No. 0068 April 4, 1953
Top Secret
The USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs has determined that the investigative work of the MGB [Ministry of State Security] authorities has involved grave perversions of Soviet law, arrests of innocent Soviet citizens, uncontrolled falsification of investigative materials, and widespread use of various methods of torture–brutal beatings of arrestees, round-the-clock use of handcuffs with the arms twisted behind the back, in some cases for several months, long periods of sleep deprivation, the incarceration of unclothed prisoners in cold cells, etc.
By order of the administration of the (former) USSR Ministry of State Security, beatings of arrestees took place in rooms specially fitted out for the purpose in Lefortovo and the internal prisons, and were assigned to a special group of selected individuals from the ranks of the prison employees, with the use of various torture devices.
These monstrous “interrogation methods” led to many of the innocent arrestees being driven to a condition of physical collapse, moral depression, and sometimes loss of human likeness by the investigators.
Making use of the arrestees’ condition, the falsificationist investigators slipped them “confessions,” fabricated ahead of time, about anti-Soviet and espionage-terrorist activities.
Such vicious methods of investigation led the efforts of the agency staff down a false path, and the attention of the state security authorities was distracted from the fight against the real enemies of the Soviet State.
I order:
1. All use of any methods of coercion and physical pressure against arrestees to be categorically forbidden in the Ministry of Internal Affairs; during investigations all norms of the code of criminal due process are to be strictly observed.
2. Rooms fitted out at the Lefortovo and internal prisons for the purpose of applying methods of physical pressure by the (former) USSR MGB are to be liquidated, and all devices which were used for purposes of torture are to be destroyed.
3. This order to be distributed to the entire agency staff of the MVD authorities; they are to be warned that henceforth not only the immediate culprits but also their superiors will be held strictly responsible, including facing trial.
L. Beria
USSR Minister of Internal Affairs

(translation by nasreddin; original from here
Torture and the Banality of Evil

I feel sick. I have that sunk, painful feeling as though my stomach had emptied, and that shakiness though the central nervous system. I feel dirty, like I want to shower for ages.
I have just read all 124 pages of the Top Secret torture memos from Bush’s lawyers in the CIA and Department of Justice, which were obtained and released yesterday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

re: Beria… Some historical context?
“Noting that Beria was in the secret police, had no trouble engaging in torture when it suited his purposes
Including his sexual purposes – he used to trawl the streets of Moscow at night in a limo, and abduct women [and children] wandering alone for him to rape, torture & kill.”
Sadism. Indeed. Not merely that, but justified Sadism.
We are forsaken like children lost in the woods. When you stand before me and look at me, what do you know of my sufferings and what do I know of yours? And if I fell at your feet and cried and told you, would you know any more about me than you know about hell when they say it is hot and sets one shivering? Therefore we men should stand before each other with as much awe, thoughtfulness, and love as before the gates of hell. ~Gustaw Herling-Grudziński

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 17 2009 12:41 utc | 3

Rage

An expression of uncontrollable hurt and anger is one description of rage. Rage is a violent reaction to wholesale betrayal – that implodes or explodes.
Rage isn’t simple anger an an unjust act; it is the natural response to cruelty, callousness and disrespect for the sacredness of life – especially innocent life. Many of us have bottled up our rage for fear we will kill someone. In fact, it is an energy for life (not death) that needs some focusing.
Getting some professional guidance on expressing our rage in healthy ways can really help. Being accepted by another during times we need to rage can be affirming and validating. Our rage ought never be used to distroy our own life or anyone else’s, but only to free our imprisoned and wounded selves in order to live a new life.
The rage of the abused, – no matter how – , is a call to life.

November 19th. ~Surviving with Serenity by T. Thomas
Multiples

We are not crazy. We are not rare. We are not bizarre. We are victims of traumatic betrayal too much for one person to handle-so we “split” dissociated. Some call us multiples- but that title covers a broad range of survivor experiences.
When we first discovered the secret of ourselves, some of us felt ashamed or believed we must be crazy. We are not. We were creative little persons who did what we had to do to survive. Each of the persons we discover as part of “us” had a role to play in our survival.
Now in the healing process we realized we have a gift of self awareness that many others do not possess. Through self acceptance and selves acceptance we are learning to speak our own name[s] in love.
I love you, I have called you by name.

April 17th ~Surviving with Serenity by T. Thomas

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 17 2009 13:15 utc | 5

Scott Horton this am on DN about the memo release:

. . . But there’s some very serious issues about how this [decision not to prosecute] is raised, in particular because this amnesty—and that’s effectively what it is—is being granted before an investigation of all the facts has been completed. And I think, in terms of proper process, it would be appropriate to lay down the facts to establish them and then make some sort of decision about amnesty.
And second point is we see everything presented in terms of the OLC memoranda and reliance on these memoranda. Well, there’s a very important report still being held at the Justice Department dealing with how these memos came to be crafted and released and the ethics of what went on there. I’m told it’s devastating. And I think that’s going to put a torpedo in the side of this legal argument.
But even aside from that, there is a very strange factual issue here. President Obama says that we shouldn’t prosecute them because they relied on these memos. But a factual review is going to show that the CIA was using these techniques from April 2002, and these memos were commissioned and written, the first of them, in August 2002, so it’s quite clear, in fact, that CIA agents were out in the field doing these things, not relying on these memos, with the memos not even being in contemplation at that time. So, this argument is a fallacy.
What’s really going on here, the CIA agents were acting in reliance on directives that came from the White House, from the National Security Council, that go all the way up the ladder to Vice President Cheney and President Bush. And I think President Obama is concerned about that linkage and that issue, and he wants to blur the picture a little bit.

Posted by: Arcturus | Apr 17 2009 23:03 utc | 7

shameless self promotion: me @ counterpunch (i’m the piece in the middle, first posted here @ MoA)

Posted by: Lizard | Apr 18 2009 3:15 utc | 9

Under ‘Not Yet’- Not making this up:
The Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Web Site: (science-fiction & fantasy literature)
[book-cover image]
State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III
by Bob Woodward
Paperback:
Simon & Schuster
2007-09-03
and coming soon:
State of Denial: Obama Does Hope, Part I
Shiv Khera, the management guru, classified men and women into three categories. “Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened.”
Obama has somehow managed to integrate all three, Moe, Larry and Curly Joe.
I’m waiting for him to end his speech, “Sointenly! Knuck, yukk, yukk.”
The Obamageddon Bailout fails the Three Principals of Governance:
* to increase the beneficiaries’ independence,
* to involve local communities, and
* to secure the support of public and private partners.
How long will we triangulate the pitch of a sloping deck and quibble over fractions?

Posted by: Habemus Spem | Apr 18 2009 5:10 utc | 11

Since there are documented cases, in the public record, of ‘died in custody’, or ‘died under interrogation’ or ‘re-located to avoid ICRC scrutiny’ instances re ‘Ghost Detainees’ PRIOR to the 2004 memo I referred above … i.e. see MG Taguba report … where is the prosecution without the spurious, manufactured, literally concocted, figleaf legal cover for the explicit Geneva Conventions prohibition of such practices ?.
Furthermore, the ‘Enhanced Interrogation Techniques'(TORTURE), that is documented committed PRIOR (re effective dated advice, opinion and authority) to the concocted cover of each of the recently released four(4) memo’s, can not be retrospective protection … where is the prosecution for said acts, documented, PRIOR ?

Posted by: Outraged | Apr 18 2009 6:43 utc | 13

Bravo!…
Beautiful! Lizard!
That warmed my heart and was like salve to the soul to such an extent, that I got a lump in my throat. Tears filled my eyes and seeing that was such a much needed blessing in these dark times.
Round for the house! MOA’s own poet laureate!
And I hope, I’m not committing an terrible faux pas by saying this, but, to think, that it was an Eros poem to Mrs. Lizard as the first published! (that I know of, anyway) means even so much more.
I’m reminded of a line in a Conor Oberst aka Bright Eyes, song,

The last few months I have been living with this couple.
Yeah, you know, the kind who buy everything in doubles.
They fit together, like a puzzle.
And I love their love and I am thankful
that someone actually receives the prize that was promised
by all those fairy tales that drugged us.
And they still do me…

Often times, lately, I feel like a Waste Of Paint, and seeing this restores my faith in , well…, everything, I love you guys.
@Outraged, always a pleasure to have you with us, and icing on the cake on this joyous occasion!
Dagnabbit! You guys aren’t helping my online addiction…lol

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 18 2009 7:50 utc | 15

Indeed, Habemus spem…
From a Dick and Bush who fucked us, and gave birth to Abomination.
@Plushtown, thank you my friend…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Apr 18 2009 8:40 utc | 17

On Torture and ‘Health Professionals’ …

“The health professionals involved in the CIA program broke the law and shame the bedrock ethical traditions of medicine and psychology,” said Frank Donaghue, chief executive of Physicians for Human Rights, an international advocacy group made up of physicians opposed to torture. “All psychologists and physicians found to be involved in the torture of detainees must lose their license and never be allowed to practice again.”

Psychologists Helped Guide Interrogations – Extent of Health Professionals’ Role at CIA Prisons Draws Fresh Outrage From Ethicists

Posted by: Outraged | Apr 18 2009 15:14 utc | 19

alabama #1, re Zubaydah

According to Gerald Posner, Abu Zubaydah named several suspects that were never apprehended.[41] In particular, Posner notes that Zubaydah fingered three Saudi princes (including the King’s nephew) and Pakistan’s air force chief as his main contacts.[42] “Moreover, Zubaydah told American investigators that two of those he named — and for which he provided their private telephone numbers — had advance knowledge about the 9/11 attacks.”[43] When the CIA contacted Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to inquire about the men, both countries responded within a week that they had investigated the matter and that the charges were false. Within months, all four died in what Posner indicates are suspicious circumstances. One CIA official told Posner, “It’s interesting that we can’t talk to most of the people that Zubaydah named because they all died after he told us about them…. But it does make a lot of us wonder what these people might have known about 9/11 and failed to tell us.”[44]
….
The cards “could give us entrée right into who was funding al Qaeda, no link analysis needed,” said one American source. “You could track money right from the financiers to a top al Qaeda figure.” But something very odd happened …. There is little evidence that an aggressive investigation of the cards was ever conducted. Two American sources familiar with the matter say that they don’t believe the government’s top experts on terrorism financing have ever thoroughly probed the transactions

Posted by: annie | Apr 18 2009 15:47 utc | 21