Red Cross: Detaineed Were Tortured

Red Cross report says detainees at CIA 'black sites' were tortured

The confidential report, published Sunday, could bolster calls for legal action against the Bush administration.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) concluded in 2007 that US methods to extract information from prisoners at secret CIA jails as part of the "war on terror" amounted to torture, according to excerpts from a confidential report published on the website of the The New York Review of Books on Sunday.

With US President Barack Obama on record as backing the prosecution of officials involved in "clear instances of wrongdoing," the report could fuel calls for such legal action.

Though allegations of the torture of terror suspects at CIA-run "black sites" have been widely detailed before, the Red Cross report has "an unusual claim to authenticity," the article's author, Mark Danner, wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times.

The article in the Times quoted the report's conclusion:

The allegations of ill-treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

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We cannot let the Bush Administration get away with this. They must be prosecuted.

Apocalypse 9/11 Redux

It’s that time of year again. All the TV stations had to run their 9/11 "tributes" yesterday, paying homage to what was our nation’s greatest intelligence failure, and the beginning of the greatest failure of leadership in our 232 year history. The corporate news stations ran nonstop footage from that day, making sure the horrible images of folks jumping to their death out of burning skyscrapers got prime billing. The History Channel ran nonstop memorials. Another station ran Cops™.

I found myself flipping channels trying to avoid the 9/11 shows. I know enough about it already, and I don’t need to be reminded. But at times (mostly during ads) I flipped back to the 9/11 news coverage. It’s like a giant car wreck on the side of the road; you can’t help but look. I was surprised at the sheer amount of disinformation put out by supposedly responsible "journalists." I can forgive more innocuous mistakes, like identifying the large twin-engine plane that hit the tower as a 727. But some of the more egregious errors (e.g. we’ve heard that a plane will hit the towers every 30 minutes) are unforgiveable. It wasn’t long after that when the major networks started incorporating flags into the logos they ran constantly on the screen. And the flags only got bigger as George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq. Do you really trust a network so easily swayed by jingoism to give you news?

Seven years ago, America had the sympathy of the world. A new president, albeit an unelected one, had the confidence of a shocked and horrified nation seeking justice...not vengeance, but justice. I grew up in a America that believed in justice...or so I was told. There was a fundamental fairness about Americans. That, combined with a can-do attitude and a gargantuan work ethic made us the most admired and prosperous people in the developed world. But I guess my peers, parents, and many others didn’t get the same education I did, because since those days America has impeached a President over a blowjob, put a complete dunce in the Oval Office, started several ill-advised and unnecessary wars of conquest, and has largely dismantled the middle class that once made it a great nation. It’s painful to think of what we’ve squandered.

Fucked up t-shirt seen today at O’Hare:
"Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms: it should be the name of a convenience store, not a government agency."

I hope Prophet Koresh and his cult members (including the ones he molested, then got killed) are gazing comfortably down from Heaven and are laughing at that.