Posts tagged as Torture
More on Omar Suleiman, Alleged Hands-On Torturer
"The extraordinary rendition program landed some people in CIA black sites—and others were turned over for torture-by-proxy to other regimes. Egypt figured large as a torture destination of choice, as did Suleiman as Egypt’s torturer-in-chief. At least one person extraordinarily rendered by the CIA to Egypt — Egyptian-born Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib — was reportedly tortured by Suleiman himself ... In October 2001, Habib was seized from a bus by Pakistani security forces. While detained in Pakistan, at the behest of American agents, he was suspended from a hook and electrocuted repeatedly. He was then turned over to the CIA, and in the process of transporting him to Egypt he endured the usual treatment: his clothes were cut off, a suppository was stuffed in his anus, he was put into a diaper—and 'wrapped up like a spring roll'. In Egypt, as Habib recounts in his memoir, My Story: The Tale of a Terrorist Who Wasn’t, he was repeatedly subjected to electric shocks, immersed in water up to his nostrils and beaten. His fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks. At one point, his interrogator slapped him so hard that his blindfold was dislodged, revealing the identity of his tormentor: Suleiman." READ MORE
The Way We Define Torture Now
Strong stuff: "Eric Holder and Barack Obama have taken pains to tell the American people that water-boarding is illegal torture. So what? That's just their opinion. President Bush disagrees. The persistent failure to hold anyone accountable at any level for years of state-sanctioned abuse speaks louder than their words. It has taken this issue from a legal question to a matter of personal taste. What we choose to define as torture is now just another policy disagreement, like extending the Bush tax cuts or picking a caterer."
The Flaming Lips, "Powerless"
Zoiks. This new video the Flaming Lips' "Powerless," a great, druggy freak-out from last year's highly acclaimed Embryonic album, is very disturbing. Apparently, the monkey from Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey" has turned the tides on its human torturers-he seems to enjoy watching a bound and blindfolded woman writhe in agony. She goes into horrible stutter-shot convulsions and he just sits there laughing, the sick fuck. Then she escapes-I hope before she got a sunburn-but, oddly, neglects to remove her blindfold. Then she dances through the field and it seems like she and the monkey are friends. Stockholm syndrome or something? I don't know. (The part of the woman in the video was originally to be played by Awl contributor Ken Wheaton.)
So We Guess By Maybe 2018, John Yoo Will Be Disbarred
Okay, we can all sleep at night. The National Archives and Records Administration has asked the Justice Department to investigate the missing John Yoo emails; Justice says there is a "review" underway. So no matter what the torture-justifier says about his missing emails-"They should be easy to find," LOL!-eventually we'll get there.
How Many Years Will It Take Us To Get John Yoo's Emails?
The number one thing I am pissed off about this month, right after NBC's Olympics coverage, is the disappeared John Yoo emails, which could probably shed a lot of light on how the previous administration created policies to torture people. This is such an unbelievable scandal, both on the issue of torture but also of government accountability. Pretty much, as a nation, everything should come to a standstill until this is dealt with. This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Gary Grindler, Acting Deputy Attorney General, about the emails, and got total mumbling in response. This is like, pitchforks and subpoenas and prosecution time, people. There are extremely explicit rules about this kind of thing, and in light of the Bush administration email-disappearing shtick, in which everyone had to go to court over and over again simply to get what should have been carefully-conserved White House emails, was bad enough. But these are actual lawyers, at the actual Department of Justice, who have engaged in disappearing critical emails.
How John Yoo Got Off Scot-Free
Despite what is surely deliberate obstruction, in the form of having deleted John Yoo's emails, the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility still found grounds to come down on Bush administration-era torture memo writer Yoo (though not on his junior level memo writer, who was two years out of law school and a a former Justice Thomas clerk). This, despite the fact that the OPR rarely investigates claims at all, and when they do, their honcho disappears them. And yes, once again DoJ boss David Margolis has decreed that, though the memo prepared by his staff clearly describes "professional misconduct" (at best!), that no action should be forthcoming against Yoo and company and that the memo itself is "not persuasive." His case is very weak. READ MORE
In 'Veritatis Splendor' and Torture
You-can-imagine-who (okay, Andrew Sullivan) provides a fascinating explanation of a Catholic rejection of torture. (I mean, obvs, not that you need a religion to build such a defense! Just mostly that it becomes downright impossible to make a case for torture as a Catholic. But folks can sure try!)
Methods Of Interrogation, Forty Years On
Life being what it is, I have not, save for the purposes of a paying review or other research, read a book all the way through in, Jesus, the longest period of my life since I achieved literacy. That said, I am currently devouring Andy Beckett's When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies, the title of which should give you a fairly good estimation of whether or not you'd be interested in it. (If you are even slightly so inclined, please consider this a ringing endorsement.) In any event, I read this passage, dealing with interrogation tactics-referred to as the "Five Techniques"-by British troops during the early seventies revival of the IRA, and it seemed rather interesting. READ MORE
Why Don't You--And Obama--Believe That Torture Is Torture? Because the Culture Industry Said So.
Back in January, a Washington Post/ABC News Poll asked the following question: "Obama has said that under his administration the United States will not use torture as part of the U.S. campaign against terrorism, no matter what the circumstance. Do you support this position not to use torture, or do you think there are cases in which the United States should consider torture against terrorism suspects?" READ MORE
The Iranian Dissident Fitness Program
As mass trials against reformist elements take place in Iran, the government is denying accusations of violence against those detained in the wake of the recent disputed presidential election. For example: READ MORE
