The Candid Blogger: torture

Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts

Friday, May 22, 2009

Conservative Radio Host Waterboarded: "It's Torture"

He Lasts Only 6 Seconds

Dick Cheney swears that waterboarding is not torture. International and American law says it is. After World War II, we executed Japanese soldiers who waterboarded American and British soldiers. We have heard right-wing wimp Shawn Hannity rant on and on about how waterboarding is not torture and that he would agree to be waterboarded for charity. We're still waiting.

Chicago radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided he'd get himself waterboarded to prove the technique wasn't torture.

It didn't turn out that way. "Mancow," in fact, lasted just six or seven seconds before crying foul. Apparently, the experience went pretty badly -- "Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop," according to NBC Chicago.

"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South told his audience before he was waterboarded on air. "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."

source: RAW STORY

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Waterboarding and American Justice

The Cheney Method

As I read the outrageous statements of Dick Cheney supporting waterboarding which is just another form of torture according to international law, and then I read the further outrageous statements supporting waterboarding by that Israeli agent, Senator Joe Lieberman, I am reminded of a story told to me by my uncle long ago when he returned from Stalag 17 after being held as a prisoner for 30 months during World War II.

My uncle told me of the atrocities suffered by many of the POW's, of the escape that was featured in the movie, "The Great Escape", etc. The one most vivid recollection I have is of what he told me had happened when the Americans arrived and freed the POW's. He said that the German officers were lined up and machine gunned to death. In his mind, this was the appropriate punishment for the horrible treatment they had inflicted upon the prisoners.

After World War II the U.S. participated in the executions of Japanese officers for WATERBOARDING torture of British and U.S. soldiers during the war. It IS torture, clearly, by U.S. and international law and there is a precedent for capital punishment of the perpetrators.

In America, Major Edwin Glenn was court-martialed and sentenced to ten years hard labor in 1901 for waterboarding a prisoner in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. The US officially outlawed the practice after World War II, because it had been used against Allied troops by the Gestapo and the Japanese Kempeitai. In fact, eight Kempeitai officers were executed for waterboarding British prisoners, and Japanese officer Yukio Asano was convicted by an Allied court of war crimes in 1947 for, among other things, water boarding John Henry Burton, a US civilian.

John McCain said: "There should be little doubt from American history that we consider that as torture otherwise we wouldn't have tried and convicted Japanese for doing that same thing to Americans" .

Should Dick Cheney and George Bush be tried for approving this torture technique? Absolutely. And, if convicted, they should receive an equal amount of American justice that the Japanese received after WW2. In order to remain a free nation, we can only be truly free by setting an example for the rest of the world that we are a nation of laws and principles.

It is time to charge Cheney (who also supervised an assassination squad) and Bush with war crimes and to see the evidence presented in a public forum, not unlike the Nuremberg trials.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Judge Approves Navy Spraying Banned Chemicals in Eyes of Recruits

United States Navy Training - 2009 Style

Pepper spray is banned for use in war by Article I.5 of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The "spray may contain water, alcohols, or organic solvents as liquid carriers; and nitrogen, carbon dioxide, or halogenated hydrocarbons (such as Freon, tetrachloroethylene, and methylene chloride) as propellants to discharge the canister contents," the North Carolina Medical journal wrote in a study. "Inhalation of high doses of some of these chemicals can produce adverse cardiac, respiratory, and neurologic effects, including arrhythmias and sudden death."

But that doesn't stop our Navy from spraying it in the eyes of recruits for "training purposes" and it didn't stop Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia from deciding that he wasn't in a position to overrule the Navy's decision to continue the practice. He ruled on Friday that the Navy can spray recruits in the eyes with pepper spray, even though it has been linked to death and is banned during warfare by international law.

“The use of direct-impact [pepper] spray indisputably risks injury, but the agency decided that this risk was offset by the benefits of training,” Leon wrote. “Plaintiffs allegation that the action was ‘clearly not the product of reasoned thought,’ is little more than a legal conclusion and provides insufficient support for its claim that the agency decision was arbitrary and capricious.”

The decision, revealed by the blog of Legal Times, is in response to a case brought by naval officers, who argued that the practice of "subjecting trainees to a direct shot of pepper spray was dangerous and deprived them of their constitutional rights to due process and equal protection. They said the Navy could rely on less intense training methods, such as smearing a small amount of the spray on the skin beneath the eyes, or forcing trainees to walk through a room that had previously been sprayed."

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, there have been 27 deaths among people sprayed in California alone since 1993, although the deaths were not directly linked to the chemical. In particular, it can be fatal for individuals with asthma.

America was once a great country. I now feel ashamed.

source: RAW STORY

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Child Porn at FOX News

From the Daily Left:

Newly Released Docs Reveal Prisoners Tortured to Death; Almost 40% of Americans Want Criminal Probe of Bush; Fox Producer Busted for Child Porn...For the Second Time.

Of course, FOX News, is always fair and balanced. . . as long as the viewers are slightly to the right of Attila the Hun . . . or John Boehner.

This is a 3:44 video. Enjoy:

Friday, February 13, 2009

Bush Must be Prosecuted for War Crimes

A Detainee at Guantanamo

In a press conference on October 5, 2007, President Bush states: "This government does not torture people. We stick to international law".

President Bush later talks with Larry King about the aftermath of 9/11 and criticisms of his administration. When confronted with the issue of torture, Bush again states: "WE DON'T TORTURE".

It is obvious from his statements, that Bush was very aware of international law and that torture is against the Geneva Convention and that he was lying. He must also have been aware that violating the Geneva Convention exposes our troops to similar treatment when and if they are captured. In other words, Bush's "Macho Man" routine not only endangered our troops, but cast a dark shadow on the integrity and reputation of the United States abroad.

Now we have evidence that we not only tortured captives, but in some cases they were tortured to death. Three major human rights organizations have declared the Department of Defense was running secret prisons at Bagram and in Iraq, actively sought ways around the terms of the Geneva conventions and cooperated with the CIA's "ghost detention" program which saw prisoners hidden from Red Cross oversight.

The arrival of the documents comes on the same day the ACLU published two unredacted pages of a government report which reveals detainees in US custody were tortured to death. In a Raw Story article, the following was revealed:

"These newly released documents confirm our suspicion that the tentacles of the CIA’s abusive program reached across agency lines," said Margaret Satterthwaite, Director of the NYU International Human Rights Clinic, in a Thursday advisory. "In fact, it is increasingly obvious that defense officials engaged in legal gymnastics to find ways to cooperate with the CIA’s activities. A full accounting of all agencies must now take place to ensure that future abuses don’t continue under a different guise."

The papers, part of a volley of responses to Freedom of Information Act requests, were released by Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. The entire package, which encompasses hundreds of pages, was boiled down to several key points by the CCR in a report by Mother Jones writer Steve Aquino.

"One heavily redacted page mentions (page 34) an 'undisclosed detention facility' at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan," he noted.

"Another, dated May 2004, highlights (page 17) how the Geneva Conventions can be interpreted to allow the CIA and the DoD to ghost detainees' identities so they can be denied a visit from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

"This was done, according to a memo from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to 'maximize intelligence collection efforts.' In other words, give them more time to interrogate inmates." And perhaps most outrageous, a Feb. 2006 e-mail disclosed by the groups highlights an effort to limit bad press by delaying the release of a detainee "for 45 days or so until things cool down."

"It is astonishing that the government may have delayed releasing men from Guantбnamo in order to avoid bad press," said CCR attorney Gitanjali Gutierrez, who represents many of the men held in Guantбnamo, in an Amnesty International release. "Proposing to hold men for a month and a half after they were deemed releasable is inexcusable. The Obama Administration should avoid repeating this injustice and release the innocent individuals with all due haste."

CLICK TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

President Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, have expressed a hesitancy to look back at the Bush administration and a desire to look toward the future. That future will always have a dark cloud hanging over it unless we hold President Bush and his cohorts accountable for their illegal and murderous conduct. As we used to say in the 60's,

THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING

Friday, January 23, 2009

Obama Issues Order to Close Guantanamo

Bush promised to close it. McCain promised to close it. The Supreme Court wants it closed. Experienced military prosecutors have resigned in protest over the out-of-control abuses and violations of the rule of law there. Now the right wing psychopaths who nearly succeeded in destroying the country by supporting a criminal in the White House are howling because Obama is doing what needs to be done.

Crimes Performed in the Name of America

Monday, January 12, 2009

Obama Readies Order to Close Gitmo

President-elect Barack Obama will order the closing of the Guantanamo Bay US military prison, his advisers say, according to Lara Jakes of The Associated Press: That executive order is expected during Obama's first week on the job — and possibly on his first day, according to two transition team advisers. Both spoke Monday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Obama's order will direct his administration to figure out what to do with the estimated 250 al-Qaida and Taliban suspects and potential witnesses who are being held at Guantanamo.

It's still unlikely the prison would be closed any time soon. Obama last weekend said it would be "a challenge" to close it even within the first 100 days of his administration.