Lets talk torture, is it the american way?

[Avery L. Breath]

Quote from President Bush:  We do not torture.

Yet growing evidence is showing that we do.  Even more so, ABC World News Tonight reported a couple days ago that there is a presidential finding, signed in 2002, by President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and then Attorney General John Ashcroft approving water boarding and other interrogation techniques.  While ABC has not proven that this presidental finding actually exists, it sounds like ABC has very reliable sources.

Waterboarding in specific is prohibited under international law and domestic U.S. law.  We have even been noted in the past to condemn other contries that use this technique.  Yet, we apparently do it.  I personally think if this 'presidential finding on torture' the president seems to have signed ever comes to light, it will be proof possative that our president is a war criminal.  I wonder where these supposed secret prison abroad come into this picture on that account.




(New York, HRW) â€" Porter Goss, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has made misleading statements about the CIA’s use of torture and mistreatment of detainees, Human Rights Watch (HRW)said today. Goss was quoted today in USA Today stating that the CIA does not use torture and that the CIA’s interrogation techniques are legal.

“A growing body of evidence shows that the CIA has tortured detainees,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Many interrogation techniques authorized for use by the CIA amount to torture. Their authorization by higher-ranking officials is illegal and potentially criminal.”

Goss is quoted as saying: “This agency does not do torture. Torture does not work. We use lawful capabilities to collect vital information, and we do it in a variety of unique and innovative ways, all of which are legal and none of which are torture.”

But contrary to Goss’ assertions, the CIA is alleged to have authorized interrogation techniques which do constitute torture and which the United States has historically considered as such.

A November 18 ABC News report quoted several CIA officials stating that CIA leadership approved six interrogation techniques in March 2002 for use against detainees held at CIA-run facilities in Afghanistan. The techniques included slaps, sleep deprivation, forced standing, exposure to cold and “waterboarding,” in which interrogators immerse or pour water over a detainee’s face until he believes he will suffocate or drown.

Waterboarding is intended to cause a victim to believe he is about to die, and is similar to a mock execution. Earlier this year in March 2005, Goss justified waterboarding as a “professional interrogation technique” during a Senate hearing. Other Bush administration officials, when questioned about waterboarding, have refused to rule it out.


"There is no doubt that waterboarding is torture, despite the administration’s reluctance to say so,” said Roth.

Waterboarding is prohibited under international law and domestic U.S. law. Known as the “submarino” in Latin America, where it was used extensively in the 1970s and 1980s, waterboarding has been condemned as torture for decades.

Other techniques described in the November 18 ABC News report â€" prolonged forced standing, sleep deprivation and exposure to cold â€" are illegal and may possibly amount to torture. These techniques were used by Soviet and North Korean interrogators, and have been reported more recently in Egypt, Burma, Iran and Turkey. For descriptions of these techniques and their effects â€" both historical examples and accounts from the State Department’s own human rights reports â€" see below.

The administration has argued that the CIA has and should continue to have latitude to use techniques that are “cruel, inhumane, or degrading” so long as the victim is a non-American held abroad. This claim is wholly at odds with international law. See: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/10/26/usdom11922.htm



Human Rights Watch renewed its call for Congress to appoint an independent, bipartisan commission to examine interrogation practices. In light of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ conflict of interest as an architect of U.S. interrogation policy, Human Rights Watch also called on the Bush administration to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate criminal activity in the military and CIA, including the conduct of military and civilian officials.



For descriptions of the effects of techniques allegedly authorized for us by the CIA, see below.






Descriptions of Techniques Allegedly Authorized by the CIA




Forced standing and sleep deprivation


Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin described in his memoirs being subjected to sleep deprivation in a Soviet prison in the 1940s: “In the head of the interrogated prisoner a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep, to sleep just a little, not to get up, to lie, to rest, to forget. . . . Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger or thirst are comparable with it. . . . I came across prisoners who signed what they were ordered to sign, only to get what the interrogator promised them. He did not promise them their liberty. He promised them â€" if they signed â€" uninterrupted sleep!”


The Washington Times reported last year that “some of the most feared forms of torture” cited by survivors of the North Korean gulag “were surprisingly mundane: Guards would force inmates to stand perfectly still for hours at a time, or make them perform exhausting repetitive exercises such as standing up and sitting down until they collapsed from fatigue.” (“Nightmares from the North; Korean son recounts life in dictatorship,” Benjamin Hu, The Washington Times, April 30, 2004.)


In The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn describes Soviet interrogations including cases of forced standing and sleep deprivation: “Then there is the method of simply compelling a prisoner to stand there.” Among other techniques used to break prisoners was forcing them to stay in a fixed position for an extended period of time: “In the Novocherkassk NKVK, Yelena Strutinskaya was forced to remain seated on a stool in the corridor for six days in such a way that she did not lean against anything, did not sleep, did not fall off, and did not get up from it.” Solzhenitsyn also describes sleep deprivation being used on a prisoner named Anna Skripnikova in 1952: “[The] Chief of the Investigative Department of the Ordzhonikidze State Security Administration, said to her: “The prison doctor reports you have a blood pressure of 240/120. That’s too low, you bitch! We’re going to drive it up to 340 so you'll kick the bucket, you viper, and with no black and blue marks; no beatings; no broken bones. We'll just not let you sleep.’ And if, back in her cell, after a night spent in interrogation, she closed her eyes during the day, the jailer broke in and shouted: ‘Open your eyes or I'll haul you off that cot by the legs and tie you to the wall standing up.’” Elsewhere, Solzhenitsyn writes: “Sleeplessness . . . befogs the reason, undermines the will, and the human being ceases to be himself, to be his own ‘I.’”


In 1951, William N. Oatis was taken into Czech custody on charges of espionage while working as bureau chief for the Associated Press in Prague. He was innocent, but signed a false confession after being held and interrogated for six days. He was kept awake for over 40 hours, after which he signed the confession. He described his ordeal in Life Magazine. “[After 40 hours of sleep deprivation:] The room was whirling. I could not seem to make my eyes­or my brain­focus. I wanted time to think. I knew that this was a great and perhaps fatal step: if I signed, I would be confessing to something I had not done. I wanted to consider what I might be doing to myself by signing this document­and what I might be doing by refusing to sign it. But there was something else I wanted more. That was sleep. I had been awake 42 hours. Through that time, almost without letup, I had been questioned, browbeaten, and berated. I was limp with fatigue. My eyes kept falling shut, my mind kept blanking out. My future might lie in the balance, but the future must take care of itself. Tomorrow was another day. Tonight was what bore me down. I must end it somehow. There seemed only want way to do that, and that was to sign the confession. So I signed it. The 42 hours had finished me. I had gone to embassy people for help in my unofficial reporting, a procedure followed by journalists everywhere, but now I had confessed the opposite. I had signed a paper saying I went to the embassy to deliver information rather than to obtain it. I had not chosen to abandon the truth -- the choice had been made for me. . .”


In The Great Terror, a book about the Soviet Union during Stalin’s rule, author Robert Conquest describes detainees being subjected to forced standing and sleep deprivation: “Interrogation usually took place at night and with the accused just roused â€" often only fifteen minutes after going to sleep. The glaring lights at the interrogation had a disorientating effect.” Conquest quotes a Czech prisoner, Evzen Loebl, who described “having to be on his feet eighteen hours a day, sixteen of which were devoted to interrogation. During the six-hour sleep period, the warder pounded on the door every ten minutes, upon which he had to jump to attention and report, ‘Detainee No. 1473 reports: strength one detainee, everything in order.’ He was, that is, ‘awakened thirty or forty times a night.’ If the banging did not wake him, a kick from the warder would. After two or three weeks, his feet were swollen and every inch of his body ached at the slightest touch; even washing became a torture.”


In Gulag: A History, another Soviet history by Anne Applebaum, describes the “‘standing test’ -- prisoners were told to stand, facing the wall, without moving. . . . One, Engraver P., over fifty years of age and heavily built, had stood for six and a half days. He was not given food or drink and was not allowed to sleep.” Applebaum continues: “Most commonly, however, prisoners were simply deprived of sleep: this deceptively simple form of torture â€" which seemed to require no special advance approval â€" was known to prisoners as being put ‘on the conveyor,’ and it could last for many days or weeks. The method was simple: prisoners were interrogated all night, and afterward forbidden to sleep during the day.”



Exposure to cold


Robert Conquest, the author of the Great Terror, cited above, quotes a Polish prisoner held in a Soviet camp in 1945, talking about the effects of sleep deprivation and hunger: “Cold, hunger, the bright light and especially sleeplessness. The cold is not terrific. But when the victim is weakened by hunger and sleeplessness, then the six or seven degrees above the freezing point make him tremble all the time. . . . After two or three weeks, I was in a semi-conscious state. After fifty or sixty interrogations with cold and hunger and almost no sleep, a man becomes like an automaton â€" his eyes are bright, his legs swollen, his hands trembling. In this state, he is often convinced he is guilty.”


Applebaum writes: “Those who remained stubborn and refused to confess . . . could be placed in a specially harsh punishment cell, very hot or very cold, as was the memoirist Hava Volovich, who was also being deprived of sleep by her interrogator at the time: 'I will never forget that first experience of prison cold. I can’t describe it; I'm not capable of it. I was pulled one way by sleep, the other by cold.’”



Waterboarding


“Waterboarding,” in which interrogators immerse or pour water over a detainee’s face until he believes he will suffocate or drown, is intended to cause a victim to believe he is about to die, and therefore amounts to a mock execution. It was used extensively in Central and South America in the 1970s and 1980s and has been called “torture” by several domestic and human rights courts.


The National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture, in Chile, issued a report in November 2004, describing the use of the “submarino” in the early 1970s. One account reads: “Man, detained in September 1973: . . . [T]hey put cotton in both eyes, then adhesive tape on top, and a black hood tied at the neck, they tied my feet and hands tightly and they plunged me in one of those 250 liter barrels of oil which contained ammonia, urine, excrement, and sea water; they submerged me like this until my breath couldn’t hold out, nor my lungs, and they kept repeating this again and again, along with blows and questions, this was what they called, in [the world of] torture, the famous submarine.”






U.S. State Department Criticism of Techniques Across the World




The U.S. State Department has condemned as torture or other inhuman treatment many of the techniques that have allegedly been used by the CIA in Iraq, Afghanistan and at secret detention sites in other countries. Listed below are some of the countries criticized for using these interrogation methods during 2000, 2001 and 2002 in the State Department's annual “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.”



Country and Methods Used



Burma:

According to State Department country reports, the Burmese military government "routinely subjected detainees to hard interrogation techniques designed to intimidate and disorient." The techniques listed include being forced to squat or remain in uncomfortable periods for long periods of time, and, according to the 2000 and 2001 country reports, sleep and food deprivation and prolonged questioning under bright lights.



Egypt:

The country reports cited the stripping and blindfolding of prisoners among the principal methods of torture used by Egyptian authorities.



Eritrea:

The State Department reported that the Eritrean government "committed serious human rights abuses" and torture techniques including being subjected to prolonged sun exposure in high temperatures and tying of hands and feet for extended periods.



Iran:

According to country reports, common methods of torture used against political opponents in Iran were sleep deprivation and "suspension for long periods in contorted positions."



Iraq:

Iraqi security services under Saddam Hussein regularly used food and water deprivation as a form of torture, according to the country reports.



Jordan:

The State Department reported that Jordanian police and security forces were alleged to engage in acts of torture, including the use of sleep deprivation and solitary confinement.



Israel:

In the country reports, the State Department wrote that Israeli human rights groups reported that Israeli defense forces continued to use methods of interrogation prohibited by a 1999 decision by Israel's High Court. Prior to this decision, security officers were permitted to use "moderate and physical and psychological pressure" during questioning. One example of the "pressure" used was violent shaking. The State Department stated that these practices "often led to excesses."



Libya:

According to the State Department, Libyan authorities commonly chained detainees to walls for hours and deprived them of food and water.



Pakistan:

In the country reports, the State Department noted that prolonged isolation and denial of food or sleep were common torture methods.



Saudi Arabia:

The State Department noted that Saudi Arabian officials, primarily from the Ministry of the Interior, used sleep deprivation as an interrogation tactic.



Tunisia:

In the country reports, the State Department said that tactics such as food and sleep deprivation or confinement to a tiny, unlit cell were commonly used in Tunisia.



Turkey:

The State Department stated that torture is a regular practice in Turkey. According to the 2001 country report, some of the methods of torture employed by Turkish security forces included prolonged standing and isolation.

[TooStonedToType]

I didn't know this was even at question.  Bush and his whole gang are obviously war criminals.  Alberto Gonzales,  Attorney General of the United States, authored memos stating that torture was acceptable and that the President was not constrained in his power to wage war.

[Avery L. Breath]

Well, that picture you posted is a good example.  The president himself condemned such practices as not u.s. policy.  That the people who carried out those actions were just few bad seeds that do not represent america.  There have been cries of cover up on this issue, even by the highest ranking official to be held responsible for those attrocities, but nothing has come of it yet.  Yet increasing evidence that symiliar, if not such exact treatment is presidential policy is coming to light.  At least I hope some people in our government have consciences.

Excerp froom ABC interview/  Porter Goss (head of CIA) Addresses Torture Allegations, Discusses Agency's Future in Exclusive Interview

CHARLES GIBSON: Let me ask you about torture. You said the other day the CIA does not do torture, correct?

PORTER GOSS: That is correct.

GIBSON: How do you define it?

GOSS: Well, I define torture probably the way most people would â€" in the eye of the beholder. What we do does not come close because torture in terms of inflicting pain or something like that, physical pain or causing a disability, those kinds of things that probably would be a common definition for most Americans, sort of you know it when you see it, we don't do that because it doesn't get what you want. We do debriefings because debriefings are the nature of our business, is to get information. We want accurate information and we want to make sure that we have professional people doing that work, and we do all that, and we do it in a way that does not involve torture because torture is counterproductive.

GIBSON: We [ABC News] reported in the past two weeks about having talked to a number of people who have worked and did work in this agency, about six progressive techniques, each one harsher than the last, to get terrorists to talk, including things like long-term standing up, sleep deprivation, exposure for long periods of time to cold rooms or something called "water-boarding," which involves cellophane over the face and water being poured on an individual. Do those things take place?

GOSS: I've got to say there is a huge amount of disinformation out there on this whole subject because probably there's not very much accurate information available. And the reason there's not very much accurate information available about how we do debriefings and how we deal with people who are in detention is very simply, if we told you how we do that, we would be telling them, and that would lose the edge.

GIBSON: You know what water-boarding is though, right?

GOSS: I know what a lot of things are, but I'm not going to comment.

GIBSON: Would that come under the heading? Would that come under the heading of torture?

GOSS: I don't know. I haveâ€"

GIBSON: Well, under your definition that you just gave to me of inflicting pain?


GOSS: Let me put it this way, I'm not going to comment on any individual techniques that anybody has brought forward as an allegation, or dreamed up or anything like that. What we do, as I said many times, is professional, it's lawful, it yields good results and it is not torture.

GIBSON: [Arizona Republican Senator] John McCain has introduced an amendment in the Senate which was passed in the Senate, which essentially outlaws the use of torture. And the vice president has said there ought to be an exception for the CIA. Should there be?

GOSS: That would be up to the vice president. We don't make policy here, and I don't lobby for legislation.

GIBSON: But if you say you don't do torture, wouldn't that be, by definition, an endorsement of John McCain saying, essentially ruling out torture?

GOSS: Again, we don't comment on legislation when â€" whatever happens on the Hill happens on the Hill. We basically are capabilities people. We don't do torture because we don't need to do torture and it's counterproductive. We have our own techniques for our debriefings and they yield good results.

GIBSON: But by not embracing the John McCain amendment, doesn't that leave an impression in people's minds that perhaps the CIA might be doing things that you and I would not be proud of?

GOSS: It certainly â€" it should not leave that impression because we don't embrace any legislation. We are a part of the government, the Executive Branch. It's not our job to make policy, and it's not our job to lobby for legislation. I did that when I was in Congress. I don't do that down here.

GIBSON: There have also been stories in the press in recent weeks about a covert prison system, or secret prisons, some of which may exist in Eastern Europe for the holding of suspected terrorists. Why do we need that?

GOSS: Why do we need press speculation?

GIBSON: Those kinds of prisons.

GOSS: If you're talking about the press speculation, it's gotten way out of bounds. I don't know exactly what you're referring to, but I can absolutely assure you that I have read some allegations in the media that are just simply outlandish.

GIBSON: Well, The Washington Post story of two weeks ago I'm talking about, or within the last two weeks about, about, about covert, a covert prison system.

GOSS: Okay. Are you â€" what is your question?

GIBSON: Why do we need â€" do we have them?


GOSS: Let me put it this way. We're fighting a war on terror. We're doing quite well in it. Inevitably, we are going to have to capture some terrorists, and inevitably they're going to have to have some due process, and inevitably that is going to happen, and it's going to be done lawfully and under the, under all of the law and order and protections of due process that this country affords.

During the interview, Goss also spoke about the agency's post-9/11 role.

GIBSON: In light of what is certainly perceived in this country as intelligence failures leading to 9/11 and intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war as pertains to weapons of mass destruction, why should people believe in or trust the CIA?


GOSS: Well, we are perhaps the gold standard by any measure in terms of human intelligence. You can argue it, but I think when you get through at the end of the day we are the preeminent human intelligence collection agency in the globe. We have the greatest technology, the greatest support systems, the greatest case officers, and the greatest analysts working together. We don't get it right every time, but I don't think there is anybody who can come close. I would also say that there is nobody else out there doing what we do. We're unique. This is a very special activity. It's an overseas job. It involves lots of skills and techniques, a lot of sacrifice of time, family time in particular. This is a unique world and we have wonderful people dedicated and doing great things in it.

[senorsalvia]

Saw a newspaper article on the rack this morning...  Seems there's a new poll out that says Americans are willing to agree that torture is sometimes an appropriate action to take, especially if the resulting treatment leads to the gathering of sought after information :cry: ----  Jeez, what a sad, sad commentary.  And what of the oft repeated comment by the administration that tells us that torture is counterproductive, that it leads to false intelligence gathering?  This headlong dive into inhumanity that our leaders seem bent on pursuing just depresses and angers the hell out of me.......  Damn; years, well, decades ago, there used to be an AmeriKKKa that was worth something :cry: --------------  sal

[winder]

Well, fuck it then, we are not even trying to be better than those we are purportedly in a war against.  Let's start hikacking planes with their citizens and flying them into their buildings also.

Idiocy!

[Avery L. Breath]

Mouthfull there winder.

I have these horrible fantasies myself, in which I take one of these head media guys saying waterboarding is not torture and advocating it's use and waterboarding them a couple of times tell they agree that waterboarding is torture and that they used to wear their mothers cloths and troll for football players in highschool and give all the disgusting details of their naughty little encounters.  And get it all on tape.

It'd almost be worth the jail time.

[Avery L. Breath]

Another Bright Shining Lie
    By Abhinav Aima
    Common Dreams

    Tuesday 06 December 2005

    Condoleezza Rice has become the second American Secretary of State in as many years who has addressed a global audience and presented misinformation, half truths and outright lies in order to defend the malicious and relentless attacks on human rights and human dignity that are being perpetrated by the Bush administration.

    The first great lie was the one presented by then Secretary of State Colin Powell, when he shook a fake bottle of anthrax in the face of world leaders on Feb. 5, 2003, insinuating that Iraq possessed 25,000 liters of the same, and also told tall tales of Iraqi mobile production facilities for biological weapons, Iraqi chemical weapons stockpiles and an advanced Iraqi nuclear weapons program.

    When outraged U.N. weapons inspectors politely demanded evidence for these charges they were provided red herrings and false leads. When the frustrated U.S. inspectors complained that none of the U.S. charges could be substantiated after their searches in Iraq, they were ridiculed by the Bush administration and its lapdog press and labeled as corrupt, lazy and incompetent.

    Now we have Condoleezza Rice, the Cold Warrior who professed the need for relentless battle against the 'evil empire' and who now puts that crusade to good use against America's latest enemy - Anyone that Bush accuses of supporting terrorists.

    Rice stated on Monday, with unabashed gumption, that the U.S. had never tortured anyone, and that the U.S. followed its laws, and torture was illegal.

    "Torture is a term that is defined by law," said Rice. "We rely on our law to govern our operations."

    That is all very well and good until one digs deeper into what the Bush administration defines as torture. According to the executive orders signed by the president, and the findings authored by the attorney general, and the guidelines approved by the defense secretary - torture is the use of force that causes organ failure or death.

    If it doesn't cause organ failure or kill you, the Bush administration says, it is not torture.

    This is a blatant, though obviously Orwellian, approach to cover one's self with honorable labels - legal, lawful, ethical, and justifiable - after changing the parameters of such standards. The U.S. standard for defining torture now is so loose that most draconian countries that have long been known to practice torture would, under the Bush administration's definitions, be completely in the clear.

    If it doesn't cause organ failure or death it can't be torture!

    One practice allowed by the administration is water boarding - sounds like fun, doesn't it? Snowboarding, surfing, skiing and water boarding - just an afternoon of youthful fun. The fact that water boarding essentially implies drowning a person without killing him is lost to most people. Many people think of it as the childish five second dip that passes for torture in Hollywood movies.

    When I was a cadet in a military academy in India there were many such draconian attempts at machismo and 'torture training' cooked up and practiced by eighteen and nineteen year olds. The one that comes to my mind when I hear of water boarding was called 'brain washing' - a punishment wherein a cadet's head would be forced down the toilet bowl and held down while it was flushed. Most cadets would risk a severe beating in order to escape this brain washing.

    There were many other ways in which a young person could be traumatized with water without causing organ failure or death. A cadet would be forced to drink a couple of pitchers of water and then asked to perform physical exercises that would induce nausea - summersaults, spinning and rolling at high speeds across the floor. The exercises would continue after the cadets vomited up all the water, and continue until the cadets were well drenched in each other's puke.

    These are but a couple of examples of 'torture training' exercises that teenaged 'seniors' would produce, along with long hours of night time exercises and duties designed to induce sleep deprivation. This was the kind of nonsense that was forced upon young cadets by their seniors who had vain visions of toughness and torture survival.

    As I read the transcripts of reports by human rights organizations and the declassified reports of FBI officers, I am shocked to see the same kind of nonsensical rubbish being passed along as effective interrogation techniques. I saw many a young cadet break down and admit to anything they were accused of - this at the hands of their own seniors. Imagine what a person would be willing to admit to when pressured in the same way at the hands of a relentless foreign brute.

    The most outrageous lie that Condoleezza Rice offered on Monday was that the U.S. had never, repeat never, deported anyone for the purposes of torture.

    "The United States does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture," said Rice.

    The most glaring expose to this lie is the case of Canadian Maher Arar, whose allegations of illegal deportation to Syria for the purposes of torture were found to be true by an independent Canadian investigation in October 2005.

    As Reuters reported on October 27, 2005: The report was commissioned by an independent inquiry investigating how and why Canadian engineer Maher Arar was deported from New York and sent to Damascus in September 2002.

    Arar spent almost a year in jail in Damascus, during which he said he was beaten repeatedly. He also alleged that his Syrian interrogators had asked questions based on information provided by Canadian intelligence agents.

    Stephen Toope, a former dean of law at Montreal's McGill University and the author of the report, questioned Arar and three other dual Canadian-Syrian nationals who said they too had been tortured in Syria.

    "I conclude that the stories they tell are credible. I believe that they suffered severe physical and psychological trauma while in detention in Syria," Toope said in the 25-page document, which was released on Thursday.

    The AFP news service added that same day that "US authorities claimed he was connected to Al-Qaeda, an accusation Arar has always denied, and one which his lawyers say was made without a shred of evidence. Arar was never charged with any crime."

    This, in fact, is the obvious retort of most Bush torture supporters - only terrorists in possession of information relating to imminent attacks are detained and interrogated by the U.S. forces. This is a laughable argument given that the U.S. has detained thousands of Sunnis in Iraq merely on the suspicion of links to insurgents (not terrorists) and hundreds more have been airlifted from the battlefields of Afghanistan to the cages of Guantanamo after being sold to the U.S. by headhunters of enemy tribes and opposing militia. Those lucky few who have been released from these facilities due to pressure by their native U.S.-allied governments have returned home with horrific tales of abuse and humiliation.

    Human Rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented various cases of abuse and torture of detainees by U.S. forces. Indeed, by its own admission, the U.S. forces admit that people have died in captivity and detention during interrogation at U.S. hands.

    This current situation reminds me of a visit in June 2000 to the then recently-freed South Lebanon Army detention facility in al Khiam in South Lebanon. The inmates of al Khiam had been freed a couple of weeks earlier by Lebanese militiamen belonging predominantly to Hizbollah and Amal and local villagers who participated in the rout of the Israeli Defense Force and the SLA in May 2000. The freed prisoners were now offering tours of the prison and explaining the various methods of torture that were practiced upon them by their captors.

    One detainee showed me how prisoners would be pushed down stairs while blindfolded, and how his teeth had been kicked out in a beating, another held a stun gun and explained how it was used by SLA militiamen during torture.

    Many of these reports of torture and illegal detention had been documented by human rights groups in Lebanon since 1982. It was only in 2000 that I got to go inside the dreaded al Khiam facility and see it with my own eyes. The blankets in the small dingy solitary detention cells were still soaked in urine, and some walls were still marked with recently spilled blood.

    When I read and watch reports of what goes on behind closed doors in U.S. detention facilities across the world I can only imagine it by remembering the horrid sights and smells of al Khiam. The difference now, of course, is that is isn't some heavy handed Lebanese militia that is carrying out the brutalities, and there's Condoleezza Rice telling us that everything is legal and ethical.

    After all, if it doesn't cause organ failure or death it can't be torture, right?

    -------

    Abhinav Aima is a Journalism Professor at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Email to: mailto:aaima@d.umn.edu">aaima@d.umn.edu.

  -------

[senorsalvia]

You keep this sort of sordid stuff coming Avery!  Yeah, every damn time I have to see this crap I am further depressed and disgusted, sickened and ashamed; but that's OK because this needs to be stuck blatantly into the face of the public until it becomes common and irrefutable knowledge to the common Joe. :!: ...   Hell, Winders' right...  We've thrown in the towel on even a smidgeon of claim to be somehow possessing of morality and ethics..  So, since we have no morality, no ethics...Let's get on with the program.  Let's take a play from the Al Queda playbook and become effective terrorists...  Get it all out in the open...-----  That statement that we don't send off people to be tortured is another bold ass lie!!---  Note the nee Orwellianspeak term that is used for such crap...  It's called 'rendering', and admin officials have admitted they have been doing this for at least two years.........  I tell ya, I wish someone with some clout, say a George Soros would pump 10-20 mill into a campaign to plaster all this info everywhere.....  I will say, I intend to e-mail the professor who wrote this article and urge him to continue to speak out against such sordid doings................  sal

[winder]

A thumb or finger is not an organ is it?

So I guess the fuckers can cut off a finger if they feel like it!

[Avery L. Breath]

Fun Bits About American Torture
    By Mark Morford
    The San Francisco Chronicle

    Friday 16 December 2005

In many ways, the US is now just as inhumane and brutal as any Third World regime. Oh well?
    "We do not torture." Remember it, write it in red crayon on the bathroom wall, tattoo it onto your acid tongue because those very words rang throughout the land like a bleak bell, like a low scream in the night, like a cheese grater rubbing against the teeth of common sense when Dubya mumbled them during a speech not long ago, and it was, at once, hilarious and nauseating and it took all the self-control in the world for everyone in the room not to burst out in disgusted laughter and throw their chairs at his duplicitous little head.

    Oh my God, yes, yes we do torture, America that is, and we do it a lot, and we do it in ways that would make you sick to hear about, and we're doing it right now, all over the world, the CIA and the US military, perhaps more often and more brutally than at any time in recent history and we use the exact same kind of techniques and excuses for it our numb-minded president cited as reasons we should declare war and oust the dictator of a defenseless pip-squeak nation that happened to be sitting on our oil.

    This is something we must know, acknowledge, take to heart and not simply file away as some sort of murky, disquieting unknowable that's best left to scummy lords of the government underworld. We must not don the blinders and think America is always, without fail, the land of the perky and the free and the benevolent. Horrific torture is very much a part of who we are, right now. Deny it at your peril. Accept it at your deep discontent.

    Torture is in. Torture is the tittering buzzword of the Bush administration, bandied about like secret candy, like a hot whisper from Dick Cheney's gnarled tongue into Rumsfeld's pointed ear and then dumped deep into Dubya's Big Vat o' Denial.

    The cruel abuse of terror suspects is sanctioned and approved from on high, and we employed it in Abu Ghraib (the worst evidence of which - the rapes and assaults and savage beatings - we will likely never see), and we use it in Eastern Europe and Guantánamo and in secret prisons and it has caused deaths of countless detainees. And Rumsfeld's insane level of Defense Department secrecy means we may never even know exactly how brutal we have become.

    Torture is right now being discussed in all manner of high-minded articles and forums wherein the finer points of what amount of torture should be allowable under what particular horrific (and hugely unlikely) circumstances, and all falling under the aegis of the new and pending McCain anti-torture legislation that would outlaw any and all "degrading, inhumane" treatment whatsoever by any American CIA or military personnel at any time whatsoever, more or less.

    All while, ironically, over in Iraq, our military is right now inflicting more pain and death upon more lives than any torture chamber in the last hundred years, and where we have recently discovered the fledgling government that the United States helped erect in Saddam's absence, the Iraqi Interior Ministry, well, they appear to be so giddy about torture they might as well be Donald Rumsfeld's love children. But, you know, quibbling.

    There is right now this amazing little story over at the London Guardian, a fascinating item all about a group of hardy hobbyists known as "plane spotters," folks whose solitary, dedicated pastime is to sit outside the various airports of the world and watch the runway action and make intricate logs and post their data and photos to plane spotter Web sites. It's a bit like bird-watching, but without the chirping and the nature and with a lot more deafening engine roar and poisonous fumes.

    These people, they are not spies and they are not liberals and they are not necessarily trying to reveal anything covert or ugly or illegal, but of course that is often exactly what they do, because these days, as it turns out, some of those planes these guys photograph are involved in clandestine CIA operations, in what are called "extraordinary renditions," the abduction of suspects who are taken to lands unknown so we may beat and maul and torture the living crap out of them and not be held accountable to any sort of pesky international law. Fun!

    It is for us to know, to try and comprehend. The United States has the most WMD of anyone in the world. We imprison and kill more of our own citizens than any other civilized nation on the planet. We still employ horrific, napalm-like chemical weapons.

    And yes, under the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld regime, we abuse and torture prisoners at least as horrifically as any Islamic fundamentalist, as any terrorist cell, to serve our agenda and meet our goals - and whether you think those goals are justifiable because they contain the words "freedom" or "democracy" is, in many ways, beside the point.

    Go ahead, equivocate your heart out. It is a bit like justifying known poisons in your food. Sure mercury is a known cancer-causing agent. Sure the body will recoil and soon become violently ill and die. But gosh, it sure does taste good. Shrug.

    Maybe you don't care, maybe you're like Rumsfeld and Cheney and the rest who think, well sure, if they're terrorists and if they'd just as willingly suck the eyeballs out of my cat and rip out my fingernails with a pair of pliers as look at me, well, they deserve to be tortured, beaten, abused in ways you and I cannot imagine. Especially if (and this is the eternal argument) by their torture we can prevent the deaths of innocents.

    Maybe you are one of these people. Eye for an eye. Water torture for an explosive device. Does this mean that you are, of course, exactly like those being tortured, willing to go to extremes to get what you want? That you are on the same level morally, energetically, politically and, like Cheney and Rumsfeld, you are dragging the nation down into a hole with you? You might think. After all, fundamentalists terrorize to further a lopsided and religious-based agenda. We torture to protect ours. Same coin, different side.

    It is mandatory that we all acknowledge where we are as a nation, right now, how low we have fallen, how thuggish and heartless and internationally disrespected we have become, the ugly trajectory we are following.

    Because here's the sad kicker: Torture works. It gets results. It might very well save some lives. But it also requires a moral and spiritual sacrifice the likes of which would make Bush's own Jesus recoil in absolute horror. Yet this is what's happening, right now. And our current position demands a reply to one bitter, overarching question: What sort of nation are we, really?

  -------

Definition of Rendering:

Ren·der·ing  (rndr-ng)
n.
1. A depiction or interpretation, as in painting or music.
2. A drawing in perspective of a proposed structure.
3. A translation: a rendering of Cicero's treatises into English.
4. A coat of plaster or cement applied to a masonry surface.

(I kinda like the last one)

[Avery L. Breath]

Hard Evidence of US Torturing Prisoners to Death Ignored by Corporate Media

By Peter Phillips



Military autopsy reports provide indisputable proof that detainees are being tortured to death while in US military custody. Yet the US corporate media are covering it with the seriousness of a garage sale for the local Baptist Church.A recent American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) posting of one of forty-four US military autopsy reports reads as follows: "Final Autopsy Report: DOD 003164, (Detainee) Died as a result of asphyxia (lack of oxygen to the brain) due to strangulation as evidenced by the recently fractured hyoid bone in the neck and soft tissue hemorrhage extending downward to the level of the right thyroid cartilage. Autopsy revealed bone fracture, rib fractures, contusions in mid abdomen, back and buttocks extending to the left flank, abrasions, lateral buttocks. Contusions, back of legs and knees; abrasions on knees, left fingers and encircling to left wrist. Lacerations and superficial cuts, right 4th and 5th fingers. Also, blunt force injuries, predominately recent contusions (bruises) on the torso and lower extremities. Abrasions on left wrist are consistent with use of restraints. No evidence of defense injuries or natural disease. Manner of death is homicide. Whitehorse Detainment Facility, Nasiriyah, Iraq."

The ACLU website further reveals how: "a 27-year-old Iraqi male died while being interrogated by Navy Seals on April 5, 2004, in Mosul, Iraq. During his confinement he was hooded, flex-cuffed, sleep deprived and subjected to hot and cold environmental conditions, including the use of cold water on his body and hood. The exact cause of death was "undetermined" although the autopsy stated that hypothermia may have contributed to his death.

Another Iraqi detainee died on January 9, 2004, in Al Asad, Iraq, while being interrogated. He was standing, shackled to the top of a doorframe with a gag in his mouth, at the time he died. The cause of death was asphyxia and blunt force injuries.

So read several of the 44 US military autopsy reports on the ACLU website -evidence of extensive abuse of US detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan 2002 through 2004. Anthony Romero, Executive Director of ACLU stated, "There is no question that US interrogations have resulted in deaths." ACLU attorney Amrit Sing adds, "These documents present irrefutable evidence that US operatives tortured detainees to death during interrogations."

Additionally, ACLU reports that in April 2003, Secretary Rumsfeld authorized the use of "environmental manipulation" as an interrogation technique in Guantánamo Bay. In September 2003, Lt. Gen. Sanchez also authorized this technique for use in Iraq. So responsibility for these human atrocities goes directly to the highest levels of power.

A press release on these deaths by torture was issued by the ACLU on October 25, 2005 and was immediately picked up by Associated Press and United Press International wire services, making the story available to US corporate media nationwide. A thorough check of Nexus-Lexus and Proquest electronic data bases, using the keywords ACLU and autopsy, showed that at least 95percent of the daily papers in the US didn't bother to pick up the story. The Los Angeles Times covered the story on page A-4 with a 635-word report headlined "Autopsies Support Abuse Allegations." Fewer than a dozen other daily newspapers including: Bangor Daily News, Maine, page 8; Telegraph-Herald, Dubuque Iowa, page 6; Charleston Gazette, page 5; Advocate, Baton Rouge, page 11; and a half dozen others actually covered the story. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Seattle Times buried the story inside general Iraq news articles. USA Today posted the story on their website. MSNBC posted the story to their website, but apparently did not consider it newsworthy enough to air on television.


"The Randi Rhodes Show," on Air America Radio, covered the story. AP/UPI news releases and direct quotes from the ACLU website appeared widely on internet sites and on various news-based listservs around the world, including Common Dreams, Truthout, New Standard, Science Daily, and numerous others.


What little attention the news of the US torturing prisoners to death did get has completely disappeared as context for the torture stories now appearing in corporate media. A Nexus-Lexus search November 30, 2005 of the major papers in the US using the word torture turned up over 1,000 stories in the last 30 days. None of these included the ACLU report as supporting documentation on the issue.

How can the American public understand the gravity of the torture that is currently being committed in our name when the issue is being reported with no reference to the extent to which these crimes against humanity have gone? Has the internet become the only source of real news for mainstream Americans while the corporate media only tells us what they want us to know?

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored a media research organization. www.projectcensored.org
ACLU source documents online at: http://action.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/102405/

[Avery L. Breath]

UK Minister Lied over CIA Flights
    By Hannah K. Strange
    UPI

    Monday 19 December 2005

    The British Foreign Office privately accepts that CIA rendition flights did pass through its territory, a diplomatic source told United Press International.

    The well-placed source said the Foreign Office "totally accepts" that the United States used British airfields to transfer prisoners abroad for interrogation, and is "extremely worried" about the political consequences.

    The revelation comes amid growing signs of divergence between London and Washington over the way in which the war on terror should be conducted.

    When British Prime Minister Tony Blair learnt in April 2003 that the United States had bombed a Baghdad hotel in which several media organizations were housed, killing three journalists, he "literally jumped out of his chair," the source told UPI. The Foreign Office was "horrified," considering the attack to be "obscene," the source said.

    London took the same attitude towards a U.S. suggestion that it would attack the Qatar headquarters of the Arabic language television al-Jazeera, the source said.

    Foreign Office officials threatened to resign if the Americans went ahead with the attacks, revealed in a Downing Street memo leaked to the British media earlier this year.

    Blair reportedly talked U.S. President George W. Bush out of the attacks, warning it could fuel a worldwide backlash. The Mirror newspaper quoted a source as saying: "There's no doubt what Bush wanted, and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it."

    The government has threatened newspaper editors with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act if they publish further details of the memo.

    Ministers appear desperate to dispel any signs of a rift between London and Washington over methods used in the "war on terror."

    The revelation that the Foreign Office accepts that CIA rendition flights passed through Britain comes in direct contrast to official denials by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who last week "categorically" denied that any such flights had taken place.

    He told the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee Tuesday: "Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories, that officials are lying, that I'm lying ... that Secretary Rice (U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) is lying, there is simply no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition."

    However, the source told UPI that although the Foreign Office had not known of the CIA rendition flights at the time, it was now aware that it should have known.

    Ministers were "extremely worried" about the issue, the source said. Both Downing Street and the Foreign Office were simply "hoping it is going to go away."

    It is alleged some 210 flights operated by the CIA have passed through Britain since September 2001. Human rights groups say many of the flights were carrying prisoners to secret facilities abroad for interrogation using torture. The United States has acknowledged the practice of rendition but insists its personnel do not practice torture.

    Last week the European Parliament approved a full investigation into allegations that the CIA used European territory for renditions and for the secret detention of terror suspects, after the EU's human rights watchdog reported that the claims were "credible."

    Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's assurance during her recent European tour that U.S. interrogators were barred from practicing torture at home or overseas was greeted with skepticism by critics of the rendition policy. However, her references to prohibitions on such treatment under the United Nations Convention Against Torture were hailed as a shift in the position of the United States, which has in the past contended that such conventions do not apply to "illegal enemy combatants" detained as part of the war on terror.

    Likewise, President Bush has significantly changed his tone on the Iraq conflict in the past week. Addressing Americans from the Oval Office Sunday, he acknowledged the difficult road ahead and that more U.S. lives would be sacrificed in the effort to bring peace and stability to the country.

    In a speech widely hailed as far more humble in tone than his usual offerings, Bush admitted that much of the intelligence justifying the decision to go to war in Iraq had been "wrong," and that as president he was responsible for that decision. It had been "controversial" and "deeply" opposed by some Americans, he said.

    The president acknowledged the war had brought "sorrow" to the American people, and led some to ask "if we are creating more problems than we're solving."

    The war had been "more difficult than we expected," he continued, but added: "In all three aspects of our strategy - security, democracy, and reconstruction - we have learned from our experiences, and fixed what has not worked. We will continue to listen to honest criticism, and make every change that will help us complete the mission."

    After some serious differences, Britain and the United States appear to be once again moving towards a common viewpoint on the best strategy to bring peace and stability to Iraq. The transatlantic allies apparently agree on the need to scale down the coalition presence in the country, and hand security responsibilities over to Iraqi forces as soon as possible. Bush's new, less belligerent style may indicate a renewed willingness to engage in the "hearts and minds" approach that London has long been pushing for.

    In the United States, this change of direction has been reflected by a bounce in Bush's approval ratings - a Gallup poll conducted Dec. 9-11 indicated that 42 percent of the public approved of the way the president was doing his job, still a minority but an improvement from the 37 percent registered in the same poll the previous month.

    But this shift in opinion has not been mirrored across the Atlantic, largely due to the continuing controversy over the CIA flights allegations. The claims have dominated European headlines for weeks, while UPI's new revelations have prompted speculation that the government is more concerned about protecting its allies than upholding the nation's human rights obligations.

    The prominent human rights group Liberty has said it will take the British government to court in 2006 if it continues to refuse to investigate the allegations, as is its obligation under international law.

    Liberty Director Shami Chakrabarti told UPI: "The comments from this well-placed source are of course completely worrying and highlight a contrasting approach between the government and the police, who have agreed to investigate further. Whatever the government hopes, Liberty is not going to go away, and neither will this issue."

 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Go to Original

    Police Investigate CIA's Use of British Airports
    By Nigel Morris and Ben Russell
    The Independent UK

    Tuesday 20 December 2005

Police have launched an investigation into persistent claims that the CIA used British airports to fly terrorist suspects for torture in secret camps abroad.
    Days after Tony Blair insisted he knew nothing about such "extraordinary rendition" operations, the move by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) threatens to embarrass the Government.

    It is also the first attempt by the authorities to examine detailed claims that CIA flights have touched down more than 200 times in Britain.

    Michael Todd, chief constable of Greater Manchester, is expected to review evidence collected by human rights campaigners and interview senior police officers from 10 forces across the country.

    The investigation will attempt to establish whether there is evidence to back claims that CIA flights used British airports as stopping-off points while carrying terror suspects to secret detention camps around the world. It could develop into a criminal inquiry.

    Mr Todd is due to meet campaigners in the new year to discuss his preliminary findings.

    The move by the police came during a meeting yesterday with senior figures from the human rights group Liberty.

    Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: "We are very pleased the police are taking these concerns seriously. If suspects are being taken through the UK on their way to face torture, there have been serious breaches of international and domestic law. We intend to help the police and call on individuals with any information to come forward."

    Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative chairman of the parliamentary all-party group on rendition, yesterday welcomed the investigation and urged civil servants with knowledge of illegal rendition flights to report their evidence to their departmental heads.

    Mr Tyrie said: "I'm pleased by this decision. There is increasing circumstantial evidence to suggest that extraordinary rendition may be taking place and that activity may well be illegal. I very much regret that the Government have done their best to walk on the other side of the street and have made no proper effort to investigate it at all."

    He said: "It's the duty under the Civil Service Code for anyone to report to their permanent secretary information about possible unlawful activities, including breaches of any international treaties."

    Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: "This is a most welcome development and underlines the independence of the investigating authorities in the United Kingdom. If the law is being breached and there is evidence to establish this, prosecution should follow."

    "If any use of British airfields is in breach of our obligations, there would not only be legal consequences but serious political ones as well."

    An Acpo spokeswoman refused to disclose details of the investigation. She said: "It was a useful discussion and we will have a further meeting with Liberty in January."

    A group of peace activists in West Sussex has submitted a formal request to Kenneth Jones, the county's chief constable, to supply details of US flights in and out of Gatwick airport.

    The Committee Against Criminal Renditions has told him: "It is clearly apparent, from credible reports and information, that flights by certain American civil registered aircraft have transited the airport, which are involved in these activities."

    It is calling for an investigation into whether "your force, or any other force or security service acting with your knowledge, has undertaken any investigation into the nature of these flights, their crew, passengers and purpose and what was the outcome of any such investigation".

    A spokeswoman for Sussex police said: "We will be looking into the contents [of the claims] and will respond accordingly."

  -------

[Avery L. Breath]

Bush Could Bypass New Torture Ban
    By Charlie Savage
    The Boston Globe

    Wednesday 04 January 2005

Waiver right is reserved.
    Washington - When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.

    After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a "signing statement" - an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law - declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.

    "The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief," Bush wrote, adding that this approach "will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

    Some legal specialists said yesterday that the president's signing statement, which was posted on the White House website but had gone unnoticed over the New Year's weekend, raises serious questions about whether he intends to follow the law.

    A senior administration official, who spoke to a Globe reporter about the statement on condition of anonymity because he is not an official spokesman, said the president intended to reserve the right to use harsher methods in special situations involving national security.

    "We are not going to ignore this law," the official said, noting that Bush, when signing laws, routinely issues signing statements saying he will construe them consistent with his own constitutional authority. "We consider it a valid statute. We consider ourselves bound by the prohibition on cruel, unusual, and degrading treatment."

    But, the official said, a situation could arise in which Bush may have to waive the law's restrictions to carry out his responsibilities to protect national security. He cited as an example a "ticking time bomb" scenario, in which a detainee is believed to have information that could prevent a planned terrorist attack.

    "Of course the president has the obligation to follow this law, [but] he also has the obligation to defend and protect the country as the commander in chief, and he will have to square those two responsibilities in each case," the official added. "We are not expecting that those two responsibilities will come into conflict, but it's possible that they will."

    David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said that the signing statement means that Bush believes he can still authorize harsh interrogation tactics when he sees fit.

    "The signing statement is saying 'I will only comply with this law when I want to, and if something arises in the war on terrorism where I think it's important to torture or engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading conduct, I have the authority to do so and nothing in this law is going to stop me,' " he said. "They don't want to come out and say it directly because it doesn't sound very nice, but it's unmistakable to anyone who has been following what's going on."

    Golove and other legal specialists compared the signing statement to Bush's decision, revealed last month, to bypass a 1978 law forbidding domestic wiretapping without a warrant. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without a court order starting after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

    The president and his aides argued that the Constitution gives the commander in chief the authority to bypass the 1978 law when necessary to protect national security. They also argued that Congress implicitly endorsed that power when it authorized the use of force against the perpetrators of the attacks.

    Legal academics and human rights organizations said Bush's signing statement and his stance on the wiretapping law are part of a larger agenda that claims exclusive control of war-related matters for the executive branch and holds that any involvement by Congress or the courts should be minimal.

    Vice President Dick Cheney recently told reporters, "I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it. . . . I would argue that the actions that we've taken are totally appropriate and consistent with the constitutional authority of the president."

    Since the 2001 attacks, the administration has also asserted the power to bypass domestic and international laws in deciding how to detain prisoners captured in the Afghanistan war. It also has claimed the power to hold any US citizen Bush designates an "enemy combatant" without charges or access to an attorney.

    And in 2002, the administration drafted a secret legal memo holding that Bush could authorize interrogators to violate anti-torture laws when necessary to protect national security. After the memo was leaked to the press, the administration eliminated the language from a subsequent version, but it never repudiated the idea that Bush could authorize officials to ignore a law.

    The issue heated up again in January 2005. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales disclosed during his confirmation hearing that the administration believed that anti-torture laws and treaties did not restrict interrogators at overseas prisons because the Constitution does not apply abroad.

    In response, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, filed an amendment to a Defense Department bill explicitly saying that that the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees in US custody is illegal regardless of where they are held.

    McCain's office did not return calls seeking comment yesterday.

    The White House tried hard to kill the McCain amendment. Cheney lobbied Congress to exempt the CIA from any interrogation limits, and Bush threatened to veto the bill, arguing that the executive branch has exclusive authority over war policy.

    But after veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress approved it, Bush called a press conference with McCain, praised the measure, and said he would accept it.

    Legal specialists said the president's signing statement called into question his comments at the press conference.

    "The whole point of the McCain Amendment was to close every loophole," said Marty Lederman, a Georgetown University law professor who served in the Justice Department from 1997 to 2002. "The president has re-opened the loophole by asserting the constitutional authority to act in violation of the statute where it would assist in the war on terrorism."

    Elisa Massimino, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, called Bush's signing statement an "in-your-face affront" to both McCain and to Congress.

    "The basic civics lesson that there are three co-equal branches of government that provide checks and balances on each other is being fundamentally rejected by this executive branch," she said.

    "Congress is trying to flex its muscle to provide those checks [on detainee abuse], and it's being told through the signing statement that it's impotent. It's quite a radical view."

[TooStonedToType]

"lisa Massimino, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, called Bush's signing statement an "in-your-face affront" to both McCain and to Congress."

Its an affront to the people.

[shaminatrix]

that picture gives me chills...they dressed that poor guy up like a Klansman, I don't think that's an accident either...