Torture & USA

[KJP 7,896]

WOW! NYT Editorial calls for torturers & their bosses -incl Cheney & Tenet- to be prosecuted!

 

Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDDEC. 21, 2014

 

Since the day President Obama took office, he has failed to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects — an official government program conceived and carried out in the years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

 

He did allow his Justice Department to investigate the C.I.A.'s destruction of videotapes of torture sessions and those who may have gone beyond the torture techniques authorized by President George W. Bush. But the investigation did not lead to any charges being filed, or even any accounting of why they were not filed.

 

Mr. Obama has said multiple times that “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards,” as though the two were incompatible. They are not. The nation cannot move forward in any meaningful way without coming to terms, legally and morally, with the abhorrent acts that were authorized, given a false patina of legality, and committed by American men and women from the highest levels of government on down.

 

MORE:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opinion/prosecute-torturers-and-their-bosses.html?smid=re-share&_r=1

[KJP 7,896]

ECCHR files criminal complaints against Bush officials

Sat Dec 20, 2014 2:58PM GMT

 

The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) has filed criminal complaints against the officials of former US President George W. Bush’s administration for running a state-organized program of brutal torture against foreign suspects.

 

The German rights center on Friday accused several members of the Bush administration, including then former CIA Director George Tenet and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, of war crimes, calling for an immediate investigation by a German prosecutor into the cases.

 

Earlier, the US Senate Intelligence Committee released a damning report on the CIA’s torture program, which has triggered worldwide condemnation.

 

The torture program involved the case of a German citizen, Khalid El-Masri, who was captured by CIA agents in Macedonia in 2004 and tortured at a CIA-run prison in Afghanistan.

 

MORE:

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/12/20/391091/ecchr-files-complaints-over-cia-torture/

 

[Bosco4789 0]

The Justice Department approved Bush's techniques. Whatever Europe thinks is irrelevant

[Foraker 187]

The Justice Department approved Bush's techniques. Whatever Europe thinks is irrelevant

 

Not quite.  Reagan endorsed and Congress signed off on an international agreement to ban torture, so it's now the law in the U.S.  My understanding is that the law says that if the US fails to prosecute, then the international criminal court can.  By our own law and our own failure to prosecute we may have given the foreign court jurisdiction.

 

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=35858

 

 

 

[KJP 7,896]

White House knew #CIA spied on Senate #torture investigators - report http://t.co/9NDjhqPceE

[surfohio 484]

White House knew #CIA spied on Senate #torture investigators - report http://t.co/9NDjhqPceE

 

Surreal. Like right out of a ridiculously unbelievable Steven Seagal movie.

[E Rocc 229]

The Justice Department approved Bush's techniques. Whatever Europe thinks is irrelevant

 

Not quite.  Reagan endorsed and Congress signed off on an international agreement to ban torture, so it's now the law in the U.S.  My understanding is that the law says that if the US fails to prosecute, then the international criminal court can.  By our own law and our own failure to prosecute we may have given the foreign court jurisdiction.

 

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=35858

 

 

 

 

We don't recognize nor participate in the ICC, nor are we likely to anytime soon.

 

 

[Gramarye 153]

I Googled to see if there were second sources for that because I don't trust Russia Today (nor should anyone), but this one might be genuine:

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/15/cia-senate-spying_n_6478960.html

 

https://hotair.com/archives/2015/01/15/report-the-white-house-knew-the-cia-was-spying-on-the-senate/

 

Of course, the overall conclusion of the report was that the CIA employees made a "mistake" but did not commit malfeasance (which is a stretch even for a foregone conclusion in a whitewashing job):

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/01/14/cias-email-actions-mistake-but-not-malfeasance-review-says/

[KJP 7,896]

On Fox News they were just talking about “the value of enhanced interrogation under medical supervision.”  Without going into the profound flaws in the central thesis, shouldn’t any medical professional who “supervises” torture lose their license to practice medicine—at the very least?  How do licensure boards permit this—or do they??

[freefourur 875]

On Fox News they were just talking about “the value of enhanced interrogation under medical supervision.”  Without going into the profound flaws in the central thesis, shouldn’t any medical professional who “supervises” torture lose their license to practice medicine—at the very least?  How do licensure boards permit this—or do they??

 

enhanced interrogation is a PC term for torture.  this phrase should die.

[Ram23 81]

^ Torture is a misnomer for enhanced interrogation. This is yet another example of the far left's tendency to use strong and incorrect words to describe something in order to make it seem much worse than it really is. They do this with words like racist, sexist, etc. Just like with those words, when you lump tactics that aren't torture into the same category as actual torture, you dumb down the meaning of the word.

[freefourur 875]

^ Torture is a misnomer for enhanced interrogation. This is yet another example of the far left's tendency to use strong and incorrect words to describe something in order to make it seem much worse than it really is. They do this with words like racist, sexist, etc. Just like with those words, when you lump tactics that aren't torture into the same category as actual torture, you dumb down the meaning of the word.

 

Nope.  Enhanced interrogation is just right wing PC nonsense term.  It is a euphemism for torture. 

 

Waterboarding can lead to brain damage = torture

Confining someone to a coffin sized box for 10 days = torture

Sleep deprivation for a week  = torture

 

You look foolish trying to claim that these things are not torture.  It is why Trumpy opinions are usually laughed at by people not in a cult.

[ck 41]

Wow, pop in another thread and see another great quote from Ram

 

Just a reminder what we were doing with Cheney and Bush leading the charge: https://www.justsecurity.org/67258/go-see-the-report-then-lets-put-torture-to-bed-for-good/

 

Quote

The result is that Mr. Al-Nashiri is most likely irreversibly damaged by torture that was unusually cruel and designed to break him. Indeed, in my many years of experience treating torture victims from around the world, Mr. Al-Nashiri presents as one of the most severely traumatized individuals I have ever seen.

 

Edited November 15 by ck

[Foraker 187]

And yet, sadly, despite Congress having ratified the Geneva Conventions condemning torture, thereby making it against both US and international law, Congress did not investigate the Bush administration over it, and the Obama administration continued that policy and looked the other way.  Shame on U.S.