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The Bush Administration Homicides
I am starting to suspect that Ghul might be dead. After all, his name was redacted from the OLC memo, unlike that of other CIA detainees now at Guantánamo. Why would the CIA be afraid of mentioning Ghul? CIA doctors appear to have determined that Ghul was in poor health when he was captured, in fact, too unhealthy to be waterboarded. Unlike other former CIA detainees, human-rights groups have not confirmed that he was rendered to Pakistan or to a third country. Did the CIA perhaps torture Ghul to death? We do not know. He has now completely disappeared.
The CIA appears to have had some close calls with detainees dying. The May 10, 2005, Bradbury memo suggests that one of the CIA’s detainees—likely Abu Zubaydah or Khalid Sheikh Mohammad—stopped breathing or lost consciousness at one point during their waterboarding: According to the CIA’s Office of Medical Services, in their “limited experience... extensive sustained use of the waterboard can introduce new [possibly lethal] risks.” (To the best of our knowledge, the only “experience” the CIA has with waterboarding being used extensively or in a sustained manner, is with Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammad). The memo explains: “Most seriously, for reasons of physical fatigue of psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness. An unresponsive subject should be righted immediately, and the integrator should deliver a sub-xyphoid thrust to expel the water. If this fails to restore normal breathing, aggressive medical intervention is required....” The memo also notes that CIA doctors present during waterboarding sessions stood by with necessary equipment to perform a tracheotomy if necessary: “[W]e are informed that the necessary emergency medical equipment is always present—although not visible to the detainee—during any application of the waterboard.”
It would be overly simplistic to suggest that every detainee death in U.S. custody and every act of abuse was part of an authorized and ordered interrogation program designed and run from the highest levels of the Bush administration. Some deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to have involved military or CIA personnel going “off the rails” and engaging in abusive conduct beyond what even White House lawyers had in mind when they crafted their “enhanced interrogation” policies. And some torture techniques were already in use in Afghanistan and spread there earlier than they were even formally approved.
Yet directly or directly, abuse spread and worsened—detainees started dying. Unlike torture, however, homicide is an uncomplicated crime. A criminal homicide occurs when a person or set of persons simply causes the death of another without legal justification. There is little nuance, little room for escape. Once a person is dead, the killer and those assisted him, those who solicited his crime or aided or abetted it, are accomplices.
The bottom line is that many detainee homicides in Iraq and Afghanistan were the direct result of approval and orders from the highest levels of government, and that high officials in the government are accomplices. Any meaningful investigation of those homicides would reveal the initial authorizations and their link to the homicides.
Homicide presents legal issues impossible to ignore. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice cannot conclude their deliberations about Bush-era torture policies without closely investigating the homicide cases tied to them. One cannot speak glibly of “policy differences” and “looking forward” and “distraction” when corpses are involved.
Xtra Insight: Scott Horton: Justice Department Probe Slams Bush Lawyers Over Torture Ethics
John Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human-rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Why America Must Learn to Bow
Martin Jacques is the cofounder of the UK think tank Demos, writes a regular column for The Guardian, and is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. His new book, When China Rules the World, is available now.
Going Rogue: The Index
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
The Torture Loophole
John Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York City. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.
What's Missing from the CIA Docs
John Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York City. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.
Cheney's Big Torture Speech
John Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York City. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.
People really think that allegedly torturing people like this is really going to stop terrorism?
In many ways this is a form of terrorism and doesn't appear to gather useful information any more than 911 style terrorism appears to work in keeping foreigners out, if anything it bring foreigners in.
You are right, and it makes the rest of the world look on us as disregarding human rights, the same thing we condemn other countries for. Hypocritical, isn't it?
This story just keeps on getting worse. Obama, whom I support in general, is writing himself a black page in world history if he does not do something and do it soon.
Connie, he can't do it, because it cannot be done. To do so would set a precedent that would end the autonomy of the Presidency. Don't forget, each successive administration has pushed, pulled, and bullied to make the highest office in the land stand above the law.
Who could ever forget the launching of an invasion of another country, and THEN, going to the Congress for approval and a declaration of war?
Human Rights Watch has the same politics as Code Pink. Handle any of its "findings" with a 10-foot pole.
Facts
Please.
Yes, please, let us see the facts. I would have thought that if 100 plus prisoners were tourtured to death, it would have been on the network news. Even Fox would have said something about it!
Why theo?
You were
Not even allowed
To look at
Coffins.
"even Fox would have said something"... what makes you think that??
people like john sifton, see conspiracy behind every corner, Oh My !! I meant Republican corners. They never seem to complain about Democratic intervention's like to one still going on in Balkins, or Korea ( Harry Truman started that one)
Human Rights Watch criticizes everyone equally. Who exactly are they favoring here?
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The fox replies "what feathers" when asked if it has been taking good care of the chickens and what is that on your lips.
The Bush II Department of Just Us has been resurrected:
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/05/resurrected-department-of-just-us. html
I agree with Connie. I also think it is a mark of strength to admit wrong doing, not a weakness.
What is weak is to hide behind lawyers and propaganda.
Repeat after me .. Bush was right, Bush was right, Bush was ... Can this get more funny ? Re recent U-Turn on military trials. If obama keeps this up, his next apology tour will be his election !!
Well, it seems The Hague should be putting these people to trial, despite our huge influence and pressure not to.
This is very disturbing. Is there any actual evidence that 100 people were tortured to death? If so, the killers must be punished. If not, this "researcher"/"reporter" ought to be punished for fabricating such serious charges.
Let me get this straight. You read the article and didn't notice any references to the evidence? How about the determination by an Army medical examiner that Dilawar's death at Bagram AFB was a "homicide"?
Facts, er,uh, er facts, why confuse Mr Sifton.
Estimates are just that estimates,he should be doing articles for PETA.
you people are idiots these people are responsible for killing thousands of people, we killed 100 so in my book thats 100 less terrorist in the world.
Your book needs some fleshing out in the history, facts and ethics departments, not to mention grammar.
Grammer is irrelevant when discounting liberal agendas. Ethics are also irrelevant come to think of it.
Personally, I think all incoming administrations should scour the records and decisions of all outgoing administrations for wrongdoings. Because #1, the have nothing better to do. #2 That is what liberals would want except for when its a democratic president leaving office because then that would be unfair or actually it will probably be considered racist when Obama leaves, to question any decision he has made. Oh, I forgot, he is the Annointed One. He doesnt make mistakes. Silly me. Well, anyhow, you are stupid and ignorant if you think that an investigation would accomplish anything other than start a precedent that would be followed by every incoming adminstration. You are all living in a dream world.
But motr-
I don't
Think the last
Democratic
President
Got a chance
To leave office
Before the
Investigations started.
Using that precedent
The Dems would
Be little behind
Schedule.
motrbotr is a hater.
Dear McLeod396,
The only haters here seem to be the liberals.
You people are nasty and rude when a Republican is in office, and you are nasty and rude when a Socialist is in office. What makes you people happy? Oh wait, I know, you would be happy if the ENTIRE WORLD AGREED with EVERYTHING YOU SAID AND DID, right?
orourke, nicely stated. You uphold your party's values with great aplomb.
Nothing like being nasty and rude while calling someone nasty and rude.
And showing a total lack of respect for the first man in eight years who's willing to take on the task of saving your sorry ass from the hole you've dug for yourself, very eloquent.
OH, and acting as if democrats are impossible to please and are never satisfied unless everyone agrees with them, when, by the very virtue of you saying so, you show that you are in fact more intolerant and unable to handle people who think differently than any democrat ever could be... very classy.
Yessir, you make your party proud. :)
motrbotr, did u spell grammar wrong on purpose? hope so...
but i doubt cuz due to your total lack of logic, and conclusions that came straight from your anal cavity, i'd guess that you're an uneducated republican who'd rather rape a minority than see a deserving person get proper health care
"it will probably be considered racist when Obama leaves" lol, yeah, probably.
"He doesn't make mistakes"... uh, unless you ask any republican in America right now. Cuz that's all they talk about... idiot.
wow. And you are exactly what's wrong with America. You don't deserve your citizenship or your freedom.
I hope there's a hell, for scum like you.
This is the result of deregulation of military interrogation practices.
Some people seem to believe that might makes right and that one can achieve anything trough the application of violence. These folks are basic in their thinking and their thought processes leave no room for an examination of any matter.
This "make my day" type of reaction would seem proper amongst pubescent boys - it is not the stuff of mature men and women.
Unless the room is cleared and the matter fully aired out with the proper outcomes to the parties involved, we are doomed to repeat this sad chapter.
If President Obama stops this process from reaching its natural outcome - his administration will suffer and his legacy will be tremendously diminished.
The torture issue will continue to be a "dead chicken around our neck" until a through investigation is concluded . If the investigation finds that crimes were committed, there must be prosecutions. Get this out in the open so we can move on.
pgs1308: How many Iraqi's and American's have died in our search for weapons that were never there.
Do you realize the next time a country decides to eliminate there enemy there isn't a damn thing we can say about it.
Remember Georgia.
Do you know a North Korean spokesman responded to a question about the health of an American reporter they arrested with, " THIS IS NOT GUANTANOMO".
In other words stupid it wasn't worth it.
Seems to be plenty of facts in the link he provided.
http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/874-senate-panels-report-links-detainee s-murders-to-bushs-torture-policy.html
I believe we are in for a string of stories like this, some of which will leak out, some of which will be exposed because you can't conduct a war without "collateral damage". Bush got us into two wars of dubious purpose and along with that go torture and homicide. There's more to come, believe me -- assuming that the Bush clean-up team didn't purge their files completely as they left office. (Remember that their email system allowed for deletions from the server!)
BTW everyone, ignore 'banjo1'. He rants all the time, never with facts to back up his diatribes.
For those wanting for "facts, please," how about the DOD's own autopsy reports, obtained and released by the ACLU:
http://action.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/102405/
excerpts:
". . . died during interrogation . . . died during interrogation . . . Manner of Death: Homicide . . . Homicide . . . Homicide. . ."
How about "Medical Investigations of Homicides of Prisoners of War in Iraq and Afghanistan," by Steven H. Miles, MD:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1681676
This isnt even talked about, wait until the secret papers on this comes out all hell will break loose. I think bush and the whole bunch should be in jail instead of being protected like the good ole boy system. If these idiots are not prosecuted it will only be time before this happens again and again and will be the rule of thumb. This will show what obama is made of, If he believes in this country then he has to let this go forward. If it doesnt then the people should have a REAL T party.
What we have here is the beginning of an actual new and original political party. The overwhelming majority of people in this country do not endorse torture. So holding a genuine investigation, and bringing the guilty parties to justice would "knot" be the end of our world, "nude erection" or new direction, though we would be 'sticking it' to the guilty.
The failure of the Barack Obama administration to move on this torture issue - to fully investigate it - will dissolve his support. Decent Obama is. Righteous, in his belief in our constitution and human rights? Nyet. "Knot' by a long shot!
Obama is, to adopt the spelling of 'jack foot,' the Beast banned poet, a "politishin." The only children in this country wanting to grow up and join the "politishinz" are the children of "politishinz." A good example Hillary suggesting her daughter should be a Senator, which turns my stomach.
The nazis of Hitler's Germany, the Russian Stalinists, and others, Pol Pot, the North Koreans - all tortured political prisoners and others too, they identified as dissidents. The Bush administration lowered us to their fascist level.
We are not fascists. That blot must be wiped away by first uncovering the truth and then doing something about it.
Unless we fully investigate we are bound to repeat. Neither of the political parties will own up to this, but as in Nuremberg, the guilty MUST be brought to justice. On that issue, a majority will vote for a truly new Independent Party.
The Independent Party would have to stand for more, beyond justice for those whose lives were smelted by the Bush Administration torturers, but that is an issue - what we should do, the programs and policies for renewing our politics - for another post.
oliver, you forgot to add michaellevinson.com to your post this time.
Dear hockeydog,
The site you are referring to is michael s levinson.com. He is the "jacklegs" you and Ritarita are referring to. I know him. He was friends with my father. CBS has file film of my father Orpheus C. Kawslawski. My dad was part of the quartet who played Mozart on the fake train station platform, in Auschwitz concentration camp, for the people departing the boxcars, as they were being welcomed to the "work camp" before they lioned up for their shower.
Levinson, Lev as he was once upon a time affectionately known by the student body at Sate University of New York at Buffalo, was born with six fingers on the right hand, as was my dad. They met in 1968, in the basement cafeteria of the student union.
My father had already written a half dozen western novels for the pulp paper market, under five different pen names, and was there to study novel writing with John Barth.
Then, in 1969 the poet, Jacklegs to you, was invited to teach as a grad student because some editor from Cape Golliard Press in England, there for the summer, wanted to publish his poems.
Suffice to say, Levinson decided to make one last trip on a merchant ship, because that is what he did for a living - unlimited able seaman, any waters. He went down to NYC, ran into Abby Hoffman who invited him to join his Yippie commune and go to Woodstock, to help build the stage with Abbie and the group and recite his poems between the bands.
The "Lev" passed on that, instead flew to Houston and shipped out on the SS. Missouri, a freighter bound for India, Whatever happened to him on that ship - he told my father the Heavens literally opened up and the Creator of the Universe showed him 'is face - when he returned to Buffalo, N.Y. he was "on fire."
H. Marshall McLuhan was world famous, teaching at the University of Toronto. McLuhan actually had heard of Levinson already before he was on the ship forty days and forty nights, and they became friends.
"Lev" thought he was going to get on TV and share the words he was given with all mankind. Marshall McLuhan told him, "Mike, The world doesn't work that way." That is a McLuhan quote because my father used to record Levinson when they met, almost every day at the university, in the cafeteria.
Here is one of my favorites, from the "Lev" tapes my father gave me. He was writing down his Television Scripture when these two undergrad kids came along and said he had to go with them to a rally - that it was life or death the rich were getting richer and the poor poorer but if they all went to the rally it would be better.
That is what my father told me they said. Here is what "Lev" said:
"This is the good ship mother earth. Whatever deck you live on, the cards are dealt out evenly. When it comes time to change the course of human history, on the good ship mother earth, all the world cries out for is a spokesman, to turn the wheel."
He said that. Left to himself, he can talk like that for a couple hours a day. It was only a matter of time before they would bar his writings here. Every single word he wrote was removed from the Beast archive. I told him, "So what! Strike out on your own, with your own blog."
They didn't even have the decency to tell him he was pushing his own envelope too much, giving away free copies of "New World Hors D'oeuvres" and continuously mentioning his web site.
I am not him, the Jacklegs banned from the Beast for challenging everyone's imagination with his concept of a "spoken poem for all man kind." For a few weeks it looked like something great was going to unfold in these pages, but he was too strong for the people behind these pages.
He is not me, nor I michael stephen levinson. But I am ahead of you hockeydog because I have had the opportunity to have studied his unpublished writings, and I have heard him recite live from his Television Script and stray from the text, creating true lyrics on the spot. His day in the sun will come, or the world will lose. I believe that.
Give my love to Ritarita. They shoot poets don't they?
hockey-
Jacklegs
Will be
All over that
Back at
The clubhouse.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
100% agree. very sad :(
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
One guy says Fox News would have had something about it. He really has to be totally oblivious to the nature of Fox, ever protective of the Bush administration and currently ever-destructive of the Obama administration. As for the guy who said terrorists deserve it because they have killed thousands, we have not properly identified individual "terrorists" for starters. And for another thing it is WE who have killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq. Let's let the facts mold our opinions--rather than the other way around!
That's why so many people call Fox news "faux" news or "fixed" news.
How come NBC doesnt have this as headline news? Or CNN?
Does anybody have doubts about just vhow close to a facist dictatorship we will venture if we get scared enough. After the next 9/11 (and everyone knows there will be one), especially if it is bigger with more casualties, we will not recognize our country. Don't believe me? Well, did anyone ever think we would be having a torture debate in the USA?
The US has been torturing for years, it's just now coming out in the open. It's not like we're really "getting worse," it's just harder for the military to cover up all its atrocities with the advent of information technology.
Having a torture debate isn't really proof that there's going to be another 9/11.. especially since the two are unrelated...
Torturing is against most Americans beliefs, but to be honest, we've always tortured. Not necessarily during war time and not always on such a large scale, but logic and common sense say these things didn't just start happening overnight and it won't stop anytime soon.
Our society tends to fool itself and sees our image as a "more perfect union", but I think there's such a debate because now we're getting a peek behind the curtain and we don't like what we see.
Not included
Here
Are hundreds
Of innocent people
Kidnapped and
Renditioned for torture
Then dumped on the street
In foreign countries
When the mistake
Became known.
See the case of
Canadian national
Maher Arar.
Where does
America go
To get it's
Reputation
Back?
"Not included here are hundreds of innocent people kidnapped and renditioned for torture then dumped on the street in foreign countries when the mistake became known. See the case of Canadian national Maher Arar. Where does America go to get it's reputation back?"
...much better.
I for one call those people what they are POW's and yes I agree that they should not torture anybody. However, What is torture? Is sleep deprivation torture? How about itimidation? Is stacking men on top of one another torture? Putting their koran in the toilet, Is that torture? None of these is torture in my book. They do these things to prisoners in our own jails so they can't be torture.... Can they?
they don't have jails. they are the disenfranchised of thier respective countries, usually turned over to us for being political dissidents against autocratic dictatorships in places like Pakistan under Mushariff. As for defining torture, waterboarding fits the definition under the war crimes treaty that President Reagan signed back in the 80's; and beating someone to death with fists and implements, I think, needs no explanation.
I think that causing death would qualify as torture.
What if I was to set your dog of fire or wipe my ass with your bible, piss on your mother, its not torture but in your rational its acceptable behavior. There needs to be a better way the direct or indirect duress and why is it that nobody is asking the question "does torture work" BushCo has offed 100 humans under the guise that these people are guilty and that the method of information extraction actually works, both have NOT been proven.
I don't know about you, but when I was in grade school we were taught that America was different we live by the constitution, people are equal, we have due process and none is above the law. This is NOT the country I grew up in, nor is it a country I'm proud of anymore, though I am willing to fight to make it a great country again.
Thank you.
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