torture

January 30, 2008

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=RcqFxZa_kSo

December 7, 2007
C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations
By MARK MAZZETTI - nytimes

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

The attorney general nominee declines to call water-boarding torture, as Democrats on Senate panel had sought.

By Richard B. Schmitt
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 31, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Atty. Gen.-designate Michael B. Mukasey, adopting a middle ground on an issue that has become central to his nomination, said coercive interrogation methods, including a form of simulated drowning, were "over the line" and "repugnant." But he declined to say whether he thought so-called water-boarding was a form of torture that would be illegal in all cases.

Senate hearings on Mukasey nomination

Democrats prepares to install defender of torture, illegal spying as attorney general

By Bill Van Auken
WSWS
20 October 2007

This week’s Senate hearings on the nomination of Michael Mukasey as US attorney general made clear that the Democratic leadership is preparing to install as the country’s chief law enforcement official a right-wing former judge who backs the illegal methods of the Bush administration in its so-called war on terror, including torture and domestic spying.

"The more I scream they will laugh and do it again... my screams all in vain."
– Guantánamo detainee Omar Deghayes

What is the 86 Days campaign?
86 days separate two infamous dates: October 17th marks the first year anniversary of the Military Commissions Act (MCA) and January 11th marks the anniversary of the first detainee held at Guantánamo Bay. We will protest and organize during these 86 days and need you to join us!

Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations

By SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN
The New York Times
October 4, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

' career

LA Times
August 28, 2007

At last the attorney general has done the right thing and stepped down.
Some significant dates in the Washington career of Alberto R. Gonzales, the nation's 80th U.S. attorney general, who announced his resignation Monday.

January 2001: Named President Bush's White House legal counsel.

Jan. 25, 2002: In a memo, Gonzales contends that the president can waive anti-torture
laws and international treaties that provide protections to prisoners of war.

Feb. 3, 2005: Confirmed and sworn in as attorney general.

Bush sanctions CIA torture program
The prisoner at Abu Ghraib concentration camp is being subjected to sleep deprivation, threatened with execution if he falls off box

By Jerry White
WSWS
23 July 2007

President Bush signed an executive order Friday clearing the way for the Central Intelligence Agency to resume the use of “enhanced interrogation measures” against alleged terror suspects held in US facilities around the world.

Exposed: The Anatomy of a Torture Scandal
"United States does not torture and we value human rights" Bush June 25 2997, at the Presidential Scholars Program

By Onnesha Roychoudhuri, AlterNetJune 21, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/54647/

Not long before Lynndie England ever stepped foot in Iraq, long before she became the poster-child for torture, she was a whistleblower at Pilgrim's Pride chicken factory in Moorefield, W.Va. -- a notion that doesn't quite fit with her current image.

Hypocritical Oath: Psychologists and Torture

Amy Goodman

Jun 5, 2007
By Amy Goodman

First, do no harm. This tenet of medicine applies equally to psychologists, yet they are increasingly implicated in abusive interrogations, dare we say torture, at U.S. military detention facilities like Guantanamo. While the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association both have passed resolutions prohibiting members from participating in interrogations, the American Psychological Association refuses to, despite the outrage of many of its members.