Our inevitable shame

[Political Waves]

I'm still spun up about the torture issue, and one article today ... finally ... put the bottom line in place. Rape and sexual degradation!

THIS is why the torture issue can't be put to bed. What are we, the Congo? This disgusting piece of American history must be revealed despite all it's "honorable" CIA interrogation, as per Mr. Cheney, because we let sadism and brutality rule the day -- and there are still whispered reports of young men being raped in front of their mothers, children being held and terrorized and, fully explored by Human Rights Watch, over a hundred unexplained torture deaths ... unspeakable cruelties.

THIS is as American as apple pie?? Bull! This is INDEFENSIBLE.

Especially since it turns out ... despite the Dick defense ... that brutality doesn't work nearly as well as a FRIGGIN' COOKIE!

We knew about this, of course -- we Lefty's that dug through the alternative media and duly reported. And we knew this day was coming; we've anticipated it like we welcome a root canal ... awful, painful, reluctantly come to but required. This happened on the Bushie watch ... but on our historical record; we can't shift blame.

This is not just Bad Apples; this was yawned at in the Bush White House, encouraged by the Cheney office and shrugged off in Rummy's DoD. All that's left to us now is aftermath of cover-up. The reads today paint a very different picture than the con artists of MSM have reported, truth instead of truthiness.

I'm still of a mind that the release of pictures would probably be inflammatory to the super-modest-unto-death Islamic population whose religion and sexuality is not as schizophrenic as ours [even as they would make us hang our heads in shame,] and viewing them unnecessary to the larger conversation -- but the truth certainly is. Sexual abuse is a powder keg and surely anyone with a brain realized that the tip of that iceberg was Lindy Englund squinting through her smoke, laughing and pointing at a hooded detainees genitals.

Obama may or may not have the full info, here; he's taken the advice of his generals and I wonder if he's actually seen these photos. In the choice between thinking him a decent, thoughtful man or a self-protecting politician, I come down on the former ... I don't intuit any cover-up in this man; he takes responsibility and that's a relatively new thing in our political culture. But one of my ongoing concerns has been both the Bushie implants in the various departments, and the obstruction Pubs have given to filling his vital posts. Given his challenges, the Prez can't micro-manage; nor should he ... and who he's trusting to do the leg-work is important.

Still, if he pulled the pic's because of their sexual content, it won't work ... these photos are destined to come out, since there's scandal to report and profit to be made. And the entire topic of institutionalized brutality WILL be decided in this generation.

The reads tell the tale, today -- short and not-so-sweet. Bonus is a terrifically verbose and descriptive Morford on gay marriage ... it's wonderfully quotable, don't miss it.

Jude


Unreleased abuse photos depict rape, sexual abuse: report
May 27, 2009
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/27/unreleased-abuse-photos-depict-rape-sexual-abuse-report/

Unreleased photographs of alleged abuse by U.S. military personnel of prisoners at Iraqi prisons – which President Obama refused to release earlier this month – include images of rape and sexual abuse, according to a new report.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who in 2004 investigated and wrote a report on allegations of detainee abuse in U.S. prisons in Iraq, has confirmed the existence of graphic photographs depicting the following:

–An American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner.

–A male translator apparently raping a male detainee.

–A female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Other photographs depict sexual assaults on prisoners with a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube, according to the Telegraph story.

The still unreleased photos relate to abuse alleged to have taken place between 2001 and 2005 in Abu Ghraib and six other prisons. Taguba, now retired, supports Obama’s decision to block the release of the photos, which Obama had previously said would be released according to a court ruling in support of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU.

“These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency,” Taguba told the Telegraph.

“I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan.

“The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it,” Taguba said.

The Telegraph reports:

It was thought the images were similar to those leaked five years ago, which showed naked and bloody prisoners being intimidated by dogs, dragged around on a leash, piled into a human pyramid and hooded and attached to wires.

Mr Obama seemed to reinforce that view by adding: “I want to emphasise 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.”


No Torture Needed -- Cookies Did the Job
E&P
May 28, 2009
http://www.eandppub.com/2009/05/no-torture-neededcookies-did-the-job.html

Fascinating piece coming in tomorrow's TIME magazine. Reporter Bobby Ghosh writes, “The most successful interrogation of an al-Qaeda operative by U.S. officials required no sleep deprivation, no slapping or ‘walling’ and no waterboarding. All it took to soften up Abu Jandal, who had been closer to Osama bin Laden than any other terrorist ever captured, was a handful of sugar-free cookies.”

Former interrogator/member of the FBI Ali Soufan, who testified to Congress last month, tells TIME: “He was a diabetic ... We had showed him respect, and we had done this nice thing for him .... So he started talking to us instead of giving us lectures.” Ghosh points out,  “Defenders of the Bush program, most notably Cheney, say the use of waterboarding produced actionable intelligence that helped the U.S. disrupt terrorist plots. But the experiences of officials like Soufan suggest that the utility of torture is limited at best and counterproductive at worst.” ++


Conservative radio host who got waterboarded admits technique may produce bogus intelligence
David Edwards and John Byrne, Raw Story
May 27, 2009
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/27/mancow-waterboarding-torture/

The conservative Chicago radio jock whose voluntary submission to waterboarding changed his mind about whether the technique is torture added to his conversion Tuesday by acknowledging that waterboarding could easily produce bad intelligence.

“The scenario that everyone approves on this there is a bomb somewhere it is going off in 15 minutes,” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann asked Eric “Mancow” Muller, the radio host. “You waterboard the guy, can you, having gone through this trust you get the right answer?

“Keith, the honest answer is I don’t know,” Muller said. “If had information I’m sure I would have given it up. I would have said anything to make it stop.”

“They compare it to drowning,” Muller added. “I drowned as a kid and had to be revived. This is worse. This isn’t gulping for air. Your brain is shut off. This is water at the back of your skull, a gallon of water poured down my nose; I had a Marine do it. It was good night Irene, game over… I thought I could go 30 seconds. Big deal they sprinkle water [but] it’s a big deal. It is torture.”

“I was willing to prove and ready to prove that this was a joke and I was wrong,” Muller continued. “It was horrific. It was instantaneous and look I felt the effects for two days. I had chest pains. I told my wife, look I have two little kids– we prayed. I said dear god help me. I had chest pains I was so stressed out by this.”

Mancow also revealed that his friend Sean Hannity “called me and said ‘it’s still not torture.’ I said, ‘Sean, you’re a friend of mine, but it is still torture.”

Mancow also thanked Olbermann for donating $10,000 to a charity benefiting veterans in response to his undergoing the technique.

[Open link for] This video from MSNBC’s Countdown, broadcast May 26, 2009. ++


Former Senior Interrogator in Iraq Dissects Cheney's Lies and Distortions
Matthew Alexander, HuffPo
[Led the interrogations that found Zarqawi; author of "How to Break a Terrorist"]
May 24, 2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-alexander/whats-not-said-is-more-im_b_207151.html

As a senior interrogator in Iraq (and a former criminal investigator), there was a lesson I learned that served me well: there's more to be learned from what someone doesn't say than from what they do say. Let me dissect former Vice President Dick Cheney's speech on National Security using this model and my interrogation skills.

First, VP Cheney said, "This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately... it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do." He further stated, "It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so." That is simply untrue. Anyone who served in Iraq, and veterans on both sides of the aisle have made this argument, knows that the foreign fighters did not come to Iraq en masse until after the revelations of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. I heard this from captured foreign fighters day in and day out when I was supervising interrogations in Iraq.

What the former vice president didn't say is the fact that the dislike of our policies in the Middle East were not enough to make thousands of Muslim men pick up arms against us before these revelations. Torture and abuse became Al Qaida's number one recruiting tool and cost us American lives.

Secondly, the former vice president, in saying that waterboarding is not torture, never mentions the fact that it was the United States and its Allies, during the Tokyo Trials, that helped convict a Japanese soldier for war crimes for waterboarding one of Jimmie Doolittle's Raiders. Have our morals and values changed in fifty years? He also did not mention that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both prohibited their troops from torturing prisoners of war. Washington specifically used the term "injure" -- no mention of severe mental or physical pain.

Thirdly, the former vice president never mentioned the Senate testimony of Ali Soufan, the FBI interrogator who successfully interrogated Abu Zubaydah and learned the identity of Jose Padilla, the dirty bomber, and the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) was the mastermind behind 9/11. We'll never know what more we could have discovered from Abu Zubaydah had not CIA contractors taken over the interrogations and used waterboarding and other harsh techniques. Also, glaringly absent from the former vice president's speech was any mention of the fact that the former administration never brought Osama bin Laden to justice and that our best chance to locate him would have been through KSM or Abu Zubaydah had they not been waterboarded.

In addition, in his continued defense of harsh interrogation techniques (aka torture and abuse), VP Cheney forgets that harsh techniques have ensured that future detainees will be less likely to cooperate because they see us as hypocrites. They are less willing to trust us when we fail to live up to our principles. I experienced this firsthand in Iraq when interrogating high-ranking members of Al Qaida, some of whom decided to cooperate simply because I treated them with respect and civility.

The former vice president is confusing harshness with effectiveness. An effective interrogation is one that yields useful, accurate intelligence, not one that is harsh. It speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of interrogations, the goal of which is not to coerce information from a prisoner, but to convince a prisoner to cooperate.

Finally, the point that is most absent is that our greatest success in this conflict was achieved without torture or abuse. My interrogation team found Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaida in Iraq and murderer of tens of thousands. We did this using relationship-building approaches and non-coercive law enforcement techniques. These worked to great effect on the most hardened members of Al Qaida -- spiritual leaders who had been behind the waves of suicide bombers and, hence, the sectarian violence that swept across Iraq. We convinced them to cooperate by applying our intellect. In essence, we worked smarter, not harsher. ++


Intel experts: Dick Cheney was wrong about Bush administration moves
Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers
Sunday, May 24, 2009
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/2009_05_24_Intel_experts:_Dick_Cheney_was_wrong_about_Bush_administration_moves/

WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Dick Cheney's high-profile speech Thursday defending the Bush administration's policies for interrogating suspected terrorists contained omissions, exaggerations and misstatements, according to intelligence officals and the historical record, including:

Cheney said waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques produced information that "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people." He also quoted Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair as saying the information gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organization."

In his statement April 21, however, Blair said "these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security." A 2004 CIA inspector general's investigation found no conclusive proof that the information helped thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to one of four secret Bush-era memos released last month. And FBI Director Robert Muller said in December that he didn't think that the techniques disrupted any attacks.

Cheney said his administration "moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and their sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks." In fact, the Bush administration began diverting U.S. forces, intelligence assets, time and money to planning an invasion of Iraq before it finished the war in Afghanistan, leaving Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri, at large nearly eight years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

There are now 49,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan fighting to contain the bloodiest surge in Taliban violence since 2001, and extremists have launched a concerted attack on nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Cheney accused Obama of "the selective release" of documents on Bush administration detainee policies, charging Obama withheld records that Cheney claimed prove information gained from the harsh interrogation methods prevented terrorist attacks.

In fact, the decision to withhold the documents was announced by the CIA, which said it was obliged to do so by a 2003 executive order issued by former President George W. Bush prohibiting release of materials that are subject of lawsuits.

Cheney said only "ruthless enemies of this country" were detained by U.S. operatives overseas and taken to secret U.S. prisons.

A 2008 McClatchy investigation, however, found that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.

Cheney denied there was any link between the Bush administration's interrogation policies and the abuse of detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail, which he blamed on "a few sadistic guards." But a bipartisan Senate Armed Services report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to approval of the techniques by senior Bush officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. ++


bonus


The big gay shrug
Sorry, enemies of gay marriage. Prop 8 or no, you've already lost
Mark Morford, SF Gate
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/05/27/notes052709.DTL

Here's a fun thing to do to calm your frazzled, saddened nerves in the wake of the CA Supreme Court's very unfortunate, but also merely annoying and karmically fleeting Proposition 8 decision:

Head on down to your local high school -- hell, make it a junior high or even an elementary -- and take yourself an informal survey. Ask the various wary, bepimpled youth of Generation Tweet what they think about those scary gay people getting married.

Ask them, in your most panicky, alarmist, Mormonified voice: Aren't they horrified at the very idea? Aren't they shocked at the very thought of two people in love having their union officially recognized and validated by the state?

Don't they know the musty ol' Bible mutters some barely coherent, mistranslated silliness about it in a single word or two written 1,500 years ago in a long dead language by acidic church elders with powermad political agendas and violently repressed libidos who nevertheless wish to instruct us all how to live and love and screw?

Please note the response. Please observe how the kids merely look at you as though you're more than a little bit deranged and prehistoric, so out of touch you might as well be Dick Cheney talking up the diesel-powered rectal thermometers he so loved back in World War I.

Watch carefully as they sigh and roll their eyes, then whip out their Nokias to text their friends about how this creepy elder just tried to convince them that the harmless, yawningly commonplace homosexuality currently saturating the popular culture all around them, from fashion to Facebook, movies to "American Idol," is not only wrong, but so wrong that the law should ban it forever because... well, no one really seems to know exactly why.

Did you see it? That big, sighing shrug of what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you, combined with lots of who-the-hell-cares? Because that's the reaction to note most of all.

Here is what it tells you: Gay marriage is a foregone conclusion. It's a done deal. It's just a matter of time. For the next generation in particular, equal rights for gays is not even a question or a serious issue, much less a sinful hysterical conundrum that can only be answered by terrified Mormons and confused old people and inane referendums funded by same. It's just obvious, inevitable, a given.

Let us hereby be reminded, before sadness and frustration overwhelm once more: Proposition 8 and its ilk are merely the last, fitful gasps of a long-dying ideology, markers of a certain kind of sad, conservative desperation. They are the final clawings and scrapings of a reactionary worldview that attempts to outlaw and punish all it cannot, will not understand. Same as it ever was, really.

The pattern is as old as fear itself. Remember, only rarely does true progress appear as a single, momentous, Obama-like shift that reverberates across the planet and changes everything in an instant. Most frequently it comes in fits and starts and hiccups, small lurches and hard-fought battles shot through with little spitballs of hate and intolerance and heaps of misunderstanding. You know, just like now.

Evidence? Plenty. Just look at the numbers: Support for gay marriage is now the highest it's been in American history, somewhere between 42 and 48 percent nationwide. Just a few decades ago, support was down in the 20s. It's been rising steadily ever since, never once regressing.

Or, flip that data around. According to FiveThirtyEight, marriage bans like California's are losing support at a rate of about two percent a year. According to that model, more than half of U.S. states will vote against bans like the contemptible Prop 8 as soon as 2012, if not sooner. By 2024, even miserably homophobic joints like Alabama and Mississippi will be flying the rainbow flag.

You could say, then, that we are, right this minute, at the tipping point. You could say that very soon indeed -- sooner than many people expect, in fact -- we will all look back on this inane gay marriage hysteria and wonder, what the hell was that all about? What the hell were we thinking? And by the way, isn't President Obama's second term going just astonishingly well?

As for massive, schizophrenic California, well, what can we say? In our convoluted, lurching, two steps forward eight steps sideways sort of quasi-progressive way, we flail and flip and frequently fail. It's just our way.

We may be a die-hard blue state overall, full of revolutionary ideas and world-class academics, Nobel Laureates and wondrous alternative belief systems, but we are also messy and flat-footed and just too damn big for our own good, and our southern half is packed to the Orange County rafters with piles of aging social conservatives and religious zealots with far too little spiritual/sexual awareness and far too much money. Sorry.

It's an undeniable shame indeed that this powerful, iconic, world-altering state couldn't get its damnable act together on The Last Civil Right. But, you know, oh well. Can't be the vanguard for 'em all. Iowa and Massachusetts, et al, please show us how it's done. And by the way, thank you.

Do not misunderstand: Setbacks like this Prop 8 decision are painful and even cruel, and the gay couples and activists who've been at the forefront of the fight since the beginning are nothing short of heroic. Like civil rights activists of any stripe before them, the subsequent generations who will take gay rights for granted will have them to thank forevermore for paving the way and fighting the good fight.

What's more, there is still an enormous amount of work to be done, new referendums and protests and fundraisers and awareness-raisings. The change will not come without help and push. Hate and homophobia still seethe in myriad pockets of the culture and the populace at large, even trickling down to dumb-blond silicon-injected beauty pageant runner-ups who parrot the same childlike religious misinformation her handlers have pumped into her kind for 2,000 wickedly patriarchal years.

But these setbacks are not insurmountable roadblocks. They are merely obnoxious speed bumps on what social conservatives see as our nation's ungodly highway to hell. They only slow us down a little.

A new campaign in the fight for marriage equality is already taking shape. Evolution is happening, the energy and momentum are unstoppable. Simply put, the ignorance and homophobia that fueled and funded Prop 8 in the first place will not stand.

Don't believe it? Hey, just ask your kids. ++



"I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington ... I'm asking you to believe in yours."
~ Barack Obama

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