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t r u t h o u t | Tortured Memories and the Culture of War
"It is difficult to imagine how any democracy could not be corrupted when war becomes the foundation of politics. Any democracy that makes war and state violence the organizing principle of society cannot survive for long, at least as a democratic entity. The country descended into a period in which society was increasingly organized through the production of both symbolic and material violence. A culture of cruelty emerged in the media, especially in the talk radio circuit, in which a sordid nationalism merged with a hyper-militarism and masculinity that scorned not merely reason but all those who fit into the stereotype of other, which appeared to include everyone who was not white and Christian. Dialogue, reason and thoughtfulness slowly disappeared from the public realm as every encounter was framed within circles of certainty, staged as a fight to the death. As the civic and moral center of the country disappeared under the Bush administration, the language of the marketplace provided the only referent for understanding the obligations of citizenship and global responsibility, undeterred by a growing war machine and culture that produced jobs and goods and furthered the war economy."
Andy Worthington: A Truly Shocking Guantanamo Story: Judge Confirms That an Innocent Man Was Tortured to Make False Confessions
""a senior [redacted] interrogator came to me and said, 'There is nothing against you. But there is no innocent person here. So, you should confess to something so you can be charged and sentenced and serve your sentence and then go back to your family and country, because you will not leave this place innocent.""
BBC NEWS | Politics | Ministers face torture pressure
UK ministers must answer allegations that Britain was complicit in torture, a senior Conservative MP has said.
The Missing Memos - ProPublica
The Bush administration’s "war on terror"—including its controversial policies on detentions, interrogations and warrantless wiretapping—was all underpinned by legal memoranda. While some of those memos have been released (primarily as a result of ACLU lawsuits), the former administration chose to keep many others secret, citing security and confidentiality concerns.
The decision to release them now lies with President Obama. To help inform the debate—and inject an extra dose of accountability—we’re posting a list of the relevant memos, both public and secret. (The ACLU first compiled a list of still-secret memoranda, which ProPublica verified.)
We’ll update the list as more memos are made public.
When Gitmo Was (Relatively) Good - washingtonpost.com
In his first week in office, President Obama signed an executive order that would shut down the notorious U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year. But as the United States moves to end this shameful episode, it's worth reflecting on the untold story of the very beginnings of Guantanamo.
Guantanamo Case Files in Disarray - washingtonpost.com
In a court filing this month, Darrel Vandeveld, a former military prosecutor at Guantanamo who asked to be relieved of his duties, said evidence was "strewn throughout the prosecution offices in desk drawers, bookcases packed with vaguely-labeled plastic containers, or even simply piled on the tops of desks."
He said he once accidentally found "crucial physical evidence" that "had been tossed in a locker located at Guantanamo and promptly forgotten."
All Of Bush’s Mistakes Are Obama’s Fault
The moral of this story is not the danger for Obama going forward with his Gitmo decommissioning, the moral is that when venal, shallow, small men are given unfettered power and authority, they do incompetent, stupid, and evil things.
Obama’s new man calls time on US torture | Andrew Sullivan - Times Online
With him in place and with Obama in the White House, we now have something very, very precious back in the government of America. It’s called trust and lawfulness. As they say in some of the most beleaguered places on the planet: know hope.
A different view on torture at OLC - Politico.com
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"In short, OLC must be prepared to say no to the President," she writes, continuing:
If the President desires only a rubberstamp, OLC will have to struggle mightily to provide an effective check on unlawful action. In addition to being prepared to say no, therefore, the assistant attorney general for OLC and other top Department of Justice officials must also be prepared to resign in the extraordinary event the President persists in acting unlawfully or demands that OLC legitimize unlawful activity.
Thinking About Torture - Ross Douthat
I haven't written anything substantial, ever, about America's treatment of detainees in the War on Terror. There are good reasons for this, and bad ones. Or maybe there's only one reason, and it's probably a bad one - a desire to avoid taking on a fraught and desperately importantly subject without feeling extremely confident about my own views on the subject.
Senate report links Bush to detainee homicides; media yawns - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
how can it possibly be justified that the low-level Army personnel carrying out these policies at Abu Ghraib have been charged, convicted and imprisoned, while the high-level political officials and lawyers who directed and authorized these same policies remain free of any risk of prosecution?
Doctors shocked at Mumbai hostages's torture
Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: "It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim's body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words," he said.
Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: "It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood," one doctor said.
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Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: "It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim's body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words," he said.
Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: "It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood," one doctor said.
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A senior National Security Guard officer, who had earlier explained the operation in detail to rediff.com, said the commandos went all out after they ascertained that there were no more hostages left. When asked if the commandos attempted to capture them alive at that stage, he replied: "Unko bachana kaun chahega (Who will want to save them)?"
Torture and the Problem of Statelessness « Upturned Earth || John Schwenkler
The argument against torture, at its most basic level, has never been that terror suspects necessarily should be granted the full Constitutional rights of American citizens (the answer and extent are different, and later, questions), but that we grant them basic status as human beings.
Basic status as human beings: this is distinct from the concept of universal human rights. It is not a statement that there is a basic natural right held by all humanity to have counsel, or see evidence against them, or receive halal meals if they want them. It is a statement that there is a basic standard expect of us—you and me—in how we treat our fellow human beings; that so long as we acknowledge their mere humanity, we are morally—so much more morally than legally—obligated to treat them as more than animals. At its core, this is what the torture debate is about, has always been about, and will always be about.
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