MetaFilter posts tagged with torture and rendition

Torture; to investigate or not to investigate.

adamvasco — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 06:29:18 -0800

Scott Horton discusses the latest reports about the pending appointment of a torture special prosecutor with Keith Olbermann. Last week, British judges revealed that the British Secret Services fed questions to the CIA in the full knowledge that the Agency was systematically using torture in interrogations; a clear violation of international law. Meanwhile BBC Newsweek airs "Confessions of an Uzbek KGB officer". Shortly after 11.00 mins in the video Yakobov refuses to comment more on Secret Rendition claiming his life could be in endangered. In a Sept. interview Yakubov's most interesting evidence is that he accompanied a CIA man to an interrogation, and that the CIA man was actually in the room during the torture of a detainee.
bradblog attempts to unravel the web of deceipt.

Craig Murray Attends the Formal Evidence Session on UK Complicity in Torture

debord — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:57:05 -0800

Craig Murray (Previously: 1 2) Attends the Formal Evidence Session on UK Complicity in Torture on Tuesday 28 April 1.45pm UK time. You can (hopefully) watch it on Parliament TV. If you want to have a good look at UK / US complicity in torture, this might be a good place to start... Please note he has said "There is absolutely no way I am going to kill myself. Just thought it might be wise to get that out in public!". Hopefully statements like that won't be necessary.

Voices from the Black Sites

shoesfullofdust — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:38:59 -0800

Interrogation techniques used by the CIA on al-Qaeda suspects "constituted torture", according to a report by the International Red Cross.

Obama DOJ continues Bush secrecy on torture

Kirth Gerson — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:42:34 -0800

Obama's Justice Department has endorsed its predecessor's claims that the details of the extraordinary rendition program are "state secrets."

Bad Company

msalt — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:26:25 -0800

The CIA's Odd Man Out: CIA station chief Bob Lady coordinated the secret kidnapping of Islamic militant Abu Omar in Milan and Omar's "extreme rendition" to Egypt where he was tortured. Italy indicted various CIA agents; Lady is on the run in Central America, abandoned by the agency. The twist: Lady opposed the mission all along. And Abu Omar will probably end up with Lady's home in the foothills of the Alps. Lady's boss -- Jeff Castelli, then head of intelligence operations in Italy -- simply received a reprimand and is being groomed for promotion, despite the arrest warrant out for him in Europe. (See "Backchannel Chatter" at end of this article. ) More on Lady's situation from the March, 2007 GQ; Omar's description of these events from the Chicago Tribune.

Depicting Europe as a neo-liberal economist's wet dream and unthinking lackey of the United States.

Kattullus — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 13:40:57 -0800

Depicting Europe, an essay in The London Review of Books by UCLA history professor Perry Anderson, criticizes the European Union as a neo-liberal economist's wet dream and unthinking lackey of the United States. "Today’s EU, with its pinched spending (just over 1 per cent of Union GDP), minuscule bureaucracy (around 16,000 officials, excluding translators), absence of independent taxation, and lack of any means of administrative enforcement, could in many ways be regarded as a ne plus ultra of the minimal state, beyond the most drastic imaginings of classical liberalism: less even than the dream of a nightwatchman." [...] "[As] the second report to the Council of Europe – released in June this year – by the courageous Swiss investigator Dick Marty, has shown, a stepped-up programme of renditions must have been high on the list. Once Afghanistan was taken, Baghram airbase outside Kabul became both interrogation centre for the CIA and loading-bay for prisoners to Guantánamo. The traffic was soon two-way, and its pivot was Europe. In one direction, captives were transported from Afghan or Pakistani dungeons to Europe, either to be held there in secret CIA jails, or shipped onwards to Cuba. In the other direction, captives were flown from secret locations in Europe for requisite treatment in Afghanistan." 1st and 2nd reports of Dick Marty. I swear I didn't post this because of the pun in the essay's title.

"K.S.M. can say he killed Jesus--he has nothing to lose."

kirkaracha — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 07:57:52 -0800

The Black Sites. "A rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program."

Dave Schultz, Tie Domi, Bob Probert...

Smedleyman — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 11:01:31 -0800

Cofer Black, Director of the CIA Counterterrorism center until May 2002 said before the 9/11 commission: “All I want to say is that there was ‘before’ 9/11 and ‘after’ 9/11. After 9/11 the gloves come off… ‘No Limits’ aggressive, relentless, worldwide pursuit of any terrorist who threatens us is the only way to go…” Since that time there have been allegations of abduction and indefinite detention in secret prisons abroad , abuse in prisons within the U.S. and the suppression of evidence of coercion overseas in confessions in U.S. courts. (Ahmed Omar Abu Ali prev. here). In addition to Amnesty Int’l, it’s getting the U.S. some UN attention as well.

Lest we forget: Outsourcing Torture

y2karl — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:51:13 -0800

Outsourcing Torture The secret history of America’s “extraordinary rendition” program.

Tantamount To Torture - Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánamo

y2karl — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 07:50:19 -0800

Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánamo The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantánamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantánamo. The team of humanitarian workers, which included experienced medical personnel, also asserted that some doctors and other medical workers at Guantánamo were participating in planning for interrogations, in what the report called "a flagrant violation of medical ethics." Doctors and medical personnel conveyed information about prisoners' mental health and vulnerabilities to interrogators, the report said, sometimes directly, but usually through a group called the Behavioral Science Consultation Team, or B.S.C.T. The team, known informally as Biscuit, is composed of psychologists and psychological workers who advise the interrogators, the report said. From the Red Cross : The ICRC's work at Guantanamo Bay - Related: From Association of the Bar of the City of New York, a pdf: Torture by Proxy: International and Domestic Law Applicable to Extraordinary Renditions-- Representative Edward J.] Markey pledges battle on rendition practice

BentPenguin — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 06:35:12 -0800

"Rendition" is the State Department legal term for when they ship (its a lot like extradition minus due process ) Al Qaida/Taliban POWs to a friendly 3rd country such as Egypt or Jordan for questioning. "Why not just question them in Guantanamo" you ask? Thats because in some countries, interrogation is less regulated than it is on US soil. Neat, huh?