Comments on: Defense Department conceals data on detainee deaths

By: ZNOFOB

ZNOFOB — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:02:22 +0000

It becomes hard, therefore, to criticize a number, especially if it does not exist.

Plausible deniability.

By: Lazercat

Lazercat — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:52:15 +0000

Palestinian Hanging (aka Palestinian Crucifixion)
This form of torture, referred to as “Palestinian hanging” due to its use by the Israeli government against Palestinians, involves binding the prisoner’s hands behind his or her back. After fatigue sets in, the prisoner will inevitably fall forward–putting full body weight on the shoulders, and impairing breathing. If the prisoner is not released, death by crucifixion results. Such was the fate of U.S. prisoner Manadel al-Jamadi in 2003.

By: Lazercat

Lazercat — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:50:17 +0000

enior Administration officials have led a fierce, and increasingly visible, fight to protect the C.I.A.’s classified interrogation protocol. Late last month, Cheney and Porter Goss, the C.I.A. director, had an unusual forty-five-minute private meeting on Capitol Hill with Senator McCain, who was tortured as a P.O.W. during the Vietnam War. They argued that the C.I.A. sometimes needs the “flexibility” to treat detainees in the war on terrorism in “cruel, inhuman, and degrading” ways.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/11/14/051114fa_fact

By: Lazercat

Lazercat — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:48:53 +0000

Where is Justice?

Mark Swanner, a forty-six-year-old C.I.A. officer who has performed interrogations and polygraph tests for the agency, which has employed him at least since the nineteen-nineties. (He is not a covert operative.) Two years ago, at Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad, an Iraqi prisoner in Swanner’s custody, Manadel al-Jamadi, died during an interrogation. His head had been covered with a plastic bag, and he was shackled in a crucifixion-like pose that inhibited his ability to breathe; according to forensic pathologists who have examined the case, he asphyxiated. In a subsequent internal investigation, United States government authorities classified Jamadi’s death as a “homicide,” meaning that it resulted from unnatural causes. Swanner has not been charged with a crime and continues to work for the agency.

By: Lazercat

Lazercat — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:46:00 +0000

The New York Times reports that “two dozen abuse cases” were brought to the attention of the Bush Justice Department in the report years ago. Charges were never brought in these cases, in which “some detainees died and others suffered serious abuses.”

Among the known cases of CIA-US military torture discussed in the full report is the murder of Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi who was captured by Navy Seals in 2003. He was evidently beaten on his arrest, and then taken naked and hooded to Abu Ghraib prison where a CIA interrogator, Mark Swanner, ordered him suspended from a barred window by his arms, which were tied behind his back.

Al-Jamadi died either as a result of the beating he received at the hands of the Seals or from his CIA interrogation.

By: Lazercat

Lazercat — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:42:23 +0000

§ 2340A. Torture

(a) Offense.— Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
(b) Jurisdiction.— There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if—
(1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or
(2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender.
(c) Conspiracy.— A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.

By: Lazercat

Lazercat — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:38:37 +0000

By law, if the allegations of the deaths of prisoners under torture are true, Cheney could face trial and put to death.

By: countryfirst

countryfirst — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:29:08 +0000

It’s so hypocritical – when one person in detention in Iran dies, there is a long story in our media about it. And yet the deaths in U.S. occupied Iraq and Afghanistan are suppressed completely.

By: Sue Ann Martinson

Sue Ann Martinson — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:44:44 +0000

Thank you for posting this!