Colombo::http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCUzHnVeI10 .....
Afghan detainee Gul Rahman would never leave the CIA prison known as "The Salt Pit" alive. Interrogators left Rahman in his cell, reportedly "naked from the waste down," after shackling him and dousing him with cold water. In the morning, they discovered that the Rahman, who had reportedly been "uncooperative" with his captors, had died of hypothermia.
Military medical examiners said Iraqi detainee Manadel al-Jamadi died of asphyxiation, a result of his being hung by his arms, and other mysterious injuries sustained during interrogation, such as his five broken ribs.
After his death, US Army Reservist Charles Graner Jr. was photographed grinning next to al-Jamadi's frozen corpse. The Associated Press noted that the CIA official who oversaw Rahman's treatment "was reprimanded" and "now works as a defense contractor."
The Justice Department announced August 2012 that the investigation into Rahman and al-Jamadi's deaths would be closed with no charges. This means that the Obama administration will be turning the page on the Bush years with almost no accountability for anyone linked to the legalization and implementation of Bush-era interrogation techniques.
The University of California, Davis in a study "Truth, Accountability, Reform and Reconciliation: The Road to Security and the Restoration of American Values." early this year described the torture regimen carried by the United States in this manner:
"According to credible information, the practices and policies enacted since 9/11 have involved international alliances with criminal armed groups; human trafficking; civilian arrests without warrants; denial of the writ of habeas corpus; secret detention; life-threatening, open-air, holding pens; medical neglect; interference of interrogation on medical treatment; fatal, disabling, and disfiguring beatings; hanging by the wrists; threats of death or bodily harm; mauling by military dogs; torture by proxy (extraordinary rendition); controlled drowning (waterboarding); sensory deprivation; sensory assault; forced nudity; temperature and dietary manipulation; sleep deprivation; disorientation in space and time; positional torture (stress positions and prolonged standing); binding torture (tight shackling or cuffing); solitary confinement; indefinite detention; severe humiliation; sexual assaults; assaults with excreta; forced feeding; interference with religious practices; verbal abuse, and the exploitation of cultural idiosyncrasies and personal phobias."
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (United Nations Convention against Torture) is an international human rights instrument, under the review of the United Nations, that aims to prevent torture and cruel, inhuman degrading treatment or punishment around the world.
Article 1 of the Convention defines torture as:
"Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions".
When the United States was forced to withdraw the draft resolution against Sri Lanka in September 2011 as a result of the strategic diplomatic maneuvers of the members of the Sri Lanka team at UNHRC in Geneva, the US Ambassador for Human Rights in Geneva threatened the then team leader Tamara Kunanayakam "We'll get you next time!".
Well, Sri Lanka is currently facing the U.S. diplomatic assault at UNHRC in Geneva advocating an 'international mechanism' to probe Sri Lanka's alleged violation of IHL and IHRL while the United States itself has refused to investigate and account for its own human rights violations and war crimes during its 'War on Global Terror' completely ignoring the slogans 'accountability', 'transparency' it is using to bring Sri Lanka to the 'Geneva Dock' fulfilling one of the 'agenda items' of the separatist-pro Eelam elements within the Global Tamil Diaspora.
The Amnesty International in its 2008 report on America's culpability to war crimes noted "There is not a single fix that will bring the USA's actions on counterterrorism into compliance with international law. The violations in the "war on terror" have been many and varied, and the government has exploited a long-standing reluctance of the USA to commit itself fully to international law, including in relation to recognizing the full range of its international obligations with respect to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The question of accountability and remedy for violations in the "war on terror" must therefore be part of a new commitment by the USA to international law."
In its refusal to investigate the Bush-era torture practices, President Obama himself declaring that he prefers to look forward, not backward, the Obama administration announced June 30 (2011) that it would shut down 99 investigations into deaths of prisoners in US custody during the "war on terror," leaving only two investigations with the potential to develop into criminal prosecutions.
What Attorney General Eric Holder announced on August 30 last year was the dismissal of the last two remaining torture-death investigations under the watch of the CIA.
And now a drama is being jointly enacted in the US Senate and within the CIA, with the concurrence of Obama's White House, to conceal America's blatant involvement in torture and inhuman and degrading punishment in violation of UN Charters.
The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee has been investigating since December 2012 the interrogation practices during the Bush administration and has collected eye witness accounts, sensitive documents and closed-door testimonies as to how those interrogations of terrorism suspects since the 9/11 attacks were carried and whether those 'enhanced interrogation' practices were amount to torture.
The draft report of the Senate committee goes beyond 6000 pages, and it is classified. Under the US law it is the President who has the authority to de-classify documents.
The Chair of the Senate committee Dianne Feinstein took to the Senate floor on Tuesday 11 February to warn that the CIA's continuing cover-up of its torture program provided stark and convincing evidence that the C.I.A. may have committed crimes to prevent the exposure of interrogations that she said were "far different and far more harsh" than anything the agency had described to Congress.
Ms. Feinstein delivered an extraordinary speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday in which she said the C.I.A. improperly searched the computers used by committee staff members who were investigating the interrogation program as recently as January.
On Tuesday, the C.I.A. director, John Brennan, denied hacking into the committee's computers. But Ms. Feinstein said that in January, Mr. Brennan acknowledged that the agency had conducted a "search" of the computers.
The question here is: Does the United States - the Congress, the CIA and Obama White House - prepared to reveal the interrogation practices, enhanced interrogation (torture), its terrorist suspect rendition program sending terrorist suspects to other countries who were noted for their brutality for interrogation, what steps Obama Justice Department has so far taken to bring those who were responsible for those 'utter inhuman deeds' and be transparent and accountable.
Who is this CIA Director John Brennan? He was the person, under President Bush and Vice President Dick Chaney under whose command the 'enhanced interrogation' program was in operation to question terrorist suspects, now at the center of the current 'episode' with the US Senate Intelligence Committee. He was the person who was Bush administration's main person in charge of the interrogation, rendition and the use of waterboarding techniques on terrorism suspect in violation of UN Charters.
What is 'Waterboarding'?
Also called water torture, simulated drowning, interrupted drowning, and controlled drowning, method of torture in which water is poured into the nose and mouth of a victim who lies on his back on an inclined platform, with his feet above his head. As the victim's sinus cavities and mouth fill with water, his gag reflex causes him to expel air from his lungs, leaving him unable to exhale and unable to inhale without aspirating water.
Although water usually enters the lungs, it does not immediately fill them, owing to their elevated position with respect to the head and neck. In this way the victim can be made to drown for short periods without suffering asphyxiation. The victim's mouth and nose are often covered with a cloth, which allows water to enter but prevents it from being expelled; alternatively, his mouth may be covered with cellophane or held shut for this purpose. The torture is eventually halted and the victim put in an upright position to allow him to cough and vomit (water usually enters the esophagus and stomach) or to revive him if he has become unconscious, after which the torture may be resumed. Waterboarding produces extreme physical suffering and an uncontrollable feeling of panic and terror, usually within seconds.
Officially, the United States has acknowledged the use of this method since Obama took office.
The US Senate undertaking an investigation, the accusations leveled against John Brennan, the CIA spying on senate investigators and Senator Feinstein's outburst last Tuesday are all 'side shows' to prevent the disclosure of the Bush-era torture and evade scrutiny of the United Nations and its Geneva arm which is scrutinizing Sri Lanka at this hour.
Shunning accountability and transparency since the advent of the Obama administration as an attempt to suppress the brutality of enhanced interrogation which is widely known as torture, prisoner rendition, and other violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) has now become an official policy.
Investigations of the architects of the Bush-era program had been all but ruled out in 2009, when President Barack Obama told ABC News that "we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards." One commentator put it this way: You can torture a detainee in your custody to death and get away with it. You just can't talk about it.
Courtesy : Asian Tribune
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Probe Into CIA Detainee Deaths Wraps Up Quietly
Adam Klasfeld
Courthouse News Service
(CN) – The United States said it will not prosecute anyone for the
deaths of two prisoners in CIA custody who may have endured torture.
Assistant
U.S. Attorney John Durham cited unspecified “statutes of limitations
and jurisdictional provisions” of unnamed statutes before reaching the
conclusion that he could not build a successful case, according to the
Department of Justice.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced the decision in a statement Thursday.
“Based on the fully developed factual record concerning the two
deaths, the department has declined prosecution because the admissible
evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction
beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said in the statement.
Melina Milazzo, a lawyer with Human Rights First, cast doubt on that explanation.
“It’s shocking that the department’s review of hundreds of instances
of torture and abuse will fail to hold even one person accountable,”
Milazzo said in a statement.
Although Holder did not identify the dead prisoners in his statement,
previous reports identify the men as Gul Rahman and Manadel al-Jamadi.
Rahman died in “near-freezing temperatures at a secret C.I.A. prison
in Afghanistan known as the Salt Pit,” and al-Jamadi’s “corpse was
photographed packed in ice and wrapped in plastic,” according to The New York Times.
Extreme temperatures are hallmarks of so-called “enhanced
interrogation techniques,” widely considered to be torture (like
waterboarding).
Milazzo noted that “torture is illegal and out of step with American values.”
“Attorney General Holder’s announcement is disappointing because it’s
well documented that in the aftermath of 9/11 torture and abuse was
widespread and systematic,” she said. “These cases deserved to be taken
more seriously from the outset. When you don’t take seriously the duty
to investigate criminal acts at the beginning, resolution becomes even
more difficult a decade later.”
Early
in his tenure, President Barack Obama put an end to waterboarding
practices, but he refused to prosecute those in the Bush administration
who had abused detainees domestically and abroad.
In a televised interview on Jan. 11, 2009, Obama urged America to “look forward, as opposed to looking backwards.”
His administration has fought off every criminal and civil effort
against those who conceived, legitimated and executed detainee abuses,
according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
“That the Justice Department will hold no one accountable for the
killing of prisoners in CIA custody is nothing short of a scandal,” ACLU
legal director Jameel Jaffer said in a statement.
“The Justice Department has declined to bring charges against the
officials who authorized torture, the lawyers who sought to legitimate
it, and the interrogators who used it. It has successfully shut down
every legal suit meant to hold officials civilly liable.”
While
Holder’s announcement spells the end for detainee abuse investigations,
the Obama administration continues to prosecute a former CIA officer,
John Kiriakou, for informing the public about waterboarding.
Prosecutors describe the information as a state secret, but Kiriakou’s supporters call him an anti-torture whistle-blower.
Kiriakou took to Twitter on Thursday after hearing of concluded detainee cases.
“DOJ ends torture investigation with no prosecutions,” he Tweeted. “CIA gets away with murder. Again.”
Article courtesy of Adam Klasfeld and the Courthouse News Service
* * * * * * * *
… The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment. I call on all nations to speak out against torture in all its forms and to make ending torture an essential part of their diplomacy.George W. Bush: “Statement in Support of Victims of Torture”
White House Press Release, June 23, 2003.
We’ve heard of waterboarding torture– but not of using near freezing temperatures as a technique resulting in death.
Manadel al-Jamadi was detained and interrogated at the infamous
Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He died within five hours of his arrest, and
military investigators ruled his death a homicide caused by, “blunt force trauma to the torso complicated by compromised respiration.”
Gul Rahman, a suspected Afghan militant, was taken to a 
CIA-operated prison near Kabul. Left inside a cold cell and half-naked, Rahman was found dead in the early morning. According to the Associated Press, a CIA doctor ruled the cause of his death as hypothermia. His body was never returned to his relatives.
CIA-operated prison near Kabul. Left inside a cold cell and half-naked, Rahman was found dead in the early morning. According to the Associated Press, a CIA doctor ruled the cause of his death as hypothermia. His body was never returned to his relatives.
In 2006, Human Rights First released a report, Command’s Responsibility,
examining the deaths of almost 100 detainees in U.S. military custody.
Human Rights First found that although nearly half of those cases
appeared to have been the result of homicide or physical abuse, U.S.
officials were punished in connection with only 12 of those cases.
Moreover, the stiffest sentence given to a U.S. official 
for a torture-related death was only 5 months in prison.
for a torture-related death was only 5 months in prison.
In the land of Liberty, Justice, and Freedom, we believe in the
rule of law, due process, and humane treatment. We do not condone
torture, assassination, murder, nor any government agency secretly
acting as judge, jury, and executioner in the fast-becoming Orwellian
underworld of information and interrogation.
These are not the principles our country was founded upon.
The New York Times article by Scott Shane, ‘No Charges Filed on Harsh Tactics Used by the C.I.A.’, can be found here.
More information concerning the subject of Torture and the United States is here.
Images by the Humboldt Sentinel.
(Posted by Skippy Massey)
2014 Humboldt Sentinel. For more information, call (707) 667-3302 or e-mail editor@humboldtsentinel.com.
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