the inconvenience of Torture

August 30, 2009 11:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Key Democrat Senator objects to CIA torture probe

BYÂ AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSEÂ

Published: August 30, 2009Â

A key Democratic senator Sunday criticized a US Justice Department investigation into abusive CIA interrogations of Al-Qaeda detainees as poorly timed, signaling broadening opposition to the probe.

Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, raised her objections in a CBS television interview while former vice president Dick Cheney was blasting the probe on Fox television as "an outrageous political act."

Saying she, too, was "horrified" by a classified 2004 Central Intelligence Agency report that detailed abusive interrogation practices, Feinstein said she understood Attorney General Eric Holder's reasons for ordering a review of the interrogation program.

"However, I think the timing of this is not very good," Feinstein said...

Continue reading the inconvenience of Torture.

Welcome to UC Berkeley - 141 years and counting

August 30, 2009 12:50 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

"For those of us in administration throughout the UC system, these have been less than inspiring times,"Â Chancellor RobertÂ Birgeneau says.

While the chancellor is referring to a bleak financial picture here, he might just as well be speaking to the bankruptcy of ethical principles at Boalt Hall, where professor John Yoo (whoÂ Birgeneau acknowledges is "a prime advocate of the US government's torture policy") is allowed to teach. Just what kind of message is the university delivering to young scholars?

For two weeks running the World Can't Wait orange jumpsuit "information in action" contingent has invigorated outreach, debate, and organizing with hundreds of students.

Help us get out the message,Â Â "The Truth about Torture: Why John Yoo Should be Fired, Disbarred, and Prosecuted".Â

Make checks payable to: "World Can't Wait SF"
Mail to: 2940 16th Street, Room 200-6, San Francisco, CA 94103
Or donate online atÂ worldcantwait.org.

outrage over Washington Post article promoting torture, "How a Detainee Became An Asset"

August 30, 2009 10:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

UPDATE: some articles that do a good job of countering a lot of the misinformation that's disseminated in the Washington Post's pro-torture propaganda piece HERE, c/oÂ Adam Hudson

Marc Ambinder from the Atlantic is one of many to respond:

The Washington Post's intelligence and national security reporting team 
make the case that, in the case of 9/11 planner KSM, enhanced interrogation techniques -- EITs --or torture -- facilitated his cooperation with the CIA.  
The story has produce a violent reaction among supporters and opponents of 
using the practice, with supporters crowing and opponents accusing the 
Post of letting Dick Cheney man their editing desk.

Well, we know that whether torture worked should not effect the moral 
case or or against it, but in the mind of the public, which seems to 
look at the practice through the "24" ticking-time bomb lens, its 
effectiveness does seem to be related to its appropriateness in extreme 
situations where lives are at stake. Given this distortion -- most every 
instance of torture did not take place with a threshold-level "24" 
scenario in the offing, it is quite comprehensible why proponents and 
opponents of torture are so invested in proving that it never works, or 
that it almost aways works...

seeÂ Does It Matter Whether Torture Worked?

But I think the following comment answers this best:
Bottom line: If you're really against torture, it shouldn't matter if it works. To say, "torture is wrong, and besides it doesn't work" is as cost-free as telling yourself that it's okay that we tortured because, hey, look at all the lives we saved.
It's not up to torture opponents to prove it doesn't work. It's up to them to prove it's wrong. It's not up to torture proponents to prove it works. It's up to them to prove that the results it achieves could possibly be worth the diminishing of our society that results.
Torture is wrong, even if failing to torture costs a hundred or a thousand lives. To believe anything less than that is to not really be against torture, just against being grown-up enough to accept the costs that come with living in a good and just society. -Â gbarto

spirited protest of Boalt Hall's Torture Professor

August 29, 2009 1:30 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Back To School Day at Law School--John Yoo Is A War Criminal!

August 30, 2009Â RevolutionÂ newspaper

Berkeley, CA, Monday, August 17: On a sunny late summer day, a determined group of over 60 people gathered on the steps of University of California Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall). Dressed as detainees, hooded protesters in orange jumpsuits stood sentry around the crowd. A man posed frozen atop a box in the iconic dark hood and drape of an Abu Ghraib torture victim, with the yellow "Cal" logo across his chest. As students arrived, "detainees" silently flanked the doors, alongside teams talking with students and professors, and handing out World Can't Wait's new brochure, "The Truth About Torture: Fire, Disbar and Prosecute John Yoo!"

People were here on the first day of law school classes for a press conference and then a spirited protest to make torture and Boalt's Torture Professor the question before all. Led by World Can't Wait, the National Lawyers Guild, and other organizations, the crowd demanded that former Bush regime lawyer John Yoo be fired, disbarred, and prosecuted for war crimes. By late afternoon, most of the law school was abuzz as students were stirred into debate over the protesters' message, and four protesters including Stephanie Tang, a World Can't Wait leader, were under arrest. The action received much media coverage, including CNN and local TV news. An excellent kick-off for the new school year!

Continue reading spirited protest of Boalt Hall's Torture Professor.

Yoo & the Lackawanna Six - setting the stage for martial law and a police state

August 29, 2009 11:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Yoo did not limit his legal opinions to torture issues. In 2002, some in the Bush regime wanted to test the Constitution by using the military to make arrests in the war of terror within the U.S. Yoo's legal memos provided support.

The Lackawanna Six were Yemeni-Americans from New York who traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 2001 and attended an alleged al Qaeda training camp. Some of them said they fled the camp after they heard appeals for violence against America. The Six were arrested by the FBI in September 2002. DOJ announced that it had "identified, investigated and disrupted an al-Qaeda-trained, terrorist cell on American soil." President Bush hyped the arrests in his 2003 State of the Union address. This was the public information reported at that time.

But just before the FBI arrested the six men, Cheney wanted to send in the military to grab them. The administration feared it did not have enough evidence to arrest them on criminal charges And Cheney reportedly "argued that the administration would need a lower threshold of evidence to declare them enemy combatants and keep them in military custody." In this, Cheney was relying on a memo by John Yoo, who had written: "The president has ample constitutional and statutory authority to deploy the military against international or foreign terrorists operating within the United States." Cheney wanted to have the military seize the Lackawanna Six to set a precedent for using the military on U.S. soil as part of an attempt to set up a form of martial law to fight terrorism. Yoo's memo would have made Cheney's plan possible, although due to infighting within the Bush regime at the time, this did not happen.

Continue reading Yoo & the Lackawanna Six - setting the stage for martial law and a police state.

LISTEN NOW: LAWYERS INSIST ON ACCOUNTABILITY

August 29, 2009 10:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Communications slot, detainee barracks (AP Photo/Richard Ross)

c/o Chicago Public Radio

Bill Quigley is the Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He will give us his thoughts on whether the naming of the special federal prosecutor will make a difference.

Â

Candace Gorman is a local attorney who represents some of the Guantanamo detainees. She gave up her Chicago law practice out of fear that the government was tapping her phone.

"corpus delicti": the torture of America's captives

August 28, 2009 5:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Official torture

There is substantial evidence of legal malpractice by lawyer Yoo...

There is substantial evidence of a back channel between Addington and Yoo...

There is substantial public evidence of exceptional access provided to the private contractors...

There is substantial evidence that the waterboarding went outside what was approved by the OLC opinions. The opinions themselves disclosed this fact...

Put these elements together: actual torture under our existing laws, the possibility of actual knowledge that the OLC opinions were phony, conduct outside the restrictions even of those opinions and a possible improper motive outside of legitimate national security concerns. That's a theory of criminal liability, and it has not yet been eliminated by the evidence. From a prosecutor's perspective, the stonewalling we have seen -- aggressive assertions of executive privilege, refusals to cooperate with inspectors general, cover stories that don't withstand scrutiny -- raises suspicions further.

"once the cat [Torture] is out of the bag, what do you do then?

August 28, 2009 3:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As a society that is guided by the rule of law, how do we make exceptions for something so profound and say that those who were responsible shall go unpunished? -Â

John Tateishi,Â June 5, 2009Â PACIFIC CITIZENÂ

see A Tortured Decision

fit to be tortured

August 28, 2009 10:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Torture: The Real Reason for the Psychological Evaluation of Abu Zubaydah

Abu Zubaydah after his capture in Pakistan, 2002. Credit: ABC News

the 'evaluation' of Abu Zubaydah is a fascinating, if sickening, look at how the CIA goes about their kind of business -Â Jeff Kaye

The very real consequences of Yoo's torture policy, part 1

August 28, 2009 10:04 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Attorney General Holder: What Happened to KSM's Children? Release All of Paragraph 95Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â

By:Â JimWhiteÂ Monday August 24, 2009 5:49 pm

Fire Dog Lake

Â

On page 51 of theÂ CIA Office of Inspector General reportÂ on torture released today, we have this paragraph:

From the unredacted portion we can see that someone, in the course of interrogating Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, said "We're going to kill your children" if anything else happens in the US. Lest anyone think this was an idle threat, it should be noted that KSM was captured and interrogated in March, 2003. In that same month,Â this report appearedÂ inÂ The Telegraph:

"Two young sons of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks, are being used by the CIA to force their father to talk.

Yousef al-Khalid, nine, and his brother, Abed al-Khalid, seven, were taken into custody in Pakistan last September when intelligence officers raided a flat in Karachi where their father had been hiding.

Since his children were captured about six months before he was, KSM would have known that the US had access to them.

Continue reading The very real consequences of Yoo's torture policy, part 1.

International Tribunal Takes Up Case of Innocent Victim of CIA Extraordinary Rendition Program

August 27, 2009 4:04 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Update: According to Steven Watt, El-Masri's lawyer, the Obama administration probably couldn't make the "state secrets" claim in the Inter-American Commission, which does "not recognize blanket prohibition on accessing courts to assert fundamental rights." However, " Obama can try to argue that the state secrets privilege was legitimately raised before domestic courts and El Masri thus wasn't denied access to a remedy (one of El Masri's claims before the IACHR) but in our view, based on our assessment of international law, Obama wouldn't prevail."

He adds: "there is no equivalent of the state secrets privilege recognized under international human rights law to bar a human rights victim accessing an international tribunal such as the Commission."

Petition Filed by ACLU Seeking Justice for Kidnapping and Torture of Khaled El-Masri Moves Forward

Â Â In 2003, El-Masri, a German citizen, was kidnapped and flown to a CIA-run "black site" in Afghanistan, where he was secretly detained and tortured for months. Although his innocence was clear soon after his detention, the CIA continued to hold El-Masri for four months before flying him to Albania and abandoning him on a hillside in the dead of night. El-Masri has never been charged with a crime.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has accepted a petition filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Khaled El-Masri, an innocent victim of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.

"The United States has an opportunity to reverse one of the most shameful legacies of the Bush administration and finally give an innocent victim of the extraordinary rendition program his day in court," said Steven Watt, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program.

Torture's chain of command

August 26, 2009 10:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay saysÂ investigation into alleged criminal CIA interrogation techniques must go right to the top political level:

Any torture or death inflicted on suspects held by U.S. authorities in places including Bagram detention centre in Afghanistan should be part of this investigation, she said.

Asked whether it should go beyond establishing the criminal liability of CIA interrogators, Pillay replied: "That is international law on accountability -- that you do not stop at the foot soldiers, you go right up to the ultimate authority that is legally responsible."

"And these would include those who devised the policy, those who ordered it."

Is this how self-sovereign citizens of a democratic republic treat prisoners?Â Â Yes,Â It is.Â Is it proper for us?Â Absolutely not. - Â Seattle Buddhism Examiner

David Parker

Â

VIDEO: Carlos Watson hosts Daphne Eviatar and Scott Horton in a discussion of the CIA IG report released Monday (8/24/2009) in a discussion aired on MSNBC on Tuesday (8/25/2009).

"Unacceptable Conduct: Violation of canons of intellectual honesty"

August 26, 2009 10:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

john Yoo: as Bad as We All Knew

Brad DeLong, Grasping Reality with Both Hands

The question of whether John Yoo has violated the University of California Faculty Code of Conduct with respect to (II) (B) "Types of Unacceptable Conduct: Violation of canons of intellectual honesty," does not admit of any answer other than "yes"...

Acadmic freedom is not promoted or vindicated by the retention of professors--like Yoo--whose conduct is unacceptable. That's what "unacceptable faculty conduct" means.

UC Berkeley alum speaks out

August 25, 2009 8:22 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

John Yoo's Classes Should Be Boycotted on Campus

ByÂ KENNETH WORTHY
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Tuesday, August 25, 2009Â

THE DAILY CALIFORNIAN
Category:Â OpinionÂ >Â Letters to the Editor

I add my voice to the growing chorus of UC Berkeley faculty, staff, and alumni who are outraged by UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo's twisting of the law in memos to promote torture and other abuses of power.

Yoo has blood on his hands. He may not have directly tortured people himself, but as research on genocide and other atrocities shows, legal apologists such as he and others surrounding the top of the chain of command play a critical role in carrying out such acts.

Through this work, Yoo has not only participated in actual instances of torture (however remotely); he has also made it more dangerous for military personnel and other Americans traveling overseas. That, in addition to valuing human rights, is why military leaders and lawyers reject Yoo's position on torture. The use of torture by the U.S. has also probably made it easier to recruit terrorists against us.

The well-publicized shoddiness of Yoo's work in the "torture memos" is a symptom of scholarship brought into the service of ideology (Yoo's successor quickly nullified them due to the weakness of their legal reasoning). Personally, I see Yoo and his warmongering ilk in the Bush administration not as strong, brave leaders (as they likely envision themselves), but rather as frightened cowards unable or unwilling to defend this nation without resorting to inhumane practices and violations of international law.

The Bush administration did not prosecute Yoo, and the Obama administration has so far balked at doing so. Appealing to academic freedom and tenure protections, the dean of the Boalt Hall School of Law refuses to fire Yoo, even though faculty regulations allow dismissal of a professor whose actions damage the university's reputation; Yoo's actions certainly have done so. Tenure was meant to protect freedom of expression, not criminal acts.

Until Yoo is prosecuted for his war crimes and dismissed from his prestigious faculty position, I call on his fellow faculty members to censure him for his work in the torture memos.

I call on law students to boycott his classes to send him and the campus the clear message that his cynical manipulation of the law (with the theory that "it's legal by definition if the president does it") and his role in enabling torture are unacceptable to the UC Berkeley community. To those law students who feel they must take his classes, I urge you to vigorously challenge Yoo's legal interpretations. And, I call on all community members to join in the active protests of Yoo's continued presence in the law school.

These acts would signal to the world that Berkeley does not condone torture and those who promote it; they would reverse some of the disgrace that Yoo has brought on this community.

Death findings blacked out of CIA report

August 25, 2009 8:11 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

UPI NewsTrack TopNews

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Three detainee deaths and several detainee disappearances were blacked out in the CIA inspector general's report, an ex-official who read the full report says.

ABC reported the unnamed former senior intelligence official said the public version of the report did not contain the inspector general's findings on the three deaths, two of which reportedly occurred in Iraq and the third in Afghanistan.

Findings on a fourth death were included in the report, the U.S. television network said. A CIA contractor was convicted of assault in that case and is serving a prison term.

Findings on several detainee disappearances were also blacked out, the official told ABC.

Continue reading Death findings blacked out of CIA report.

Jay Bybee's successor at Office of Legal Counsel

August 24, 2009 8:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Reviewing the CIA report, Scott Horton notes how close John Yoo came to becomingÂ Assistant Attorney General...

seeÂ Cheney's Special Project.

Glenn Greenwald: Release the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) Report

August 24, 2009 8:46 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

...notably, Holder did not release today, but instead continues to conceal, theÂ OPRÂ Report which, it has long been reported, concluded that theÂ DOJ lawyers who authored the torture memos (at least JohnÂ Yoo andÂ JayÂ Bybee)Â violated their ethical duties by producing legally fallacious conclusions --Â i.e., they issued those memosÂ in bad faith.Â Withholding that OPRÂ Report today is critical because it focuses attention on the flamboyant sideshow of the more extreme cases of CIAÂ abuse, while obscuring the fact that it was high-level DOJÂ lawyers who,Â in bad faith, authorized a knowingly criminal torture regime.Â Â Marcy Wheeler made this point perfectly yesterday:

If it is, indeed, DOJ's plan to release all the other torture documents save the OPR report, it will have the effect ofdistracting the media with horrible descriptions of threats with power drills and waterboarding, away from the equally horrible description of lawyers willfully twisting the law to "authorize" some of those actions. It will shift focus away from those that set up a regime of torture and towards those who free-lanced within that regime in spectacularly horrible ways. It will hide the degree to which torture was a conscious plan, and the degree to which the oral authorizations for torture may well have authorized some of what we'll see in the IG Report tomorrow.
If it is, indeed, DOJ's plan to release the IG Report and announce an investigation without, at the same time, releasing the OPR report, it will serve the goal of exposing the Lynndie England's of the torture regime while still protecting those who instituted that regime.

Precisely.Â The fact that those DOJÂ memos were created with everything except "good faith" guts the argument for using them as a shield of immunity for high-level Bush officials.Â To continue to conceal the OPR Report is to conceal how invalid were those memos and how warped it is to use them as guidance for who should and should not be prosecuted.

and The American Way of Torture, Ctd

Student Operated Press (SOP) reaction to release of CIA report

August 24, 2009 7:07 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

For justice to truly be served, we must have an investigation that holds high-ranking officials accountable for any role they played in the Bush torture program`s horrendous violations of the law.Â

seeÂ CIA Torture Investigation Launched

Newly released CIA report details interrogation techniques

August 24, 2009 11:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Washington PostÂ has the full reportÂ for downloadÂ (PDF link).

Getty

Report comes as US attorney general Eric Holder appoints special prosecutor to investigate programme

Daniel NasawÂ in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Monday 24 August 2009
CIA interrogators threatened to capture a suspected terrorist's mother and led him to believe she would be sexually assaulted in front of him, pressed their fingers into a prisoner's neck and nearly made him pass out, and assaulted a prisoner with a cleaning brush, according to a newly released report into the US intelligence agency's interrogation programme.

The 2004 report by CIA inspector general John Helgerson was released today following a long court fight with the American Civil Liberties Union. The report covers CIA actions from the September 11, 2001 attacks through October 2003.

Continue reading Newly released CIA report details interrogation techniques.

RAW STORY: Holder tapping John Durham to probe CIA interrogations

August 24, 2009 11:32 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

"Responsibility for the torture program cannot be laid at the feet of a few low-level operatives," read a Center for Constitutional Rights statement on the matter. "Some agents in the field may have gone further than the limits so ghoulishly laid out by the lawyers who twisted the law to create legal cover for the program, but it is the lawyers and the officials who oversaw and approved the program who must be investigated."
"Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided to appoint a prosecutor to examine nearly a dozen cases in which CIA interrogators and contractors may have violated anti-torture laws and other statutes when they threatened terrorism suspects, according to two sources familiar with the move," Carrie Johnson reports in aÂ developing Washington Post story.
According to Johnson, "John Durham, a career Justice Department prosecutor from Connecticut," is being tapped "to lead the high-stakes inquiry, added the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is not yet complete."
The New York Times reports, "President Obama does not intend to voice his preference for whether anyone is prosecuted from prisoner abuse cases, a White House spokesman said Monday, and will allow Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to make the decision."
DEVELOPING...
meanwhile, Rendition of Terror Suspects Will Continue Under Obama

Law Against Torture and the Moral Imperative for Accountability

August 23, 2009 10:53 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Nadler: Obama Violating Law By Not Investigating Bush

by Sam Stein,Â August 21, Huffington Post

WASHINGTON - Even as the issue of torture appears likely to burst back onto the public agenda next week -- thanks to the much anticipated release of an internal CIA report -- one of the most progressive voices in Congress is arguing that the Obama White House has a legal obligation to investigate the Bush torture legacy.

President Obama and former President Bush in this file photo. New York Congressman Jerry Nadler, a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told the Huffington Post that he believed that President Obama would be breaking the law if he decided to oppose launching investigation into the authorization of torture.

New York Congressman Jerry Nadler, a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told the Huffington Post that he believed that President Obama would be breaking the law if he decided to oppose launching investigation into the authorization of torture.

"If they follow the law they have no choice," Nadler said in an interview this past weekend.

The logic, for Nadler, is straightforward. As a signatory of the convention against torture, and as a result of the anti-torture act of 1996, the United States government is obligated to investigate accusations of torture when they occur in its jurisdiction.

The alternative, Nadler said, "would be violating the law. They would be not upholding the law; they would be violating it."

Nadler said that a special prosecutor should handle the task, because some of the likely subjects of such an investigation worked in the Justice Department. "There is an inherent conflict interest," said Nadler," which is why you must appoint a special prosecutor. But, again, you have no choice because that's the law."

Continue reading Law Against Torture and the Moral Imperative for Accountability .

Minnesotans Target Torture Lawyer Delahunty

August 22, 2009 12:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

UPDATE: read report on action here

Opponents of torture will rally at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, LaSalle Ave and 11th Street, Minneapolis, on Monday, August 24, 9 - 11 AM to bring letters and voices of discontent to Dean Thomas Mengler regarding Professor Robert Delahunty. Prior to his current stint as professor of constitutional law for St.Thomas University, Robert Delahunty, along with John Yoo, authored an infamous memo (1/9/02) for the U.S. Justice Department which advised that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the war against al Qaeda, the Taliban, and terrorism. The 'legal' advice of this memo helped the Bush administration to legitimize harsh methods of interrogation, which are widely understood to be torture.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/45381

Report Reveals CIA Conducted Mock Executions

August 21, 2009 4:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Update: Rachel Maddow interviews author Michael IsikoffÂ here.

A long-awaited report on post-9/11 interrogation tactics will reveal harrowing new details about treatment of suspected terrorists.

Â

PHOTOS

A Torture Timeline

For hundreds of years, atrocities have been committed in the name of empire-building, religion or national security

Â

ByÂ Mark HosenballÂ andÂ Michael IsikoffÂ | Newsweek Web Exclusive

AugÂ 21, 2009Â |Â Updated: 6:58Â p.m. ET AugÂ 21, 2009

A long-suppressed report by the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general to be released next week reveals that CIA interrogators staged mock executions as part of the agency's post-9/11 program to detain and question terror suspects, NEWSWEEK has learned.

Continue reading Report Reveals CIA Conducted Mock Executions.

Fernando Botero in residence Sept 21-25

August 21, 2009 12:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

NOTE:Â

October 21, 2009

12:00 NOON

Panel Discussion with Lawrence Rinder, Rita Maran, and Tony Platt

Fernando Botero:Â Abu Ghraib 66, 2005; oil on canvas; 13 x 12 5/8 in.; gift of the artist. Photo: Sibila Savage.

The Abu Ghraib Series

celebrates the artist's gift to BAM and to our community, and honors the return of these provocative works to Berkeley. The occasion has also sparked the concurrent exhibitionÂ Material Witness, which brings together works of art from the BAM collection that, like Botero's work, offer distinctive, critical views of current affairs and cultural memory.Â

John Yoo's ACTIONS led to torture

August 21, 2009 9:28 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Brian Leiter, University of Chicago Law School, Kathleen Clark, Washington University Law School, Cary Nelson, American Association of University Professors and Carlos Villareal, National Lawyers Guild, present their views on the contentious John Yoo matter.Â The general consensus seems to be that while dismissal cannot be handed down unilaterally by the dean of the law school, there is certainly plenty of reason for appropriate hearings to commence immediately. - Mark Haas, InBerkeley

NYTimes roundtable:

Torture and Academic Freedom

Dean Edley responds to Monday's protest

August 20, 2009 8:46 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Torture Memos, Professor Yoo, and Academic Freedom
Statement of Dean EdleyÂ
c/0 NUTS & BOALTSÂ blog, August 20, 2009

While on leave of absence from Berkeley, serving as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Bush Administration, Professor Yoo wrote and contributed to memoranda that officials used as the legal basis for policies concerning detention and interrogation techniques in our nation's efforts to combat terrorism. The controversial reasoning and conclusions in these documents have been widely criticized in the academic literature, the media and in protests stretching over the past two years or more. Locally, I have received thousands of communications criticizing Professor's Yoo's continuing presence at Berkeley Law. In recent weeks protestors have frequently gone to Professor Yoo's home and posted signs in his neighborhood. Now, protestors have intentionally disrupted our classes and threatened to continue--not just assembling to voice their views, but attempting to prevent Professor Yoo from teaching, to the detriment of students who have chosen to enroll in his course. Other classrooms are also affected.

As dean I feel obliged to comment. Nonetheless, I speak only for myself in the following remarks, with no expectation that I will completely satisfy anyone.Â

Continue reading Dean Edley responds to Monday's protest.

Law School Dean defends John Yoo,

August 18, 2009 5:44 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Protesters want professor fired

By TERENCE CHEA

Associated Press Writer

Photo by Noah Berger

BERKELEY, California | Anti-war activists protested Monday at the University of California, Berkeley to call for the firing of a law professor who co-wrote legal memos that critics say were used to justify the torture of suspected terrorists during the Bush administration.

Campus police arrested at least four people who refused to leave the university's law school building.

The demonstrators said John Yoo should be dismissed, disbarred and prosecuted for war crimes for his work as a Bush administration attorney from 2001 to 2003, when he helped craft legal theories for waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques.

Shouting "war criminal," the protesters confronted Yoo as he entered a lecture hall on the first day of class at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, where the tenured professor is teaching a civil law course this semester.

Yoo mostly ignored the demonstrators and waited for police to remove them from the classroom before he began teaching. Several officers then stood outside the lecture hall to prevent protesters and journalists from entering.

Demonstrators also staged a mock arrest of Yoo. Some dressed in black hoods and orange prisoner suits similar to ones seen in infamous photos of Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which was closed in 2006 following reports of detainee abuse. The Iraqi government reopened the prison with a new name in February.

"There is little doubt that John Yoo is a war criminal," said civil rights attorney Dan Siegel, speaking outside Boalt Hall. "John Yoo went to Washington and created the ideological, political and legal basis for the torture of innocent people."

Yoo, who returned to UC Berkeley after spending the spring semester at Chapman University School of Law in Orange County, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

Yoo, 42, has defended the controversial interrogation techniques, saying they were needed to protect the country from terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"To limit the president's constitutional power to protect the nation from foreign threats is simply foolhardy," Yoo wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last month.

He has come under intense criticism since the interrogation memos became public in 2004. The Berkeley City Council has passed a measure calling for the federal government to prosecute him for war crimes, and convicted terrorist Jose Padilla has filed a lawsuit alleging that Yoo's legal opinions led to his alleged torture.

Christopher Edley Jr., Berkeley's law school dean, has rejected calls to dismiss Yoo, saying the university doesn't have the resources to investigate his Justice Department work, which involved classified intelligence.

Berkeley law students are divided over Yoo, whose classes are among the law school's most popular.

Liz Jackson, a second-year law student, said the university should determine if he violated UC's faculty code of conduct. "I personally believe he has blood on his hands," said Jackson, 30.

But Nathan Salha, 24, who took one of Yoo's classes last year and is enrolled in his course this semester, said he's a good teacher. "I don't think it's the university's place to fire him for political opinions," he said.

Berkeley Stands Up to Torture - War Criminal has no place on campus

August 18, 2009 11:10 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Addendum: for a copy of Psychologist Ruth Fallenbaum's statement of support, see Valtin's blog.

Activists, UC Berkeley Alumni Protest Yoo on First Day of Classes

By Riya Bhattacharjee, THE BERKELEY DAILY PLANET

Tuesday August 18, 2009

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Riya Bhattacharjee

Four generations of UC Berkeley law school alumni joined activists, community members and lawyers on the Boalt Hall steps to protest former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo's return to campus Monday.

The group called for Yoo to be prosecuted and fired from his position as professor of law at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law for writing memorandums which were used to justify extensive policies on detention and interrogation, even torture.

The Obama administration has so far showed little interest in prosecuting those who worked for the Bush administration. Despite criticism from protesters and from the National Lawyers' Guild about Yoo's continuing employment at UC Berkeley, Boalt Hall Dean Christopher Edley has defended Yoo's actions as academic freedom.

Chanting "Yoo should be ashamed," and "I am so over Yoo," the crowd assembled outside Boalt Hall at 1:30 p.m. Monday, closely watched by UC police, as students and professors walked in and out of the building.

The event was organized by the National Lawyer's Guild, World Can't Wait and Code Pink, whose members dressed up as "Pink Police" and included a dog sporting a pink "arrest torture" button.

When the UC Police Department told the event organizers they would not be allowed to use amplifiers outside the building, the speakers either talked loudly or stood on boxes to have their voices heard.

Members of the National Lawyer's Guild stressed that Yoo should be held accountable for his actions, which they said had led to the torture of thousands of U.S. political prisoners.

Sharon Adams, a guild member, called Yoo's memos "inane" and "secretive."

"In the name of democracy, Yoo did all he could to undermine democracy," she said, talking about the much criticized wiretapping and controversial interrogation techniques like waterboarding.

"This is the kind of person who is teaching our next generation of lawyers. ... He should be prosecuted for war crimes."

The infamous Abu Ghraib torture pictures, which came to public attention in 2004, dotted Boalt's steps, with several individuals posing as hooded prisoners in chains, and one of them resembling the iconic man on top of a box.

Dan Siegal, a 1970 Boalt Hall alumnus and nationally known trial and appellate lawyer, said he was angry and frustrated that Edley, a staunch advocate of civil rights, continues to head a faculty which includes a "war criminal."

"There is little doubt that John Yoo is a war criminal," Siegal said. "There are some who try to bastardize the situation, as if Yoo wrote a law review. This person wrote an ideological and legal basis for torture. I am hoping that if Dean Edley doesn't get wise, we will march down to Yoo's office next time."

Ann Fagan Ginger, Boalt Hall Class of 1960, decried Edley using academic freedom as the basis of Yoo's actions.

Ginger, who leads the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute in Berkeley, said UC Berkeley students should have the academic freedom to take classes from someone who had not been charged with being a war criminal.

The Truth about Torture: Why John Yoo Should be Fired, Disbarred, and Prosecuted

August 17, 2009 8:32 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Yoo Returns to Berkeley

ByÂ Scott Horton, HARPER'S MAGAZINE

Today, John Yoo returns to teach at Boalt Hall, the prestigious law school of the University of California at Berkeley. Alumni and students are marking the occasion with a protest. Their circular [Â Yoo_11x8-1-1.5_b.pdfÂ ]Â states:

As a direct result of Yoo's legal memos thousands have been subjected to torture, tens of thousands incarcerated, tens of millions spied upon, and a million plus have died in U.S. imperialist wars. Without the provision of "legal cover," many of these crimes would not have been possible.Â

Continue reading The Truth about Torture: Why John Yoo Should be Fired, Disbarred, and Prosecuted.

Lynndie England unrepentant...

August 14, 2009 12:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Abu Ghraib Torture Was "Like Nothing"

CBSNews.com
Posted byÂ Dana Chivvis

(AP Photo/Vicki Smith)

Five years after the infamous Abu Ghraib torture photos came to light, Lynndie England says the government's "softening up tactics" are acceptable ways to get information from prisoners.Â

In anÂ interview with the BBC, England defends herself and fellow soldiers who posed Iraqi prisoners in degrading positions for photographs in 2004.Â

"Compared to what they do to us, that's like nothing," England says in the BBC video, referring to instances where Americans were decapitated, burned, dragged through the streets or hung from a bridge by insurgents. She likens the physical degradation that appears in the Abu Ghraib photos to the kinds of hazing that go on in American colleges and boot camps...Â

see video interview atÂ http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=8323446

Continue reading Lynndie England unrepentant....

"History of CIA Torture", c/o THE BRAD BLOG

August 14, 2009 11:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Unraveling the Web of Deceit, Part V

Death by Torture, Ghost Detainees and the Disappeared

The global assault on decency & the rule of law

Guest Blogged by Ernest A. Canning
Part V of a Five-Part Special Series
(Part I is here.Â Part II is here.Â Part III is here.Â Part IV is here.)

"This report tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individuals' lives on their bodies and minds. Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors...
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the...administration...committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account." Retired Maj. Gen. Anthony Tuguba, "Preface" toÂ Report by Physicians for Human Rights.
continue reading here

the "slippery slope" of torture

August 12, 2009 1:14 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Will the government invoke Exemption 7(f) of theÂ Freedom of Information ActÂ to try to withhold theÂ 2004 CIA Inspector General report, that's supposed to be released by the 24th of this month, in the same way it is using FOIA to block the torture photos?

seeÂ Attorney General Holder: Look at the torture photos.

"The argument the government has put forward is unacceptable because it would afford the greatest protection from disclosure to records that depict the worst kind of government misconduct. That is fundamentally inconsistent with FOIA. And it's fundamentally inconsistent with democracy." -Â ACLU lawyerÂ Amrit Singh

the Mitchell-Jessen torture plan

August 12, 2009 9:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

see 2 U.S. Architects of Harsh Tactics in 9/11's Wake

"the subject of former Justice Department lawyer and torture apologist John Yoo's ongoing role as a professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law is still a hot one...

August 11, 2009 10:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

'A lot of students morally disapprove of John Yoo's advocating of torture and human-rights abuses, and they don't want to sanctify that by sitting in a classroom and being taught by him,' saysÂ Gretchen Gordon, a second-year law student who helped write and circulate a petition last spring asking for an alternative scheduling of the class.

see The torture memos and Berkeley's law-school schedule

US Criminal Code statue 2340A: Torture

August 11, 2009 9:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Bush torture 'enablers' chargeable as conspirators

Groups Call on Attorney General Holder to Appoint Independent Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture

August 11, 2009 1:46 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Press Release from VelvetRevolution.US

Holder Warned that Limited Investigation and Selective Prosecution Would Violate the Law and Further Undermine Credibility of DOJ

who will be first to launch a torture inquiry?

August 11, 2009 12:14 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

"The British government is under growing pressure to launch a formal inquiry into detainee torture.Â On SundayÂ -- for the second time in a week -- a parliamentary committee demanded the publication of guidelines given to security and intelligence agencies regarding the treatment of detainees abroad...

see Detainee Torture: Pressure for Inquiry Mounts in Britain

View from Guantanamo:

August 11, 2009 10:31 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A Conversation with Andy Worthington

On August 9, World Can't Wait activists across the country were privileged to be in on an hour long conversation with Andy Worthington, author of theGuantanamo FilesÂ and numerousÂ articlesexposing the abuse and torture of those the U.S. has designated "enemy combatants" and beyond the reach of any law. The conversation ranged from the origins of systematic torture at the very beginnings of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, to the significance of the continued denial of habeas corpus rights to the prisoners caught in the U.S. dragnet, to the ways in which the Obama administration is continuing, with slight modification, the policies of the Bush Regime towards the Geneva Convention and the treatment of prisoners snared in its war of terror.

ListenÂ hereÂ to the conversation with Andy.

defending torture...

August 10, 2009 9:17 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

the legacy of Boalt Hall?

according to news reports over the weekend, Attorney General Holder has decided on a "narrow" investigation into torture. In fact, it's so narrow that it won't investigate any of the torture that was authorized by DOJ functionary John Yoo at all. Using inverted pretzel logic, they are apparently going to go after those whoÂ failedÂ to follow John Yoo's directives.Â

Accommodation of John Yoo's directives effectively validates the idea "that obscure Justice Department officials can be granted the authority to essentially immunize officials at all levels of the government." SeeÂ Tortured logic.

torture's keeper

August 10, 2009 1:16 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Obama administration is fighting on multiple fronts - in courts in San Francisco, Washington and London - to keep an official veil of secrecy over the treatment of a former prisoner who says he was tortured at Guantanamo Bay...Â

seeÂ U.S. battling CIA rendition case in 3 courts

Obama asks Supreme Court to block torture photos

August 8, 2009 1:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The government's filing says some of the photos show "soldiers pointing pistols or rifles at the heads of hooded and handcuffed detainees." One image shows a handcuffed and hooded prisoner and a soldier who is acting "as if" he is violating a detainee with a broom handle.

People march up the steps of the Supreme Court.

The Obama Administration wants detainee abuse photos blocked by the Supreme Court.Photo: AP
see report byÂ JOSH GERSTEIN,Â www.politico.com.

Yoo Defends Detainee Measures as 'Rules of War' *

August 7, 2009 12:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

* STEVE INSKEEP, NPR

John Yoo helped formulate many of the Bush administration's policies for dealing with "enemy combatants".

photo byÂ Elsa Arnett

$25 in cash and a new set of civilian clothes...

"We congratulate you on the release of your son," read the letter, which was imprinted with the seal of the United States Department of DefenseÂ and written in Arabic. "His case has been concluded and we have made a decision that he needs to be released."Â

seeÂ Iraqis Freed by U.S. Face Few Jobs and Little Hope

repackaging the "war on terror"

August 7, 2009 9:33 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

"What we are seeing is fundamental continuity with our counterterrorism policy, repackaged appropriately with a new president who has the credibility and stature to reshape the perception of the United States."Â -Â Juan Zarate, formerÂ Deputy Assistant to President Bush and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating TerrorismÂ

Doubt Raised on Gitmo Closing Date

ByÂ SIOBHAN GORMANÂ andÂ EVAN PEREZ, The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's counterterrorism chief appeared to provide the first indication the administration may not make its January deadline for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay in remarks Thursday that aimed to outline a new path for combating terrorism.

The administration is folding measures to combat terrorists into its broader effort to engage other countries and improve social conditions overseas, said John Brennan, the president's senior counterterrorism adviser who also served as a senior intelligence official during the Bush administration.

In defense of the Obama administration's national-security policies, which have come under fire from the left and right, Mr. Brennan said the Obama administration is neither totally discarding nor fully embracing the policies of Mr. Bush.

continue reading here.

a crime like torture isn't a "policy question"

August 6, 2009 5:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

see SIX MONTHS OF IMMUNITY
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/45049
By David SwansonÂ

Drafted in preparation for panel discussion at Veterans for Peace national convention August 7, 2009, on topic of "Holding the Architects of Illegal Wars and War Crimes Accountable."Â

normalizing torture

August 6, 2009 1:31 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

"Learning of the sexual humiliation and stress positions used at Abu Ghraib represented a brief and terrible loss of innocence for Americans. But you can only lose your innocence once."

Have We Softened Up On Torture?

Dahlia Lithwick, Newsweek

keeping detainees alive to withstand more torture

August 6, 2009 11:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Doctors who assist in torture should be brought to justice

Near-silence surrounds the issue of doctors' complicity in the torture of terrorist suspects, writes William Hopkins.

Â

By William Hopkins, Telegraph.co.uk
Published: 6:39PM BST 06 Aug 2009

Christopher Jones Doctors who assist in torture should be brought to justice

Classified memorandums released by Barack Obama revealed that medical personnel at American-run detention centres oversaw a litany of abuseÂ Photo: Christopher Jones

The issue of Western complicity in the torture of terrorist suspects is not going away. In Britain, each day brings new demands for an inquiry into the security services' alleged involvement - not least in a severely critical report published this week by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. In the US, the imminent release of a CIA report from 2004 is expected to reveal a "Technicolor horror show" sanctioned by senior government lawyers.

But amid the furore about whether members of the intelligence services, or their political masters, should be held accountable, there has been no scrutiny of those who arguably played an equally critical role: the doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists and other medical personnel whose expert opinion was relied upon in arguing that "enhanced interrogation techniques" did not constitute torture.

Continue reading keeping detainees alive to withstand more torture.

HR 3326: "This is about as important as it gets in regards to Gitmo right now...

August 6, 2009 10:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2009

PLEASE TAKE ACTION

The house passed a bill that will make it virtually impossible to move the men out of Guantanamo anytime soon. We need to get everyone writing to congress, newspapers etc getting the word out about this disaster. This is a particularly good thing for our university students and law students out there to be working on collectively. Click on the title to read the bill and please talk to everyone you know to get the word out. This bill has to be stopped in its tracks.

British Lawmaker David Davis Challenges US Threats to Suppress Evidence of CIA Torture - interviewed by Amy Goodman

August 5, 2009 9:30 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Get the complete transcript of this interview:

British Lawmaker David Davis Challenges US Threats to Suppress Evidence of CIA Torture

See the video from last week of Amy Goodman's interview with this anti-torture right-wing conservative Brittish MP:

British MP Blasts U.S. Efforts to Keep Evidence Hidden in Gitmo Torture Case

new film: "THE RESPONSE"

August 5, 2009 2:19 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

"The response matters.Â Â Our response defines us."Â Â

Â --Colonel Jefferson Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â

Â

THE RESPONSE is a courtroom drama based on the actual transcripts of theÂ

Guantanamo Bay military tribunals [officially known as the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, orÂ

CSRTs]. In the film, three military judges must decide the fate of a Middle EasternÂ

detainee.Â Is he an enemy combatant, guilty of providing material support to Al QaedaÂ

and responsible for the deaths of several American soldiers?Â Or is he an innocent victimÂ

of circumstances as he claims?Â Â

Â

While the judges see the classified evidence, the detainee does not.Â While the judgesÂ

know who has accused the detainee, the detainee does not.Â In response, the governmentÂ

counters that to release such classified information could assist the terrorist networks andÂ

undermine U.S. national security.Â

Â

For the first time ever, THE RESPONSE holds a mirror up to the tribunals and allowsÂ

an audience to see and hear for themselves what goes on inside Guantanamo. While theÂ

three judges and the detainee are fictionalized composite characters, the dramaticÂ

situation of the legal process is fully accurate.Â

Â

The film places the audience inside a Kafkaesque tribunal process where they, along withÂ

the military judges, must decide whether the evidence presented is convincing andÂ

credible and if the detainee is, indeed, an enemy combatant.Â

Â

THE RESPONSE was researched and fully vetted in conjunction with the University ofÂ

Maryland School of Law where the film was shot in just 3 days with a minimal budget.Â

The talented cast and crew agreed to defer all or most of their salaries so that the filmÂ

could be made. The University donated its locations and the staff and students donatedÂ

their time and energies.Â

tortured "evidence": the GuantÃ¡namo detainee files

August 5, 2009 1:58 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

"We hope the handling of the Jawad case is not representative of how thatÂ [Holder's] review is going."

see NYTimes editorial, Justice Too Long Delayed

"Colluding in, or failing to report, torture is a crime"

August 4, 2009 9:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Britain's 'wall of secrecy'
TUESDAY, AUGUST 04, 2009Â Â Al JazeeraÂ

Britain has been accused of working with foreign intelligence agencies that use torture [EPA]

Torture is a powerful word. It conjures up graphic images of abuse that until relatively recently, most British people were more likely to associate with history books or despotic regimes than the government they elected to lead them.

No longer. A cross-party human rights committee from both houses of parliament - the Commons and the Lords - has published a damning report that calls for an independent inquiry into what it describes as the "disturbing number of credible allegations of UK complicity in torture".

No one is suggesting that British intelligence agents tortured anyone themselves. Instead, they are accused of working with foreign agencies known to use torture in their interrogations, such as Pakistan's ISI.

They are said to have effectively condoned detainee abuse by looking the other way when they encountered it, and using the intelligence gathered regardless.

In recent months Britain has been accused of arranging the arrests of terrorism suspects by torturing regimes, providing lists of interrogation questions to unscrupulous foreign intelligence services, and of sending agents to question prisoners that they knew were being tortured by their captors. And that, the report says, is illegal.

Continue reading "Colluding in, or failing to report, torture is a crime".

a blanket excuse for torture, CIA black sites, kidnapping, indefinite detention, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and warrantless spying: sound familiar?

August 2, 2009 10:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Panetta: 'Reality' of 9/11 excuses Bush scandals

BYÂ STEPHEN C. WEBSTERÂ

Published: August 2, 2009Â

RAW STORY

CIA director and Democratic appointee Leon Panetta, in an article published Sunday, said Democrats must recognize the "reality" of 9/11 is what drove the conduct of George W. Bush administration in the months following September 11, 2001, which somehow justifies not looking into suspected crimes.

He added, in an apparent warning to the House Intelligence Committee, that that "focusing on the past" could hurt the CIA's core mission amid a climate of recriminations over its practices.

"I've become increasingly concerned that the focus on the past, especially in Congress, threatens to distract the CIA from its crucial core missions: intelligence collection, analysis and covert action," Panetta opined in the online edition ofÂ The Washington Post.

Continue reading a blanket excuse for torture, CIA black sites, kidnapping, indefinite detention, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and warrantless spying: sound familiar? .

"A letter from a torture survivor...

August 1, 2009 10:56 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In the last few years, there has been a significant change in the amount of conversation about torture--from nearly nothing to an incessant drumbeat. Sadly, the subject has now become debatable. What is the proper way to commit crimes against humanity, open and above-board or in secret shrouded in lies? How much pain is too much? What kind of brutality leaves a lasting impact? Congress talks on and on, wanting desperately not to answer these questions. How do we know? Because they do not ask those who do know. You do not ask torture's survivors. None of you asks us.Â

-Â Sister Dianna Ortiz, Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International

closing argument of an Air Force Major, David J. R. Frakt, in Favor of Dismissal of the Case Against Mohammad Jawad (6/19/2008)

August 1, 2009 1:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

David Frakt

"Why was Mohammad Jawad tortured? Why did military officials choose a teenage boy who had attempted suicide in his cell less than 5 months earlier to be the subject of this sadistic sleep deprivation experiment? Not that anything would justify such treatment, of course, but at least in the case of the other detainees known to have been subjected to sleep deprivation, they were believed to possess critical intelligence that might save American lives. Unfortunately, we may never know. I've asked to speak to the guards who actually carried out the program, and I've been denied. In the absence of information to the contrary, which the government would surely provide if it existed, we are left to conclude that it was simply gratuitous cruelty."Â

read full statement at discourse.net .

David FraktÂ is an AmericanÂ lawyer, law Professor, and officer in the United States Air Force Reserve.

August 2009 Archives

Brad DeLong, Grasping Reality with Both Hands

PHOTOS

Protesters want professor fired

By TERENCE CHEA

Associated Press Writer

Photo by Noah Berger

Addendum: for a copy of Psychologist Ruth Fallenbaum's statement of support, see Valtin's blog.

Press Release from VelvetRevolution.US

ByÂ SIOBHAN GORMANÂ andÂ EVAN PEREZ, The Wall Street Journal

Near-silence surrounds the issue of doctors' complicity in the torture of terrorist suspects, writes William Hopkins.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2009

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