thenatureofmind

Sometimes There's a Breath of Freah Air

In a historic decision with the four reactionary justices dissenting, the Supreme Court decided that the detainees at Guantanamo have the right to appeal their military sentences in the regular United States courts. Once again the Bush administration goes down to defeat. many of these people held in Guantanamo are not terrorists or even "enemy combatants". They were victims of hysterical round ups with no judicial or legal protections. Not charges were filed and no possibility of defense was available to them. Guantanamo, this travesty, this United States sponsored gulag will hopefully become just a bad, shameful memory for the citizens of the United States and a vivid reminder of what can happen when too much power is concentrated in one branch of the government. Let us hope that with a new incoming administration that this horrible mess will be cleaned up quickly and the perpetrators brought to justice. Military tribunals anyone?

Justices Rule Terror Suspects Can Appeal in Civilian Courts

Gitmo: A National Disgrace

From the New York Times Editorial Page...

The Guantánamo camp was created on a myth — that the American judicial system could not handle prisoners of “the war against terror.” It was built on a lie — that the hundreds of detainees at Gitmo are all dangerous terrorists. And it was organized around a fiction — that Mr. Bush had the power to create this rogue system in the first place....

Gitmo: A National Disgrace

Torture: It's effect on the torturers

Donald Rumsfeld once wondered aloud whether we were creating more terrorists than we were killing. In counterinsurgency doctrine, that is precisely the right question. Victory in this kind of war comes when the enemy loses legitimacy in the society from which it seeks recruits and thus loses its “recuperative power.”

The torture methods that Tenet defends have nurtured the recuperative power of the enemy. This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it.

-Charles C. Krulak, commandant of the Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999, and Joseph P. Hoar, commander in chief of U.S. Central Command from 1991 to 1994

‘Torture Betrays Us’

 

What is the purpose of Torture?

When you listen to George W. Bush tell the country how they are being made safer if he is allowed to continue to arbitrarily detain and torture prisoners, you have to wonder. Of course as all governments do who wish to hide the truth, George Bush has his own definition of torture and reserves the right to arbitrarily re-define it as it suits his purpose. So words that are spoken have no relation to the acts actually committed. I suspect if 100 citizens were subjected to the non-torture that Bush speaks of, they would all say they had been tortured.

But recently I chanced to read the statement by a prisoner who survived the torture and genocide camps of the Khmer Rouge who stated very simply the reason why they were tortured. It seems that his torturers had no interest in hearing the truth. They knew what they wanted to hear and that was a confession. It was the job of the person being tortured to figure out what the torturer wanted to hear and tell him that. Once the torturer was satisfied, the prisoner would be killed and his suffering would end. The purpose of torture was to give the people in command validation of their badly skewed world view and justify their actions. Any amount of death, suffering and destruction was justified. George W. Bush and the United States of America are no different. This administration along with the 38% of Americans who still believe that Sadam Hussein was connected with Al Quaida need to torture people to validate their extremely harmful and destructive mythology.

Pontius Pilate x 3: 2006

This is what Pontius Pilate looked like when he condemned Christ to death. He just washed his hands and let the President do his dirty work. The President, a man without principle and without a human conscience now has a free hand to define what is torture and what is not. From the past three 5 years, we know what his definition of torture is. He does not torture people, so what has happened is not torture by his definition. He will now define what the Geneva Accord says. He will have unlimited and unaccountable permission to torture. These men should hang their heads in shame.

Senators John McCain, left; John W. Warner Jr.; and Lindsey Graham leaving a news conference Thursday after washing their hands of the torture issue, removing Presidential and Executive Branch accountability and promising to look the other way.

The American Gulag: Outsourcing Torture

Washington has found another way to torture while keeping it's hands clean: Outsourcing.

Warning: this video is not for children...

CACI torturers for hire.

The American Gulag: The Torture Will Continue

And the President Of the United States, George W. Bush is the man responsible.

The Abuse Can Continue: Senators won't authorize torture, but they won't prevent it, either.

Torture in Iraq: What hath Bush wrought?

Reports from Iraq indicate that torture "is totally out of hand," he said. "The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein."

U.N. expert: Iraq torture may be worse

The American Gulag: Canadian Fallout

"A government commission on Monday exonerated a Canadian computer engineer of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured."

Canadians Fault U.S. for Its Role in Torture Case

The American Gulag: British Attorney General says Guantanamo Must Close

"I am not embarrassed to repeat here my views on Guantanamo Bay which are well known; that it is unacceptable and that it is time that it should be closed; that it has become a symbol of injustice, a recruiting agent for terrorists.

"It is a symbol which the long American tradition of justice and liberty deserves to see removed at the earliest moment."

Law chief urges Guantanamo closure