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POPSBritish High Court rejects U.S./British cover-up of torture evidence Yesterday, in a 38-page decision (.pdf), the Court reversed itself, and ruled that these paragraphs detailing Mohamed's torture should be publicly disclosed. It did so by making clear that, in essence, it simply did not believe that the U.S. would meaningfully reduce intelligence sharing; understood the Obama statements to be made at the request of British officials as a meaning of justifying ongoing concealment; interpreted the Obama administration to say only that disclosure "could" lead to reductions in intelligence-sharing, not that it "would"; and, most of all, that there are vital public interests that outweigh the minimal risk that the U.S. would withhold evidence of a terrorist plot from Britain as punishment for disclosure.
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POPSTorture Interferes with Memory Among other things, torture can interfere with the brain's memory retrieval apparatus, making it counterproductive to the aim of producing useful information.
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POPSA historian's account of Democrats and Bush-era war crimes
What made those detainee photographs so important from the start is that they depict brutal abuse well outside of the Abu Ghraib facility and thus reveal to Americans -- and the world -- that America's torture was not, as they've been constantly told, limited to rogue sadists at Abu Ghraib and the waterboarding of three bad guys. Instead, our torture regime was systematic, pervasive, brutal, fatal, and -- becuase it was the by-product of conscious policies set at the highest levels of government -- common across America's "War on Terror" detention regime. These photographs would have documented those vital facts; combated the false denials from torture apologists; fueled the momentum for accountability; and revealed, in graphic and unavoidable terms, what was truly done by America's government. But a Democratic-led Congress, at the urging of a Democratic President, is now taking extraordinary steps -- including a new law which has no purpose other than to suppress evidence of Americ
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POPSIt's Not Torture (Rape) When We Do It. What I really despise, is that OUR kids are being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan to learn how to become monsters, all in the name of "patriotism" and funded by us, their parents!. What will they be like when they return home? How do we live with what we've allowed to happen? And, no, it's not OK for us to do it. Two wrongs don't make a right and the ends do not justify the means.
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POPSBelieve it Lying about a blowjob is an impeachable offense -- lying about a war is no big deal, really. Investigating a shady land deal involving the First Lady is a matter of National Identity -- investigating the use of torture at the direction of the Executive Branch is a partisan witch hunt. Executing Japanese officers for waterboarding prisoners during WWII shows that we have the moral high-ground on human rights -- waterboarding prisoners of our shows that we have the moral high-ground on human rights. Sitting two rows in front of Jane Fonda in a 1970 anti-war rally is an OUTRAGE! Shaking Saddam's hand in 1983...meh, not so much. Anyone who questions the president during a time of war is giving aide and comfort to the enemy and should be deported...unless the president in question has a (D) next to their name in which case you should undermine them at every turn even if you have to routinely make shit up to do it. Socialism, Marxism, Communism and Fascism are all interchangea
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POPSBut Mr. Cheney, Waterboarding is Torture Given that Cheney and others have confessed to authorizing waterboarding, we have very strong evidence that systematic torture was used in our name. Cheney doesn’t get to redefine our values. Waterboarding IS torture.
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POPS It’s A Complex, Complex, Complex World Along with the Predator strikes on compounds full of women and children, it should be good for a while. Knock on wood. Maguire, snarking cruelly, suggests Obama “will have to try harder to make the case that his current approach will keep America safe.” I dunno, he seems to have been handed a free throw. At least for now, absent, you know … The WaPo Takes Cheney's Side On Enhanced Interrogation by Tom McGuire WaPo sidles up to Dick Cheney. . . Let's just go back in time to the summer of 2008 when Scott Shane of the NY Times covered a lot of this ground. It appears that Obama will have to try harder to make the case that his current approach will keep America safe. right now all interrogations must comply with the Army Field Manual; Obama has a group still studying the belly slap, annoying rock and roll, walling, sleep deprivation, and the waterboard. I stand by my guess that when he thinks no one is looking Obama will re-instate everything except
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POPS The Fall Guy 
True, the president showed up at the CIA a few days later to reassure Mr. Panetta's demoralized troops. Don't "be discouraged" that you've "made mistakes," the president said, smiling, as Mr. Panetta stood grimly by. "That's how we learn." Mr. Obama vowed to be "vigorous in protecting" the organization. Later, at the White House, he announced plans to release photos showing detainee abuse"at the demand of the ACLU. Then came House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's full-frontal assault, claiming the agency had lied to her about waterboarding. This would have been an excellent time for some "vigorous" protection of the CIA, since agency documents flatly contradict the speaker. But with his domestic agenda in the hands of Congress, the White House was mum. It showed equal interest in defending Mr. Panetta against the threat of congressional investigations. This week the White House visited on the CIA director what ranking Senate Intelligence Committee member Kit Bond declared a "hat trick"
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POPSLaw, Not Torture, Protects National Security
Politicians and pundits ought to understand by now, the American system of justice was always meant to apprehend and prosecute criminals, and to ensure that those who apprehend them do not violate the law in doing so. That system routinely investigates law enforcement officials who use excessive force because we recognize that the credibility and authority of the law depends on universal accountability. The author, Joe Conason, got it exactly right. According to Cheney, preserving the rule of law will expose the nation to devastating terror attacks. This is total BS. “He has repeatedly claimed that waterboarding as well as other abusive methods are all that stand between us and a repetition of 9/11 or much worse”. Absolute scare tactics that reasonable adults know is not true. Through the release of the 2004 CIA inspector general’s report on the agency’s use of “enhanced interrogation,” provides little support for the former vice president’s bluster. Bring them to justic
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POPSTorture Tactics
Russia = Stalags in Siberia 5***** comfort, freezing temps, food that even Jagged's cockroaches would not touch, naked ice cold water treading for 48 hours, real Russian roulette, failure to divulge secrets = locked up in dungeons naked for 1 week, min 50 degrees celsius, certain death! Latin American states = As above only not so cold therefore homosexual rapings by pervert prison guards, cat o nine tail whippings, buried alive in coffins for 24 hours, non-cooperation results in disappearance into hidden mass graves in the tropical rain forests, insects do the rest! India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc: Torture for max 48 hours as above, pigs food, non-cooperation = certain removal of organs for sales to Europe operated by Dr. Deaths, resulting in certain death! Arabian countries = everything mentioned above, non-cooperation results in a swift removal of the hands with a sharp sword, further non-cooperation, the head! Isreal: Mainly as above + Jackbooted guards kicking the sh
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POPSCriminal investigation into CIA treatment of detainees expected This is BS - period! Holder should appoint a special prosecutor to investigate him, for not prosecuting the Black Panthers who intimidated voters. This is plain BS - meant to ONCE again try and take some heat off his boy Obama! Whenever PR is bad Obama opens up Bush again....what a freckin dope!
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POPSThe Delusions of Eric Allie 1) It's already been confirmed that the CIA lied about briefing Pelosi and other Congressmen about waterboarding, so this is a strawman. 2) Companies putting profits ahead of the wellbeing of Americans IS villainous and monsterous, not to mention utterly lacking in morals. Once again, the Right-Wing Propaganda Machine tries to change the issue (unsuccessfully) rather than face the reality of the evil they are supporting.
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POPSTorture is always wrong "That's right; sodomy. Forcible anal penetration. The documentation of this and other forms of sexual humiliation is too extensive to be denied or pawned off on a couple of redneck privates. And we know now that sexual humiliation techniques were among those discussed and approved by the National Security Principals Committee, a White House group including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet and John "History will not judge this kindly" Ashcroft. I don't want to come off as minimizing the horror of controlled drowning. It's just that there's something about anal rape that brings the torture issue into sharp focus. Just once, I'd like to hear one of these American Enterprise Institute psychos, the ones that always trot out to defend the neocons' freakish obsessions, have to defend shoving a flashlight up a guy's ass. I want to hear Frank Gaffney or Jonah Goldberg tell me why I shouldn't be fucking mortified that raping prisoners was considere
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POPSLatest Cheney & CIA Crime Exposed? Step-by-step the noose has been tightening around the neck of former U.S. VP Dick Cheney. Tens of thousands of citizens have kept up the pressure for accountability and like water pressure behind a large dam, the cracks are finally showing. In this clip, even conservative Republican Senator John McCain (who is against a torture investigation) now says - today on major TV Sunday news show -- that Cheney has to answer questions about this....that's the start. Karl Rove is finally, last week, being officially deposed by DOJ lawyers. This giving testimony, answering questions under oath, is also a start. Now, also reported, new AG Eric Holder is considering an investigation into the torture issue. A real investigation by the Justice Dept, with real potential legal consequences.(i.e. jail). I think the pressure had to keep on pushing and build up like this. Rome wasn't built in a day. Cleaning up a house flooded by crime doesn't happen overnight.
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POPSHouse Democrats Play Politics With National Security to Protect Pelosi About that CIA 'Lie' On June 24, in a classified hearing, Mr. Panetta produced so-called new information about CIA counter-terrorism efforts in the months after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. We’re told that he informed the Members that the agency had considered, then abandoned, a major covert anti-terror program. (Our sources wouldn’t say what it was.) Bush-era CIA officials didn’t tell Congress because it never got off the ground. But this is the “at least one case” Mr. Reyes claims his committee was “lied to” about in the Bush years. There’s apparently no limit to how far Speaker Pelosi’s friends on the Hill are willing to go to salvage her reputation. The intentions are transparent enough. The Reyes letter was addressed to Peter Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on Intelligence. Mr. Hoekstra yesterday said the media received the missive before he did. And two days after the Panetta testimony last month,
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POPSThe Suppressed Fact: Deaths by U.S. Torture The record could not be clearer regarding the fact that we caused numerous detainee deaths, many of which have gone completely uninvestigated and thus unpunished. Instead, the media and political class have misleadingly caused the debate to consist of the myth that these tactics were limited and confined. We should never, as a policy, maltreat people under our control, detainees. We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A.
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POPSAt least 100 people tortured TO DEATH by American forces Since WWII enemies on the battlefield have surrendered to American troops because they believed they would be treated humanely and not abused by the Americans in uniform. This was true as recently as Iraq 1.0. We used to be the good guys. Now? We're a nation of laws. We can't just sweep dozens of murders due to White House-approve torture and have any sort of moral legitimacy internationally beyond that of an armed thug. I think this country is better than that.
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POPSobama man, i knew it! he is not any better than bush, actually hes worse
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POPSPolice brutality & Videogames: A.P.B. A.P.B. stands for "All Points Bulletin". I hear there's a new hack available that if you hit the right combination of buttons and joystick moves, the choking moves to waterboarding during the confess-o-meter segment.. The suspect then confesses to all the other 9 A.P.B's crimes, including ones committed while they were in custody. *HANDSMACK* Bad monkey! ;-)
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