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Getting Away With Torture
- Apr 28, 2008 at 2:53 AM
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NEWSWEEK: Getting Away With Torture
A memo written by John Yoo, a deputy at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel from 2002 to 2003, was declassified this month. He argued that military interrogators could subject suspected terrorists to harsh treatment as long as it didn't cause "death, organ failure or permanent damage"...
Yoo's possible contributions to torture at Guantánamo almost pale in comparison with ABC News's revelations that administration officials, including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, George Tenet, Colin Powell and Don Rumsfeld, met several times in the White House to discuss torture techniques for Al Qaeda suspects. The group signed off on slapping, pushing and waterboarding, in a manner "so detailed … some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed." Days later, President George W. Bush confirmed he "approved" of these tactics.
GUARDIAN UK: Q&A: Torture and 'enhanced interrogation'
"The FBI released a report last year in which FBI officials reported 26 cases of possible mistreatment by law enforcement or military personnel at Guantánamo Bay.
The report revealed captives were chained hand and foot in a foetal position to the floor for 18 hours or more, where they urinated and defecated on themselves. Besides being shackled to the floor, they were subjected to extreme temperatures, with the air conditioning either turned close to freezing or turned off so that room temperatures topped 38C (100F).
In 2006, the vice-president, Dick Cheney, told a radio interviewer that waterboarding - the near-drowning of a captive - was used on the alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at Guantánamo."
US general 'hoodwinked' over aggressive interrogation
"He did not know that Bush administration officials were changing the rules allowing interrogation techniques, including the use of dogs, amounting to torture."
Guantánamo drives prisoners insane
In more than six years of detention, Hamdan has had two phone calls to his family and no visits. He has been disciplined, legal filings say, for having a Snickers bar that was given to him by his lawyers and for possessing too many socks.
"Conditions are asphalt, excrement and worse," he wrote his lawyers in February. "Why, why, why?"
Suicides at Guantanamo
An inmate at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay slashed his throat with a sharpened fingernail, US officials have confirmed.
Forced Drugging of Guantánamo Prisoners: A Crisis for Health Professionals
"The injections left a searing impression among some former detainees, said Emi MacLean, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents dozens of current and former detainees …
'Many speak about forced medication at Guantánamo without knowledge about what medication they were being forced to take,' MacLean said. 'For some released [military] detainees, the forced medication they experienced was the most traumatic part' of their captivity."
A memo written by John Yoo, a deputy at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel from 2002 to 2003, was declassified this month. He argued that military interrogators could subject suspected terrorists to harsh treatment as long as it didn't cause "death, organ failure or permanent damage"...
Yoo's possible contributions to torture at Guantánamo almost pale in comparison with ABC News's revelations that administration officials, including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, George Tenet, Colin Powell and Don Rumsfeld, met several times in the White House to discuss torture techniques for Al Qaeda suspects. The group signed off on slapping, pushing and waterboarding, in a manner "so detailed … some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed." Days later, President George W. Bush confirmed he "approved" of these tactics.
GUARDIAN UK: Q&A: Torture and 'enhanced interrogation'
"The FBI released a report last year in which FBI officials reported 26 cases of possible mistreatment by law enforcement or military personnel at Guantánamo Bay.
The report revealed captives were chained hand and foot in a foetal position to the floor for 18 hours or more, where they urinated and defecated on themselves. Besides being shackled to the floor, they were subjected to extreme temperatures, with the air conditioning either turned close to freezing or turned off so that room temperatures topped 38C (100F).
In 2006, the vice-president, Dick Cheney, told a radio interviewer that waterboarding - the near-drowning of a captive - was used on the alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at Guantánamo."
US general 'hoodwinked' over aggressive interrogation
"He did not know that Bush administration officials were changing the rules allowing interrogation techniques, including the use of dogs, amounting to torture."
Guantánamo drives prisoners insane
In more than six years of detention, Hamdan has had two phone calls to his family and no visits. He has been disciplined, legal filings say, for having a Snickers bar that was given to him by his lawyers and for possessing too many socks.
"Conditions are asphalt, excrement and worse," he wrote his lawyers in February. "Why, why, why?"
Suicides at Guantanamo
An inmate at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay slashed his throat with a sharpened fingernail, US officials have confirmed.
Forced Drugging of Guantánamo Prisoners: A Crisis for Health Professionals
"The injections left a searing impression among some former detainees, said Emi MacLean, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents dozens of current and former detainees …
'Many speak about forced medication at Guantánamo without knowledge about what medication they were being forced to take,' MacLean said. 'For some released [military] detainees, the forced medication they experienced was the most traumatic part' of their captivity."
Comments:
1-5 of 5 comments
1
Apr. 28, 2008 at 2:18 PM
Absolutely disgusting.
"An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind." -Gandhi
Apr. 28, 2008 at 2:20 PM
This just makes me sick.
Apr. 28, 2008 at 8:53 PM
And people think we're the most civilized country in the world!?!?!
Apr. 29, 2008 at 1:06 AM
Dude, what happened to my country?
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