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Revelations From The Torture Report – CIA Lies, Nazi Methods And The $81 Million No-Bid Torture Contract
Submitted by Mike Krieger Of Liberty Blitzkrieg

Revelations From The Torture Report – CIA Lies, Nazi Methods And The $81 Million No-Bid Torture Contract
After initially helping to devise the “enhanced interrogation” efforts, they were designated as the only two contractors allowed to oversee these interrogations at sites around the world. In 2005, they formed a company to receive contracts from the CIA. According to the Senate report, the base value of their contract in 2006 was in excess of $180 million.
By the time the CIA terminated their contract in 2009, the consulting firm founded by the two men had collected $81 million in taxpayer money. In May of that year,ProPublica reported, the firm abruptly gave up the lease on its Spokane, Washington, headquarters and disconnected the phone.
Still, according to the Senate report, the CIA will provide $5 million in indemnity costs to the firm to cover all legal expenses for potential criminal prosecution and investigations through 2021.
– From the Huffington Post article: Architects Of CIA Torture Program Raked In $81 Million, Report Reveals
One of the greatest propaganda successes of the consolidated and corporate owned mainstream media in the US. has been the ability to convince many naive Americans that people with fascist tendencies do not exist in our society, and it they do, they certainly don’t occupy the highest halls of power.
One of the key points I try to get across in my writing is that the sociopathic mindset knows no borders, and a society that ignorantly believes that its “leadership” consists of good people with a moral high ground is a society of sheep primed for slaughter. Not only do fascist types exist at the highest levels of the U.S. status quo, the smart ones will typically do everything they can to attain such positions. Why?
As I noted recently in the post, In Great Britain, Protecting Pedophile Politicians is a Matter of “National Security”:
I’ve long written about how the percentage of sociopaths within a group of humans becomes increasingly concentrated the higher you climb within the positions of power in a society, with it being most chronic amongst those who crave political power.
The reason for this is obvious. Those with the sickest minds, and who wish to act upon their destructive fantasies, understand that they can most easily get away with their deeds if they are protected by an aura of power and ostensible respectability. They believe that as a result of their status, no one would dare accuse them of horrific activities, and if it ever came to that, they could quash any investigation.
One of the reasons the Senate “Torture Report” is so important, is that it forces Americans to confront the fascists and torture profiteers in their midst. Without this report, allegations of wrongdoing at the top of the U.S. status quo can be easily dismissed as “conspiracy theory.” Hopefully, now that we have some proof, we can start to meaningfully confront the cancer metastasizing within our society.
This post will be spilt into three separate parts, each of which will zero in on a separate aspect of what we have learned from the report. The first part goes back to an article in the Atlantic from 2007 titled: “Verschärfte Vernehmung.” Verschärfte Vernehmung in German translates to something like “enhanced interrogation”, and the article explains the disturbing similarities of what the U.S. government is doing to what the Nazis did in Germany a generation ago. First take a look at the following:
More from The Atlantic:
The phrase “Verschärfte Vernehmung” is German for “enhanced interrogation”. Other translations include “intensified interrogation” or “sharpened interrogation”. It’s a phrase that appears to have been concocted in 1937, to describe a form of torture that would leave no marks, and hence save the embarrassment pre-war Nazi officials were experiencing as their wounded torture victims ended up in court. The methods, as you can see above, are indistinguishable from those described as “enhanced interrogation techniques” by the president. As you can see from the Gestapo memo, moreover, the Nazis were adamant that their “enhanced interrogation techniques” would be carefully restricted and controlled, monitored by an elite professional staff, of the kind recommended by Charles Krauthammer, and strictly reserved for certain categories of prisoner. At least, that was the original plan.
Also: the use of hypothermia, authorized by Bush and Rumsfeld, was initially forbidden. ‘Waterboarding” was forbidden too, unlike that authorized by Bush. As time went on, historians have found that all the bureaucratic restrictions were eventually broken or abridged. Once you start torturing, it has a life of its own. The “cold bath” technique – the same as that used by Bush against al-Qahtani in Guantanamo – was, according to professor Darius Rejali of Reed College, In Norway, we actually have a 1948 court case that weighs whether “enhanced interrogation” using the methods approved by president Bush amounted to torture. The proceedings are fascinating, with specific reference to the hypothermia used in Gitmo, and throughout interrogation centers across the field of conflict. The Nazi defense of the techniques is almost verbatim that of the Bush administration…
Freezing prisoners to near-death, repeated beatings, long forced-standing, waterboarding, cold showers in air-conditioned rooms, stress positions [Arrest mit Verschaerfung], withholding of medicine and leaving wounded or sick prisoners alone in cells for days on end – all these have occurred at US detention camps under the command of president George W. Bush. Over a hundred documented deaths have occurred in these interrogation sessions. The Pentagon itself has conceded homocide by torture in multiple cases. Notice the classic, universal and simple criterion used to define torture in 1948.
What I am reporting is a simple empirical fact: the interrogation methods approved and defended by this president are not new. Many have been used in the past. The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn’t-somehow-torture – “enhanced interrogation techniques” – is a term originally coined by the Nazis. The techniques are indistinguishable. The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death.
Back in 2007 when that Atlantic article was written, a large percentage of people were willing to give the U.S. government and the CIA the benefit of the doubt. That’s not the case today, which is why I am hopeful that the Senate report, along with the Snowden revelations, will ultimately force the public to admit to itself it has been propagandized and things aren’t as they are told on the television set. Only if we know there is a problem can we start to fix it.
With that concerning introduction out of the way, let’s move on to some of the conclusions reached by the Intercept upon analyzing the report. We learn that:
For the CIA officials involved in torture, one thing was clear from the very beginning: The only way they would be forgiven for what they did was if they could show it had saved lives.
It was the heart of their rationale. It was vital to public acceptance. It was how they would avoid prosecution.
Specifically, they pointed out: “states may be very unwilling to call the U.S. to task for torture when it resulted in saving thousands of lives.”
And so, when the tragically predictable sequence of events began to unfold – and torture, as it always has, produced false confessions and little to no intelligence of value – admitting that it had failed was not even an option.
Instead, those involved made up stories of success.
They insisted that Abu Zubaydah was a top al Qaeda figure who, only after being waterboarded, provided information that foiled a major attack on the U.S. – even though Zubaydah wasn’t in al Qaeda, the plot was a farce, and the only related information he provided came before he was tortured.
They cast Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s false confessions as deadly threats, then announced they had been thwarted.
They viciously brutalized people, some of them entirely innocent, and described what they were doing as an art and a science.
There are no indications the CIA is ready to turn things around, of course. CIA Director John Brennan went to extraordinary lengths to stymie and discredit the investigation. And now, he is rebuffing its conclusions.
There are descriptions of sleep deprivation that “involved keeping detainees awake for up to 180 hours, usually standing or in stress positions, at times with their hands shackled above their heads.”
The report identifies 26 detainees, out of the CIA’s 119 in total, who the agency itself determined should never have been held at all. That unfortunate group includes “Abu Hudhaifa, who was subjected to ice water baths and 66 hours of standing sleep deprivation before being released because the CIA discovered he was likely not the person he was believed to be,” and “Nazir Ali, an ‘intellectually challenged’ individual whose taped crying was used as leverage against his family member.”
A particular sore point is the inaccurate information the CIA fed to Congress. First CIA officials disavowed torture, and promised that the Senate Intelligence Committee would be notified about every individual detained by the CIA. Then came the misinformation and the outright subterfuge.
A 2005 proposal from Senator Carl Levin to establish an independent commission to investigate detainee abuse, for instance, “resulted in concern at the CIA that such a commission would lead to the discovery of videotapes documenting CIA interrogations.” As a result, the CIA destroyed them.
Hayden told the Senate Intelligence committee: “Punches and kicks are not authorized and have never been employed.” But interviews conducted for two CIA internal reviews described the treatment of Gul Rahman, the detainee was died at the Salt Pit. One witness stated:
[T]here were approximately five CIA officers from the renditions team… they opened the door of Rahman’s cell and rushed in screaming and yelling for him to “getdown.” They dragged him outside, cut off his clothes and secured him with Mylar tape. They covered his head with a hood and ran him up and down a long corridor adjacent to his cell. They slapped him and punched him several times… a couple of times the punches were forceful. As they ran him along the corridor, a couple of times he fell and they dragged him through the dirt (the floor outside of the cells is dirt). Rahman did acquire a number of abrasions on his face, legs, and hands, but nothing that required medical attention. (This may account for the abrasions found on Rahman’s body after his death. Rahman had a number of surface abrasions on his shoulders, pelvis, arms, legs, and face.)
But the report provides new, horrifying details about what it calls COBALT – the notorious Salt Pit facility in Afghanistan, that one CIA official described as a “dungeon.”
The CIA kept few formal records of the detainees in its custody at COBALT. Untrained CIA officers at the facility conducted frequent, unauthorized, and unsupervised interrogations of detainees using harsh physical interrogation techniques that were not—and never became—part of the CIA’s formal “enhanced” interrogation program. The CIA placed a junior officer with no relevant experience in charge of COBALT. On November [REDACTED], 2002, a detainee who had been held partially nude and chained to a concrete floor died from suspected hypothermia at the facility.
Most notably, CIA “headquarters” informed DOJ and White House officials in July 2002 that Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation team believed he possessed information on terrrorists and terrorist threats in the U.S. “The CIA officials further represented that the interrogation team had concluded that the use of more aggressive methods ‘is required to persuade Abu Zubaydah to provide the critical information needed to safeguard the lives of innumerable innocent men, women, and children within the United States and abroad,’ and warned ‘countless more Americans may die unless we can persuade AZ to tell us what he knows.’”
But according to the CIA cables the Senate investigators reviewed, the interrogation team had not made any such determination — quite the contrary. They wrote that they were operating under the assumption that Zubaydah was “not holding back actionable information concerning threats to the United States beyond that which [he] has already provided.”
In 2003, George W. Bush’s included the following language:.
The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment. I call on all nations to speak out against torture in all its forms and to make ending torture an essential part of their diplomacy.
But when then-CIA general counsel John Rizzo heard about that statement – along with a quote from White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan that all prisoners being held by the U.S. government were being treated “humanely” — he panicked.
Rizzo wanted to make sure this didn’t represent a change in policy.
He called John Bellinger, then the legal advisor to the National Security Council, to “express our surprise and concern at some of the statements.”
Rizzo told his CIA colleagues that it “might well be appropriate for us to seek written reaffirmation by some senior White House official that the Agency’s ongoing practices… are to continue.”
CIA director George Tenet then sent a memo to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice seeking reaffirmation of White House support because “recent Administration responses to inquiries and resulting media reporting about the Administration’s position have created the impression that these [interrogation] techniques are not used by U.S. personnel and are no longer approved as a policy matter.”
Not coincidentally, it was right about then that the CIA started making a major effort internally to build the case that what they had been doing was effective.
But the convoluted story Bush told was completely untrue and unsupported. The CIA “validated” the claim with a June 2003 cable, leaving out any mention of a March 2003 cable which showed that information about the alleged plot, such as it was, actually came out before KSM said anything.
“Terrorists held in CIA custody have also provided information… [that] they helped stop a plot to hijack passenger planes and fly them into Heathrow or the Canary Wharf in London,” Bush said.
But according to Senate investigators:
A review of records indicates that the Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf plotting had not progressed beyond the initial planning stages when the operation was fully disrupted with the detentions of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, KSM, Ammar-al-Baluchi, and Khallad bin Attash. None of these individuals were captured as a result of reporting obtained during or after the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques against CIA detainees.
Furthermore, CIA operational cables and other records showed “that the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques played no role in the identification of Jose Padilla or the thwarting” of any plot. When Zubaydah provided information on a “dirty bomb” attack, he didn’t identify Padilla by name – and in any case, whatever he did say was while talking to the FBI, three months before the CIA started torturing him. And the CIA first heard about Padilla from a foreign government, the report states.
This is why you don’t trust people who in many cases lie and deceive for a living to tell the truth.
Just in case all that wasn’t bad enough, it has also come to light to two individuals seen as the masterminds of the torture program made $81 million from it. They were also in charge of overseeing the program’s effectiveness. You can’t make this stuff up. From the Huffington Post:
WASHINGTON — Two psychologists were paid $81 million by the CIA to advise on and help implement its brutal interrogation program targeting detainees in the war on terror, according to the Senate torture report summary released Tuesday.
The contract psychologists are identified with pseudonyms — Grayson Swigert and Hammond Dunbar — like most of the individuals named in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA program. Published reports dating back to 2007, however, identify the two men as James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, both former members of the military.
BoingBoing also ran a story on James Mitchell, which includes a video interview of the man that can be found here.
The Senate report details how Swigert and Dunbar traveled the world for the CIA, devising and carrying out interrogations using tactics that meet widely accepted definitions of torture. The two men were also entrusted with judging whether their methods were successful. Not surprisingly, they reported to their CIA bosses that their methods were crucial to persuading prisoners to divulge high-value information.
Although Jessen has previously said that a confidentiality agreement prevents him from discussing his work for the CIA, the two men in 2007 issued a statement saying, “The advice we have provided, and the actions we have taken have been legal and ethical.” They added, “We are proud of the work we have done for our country.”
The report reveals that for Dunbar and Swigert, that work was also a cash cow.
After initially helping to devise the “enhanced interrogation” efforts, they were designated as the only two contractors allowed to oversee these interrogations at sites around the world. In 2005, they formed a company to receive contracts from the CIA. According to the Senate report, the base value of their contract in 2006 was in excess of $180 million.
No bid torture contract. Classy.
By the time the CIA terminated their contract in 2009, the consulting firm founded by the two men had collected $81 million in taxpayer money. In May of that year,ProPublica reported, the firm abruptly gave up the lease on its Spokane, Washington, headquarters and disconnected the phone.
Still, according to the Senate report, the CIA will provide $5 million in indemnity costs to the firm to cover all legal expenses for potential criminal prosecution and investigations through 2021. The firm has already received $1.1 million from the CIA to cover legal expenses, much of that related to interviews with the Senate Intelligence Committee. In addition, Swigert and Dunbar received payments of $1.5 million and $1.1 million, respectively, as individuals.
The company would come to employ an undisclosed number of former CIA officers (the figure is redacted in the report) while the torture program would ultimately be staffed largely by contractors. At least officially, this gave the CIA a certain distance from the brutality that was used. According to the report, contractors accounted for 85 percent of the program’s staff by 2008.
According to the Senate report, neither Swigert nor Dunbar had any relevant experience in traditional interrogation methods used by the CIA and the FBI. “Neither psychologist had experience as an interrogator, nor did either have specialized knowledge of al-Qa’ida, a background in terrorism, or any relevant regional, cultural, or linguistic expertise,” the report states.
This lack of experience was seen as bonus by the CIA as the two men were tasked with implementing a new form of interrogation.
The idea was to create a “level of helplessness” that induced the detainee to provide the desired information. As detailed in the report, tortured detainees often provided false information just to tell their captors something.
As early as 2003, the report shows that concerns were raised about the conflicts of interest that could arise when Dunbar and Swigert, who devised and monitored the aggressive techniques, were also tasked with judging their effectiveness. Essentially, the two were being paid to assess their own work, a practice that violated the CIA’s stated policy.
Conflicts of interest were “never more graphic,” the Senate report notes, than when Dunbar and Swigert performed all three phases of an interrogation. First, they “applied an [enhanced interrogation technique] which only they were approved to employ.” Second, they “judged both its effectiveness and detainee resilience.” And third, they “implicitly proposed continued use of the technique — at a daily compensation reported to be $1800/day, or four times that of interrogators who could not use the technique.”
Simply incredible. As I have said before, pretty much EVERYTHING in the U.S. is a money-making racket.
Finally, the Huffington Post also reported on the fact that nearly 1 out of every four countries on earth participated in one way or the other in the U.S. torture. This revelation so scared Secretary of State John Kerry that:
Secretary of State John Kerry indicated before the Senate document was released that he is worried about the global outrage that could follow the report. For Kerry and other diplomats, the evidence revealed in the Senate document could prove critically embarrassing for friendly governments, vindicate the narrative that the U.S.’s human rights record is no better than those of its foes, and show that the U.S. is willing to throw partner nations under the bus.
This is sort of the point isn’t it. The U.S. government justifies all of its militaristic and other interventions overseas using this false narrative that it holds some sort of moral high ground. It should now be abundantly clear to everyone that this invented ethical position is a total fabrication.
I can summarize my thoughts on this entire matter with the following tweet:
If you're part of status quo, you can get away with anything. Murder, torture, theft of trillions. Until top guys are jailed it won't stop.
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) December 10, 2014
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If I may add this very rich place to support this doc (nope it's not fiat money): http://cryptome.org/
Idiot voter + evil government = state of the world.
I am glad that the major instigator and apologist of CIA abuses, Dick Cheney, is still alive for people to spit on him in person.
Sometimes it is not enough to spit on their tombstones...
This is news? The CIA has been doing this for decades. Operation Condor?
"the psychologist was interviewed on NBC tonite, and he was a pure pychopath. he didn't even flinch when he was asked how he slept at night........."just fine".............sick mthrfocher"
So.....at last count 136 live prisoners left at Guantanamo.
Oh....to be omniponent for a day......
We tortured some folks
Not prosecuted, but rather eaten by hungry first. Then the new system could emerge.
Piss on their tombstones.
Never a comparison to the far more brutal and diabolic Bolshevik Cheka torture procedures. Nah... nothing to see or remember here. Only Nazis committed atrocites. Got it, stupid?!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror
http://www.oocities.org/capitolhill/lobby/9559/cheka.html
Of course the cheka was evil! That's not the point. Bolshevism and Nazism are two sides of the same medal. The point is, where the West with her "western values" is heading. The contradiction between official narrative and actual doing!
JS Bach
Far more relevant than the claim that the USA is better than some of the historically worst brutal regimes would be a comparison of the USA nowadays to the most peaceful and least brutal regimes.
Setting the standards by the lowest possible bar one imagines only makes one equal to or hardly better than the very worst.
Obviously Psaki and others hold an arrogant and disdainful view of the world if they believe all the other nations of the world practice the same or worse brutality toward their prisoners. “We would put our record against any record around the world,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki
Until top guys are jailed it won't stop.
How about untill they are executed.
I accept this too, but we need to know everything so we can type a book about this, so people will remember in details...
Make a daughter and name her, ‘Anne Frank’. Things should really start getting edgy 10 years from now.
its over...
u r now the prisoners of a police state the MoneyChangers control...
if u do not reject their script and their debt based currency paradigm by saving and accumulating physical Gold and Silver, then u too r the enemy...
DEATH TO THE MONEYCHANGERS.
Physical metals are clunky, ineffective tools.
Bitcoin is the only viable alternative to the fiat system.
Only if you believe that internet access across private networks is a divine right, or if you don't believe in the possibility of power cuts.
Everything requires infrastructure to function, so your point is moot.
Decentralization should be the motto of our times.
1. Some detainees died as a result of interrogation.
2. The techniques were far more brutal than previously known.
3. Other techniques used in addition to waterboarding.
4. The CIA's use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.
5. The CIA lied about effectiveness.
6. Inexperienced contract psychologists devised the techniques.
7. Those who were not suspects were interrogated.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/7-things-we-learned-new-report...
But perhaps as shocking as the events themselves is the response that the report has received. The architect of the War on Terror, George W Bush, has launched a counter offensive against the report. Backed up by his former vice president, Dick Cheney, who describes the report as ‘a crock’, and by the array of right wing talk shows which the US is burdened with.
Dianne Feinstein has claimed that torture does not reflect US values. Perhaps the really shocking thing is that it does
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/cia-torture-report-if-there-...
US brushes off criticism over CIA report“We would put our record against any record around the world,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday, arguing the release of the report was a “rare and unique” demonstration of American transparency
http://thehill.com/policy/international/226693-us-brushes-off-criticism-...
The most shocking thing is perhaps that the Obama administration
DENIES most of those points and
surely has continued those practices in cahoots with US global "partners".
“Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives. The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al-Qaida and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day,” Brennan said.
“EIT” is, of course, the technocratic euphemism for the systematic brutalization of helpless, captive human beings by wretched cowards armed with the power of the state and backed to the hilt by national leaders. Brennan — Obama’s confidante — says, in the name of the president, that torture “saved lives.” What’s more, he admits that Obama is still using the fruits of the torture program to “inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day.”
Let’s say this again: the conclusion of the Barack Obama administration is that the use of torture is a good thing, and that it is still “informing” its Terror War operations “to this day.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/10/torture-is-good/
Right side of history <|> USA
The people who are usually on the right side of it are those that get to write it.
See W. S. Churchill.
So terrorists were planning to fly planes into Heathrow? Who makes this stuff up?
"So terrorists were planning to fly planes into Heathrow? Who makes this stuff up?"
The same people that wrote, "They hate us for our freedoms."
They all channel Bernays.
An American, not US subject.
"The could never hate us for the tyrants installed, or the killing of them and theirs?!"
http://www.amazon.com/Edward-Bernays/e/B004MPHV92/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Reminds me of one of my favorite david cross lines:
"I don't think Osama bin Laden sent those planes to attack us because he hated our freedom. I think he did it because of our support for Israel, our ties with the Saudi family and our military bases in Saudi Arabia. You know why I think that? Because that's what he fucking said! Are we a nation of 6-year-olds? Answer: yes."
9-11 Inside Job
Why were they torturing these people at Gitmo and other centers? They hardly knew much of real importance to anything now did they?
once you come to that conclusion, it does make this seem even more absurd, right? no matter if you think the US gov, or isreal did it, or if it WAS muslim terrorists, whom the US just allowed or helped do it, its not like they were going to get anything out of these people anyway.
"TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW, YOU TERRORIST HAJJI FUCK"
"I don't know anything, sir, you should ask cheney"
the torture itself and the release of the details is all part of the effort to erect smoke and mirrors around the fact that 9/11 was an inside job. To demonise a generic enemy and to attempt justification both of unjustifiable war spending and the senseless slaughter of young troops and innoncent civilians.
"well it must be the mooslims terrarists...coz our government has a whole bunch of them locked-up and wired-up in Gitmo to protect our freedoms"
Consider it the marketing strategy within their business model.
Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner here!
Sadly, their strategy worked.
Exactly what I was thinking. We know 9-11 was an inside job. Then why torture your assets/scapegoats?
We know that we would not hear about these tortures from the mainstream media unless they wanted us to.
So here is my conclusion:
Nobody was tortured. This is all just more CIA programming.
"The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make the rest of us wonder at the possibility that we might be missing something." - Gamal Abdel Nasser
Oh I say there, do you mean this is not all another fiendish British Plot
seems nothing is sacred....
"Back in 2007 when that Atlantic article was written, a large percentage of people were willing to give the U.S. government and the CIA the benefit of the doubt."
I think this is a good place to start with facing facts. The fact is that Republicans who loved and backed Bush defended it. They said that it was necessary and made dumb-ass defenses about how there could be a bomb and someone might know the disable code. That's what actually happened.
The truth is that all of this was known. All of it. And no one said shit because it became a partisan issue.
fully agree. "fact is that Republicans who loved and backed Bush defended it ". and so it became a partisan issue. and when anything becomes a partisan issue in the US, well, then it's "politics as usual"
dear US Republicans, that knee-jerk reaction of rallying around Bush Junior and his VP... perhaps sound, tactically, but very doubtful in the longer, strategic term
we, your faithful allies, had some understanding for the anguish that the average Republican voter felt after 9/11. and even some understanding for some of the overreactions
another fact: after 9/11, it was a typical "seal the barn doors! the cows have escaped!" frenzy of the kind expecting the next shoe to drop everywhere
but perhaps it's time you reassess your positions. look this as a fact: for every tortured presumed enemy, twenty new, real enemies spring up. eventually, it could become even too many
Hang Dick Cheney for Treason. (Or turn off the switch on his tin can heart)
Hang or guillotine them all, and let the Devil sort them out.
An American, not US subject.
"Set the guillotines on 'torture.'"
Francises available in your area.
Dual-citizens only need apply.
"We tortured the village to save the village."
An American, not US subject.
Sounds like the Gestapo had higher ethical standards than the CIA.
Germans have high structural and moral standard
He didn't say Germans, he said Gestapo. Germans in the employ of a highly structured top-down state with next to zero morals.
Big difference ;-)
I didn't say Gestapo, i said Germans
Ebworthen was making a comment about state employees, not nationalities.
The Hague for war crimes no
Have you noticed lately...nobody goes to jail, they either "vaporize", get shot by cops, or get bonuses
Wrong. Corzine went to prison.
An American, not US subject.
Do you actually subscribe to that nonsense of American vs. US subject?
.
.
.
...The $81 Million No-Bid Torture Contract
After initially helping to devise the “enhanced interrogation” efforts, they were designated as the only two contractors allowed to oversee these interrogations at sites around the world. In 2005, they formed a company to receive contracts from the CIA. According to the Senate report, the base value of their contract in 2006 was in excess of $180 million.
By the time the CIA terminated their contract in 2009, the consulting firm founded by the two men had collected $81 million in taxpayer money. In May of that year, ProPublica reported, the firm abruptly gave up the lease on its Spokane, Washington, headquarters and disconnected the phone.
Oh that ^^... that's just unconscionable, they should have at least sent it out for bid, I mean, how will the prisoners live with themselves if they know how expensive their torture was for the quality?
Jail as punishment for fascism, the union of coroporate and state power... How quaint, see Mussolini and Clara for enlightenment on the point..
Just think of all those lamp post ornaments!
I have memorized the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and amendments, Bastiat's "The Law," and Hayek's "Road to Serfdom," for when I'm tortured.
"Yes, I know where the 'terrorists' are hiding. Some are right in this very room. There's more in the adjacent rooms. And yet more at the other ends of your telephones."
An American, not US subject.
"War is Peace! ... Truth is Treason! No is Terrorism!"
If someone jams your balls in a vice, I think the constitution may be the last thing on your mind.
As for the location of the bad guys, you are absolutely correct.
Other locations would be a building painted white after being burned, and a large 5-sided concrete structure.
War is criminal
Truth is the only way forward.
Terrorism is a tool of governments.
Torture is always wrong.
What I was saying is that I WILL talk, but they won't like what I will have to say.
As for giving up secrets, I'll probably tell them everything, and more, long before it comes to the vice.
Problem is, most torture is not done for information, but for the pleasure of the torturers--they DON'T want you to talk, as they want to torture you.
An American, not US subject.
Now for the question of the evening, should S&M websites, stores, clothes (do they call them clothes...lol?) and all its accoutrements, be banned as crimes against humanity?
If not, why not...because its voluntary?
Discuss among yourselves ;-)
I think we are on the same page with what's important here.
Absolutely agree with the 'not done for information' thing.
This kind of stuff just enables criminal psychopaths to get paid for their criminal activities.
Time to prosecute how many presidents, vice presidents, Senators and Congressmen for war crimes?
Therein lies the rub.
The Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Senators and Congressmen who enabled and ordered it done, now only want to prosecute those who "were just following orders".
Its just like a sub-prime mortgage holocaust...or sumpin ;-)
Jailed?
All of this stuff occured during the last 6 years too, under your hero, the race merchant in chief. Funny thing though, you left all of that out.
This is just a partisan hit piece that is not too cleverly disguised, but then again, neither is the author.
Hey! What happened to the comment I posted yesterday? I guess it didn't fit with your CIA bashing rant you and your friends were having here?
If crimes were committed, I like to see the scum prosecuted along with you but when dealing with these aharks, well, they play a very different game. But I am not inclined to let Barry throw out the baby with the dirty bath water in his efforts to "transform" America.
Did yesterday's comment make more sense than this one?
You actually read yesterday's comment? With a logo like "1+1=" I figured you would be too much of a simpleton to get the point I was trying to make. Seems I was right. For you it's "Hey, now we have a new bandwagon to jump on, let's trash the CIA." Now you have a new project to keep you busy in your little life when you don't understand how the big, bad world works. You think it is just unicorns and rainbows and lollipops. Someone like Feinstein says jump and you don't even ask how high, you just proceed to jump. Idiots.
On yeah, lets throw in a picture and a quote of a black guy while we are at it. We gots to be nice to da black man too! What the fuck does any of that have to do with the CIA report, or the political reasons for why it was released now? Nothing. But you are being inclusive, don'cha know! You are good little socialists attacking everything without realizing that not all it what you attack is bad or worthless. But I am casting pearls amonst pigs. Never mind. What a waste.
You actually read yesterday's comment? With a logo like "1+1=" I figured you would be too much of a simpleton to get the point I was trying to make. Seems I was right. For you it's "Hey, now we have a new bandwagon to jump on, let's trash the CIA." Now you have a new project to keep you busy in your little life when you don't understand how the big, bad world works. You think it is just unicorns and rainbows and lollipops. Someone like Feinstein says jump and you don't even ask how high, you just proceed to jump. Idiots.
On yeah, lets throw in a picture and a quote of a black guy while we are at it. We gots to be nice to da black man too! What the fuck does any of that have to do with the CIA report, or the political reasons for why it was released now? Nothing. But you are being inclusive, don'cha know! You are good little socialists attacking everything without realizing that not all you attack is bad or worthless. But I am casting pearls amonst pigs. Never mind. What a waste.
The Wall Street Journal of apologists is the next door over. People here aren't that gullible.
Fucking shit show. We need to waterboard the head of the CIA to get some truths.
LOL
I love my country, managament sux though.
In a recent poll 71% of Americans agreed that torture is acceptable in some cases (true story). A follow up poll will be asking the question 'is it cool if we torture YOU now and again, just to make sure you're not keeping anything from us that we should know?'
Fucking idiot population, we will get what's coming to us, and we are not going to like it.
Simple thought experiment. Someone has kidnapped your daughter and told you they have buried her and she will asphyxiate within a few hours and they won't tell you where. You have that person within your control. Would you torture them to try to get the answer?
Yes, difficult one. But here's another - I'm convinced that YOU are the one who kidnapped my daughter, even though you deny it vehemently. Do you mind if I torture you until such a time as I'm convinced of your professed innocence?
I think you should be waterboarded.
No, because that does not get actionable intel.
Of course not.
You show up at the wrong location, given during torture, a spotter calls and your children are immediately executed because of your actions.
That was a biased poll because they weren't being tortured when they asked them.
Bush said Jesus was down, hell to the yea. Clash, bitchez!
“One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did."
Mr Bush went on: "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it."”
Hey! Hey! USA! Who'd you torture to death today?
Say, didn't we try and execute Nazis after the end of WWII for "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity?"
Hang Dick "It's All Crap" Cheney and for his last meal, give him a rectal feeding of pure Ghost Peppers.....
Timmy. Yu one bad dude. Where you live. If near me, I gotta move NOW. You can have whats in th refrigerator.(andthe garage and the attc and da furiture) Ghost peppers. Holy shit.
Boehner should apologize and hook Bush into a trial.
If you live in a large city, flee.
This piece is tortured.
Those bankers are going to take the emergency kits and ‘flee’ right into the back vault while the cities burn around them.
Prepare!
Recall the Anthrax sent to those who opposed the Iraq Invasion.
Our goose is cooked!!!
The Gestapo seemed tame compared to the ZIA.
Read. Allen Dulles...the first and longest serving head of The CIA.
‘The Nazis Next Door,’ by Eric LichtblauIn March 1945, while the war still raged, the American spy chief Allen Dulles conducted a friendly fireside chat in the library of a Zurich apartment with the Nazi general Karl Wolff, the closest associate of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler for much of the war. The Scotch-lubricated conversation convinced Dulles that Wolff, despite his ties to Himmler and his role as a leader of the Waffen SS, was a moderate who deserved protection. When prosecutors sought to try Wolff, one of the highest-ranking SS leaders to survive, at Nuremberg, Dulles worked to have his name removed from the list of defendants. While Wolff was in Allied custody, he was permitted to take a yacht trip, spend time with his family and carry a gun.
THE NAZIS NEXT DOOR
How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men
By Eric Lichtblau
Illustrated. 266 pp. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $28.
Listen and watch
The Nazis Next Door: Eric Lichtblau on How the CIA & FBI Secretly Sheltered Nazi War Criminalshttp://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/31/the_nazis_next_door_eric_lichtbla...
Barry says fuck it, if we can round 'em up , send in the DRONES, they're more discriminate. s/c
Like many other trolls and patriots on ZH we have all taken a turn on behalf of Lady Liberty and the security state.
We grow up with John Wayne and GI Joe, dad, grand dad and uncle Joe marching off to war for G_d and Country.
It starts in the Scouts and gets enforced by Chuck Norris and Hollywood and the Fulda Gap.
But this is The Shit that makes you find your character in the middle of the night.
What does "following orders" mean?
What is a good idea that mitigates risk and what poor decisions put good people are risk in war zones and the long return to Home?
Physically hurting people for information is stupid. It draws false confessions. It makes good and neutral people turn into enemies over time. It feeds into the enemy's propaganda.
Are there "battlefield" interrogations where seconds count? Sure. And that is what a pair of pliers applied to some morons ear is for. But after that you give valuable people drugs and turn them into your friends over months. They either perform with results or they are not assets which means a firing squad or your release them. Not lock them up in the Salt Pit or Dark Isle for rape-o-rama.
For all the sad-sogs out there; Fuck you. All your training, hard work and planning is for nothing.
Now you look like the Einsatzgruppen.
Maybe you could have forgotten it but you where also stupid enough to bug the Senate Intelligence group, so what do you expect in the end.
The CIA and the rest of the fake security complex is now part of the problem with America - not the solution - from the TSA on up.
For all the true believers out there you are not alone, but you have to look at the ridiculous nature of this never-ending war and recognize its a farce and you're just a tool.
Where is your $81 million for G_d and Country Geronimo?
They are laughing at you, your dead kids and the deaf, dumb and blind 800lbs USA gorilla cannon-fodder that fills the battle space between Tel Aviv and Tehran.
Thank you.
We’ve paid the price,
time after time.
We’ve made our bones
and committed our crimes.
Atrocities,
more than a few.
We done our share of pillaging and rape
It’s nothing new.
(And it needs just go on and on and on and on)
We are the bad guys, my friends.
And we will be evil to the end.
We are the bad guys
We are the bad guys.
We love to torture
‘cause we are the bad guys of the world.
We’ve taken our bows
and our curtain calls
War brought us fame and fortune and everything that goes with it
Death thanks us all.
But it’s been no bed of roses,
no pleasure cruise.
We consider it a challenge to kill the whole human race,
and we ain’t gonna lose!
(And it will just go on and on and on and on)
We are the bad guys, my friends.
And we will be evil to the end.
We are the bad guys,
We are the bad guys.
We love to torture
‘cause we are the bad guys of the world.
Number one question put to those tortured by the torturers:
"Tell us who is competing with our heroine operations?"
An American, not US subject.
"And does she have big tits?"
The magnitude. Now that’s a lot of Eric Garners….!
One of the great recommendations from the no-bid contractors, surely worth the multi-millions they were paid:
"Treat the detainee like you treat a cue ball when playing pool, the harder you hit it, the more English you will get".
I'd like to see these enhanced interrogation techniques used on the Dems.
You mean the guys who put out the report?
Well, thats part of the problem isn't it? The Dims in power knew it was going on and never raised an objection about it at the time.
Porter Goss, ex-CIA chief, in 2009:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042403339.html
The link is well worth the read and points to their hypocrisy.
So what is the purpose of this fake moral outrage by Dianne Fienstein? This is the woman who proclaims only government can decide who are reporters and who are not, who will be afforded the protection of the state for their freedom of speech & press. The very same woman who has no problem with spy agencies listening in on us yet, when it is her...again, she's found something to be morally outraged and indignant about.
Releasing a report on what is already known does not relieve her (and them) of any culpability, charge them all, including Pelosi & Jane Harman.
But who will prosecute them, the state? ;-)
The guys and girls who drive around with the "Support your local Gestapo" bumper stickers have always had it right.
Thank God this report finally came out in the open. Bush, Chaney and the rest of the warmongering tribe need to be punished to the maximum extent of the law, tarred, feathered and put into the dungeons that they created and left to rot. Anyone that would do such a thing is not an American they are a poor exuse for a human being period.
So basically the entire Federal government, past and present... Let me know when that happens. We can all have a huge tailgate party around the guillotines.
So still blaming Bush after all this time? Why did Obama wait until the Democrats lost the Senate for this to be released? Where are the missing pages from the 9/11 report since Obama suddenly decided to be so "transparent"?
Standard Disclaimer: The world is full of people that are in need of a rectal feeding. Doesn't mean it's going to happen unless people take matters into their own hands.
Just remember, if you stoop to their level, you become as bad as they are. Furthermore, punishment past a second point becomes an exercise in futility. You got da lizard propped up and good and stuffed, but when you kick him in da balls, he blows a stitch and you gotta fix the taxidermy work. Just not very satisfying...
James Baldwin meet Mr Hope & Change Barack Hussein Obama and his band of merry minions
SERE ...... waterboarding..... put in a cubic meter box in high temps and sleep deprived, starved and abused ..... can i sue????
navy seals took control of a sere facility and put the army shit for brains running the facility in the box, waterboarded and "tortured" ... they never put more than 1 seal at a time thru sere ever again...
KSM cried like a baby and cried for his momma when he ratted out the kuwaiti .... goodbye UBL ...
Fienstein is out for personal political revenge....... pathetic
terrorist's rights ? ...... fuk yu bitch.... interview the WTC jumpers and their families..... why dont you ??? WERE THEY THINKING ABOUT TERRORIST'S RIGHTS ON THE WAY DOWN AT TERMINAL VELOCITY OF 120 MPH AS THEY EXPLODED AS THEY HIT THE CONCRETE.... you fucking piece of shit
Pelosi and the progressives in congress knew all about the torture, approved of it as members of the Intelligence select committees in 2001, and even asked if they could do more! -- Pelosi, Harden, and Rockefellar, et al.
This has only come to light now with Diane Feinstein disclosing the practices, years after the fact, because she is still pissed over the CIA and NSA spying on her and members in the senate, and this, only after she and the progressives were voted out of power and are soon to be kicked out of their leadership positions. It was all fine when they controlled the committees and have had power since 2006! 8 years later and they decide to speak out only when they are getting replaced.
Unbroken, Hollywood WWII Japanese torture movie released for Christmas.
How ironic.
At this point, I feel really let down by big pharma. Why they haven't yet managed to perfect a truth serum so all this would have been avoidable is beyond rational (emphasis on rational) thought?
Standard Disclaimer: But let's push horse tranquilizer onto the general public instead...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/business/special-k-a-hallucinogen-rais...
And every other major news outlet is picking up on this bullshit.
I think GWB and Cheney need to be put on an Interpol list and charged with crimes against humanity by The Hague.
Maybe this will get people's attention since they trashed American respectability everywhere.
Why not Obama? He is just as guilty. Put him in the dock also.
I knew this happened, but now they admitted it and it isn't stopping and the American people aren't calling for justice, I as a Canadian do not want any part of DC or NATO or their policies.
Keep your freedom and bravery folks, you just lost a hell of a lot of allies. I hope that oversized military and CIA gets cut down. Maybe that is what the USA needs, a real depression and lack of money will accomplish what morals failed to do.
First 10 minutes of CCTV national covered this.
Way to go, you idiots.
Not as though anyone here on ZH did not know of this years ago.
The USA has squandared all of its soft power capital and good will capital between the last two presidents.
Digging through the report, where is this info?
James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, both former members of the military.
Also, former members of the living.
Someone knows where these people are. Speak up.
RT.com are showing footage of Dick Cheney being interviewed on Fox News this morning.
Cheney flatly refutes the frequent denials made by GW Bush over the years that he was not made aware of the torture going on, adding that Bush was regularly briefed and had to "sign it off".
When do the arrests/prosecutions of all those involved begin?
Should we hold our breath waiting?
Gotta credit the man where credit is due: he never denies calling the Code Red.
Eithers yer with us er yer with tha terr'ists... I mean yer with us to be tha terr'ists