torture is wrong

Most of you will know Dan Froomkin’s “White House Watch” in the Washington Post. In his dogged determination to report the facts and expose the lies on torture, he has been one of the few bright lights in the mainstream media. His daily column occupies some of the most influential real estate in the media. Today, he was fired.. It is possible, though this will certainly never be admitted, that his reporting on torture is part of the reason that he has been asked to leave.

It is a great loss to those of us who think torture really isn’t a very good idea and an even greater loss to journalism.

The Salon article is here.

Newly Released Detainee Statements Provide More Evidence Of CIA Torture Program (6/15/2009)

CIA Continues To Suppress Information From Detainee Tribunals With Heavy Redactions

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NEW YORK – The CIA today released still-highly redacted documents in which Guantánamo Bay prisoners describe abuse and torture they suffered in CIA custody. The documents were released as part of an American Civil Liberties Union Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking uncensored transcripts from Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) that determine if prisoners held by the Defense Department at Guantánamo qualify as "enemy combatants." In previously released versions of the documents, the CIA had removed virtually all references to the abuse of prisoners in their custody; the documents released today are still heavily blacked out but include some new information.

"The documents released today provide further evidence of brutal torture and abuse in the CIA's interrogation program and demonstrate beyond doubt that this information has been suppressed solely to avoid embarrassment and growing demands for accountability," said Ben Wizner, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project and lead attorney on the FOIA lawsuit. "There is no legitimate basis for the Obama administration's continued refusal to disclose allegations of detainee abuse, and we will return to court to seek the full release of these documents."

Full article here.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/22/090622fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all

in which we learn that anyone promoting accountability on torture is a Cheeto eating blogger working in the basement in their underwear, that Obama thinks accountability for torture should be solely based on “politic viability”  and Leon Panetta has become a pod in the basement.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/15/brennan/index.html

commentary on the article by Glenn Greenwald writing at Salon

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-06-15/panetta-torn-between-past-and-present/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsC1

an interview with Jane Mayer (about her article) by Scott Horton writing at The Daily Beast

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-29/torture-photos-depict-sex-rape/?cid=hp:mainpromo2

The Bogus Torture Coverup  by Scott Horton

Excerpt from the article:

The Pentagon is denying the facts: Photographs of Abu Ghraib torture are even more sexually explicit than first reported, including rape and sodomy, writes The Daily Beast's Scott Horton, who has obtained specific and detailed corroboration of the photos.

The Daily Beast has confirmed that the photographs of abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, which President Obama, in a reversal, decided not to release, depict sexually explicit acts, including a uniformed soldier receiving oral sex from a female prisoner, a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner and scenes of forced masturbation, forced exhibition, and penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms.

These descriptions come on the heels of a British report yesterday about the photographs that contained some of these revelations—and whose credibility was questioned by the Pentagon.

The photographs differ from those already officially released. Some show U.S. personnel engaged in sexual acts with prisoners and each other. In one, a female prisoner appears to have been forced to expose her breasts to be photographed.

The Daily Beast has obtained specific corroboration of the British account, which appeared in the London Daily Telegraph, from several reliable sources, including a highly credible senior military officer with firsthand knowledge, who provided even more detail about the graphic photographs that have been withheld from the public by the Obama administration.

A senior military officer familiar with the photos told me that they would likely provoke a storm of outrage if released. The well-informed source confirmed, just as reported in the Telegraph, that many of the photographs are sexually explicit, including those mentioned above. The photographs differ from those already officially released. Some show U.S. personnel engaged in sexual acts with prisoners and each other. In one, a female prisoner appears to have been forced to expose her breasts to be photographed. In another, a prisoner is suspended naked upside down from the top bunk of a bed in a stress position…..

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/05/28/torture/

From Salon and Propublica

Dr. Steven Miles wrote a book on the complicity of  medical professional in torture, published in June 2006

http://www.amazon.com/Oath-Betrayed-Torture-Medical-Complicity/dp/140006578X

Oath Betrayed  by Dr Steven Miles

http://www.democracynow.org/2006/6/30/oath_betrayed_torture_medical_complicity_and

interview with Dr. Miles, Democracy Now, January ,2006  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5395830/Abu-Ghraib-abuse-photos-show-rape.html

“At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.  

Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.” 

President Obama’’s recent statement characterizing these unreleased photos : “I want to emphasize that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.”