MI6 and CIA ‘sent student to Morocco to be tortured
An Ethiopian claims that his confession to al-Qaeda bomb plot was signed after being tortured in a Moroccan jail and claims torturers used scalpel on his chest and penis as he was hung, ‘strappado’ from his wrists from the ceiling. The British government and CIA are now facing complicity in the affair due to the Extraordinary Rendition program.
Agencies said he was part of a plot to buy uranium in Asia, bring it to the US and build a ‘dirty bomb’ in league with Jose Padilla, a US citizen. Funny enough, now that the torture allegations used against Mohammed came out, the claims against Padilla were subsequently dropped. He now faces a civil charge of supporting al-Qaeda financially.
He was stripped naked, photographed, given an enema and put on a plane with shackles, earphones and a blindfold.
All this as Britain’s loftiest judges lay down the law on torture.
Lord Hoffman: "The use of torture is dishonourable. It corrupts and degrades the state which uses it and the legal system which accepts it … Many people in the United States have felt their country dishonoured by its use of torture outside the jurisdiction and its practice of extra-legal ‘rendition’ of suspects to countries where they would be tortured. The rejection of torture … has a special iconic importance as the touchstone of a humane and civilised legal system."
Lord Hope: "Torture is one of most evil practices known to man. Once torture has become acclimatised in a legal system it spreads like an infectious disease, hardening and brutalising those who have become accustomed to its use.
Lord Brown: "Torture is an unqualified evil. It can never be justified. Rather it must always be punished."
Lord Bingham: "The English common law has regarded torture and its fruits with abhorrence for over 500 years … I am startled, even a little dismayed, at the suggestion (and the acceptance by the court of appeal majority) that this deeply-rooted tradition and an international obligation solemnly and explicitly undertaken can be overridden … The issue is one of constitutional principle, whether evidence obtained by torturing another human being may lawfully be admitted against a party to proceedings in a British court … To that question I would give a very clear negative answer."
Lord Nicholls: "Torture is not acceptable. This is a bedrock moral principle in this country. For centuries the common law has set its face against torture … Torture attracts universal condemnation. No civilised society condones its use. Unhappily, condemnatory words are not always matched by conduct."
Word is leaking now that the EU has known and allowed the CIA to tour Europe with their enema bags, black costumes and leather for several years – snatching those deemed ‘terrorists’ and hauling them off to torture dens in a string of countries around the world -or even just getting ‘rid’ of them as Bush alluded to in his 2003 SOTU speech.
This was vividly demonstrated in one of the revolting scenes in recent American history: Bush’s State of the Union address in January 2003, delivered to Congress and televised nationwide during the final frenzy of war-drum beating before the assault on Iraq. Trumpeting his successes in the Terror War, Bush claimed that "more than 3,000 suspected terrorists" had been arrested worldwide – "and many others have met a different fate." His face then took on the characteristic leer, the strange, sickly half-smile it acquires whenever he speaks of killing people: "Let’s put it this way. They are no longer a problem."
Pinter video (swf,wmv,flv), podcast (mp3)and transcript link here…
I’m in the process of applying some social psychological theory to our understanding of extreme violence, such as torture. Certainly, there are a number of us in the field who are trying to get our heads around this truly sickening phenomenon: Phil Zimbardo, Mika Harito-Fatouros, Martha Huggins, and Craig Anderson would come to mind most immediately among my contemporaries. Mainly, I find myself drawing heavily from Anderson’s General Aggression Model, which I’ll refer to and flesh out in more detail in the coming weeks. When we ask ourselves how people can come to torture others, for example, we must necessarily track down the various potential causes. The General Aggression Model lays out numerous antecedents, including distal and proximate causes. For now, I’ll just mention some distal causes, and we’ll work our way forward from there. Distal causes are ones that make up the social and cultural background in which violence may fester. A society with a long history of acceptance of torture would be one of those distal causes – certainly there’s good reason to believe that such acceptance has been to varying degrees part of the European and American Zeitgeist for centuries. Propaganda is another distal factor: look at the way that people of Arab and Persian descent are portrayed in the mass media, in the news, etc. Think too about how the religion of Islam is portrayed. Too often, these individuals and their faith are portrayed as brutal, savage, violent, and as a threat to “civilization.” If you follow enough of the right-wing media organs it’s questionable as to whether our friends in the Middle East are even to be considered human. Dehumanization of other peoples and their cultures is a necessary antecedent for torture to occur. Our own mass media culture is one replete with violence: extreme acts of aggression and torture are played out on a regular basis in videogames, movies, and so forth with sufficient frequency as to desensitize individuals to such violence. That same mass media also has a tendency to create a sort of Zeitgeist of paranoia, a tendency to perceive the actions and lifestyles of others as threatening.
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The Observer quoted a senior US intelligence official as saying the CIA was in “deep crisis” following last week’s international political storm over the agency’s transit flights. “The smarter people in the Directorate of Operations [the CIA’s clandestine operational arm] know that one day, if they do this stuff, they are going to face indictment,” the official was quoted as saying. “They are simply refusing to participate in these operations, and if they don’t have big mortgage or tuition fees to pay they’re thinking about trying to resign altogether.”
The Pentagon’s chief adviser on prisoner issues is leaving to take a policy job at the US State Department, Bush Administration officials said at the weekend.
U.S. Army Deputy Provost Marshal General Col. Pete Champagne comments on the role of the military police in detainee operations during a press briefing in the Pentagon on March 10, 2005. Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III, the lead investigator and author of the "Review of DoD Detention Operations and Detainee Interrogation Techniques" also participated. Other briefers included Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Mathew Waxman, and Army Director for Human Intelligence Thomas Gandy. DoD photo by R. D. WardMatthew Waxman will become the principal deputy director of the State Department’s policy planning office. Since filling a position created nearly two years ago to help fix the damage caused by the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (pdf file) scandal, Mr Waxman has repeatedly clashed with top aides to the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, and senior Pentagon officials.
Colleagues and human rights advocates said that while Mr Waxman had expressed frustration over the internal administration policy fights, he was not being forced out.
“He’s tried very hard,” said Elisa Massimino, Washington director of the advocacy group Human Rights First. “But everybody recognised that he was having to go up against people who both outrank him and were deeply involved setting the policies that he was challenging.”
How America’s Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with
the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
and replace it with a properly scrutinized and accountable intelligence service. What with its history of drug running, drug dealing, torture, rendition, failed intelligence assesments etc ad infintum the CIA is beyond redemption.
“Lord Bingham: “The English common law has regarded torture and its fruits with abhorrence for over 500 years”
Either I’ve been asleep for 480 years, or the “no Irish need apply” rule is in effect.
From Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution:
“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”
Doesn’t this mean the very existence of the CIA, with its black budget (you know, the budget we’re not allowed to see) is unconstitutional?
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GW Bush, Constitution just a goddam piece of paper ◊ by ghostdancers way
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY