Years ago the subject of torture was a hot button issue and then like all other hot button issues it fell be the wayside to make room for something m,ore important….like the Kardashians or something equally as mind numbing….
And then the debate was resurrected with the torture report out of the Senate.
Just to help people catch up there is a historical timeline that can help those that want to understand….
A History of the C.I.A.’s Secret Interrogation Program – NYTimes.com.
This should not be open for debate……they crushed the Constitution……denied basic human rights…..
To deter U.S. from torturing again, those involved should be prosecuted.
There is much in the report…..and as usual NO one will be held responsible for the barbaric techniques used to get NOTHING of value…..
These are some disgraceful facts that may be overlooked by the media in their dash for ratings…..
17 Disgraceful Facts Buried In The Senate’s 600 Page Torture Report | ThinkProgress.
Yesterday the all powerful torture report came out……and it even kicked the Royals to page two….go figure.
What was anticipated from this report?
the long-awaited Senate Intelligence Committee report on its use of torture—which one lawmaker on Sunday warned could bring “violence and deaths” overseas. Here’s what you need to know:
- Who authored the report? Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee; Republicans opted not to participate. Though it was compiled between 2009 and 2013 and runs 6,000 pages, just the executive summary—at roughly 10% the length of the report—will be released.
- How detailed is it? The New York Times describes it as “by far the most thorough study of the program to date,” and the result of a $40 million review of more than 6 million CIA cables, memos, and other records. It boasts 35,000 footnotes, reports the Washington Post.
- What’s omitted from the executive summary: The identities of some CIA workers and the locations and host countries of secret prisons abroad will be redacted. The Daily Beast reports that about 15 staffers ran the CIA program, and that some fear their names could potentially be determined using contextual details. An unnamed intelligence official says the agency has offered to assess potential exposure of those who factor into the report, along with any security concerns potential exposure could bring. The CIA is not, however, providing security.
- Is what’s left all new news? Nope. As the Times notes, we have leaks and Freedom of Information Act requests, among other avenues, to thank for some details that have surfaced over the years about the CIA’s interrogation program. For instance, we know about this Polish “black site” prison.
- So what will we learn? The Guardian reports that the summary details the cases of 20 post-9/11 detainees who were tortured. Reuters talked to sources yesterday who say the details get fairly graphic: One detainee was reportedly threatened in a sexual manner with a broomstick; another detainee was intimidated with a power drill (neither instrument was used).
- How does the CIA feel about its conclusions? Earlier this year, director John Brennan said the agency agrees with some findings but disputes others. The executive summary that the CIA approved for the public in August was slammed by Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein as overly blacked out; what’s emerging today is a compromise.
- We’ll learn more about what the CIA thinks: The executive summary will be joined by a CIA rebuttal and a Republican minority report, NBC News reports.
- What does Dick Cheney think? He’s the latest Bush administration official to defend the CIA program. “What I keep hearing out there is they portray this as a rogue operation, and the agency was way out of bounds and then they lied about it,” he tells the New York Times. “I think that’s all a bunch of hooey. The program was authorized.”
It was released in the AM……and the MSM is all lit up with endless analysis and total BS….but what did it all say?
But first one of the best findings these dudes found….I got this via Twitter after the report was released……
Among the many abuses the Senate Intelligence Committee found in its report on the CIA’s torture program, perhaps one of the more embarrassing for the CIA is that the agency actually tortured its own informants at one point.
The CIA tortured its own informants by accident. pic.twitter.com/KodHWB7K7N
— max seddon (@maxseddon) December 9, 2014
Now for the rest of the story…….survey sez!
In short, the CIA shackled two detainees for approximately 24 hours in a standing position to deprive them of sleep — only to find out that the detainees were former CIA contacts who tried to let the agency know of their activities so they could provide intelligence. So the CIA tortured two people who not only were not terrorists, but had been trying to help the CIA fight actual terrorists.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has dropped its long-awaited report on the CIA’s use of torture, and it pulls no punches in its 528 pages, detailing a “brutal and far worse than the CIA represented” program that ultimately was “not an effective means of acquiring intelligence,” reports the Washington Post. The report unveils tactics such as “rectal hydration” that were designed to gain “total control over the detainee,” notes the New York Times, as well as waterboarding that was really a “series of near drownings.” Some key details:
- The CIA lied: The agency “provided inaccurate information to the White House, Congress, the Justice Department, the CIA inspector general, the media, and the American public,” as per NPR. The Post notes that one memo ordered the program be hidden from Colin Powell, because he would “blow his stack if he were to be briefed on what’s going on.”
- The brutality: Detainees were subjected to “slaps and ‘wallings’ (slamming detainees against a wall) … frequently concurrent with sleep deprivation” for up to 180 hours, nudity, and ice baths. One interrogator told a detainee he could never go to court because “we can never let the world know what I have done to you.” Detainees exhibited “hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia, and attempts at self-harm and self-mutilation.”
- The fallout: The program “damaged the United States’ standing in the world,” “created tensions with US partners and allies,” and cost America its “longstanding global leadership on human rights in general and torture in particular,” the report says.
- The CIA’s response: In a statement, Director John Brennan admits the program “had shortcomings and that the Agency made mistakes,” but contends that it “did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives.”
- President Obama’s response: He hopes we can now leave the tactics “where they belong—in the past,” he says, per the AP. They “were not only inconsistent with our values as nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests.”
The Washington Post highlights 20 key findings.
We mere mortals will only see less than 10% of the 6000 page report………..And the world is braced for the massive amounts of violence and deaths that some have predicted…….and the wait goes on…….
Will the world end or will it just be another sub[par day?
Remember about 8 or 9 years ago the raging debate on water boarding and torture in general? It raged on and on….many opinions and many theories…..some even went so far as to protest the technique……I bring this up because a couple of weeks ago I gave a lecture at the local Jr. College on international relations……we talked about Middle East Peace…..and Ukraine and one student brought up this torture document that all are raving about….. I let the class go back and forth stopping and asking a question here and there and t\let them continue to debate….after about a half hour I brought it to a halt……
I told them that it was good to see the lively exchanges…which it was….I finally asked the entire class…….have any of you ever been tortured? Of course, none had but a few tried to use some bullying as a torture….did not fly……they all stared at me for a moment before I said……
“Try It Then We Will Talk”!
I then went on to tell them that without first hand knowledge of what is involved and the physical aspects of the technique they have an opinion but it is a worthless opinion.
I bring this up because we are having the debate all over again……and as usual it is not about the technique…it is about the politics of the report……
Remember back to the days when we were having the torture debate? Some said it was necessary while others said it was cruel and unusual for Americans to participate n such……Recall all that?
Let’s fast forward to the days after the death of Bil Laden (considering that you are not on the same wave length as the idiots that think he is still alive) and all the people that supported enhanced interrogation came running to the nearest microphone to claim it was their techniques that made all the success in finding and ultimately killing good old OBL….remember all that?
There was argument upon argument about the usefulness of the intel gathered by extreme interrogations……I am sure that many of them will not be running to a camera to claim this report….
The report that has thrown the CIA into abitterfight with the Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that there is no evidence that torture helped the agency find Osama bin Laden, congressional aides and other sources tell the AP. The CIA has argued that “harsh interrogation techniques” like waterboarding provided vital information; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for example, confirmed that he knew al-Qaeda courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti after he’d been waterboarded. But he made the admission months after the waterboarding, the Senate report finds, while Mohammed was under standard interrogation.
Even then, the information he provided wasn’t important and didn’t include the courier’s true name; the report concludes it served only to confirm what the CIA already knew. False information given by another tortured detainee related to the courier, which the CIA has argued was a tell-tale sign he was trying to protect al-Kuwati, turned out to be similarly unimportant, per the report. The AP notes that it took the CIA years to ascertain al-Kuwati’s real name, Sheikh Abu Ahmed; it’s still unclear how the agency did so. Writing for the Wire, Philip Bump observes that “it’s impossible to overestimate the significance of the bin Laden capture in the defense of the CIA’s interrogation programs … which is no doubt part of the reason that the Senate staffers spoke with the AP.”
Sorry….the results are in…….and the torture in the extreme was of little to no help……..
What say you?
Today’s subject for the Professor’s Classroom is TORTURE……
This is a great idea….but only if the redaction is limited…..
Professor’s Classroom…..from time to time I like to teach a class on my blog…..hopefully it will inflame a discussion……today we will talk about…..TORTURE!
Several years ago I wrote a post about torture….it was in the days when FOX and MSNBC and CNN were running their pundits out to either support or oppose the fact that the US was using water boarding and other techniques to extract information from detainees……..I feel about them as I feel about Vietnam….if you were not there then your opinion is a moot point!
My post back then was very short and to the point……
“Having personal knowledge of torture…I say….”try it then we will talk”!
Whether good intel is extracted or not…..talk is talk….and NO one has ever asked the question….”What about after the torture?” Have you ever heard the question asked?
There is an answer to my question…….
(Newser) – Torture doesn’t just hurt you once, it keeps on hurting you forever, a new study in the European Journal of Pain suggests. Researchers examined 104 Israeli soldiers who fought in the 1973 war between Syria and Egypt, 60 of whom had been taken captive and tortured, gauging their reaction to mild pain stimuli like heating pads and pressing a nylon fiber into a finger. The POWs exhibited a significantly stronger response, Medical Daily reports.
“The human body’s pain system can either inhibit or excite pain,” the lead author explained. “In Israeli ex-POWs, torture appears to have caused dysfunction in both directions.” Another interesting finding: Even POWs who hadn’t been physically tortured, but had been subjected to isolation, mock executions, and other harsh treatment, exhibited altered responses, Pacific Standard notes, which could change our very definition of what constitutes torture. It’s unclear, however, whether the torture directly caused the change, or whether chronic pain over the intervening 40 years had played a role.
Torture is not what a civilized country does! It is that goddam simple!
Any thoughts?
Class dismissed………
The weekend has begun……..my mind is surprisingly calm……..life is good!
In the past I have written about a future where robots and technology are beginning to take over and replace a lot of the stuff that we humans could be doing and getting paid for it….but this one is a little creepy on so many levels……..
Researchers at the University of California used magnetic resonance imaging to watch the visual stimuli that study subjects experienced as they watched movie trailers. (Though the decision to subject innocent victims to the Steve Martin remake of “The Pink Panther” seems like one that could result in sanctions if not criminal charges.)
The development “paves the way for reproducing the movies inside our heads that no one else sees, such as dreams and memories, according to researchers.”
The university’s press office announced that the breakthrough could result – years from now – in major advances in medical treatment.
Eventually, practical applications of the technology could include a better understanding of what goes on in the minds of people who cannot communicate verbally, such as stroke victims, coma patients and people with neurodegenerative diseases.
It may also lay the groundwork for brain-machine interface so that people with cerebral palsy or paralysis, for example, can guide computers with their minds.
Machines and gadgets use electrons (negatively charged particles) to send information and commands through their circuitry—turn on, turn off, increase volume, and so on. But living creatures use protons (positively charged particles) or ions (charged atoms) to send signals within our bodies and drive actions like flexing muscles or pumping molecules in and out of cells.