En terwijl in de polder het grote slapen doorgaat, bericht men in de grote mensenwereld:'NAOMI WOLF
What Is Probably in the Missing Tapes
Posted December 13, 2007 03:55 PM (EST)
To judge from firsthand documents obtained by the ACLU through a FOIA
lawsuit, we can guess what is probably on the missing CIA
interrogation tapes -- as well as understand why those implicated are
spinning so hard to pretend the tapes do not document a series of
evident crimes. According to the little-noticed but extraordinarily
important book Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from
Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh,
Columbia University Press, New York 2007), which presents dozens of
original formerly secret documents - FBI emails and memos, letters
and interrogator "wish lists," raw proof of the systemic illegal
torture of detainees in various US-held prisons -- the typical "harsh
interrogation" of a suspect in US custody reads like an account of
abuses in archives at Yad Vashem.
More is still being hidden as of this writing -- as those in Congress
now considering whether a special prosecutor is needed in this case
should be urgently aware: "Through the FOIA lawsuit," write the
authors, "we learned of the existence of multiple records relating to
prisoner abuse that still have not been released by the
administration; credible media reports identify others. As this book
goes to print, the Bush administration is still withholding, among
many other records, a September 2001 presidential directive
authorizing the CIA to set up secret detention centers overseas; an
August 2002 Justice Department memorandum advising the CIA about the
lawfulness of waterboarding [Italics mine; nota bene, Mr. Mukasey]
and other aggressive interrogation methods; documents describing
interrogation methods used by special operations forces in Iraq and
Afghanistan; investigative files concerning the deaths of prisoners
in U.S. custody; and numerous photographs depicting the abuse of
prisoners at detention facilities other than Abu Ghraib.'
What we are likely to see if the tapes documenting the interrogation
of Abu Zubaydah and Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri are ever recovered is
that the "confessions" of the prisoners upon which the White House
has built its entire case for subverting the Constitution and
suspending civil liberties in this country was obtained through
methods such as electrocution, beating to the point of organ failure,
hanging prisoners from the wrists from a ceiling, suffocation, and
threats against family members ("I am going to find your mother and I
am going to fuck her" is one direct quote from a US interrogator). On
the missing tapes, we would likely see responses from the prisoners
that would be obvious to us as confessions to anything at all in
order to end the violence. In other words, if we could witness the
drama of manufacturing by torture the many violently coerced
"confessions" upon which the whole house of cards of this White House
and its hyped "war on terror" rests, it would likely cause us to
reopen every investigation, including the most serious ones
(remember, even the 9/11 committee did not receive copies of the
tapes); shut down the corrupt, Stalinesque Military Commissions
System; turn over prisoners, the guilty and the innocent, into a
working, accountable justice system operating in accordance with
American values; and direct our legal scrutiny to the torturers
themselves -- right up to the office of the Vice President and the
President if that is where the investigations would lead.'
What Is Probably in the Missing Tapes
Posted December 13, 2007 03:55 PM (EST)
To judge from firsthand documents obtained by the ACLU through a FOIA
lawsuit, we can guess what is probably on the missing CIA
interrogation tapes -- as well as understand why those implicated are
spinning so hard to pretend the tapes do not document a series of
evident crimes. According to the little-noticed but extraordinarily
important book Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from
Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh,
Columbia University Press, New York 2007), which presents dozens of
original formerly secret documents - FBI emails and memos, letters
and interrogator "wish lists," raw proof of the systemic illegal
torture of detainees in various US-held prisons -- the typical "harsh
interrogation" of a suspect in US custody reads like an account of
abuses in archives at Yad Vashem.
More is still being hidden as of this writing -- as those in Congress
now considering whether a special prosecutor is needed in this case
should be urgently aware: "Through the FOIA lawsuit," write the
authors, "we learned of the existence of multiple records relating to
prisoner abuse that still have not been released by the
administration; credible media reports identify others. As this book
goes to print, the Bush administration is still withholding, among
many other records, a September 2001 presidential directive
authorizing the CIA to set up secret detention centers overseas; an
August 2002 Justice Department memorandum advising the CIA about the
lawfulness of waterboarding [Italics mine; nota bene, Mr. Mukasey]
and other aggressive interrogation methods; documents describing
interrogation methods used by special operations forces in Iraq and
Afghanistan; investigative files concerning the deaths of prisoners
in U.S. custody; and numerous photographs depicting the abuse of
prisoners at detention facilities other than Abu Ghraib.'
What we are likely to see if the tapes documenting the interrogation
of Abu Zubaydah and Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri are ever recovered is
that the "confessions" of the prisoners upon which the White House
has built its entire case for subverting the Constitution and
suspending civil liberties in this country was obtained through
methods such as electrocution, beating to the point of organ failure,
hanging prisoners from the wrists from a ceiling, suffocation, and
threats against family members ("I am going to find your mother and I
am going to fuck her" is one direct quote from a US interrogator). On
the missing tapes, we would likely see responses from the prisoners
that would be obvious to us as confessions to anything at all in
order to end the violence. In other words, if we could witness the
drama of manufacturing by torture the many violently coerced
"confessions" upon which the whole house of cards of this White House
and its hyped "war on terror" rests, it would likely cause us to
reopen every investigation, including the most serious ones
(remember, even the 9/11 committee did not receive copies of the
tapes); shut down the corrupt, Stalinesque Military Commissions
System; turn over prisoners, the guilty and the innocent, into a
working, accountable justice system operating in accordance with
American values; and direct our legal scrutiny to the torturers
themselves -- right up to the office of the Vice President and the
President if that is where the investigations would lead.'
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