.

The U.S. needs to think seriously about how to change a system that allows such aberration.

Posted by b on June 20, 2008 at 18:16 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Good article from Gareth Pierce:
No similar allies for the Muslim community are evident today, capable of pushing and pulling the British government publicly or privately into seeing sense. Spiritually, the Muslim Ummah is seen as being infinite, but the powerful regimes of the Muslim world almost without exception not only themselves perpetrate oppression, but choose to work hand in hand with the US and the UK in their ‘war on terror’. It is for us, as a nation, to take stock of ourselves. We are very far along a destructive path, and if our government continues on that path, we will ultimately have destroyed much of the moral and legal fabric of the society that we claim to be protecting. The choice and the responsibility are entirely ours.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jun 20 2008 19:18 utc | 1

An interesting article in the local legal rag, a licensed professional-in-training speaking at a public hearing, representing themselves as a (generic) professional criticizing the (presumably professional) plan defects for some public pork-barrel project, has been successfully decertified by state regulators for speaking in public. The state supreme court upheld the poor sap’s delicensing, and refused to hear the appeal on grounds of Constitutional right of free public debate (sic), although, truth be told, they didn’t ship him off to Gitmo, so he got off easy.
In other words, he should’a learned to keep his friggin’ mouth shut, as a professional tool of the Neo-Soviet Politburo / People’s Congress of Fascists.
Now my question, as regards torture and US law, with Congress granting immunity for eavesdropping, and likely refusing to indict in the Valeria Plame case because it’s “all hearsay and the government has the “right” to make public any confidential, even top secret, information”, is this … ?If you’re a professional sharing an evaluation of George Tenet as a medieval psychopath, and his CIA is eavesdropping, can they “out” your statement in public, and then because you’re not a licensed clinical psychologist, delicense you from whatever professional you happen to be in?
Because I gotta tell ya’, it stinks more and more like борщ around this joint, and I was watching when they ‘stripped’ Joe McCarthy, so I know борщ!
(Sorry, a little inside joke for you professional Ukrainologists.)

Posted by: Rue Bric | Jun 21 2008 5:37 utc | 2

Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell:Hundreds of detainees died in U.S. custody, at least 25 murdered.
Also, US Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba has been discussed before, and on an all together different note, I’m personally finding it harder and harder to separate, compartmentalize, designate all these different topics. And with all due respect, B’s posts of late, as they all seem to be different, nay, separate tentacles of the same beast.
Intended or not I believe it is of utmost importance, to see the similarities and differences, and to try to synthesize all that cognitively and linguistically fit. I see a major thread in a tapestry weave of high crimes. To see otherwise is a disservice. A distraction. More ink of obfuscation that muddies the clear river of insight.
I see, a hydra head of blood for money projects. Everything, goes back to this war, the economy, the civil rights abuses, the increased criminalization, militarization, the not so natural disasters, etc etc… For me, all these issues lead right back to the same cave, ‘Cheney’s den’ and failure to criminalize these dinks from tricky dicks time.
As has been stated before, “we are witnessing the greatest smash and grab robbery in history”, right before our eyes, and everyone in power is benefiting from it.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 23 2008 5:54 utc | 3

Well, news of
Carlin’s death interrupted my train of thought…
meant to add this last time…
Finally, the Baltimore Chronicle: Stunning confirmation of mass murder in the Bush gulag-by Chris Floyd
from the Haditha Travesty on..

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 23 2008 6:00 utc | 4

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