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by Scott Horton
The author of ‘The Torture Tapes’ describes how coercive interrogation came to be the policy of the United States government. The New Republic | Post Date Tuesday, April 22, 2008 |
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British writer and international lawyer Philippe Sands is the author of The Torture Team , in stores May 5, which chronicles the role lawyers played in the introduction of the Bush administration’s program of coercive interrogation techniques. Here, Scott Horton talks to Sands about his findings. TNR: In The Torture Team, you focus on a single document, Donald Rumsfeld’s December 2, 2002 approval of extraordinarily aggressive interrogation techniques. You give us the document’s genesis, and the revolt within the Pentagon that led to its being formally withdrawn. But what you show is a process as much as a document, and that process appears to me to be a conscious, studied circumvention of the normal procedure followed by the U.S. military. Do you agree? |
Gitmo Torture Orders Came From The Top
April 24, 2008CIA has 7,000 documents relating to rendition, detention, torture programs, filing shows
April 24, 2008The Raw Story, April 23, 2008
Documents suggest CIA stonewalled Congress
The Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged having 7,000 pages of documents pertaining to President George W. Bush’s secret rendition and detention programs, according to three international human rights groups.
Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the International Human Rights Clinic at NYU School of Law made the claim following a summary judgment motion by the agency this week to avoid a lawsuit that seeks to force the nation’s top spy outfit to make the documents public under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
“Among other assertions, the CIA claimed that it did not have to release the documents because many consist of correspondence with the White House or top Bush administration officials, or because they are between parties seeking legal advice on the programs, including guidance on the legality of certain interrogation procedures,” the groups wrote in a release. “The CIA confirmed that it requested—and received—legal advice from attorneys at the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel concerning these procedures.”
“For the first time, the CIA has acknowledged that extensive records exist relating to its use of enforced disappearances and secret prisons,” Curt Goering, AIUSA senior deputy executive director, said in a statement. “Given what we already know about documents written by Bush administration officials trying to justify torture and other human rights crimes, one does not need a fertile imagination to conclude that the real reason for refusing to disclose these documents has more to do with avoiding disclosure of criminal activity than national security.”
RIGHTS: Climate a “Life and Death” Issue for Native Peoples
April 24, 2008By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 (IPS) – Leaders of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples are calling for the United Nations to include their voices in its future talks on climate change.
“Both the climate change and its solutions are concerns for indigenous peoples,” said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chairperson of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
Currently, the Forum, which includes 16 representatives — eight nominated by governments and eight by indigenous representatives — is holding its seventh annual meeting in New York. The meeting is being is being attended by more than 3,300 delegates from around the world.
“The indigenous peoples contribute the smallest ecological footprints on Earth,” according to Tauli-Corpuz, “but they suffer the worst impacts from climate change and mitigation measures, such as the loss of land and biofuel production.”
Despite representation from nearly 500 aboriginal groups worldwide, the Forum is not empowered to enact laws; it can only advise the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), a 54-member U.N. body, whose members are elected by the General Assembly every three years.
Report: Israeli army killed 59 Palestinians and injured 105 in Gaza during the month of April
April 23, 2008Uruknet, April 23, 2008
Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC News
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According to the report, the Israeli army has killed 59 Palestinians including 15 children in addition to injuring another 105 in the Gaza strip during the month of April 2008. With the 59 killed this month, the number of Palestinians in Gaza killed by the Israeli army since the beginning of 2008 now stands at 340, the Al Mizan center reported. The center also condemned the continued Israeli siege of the Gaza strip, which started in June 2007. The center said this siege represents a policy of collective punishment and is in contravention of international human rights law. |
Pentagon Pundits
April 23, 2008Media facilitate Iraq propaganda effort
FAIR, April 22, 2008
A lengthy April 20 New York Times investigation of the Pentagon’s program of feeding talking points to military pundits featured on TV newscasts raised disturbing questions about the media’s role as a conduit for Pentagon propaganda.
According to the Times, the Pentagon recruited over 75 retired generals to act as “message force multipliers” in support of the Iraq War, receiving special Pentagon briefings and talking points that the analysts would often parrot on national television “even when they suspected the information was false or inflated.” The Times even noted that at one 2003 briefing the military pundits were told that “We don’t have any hard evidence” about Iraq’s illicit weapons-a shocking admission the analysts decided not to share with the public.
The Times also documented that many of the analysts had ties to “military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air”–information that the media outlets did not disclose to viewers. The Times reported that the “analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants.” The analysts themselves told the Times that “the networks asked few questions about their outside business interests,” and “were only dimly aware” of the special Pentagon briefings they were receiving.
The fear factor that silences
April 23, 2008| Gulfnews, April 16, 2008 |
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By Paul Findley |
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Candidates for public office, high and low, are bewitched -frightened is the more accurate word – by an unwarranted but costly fear of the US lobby that functions on behalf of the State of Israel. Comb through the millions of words expressed by the “final three” in the presidential sweepstakes – Barak Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain – and you will not find a word, not even a syllable, of criticism of the longstanding US policy bias that heavily favours Israel, a policy that imposes a staggering burden on US society and infuriates Muslims worldwide, including eight million who are US citizens. A search of the millions of words of analysis of talking heads and other commentators who make a living examining day-by-day the impact of presidential candidate behaviour discloses the same empty-headed silence. They don’t even mention candidate silence on this topic that should be a fundamental and continuing focus of discussion. A search of major media -print, radio and television – has virtually the same result: silence. The internet is one of the few places where one can find thoughtful and candid examinations of Israel’s dominance of US society. |
Kofi Annan defends Jimmy Carter over Hamas talks
April 23, 2008GENEVA (AFP) — Kofi Annan on Tuesday defended former US president Jimmy Carter for holding direct talks with Hamas in Syria in the face of sharp attacks from both Israel and the White House.
“I don’t think the criticism is entirely fair,” the former United Nations secretary general told reporters at a press conference for his new Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva.
“We should be cautious not to over-react but take advantage of whatever openings president Carter has been able to obtain to move the process forward,” he said.
“He’s the only president who’s been able to broker an enduring peace agreement between Israel and Egypt and for that we are very grateful,” Annan said.
Carter held talks last week with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in the Syrian capital Damascus against the advice of US officials.
“We counseled president Carter against going to the region, in particular against having contact with Hamas,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday.
“The United States is not going to deal with Hamas, and we certainly told president Carter that we didn’t think meeting with Hamas was going to help the Palestinians who (are) actually devoted to peace,” Rice said.
Annan urged the administration of current US President George W. Bush to step up its efforts in the region, saying only Washington carries sufficient clout to make a deal possible.
What the Iraq War Is About
April 23, 2008Paul Craig Roberts | Antiwar, April 23, 2008
The Bush regime has quagmired America into a sixth year of war in Afghanistan and Iraq with no end in sight. The cost of these wars of aggression is horrendous. Official U.S. combat casualties stand at 4,538 dead. Officially, 29,780 U.S. troops have been wounded in Iraq.
On April 17, 2008, AP News reported that a new study released by the RAND Corporation concludes that “some 300,000 U.S. troops are suffering from major depression or post-traumatic stress from serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 320,000 received brain injuries.”
On April 21, 2008, OpEdNews.com reported that an internal e-mail from Gen. Michael J. Kussman, undersecretary for health at the Veterans Administration, to Ira Katz, head of mental health at the VA, confirms a McClatchy Newspaper report that 126 veterans per week commit suicide. To the extent that the suicides are attributable to the war, more than 500 deaths should be added to the reported combat fatalities each month.
Turning to Iraqi deaths, expert studies support as many as 1.2 million dead Iraqis, almost entirely civilians. Another 2 million Iraqis have fled their country, and there are 2 million displaced Iraqis within Iraq.
Afghan casualties are unknown.
Both Afghanistan and Iraq have suffered unconscionable civilian deaths and damage to housing, infrastructure, and environment. Iraq is afflicted with depleted uranium and open sewers.
Then there are the economic costs to the U.S. Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates the full cost of the invasion and attempted occupation of Iraq to be between $3 trillion and $5 trillion. The dollar price of oil and gasoline have tripled, and the dollar has lost value against other currencies, declining dramatically even against the lowly Thai baht. Before Bush launched his wars of aggression, one U.S. dollar was worth 45 baht. Today the dollar is only worth 30 baht.
Trials of Muslim Charities Likened to a Witch-hunt
April 23, 2008NEW YORK – The U.S. government’s anti-terrorist financing programmes are based on the “guilt by association” tactics of the McCarthy era and have had a widespread negative impact on U.S. charities, critics say.
That is the view of Kay Guinane, director of the Nonprofit Speech Rights Programme for OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Watch, an independent not-for-profit government watchdog group. Guinane told IPS that government actions have resulted in programme cutbacks and increased fear of speaking out on important public issues.
The organisation accused Congress of continuing “an unfortunate pattern of insufficient congressional oversight of anti-terrorist financing programmes, neglecting to address the unnecessarily harsh impacts the programmes have on U.S. charities and philanthropy.”
As an example of insufficient congressional oversight of charities’ alleged support of terrorist organisations, OMB Watch cited a recent hearing before the Senate Finance Committee in which the only witness was a government official. The witness was the under-secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, Stuart Levey, who plays a lead role in identifying charities that the Treasury Department claims are supporting terrorist causes.
OMB Watch asked the committee for an opportunity to testify, but was not invited.
The McCarthy era refers to a 1950s Cold War campaign led by then Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. McCarthy charged that communist “subversives” had infiltrated the U.S. government and were undermining national security and disclosing secret information. He accused the administration of President Harry S. Truman of sheltering such subversives rather than investigating and ousting them.
Hundreds of citizens were eventually “blacklisted” and lost their jobs. Congress made membership in the Communist Party a criminal offence, in a statute known as the Smith Act.
Cheerleading genocide
April 23, 2008Al-Ahram Weekly, 17 – 23 April 2008
With spectacular fanfare and a plethora of highlighted events, Israel is planning to celebrate its 60th birthday on 18 May 2008.
According to an Israeli government website called Israelfestival.com, the festival will include “non-stop entertainment, [a] fashion show, a variety of ethnic food for sale, Israeli folk dancing, arts and crafts, Israeli and Jewish cultural and heritage pavilions and art exhibits”.
The centrepiece ceremony is expected to take place in West Jerusalem and be attended by Israel’s political and military leaders as well as foreign dignitaries. Among those expected are US President George W Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Israeli media and non-governmental organisations have already begun celebrations in earnest. For example, Israeli television has begun airing a new series called Shishim (meaning “60”), which looks back at the six decades since Israel was created in May 1948. The series, which began 31 March, is divided into six episodes, each devoted to one of the decades following the founding of the state.
Israel hopes that the high-pitched celebrations will serve as an opportunity to promote Israel and enhance its questionable standing abroad. “It is an opportunity to celebrate our achievements, our successes, our national being,” boasted Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who was not yet born in 1948.
From the Zionist viewpoint, Israel is a story of success. Today, Israel is a political and military force to be reckoned with, even if its power is based on the patronage of foreign entities. A country of no more than seven million people, including nearly 1.5 million non-Jews (mainly Palestinians), Israel more or less directs the politics and policies of world’s only superpower, the United States, thanks mainly to powerful Jewish lobbies in Washington.
The power of the Jewish lobby largely explains how massive American financial and military support is to Israel, which is measured in hundreds of billions of dollars. Were it not for this nearly unlimited financial, economic, technological, political and military backing, Israel would never have been able to survive, especially given its predator tactics.
