[Torture NEWS] European Court Finds CIA Interrogation Techniques ‘Amounted to Torture’

The European Court of Human Rights recently concluded that CIA ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ used on detainee Abu Zubaydah from 2002 to 2003 ‘amounted to torture’ according to this report from Turthout Magazine: European Court Finds CIA Interrogation Techniques ‘Amounted to Torture’.

“The European Court of Human Rights concludes that so-called enhanced interrogation techniques – specifically approved by John Yoo and Jay Bybee for use by the CIA on Abu Zubaydah at a Polish black site – amounted to torture.

When President Obama says the United States “tortured some folks,” perhaps he is referring to Abu Zubaydah. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) recently issued a decision concluding that the techniques the CIA used to interrogate Zubaydah “amounted to torture” within the meaning of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention. [1]

The ECHR decision connects the torture perpetrated on Zubaydah with analysis provided in a legal memo dated August 1, 2002, from John Yoo and Jay Bybee to the Central Intelligence Agency’s General Counsel John Rizzo (Interrogation Memo). ..

The Capture of Zubaydah Directly Lead to Drafting of Interrogation Memo

Abu Zubaydah was captured from a home in Pakistan around March 27, 2002, and taken to black site in Thailand. Zubaydah remained in Thailand until around December 4, 2002, when he was sent to a black site in Stare Kiejkuty, Poland, where he remained until September 2003.

In early 2002, immediately after the capture of Zubaydah, the CIA asked whether the proposed use of specific enhanced interrogation techniques violated federal law prohibiting torture. According to Yoo’s testimony before a House Judiciary Subcommittee, the Office of Legal Counsel was “asked to evaluate the legality of interrogation methods proposed for use with Zubaydah.” [2] The CIA provided Yoo and Bybee with a list of 10 proposed interrogation methods for review.  The list included “walling,” facial slaps, stress positions and waterboarding. [3]

John Yoo and Jay Bybee analyzed the 10 proposed methods. Essentially, the legal analysis in the Interrogation Memo can be summed us as follows:

•  Torture requires a “specific intent” to cause prolonged mental harm. [4]

•  If an interrogator has a “good-faith belief” that he will not inflict prolonged harm, then there is no specific intent .[5]

•  The “good-faith belief” that there will be no prolonged harm is found in statements from psychologist consultants who were paid by the CIA. [6]

… The ECHR “notes that the CIA documents give a precise description of the treatment to which High-Value Detainees were being subjected in custody as a matter of precisely applied and predictable routine, starting from their capture through rendition and reception at the back site, to their interrogations.” [9] Some of these precise routines include the enhanced interrogation techniques discussed in the Interrogation Memo drafted by Yoo and Bybee. For example, the CIA did not waterboard Zubaydah prior to the August 1, 2002. Then, the CIA waterboarded Zubaydah 83 times in the month of August 2002, immediately after the Interrogation Memo was written.

While in Poland, the ECHR concludes, the CIA’s treatment of Zubayah “amounted to torture.” In other words, the precise techniques analyzed and approved by John Yoo and Jay Bybee and used by the CIA in Poland on Zubaydah, amounted to torture. ..”

This is some enlightening news in lieu of the pending report to be released by the Government of the United States of America on this very thing.

One has to wonder what will President Obama have to say on this, publicly and privately, subject when the report is released.

Watch this space closely folks!

Peace.

–Rhett.

#Blog: “The ‘ACCIDENTAL’ Statesman..” By Rhett E. Column, #CIAtorturereport, #AXJ, #SWN

Former President of the United States of America, Harry S. Truman…

“..which the White House accidentally emailed to an Associated Press reporter…” — The White House Report on Torture, “Bush-era tactics…”… has been leaked?!?!

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — I just finished reading an article from MSN News Services, via Reuters and the AP on the so-called Bush-era torture programs/enhanced interrogation techniques during the early days of the War on Terror and I must say I am experiencing and have been experiencing a myriad of emotions, a veritable roller coaster ride of feelings on this pending report for the last two weeks.

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what, respectfully, Mr. Obama & Co. are hiding? Why the need to delay, and deny the American people, their right to know? Additionally why the need to provide cover for the Intelligence Community? Finally why, in this article I read, was a pending report from out of the White House, “accidentally emailed” to an Associated Press reporter?

These are but some of the many questions some of the many points of emotion I have been wrestling with, and again, for the last two weeks.

And so it goes…

I learned something this week and I also want to correct, publicly now, a record of standing I have long-held against a former President of these United States, Dwight Eisenhower. I contended that it was former President Eisenhower who started the C.I.A., it was not. It was in fact Harry Truman who started the C.I.A., BUT and his later years he, like so many of us do, had a change of heart on all things Central Intelligence Agency. Here, is where the change of heart began.

And so it goes…

I said all that to say this. The White House, more importantly this President, Barack H. Obama, II., and the honorable, had better come clean. He has but two whole handfuls of months left in his presidency to serve. He has a real opportunity. A real chance to level the playing field to correct the record as it were for the good of all mankind. To become something far more than what I have titled him under this #blogpost as, an ‘ACCIDENTAL’ Statesman.

President Barack H. Obama, II, 2012 Democratic National Convention…

“I’ve studied the Constitution as a student, I’ve taught it as a teacher, I’ve been bound by it as a lawyer and a legislator. I took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief, and as a citizen, I know that we must never, ever, turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience sake.” — President Obama, 2009 Speech on National Security

 

THIS PRESIDENT, needs to hear from the American people TODAY on this vitally important issue.  He needs to be reminded of the words, the oath he took on behalf of the American people! To stand up for the Rule of Law and to adhere, strictly and always, to its concepts, precepts and edicts. Without fail or exception. Because and forthwith ,”the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one in this case.” Bottom line.

Because, and I will close with this. Comments such as these from online news articles, though good and very informative, WILL NOT suffice,

“The report does not draw the legal conclusion that the CIA’s actions constituted torture, though it makes clear that in some cases they amounted to torture by a common definition, two people who have read the report said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the still-classified document publicly by name.

The Senate report, the State Department proposes to say, “leaves no doubt that the methods used to extract information from some terrorist suspects caused profound pain, suffering and humiliation. It also leaves no doubt that the harm caused by the use of these techniques outweighed any potential benefit.”

Those methods included slapping, humiliation, exposure to cold, sleep deprivation and the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The White House document is significant because it also reveals some of the State Department’s concerns about how the CIA’s tactics will be portrayed around the world.”

 

COMMENTS like these, for me at least, add up to duck and cover, run and hide, that age-old game of cat and mouse, that has been played throughout history both time and memorial by our fathers, grandfathers and forebears. The Cold War is over folks!

Yet Barack Obama, it appears wants to do nothing more than allow the Intelligence Community to play with the lives, fortunes and sacred honors of We The American People. It would appear to me, in the very least, that ,his attitude and actions of late, the Constitutional Law Professor has an obligatory disdain for the Rule of Law. It says, by his actions, that the Intelligence Community could give a fat rat’s rectum less about the Rule of Law OR that they only care about the Rule of Law when it is more than conveniently necessary for them to do so.

Such an attitude, such an approach toward governance and toward the everyday people who elected him to high office amounts to what Hollywood calls, “creative license”. And creative license will not cut it Mr. President! Respectfully.

Peace.

–Rhett.