torture

Reports are that Military may owe royalties to performers for using their songs at Guantanamo to break Al Queda prisoners. Interrogaters used a mixture of heavy metal, children's songs and commercial jingles along with temperature variations, sleep deprivation to break captured Al Queda...

He thinks it's torture now. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/video/2008/hitchens_video200808

This is incredible. The CIA chose an analyst with no Arabic language skills and AFAIK a lack of counterterrorism and interrogation experience to interrogate Abu Zubaydah, al-Nashiri, bin al-Shibh and KSM. Did Tenet put CIA employee names in a hat to decide who would interrogate al Qaeda detainees?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7459946.stm At least according to the Vietnamese. Seems like they may only have used enhanced interrogations and stress positions. I suppose they thought they might get some useful information out of him that could help them prevent a bombing and maybe...

John McCain voted against offshore oil drilling. Recently a poll came out showing that Americans now favor offshore oil drilling, and McCain changes his position to be in favor of it. John McCain voted against making the Bush tax cuts permanent. He had a change of heart during the Republican...

I just read a story from MSNBC about the inspector general's report issued concerning interrogation methods of prisoners from Iraq and Afghanistan. Listed are many methods that were used, most of which are designed to intimidate or embarrass the detainee in order to obtain information. The...

Proposed text; "Physical coercion or threat thereof shall not be used by the United States nor its military forces nor their contractors nor any other third parties reporting to the United States in the questioning of prisoners regardless of their nation of citizenship and regardless of the...

As the most common argument for torture is the ticking time bomb one, why shouldn't POW's be tortured? They are one of the most likely to have intelligence that can save lives in an immediate fashion. So the ticking time bomb situation is the most real for them. Why don't people who advocate...

I found it rather odd that no one started a thread on this subject since the issue of the USA engaging in torture has come up so many times in JREF, so here goes ... Ending at least a few years of speculation and quite a few denials from the Bush Administration, the CIA has finally admitted...

This Florida based Gulfstream II jet aircraft # N987SA crash landed on September 24, 2007 after it ran out of fuel over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula it had a cargo of several tons of Cocaine on board now documents have turned up on both sides of the Atlantic that link this Cocaine Smuggling...

Since torture is not a reliable way of getting accurate information because the subject is likely to say anything to make the torture stop, can we trust the interrogations the Commission based its findings on planning and execution? 9/11 Commission controversy Posted on Wednesday, January 30...

I am against torture. I am against beating a man senseless just cause he is an enemy. I am against causing someone terribly physical pain just to attempt to get information. But waterboarding is simulated drowning. No one drowns or dies from waterboarding. The point of waterboarding is to...

CIA discloses news that it destroyed interrogation video tapes CIA director Hayden says the agency did not want to compromise agents' security. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,315965,00.html http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL0794447.html...

I am a huge fan of Keith Burgess-Jackson and frequently read his blog. Here's the lede for a editorial he wrote that was carried by OpinionJournal: The full article at OpinionJournal.com.

This morning, it's reported that a UN committee has declared that the Taser device "might" constitute a form of torture. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/25/national/main3537803.shtml We've had a number of threads on the use of this law enforcement tool, often with lurid headlines like...

Someone leaked the GITMO operations manual. I didn't have the time to read it yet, but I thought I share it with you for those who're interested in internal procedures...

The AG nomine responded to Congress today that he will study waterboarding to determine if it is torture, thus un-Constitutional, and if it is torture, un-Constitutional and therefore illegal, he will reverse any DOJ directives/memos that allow it. Wow. Such grand waffling, it seems to me...

Rumsfeld was making a speech and the Center for Constitutional Rights, among other groups, took the opportunity to indict him for "ordering and authorizing torture." He has scurried back to the US, but since he was in France at the time, the case can be prosecuted. Oh, my.

Brian Ross, investigative reporter at ABC, has a post detailing the means the CIA used to break the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to get him to spill his guts about the 9/11 and other plots. The method used was waterboarding - strapping the prisoner to a board upside down and...

Enemy combatant? With us or against us.... ...let the decider decide. http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=NATIONAL&ID=565074540867487317 But now Donald Vance is standing up. He's free now and armed with lawyers. So too is the guy arrested with him, Nathan Ertel.

Key findings: Source: http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=10824 Well, that is absolutely frightening. Don't these soldiers get any kind of ethics training before they're deployed? I blame their commanders and the military, before I blame the individual soldiers, mind you.

Doofus Southern CA Rep, Dana Rohrabacher, reinvigorates his seat with stupidity all in the cause of defending some of the more questionable US behavior, with the following admonition to those who find the idea of torture and extraordinary rendition reprehensible: Let's hear it for Dana!

It is unclear what useful, if any, information, the gitmo prisoners are delivering or how relieable it is. That, of course, is classified. What is clear as they face these jury-rigged tribunals, the alleged terrorists are all pretty much claiming that they were tortured. Now, many here in the...

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/hicks-pleads-guilty/2007/03/27/1174761414531.html According to radio reports I heard, he was prepared to plead to anything as long as it meant he could get out of Guantanamo, against the advice of his legal team, who wanted him to plead not guilty.

I have read on yahoo and another of other places that the NAE, National Association of Evangelicals, the same ones that just had thier leader resign in a 'gay sex scandal', have now come out saying it is wrong for the US to use torture. They still are opposite me in many ways but , this time...

I'm just wondering how the Italians expect to try CIA agents they don't have in custody? Is this just a political move to distance themselves from the U.S. or will they actually attempt to extradite the agents? Court orders 35 to stand trial over CIA flights POSTED: 8:04 a.m. EST, February...

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/04/america/web.1204detain.php Jose Padilla Tortured? I see no possible good outcome for our country.

I guess it's a really bad week for Rumsfeld. :) Thursday, November 9th, 2006 War Crimes Suit Prepared against Rumsfeld The president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner, is heading to Germany today to file a new case charging outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld...

I wonder where they learned that it's okay for a Democracy to torture? Iraq charges dozens of police with torture POSTED: 8:10 a.m. EST, November 7, 2006 BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq's Interior Ministry said Tuesday that it had brought the first-ever charges of torture against members of the...

Yahoo news had a link to an interesting Washington Post story this morning that the Bush administration is seeking to prevent people locked up in secret CIA prisons from revealing the details of their treatment while in captivity. People in the Bush administration, and a number of their...