Abu Ghraib photos

Those photos that Washington didn't want us to see! Or did they? I mean, with the US intent on bombing the shit of Iran (see "Real men want to go to Iran", below) and seizing control of its oil fields, what better way to start off than to prod once again at the sensitivities of militant Islam, showing their fellows being beaten, tortured and sexually assaulted in a US prison, and in so doing prompting that anti-US backlash that will then give the US the pretext to carry its War on Terror to Tehran? And these coming at a time when the Islamic world is still riotiong over the offensive Danish cartoons and the British press and TV are showing film and photos of Iraqi teenagers getting a beating at the hands of British troops!

Update on 17th February

Abu Ghraib leaked report reveals full extent of abuse

1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse· 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse· 660 images of adult pornography· 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees· 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts. And this is just the stuff they bothered to film. If this is what is happening in Abu Ghraib, then just what the fuck is going on in Guantanamo Bay?

And of the response in Britain? Well, Tony Blair refers to conditions at Guantanamo Bay an "anomaly." I'll give you 'anomaly', you gormless bastard!!

Human Rights report lambasts the US

The 500 page Human Rights Watch Annual Report 2006 is now available for download.

The report shifts its usual emphasis on countries well known for human rights abuses and this time around focuses on the USA and European countries, the former for its hypocritical defence of torture.

From the Intro:

“Today, the willingness of some to flout basic human rights standards in the name of combating terrorism has deeply compromised the effectiveness of that commitment. The problem is aggravated by a continuing tendency to subordinate human rights to various economic and political interests.

“…Key U.S. allies such as Britain and Canada compounded the leadership problem in 2005 by seeking to undermine certain critical international rights protections. Britain sought to justify sending terrorist suspects to countries that torture, and Canada worked aggressively to dilute key provisions of a new treaty on enforced disappearances. These governments, as well as other members of the European Union, also continued to subordinate human rights in their relations with others whom they deemed useful in fighting terrorism or pursuing other goals.

“…even when the [US]administration spoke out in defence of human rights or acted commendably, its initiatives made less headway as a result of the credibility gap. European and other powers, meanwhile, had their own credibility problems or did far too little to correct the balance. The result was a global leadership void when it came to defending human rights.

“…torture and inhumane treatment are forbidden unconditionally, whether in time of peace or war, whether at the local police station or in the face of a major security threat. Yet in 2005, evidence emerged showing that several of the world’s leading powers now consider torture, in various guises, a serious policy option.

“Any discussion of detainee abuse in 2005 must begin with the United States, not because it is the worst violator but because it is the most influential.
“…President Bush continued to offer deceptive reassurance that the United States does not ‘torture’ suspects, but that reassurance rang hollow.

“…Moreover, President Bush’s pronouncements on torture continued to studiously avoid mention of the parallel prohibition of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.“Needless to say, this embrace of abusive interrogation techniques—not as an indirect consequence of official policy but as a deliberate tool—has significantly weakened the U.S. government’s credibility as a defender of human rights.”

And as for British Complicity in torture:

“…Britain has adopted policies that would make it complicit in torture. In 2005, Prime Minister Tony Blair proposed sending terrorist suspects to governments that have a history of torturing such people—a policy that the United States had already adopted in a practice sometimes referred to as “extraordinary rendition…Following precedents set by the Bush administration, the Blair government proposed sending terrorist suspects to places such as Libya, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia—all governments with notorious records of torturing radical Islamists.”

500 pages later the Report focuses again on the USA:

Incarceration

“The United States incarcerates people at a greater rate than any other country, 724 per one hundred thousand residents. Seven million people—or one in every thirty-one persons—is in prison, or on probation or parole. Black men between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-nine are seven times more likely than their white counterparts to be in prison or jail. More than six hundred thousand people annually leave prison, most of them to return to distressed minority neighbourhoods, facing formidable barriers to successful re-entry, including laws that limit their access to education, housing, and jobs."

Death penalty

“As of November 4, forty-eight people had been executed in 2005. Evidence of the arbitrariness and procedural flaws in the imposition of the sentence continue to grow. Since 1973, 121 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence, including one in 2005.

Child prisoners

“While U.S. child offenders no longer face the death penalty, they do face the possibility of life without parole sentences. There are at least 2,225 child offenders sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison in the United States, an estimated 59 percent of whom received the sentence for their first criminal conviction. The United States is one of fourteen countries in the world known to permit such sentences and research suggests that there may be no more than twelve child offenders outside the United States serving life sentences without possibility of release. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every country in the world except the United States and Somalia, forbids sentencing child offenders to life without parole.”Well worth downloading!

RENDITION TO TORTURE - when ignorance is no excuse

“Ignorance is no excuse in law”. I must have heard this saying a thousands times, usually in reference to some poor sod who has committed a crime without knowing it; maybe receiving an item they did not know was stolen and facing a fine heftier than the scally that nicked it, or fined for some traffic offence they were oblivious of.

I was reminded of this saying when reading Martin Bright’s article “Rendition: The cover up" in the current issue of New Statesman, and a piece referred to by Nick Cohen in a section headed “Hear no evil, see no evil” today’s Observer.

The New Statesman made much use of a secret memo, downloadable from the New Statesman site. In a nutshell, as Tony Blair geared himself up to face Commons questions about British participation in extraordinary rendition in early December, his officials asked the Foreign Office for a briefing document. The consequent memo, signed by Irfan Siddiq, a private secretary at the Foreign Office, and addressed to Grace Cassy, assistant private secretary at No 10 Downing Street, reveals a government with its head up its arse.

While the FO concedes that extraordinary rendition “is almost certainly illegal” (“almost?) and that were the government to co-operate in it “such an act would also be illegal,” the FO, quite simply does not know if this has actually happened.

The memo ask the key question: "How do we know whether those our armed forces have helped to capture in Iraq or Afghanistan have subsequently been sent to interrogation centres?" And the answer offered is: “Cabinet Office is researching this with the MOD. But we understand the basic answer is that we have no mechanism for establishing this, though we would not ourselves question such detainees while they were in such facilities.’"

Further on, aware that the law may have been broken, anticipating the grilling Blair will get in the Commons when it is realised he is totally oblivious of CIA extraordinary rendition flights and whether Britain knew about them the Foreign Office counsels Blair on how to handle the matter:
“We should also try to bring out the other side of the balance…the need to balance the rights of the suspected terrorist against those of the potential victim.

“We think we should now try to move the debate on from the specifics of rendition…and focus people instead on Rice’s clear assurance that all US activities are consistent with their domestic and international obligations and never include the use of torture.”

That every other European government almost pissed itself laughing when Condoleezza Rice – during her recent damage limitation tour of Europe – told them the US is not into torturing suspects seems to have passed the FO by.

I somehow doubt the government will be able to move the debate on and fob us off with whatever Washington wants us to believe, Not least because further revelations of CIA renditions flights via Britain are continuing to emerge and because the chief of Greater Manchester Police has launched a criminal investigation and parliamentary groups are looking deeper into the issue.

I can’t help but agree with Nick Cohen who, referring to the way New Labour survives such scandals, says:

“Tony Blair escapes because enemies always hit him with the wrong charge. This scandal is not about what the government does know but has covered up, but what the government doesn't know but should.”

Too bloody true. “Ignorance is no excuse, m’lud. The Jury finds the defendant guilty and therefore advises that a hearing date be set to prosecute the prime minister and his Cabinet.”

Rendition to Torture

Once again, the US is in the proverbial “dock” over revelations that it allows a practice known as “rendition to torture”, whereby terror suspects, upon arrest, are secretly flown to far off countries to be tortured for months on end.

Condoleeza Rice, the US Secretary of State and Klingon look-alike, is currently on a damage limitation exercise in Europe and telling anyone who will listen to her, and who can keep a straight face, that the US is not into that sort of thing, that it does not condone torture. She admits that the US has made mistakes in the war on terror and has said that where possible those wrongs will be righted, but pathetically covers these transgressions with the claim that at least CIA methods have saved European lives.
Granted, there are a lot of gloopy people in Europe – I’ve met a fair few myself - or else we would not have the leaders we have here, but for her to come here and say the US is not into torture suggests Rice thinks Europe is chocabloc with lobotomised cretins.

Let’s get a couple of things straight. Firstly, the US does not give a monkey’s f*** for human rights. This much was made abundantly clear when George (Dubya) Bush took office and, acting on advice from one Alberto Gonzales, withdrew the US from the Geneva Convention and cancelled Clinton’s signature from the International Criminal Court. Well, if you’re aiming to torture whoever you want, where ever you want, then it makes sense not to be a signatory to a document stating you believe people should not be tortured, that all people should be treated with respect and human kindness.

Secondly the CIA is actually above the law. Not a lot of people know this but on 27/12/2000 Congress passed a law to protect the CIA from any legal action whatsoever (the relevant law is: 114 STAT. 2840 PUBLIC LAW106-56 DEC. 27, 2000. SEC.1001. (a) and (b)). The latter makes sound sense – if you’re hell bent on world domination and are prepared to go to any lengths to secure it then you have to make damn sure your intelligence services are free from prosecution.
According to Human Rights Watch, The Bush administration is now the only government in the world to claim a legal rationalization for abusing prisoners during interrogations.

White House officials recently approached members of the U.S. Congress to seek a waiver that would permit the CIA to use cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment on prisoners in U.S. detention outside the United States.

In a 90-9 vote, the U.S. Senate accepted a measure backed by Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham that would proscribe the military and CIA from using “cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment” in the case of any captive, anywhere in the world. But in October, Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA director Porter Goss met with Sen. McCain to propose a presidential waiver for the planned legislation. The suggested waiver stated that the measure “shall not apply with respect to clandestine counterterrorism operations conducted abroad, with respect to terrorists who are not citizens of the United States, that are carried out by an element of the United States government other than the Department of Defence. . . if the president determines that such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attack.” The waiver which clearly applies to non-military counter-terrorism operations against non-citizens overseas, declares that such operations need to be “consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States and treaties to which the United States is a party.” But the Constitution does not vigorously restrict the conduct of the CIA overseas, and pertinent domestic laws contain abundant loopholes. What is more, administration officials have previously told Congress that they do not deem CIA personnel operating outside the United States to be bound by legal prohibitions against “cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment” under treaties to which the United States is party. This exemption carries coded language that could give the CIA the go ahead to treat prisoners inhumanely. Human Rights Watch said the waiver would also open the door for outright torture, as interrogators would find it impossible to draw lines between illegal and “allowable” mistreatment. Bush administration officials, under questioning from members of Congress in the past, have failed to clearly define differences between torture and lesser forms of mistreatment. They have also made inaccurate statements about the definition of torture; for instance, administration officials have claimed that “waterboarding” (suffocating a person until he believes he is about to drown) is not a form of torture.

The widely publicised photos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, show not isolated cases of brutality by unsupervised personnel – as has been claimed – but CIA torture techniques that have been used for 50 years all over the world.From 1950 to 1962, the CIA carried out research into psychological torture that cost an estimated $1 billion, producing a new method of torture that was psychological, “no touch torture”, not physical.

Your common or garden physical method meant interrogators had to inflict pain, by rough beatings, but this often produced heightened resistance, especially in obstinate prisoners, or undependable information. With the new psychological concept, on the other hand, interrogators used two new methods, disorientation and self-inflicted pain, to make prisoners feel responsible for their own suffering.

Though ostensibly less violent, "no touch" torture can produce lasting psychological scars on both victims and interrogators. The victims often need much psychological help to recuperate from a trauma every bit as debilitating as physical pain. The interrogators can undergo a perilous increase of ego, leading to increasing barbarity and lasting emotional scars.

After codification in the CIA's "Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation" manual in 1963 (this is now declassified and can now be downloaded from the National Securuity Archives website – they’ve lots of other juicy stuff there too) the new technique was circulated to police in Asia and Latin America through USAID's Office of Public Safety (OPS). In the wake of accusations of torture by USAID's police novices in Brazil, the US Senate closed down OPS in 1975.

With the demise of the OPS, the CIA propagated its torture techniques through the US Army's Mobile Training Teams, which in the 1980s were operating in Central America. In 1997, the Baltimore Sun published alarming extracts of the "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual" that these Army teams had distributed to allied militaries for two decades.

These manuals ceased to be used in the early 1990s, but torture continued apace right up to 9/11 and beyond with the hunt for Al Qaeda suspects, with US intelligence agents handing suspects over to foreign agencies for processing.

When Bush kick-started the current ‘war on terror’ the ‘no touch’ torture techniques recommenced, firstly in Afghanistan at Bagram Air Base, where prisoners actually died during interrogation and then in Iraq, where interrogators have likewise killed their victims. Similar prisoner abuses have been reported at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The US is as guilty as hell of not only torturing its suspects just as Britain and other countries are accomplices in so far as they allow their airports to be used by CIA chartered planes carrying their victims to be tortured in whatever god-forsaken hell hole they have lined up for them. The photographic evidence for psychological torture cannot be denied and neither can the testimony of those lucky enough to have been freed by their interrogators.

What planet Condi Rice comes from is anyone’s guess – the Klingon planet Narendra III?