Denounce Torture

From the Associated Press comes an update on the secret torture prison discovered last week:

"Iraqi government officials failed Wednesday to deliver the promised results of an investigation into alleged torture at an Interior Ministry jail in Baghdad."

See "Iraq fails to deliver results of torture probe."

Dexter Filkins of the New York Times writes on mounting evidence that suggests human rights abuses in Iraq are hidden and severe:

"As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods[...]Some Sunni men have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished[...]American officials, who are overseeing the training of the Iraqi Army and the police, acknowledge that police officers and Iraqi soldiers, and the militias with which they are associated, may indeed be carrying out killings and abductions in Sunni communities, without direct American knowledge. But they also say it is difficult, in an already murky guerrilla war, to determine exactly who is responsible."

Brian Knowlton of the International Herald Tribune weighs in on the potential political costs of alleged CIA-run secret prisons in Eastern Europe:

"Rising European anger over contentions that the CIA has flown terror suspects to secret camps in Eastern Europe for interrogation and possible torture appears to have the potential to slow a warming of U.S.-European relations[...]On Monday, the European Union's commissioner of justice and home affairs warned that any EU member found to have permitted the use of such a camp could lose its voting rights."

See "Sunnis Accuse Iraqi Military of Kidnappings and Slayings," and "Issue of secret camps strains U.S.-EU relations."

Writers from Zaman this morning:

"Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said human rights abuses were even worse now than they were under Saddam Hussein’s rule.

"Speaking to The Observer Allawi said, 'People are doing the same as (in) Saddam's time and worse.' Noting that the comparison was an appropriate one, Allawi also warned against the elimination of the records attesting to the current situation."

And from New Jersey's Star-Ledger, Allawi offers bipartisan criticism for human rights abuses :

"Ayad Allawi, a secular Shi'a Muslim, told the London newspaper The Observer that fellow Shi'as are responsible for death squads and secret torture centers and said brutality by elements of Iraqi security forces rivals that of Saddam Hussein's secret police."

Spero News reports that Iraqi Sunnis complain of random arrests and torture:

"The recent revelations of torture at a secret Baghdad jail did not surprise many of the capital's Sunni Arab residents and leaders, who said civil rights violations have become a regular occurrence. Sunni Arabs here said that months before reports of torture at the ministry of interior facility emerged, the ministry and the Iraqi National Guard were randomly arresting, torturing and killings members of their community.

"The US military earlier in November raided a makeshift jail in a former bomb shelter of an interior ministry building in the Jadiriyah neighbourhood. About 170 detainees, most of them Sunni Arabs, were held at the facility and several of them reported being tortured. There were reports that they had suffered beatings and electric shocks, and there were photos of detainees with their skin ripped off and holes drilled into bodies.

"The discovery has ratcheted up tensions between Sunni Arab leaders and the Shia-led government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Ja'afari."

The Senate recently voted on two important bills: the Defense Appropriations bill and the Defense Authorization bill. Both bills have amendments attached to them that need your urgent attention. Call your Members of Congress and urge them to stand in favor of the absolute prohibition on torture and ill-treatment by supporting the Anti-torture amendment attached to both bills, and in defense of core principles of justice and due process by opposing the Graham amendment attached to the Defense Authorization bill.

Take action now: Call your Members of Congress and urge them to stand against the use of torture and defend core principles of justice and due process.

The attorney for Ahmed Abu Ali, who was convicted Tuesday of joining the al Qaeda terrorist network and conspiring to assassinate President Bush, said according to a CNN article that is his client hoped:

"[...] the verdict doesn't give the United States 'the green light' to send 'citizens to countries where they allow torture.'" 

See "Would-be Bush assassin could face life."

The Senate recently voted on two important bills: the Defense Appropriations bill and the Defense Authorization bill. Both bills have amendments attached to them that need your urgent attention. Call your Members of Congress and urge them to stand in favor of the absolute prohibition on torture and ill-treatment by supporting the Anti-torture amendment attached to both bills, and in defense of core principles of justice and due process by opposing the Graham amendment attached to the Defense Authorization bill.

Take action now: Call your Members of Congress and urge them to stand against the use of torture and defend core principles of justice and due process.

From The Boston Globe regarding allegations of CIA-run secret prisons in Europe:

"The United States has for years promoted respect for due process and human rights in Eastern Europe, yet more recently the United States may have been taking shortcuts in precisely those areas in the name of security.
It's illegal for the US government to hold prisoners in isolation in secret prisons in the United States.

"But the CIA's internment practices also would be considered illegal under the laws of all the new democracies of Eastern Europe. In every East European democracy, detainees have rights to a lawyer and to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing[...]If reports of CIA-run interrogation facilities are true, it shows a blatant disregard for the law, and it will reshape America's global image. It will also undermine our strategic objectives to promote democracy and human rights. Moreover, torture does not work."

See "Torture reports tarnish US Image."

Brigadier General David R. Irvine taught prisoner interrogation and military law for 18 years at the Sixth Army Intelligence school. He is a retired Army Reserve strategic intelligence officer writing from Salt Lake City, Utah.

"Remarkably, of the nation's major newspapers, only the Wall Street Journal has editorialized in support of torture as a useful tool of American intelligence policy. There are really only three issues in this debate, and the Journal carefully turned a blind eye to all three: (1) is torture reliable, (2) is it consistent with America's values and Constitution, and (3) does it best serve our national interests? [...] The Journal assumes that only the worst of the worst will be subjected to torture when it comes to ticking time bombs. Not only is that assumption unfounded, based upon the widespread abuses in Iraq, it was tried and abandoned by the Israelis[...] When Israel experimented with "torture lite," supposedly reserved for ticking-bomb circumstances, it was not long before 85 percent of all Palestinian detainees were being given the harshest treatment allowed. The capability to finely calibrate torture has eluded every democratic government which has tried it.

"The inescapable fact is that America's standing in the world, and especially in the Middle East, has never been lower. The price we have paid for our misdirected torture policies has been incalculable. The Arab street may not always grasp the finer points of separation of powers or proportional representation; but everyone, everywhere, comprehends hypocrisy, and judges us for ours."

See "Why torture doesn't work."

See Amnesty International's Denounce Torture ad, which recently ran in Roll Call. Keep your eyes peeled for more of these.

If you have not had a chance to learn about the American Progress Action Fund's work on the McCain anti-torture amendment, take a moment to check it out now.

Stafford Smith offers an insider's view on Gitmo -- or what he calls America's "law-free zone":

"The motel sign trumpets the base's motto, "Honour Bound to Defend Freedom", but freedom is a relative term here. Iguanas are free enough, and if my escort accidentally runs one over it's a $10,000 fine, as US environmental laws apply in Guantanamo. On the other hand, if you feel the need to hit one of the 500 prisoners who are now four years into their captivity it is called "mild non-injurious contact" and there are no consequences. Two years ago in the Supreme Court, we argued that it would be a huge step for mankind if the judges gave our clients the same rights as the animals.

"[...]The various camps have been given names steeped in irony. "Papa" is where the prisoners on hunger strike are force-fed. "Romeo" is where the military sexually humiliated prisoners by forcing them to wear only shorts. Forty Muslim men, forsworn from alcohol, live in "Whiskey". I can't decide whether the irony is inadvertent, as is generally the case with irony on this side of the Atlantic, or deliberate and cruel.

"[...]In addition to being devoid of law, Guantanamo sometimes seems like a truth-free zone. I am scheduled to see my client Mohammed el-Gharani. The military says he is 26 and denies that there are any juveniles on the base. Let us assume the camp authorities really believe this: what does it say about the quality of Guantanamo intelligence if they cannot even work out his age after four years of interrogation? Mohammed was not quite 15 when he was seized, and is still a teenager. I got the birth certificate from Saudi Arabia to prove it, but they still won't believe me. "He sure does look young," says one of the guards."

Read the entire article, "Inside Guantanamo."

From Aljazeera:

"The most recent abuse scandal which broke out last week with the exposure of a secret Iraqi government torture centre in the very heart of Baghdad comes as a solid evidence and the strongest ever confirmation that the illegal U.S.-led occupation of the country was accompanied by a dirty war of extra-judicial killings and torture."

From the Times Herald:

"When President George W. Bush asserts that "America does not torture" prisoners held in U.S. custody, then vows to veto legislation that directly states the United States will not engage in torture, Americans know something else is awry.

"We have seen photos of the inhumanity that defined the Abu Ghraib facility in Iraq. To stand before the American people and swear we do not torture is a disingenuous veer from reality. We do torture; we have seen it."

An editorial from the Bismark Tribune yesterday morning:

"A decision to forbid that any of our people engage in torturing enemy detainees or prisoners of war should not have to find its justification in humanitarian concern for the adversaries. It should come first and foremost from our concern to preserve the health of the soul of the American nation.

From the Sun News:

"U.S. efforts to ensure humane treatment for detainees in Iraqi custody have done little to boost America's image among many Sunni Arabs, long resentful of what they see as U.S. favoritism to rival Shiites and Kurds. Sunni remain convinced that recent allegations of torture by Shiite-led Interior Ministry jailers are true - and that abuses could never have gone on without U.S. knowledge.

"'I am convinced that every political party has its own prison in order to help the occupiers,' said Abdullah Mohammed al-Dulaimi, a Sunni merchant in Ramadi. 'All this happens with the knowledge of the Americans. This is a campaign against the Sunnis.'"

Larry Wilkerson, who served as former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff and who is a retired U.S. Army Colonel, said to CNN that torture might continue in facilities managed by the United States:

"'There's no question in my mind that we did. There's no question in my mind that we may be still doing it [...]. There's no question in my mind where the philosophical guidance and the flexibility in order to do so originated -- in the vice president of the United States' office [...] His implementer in this case was [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department.

"While he acknowledged having no proof that the United States is torturing detainees, Wilkerson said, 'I can only assume that, when the vice president of the United States lobbies the Congress on behalf of cruel and unusual punishment and the need to be able to do that in order to get information out of potential terrorists...that it's still going on.'"

See "Powell aide: Torture 'guidance' from VP."

From The Moscow Times today come reports of peaceful protests demanding an end to torture in Iraq:

"Hundreds of Iraqis marched in western Baghdad on Sunday demanding an end to the torture of detainees and calling for the international community to put pressure on Iraqi and U.S. authorities to ensure that such abuse does not occur.

"Carrying posters of tortured detainees, disfigured dead bodies and U.S. troops detaining locals, the nearly 400 mostly Sunni demonstrators marched a few hundreds meters from the office of the Front for National Dialogue, a Sunni political group, in the western neighborhood of Jamia before dispersing peacefully."

See "120 Killed in Suicide Attacks Against Shiites."

The UN Commission on Human Rights released the following article on November 18:

"Five independent United Nations human rights experts today rejected a United States invitation to visit its detention base in Guantanamo, Cuba, because the US Government did not accept standard terms for a "credible, objective and fair assessment," including the ability to conduct private interviews with detainees.

" "It is particularly disappointing that the United States Government, which has consistently declared its commitment to the principles of independence and objectivity of the fact-finding mechanisms, was not in a position to accept these terms," the five Rapporteurs of the UN Commission on Human Rights said in a joint statement."

See "'Deeply regretting' US terms, UN rights experts turn down visit to Guantanamo."

A former CIA openly criticizes Cheney's policies on torture:

"Admiral Stansfield Turner, a former CIA director, accused US Vice President Dick Cheney of overseeing policies of torturing terrorist suspects and damaging the nation's reputation, in a television interview Thursday.

"'We have crossed the line into dangerous territory,' Turner, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1970s, said on ITV news."I am embarrassed that the USA has a vice president for torture. I think it is just reprehensible. He advocates torture[...]I just don't understand how a man in that position can take such a stance."

And from The Daily Star:

"Iraq's interior minister described reports of prisoner abuse at a secret Baghdad bunker as exaggerated on Thursday, prompting a stern response from the U.S. Embassy and sharp domestic and international criticism."

See "Former CIA director accuses Cheney of overseeing torture in Iraq, Afghanistan," and "Iraq's Jabr downplays torture allegations." 

Democrats consider invoking a rarely-used rule that would force the White House to consider the McCain Amendment, reports Raw Story:

"Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), the ranking member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, plans to force the committee to consider Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) anti-torture amendment, after House Republican leaders signaled they intended to try to defeat the measure."

The Bush Admninstration's Approach to Torture Beggars Belief:

"This week saw the sad spectacle of an American president lamely trying to explain to the citizens of Panama that, yes, he would veto any such bill but, no, “We do not torture.” Meanwhile, Mr Bush's increasingly error-prone vice-president, Dick Cheney, has been across on Capitol Hill trying to bully senators to exclude America's spies from any torture ban."

From The Statesman this morning:

"Spain has launched a judicial inquiry into allegations that CIA aircraft may have secretly used a Spanish airport to transport terror suspects to clandestine interrogation camps[...]If the allegations proved true, Mr Alonso warned: “We would be looking at extremely serious, intolerable acts that violate rules for treating prisoners in a democratic society, and would demand a government response that would affect bilateral ties.” "

Dan Murphy, of the Christian Science Monitor:

"When US troops raided [an underground bunker] Sunday night, they expected to find at most 40 detainees, not 173 sickly men and boys, all Sunni Arabs. Iraqi officials have since confirmed that torture implements were also found there."

And from NPR's Morning Edition yesterday:

"The Senate unanimously approved a $490 billion defense spending bill Tuesday. Some of the measures, including a provision banning the torture of detainees, go against White House policy."

A joint press conference to be held by Amnesty International and Repriece on Friday, November 18:

"Amnesty International and Reprieve will hold a press conference on Friday 18 November in London to announce the biggest ever gathering of former "war on terror" detainees who are coming together over the weekend to condemn an increasingly globalised network of torture.

"Former detainees from around the world and international legal and medical experts will highlight the brutal effects on individuals and the blatant illegality of such practices."

See "Joint press conference by Amnesty International and Reprieve."

A report from the New York Times this morning provides information on a new torture scandal in Iraq:

"Iraq's government said Tuesday that it had ordered an urgent investigation of allegations that many of the 173 detainees American troops discovered over the weekend in the basement of an Interior Ministry building in a Baghdad suburb had been tortured by their Iraqi captors. A senior Iraqi official who visited the detainees said two appeared paralyzed and others had some of the skin peeled off their bodies by their abusers[...]The discovery of what appeared to have been a secret torture center created a new aura of crisis for American officials and Iraqi politicians who hold power in the Shiite-led transitional government. For many Iraqis, the episode carried heavy overtones of the brutality associated with Saddam Hussein and his Sunni-dominated government.

"For American officials in Iraq, still laboring under the shadow of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and other allegations of mistreatment of prisoners, the new allegations came at a particularly inopportune moment."

See "Torture Alleged at Ministry Site Outside Baghdad."

From The Patriot News, Monday, November 14:

"For years, whenever dictators and generalissimos around the world loudly and implausibly denied torturing prisoners, the United States possessed the moral authority to condemn their behavior.

"Mr. Bush's disgraceful deceptions have stripped this nation of its moral authority. How much longer will we continue to tolerate this dangerous man?"

See "How much longer?"

From the Quad-City Times:

"If a picture is worth a thousand words, there might not be enough rhetoric in Congress to compensate for the photographs of Americans torturing Muslim detainees.

"So the refrain about what America does or does not do to prisoners of war spouts empty lyrics. “We do not torture,” as President Bush affirmed last week. It really means we have tortured and we promise not to get caught doing it again. It means that we use different words to describe the pain, injury and depravation still being inflicted on detainees who aren’t prisoners of war or criminal defendants. It really means is we move some detainees to secret prisons which this administration has yet to acknowledge, let alone disclose."

An ex-CIA officer writing a special in the Los Angeles Times, reprinted in the Salt Lake Tribune:

"I'm a former CIA officer and a former counterterrorism official. During the last few months, I have spoken with three good friends who are CIA operations officers, all of whom have worked on terrorism at the highest levels. They all agree that torturing detainees will not help us. In fact, they believe that it will hurt us in many ways. 

"These are the very people the vice president wants to empower to torture -- and they don't want to do it.

"...If you inflict enough pain on someone, they will give you information, but what they tell you may not be true. You will have to corroborate it, which will take time. And, unless you kill every suspect you brutalize, you will make enemies of them, their families, maybe their entire villages. What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust -- even with a terrorist, even if it's time-consuming -- than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets, who believed that national security always trumped human rights."

Bloggers weigh in on The Wall Street Journal's November 12 editorial on torture:

Talking Points Memo, Media for torture: "Amazing. At the beginning of the 21st century, an American daily newspaper comes out in favor of torture."

Eric Margolis, AMERICANS ARE RUNNING OUT OF PATIENCE WITH THEIR `WAR PRESIDENT’: "Who ever advised President George Bush to escape the storm of criticism he faces over Hurricane Katrina, Iraq, and the Libby CIA case by flying to Argentina for a free trade summit should be sent in chains to Guantanamo. Bush’s venture was an embarrassing diplomatic failure and the most humiliating fiasco faced by a US president in Latin America since Richard Nixon got mobbed in 1958. Bush was left looking isolated and confused, while his nemesis, Venezuela’s boisterous merengue-marxist leader, Hugo Chavez, rallied Latinos to his side and gleefully mocked the US president."

The American Chronicle, George W. Bush: We Do Not Torture (Yeah, right): ""We do not torture" President George W. Bush declared, in the final stop of his Latin American tour last week. Battered by Hurricane Katrina, bogged down by Iraq, buffeted by the DeLay indictment, belittled for his failed Miers' nomination and beleaguered by Plamegate -- Bush's prestige is almost as battered as Nixon's before he resigned."

Sadly No, Shorter Wall Street Journal: "Torture's not all that bad when you just call it "aggressive interrogation" instead. See?"

Joseph Galloway, in an editorial from Knight Riddler, writes this morning:

"Let's go over this one more time: The issue of torturing prisoners or subjecting them to degrading, inhumane treatment is not about them and what horrible, murderous individuals they are. It's about us as Americans and who we are and what we stand for in this troubled world.

"Those are the words of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., former prisoner of war who bears the scars of his own torture at the hands of his communist North Vietnamese captors. He spoke from the heart, and he is right. It is just that simple. We do not do torture."

Foster Klug, of the Herald News Daily:

"Sen. John McCain said Sunday that America‘s image abroad could be ruined if Congress doesn‘t ban the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody. White House officials, however, have threatened a presidential veto of any bill with restrictions on handling detainees, saying it would limit the president‘s ability to protect Americans and prevent a terrorist attack [...] McCain said he hopes to reach a compromise with the White House. But he said that after the discovery of widespread prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib facility in Iraq, public opinion about the United States has plummeted worldwide.

"It is "unthinkable that the vice president of the United States continues to insist upon an exception for the CIA , saying they should not be bound by our torture policy." "

And from Aljazeera - the Bush Administration will not rule out torture as an interrogation technique:

"A top White House official has refused to rule out the use of torture in an effort to prevent a major terrorist attack.

"US national security adviser Stephen Hadley argued the War on Terror could present a "difficult dilemma" and the US administration was duty-bound to protect the American people."

Brian Cloughley editorializes on the Bush Administration's policies in Iraq, quoting other sources:

"We had a discussion in (the State Department's Office of) Policy Planning about actually mounting an operation to take the oilfields of the Middle East, internationalize them, put them under some sort of UN trusteeship and administer the revenues and the oil accordingly."

-- Colin Powell's former chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson.

"American and British [soldiers] are dying so that this coming December, Iraqis can go out and vote for Iran influenced clerics to knock us back a good four hundred years. What happened to the dream of a democratic Iraq?"

-- Riverbend's Blog, November 8, 2005.

"They arrested me in my house in front of my family, covered my eyes, and tied my hands to the back on October 5, 2005 . . . They occupied the hospital for 8 days and made it their office. The first day they beat me on my eyes, nose, back, hands, legs . . ."

-- Doctor Walid Al-Obeidi, Director of Haditha General Hospital, quoted in Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches, November 7, 2005.

See "Bush Pounds his 9/11 Theme, Again."

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Leonard Pitts Jr. takes up Bush's assertion on Monday that "We do not torture":

"[...]We've been at war before, nasty, brutish wars, one war with civilization itself on the line, yet somehow, we always managed to be the good guy. That is not to say our soldiers and sailors and fliers were always good, immune from committing atrocities. It is not to say our officials were always good, untouched by dirty deeds done in clandestine ways. Finally, it is not to say our cause was always good, free from the taint of imperialism or expedience. But we - the collective we, the official we, the face shown in light of day we - were the good guys.

"And you know what? People believed us. They rush to our shores because there is freedom here, yes, because there is opportunity here, yes, but also because we stood for something, which was more than the tin-pot tyrants who ran their countries could ever say.

"What a difference a presidency makes. 'We do not torture,' he says."

See "'We do not torture,' Bush says."

Over the past month, your actions have helped keep Anti-Torture Amendment in the media spotlight and on the minds of Members of Congress. It now appears that the House of Representatives will have a chance later this month to vote on whether the amendment will remain "as is" on the Department of Defense Appropriation bill. We urge you to take action in support of this vital amendment that, if passed, will create uniform standards for the treatment of detainees and reaffirm the U.S. prohibition against cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

There are three levels of action you can take:

1. Call your Representative and urge him/her to support the Anti-Torture Amendment. Also call your Senators to thank them for their support (or urge their support if they are among the 9 who voted no). Take action.

2. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper supporting the Anti-Torture Amendment.  Use our talking points and tips for writing a letter to the editor.

3. Recruit three people to call their Member of Congress to urge support of the Anti-Torture Amendment.