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Title: THE TORTURE THREAD THAT GOLDI-LOX HAD TO DELETE
Source:
Washington Post
URL Source: http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=47942
Published: Jun 27, 2003
Author: Peter Slevin
Post Date: 2005-10-29 02:05:12 by Uncle Bill
Keywords: GOLDI-LOX, TORTURE, THREAD
Views: 614
Comments: 81
DELETED: Sorry: This Article does not exist! It either does not yet exist, or has been deleted! Born-Again: U.S. PLEDGES TO AVOID TORTURE Title: U.S. PLEDGES TO AVOID TORTURE June 27, 2003 U.S. Pledges to Avoid Torture Pledge on Terror Suspects Comes Amid Probes of Two Deaths The Washington Post The Bush administration pledged yesterday for the first time that the United States will not torture terrorism suspects or treat them cruelly in an attempt to extract information, a move that comes as the deaths of two Afghan prisoners in U.S. custody are being investigated as homicides. "All interrogations, wherever they may occur," must be conducted without the use of cruel and inhuman tactics, the Pentagon's senior lawyer wrote after members of Congress and human rights groups pressed the White House to renounce abusive tactics reported by U.S. government officials. On a day when President Bush asserted that his administration intends to lead by example in a global fight against torture, Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes II said that anyone found to have broken the law in the Afghanistan deaths will be prosecuted. Human rights organizations welcomed the announcement, which went further than the Bush administration had gone before. An earlier letter from Haynes, for example, had mentioned the prohibition against torture without citing the broader category of mistreatment that is against the law in the United States. While neither Bush nor Haynes cited specific tactics, human rights activists said the administration appeared to bar such techniques as depriving prisoners of sleep, withholding medicine and forcing them to stand at length in painful positions. U.S. authorities have used each technique against captives held abroad in the war on terrorism, according to current and former national security officials interviewed last year by The Washington Post. "The president and Defense Department have today unequivocally rejected the use of any techniques to interrogate suspects that would constitute 'cruel' treatment prohibited by the U.S. Constitution," a group of human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House and the Center of Victims of Torture, said in a joint statement. They called on the administration to allow independent monitors to "assure the world that this pledge is being fully redeemed in practice." U.S. treatment of terror suspects and potential witnesses has been particularly obscure. The Bush administration typically prevents prisoners from contacting attorneys or asserting rights to fair treatment. Indeed, U.S. authorities have refused to identify the large majority of detainees or release any information about them, arguing that such data could help terrorists. In the first 15 months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, nearly 3,000 suspected al Qaeda members and supporters were detained worldwide, according to U.S. officials. National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that prisoners abroad are being treated humanely, but reports have surfaced in the news media about cruel treatment of detainees in American-run detention centers, where the rules of due process are not always applied. In interviews with The Post last year, members of the U.S. government's national security apparatus defended the use of violence as just and necessary. "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job. I don't think we want to be promoting a view of zero tolerance on this," said an official who supervised the capture of accused terrorists. Officials said painkillers were used selectively to win cooperation of Abu Zubaida, a high-ranking al Qaeda member shot in the groin during his arrest. U.S. officials said they sometimes transfer uncooperative suspects to foreign countries where security services are known for brutality. In some of countries where "extraordinary renditions" take place, security services use mind-altering drugs such as sodium pentathol to get detainees to answer questions relayed by U.S. government personnel. The secret CIA interrogation center at Bagram air base north of Kabul, the Afghan capital, has been the site of mistreatment including "stress and duress" techniques in which prisoners are deprived of sleep or kept in awkward positions until they feel pain, sources told The Post. Two Afghan detainees died in Bagram in December. Military pathologists said one died of a heart attack and the other of a blood clot in the lung, but both showed signs of blunt force trauma. Their deaths were classified as homicides in March. A U.S. Army criminal investigation is underway. The death of an Afghan man in U.S. custody over the weekend is also under investigation, U.S. military officials in Kabul said Monday. The man died Saturday afternoon at a holding facility near Asadabad in the eastern province of Konar. Human rights organizations and members of Congress invoked the global convention on torture to argue that the techniques cited by U.S. officials did not comport with U.S. law or international commitments. In a June 2 letter to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) raised a number of legal issues about the treatment of detainees arrested during the post-Sept. 11 crackdown on terrorism. Haynes replied in a letter released yesterday that the U.S. promise of good behavior goes beyond a prohibition on torture to encompass "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Avoiding comment on specific cases and practices as "inappropriate," Haynes said the definition refers to behavior considered unconstitutional in the United States. "It's a very, very welcome statement," Human Rights Watch executive Tom Malinowski said of Haynes's letter. "What that means is that whether you call it 'stress and duress' or 'torture lite,' the administration is saying that it's wrong and prohibited, that the United States isn't doing it and that no one else should do it." Malinowski said officials from some countries whose treatment of prisoners is considered objectionable have countered that the U.S. government itself uses similar techniques. Bush, in honoring U.N. Torture Victims Recognition Day yesterday, said, "The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment." © 2003 The Washington Post Company
Source: The Washington Post
URL Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn? pagename=article&contentId=A37460-2003Jun26¬Found=true
Published: Jun 27, 2003
Author: By Peter Slevin
Post Date: 2004-05-02 02:56:07 by Uncle Bill
18 Comments
"The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment."
George W. Bush - Source: Article Below.
By Peter Slevin
June 27, 2003
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#1. To: Uncle Bill (#0)
I have to go into work each day; that's torture. I have to drive in rush hour traffic and slowly through school zones; that's torture. I have to have a yearly review, state objectives and meet them; that's torture. I have ti labor over filling out income taxes each Apr 15; that's torture. Is all that being eliminated?
Hey, sweetie........whenever those things you consider torture, tear your rectum and bowels apart like having a toilet bowl plunger handle shoved up your rectum, or you die from being asphixated due to them laying on your neck or chest, or they rape your little kiddies or girlfriend/boyfriend (your choice), maybe they will consider eliminating them. But then......if I were you I wouldn't get too hung up waiting for them--even if they promised you they'd take care of it......their track record for honesty and truthfulness sucks. Besides, dearie.......your special Rushie or Seanie would tell ya your bitches are just little college hazing games....no biggies.....remember?
These detainees have had nothing like Waco imposed on them, as a matter of fact, things have been pretty good for them! The stories fed you by SeeBS could, I guess I could say, could have been instigated by said same network for the purpose having a scandal to beat and demoralize the military with; my experience at this site prompts me to stop and consider if conspiracies exist at all levels of the government and business, why not in the military and the press, with the press 'working' in agit prop and perhaps various soldiers acting as paid spies by the network news. Something to think about while we all consider the damage done to our men and women in the armed forces as we dwell on an isolated incident by a few rotten apples who weren't properly supervised.
General Karpinski went on to say that the reason talk of banning torture has come to the forefront, even though there should be no need for discussion on the topic is because it IS STILL GOING ON. "There is overwhelming proof that torture is going on, that it has been directed and is likely continuing, even to this day. I don't want to believe it is but the statements from the people just returning from the theater give every indication that in fact it is, they still don't know where to draw the line." The General said. On the topic of why the torture is so extreme and degrading, the General suggested that the interrogators are getting a bizarre pleasure out of it. She gave the example of using naked menstruating women to break Muslim Iraqi men. "Who studied the Arab culture to come up with such a n idea, this is insulting to anybody." She said. "And the fact that they are using female soldiers to conduct this demonstrates what they think the likely;y role of women in the army is." If you wrote a horror movie where the army was doing this it would be too unbelievable, yet this is happening in reality and the media has just accepted it as the norm now. It seems clear and the General agrees that we are seeing the formation of a cold blooded torture core with Iraq as the beta test. Iraq is often referred to as a "laboratory". The test is to see how the prisoners, the soldiers and the public react to this. "They are looking for the kind of people with this mind set, who can live with themselves whilst they are going forth with this global war on terrorism and trying to make a difference."
Do you have a cite other than at http://infowar. com? I can't treat some of what I find there too terribly seriously.
Do you put you fingers in your ears and shout "lalalalala" while you're scrolling past any Alex Jones content surfacing here?
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#8. To: _Jim (#1)
#12. To: rowdee (#8)
#23. To: _Jim (#12)
Something to think about while we all consider the damage done to our men and women in the armed forces as we dwell on an isolated incident by a few rotten apples who weren't properly supervised.
#25. To: christine (#23)
#36. To: _Jim (#25)
I can't treat some of what I find there too terribly seriously.
Replies to Comment # 36.