Even the SERE experts on torture questioned its value but the Bushies didn't want to hear it

yeah, well, just more fuel for the fire... everything that's coming out now merely validates what we've known all along and basically what's been available in the public domain for years, IF, that is, you've been paying attention...

The military agency that provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects referred to the application of extreme duress as "torture" in a July 2002 document sent to the Pentagon's chief lawyer and warned that it would produce "unreliable information."

"The unintended consequence of a U.S. policy that provides for the torture of prisoners is that it could be used by our adversaries as justification for the torture of captured U.S. personnel," says the document, an unsigned two-page attachment to a memo by the military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency.

[...]

The document was included among July 2002 memoranda that described severe techniques used against Americans in past conflicts and the psychological effects of such treatment. JPRA ran the military program known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), which trains pilots and others to resist hostile questioning.

[...]

Daniel Baumgartner, who was the JPRA's chief of staff in 2002 and transmitted the memos and attachments, said the agency "sent a lot of cautionary notes" regarding harsh techniques. "There is a difference between what we do in training and what the administration wanted the information for," he said a telephone interview yesterday. "What the administration decided to do or not to do was up to the guys dealing with offensive prisoner operations. . . . We train our own people for the worst possible outcome . . . and obviously the United States government does not torture its own people."

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he thinks the attachment was deliberately ignored and perhaps suppressed. Excerpts from the document appeared in a report on the treatment of detainees released this month by Levin's committee. The report says the attachment echoes JPRA warnings issued in late 2001.

"It's part of a pattern of squelching dissent," said Levin, who added that there were other instances in which internal reviews of detainee treatment were halted or undercut. "They didn't want to hear the downside."

the united states has operated from an ideological perspective for a long, long time, ideology based on such dogmas as free markets, united states exceptionalism, undiluted materialism, our right to appropriate resources for our own use wherever they may be in the world, and the universal applicability of the american way of life... the bush administration, however, made the application of such political and economic ideology an ideology in itself, an ideology to be practiced totally and without reservation, and with special punishment reserved for those who dared to deviate... the nation may have indicated a strong desire to check itself in to re-hab in the last election, but we've still yet to show up for the first treatment session...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Ray McGovern gets thrown out of Petraeus' hearing for asking that Petraeus be sworn in

what in the holy hell would cause such sensitivity about petraeus being sworn in...?

It had dawned on me that when House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, invited Gen. Petraeus to make his presentation, Skelton forgot to ask him to take the customary oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I had no idea that would be enough to get me thrown out of the hearing.

[...]

I had not the slightest hesitation being sworn in when testifying before the committee assembled by Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, on June 16, 2005. Should generals be immune? Or did his masters wish to give him a little more assurance that he could play fast and loose with the truth without the consequences encountered by Scooter Libby.

i had so little interest in petraeus' testimony that i've barely followed the reports... i figured, rightly so, that the good general would only be spouting the bush administration approved line, and, from the little i've read, that was clearly the case... i'm dumbfounded, however, to find that ray mcgovern was expelled from the hearing for the mere suggestion that petraeus testimony should be given under oath... what the f*** is the matter with my country...?

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

A stand-alone bill to restore habeas

it's gotta happen... jeralyn at talkleft posts this from a commenter...

FYI-- Congresswoman, Rep. Kathy Castor, (D-FL-11th) who serves on both the Armed Services Comm. AND is the only freshman on the powerful Rules Committee which makes decisions about moving bills forward, met with Armed Services Chair Ike Skelton early this morning and they have decided to file a stand alone bill to restore habeas corpus rather than put it in the Defense Authorization Bill.

I spoke to her Chief of Staff personally, and he said she promises to work to move the bill along, so everyone will have to vote up or down on restoring habeas, and we'll all know by their vote where exactly everyone in Congress stands on restoring habeas.

because if the dems don't do this, i have to side with glenn greenwald...

Having disgracefully abdicated that responsibility back in September because they wanted to win the midterm elections, Democrats -- now that they have won -- can cleanse their historic sin only by committing themselves, not symbolically but in actuality, to the restoration of habeas corpus. Whether they are willing to do so will speak volumes about their true character and about whether their November victory will result in anything other than some televised hearings. If Democrats are too afraid even to take a stand against the Bush administration in defense of this centuries-old core American liberty, it is impossible to imagine any even minimally risky stands they are willing to take.

it's gotta happen...

(thanks to mcjoan at daily kos...)

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments