Invictus

"Justice Denied: Voices from Guantanamo"

2009-11-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

Ateqah Khaki from the ACLU's National Security Project conducted these interviews when many of the Guantanamo detainees were in London for a special Ramadan dinner hosted by Cage Prisoners.

The men in the video above were held at Guantánamo for years without charge, denied any meaningful opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention. But now they are finally free. This is their story.

Produced for the ACLU by Joel P. Engardio and Ateqah Khaki
Directed, Edited and Written by Joel P. Engardio
Production Assistance by Laila G. Nazarali and Maryam Hassan

For more information visit:
http://www.aclu.org
http://www.cageprisoners.com

Blogger on Interrogations Looking for Study Volunteers

2009-10-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

Matt Semel, over at the blog HUMINT, is asking for volunteers for a study on interrogations he is conducting. Here's a link to a blog posting on it. Please don't contact me, but if you are interested, and I believe he's looking for individuals with interrogation experience, then contact him through his blog.

ACLU on Mohammed Jawad (Post-Gitmo), Also Appendix M

2009-10-27T16:55:00.000-07:00

The following is taken from ACLU's Blog of Rights, a site that should be on everyone's daily stop of websites:

Life after Gitmo

Today, the Los Angeles Times reports on the struggle of former Guantánamo detainee Mohammed Jawad to readjust to freedom after spending roughly a third of his life in detention. In August, as a result of the ACLU’s habeas corpus petition on behalf of Jawad, he was finally released and sent home to Afghanistan after six-and-a-half-years in U.S. custody.

While in U.S. custody, Jawad, one of the youngest prisoners held at Guantánamo, was held in solitary confinement and subjected to the infamous “frequent flyer” sleep deprivation program. He attempted suicide in December 2003 by repeatedly slamming his head against his cell wall. Two judges — first his military commission judge, then a federal judge — ruled that evidence gleaned through Jawad’s torture and coercion was inadmissible.

The LA Times story sheds light on the difficulties of adjusting to life after Guantánamo:
[Jawad]…suffers from frequent headaches, he says, and often rests during the day. Prison memories haunt him, something doctors warn may never end. He worries about those left behind, his de facto family. He’s out and they’re not, and that’s a source of guilt. Though the Obama administration has said it will close Guantánamo, hundreds of detainees remain there and at Bagram.

He asks a reporter to tell President Obama, the United Nations, someone, to help them. “People there are sick,” he says. “They should be treated. They should be freed.”

As his anger rises, his uncle tells him not to think about the lost years.

But it spills out. He talks about having his hands bound behind his back and being forced to eat like a dog, being kicked, beaten and pepper-sprayed and subjected to excessive heat, loud noise, solitary confinement.

After a year, Guantánamo records show, Jawad tried to commit suicide by banging his head against his cell wall repeatedly.

“I was tortured and faced many problems,” he says. “They also play with your mind.”
In spite of this, Jawad has hope for the future. The article states that Jawad wants to be a doctor and “[h]e wants to resume his education, he says, even if it means sitting with 13-year-olds at tiny desks.” Jawad goes on to state, “That’s my dream… I don’t know if it’s possible. But that’s my dream.”

The story also quotes one of Jawad’s military lawyers, Eric Montalvo, as saying, “We need to do more than just dump him on the corner with a bus ticket after seven years and say, ‘Have a nice day.’”

Promptly and justly handling the cases of remaining prisoners is one part of the Guantánamo challenge. Honestly confronting the crimes committed in America’s name at the notorious prison camp is another. Americans deserve to know who authorized, condoned and encouraged the abuse and torture of detainees like Jawad; let Attorney General Eric Holder know that you stand with the ACLU and support a thorough investigation of torture crimes.

In other ACLU-related news, check out this article at truthout, "Obama Urged to Fully Comply with Anti-torture Treaty":

The fifteenth anniversary of the U.S. ratification of the United Nations Convention Against Torture passed last week with little fanfare and virtually no press attention from the mainstream media here.

But according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), "U.S. policy continues to fall short of ensuring full compliance with the treaty."

For example, the organisation said that an appendix to the Army Field Manual (AFM) can still facilitate cruel treatment of prisoners and detainees at home and abroad.

The Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment (CAT) is the most comprehensive international human rights treaty dealing exclusively with the issues of torture and abuse. It came into effect in 1987, and has been ratified by 146 countries....

After taking office, President Barack Obama issued an executive order prohibiting torture. But under an appendix to the 2006 revised U.S. Army Field Manual - the most recent edition - practices considered incompatible with CAT and international law are still allowed. These include force-feeding, psychological torture, sleep and sensory deprivation.

And under Appendix M to the AFM, detainees can be "separated" or held in isolation from other detainees for 30 days, or longer with authorisation, and allowed only four hours of continuous sleep per night over 30 days, which can be prolonged upon approval.

Bravo to the ACLU for all their great work, and a special thanks from this activist, who has made opposition to use of the current Army Field Manual as a template for interrogation, for reasons noted by the ACLU and amplified in articles of my own, a central component of my anti-torture writing.

Renee Fleming sings "Das Wunder der Heliane"

2009-10-19T23:01:00.000-07:00

Das Wunder der Heliane (The Miracle of Heliane), 1927, Erich Wolfgang Korngold

At seven minutes long, the aria builds into something incredibly beautiful. Enjoy!

Per Obama: Torture Evidence Is "Protected" Against Release

2009-10-17T07:55:00.001-07:00

This is what a Nobel Prize gives you the chutzpah to do. From Jason Leopold at Truthout:

On Thursday, the House approved a Department of Homeland Security spending bill that included a provision to amend the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and grant Defense Secretary Robert Gates the authority to withhold "protected documents" that, if released, would endanger the lives of US soldiers or government employees deployed outside of the country.

According to the bill, the phrase "protected documents" refers to photographs taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009, and involves "the treatment of individuals engaged, captured or detained" in the so-called "war on terror." Photographs that Gates determines would endanger troops and government employees could be withheld for three years.

Leopold quotes Democratic Congresswoman Louise Slaughter as saying "the language was quietly reinserted in recent weeks, 'apparently under direct orders from the administration.'" The bill's language is a cover for Obama, who was otherwise threatening an administration petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the release of the controversial, unseen "torture photos."

Will we hear much protest from the progressive blogosphere? Not likely, as the torture issue slips off the radar, and the trudging submission of the progressive punditry to Democratic Party faux-ameliorism continues (there are exceptions, and you know who they are). Millions more on unemployment. Wall Street dances in blue chips. War continues apace, and the torture industry revs up for more high-tech adventures in breaking individuals down. No pictures of war. Nothing messy. Just bright baubles, Nobel Prizes, and proud words about equality... some day. No one in a position of power must lose a wink of sleep: that's how change is measured in America these days.

Congress Fails, But Justice Speaks Out

Meanwhile, over in Great Britain, per the UK Guardian, some very welcome news:

In a devastating judgment, two senior judges roundly dismissed the [British] foreign secretary's claims that disclosing... evidence would harm national security and threaten the UK's vital intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US.

In what they described as an "unprecedented" and "exceptional" case, to which the Guardian is a party, they ordered the release of a seven-paragraph summary of what the CIA told British officials – and maybe ministers – about Ethiopian-born [Binyam] Mohamed before he was secretly interrogated by an MI5 officer in 2002.

"The suppression of reports of wrongdoing by officials in circumstances which cannot in any way affect national security is inimical to the rule of law," Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones ruled. "Championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, is the cornerstone of democracy."

Readers might remember the case of Binyam Mohamed, who was seized by the United States in Pakistan in 2002, secretly renditioned to Morocco, and later held at Bagram and Guantanamo "terror" prisons, suffering torture in all these sites. He is one of the plaintiffs in the Jeppesen case, a suit brought by the ACLU. That case engendered a decision last summer by the Ninth Circuit Court, which was one of the last legal victories in the U.S. in the struggle for accountability for torture.

In 2007, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Company, on behalf of five victims of the United States government's unlawful "extraordinary rendition" program. The suit charges that Jeppesen knowingly participated by providing critical flight planning and logistical support services to aircraft and crews used by the CIA to forcibly disappear these five men to detention and interrogation. Shortly after the suit was filed, the government intervened and inappropriately asserted the "state secrets privilege," claiming further litigation would undermine national security interests, even though much of the evidence needed to try the case was already available to the public. In April 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court dismissal of the case, ruling that the government must invoke the state secrets privilege with respect to specific evidence, not to dismiss the entire suit. The case is remanded back to district court, providing the first opportunity for Bush-era torture victims to have their day in court.

Outrage! DC District Court Rules FOR Suppression of Torture Evidence

2009-10-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

From the ACLU, this is important, if sobering news.

Court Rules Government Can Continue To Suppress Detainee Statements Describing Torture And Abuse

Transcripts Of Combatant Status Review Trials Essential To Accountability For Torture, Says ACLU

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 16, 2009

CONTACT: Rachel Myers, (212) 549-2689 or 2666; media@aclu.org

WASHINGTON – A federal court today ruled that the government can continue suppressing transcripts in which former CIA prisoners now held at Guantánamo Bay describe abuse and torture suffered in CIA custody. The ruling came in an ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to obtain uncensored transcripts from Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) used to determine if Guantánamo detainees qualify as "enemy combatants."

While the CIA released heavily-redacted versions of the documents in June, it continues to suppress major portions of the documents, including detainees' allegations of torture. In August, the government filed a motion arguing that it should be able to continue suppressing the documents because releasing them would reveal "intelligence sources and methods" and might aid enemy "propaganda." In today's ruling, Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia declined to review "in camera" the documents the government is withholding in order to determine if they should remain classified.

The following can be attributed to Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project:
"The court's ruling allows the government to continue suppressing these first-hand accounts of torture – not to protect any legitimate national security interest, but to protect current and former government officials from accountability. While much is known about the Bush administration's torture program, the CIA continues to censor the most important eyewitnesses – the torture victims themselves.

"The public has a right to a comprehensive record of what took place in the CIA's secret prisons. The CSRT records will provide critical missing information about how the CIA's torture program was actually carried out and whether interrogators followed, or exceeded, Justice Department legal guidance that purported to authorize brutal interrogations.

"The courts have the authority and the responsibility to ensure that the administration does not deprive the public of critical information for improper purposes. The ACLU will appeal today's decision."
Attorneys on the case, ACLU, et al. v. DOD, et al., are Wizner and Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU National Security Project, Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project and Arthur B. Spitzer of the ACLU of the National Capital Area.

Today's ruling is available online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/41291lgl20091016.html

More about the ACLU's CSRT FOIA is at: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/csrtfoia.html

While we're looking at the ACLU's latest activity and news, take a look, too, at their report on the dismal Patriot Act Reauthorization by the cowardly, anti-civil liberties Congress:

The bill makes only minor changes to the disastrous Patriot Act and was further watered down by amendments adopted during markup.

Appeal Posted in Case Challenging License of Guantanamo Psychologist

2009-10-16T14:24:00.000-07:00

The following press release was issued today by Center for Constitutional Rights. It concerns the important ongoing fight to get accountability for the practice of torture at U.S. "war on terror" prisons.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 15, 2009
3:49 PM

CONTACT: Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
press@ccrjustice.org

Louisiana Court Battle Over Guantanamo Psychologist Continues Today

State Psychology Board Challenged over Refusal to Investigate Alleged Ethical Violations by Dr. Larry James

BATON ROUGE, La. and NEW YORK - October 15 - Today, attorneys filed an appeal before the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal, in the case Dr. Trudy Bond v. Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists. Toledo-based psychologist Dr. Trudy Bond is calling on the Louisiana State Board of Examiners to investigate Louisiana psychologist and retired U.S. Army colonel Dr. Larry C. James, a former high-ranking advisor on interrogations for the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

According to his own statements, Dr. James played an influential role in both the policy and day-to-day operations of interrogations and detention at the prison camps. Publicly-available information shows that while Dr. James was at Guantanamo, abuse in interrogations was widespread, and cruel and inhuman treatment was official policy.

Allegations of abuse during Dr. James's January to May 2003 deployment include beatings, religious and sexual humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions. Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, who is still imprisoned in Guantanamo, is one of the prisoners who has alleged brutal treatment in the spring of 2003, when he was only 16 years old. James was also stationed in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in 2004 and returned to Guantanamo in 2007. In 2008, he was named Dean of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

In compliance with her ethical obligation to report abuse by other psychologists, in February 2008 Dr. Bond filed a complaint against Dr. James before the Board, the agency that issued and now regulates his psychology license. Dr. Bond alleged that Dr. James breached professional ethics by violating psychologists' duties to do no harm, to protect confidential information and to obtain informed consent, and she called on the Board to investigate whether action should be taken against Dr. James.

As Chief Psychologist of the Joint Intelligence Group and a senior member of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) at Guantanamo, Dr. James had access to the confidential medical records of people he was charged with exploiting for intelligence. According to former Guantanamo interrogators, BSCTs used information from patients' records to help interrogators increase the patients' psychological duress, including by exploiting their fears. The very purpose of these mental health professional teams, the interrogators said, was to help "break" the prisoners. Dr. James denies that claim, but an extensive government paper trail supports the interrogators' accounts.

The Board summarily refused to investigate Dr. Bond's complaint, claiming that the statute of limitations had run, despite conclusive information to the contrary. Dr. Bond then filed suit against the Board in Louisiana's 19th Judicial District Court, which in July 2009 dismissed her case without looking at the merits. Today's brief before the First Circuit Court in Baton Rouge argues that the District Court should have reviewed the Board's clearly wrong legal decision.

Said Dr. Bond, "The five psychologists on the Louisiana Board were given plenty of credible evidence, but they chose not to investigate the head intelligence psychologist of prison camps notorious for their use of psychological torture. I don't think Louisiana lawmakers intended to give five fellow professionals total, unchecked power to make arbitrary decisions that deeply affect the public welfare."

Said CCR Cooperating Attorney Deborah Popowski, "The Louisiana Board is fighting awfully hard to turn a blind eye to serious allegations of abuse. We wish the Board would devote its resources to investigating unethical conduct instead. Everyone, including the people of Louisiana, would be better served." For more information on the involvement of health professionals in torture and abuse visit the Center for Constitutional Rights website http://whenhealersharm.org.

CCR has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last six years - sending the first ever habeas attorney to the base and sending the first attorney to meet with a former CIA "ghost detainee" there. CCR has been responsible for organizing and coordinating more than 500 pro bono lawyers across the country in order to represent the men at Guantanamo, ensuring that nearly all have the option of legal representation. In addition, CCR has been working to resettle the approximately 60 men who remain at Guantánamo because they cannot return to their country of origin for fear of persecution and torture.

To read the Bond Appeal Legal Brief, click here.

Update, 10/17/09: I see that Stephen Soldz has published an article on Col. James and Dr. Bond/CCR's suit over at OpEd News. Click here to read and give a recommendation.

DoJ Dithers on OPR Report - Tell Attorney General Holder to Investigate Torture

2009-10-07T18:36:00.000-07:00

Alliance for Justice announces the release of its new documentary, Tortured Law, which examines the role lawyers played in authorizing torture. The film is being used to spark debate across the country, and calls on Attorney General Eric Holder to uphold the Constitution and the law by releasing the Justice Department's report on the "torture memos" and authorizing a full investigation of those who ordered, designed, and justified torture.

H/T for this video to Marcy Wheeler, who has an interesting post up on the latest delay in the Office of Professional Responsibility report on the OLC torture memos of Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury. She links the delay to the review of CIA attorney John Rizzo, and/or the CIA generally.

I'd say she is absolutely right. The reason is, I believe, in part due to the fact that the CIA's own Office of Technical Services (OTS) wrote an extensive report on the SERE-derived torture techniques for use by the Office of Legal Counsel in their construction of the first of the torture memos. The OTS report to OLC lied about the medical and psychological consequences of the proposed techniques. We know they lied because researchers in the same directorate of the CIA had themselves been studying the severe effects of these techniques going back at least to the 1990s.

The CIA must be working overtime to redact almost every culpable portion of the OPR report that links the OLC memos to the initial OTS/CIA report vetting the "enhanced interrogation techniques." If the latter comes out -- and the OTS paper is still classified, and according to my sources, until recently ACLU was not even aware of its existence -- then we will have a very clear picture of the culpability of the CIA in the construction of the torture program, just one short step away from the Oval Office orders, which Dick Cheney and Bush have already indicated they gave.

If the American public, and society in general, cannot totally dismantle this torture apparatus, bring its actors to the bar of justice, and ensure that this kind of serious criminality is stopped and prosecuted, then I fear for the future of this country... because it won't be very long before whatever the United States was, it will cease to exist, except perhaps in name only. It will be something too awful to contemplate, and a long dark chapter in history won't be ending, but just beginning.

NYC Event: "Reckoning with Torture"

2009-10-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

The ACLU, PEN American Center and the Cooper Union will be putting on an important event next Tuesday, October 13, at 7:00pm at The Great Hall, Cooper Union (7 East 7th Street @ Third Avenue, NYC) -- Reckoning with Torture: Memos and Testimonies from the "War on Terror"

The event features artists, writers, and other anti-torture activists reading from recently released secret documents -- torture memos, declassified communications, and testimonies from prisoners -- in an effort to promote awareness of acts of torture and abuse carried out by the U.S. government since 9/11.

Featured authors and artists include: Don DeLillo, Paul Auster, Jonathan Ames, Eve Ensler, Nell Freudenberger, Art Speigelman, Ishmael Beah, and Susanna Moore, among others.

The event also features Constitutional law scholar, David Cole (who recently wrote the introduction to a published edition of the Bush Administration Torture Memos); former senior military interrogator, Matthew Alexander; former CIA special agent Jack Rice; and former ACLU attorney, Amrit Singh.

Anthony Appiah, President of PEN American Center, and Jameel Jaffner, Director of the ACLU's National Security Project, will give opening and closing remarks.

It looks like it will a fascinating and revealing night. I encourage all to attend. Only $15.00 at the door, $10.00 for students and ACLU/PEN members.

Tuesday, October 13, at 7:00pm at The Great Hall, Cooper Union, NYC

National Lawyers Guild Spurs Open Letter to Attorney General Holder

2009-10-06T19:27:00.001-07:00

OPEN LETTER TO ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER

We, the undersigned, are writing to request that you hold firm against any attempts by former Vice President Dick Cheney, the CIA directors, and the media to silence those who demand that the United States hold accountable those who have committed and authorized torture.

We call on you to appoint a special independent prosecutor who is not part of the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute all those who ordered, approved, justified, abetted or carried out the torture and abuse. The people who are held accountable should not be limited to low-level operatives.

We are particularly disturbed by the efforts of the reporters at the Washington Post to distort the facts and ignore the illegality of torture. They cited anonymous sources who allegedly said that torture works; these "reports" contradict the newly released report of the CIA’s Inspector General.

Cheney’s claim that your decision to open an investigation into the conduct of the CIA is a politicization of this issue is shameful. If anything, political pressure has led to your office taking too narrow an approach to the investigation.
The world community has expressed its revulsion at the use of torture in any form. Torture is illegal under all circumstances. The prohibition against torture is considered in international law on par with laws against genocide, slavery and wars of aggression. Under the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, it is a crime against humanity.

The United States is a party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) and the Geneva Conventions. Both treaties expressly require the United States to either extradite or initiate prosecution of persons who are reasonably accused – this is a legal obligation.
The U.S. Torture Statute that Congress passed to fulfill our obligations under the CAT outlaws torture committed outside the United States. The U.S. War Crimes Act punishes torture as a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. In 2006, the Supreme Court affirmed in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that all prisoners in U.S. custody are protected by the Geneva Conventions.

There are many who claim we should ignore the facts and the law and refuse to hold accountable all those responsible for the use of torture. Whether actionable intelligence was gained is not the issue. Nor is the morale in the CIA.

We believe the oath of office you took requires that you not pick and choose those laws you will enforce.

National Lawyers Guild
Center for Constitutional Rights
U.S. Human Rights Network 2
American Association of Jurists
International Association of Democratic Lawyers
Psychologists for Social Responsibility
The Coalition for an Ethical Psychology
Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International
Lawyers Against the War (Canada)
Droite-Solidarité (France)
Japanese Lawyers International Solidarity Association
National Association of Democratic Lawyers in South Africa
European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights
Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers (England)
Progress Lawyers Network (Belgium)
National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (Philippines)
Italian Association of Democratic Lawyers
Marjorie Cohn, President, National Lawyers Guild; Professor, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Michael Ratner, President, Center for Constitutional Rights
Bill Quigley, Legal Director, Center for Constitutional Rights
Ajamu Baraka, Executive Director, US Human Rights Network
Jeanne Mirer, President, International Association of Democratic Lawyers
Roland Weyl, First Vice President, International Association of Democratic Lawyers
Micòl Savia, UN representative in Geneva, International Association of Democratic Lawyers
Vanessa Ramos, President, American Association of Jurists
Max Boqwana, General Secretary, National Association of Democratic Lawyers in South Africa
Mike Mansfield QC, President, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers
Liz Davies, barrister, UK, Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers
Richard Harvey, Bureau member of International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Executive member, Haldane Society
Bill Bowring, Professor of Law, University of London; President, European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights; International Secretary, Haldane Society
Sister Dianna Ortiz, U.S. Torture Survivor and founder of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International
Harold Nelson, Advocacy Coordinator, Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International
Gail Davidson, Chair, Lawyers Against the War
Osamu Niikura, President, Japanese Lawyers International Solidarity Association
Edre Olalia, Vice President, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers
Neri Colmenares, Secretary General, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers
Jan Fermon, representative, Progress Lawyers Network
Fabio Marcelli, Executive Committee and Speaker for International and European Affairs, Italian Association of Democratic Lawyers
George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary
Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University
Dr. Thomas Ehrlich Reifer, University of San Diego; Associate Fellow, Transnational Institute
Jordan J. Paust, Mike and Teresa Baker Law Center Professor, University of Houston Law Center 3
Terry Karl, Gildred Professor of Political Science and Latin American Studies
Department of Political Science, Stanford University
Marc Falkoff, Assistant Professor, Northern Illinois University College of Law
John W. Lango, Philosophy Professor, Hunter College of the City University of New York
Elizabeth M. Iglesias Professor of Law & Director, Center for Hispanic & Caribbean Legal Studies, University of Miami School of Law
Ray McGovern, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
Michael Avery, Professor, Suffolk Law School
Michael E. Tigar, Professor of the Practice of Law, Duke Law School; Emeritus Professor, Washington College of Law
Andy Worthington, journalist and author of The Guantanamo Files
Tom Hayden
Michael Rooke-Ley, Professor of Law Emeritus, Nova Southeastern University
William J. Aceves, Professor, California Western School of Law
Phyllis Bennis, Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies
Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor, retired, Dept of Linguistics & Philosophy, MIT
Daniel Ellsberg
Alfred W. McCoy, J.R.W. Smail Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Susan Rutberg, Professor, Golden Gate University School of Law
John Ehrenberg, Professor and Chair of Political Science, Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY
Radhika Balakrishnan, Professor, Rutgers University
David Swanson, author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency
Kristina Borjesson, Member, Robert Jackson Steering Committee

URL http://www.nlg.org/10-0-09%20Holder%20letter.pdf (PDF)

More U.S. Videos of Torture, Judge Orders Some Be Made Available to Defense Team

2009-10-05T20:47:00.000-07:00

The following is a most important press release from Center for Constitutional Rights. After years of litigation, we are just now learning that the torture interrogation of Mohammed al Qahtani was videotaped. The government sought, and still seeks to block that evidence from coming forward. But now they have been thwarted, in part, by a legal decision which allow one week of these tapes to be made available to the CCR attorneys in the case.

Government Admits Guantánamo Detainee Mohammed al Qahtani’s Torture Videotaped

CCR Blasts Government for Failing to Disclose Existence of Videotapes for Seven Years

Contact: press@ccrjustice.org

October 5, 2009, New York – The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) learned today of the existence of video and audio tapes of the abusive interrogations of client Mohammed al Qahtani, the victim of the “First Special Interrogation Plan” personally overseen by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

“After the intense scrutiny of the government’s torture and interrogation of Mr. al Qahtani, it is shocking that the government has hidden the existence of these tapes from the public for so many years,” said CCR Attorney Gitanjali S. Gutierrez. “The government’s interrogation of him has been the topic of multiple military, Justice Department and congressional investigations. These tapes should have been acknowledged long ago.”

Until recently, the Government had adamantly denied that any U.S. personnel engaged in acts of torture during Mr. al Qahtani’s interrogation, but on January 14, 2009, Military Commission Convening Authority Susan Crawford conceded that by subjecting Mr. al Qahtani to systematic 20-hour interrogations, prolonged sleep deprivation, 160 days of severe isolation, forced nudity, sexual and religious humiliation, and other aggressive interrogation tactics, the government had engaged in acts of torture. Much of this information appeared in interrogation logs leaked to the press as early as 2006

Said CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren, “Mr. al Qahtani’s torture is already well-established, with a clear paper trail that leads all the way up the chain of command to the desk of Donald Rumsfeld. The revelation of these tapes indicates the government carefully documented horrific evidence of torture and abuse at Guantánamo. The only question that remains is whether the people ultimately responsible for it will be held accountable for breaking the law and breaking faith with our system of justice.”

Mr. Al Qahtani has been incarcerated at Guantánamo since February 2002. Throughout his imprisonment, he has consistently maintained that he was repeatedly tortured and threatened with torture by U.S. military and civilian interrogators. And since Mr. al Qahtani filed his habeas petition in October 2006, he has continued to assert that any alleged admissions he made to U.S. personnel were extracted through this torture and threats of torture.

The government never disclosed the existence of these tapes as exculpatory information in Mr. al Qahtani’s habeas case. CCR had filed a motion in February 2009 to compel the government to turn over exculpatory evidence in their client’s case and to hold the government in contempt for it’s “flagrant violation” of a judge’s November 2008 order to do so. Judge Thomas F. Hogan issued an order in November 2008 (amended in December 2008) requiring the government to turn over promptly any exculpatory evidence it had on the men detained at Guantánamo to their attorneys. The government filed what was essentially a second motion for an extension of time on January 30, 2009. Since the original filing in June 2008, the government has twice delayed its compliance with the court’s orders, engaging in what CCR attorneys described as “improper self-help by granting itself an indefinite extension of time.”

Finally, CCR and co-counsel, Sandra Babcock, filed a motion for discovery in March 2009 seeking any video tapes of Mr. al Qahtani’s interrogation and numerous other records. After seven months of discovery disputes, the court issued the publicly-filed order today.

The videotapes the government is required to produce will reveal the time period at the end of three months of intensive solitary confinement and isolation that immediately preceded the implementation of the “First Special Interrogation Plan,” a regime of systematic torture techniques approved by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for use against Mr. al Qahtani. In a letter to his superiors reporting possible abuse of men in U.S. custody, T.J. Harrington, Deputy Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, FBI described Mr. al Qahtani during this time as “evidencing behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma (talking to non-existent people, reportedly hearing voices, crouching in a corner of the cell covered with a sheet for hours on end).”

Mr. al Qahtani is represented by CCR and co-counsel Professor Sandra Babcock, Center for International Human Rights, Northwestern University School of Law.

For more information on Mohammed al Qahtani’s case, click here.

CCR has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last six years – sending the first ever habeas attorney to the base and sending the first attorney to meet with a former CIA “ghost detainee” there. CCR has been responsible for organizing and coordinating more than 500 pro bono lawyers across the country in order to represent the men at Guantanamo, ensuring that nearly all have the option of legal representation. In addition, CCR has been working to resettle the approximately 60 men who remain at Guantánamo because they cannot return to their country of origin for fear of persecution and torture.

Attached Files

* MAQ Order to Disclose Videotapes (PDF)
* TJ Harrington Ltr 7 14 04 (PDF)

Judge Hogan did not release all the video and audio tapes the government has.

To provide relevant information to Petitioner and yet to ease the burden on the Government, the Court will order the Government to produce only those audio/video recordings of Petitioner created between November 15, 2002 and November 22, 2002.

The week in question covers the seven days prior to the beginning of the interrogation log for al-Qahtani, leaked to Time Magazine in 2006. That log begins on November 23, 2002. By Nov. 23, as we know from the log, al-Qahtani had announced he was on hunger strike. He repeats it numerous times during the first day of the interrogation log to which we have access, which speaks to perseveration and already a state of disabled functioning, if not also, a determined will to resist and hold onto a shred of his self integrity.

It’s amazing that we are only hearing of these tapes now. Let’s recall what the torturers were saying about videotaping at Guantanamo in October 2002, during a period prior to that about to be released to Al Qahatani's CCR defense team. Per the minutes of one major meeting at Guantanamo during that autumn:

– At this point a discussion about whether or not to video tape the aggressive sessions, or interrogations at all ensued.

Becker: Videotapes are subject to too much scrutiny in court. We don’t want the LEA people in aggressive sessions anyway.

LTC Beaver: LEA choice not to participate in these types of interrogations is more ethical and moral as opposed to legal.

Fredman: The videotaping of even totally legal techniques will look “ugly”.

Becker: (Agreed)

Al-Qahtani was also discussed:

LTC Phifer: Harsh techniques used on our service members have worked and will work on some, what about those?

MAJ Leso: Force is risky, and may be ineffective due to the detainees’ frame of reference. They are used to seeing much more barbaric treatment.

Becker: Agreed.

– At this point a discussion about ISN 63 [Mohammed al-Qahtani] ensued, recalling how he has responded to certain types of deprivation and psychological stressors. After short discussion the BSCT continued to address the overall manipulation of the detainees’ environment.

BSCT continued:

* Psychological stressors are extremely effective (ie, sleep deprivation, withholding food, isolation, loss of time)

COL Cummings: We can’t do sleep deprivation

LTC Beaver: Yes, we can — with approval.

Bravo to CCR for all their work on this. Together with ACLU and PHR, the torturers’ crimes and schemes will ultimately be fully revealed. I believe that accountability will be realized, and this country turned around from the disastrous course of the past decade. But the U.S. people will have to help.

Time again to send a donation to CCR, I’d say.

Largo

2009-10-05T00:10:00.000-07:00

Dahlkvist String Quartet performing live at Flaine Concert Hall in Flaine, France at a concert given by Musique à Flaine under supervision of Quatuor Ysaÿe. This is the second movement (Largo) of Haydn's String Quartet, op. 76/no.5.

Smoking Gun on CIA Torture Conspiracy? Human Experimentation Central to EIT Program

2009-09-29T02:44:00.000-07:00

Originally posted at Firedoglake and The Public Record

A close reading of the CIA's Inspector General Report and the Senate Intelligence Committee's narrative on the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) torture memos reveals a more detailed picture of the CIA's involvement in the construction of the OLC memos. What emerges is consistent with recent charges of CIA experimentation on prisoners, and of the overall experimental quality of the torture program itself. It also points to a crucial piece of "analysis" by the CIA's Office of Technical Services, a memo which may or may not include damning medical and psychological evidence of the damaging effects of SERE techniques, and which the IG report maintains was utilized "in substantial part" in the drafting of the August 1, 2002 Bybee memos. If one is looking for a smoking gun in the torture scandal, in my opinion, one doesn't have to look much further than this.

The quote below is from the April 22, 2009 Senate Intelligence Committee narrative of the Office of Legal Counsel's opinions on the CIA's interrogation program. Please keep in mind as you read the quote and the added bolded emphasis, that recent documentation has shown that for years the CIA and Special Operations had researchers studying the effects of SERE training. Moreover, the research had been published in peer-reviewed journals, in part because the research was also meant to add to the psychiatric community's understanding of the mechanisms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Some of the research had also been published in the June 2000 edition of Special Warfare, "The Professional Bulletin of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School."

So, keeping this all in mind, consider the following from the Intel Committee's narrative (emphasis added):

According to CIA records, because the CIA believed that Abu Zubaydah was withholding imminent threat information during the initial interrogation sessions, attorneys from the CIA’s Office of General Counsel met with the Attorney General, the National Security Adviser, the Deputy National Security adviser, the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council, and the Counsel to the President in mid-May 2002 to discuss the possible use of alternative interrogation methods that differed from the traditional methods used by the U.S. military and intelligence community. At this meeting, the CIA proposed particular alternative interrogation methods, including waterboarding.
The CIA’s Office of General Counsel subsequently asked OLC to prepare an opinion about the legality of its proposed techniques. To enable OLC to review the legality of the techniques, the CIA provided OLC with written and oral descriptions of the proposed techniques. The CIA also provided OLC with information about any medical and psychological effects of DoD’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) School, which is a military training program during which military personnel receive counter-interrogation training.

While the fact that the OLC accepted at face value the CIA's statements regarding the safety or the effects of the interrogation procedures they were proposing is no surprise to anyone who has read the torture memos -- and evidence of the unprofessionalism and bias of the memo's authors -- the degree to which the conspiracy (by CIA or OLC, or both) to withhold evidence of the real effects of the "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" (EITs) by the CIA has never been made more concrete than now.

To my knowledge, we do not have the specific document wherein the CIA provides the "medical and psychological effects" of SERE school. I have been told that this document is still classified. But it seems possible that the CIA did pass on the details of the research that was available to it, including the debilitating effects of SERE techniques, which sent stress hormone levels, according to one research report, "some of the greatest ever documented in humans." Another report cited "neuroendocrine changes... [that] may have significant implications for subsequent responses to stress."

One of the authors of these reports, Charles A. Morgan, III, M.D., who has identified himself in certain settings as a "Senior Research Scientist" on the CIA's Behavioral Science Staff, has criticized my coverage of CIA experiments on the psychological and physiological effects of SERE training upon human subjects. While he could not specify what aspects of this coverage he felt were "inaccurate and misleading," he did insist:

The research conducted by our research team at the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not, and never has been, conducted for any other purpose than to help us understand the pathophysiology of stress disorders and we might better help in the treatment of veterans.

In making his mea culpa, Dr. Morgan never mentions that some of this research was funded (over $400,000) by the Army and the Office of Naval Research. He doesn't mention his acquaintance with "great people who do military interrogations." He also forgets to cite his book contribution, where he states (emphasis added):

The SERE training environment affords the military services the opportunity to collaborate with various other government agencies in exploring old and new techniques in gathering human intelligence.

Of course, he neither confirms nor denies his affiliation with the CIA, an affiliation which I have traced to the CIA's Science and Technology directorate, through his association (large PDF) with the Intelligence Technology Innovation Center, which is "a research organization under the CIA's authority" that "answers directly to the CIA's Science and Technology directorate."

But most of all, Dr. Morgan's arrows fall way short of his target, as I have never accused him of personal involvement in the reverse-engineering of SERE techniques for use in the torture program. What is disturbing is his seeming lack of concern over the possiblity that the research he helped conduct was either used to further experiments upon torture victims in the CIA's clandestine prisons, or contrariwise, was withheld from Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who relied upon CIA advice concerning the effects of techniques derived from the SERE schools.

What is indisputable is that by virtue of his position, Dr. Morgan had access to CIA officials just at the time that another department of the CIA, one to which he is affiliated, was, according to the CIA's own Office of Inspector General Report (large PDF) involved in vetting the SERE techniques for use in interrogations. The other department was the Office of Technical Services (OTS), part of the CIA's Science and Technology Directorate. This, by the way, is the same division that was responsible for the MKULTRA experiments of the 1950s and 1960s. From the OIG report:

...CTC [CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center], with the assistance of the Office of Technical Service (OTS), proposed certain more coercive physical techniques to use on Abu Zubaydah....
CIA's OTS obtained data on the use of the proposed EITs and their potential long-term psychological effects on detainees. OTS input was based in part on information solicited from a number of psychologists and knowledgeable academics in the area of psychopathology....
OTS also solicited input from DoD/Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) regarding techniques used in its SERE training and any subsequent psychological effects on students. DoD/JPRA concluded no long-term psychological effects resulted from use of the EITs, including the most taxing technique, the waterboard, on SERE students. The OTS analysis was used by OGC [DoD's Office of General Counsel] in evaluating the legality of techniques.

OTS's solicitation of information on SERE from JPRA elicited some sort of feedback from JPRA, which supposedly told OTS that SERE training caused no long-term effects. The IG Report does not say if this was in the form of a memo and only speaks of OTS's analysis. In any case, we should not confuse any OTS "analysis" with the information provided by JPRA itself to the Office of General Counsel, which produced a number of memorandum and attachments in late July 2003. Marcy Wheeler has been analyzing the timing of these JPRA items, including the fact that one of these key documents is missing.

The CIA IG Report is relating a story whose emphasis differs from that produced in the narrative of the Senate Armed Services Committee investigation (PDF) into SERE torture. In the latter, JPRA is the main culprit in providing cover for the supposed safety of using SERE techniques. Yet, in the OIG account it looks like the CIA used DOD/JRRA as a cover for the safety of techniques that it knew were in fact harmful from their own analysis of the "data." Moreover, it was the OTS analysis that was used -- "in substantial part" -- as the basis of the August 1, 2002 memo approving the "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" (EITs).

That legal opinion was based, in substantial part, on OTS analysis and the experience and expertise of non-Agency personnel and academics concerning whether long-term psychological effects would result from use of the proposed techniques.

Moreover, the CIA's Office of Medical Services was frozen out of "the initial analysis of the risk and benefits of EITs," and not even provided with a copy of the OTS report given to the White House Office of Legal Counsel. Such compartmentalization of information is indicative of a covert operation, such as a Special Access Program (SAP). This SAP would have included personnel in CIA's CTC, OTS, OGC, and Directorate of Operations, also portions of DOD (JPRA and Special Operations Command), and probably the White House's OLC, Office of the Vice President, and National Security Council.

It seems highly likely that the CIA report to the OLC on the medical and psychological effects of the SERE school program, mentioned in the Senate Intelligence Committee narrative quote above, is in fact the OTS report, which came from the same CIA directorate to which Dr. Morgan belongs. This does not speak to Morgan's foreknowledge of what would be used, nor to the amount of his involvement. But it does speak to the likelihood that the government research he conducted (with others) was available and likely used by his associates in the CIA.

To what purpose was this information used? It seems Dr. Morgan has serendipitously given us the answer himself: "exploring old and new techniques in gathering human intelligence." The CIA appears to have used torture to conduct what Physicians for Human Rights, in a "white paper" (PDF) recently published, called "possible unethical human experimentation, [which] urgently needs to be thoroughly investigated." The government should declassify the OTS report, and bring the process of investigating the CIA's role in the torture conspiracy fully into public purview.

Police State Tactics at Pittsburgh G20 Protests

2009-09-28T21:56:00.000-07:00

Essential reporting from Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! Apparently, the use of sound cannon is the first reported usage in the United States.

Nearly 200 Arrested as Police Unleash Tear Gas, Sound Cannons at G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh

As leaders of the world’s richest nations gathered in Pittsburgh for the G-20 summit, thousands took to the streets in protest amidst a heavy police crackdown. Heavily armed riot police were out in force and used tear gas, stun grenades, smoke canisters and sound cannons, which direct extremely loud shrill sounds. Democracy Now! producer Steve Martinez files a report from the streets of Pittsburgh.

Watch the whole video report at Democracy Now!

Physicians for Human Rights report on CIA IG review

2009-09-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

Washington Director, John Bradshaw, was recently interviewed by PressTV about PHR’s new report, Aiding Torture: Health Professionals’ Ethics and Human Rights Violations Demonstrated in the May 2004 CIA Inspector General’s Report.

PHR link, if you cannot see this video.

A team of PHR doctors authored the white paper, which details how the CIA relied on medical expertise to rationalize and carry out abusive and unlawful interrogations. It also refers to aggregate collection of data on detainees’ reaction to interrogation methods. Physicians for Human Rights is concerned that this data collection and analysis may amount to human experimentation and calls for more investigation on this point. If confirmed, the development of a research protocol to assess and refine the use of the waterboard or other techniques would likely constitute a new, previously unknown category of ethical violations committed by CIA physicians and psychologists.

H/T (once again) to Ulana Odezynsky

Former Intelligence Officers Protest CIA Directors' Attempt to Spike Torture Prosecutions

2009-09-28T16:46:00.000-07:00

This was posted at consortiumnews.com today (H/T Ulana Odezynsky). Hatred for George Tenet is quite extensive in the intelligence community, and as you read the text below, you will see why. It's my belief the CIA has a portion within its covert operations and science and technology directorates whose hands are not as clean over the years as VIPS might like to think, or portray.

Be that as it may, this open warfare within the intelligence agencies is a significant event within the intelligence community, and the VIPS statement deserves wide circulation.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Accountability for Torture

We write you, Mr. President, as former intelligence professionals to voice strong support for Attorney General Eric Holder’s authorization of a wider investigation into CIA interrogation. We respectfully disagree with the direct appeal to you by seven former CIA directors to quash that wider investigation.

The signatories of this Memorandum are former intelligence officers and analysts who have worked with CIA directors going back as far as Allen Dulles. Our cumulative experience totals more than 200 years.

We are encouraged by your own support for Attorney General Holder’s decision to have federal prosecutor John Durham investigate possible criminal activity by individuals engaging in torture and other violations of international agreements on the treatment of detainees.

From our own experience in intelligence, both as field operators and as senior analysts, we know that personal accountability is vital to maintaining an effective intelligence service that reflects our best traditions and the rule of law.

Among the former CIA directors who, by letter of September 18, asked you to “reverse” the attorney general’s decision are some who were cognizant of and involved in decisions that led to the abuses in question. We find that troubling.

Clearly, the role of CIA directors in issuing orders that led to inappropriate behavior, and their failure to hold officers accountable, helped create the environment in which abuses occurred — the ones detailed in the Special Review of the CIA Inspector General, for example.

No analytical leap is required to conclude that those particular CIA directors might have understandable interest in blocking investigation of their own complicity. They include, first and foremost, George Tenet — many of whose misdeeds are already a matter of public record. To mention just a few:

—Tenet was the chief enabler of torture. He also oversaw widespread kidnapping (“extraordinary rendition”), which in some cases led to torture.

—Our sources tell us that Tenet knew about the overstepping of the guidelines approved by the lawyers and that he knew the people doing it. Rather than restrain them, he pushed them still harder, in an attempt to please his masters.

We strongly believe that investigations of possible wrongdoing cannot, in all fairness, be limited to the proverbial “bad apples at the bottom of the barrel.” Rather, in our view, such investigations must be allowed to go wherever the evidence leads.

The inquiry last year by the Senate Armed Services Committee provides a good model for doing precisely that. The main conclusion of the committee’s “Inquiry Into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody,” approved last fall without dissent, was captured in its first subhead: “Presidential Order Opens the Door to Considering Aggressive Techniques.”

The Hollywood version of the CIA portrays amoral spies willing to do anything without regard to ethics or human rights. Our own long experience persuades us that the intelligence community has an abundance of men and women of outstanding character, who are committed to the rule of law, and whose primary desire is to serve the nation and protect the American people.

However much former CIA directors and other people at risk might wish to derail an investigation into possible war crimes, we believe the moral standing of our nation requires that we apply the same standards to offenses by U.S. officials as we would to accusations of war crimes by those in other countries.

For all these reasons, we strongly endorse efforts by the Department of Justice to investigate allegations of torture and human rights abuses by any Americans — CIA officers and contractors included.

Please regard this Memorandum as follow up to the more extensive comments on torture in the VIPS review prepared for you in late April. A copy of that Memorandum was eventually posted at Consortiumnews.com (see http://tinyurl.com/cvvr2x).

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Steering Group

Ray Close, National Clandestine Service (CIA), Princeton, NJ
Phil Giraldi, National Clandestine Service (CIA), Purcellville, VA
Melvin A. Goodman, US Army, CIA, Dept. of State, Dept. of Defense, Bethesda, MD
Larry Johnson, CIA & Department of State, Bethesda, MD
Pat Lang, US Army (Special Forces), DIA, Alexandria, VA
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council, Linden, VA
Tom Maertens, Department of State, Mankato, MN
Ray McGovern, US Army, CIA, Arlington, VA
Sam Provance, US Army (Abu Ghraib), Greenville, SC
Coleen Rowley, FBI, Apple Valley, MN
Greg Thielmann, Dept. of State, Sen. Intelligence Committee Staff, Arlington, VA
Ann Wright, US Army, Department of State, Honolulu, HI

Here is a PDF of the letter from the CIA directors to President Barack Obama, H/T Opinio Juris.

CIA/SERE Experiments Evidence of Attempt to Mislead on OLC Torture Memos

2009-09-27T00:06:00.000-07:00

Originally posted at Firedoglake

Professor Shane O’Mara at Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience in Dublin has written an article which has caught the attention of the mainstream media. Pamela Hess at Associated Press described Prof. O'Mara's article,"Torturing the Brain: On the folk psychology and folk neurobiology motivating ‘enhanced and coercive interrogation techniques’" (PDF), as showing that the CIA's "severe interrogation techniques appear based on... a layman's idea of how the brain works as opposed to science-based understanding of memory and cognitive function." (Bmaz also reported on this.)

What neither Ms. Hess nor Professor O'Mara apparently realized is that in conducting his research for his review on how the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" caused debilitating damage to the brain and nervous system -- producing confabulation more readily than information -- one of the scientific papers O'Mara relied upon was itself produced by a CIA researcher. Such close participation between CIA and military researchers and the world of stress research adds a sinister dimension to the production of the OLC memos, which Professor O'Mara otherwise believes were based on naive "folk" beliefs and a faulty neuropsychobiological model.

But this is not the case. The CIA was well-aware of the type of research he cites -- because it was a major contributor to such research!

In an article posted at The Public Record last week, CIA Experiments on US Soldiers Linked to Torture Program (later picked up by Truthout), I showed how a Yale psychiatrist, and researcher for the National Center for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, had received hundreds of thousands of dollars to do research on the psychological and physiological effects of stress produced by SERE techniques. The researcher, Charles A. Morgan, III, has identified himself, in certain settings, as a CIA behavioral scientist.

(SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, and is the name for the military survival schools that provide select members of the armed forces with "stress inoculation" training by subjecting them to a reduced amount of torture and captivity. The CIA's EITs were famously reverse-engineered by SERE psychologists from the techniques utilized during SERE training.)

In the AP article, Hess writes, "A 2006 Intelligence Science Board report on interrogation also noted possible negative effects of certain methods." But Hess doesn't mention, nor does she likely know, that one of the primary members on the ISB board that produced the report was the same Dr. Morgan.

... in the Information Science Board (ISB) document, Educing Information [PDF] — which was heavily drawn upon by President Obama’s task force on interrogations, for recommendations on the interrogations issue — Dr. Morgan is identified as a member of the 11-person “Government Experts Committee,” and listed as affiliated with the Intelligence Technology Innovation Center (ITIC). According to Intelligence Online, ITIC is “a research organization under the CIA’s authority,” which “answers directly to the CIA’s Science and Technology directorate.”

Research on SERE Techniques and the OLC Memos

The "CIA Experiments" article described some of the research Dr. Morgan and his associates have conducted using SERE trainees, many of them Special Forces personnel. (Professor O'Hara cites one of Morgan's articles himself -- see footnote 9 to his paper.) In a June 2000 article, “Assessment of Humans Experiencing Uncontrollable Stress: The SERE Course,” in Special Warfare (PDF), Morgan and his Special Operations psychologist co-author cite "recorded changes in cortisol levels" among individuals subjected to SERE techniques as "some of the greatest ever documented in humans." As Professor O'Mara notes in his own essay, a "substantial increase in cortisol levels has a deleterious effect on memory." The same article described testosterone levels falling in male subjects to below castration levels.

Another article by Morgan and his team looked at dissociative psychological effects of SERE techniques upon human subjects. (Dissociation produces symptoms such as depersonalization, derealization, psychic or emotional numbing, and general cognitive confusion.)

RESULTS: In study 1, 96% of subjects reported dissociative symptoms in response to acute stress. Total scores, as well as individual item scores, on the dissociation scale were significantly lower in Special Forces soldiers compared to general infantry troops. In study 2, 42% of subjects reported dissociative symptoms before stress and 96% reported them after acute stress.

Professor O'Mara's essay is an excellent brief review of the relevant literature on stress, as it pertains to the kinds of torture conducted by the CIA, and its effects upon memory, and the presumed ability to produce accurate information. It easily deserves wide dissemination. But evidence of CIA participation in the very research that was suppressed in the OLC memos shows that the conclusions drawn in the torture memos were not simply due to "bad faith" lawyering. As I wrote in my original article:

The frenzied search for data on waterboarding, sleep deprivation, isolation, confinement in a small box, etc., to submit to OLC attorneys making legal determinations on whether proposed interrogation techniques constituted torture, was a kabuki organized by the CIA. The OLC attorneys involved — John Yoo, Stephen Bradbury, Jay Bybee, and others — were witting or unwitting partners in suppression of CIA research on torture (as future investigations will disclose). Given the participation of members of the Office of the Vice President, particularly David Addington and Vice President Cheney himself, in the promulgation of the torture program, and the composition of the memos, it seems likely they were also involved in the suppression of this material. As a result, the memos produced authorizing the “enhanced interrogation techniques” were composed as the result of fraud and bad faith, the result of a criminal conspiracy to implement illegal torture techniques.

In this earlier article, I had taken Dr. Morgan at his word, as reported in a 2007 New York Times article, that he was incredulous at how SERE techniques could have migrated over to the torture program. But, as I recently discovered (H/T to fellow psychologist Brad Olson), the CIA scientist had a different take on the uses of SERE research in an essay in the 2006 book, Military Psychology, Clinical and Operational Applications (p. 252):

The SERE platform offers a unique opportunity to evaluate old and new assessment techniques under conditions that are more realistic than traditional laboratories....
The SERE training environment affords the military services the opportunity to collaborate with various other government agencies in exploring old and new techniques in gathering human intelligence.

The O'Mara essay and AP article appear only a few weeks after Physicians for Human Rights released a "white paper" highlighting evidence of illegal human experimentation on U.S.-held “terrorism” prisoners undergoing torture. The allegations of torture experimentation are consistent with reports of CIA experimentation upon Abu Zubaydah, and of the Pentagon running an interrogation "Battle Lab" at Guantanamo. In his book, Oath Betrayed: America’s Torture Doctors, bioethicist Steven Miles calls Mohammed al-Khatani’s interrogation an experiment: “The peculiar content and structure of this document makes sense if it is the log of research on coercive interrogation....” (p. 176).

Experimentation upon subjects to further "scientific" understanding of the effects of torture is also not new. In the 1950s, the CIA and Pentagon funded top psychologists and psychiatrists in research upon the effects of SERE training. These researchers established a protocol for psychological torture, based on torture tactics that induced "debility, dependency, and dread." (See West LJ., Medical and psychiatric considerations in survival training. In: Report of the Special Study Group on Survival Training (AFR 190 16). Lackland Air Force Base, Tex: Air Force Personnel and Training Research Centers; 1956.) This protocol was later incorporated into an early 1960s CIA (KUBARK) interrogation manual.

It is not enough to understand what research the Office of Legal Counsel attorneys failed to include in their infamous torture memos. One must understand why this research was not included, and who was involved in that. The evidence points to a deliberate attempt to implement and then hide a torture program, whose very basis for existence may have been, in part, to study the effects of torture upon involuntary subjects, in order to implement (or hide) an updated protocol for coercive interrogation. Only a full, wide-ranging, and open investigation -- including not only politicians, academics, lawyers, and blue-ribbon, distinguished experts, but representatives of human rights organizations, church and labor leaders, and other important societal participants -- will, given full subpoena power, be able to get to the bottom of this sinister program that seized hold of the governmental apparatus, and steered it towards brutality and a catastrophic breakdown of law.

"For the Record"

Dr. Morgan has left a comment about the original article at The Public Record. In it, he criticizes the story as "inaccurate and misleading." He offers no examples of the purported inaccuracies, but does state:

The research conducted by our research team at the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not, and never has been, conducted for any other purpose than to help us understand the pathophysiology of stress disorders and we might better help in the treatment of veterans. Our research on PTSD and our studies of stress in healthy soldiers began in the 1990s – long before 2001 and the Bush Administration’s policies. We will continue to investigate how we might better help individuals who suffer from trauma related disorders.

I will answer Dr. Morgan's comment at greater length in the very near future, but suffice it to say that nothing said in my articles, including this one, was untrue or misrepresented the facts. I take Dr. Morgan's statement as a denial that his research for the National Center for PTSD was meant for purposes of conducting torture.

Law & Order TV Series Highlights Torture Scandal

2009-09-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's episode of NBC's Law and Order, “Memo From The Dark Side”, which looked at the controversies surrounding torture and the legal shenanigans of government attorneys to allow it under the Bush administration, was by all accounts very well-researched, and quite dramatically effective. Here's a video clip from YouTube, entitled "John Yoo ripped from the headlines - Good Faith and the Ticking Time
Bomb":

The Memo from the Dark Side episode repeats on NBC, Saturday, September 26, at 8:00pm Eastern Time. The episode also is available, I'm told, on I-Tunes for $2.99.

Marcy Wheeler has a nice post about the Law & Order episode over at Emptywheel/FDL.

In Time for G20, CCR Re-Issues Its Pamphlet, "If an Agent Knocks"

2009-09-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

Just in time for the G20 summit meeting in Pittsburgh, Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has issued a new edition of its 1989 pamphlet, If an Agent Knocks (PDF).

Bill Quigley, legal director at CCR, describes in an article at Alternet the circumstances surrounding the G20 summit and accompanying protests:

The recent decision of Federal Judge Gary Lancaster in Pittsburgh allowing protests at the upcoming G20 summit is an important one because, since 9/11, protesting against the government has become quite a bit harder.

Six peace and justice groups sued local state and federal government officials over severe restrictions on protesting at the gathering this month of the industrialized world's leading Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors -- precisely the sort of public event that free speech rights were designed for. The case, brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Pennsylvania ACLU, resulted in the government giving more permits to protest and the court allowing a tent city protest.

.... government has poured billions into law enforcement with the result that their response to protests are in many cases no longer civil law enforcement but now quasi-military, a chance to both show off their new toys, and an opportunity for security forces to practice their mass response actions.... federal forces have taken over the leadership for security at any large protest so that local and state law enforcement have less and less to say in how the event is managed.

Additionally, local and state law enforcement forces have been given billions of extra dollars to fight terrorism. Hundreds of millions of these dollars have gone into special riot control and high tech security equipment. This means all police departments have lots of extra headgear, shin guards, shields, batons, pepper spray, tasers, bigger weapons and communication equipment. Most big city police departments have new armored vehicles and helicopters to fight terror. Every big police department has an anti-terrorism squad now. At big protests it is now common to see local police dressed up like and acting like military commandos. This militarization of law enforcement clearly inhibits the free exercise of the First Amendment right to protest.

As an email announcement for the re-release of If An Agent Knocks (PDF) explained:

Right now, thousands of activists who have gathered in Pittsburgh to protest at the G20 summit have been met with what we have come to expect: overreaction by authorities and illegal preventive tactics by law enforcement officials at all levels. A secret communications hub with "electronic eyes" has been established by the Secret Service, working with over 40 other agencies to infiltrate, spy on, and disrupt all forms of opposition. Raids and arrests are mounting, and the aggressive and well-planned system of cracking down on dissenting voices and reducing media coverage is strongly in effect.

CCR has responded to the increasing threat to dissent in a number of ways. For months now a CCR board member and cooperating attorney, Jules Lobel, has worked with on the ground organizations to secure permits and challenge restrictions to protests. Last week, in collaboration with the ACLU, he successfully represented several organizations in court and secured the right to demonstrate in a city park during the G20 gathering. And in a filing on Monday, we charged the local police with illegal searches, vehicle seizures, raids and detentions of Seeds of Peace members aimed at preventing them from providing food to protestors. CCR's legal director, Bill Quigley, is in Pittsburgh advocating on behalf of the protestors, and CCR will continue its support....

Since its original release in 1989, CCR's "If an Agent Knocks" [PDF] has been widely circulated in progressive activist communities across the country. This guide includes both the timeless advice included in the original version and extensive updates to reflect the current state of the law and law enforcement tools. It also includes a comprehensive discussion of today's technology, including cell phones, e-mail and Web browsing.

"If An Agent Knocks" is an invaluable tool for activists in a time when efforts to repress expressions of opposition are intensified. We want to get this publication into as many hands as possible. To obtain a free copy, please email iaak@ccrjustice.org. You can also download it in pdf form. Tell your friends and fellow activists about "If An Agent Knocks," and urge them to place an order too.

New "State Secrets" Policy? More Lipstick on the National Security Pig

2009-09-24T00:11:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reports:

The Justice Department is preparing to impose new limits on the government assertion of the state secrets privilege used to block lawsuits for national security reasons. The practice was a major flashpoint in the debate over the escalation of executive power and secrecy during the Bush administration.

But the Obama administration believes it's enough now that any claim of "state secrets" privilege by the executive branch be reviewed now by the Attorney General. The ACLU notes with some derision that "on paper" there is some purported progress, while Marcy Wheeler at FDL reports that Center for Constitutional Rights is calling the proposed policy "smoke and mirrors." Ben Wizner at the ACLU had more to say (emphasis added):

In recent years, we have seen the executive branch engage in grave human rights violations, declare those activities 'state secrets,' and thus avoid any judicial oversight or accountability. It is critical that the courts play a meaningful role in deciding whether victims of human rights abuse will have an opportunity to seek justice. Real reform of the state secrets privilege must affirm the power of the courts to reject false claims of 'national security.

Writing also at FDL, bmaz sees the timing of the "new" policy as related to government attempts to bury the evidence of government misdeeds in the wiretapping al-Haramain case:

The al-Haramain case is a perfect storm of problems for the government, there is warrantless wiretapping, the surveillance invaded an attorney-client relationship, there is known proof in the form of the sealed surveillance log under the protective custody of the court, and at least some of the surveillance is known to have occurred during the period after the infamous "John Ashcroft hospital scene"....

Tack in the distinct possibility that the government made material misrepresentations about their data mining and warrantless surveillance to the FISA Court and that illegally information thusly obtained inappropriately made its way into the affidavit for the search warrant executed on the al-Haramain Foundation in Oregon, and you see the veritable cornucopia of problems the government could be so determined to stop inquiry into in the al-Haramain litigation before Judge Walker....

There is a lot the government has to hide in al-Haramain, and they are desperate to do just that. It would be a perfect time to whip out a ruse in the form of a "new state secrets policy". Even if there is nothing at all new about it.

The spanking new proposed policy only raised spitting disgust from civil liberties legal blogger Glenn Greenwald:

...the so-called "new state secrets policy" which the Obama DOJ is set to unveil is such a self-evident farce -- such an obvious replica of all the abuses that characterized the Bush/Cheney use of that privilege which Obama himself has spent the last eight months embracing -- that I couldn't even bring myself to write about it. It would not have altered a single one of the controversial uses and is a complete non-sequitur to the objections raised to its abuses (including, once upon a time, by Obama himself).

For those who haven't gotten the picture yet, let me draw it as simply as possible: when it come to defending U.S. military and national security interests, there's not a cent's worth of difference between the Bush/Cheney and Obama/Biden administrations. Those waiting for the confirmation of Dawn Johnson to change things might as well be waiting for the Second Coming (or the Messiah, if you're Jewish).

And as an aside -- and switching topic somewhat -- those waiting for the Congressional bill to slap down Acorn as somehow being used in some sort of progressive jujitsu to bring down the entire military-industrial complex (see the Greenwald link above), let's not waste our time with such utopian fantasies. Some poor naive activists might believe it, and only demoralization results from pursuing such pipe dreams. The MIC will not be brought down by a trick.

Meanwhile, for readers pursuing other items of interest, this appears promising:

In an interview with former CIA officer Phillip Giraldi, FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds named Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle as having been wiretapped and recorded discussing plans with the Turkish ambassador in the Summer of 2001 to invade Iraq and occupy the Kurdish region bordering Turkey.

"Psychologist accused of war crimes opposes torture investigations"

2009-09-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

In the onrush of events and the constraints of my time, I sometimes miss impmortant stories that I feel need to be posted and promoted. This is one of them, and it remains timely and newsworthy, though originally posted by Stephen Soldz about ten days ago. It concerns Colonel Larry James, one of the major psychologist apologists for U.S. policy on interroations, and as Dr. Soldz and others point out -- and is described in the story below -- has himself been associated with some of the worst torture sites in the U.S. "war on terror."

Psychologist accused of war crimes opposes torture investigations

As a conflict has arisen as to whether the nation should seek accountability for torture and other human rights abuses during the so-called “War on Terror,” the public and media have largely ignored the spectacle of those, like Richard Cheney and John Yoo, who are likely targets of human rights abuse investigations. Potential investigations are denounced as political attacks that will gravely damage the country’s security. The media have largely ignored the self-serving nature of these denunciations.
The latest human rights abuse target to join the anti-accountability chorus is former Guantanamo intelligence psychologist Col. Larry James (retired), about whom questions have been raised regarding unethical or even illegal participation in war crimes. In a press release from Wright State University, where he is now Dean of the School of Professional Psychology, James –– has come out against Attorney General Holder’s limited criminal investigation of CIA torture :
“To reopen cases that were adjudicated as legal may be harmful to the mission and morale of the intelligence community,” said Col. (Ret.) Larry James, now the Dean of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University. “That said, I agree with President Obama’s statement several months ago to ‘turn the page’ and move on with regard to the interrogation of detainees of the Global War on Terrorism.
James said the outcome of appointing the special prosecutor could have negative repercussions on the intelligence-gathering function.
“Being an interrogator is a stressful, challenging and dangerous job,” he said. “If there is new evidence that suggests crimes have been committed, then it would make sense to move forward with an investigation. However, since at the time of the interrogations they were deemed legal and acceptable by that sitting administration, I do not believe the investigation is warranted or necessary. I advise the president to be supportive of our current mission and be very careful as he moves forward in this sensitive area.”
James has previously made clear his belief that intelligence professionals should close their eyes to possible abuses outside of their immediate sphere of action. Thus, when asked by an Associated Press reporter to comment on reports of a secret Camp 7 at Guantanamo, James replied:
“I learned a long, long time ago, if I’m going to be successful in the intel community, I’m meticulously _ in a very, very dedicated way _ going to stay in my lane…. So if I don’t have a specific need to know about something, I don’t want to know about it. I don’t ask about it.”
Like so many others arguing against torture investigations, James may have reason to desire a shut down of torture inquiries. Last month, the Canadian Centre for International Justice and the Center for Constitutional Rights appealed to the Canadian government for a criminal investigation of James for potential involvement in war crimes:
“Allegations of abuse during Dr. James’ January to May 2003deployment include beatings, religious and sexual humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions. Canadian citizen Omar Khadr is one of the prisoners who has alleged brutal treatment in the spring of 2003 when he was only 16 years old.
“Based on this information, the CCIJ and CCR called on the Canadian government to investigate whether action should be taken against Dr. James or other attendees of the APA Convention who may have been involved in abuse of detainees.”
The two human rights organizations outlined the evidence justifying a criminal investigation in a background
document they presented to the Canadian government. At that time, James was in Toronto for the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association [APA], where he became President of the APA Division of Military Psychology Among the serious concerns regarding James’s behavior warranting investigation are that he consulted to interrogators at Guantanamo while isolation was part of the standard operating procedure to make new detainees dependent on their interrogators.
James, however, has repeatedly claimed credit for ending all abuses at Guantanamo, and later, at Abu Ghraib. Thus, his sanitized memoir detailing these claims is entitled Fixing Hell. Similarly, James told a task force convened by the American Psychological Association in 2005 that he and other psychologists ended abuses at detention facilities:
“I am very proud of the fact, it was psychologists who fixed the problems and not caused it. This is a factual statement! the fact of the matter is that since Jan 2003, where ever we have had psychologists no abuses have been reported.” [Emphasis in original.]
James has an idiosyncratic definition of “abuse.” He claims at times never to have witnessed abuses at Guantanamo, where he was deployed as a member of the Chief Psychologist of the Joint Intelligence Group and BSCT #1 [Behavioral Science Consultation Team] in 2003 and 2007:
“When I walk through the camps, I can’t tell you that I have stumbled across a lot of things that are wrong. During my time here, I am proud to say that I have not seen a guard or interrogator abuse anyone in any shape or form,” said James. “These young men and women go out of their way well beyond the call of duty to make sure that detainees are treated safely and humanely at all times.”
James’s account, of course, differs from that of every independent source that has examined Guantanamo and found persistent abuses continuing up to the present. [Even in his own account of his deployment at Guantanamo in his self-justifying "memoir," James reports witnessing several instances of abuse - abuses which, however, he apparently failed to report to his commanders.]
In his memoir James claims to have had special responsibility for juveniles detained at Guantanamo. Yet, during his deployment there, young Mohammed Jawad [evidently between 12 and 16 when incarcerated there] was subjected to the mandatory four weeks isolation upon his arrival in February 2003. Later that year Jawad was subjected to further isolation and other abuse on the recommendation of a BSCT psychologist; James declined to condemn this abuse to a Newsweek reporter, implying that there were extenuating circumstances.
Later, in May 2004, Jawad was also subjected to extended sleep deprivation in the so-called “frequent flyer program” in which, in the words of his military JAG attorney:
“Mohammad Jawad’s arms and legs were … shackled in preparation for the first of 112 moves up and down the hall of L Block, every 3 hours for the next 14 days.”
Also while James was deployed at Guantanamo, adolescent Omar Khadr reported being used as a human mop “because he had urinated on himself during a bout of shackled isolation.” The claim was investigated by the military, which has refused to release any information regarding the investigation. Records released by the Canadian government show that Khadr, like Jawad, was subjected to the “frequent flyer” sleep deprivation program in 2004. Despite his professed concern for the decent treatment of juvenile detainees, other than his Newsweek comment, James nowhere describes his relationship to the Jawad or Khadr cases or comments on the documented abuse these young boys suffered at Guantanamo during and after his deployment.
Does James believe that no investigation of his actions at Guantanamo is warranted as his actions there “were deemed legal and acceptable by that sitting administration”? In other words, was he just following orders?
Due to the secrecy surrounding Guantanamo, we do not know James’s actual conduct at Guantanamo. With his call to stop investigations of detainee abuses, James seems to desire that we never know. If he is innocent of participation in abuses, only an investigation will clear his name. If, however, he did participate in abuses, no defense that “at the time of the interrogations they were deemed legal and acceptable by that sitting administration” should be allowed to obscure the truth, and no claims of damage to the morale of the intelligence community should be allowed to impede an investigation and appropriate criminal and/or professional penalties.
Only the full truth can allow the abused detainees, the nation, and the profession of psychology, to “turn the page and move on.” In the absence of the truth we will be forever looking over our shoulders, wondering just who did what and what did happen during this sorry chapter in our nation’s recent history

Air Force Doctor Gets Medal for Serving on Rendition Torture Flights

2009-09-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

Originally posted at Firedoglake

Maxwell-Gunther Dispatch.com, the web news site for personnel and interested partisans of Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, reported on September 17 that Col. (Dr.) James W. Walter has been awarded the Air Medal "for his meritorious service on delicate assignments providing medical care to enemy detainees."

From January 2007 to 2009 as the senior detainee movement flight surgeon, he provided 106 combat hours of support to the 14 Joint Task Force Detainee Movement Operations missions in the C-17A. His service included travel into 15 different countries, some of them in an active enemy fire zone.

The article goes into great detail about "self-professed military brat" Walter's career as a NASA space shuttle launch and recovery physician, and says nothing more about the service for which he was awarded a medal. That's because the military's rendition program is highly secret. Stephen Grey in his 2006 book, Ghost Plane, noted the existence of the military's rendition program, and proclaimed it was larger than the CIA's. But Grey's research concentrated on the CIA's program. The Pentagon's rendition program received its first major outing in the pages of the New York Times only in August 2008:

WASHINGTON - The United States military has secretly handed over more than 200 militants to the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other countries, nearly all in the past two years, as part of an effort to reduce the burden of detaining and interrogating foreign fighters captured in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to American military officials.
The system is similar in some ways to the rendition program used by the Central Intelligence Agency since the Sept. 11 attacks to secretly transfer people suspected of being militants back to their home countries to be jailed and questioned.

And tortured? The United States supposedly seeks "assurances" that the prisoners will not be tortured when sent back to countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. An article by Eric Umansky at Pro Publica, published just after the Times expose, noted that though American officials insist they obtain guarantees that "detainees" will be treated "humanely," rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch, aren't so sure:

The growing weight of evidence and international expert opinion indicates that diplomatic assurances cannot protect people at risk of torture from such treatment on return. Sending countries that rely on such assurances are either engaging in wishful thinking or using the assurances as a fig leaf to cover their own complicity in torture. In either case, governments seeking diplomatic assurances against torture are in effect trying to circumvent their own obligations not to return people to face such treatment.
All the governments offering diplomatic assurances have long histories and continuing records of employing torture, a fact that most sending governments acknowledge....
In October 2002, the U.S. government transferred Maher Arar, a dual Canadian-Syrian citizen, from New York via Jordan to Syria based on diplomatic assurances of humane treatment. Arar was released in October 2003. An independent fact-finder appointed by an official Canadian Commission of Inquiry into Arar’s treatment concluded in October 2005 that Arar had been tortured in Syrian custody, despite Syrian assurances to the contrary and several visits from Canadian consular officials.

While Col. (Dr.) Walter is said to have orthopedic experience, it's most likely he was there to monitor and/or administer sedating drugs which numerous reports have indicated were administered to rendition victims. I suppose if a "detainee" needed some stitches after a beating, or even a bone set after an "incident," the good doctor would be there to make sure the prisoner arrived in good shape for his Saudi or Egyptian torturer. Of course, Saudi Arabia and Egypt were surely not the only destinations for rendition flights, as the Maxwell-Gunther article notes Walter's planes traveled to at least 15 different countries. It is worth noting here, by the way, that the Obama administration has refused to end the rendition program, though its officials offer the same bland assurances about prisoner safety as those of their GOP predecessors.

According to the New York Times article, once captured, the prisoners are first held in one of two Special Operations prisons, "in Balad, Iraq, and Bagram, Afghanistan, for up to two weeks," more if Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gives the high sign. They are imprisoned without notice to the International Red Cross, until they're ready for transfer. According to Steven Grey, no hearing takes place prior to their rendition back to a country that might torture them, as is required by international law. Perhaps that's because the prisoners supposedly "can block their transfers to home countries." As Pro Publica's Umansky laconically noted, "No word on what happens to the prisoners if they choose to exercise their apparent right to veto." Apparently, as of August 2008 over 200 prisoners had already been transferred to their home countries under the military's rendition program. (In 2006, Grey thought the number as high as 1,000.) But with all the attention on the CIA's rendition program, the Pentagon's version appears to have flown under the radar, news-wise.

Until Col. (Dr.) Walter got his medal. How ironic it comes only days after Physicians for Human Rights released a "white paper" on doctors aiding torture. Steven Miles, author of Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and America's War on Terror, has written: “The medical system collaborated with designing and implementing psychologically and physically coercive interrogations” in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. The participation of doctors in the rendition program, which has sent an untold number of prisoners back to the torture dungeons of some of the most brutal regimes on this planet, is both a crime and a violation of medical ethics of the highest sort.

It is a painful truth that actions that should be condemned and punished are instead, in 2009 America, awarded medals. And how did Col. (Dr.) Walter respond to his high honor?

"It's kind of neat to get a medal on the flying side rather than the medical side," said Colonel Walter. "My father would be proud."

Interview on Peter B Collins Show

2009-09-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was interviewed by well-known radio host Peter B Collins. He presented challenging questions and was well-prepared with thoughtful comments of his own. The interview lasted about 40 minutes and was wide-ranging over a number of topics related to torture. A good deal of the interview concerned my recent article on CIA research on SERE techniques and its relationship to the torture scandal.

You can listen to this interview via podcast.

Retreat into Ignorance: Darwin Picture Effectively Banned in America

2009-09-16T08:51:00.000-07:00

Lisa Derrick has a rundown over at La Figa on the recent news that domestic distributors are balking at bringing the Darwin biopic, Creation, to the United States. The film is said to depict the loss of faith in Christianity by Darwin, following upon the death of his 10-year-old daughter, Annie. As the trailer for the film shows up above (H/T Derrick), the film appears to portray many of the conflicts, personal and professional, that Darwin faced as he struggled with the idea of bringing his theory to the public. In the end he did... 20 years after he had first formed it.

Lisa notes that poll after poll shows that a majority of the American people do not believe in the theory of evolution. Darwin's theory is evolution through natural selection, but there are other theories of evolution. His theory became the core of the modern scientific understanding of evolution, which rests on many more facts than even Darwin had available to him at the time he wrote (genetic understandings and researches, radioactive dating processes, etc.). American ignorance and/or hostility to evolution is a reflection of the horrendous education system foisted upon the bulk of the population, and a turning away from truth and scientific curiosity, with a population addicted to trivia and mindless game playing -- all of which is promoted by a ruling elite that wants nothing more than a nation of sheep so their government can pursue unmolested an imperialistic foreign policy. To think in America is becoming a crime. Independent thought becomes labeled as deviancy.

An article in the UK Telegraph notes the failure of the film to find a U.S. distributor, which has not been a problem in the rest of the world. Right-wing, evangelical and fundamentalist Christian hostility is seen as the main obstacle.

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying"....

Creation was developed by BBC Films and the UK Film Council, and stars Bettany's real-life wife Jennifer Connelly as Darwin's deeply religious wife, Emma.

Where is the courage of the U.S. film community? Steven Spielberg, Harvey Weinstein, David Geffen, where are you on this? Big-name U.S. actor/director/producers, Sean Penn, Woody Allen, Robert DeNiro, etc., are you calling in your chips on this issue? What do you stand for? The failure to distribute this film amounts to a de facto banning of the film. It is an indictment of the entire U.S. film community, and the fault should not be laid at the feet of the distributors only (though they deserve the immediate blame).

I wrote a comment at the La Figa post, replying to a commenter who thought too much emphasis was being placed on Darwin himself: "he’s not some saint of science, he just figured out evolution. Let’s talk about Evolution, not Darwin."

Oddly enough, Darwin would agree with you. He hated the idea of biography, and was himself a shy, retiring man. Still, he knew he had become an icon by the end of his life. He also knew that the battle to win over adherents to his views would take a long time. He urged patience on his followers who wanted to to build a militant Athiest league (though he’d have them over for dinner).

The story of Annie is a heart-breaking one. Darwin nursed his daughter through a horrifying fatal illness, his wife, Emma, being laid up in the final stages of pregnancy. His daughter is buried in the Malvern Hills, a rare outcrop in western England from which one can look out over the flat countryside, towards the Cotswolds and beyond.

For years, Darwin and his wife could not bring themselves to visit the grave. When they finally did, during a particularly terrible health and emotional crisis fifteen years later, it helped the man break through his stifled grief, and give him strength to return to his work and writings post-Origin, as he was worn down with the defense of himself and his views.

No one knows for sure when Darwin lost his faith in the Anglican Church. It’s not clear how far he ever moved past agnosticism. The theory that he lost his faith after the death of his daughter comes from a book by Darwin scholar, Randal Keynes. Surely there were many contributory factors. When Darwin left on the Beagle journey at age 24, he believed he would become a clergyman. By the end of his voyage, where he saw not only geological and biological phenomena that helped shape him into an evolutionist, but also slavery, coups, and close-up the wars of extermination against native South American populations, he had decided in a career as a scientist (actually, a geologist, at that point).

The suppression of this movie is an outrage. It would certainly help humanize Darwin, whom the religious right want to demonize and make pariah. You cannot at this point in time separate Darwin from the issue of evolution. Years after his death he remains a symbol not only of the fact of evolution, but of courage and truth-telling, or belief in the powers of reason to subdue those of superstition and destructive passions.

Obama Introduces Guantanamo II

2009-09-14T23:17:00.000-07:00

Both Andy Worthington and Spencer Ackerman are following the Obama's administration pursuit of indefinite detentions and renditions policy at the prison at Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base.

Worthington writes:

Following briefings by Obama administration officials (who declined to be identified), both the New York Times and the Washington Post reported yesterday that the government is planning to introduce a new review system for the 600 or so prisoners held at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, which will, for the first time, allow them to call witnesses in their defense.

On paper, this appears to be an improvement on existing conditions at the prison, but a close inspection of the officials’ statement reveals that the proposed plans actually do very little to tackle the Bush administration’s wayward innovations regarding the detention of prisoners in wartime, and, moreover, the officials also provided the shocking news that prisoners are currently being rendered to Bagram from other countries.

And Ackerman notes:

“They’re setting up what amounts to a CSRT,” said David Remes, the legal director of the non-profit Appeal for Justice law firm who represents 19 Guantanamo detainees. A CSRT is the acronym for a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, the old mechanism at Guantanamo to adjudicate not a detainee’s guilt or innocence, but whether he constituted a threat to U.S. national security. Detainees were at the mercy of hearsay evidence and had the burden of proving that they weren’t a threat and the government’s case against them was erroneous. The Bush administration contended that CSRTs provided all the process rights to which Guantanamo detainees were entitled. But in 2008, the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark Boumediene case that detainees were entitled to habeas corpus protections.

And so, Remes said, several years and several thousand miles later, here we are again.

Finally, as Andy Worthington makes clear, from the statements of U.S. officials on the "new" policy, at "no point... was any mention made of the government’s obligations to hold prisoners seized in wartime as prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Conventions."

And that is the point, isn't it? The U.S. government, seemingly no matter what executive is nominally at its head, operates a military policy that is scornful of the needs or opinions of its populace. (This was clear with the Iraq War.) The obliviousness to which the supposedly liberal blogosphere in general treats these issues makes one think of what liberals of another generation used to say about feckless GOP President Gerald Ford, that he couldn't chew gum and walk at the same time.

With the the most popular sites in the liberal blogosphere transfixed by the fight for full healthcare (a noble cause), and various trivial scandals (e.g., the latest Kayne statement, or the Joe Wilson "no"), articles on the war, or on torture and attacks on civil liberties are left to a committed but small handful of bloggers.

In the 1960s, an old peacenik slogan went: "what if they gave a war and nobody came?" Today, in the 00s, one could rewrite that: "what if they gave a war and tortured prisoners, and kidnapped people and locked them up forever, shredding age-old rights protections, like habeas corpus, and nobody gave a damn?" No wonder Obama isn't afraid to escalate the war in Afghanistan, even when his head general says that the terrorist Al Qaeda isn't even a real presence there anymore.

You'd think I'd have to make up ironies like this last point, but no need to anymore, not in an America that is unconscious of itself, like a big, lumbering, destructive lunatic on a binge, afraid of itself and of the world in general, but unable to exercise self-reflection, or correct course before it is too late.