Mohammed el Gorani, the youngest prisoner held at Guantánamo, has written a
memoir of his time there, the lead up to his imprisonment, and subsequent release years later.
posted by gman
on Dec 14, 2011 -
65 comments
In Gitmo Opinion, Two Versions of Reality. "When Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. ordered the release of a Guantánamo Bay detainee last spring, the case appeared to be a routine setback for an Obama administration that has lost a string of such cases. But there turns out to be
nothing ordinary about the habeas case brought by Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman, a Yemeni held without charges for nearly eight years. Uthman, accused by two U.S. administrations of being an al-Qaida fighter and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, is among 48 detainees the Obama administration has deemed too dangerous to release but 'not feasible for prosecution.' A day after his March 16 order was filed on the court's electronic docket,
Kennedy's opinion vanished. Weeks later, a new ruling appeared in its place. While it reached the same conclusion,
eight pages of material had been removed, including key passages in which Kennedy dismantled the government's case against Uthman."
posted by homunculus
on Oct 13, 2010 -
92 comments
The Obama administration has repeatedly threatened to conceal future information of terrorist threats from the British government, unless the British government disobeys the High Court ruling requiring them to release information about the US government's acknowledged torture program. This may be a breach of the Convention Against Torture.
Glenn Greenwald has new evidence.
Previously.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94
on May 12, 2009 -
282 comments
Tortured Reasoning. "George W. Bush defended harsh interrogations by pointing to intelligence breakthroughs, but a surprising number of counterterrorist officials say that, apart from being wrong, torture just doesn’t work. Delving into two high-profile cases, the author exposes the tactical costs of prisoner abuse."
posted by homunculus
on Dec 18, 2008 -
82 comments
Rorschach and Awe. "America's coercive interrogation methods were reverse-engineered by two C.I.A. psychologists who had spent their careers training U.S. soldiers to endure Communist-style torture techniques. The spread of these tactics was fueled by a myth about a critical 'black site' operation."
posted by homunculus
on Jul 31, 2007 -
57 comments
Sixty-seven scenes of torture in five seasons. Is
24 responsible for an
increase in real-life torture? They at least feel guilty enough to
meet up with some actual interrogators encouraging them to make their torture scenes more authentic. But it's not just
24 - torture is becoming
more prevalent on all American television.
posted by meech
on Feb 12, 2007 -
107 comments
The Torture Question tonight on PBS by far, television's most in-depth look at how the controversial interrogation policy evolved after a major power struggle within the Bush administration. (via Rocky Mountain News)
The problem, of course, is that it's often the things we'd rather not think about that we most need to hear, especially when those things are actions taken in all of our names with an eye toward making us safer. Ellen Gray
Watch a preview
here.
posted by tvgurl
on Oct 18, 2005 -
41 comments
Another Fan Of Torture Reveals Himself Eugene Volokh, a former clerk to Justice O'Connor and a leading voice in conservative legal circles has some interesting opinions on punishment:
[T]hough for many instances I would prefer less painful forms of execution, I am especially pleased that the killing — and, yes, I am happy to call it a killing, a perfectly proper term for a perfectly proper act — was a slow throttling, and was preceded by a flogging. The one thing that troubles me (besides the fact that the murderer could only be killed once) is that the accomplice was sentenced to only 15 years in prison, but perhaps there's a good explanation.
posted by expriest
on Mar 17, 2005 -
84 comments
While the proverbial road to hell is paved with good intentions, the internal government memos collected in this publication demonstrate that the path to the purgatory that is Guantanamo Bay, or Abu Ghraib, has been paved with decidedly bad intentions. The policies that resulted in rampant abuse of detainees first in Afghanistan, then at Guantanamo Bay, and later in Iraq, were product of three pernicious purposes designed to facilitate the unilateral and unfettered detention, interrogation, abuse, judgment, and punishment of prisoners: (1) the desire to place the detainees beyond the reach of any court or law; (2) the desire to abrogate the Geneva Convention with respect to the treatment of persons seized in the context of armed hostilities; and (3) the desire to absolve those implementing the policies of any liability for war crimes under U.S. and international law.
Regarding the
Torture Papers, which detail
Torture's Paper Trail, and, then there's
Hungry for Air: Learning The Language Of Torture, and, of course, there's
( more inside)
posted by y2karl
on Mar 14, 2005 -
97 comments
A "Disappearance" In America - Arrested without charge. Secret warrants and subpoenas. No arrest record. No accusation of a crime. Solitary confinement. No access to a lawyer. No comment from the authorities. No court appearance. In other countries, this would be a "disappearance". Here in America, it's just the Patriot Act
at work. Read the story of
Mike Hawash, and ponder where this country is headed.
posted by laz-e-boy
on Apr 7, 2003 -
44 comments
Violence and Repression in Western Afghanistan. "A man who was severely beaten by Ismail Khan's forces described to Human Rights Watch the effect of the repression: 'At any time I feel that I am in danger. When I leave my house, I do not know if I will return. I do not know whether something will happen to me, if there will be some car crash, or that I will be hit in the back of the head.' Another witness talked about how his community's hopes after the hated Taliban regime was ended have been deflated: 'What has changed in Afghanistan? All our hopes are crushed. We are completely disappointed. Look-all the same warlords are in power as before. Fundamentalism has come into power, and every day they strengthen their power.'
The light of liberation and liberty descends upon Afghanistan.
posted by fold_and_mutilate
on Nov 6, 2002 -
31 comments
This is exactly what I was afraid would happen to the hundreds of so-called material witnesses to the investigation of the terrorist attacks. I fear that this is simply a "quieter" internment of many innocent people of Arab descent. How can the government
ask for religious and ethnic tolerance while subjecting people to morally questionable treatment?
posted by xyzzy
on Oct 15, 2001 -
33 comments
