Iraq and Afghan War Inquiries

Bush Admin. Officials: CCR Submits Torture Details to Spanish Court

2012-02-11T14:16:00.002-05:00

CCR Submits Torture Details to Spanish Court after Judge's Order to Proceed with Gitmo Investigation

Feb 8, 2012 - CCR Submits Declaration Detailing Torture to Spanish Court after Judge's Order to Proceed with Guantánamo Torture Investigation
Document Highlights Treatment of Acknowledged Torture Victim Mohammed al Qahtani; Helps Set Stage for Prosecution of Bush Administration Officials
February 8, 2012, New York and Madrid – Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) submitted a declaration to a Spanish court detailing the torture of Mohammed al Qahtani, who has been detained without charge or trial at Guantánamo since 2002. The submission follows Spanish Investigating Judge Pablo Ruz Gutierrez’s recent order to proceed with the probe into the U.S. torture program. read more>>>

What Australia knew about so-called black sites, Iraq

2012-02-11T13:55:00.001-05:00

Claims Australian troops were linked to secret Iraq prisons

February 09, 2012 - There are claims that Australia played a key role in the potentially illegal detention of prisoners of war at a secret Iraqi prison in 2003. The Guardian newspaper is reporting that an Australian SAS squadron working in Iraq was intergral to the operation of a secret facility known as H1. The revelations raise questions about how much Australian government and defence's knew about so-called black sites.

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ChiTown War Protesters Get $6,2M

2012-02-10T13:15:00.002-05:00

Typical media spin, shelling out tax payers money, i.e. those doing the protesting taxes, on peaceful 1st amendment rights to question strongly the policies of the government of the people, unlike the positive spins of the loaded weapons at huge gatherings or spitting on government reps by what are called tea party members!

Chicago settles with war protesters for $6M

February 09, 2012 - Chicago taxpayers will be shelling out more than $6 million to demonstrators and others arrested during an anti-war protest back in 2003.
City lawyers have agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit involving those arrests.
The $6.2 million settlement could have implications on how police handle protesters during the upcoming G8 and NATO summits in Chicago.
When a federal judge recent ridiculed what he saw as the "idiocy" of the city's policies on protests, it paved the wave for this settlement and changes to how police handle demonstrators.

The day after bombs began to fall in Baghdad, thousands of people took to the streets in Chicago to protest. After taking over the Mag Mile and Lake Shore Drive, police essentially penned them in.
"They are telling people you have to go back to Lake Shore Drive. When people go back to Lake Shore Drive, they tell you to go back to Michigan Avenue. Basically we're pinned in," said one protester seen in a home video from 2003.
"I just didn't know there was a problem, that bad things were going to happen," said 2003 war protester Cheryl Angelaccio. read more>>>

Aero Contractors Ltd., CIA’s “extraordinary rendition”

2012-02-10T06:16:00.000-05:00

Ten years later, CIA ‘rendition’ program still divides N.C. town

February 9 2012 - The small airport that houses what some here call Smithfield’s “dirty secret” lies just beyond the town’s outskirts, where tobacco warehouses and car dealerships give way to pine forests and then, abruptly, an imposing 10-foot-high fence.
Inside, in a metal hangar with its own security, is the headquarters of Aero Contractors Ltd., a private aviation company whose ties to the CIA have long inspired local speculation and gossip. Newspaper investigations and books have linked the firm’s planes to secret abductions, waterboardings and more, usually eliciting the same mute response from the occupant of Hangar No. 3.
These days, Aero’s jets are seldom seen in public, and the controversy over the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program — in which captured terrorist suspects were secretly transported to another country for interrogation — has vanished from the headlines in most of the country.
But not so here, where Aero’s operations have spawned a dogged opposition movement in its otherwise conservative, fiercely patriotic back yard. The protests continue to gather steam after six years, despite counter-demonstrations and occasional threats, and amid uncertainty over whether Aero is still involved in what critics alleged was a “torture taxi” business.
“I don’t want to live in a country that acts this way,” said Julia Elsee, 87, who bundled up in a pink scarf for a protest at the Johnston County Airport on a recent chilly afternoon. read more>>>

Iraq: Questions About Legality of British and US Operations

2012-02-09T18:57:00.000-05:00

RAF helicopter death revelation leads to secret Iraq detention camp

Death in RAF helicopter and secret prison camp in Iraq desert raises questions about legality of British and US operations
7 February 2012 - On the evening of 11 April 2003, a pair of RAF CH47 Chinook helicopters swept over Iraq's western desert towards a remote rendezvous point beside Route 10, the highway that begins life on the outskirts of Baghdad before running for mile after mile towards the border with Jordan.
As they approached their destination, the crews assumed they were on an operation that would be uneventful. Two days earlier Saddam Hussein's statue had been toppled after American tanks rolled into the Iraqi capital; three weeks later George Bush would stand in front of a banner saying "mission accomplished".
The helicopter crews had been told that a number of detainees were under armed guard at the side of the highway. They were to pick them up after dark and take them to a prison camp. What followed was far from routine: before the night was out, one man had died on board one of the helicopters, allegedly beaten to death by RAF personnel.
The incident was immediately shrouded in secrecy. When the Guardian heard about it and began to ask questions, the Ministry of Defence responded with an extraordinary degree of obstruction and obfuscation, evading questions not just for days but for weeks and months. The RAF's own police examined the death in an investigation codenamed Operation Raker, but this ended with some of the most salient facts remaining deeply buried. The alleged culprits faced no charges. read more>>>

The Torture Memos, 10 Years Later

2012-02-07T18:13:00.001-05:00

Our journey toward Abu Ghraib began in earnest with a single document -- written and signed without the knowledge of the American people

Feb 6 2012 - On February 7, 2002 -- ten years ago to the day, tomorrow -- President George W. Bush signed a brief memorandum titled "Humane Treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda Detainees." The caption was a cruel irony, an Orwellian bit of business, because what the memo authorized and directed was the formal abandonment of America's commitment to key provisions of the Geneva Convention. This was the day, a milestone on the road to Abu Ghraib: that marked our descent into torture -- the day, many would still say, that we lost part of our soul.
Drafted by men like John Yoo, and pushed along by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, the February 7 memo was sent to all of the key players of the Bush Administration involved in the early days of the War on Terror. All the architects and functionaries who would play a role in one of the darker moments in American legal history were in on it. Vice President Dick Cheney. Attorney General John Aschroft. Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld. CIA Director George Tenet. David Addington. They all got the note. And then they acted upon it.
When we talk today of the "torture memos," most of us think about the later memoranda, like the infamous "Bybee Memo" of August 1, 2002, which authorized the use of torture against terror law detainees. But those later pronouncements of policy, in one way or another, were all based upon the perversion of law and logic contained in the February 7 memo. Once America crossed the line 10 years ago, the memoranda that followed, to a large extent, were merely evidence of the grinding gears of bureaucracy trying to justify itself. read more>>>

The Pakistani Taliban's Coming Divide

2012-02-04T11:23:00.002-05:00

How the Death of Its Leader Could Be Bad for the United States

February 2, 2012 - For good reason, U.S. and Pakistani officials are eager to declare Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP), dead. A TTP-sponsored attack in 2009 on U.S. Forward Operating Base Chapman killed seven CIA employees. And the TTP has repeatedly hit Pakistani government targets with impressive brutality. Most recently, it released a video of its execution of 15 captured Pakistani soldiers, which declared, "This will be the fate of you all."
Thus, when, on January 15, news outlets across the world reported Mehsud dead, killed by a U.S. drone attack, many must have breathed a sigh of relief. But those reports may have been premature. Over the past two years, several similar announcements -- some even by prominent officials such as Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik -- have surfaced, only to be proved false by Taliban videos shortly thereafter. Mehsud even took credit for the 2010 attempted Times Square bombing months after supposedly dying. For their part, TTP spokesmen have adamantly denied that Mehsud is dead, or that he was even in the area of attack. Of course, it issued similar denials following the drone strike that killed Baitullah Mehsud, the previous TTP head, in August 2009. This Mehsud could be dead, wounded, or unscathed, but considering the increasing capability of U.S. intelligence and its ability to execute on it with drones, chances are high that his days are numbered. read more>>>

Justice for Those Who Helped Start an Unjust War?

2012-02-01T11:58:00.001-05:00

Historians may dub the war in Iraq "Bush's Folly." But "Rupert Murdoch's War" may be more apropos

January 29, 2012 - America's NeoCon-inspired war - which killed more than 100,000 Iraqis, dislocated 4.7 million Iraqi citizens, created more than 500,000 Iraqi orphans, several million Iraqi refugees and cost the U.S. treasury roughly one trillion dollars and still counting - is now officially over.
Launched on March 3, 2003, with a much-heralded "Shock and Awe" surprise attack on Baghdad instead of the niceties of a formal and constitutional declaration of war, it died without a whimper last month, in spite of the fact that the misguided leader who got us into the war had declared victory years ago.
The American people were sold the Iraq War by Murdoch's Fox Network more cynically than yellow journal publisher William Randolph Hearst sold them the Spanish-American War ("Remember the Maine!")
Fox was the principal and unrelenting cheerleader for attacking a nation that was not a threat. Fox's talking heads, including O'Reilly, Beck and Hannity, kept up a steady drumbeat for the war from beginning to end. It's no wonder a dysfunctional and disinterested Congress has never investigated how America was duped. read more>>>

Haditha Says Justice Failed Victims

2012-01-25T06:04:00.000-05:00

Part 1: AIR DATE: Jan. 24, 2012 Plea Deal in Haditha Killings Opens New Wounds in Iraq

SUMMARY A military judge on Tuesday recommended 90 days of confinement and reduction in rank for Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the remaining Marine charged in a case that shook Iraq and the U.S. -- the gunning down of 24 civilians in Haditha in 2005. However, because of a pre-trial agreement, he will serve no time. Margaret Warner reports. Transcript>>>

Watch Plea Deal in Haditha Killings Opens New Wounds in Iraq on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Part 2: AIR DATE: Jan. 24, 2012 Was Justice Served After Haditha Killings?

SUMMARY At his sentencing hearing Tuesday, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the remaining Marine charged in the 2005 Haditha killings, expressed sorrow for the victims, and said he hadn't meant for his men to kill innocent Iraqis. Margaret Warner discusses his plea deal with two retired Marines, Lt. Col. Gary Solis and Capt. Bing West. Transcript>>>

Watch Was Justice Served After Haditha Killings? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Iraqi Town Says Justice Failed Victims Of U.S. Raid

January 25, 2012 - In this town which saw 24 unarmed civilians die in a U.S. raid seven years ago, residents expressed disbelief and sadness that the Marine sergeant who told his troops to "shoot first, ask questions later" reached a deal with prosecutors to avoid jail time.
They were outraged both at the American military justice system and at the refusal of Iraq's Shiite-led government to condemn the killings and at least try to bring those responsible to face trial in this country.
"We are deeply disappointed by this unfair deal," said Khalid Salman Rasif, an Anbar provincial council member from Haditha. "The U.S. soldier will receive a punishment that is suitable for a traffic violation."
Haditha, a town of about 85,000 people along the Euphrates River valley some 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, is overwhelmingly made up of Sunni Muslims. Sunnis lost influence in this country with the fall of Saddam Hussein and feel increasingly squeezed out of their already limited political role. read more>>>

Spain Court Reactivates Gitmo Investigation

2012-01-21T06:52:00.001-05:00

Spanish Court Resumes Gitmo Prosecution

January 18, 2012 - On Friday, a judge from Spain’s national security court, the Audiencia Nacional, issued a decision directing the resumption of criminal proceedings relating to the torture and mistreatment of three prisoners held in the American detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. El País reports (my translation):

Judge Pablo Ruz of the Audiencia Nacional has reactivated a case initiated by [Judge Baltasar] Garzón relating to the torture of four Islamists, one of them the so-called “Spanish Taliban,” during their captivity at the U.S. base at Guantánamo; according to the judge the case involves crimes of torture, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
The judge concluded that there is sufficient basis to support a finding of jurisdiction for the Spanish courts to investigate the facts, as the case has a “connection relevant to Spain.” Even though the plenary chamber of the court’s criminal division has established a preference for U.S. jurisdiction in such cases, the exercise of Spanish jurisdiction would be appropriate because there is no evidence that either the U.S. or the U.K. had opened an investigation or commenced a prosecution of the crimes in question.
The case has a long history. The three former prisoners were released from custody in 2007 at the request of the British government, and were then turned over to Spain under a Spanish arrest warrant charging them with complicity in acts of terrorism. read more>>>

U.N. asked to probe U.S. efforts to squelch Spain torture probe

Jan. 19, 2012 - Two legal rights groups on Thursday asked the United Nations to investigate allegations that Spanish and U.S. officials collaborated to quash criminal probes into whether the Bush administration authorized illegal killings and torture of terrorism suspects.
The request, made to the U.N.'s special rapporteur for judicial independence, accused the United States of interfering with Spain's justice system in three different criminal cases. The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights asked that the U.N. demand that both governments refrain from meddling in court cases. read more>>>

N.C. Based Aero's Role in Extraordinary Rendition

2012-01-20T08:34:00.001-05:00

N.C. air transport company Aero has role in extraordinary rendition, report says

With fresh ammunition from a University of North Carolina law school report, activists renewed their call Thursday for state officials to take legal action against Aero Contractors Ltd.
For years the Johnston County, N.C., air transport company, which has links to the CIA, has been accused of being a taxi service for paramilitary teams that pick up terrorism suspects in one country and fly them to another where it's easier to interrogate and, perhaps, torture them. The process is known as extraordinary rendition.
Law professor Deborah M. Weissman and members of the protest group North Carolina Stop Torture Now gave copies of their report to representatives of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and Gov. Bev. Perdue on Thursday morning, then released it during a news conference at the Johnston County Airport, where Aero is based.
The report does not accuse Aero employees of engaging directly in torture. Still, they are accountable for aiding and abetting violations of human rights that are protected under various international treaties and federal laws, Weissman said.
Because the U.S. government has signed those treaties, each state is legally obligated to uphold them, she said. read more>>>

N.C. Connection to Extraordinary Rendition and Torture Flights Report

Squelching Spains Torture Probe

2012-01-20T08:20:00.000-05:00

U.N. asked to probe U.S. efforts to squelch Spain torture probe

January 19, 2012 - Two legal rights groups on Thursday asked the United Nations to investigate allegations that Spanish and U.S. officials collaborated to quash criminal probes into whether the Bush administration authorized illegal killings and torture of terrorism suspects.
The request, made to the U.N.'s special rapporteur for judicial independence, accused the United States of interfering with Spain's justice system in three different criminal cases. The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights asked that the U.N. demand that both governments refrain from meddling in court cases.
"When arguably the leading human rights country in the world is engaged in torture and then gives impunity to those torturers, it sends a pretty bad message," said Michael Ratner, the Center for Constitutional Rights' president emeritus.
Ratner said the groups were turning to the U.N. because "it's very hard to hold the U.S. accountable in any forum in the world." read more>>>

N.C. Human Rights Group Report on Torture Flights

2012-01-19T17:54:00.000-05:00

Human rights group calls on state to probe alleged 'torture flights'

19 January 2012 - A North Carolina human rights group is calling on state officials to investigate and stop alleged CIA missions originating in Johnston County that involve illegal torture.
North Carolina Stop Torture Now delivered a University of North Carolina School of Law report Wednesday to the governor, attorney general and others that claims the Central Intelligence Agency relies on Smithfield-based Aero Contractors Ltd. to provide planes and pilots to transport prisoners overseas from the Johnston County Airport for secret interrogation using torture techniques.
The 67-page report says the so-called "rendition flights" by the company and its employees violate laws against torture by aiding and abetting.
It includes an affidavit from a Moroccan-born Italian who said that he was captured in 2002, had his clothes sliced off him, was dressed in a diaper and torn T-shirt and dragged aboard a small plane operated by Aero. read more>>>

N.C. Connection to Extraordinary Rendition and Torture Flights Report

Halting Canadian Bush Prosecution Violated International Obligations

2012-01-18T12:52:00.002-05:00

JURIST Guest Columnists Matt Eisenbrandt, Legal Director for the Canadian Centre for International Justice, and Katherine Gallagher, a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, say the Canadian government not only rejected the opportunity to prosecute George W. Bush, they improperly removed private citizens' ability to bring criminal proceedings as allowed by Canadian law...

January 17, 2012 - In his memoir and other venues, former US president George W. Bush admitted that he authorized the waterboarding of detainees in US custody. His exact words of approval were, "Damn right." Bush ordered several other interrogation techniques that numerous experts, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and several UN rapporteurs, have found to constitute torture. Nonetheless, he has not been held accountable, in the US or elsewhere, for his oversight of a worldwide torture program that included abuses at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and secret CIA "black sites."
Recently, Canada disregarded an opportunity to shatter the global impunity Bush enjoys and in so doing violated international law. On October 20, 2011, Bush, joined by former president Bill Clinton, visited Surrey, British Columbia as a paid speaker at a regional economic summit hosted by Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts. Rather than comply with Canada's legal obligations under the UN Convention Against Torture and submit Bush for prosecution, the Government of Canada refused to take action. Then, faced with privately initiated charges, the Attorney General of British Columbia intervened to shut down the case.
Three weeks before Bush's widely publicized visit to Canada, we sent a letter [PDF], a 69-page draft indictment [PDF] and approximately 4,000 pages of evidence to the Attorney General of Canada on behalf of the Canadian Centre for International Justice and the Center for Constitutional Rights. We called on him to investigate and prosecute the former US president. In response, we received a terse two-sentence letter [PDF] from the manager of the Department of Justice Correspondence Unit acknowledging nothing more than that our letters had been received over two weeks after Bush had left. Several other human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, called for Canada to arrest Bush. read more>>>

Contractors read Gitmo Prisoners Mail from Lawyers!!

2012-01-18T08:38:00.002-05:00

Guantánamo commander: Contractors read inmate lawyers' mail

17 January 2012 - In unprecedented war court testimony, the prison camps’ commander on Tuesday defended a three-tier system of classifying lawyers’ mail to alleged terrorists that sparked a defense lawyer’s boycott and is threatening to stall future war crimes trials.
It was the first time the camps’ top commander testified at a Guantánamo military commission. Rear Adm. David B. Woods said he had a team of Defense Department contractors examining confidential, privileged attorney-client mail for “safety, force protection and good order.”
At issue is whether the prison camps staff is complying with the chief military commissions judge’s November order to look at, but not read, defense lawyers documents for alleged USS Cole bomber Abd al Rahim al Nashiri that are marked “privileged.”
Woods testified that the contractors are assigned to discern whether lawyers mail is indeed privileged or more generic legal mail. The contractors include former government lawyers, law enforcement officials, linguists and Woods wants them looking at documents for things like diagrams that might threaten security inside the prison camps that hold some 171 foreign captives. read more>>>

French Judge Joins Spanish Judge: Torture and Gitmo

2012-01-17T18:14:00.002-05:00

French judge wants to investigate torture claims at Guantanamo

January 17 2012 - A French judge is seeking U.S. permission to visit the Guantanamo prison camp to investigate claims by former French inmates that they were tortured.
Investigating judge Sophie Clement says in a formal international request to U.S. officials that she wants to see the prison and copies of all documents relating to the arrest and transfer of three Frenchmen held there. The Associated Press viewed the request Tuesday.
The three men are Nizar Sassi, Mourad Benchellali and Khaled Ben Mustapha. read more>>>

Previous Post: Spain Re-Launched Guantanamo Torture Probe

Iraq Asserting Its Sovereignty

2012-01-16T05:26:00.000-05:00

Flexing Muscle, Baghdad Detains U.S. Contractors

January 15, 2012 - Iraqi authorities have detained a few hundred foreign contractors in recent weeks, industry officials say, including many Americans who work for the United States Embassy, in one of the first major signs of the Iraqi government’s asserting its sovereignty after the American troop withdrawal last month.
The detentions have occurred largely at the airport in Baghdad and at checkpoints around the capital after the Iraqi authorities raised questions about the contractors’ documents, including visas, weapons permits and authorizations to drive certain routes. Although no formal charges have been filed, the detentions have lasted from a few hours to nearly three weeks.
The crackdown comes amid other moves by the Iraqi government to take over functions that had been performed by the United States military and to claim areas of the country it had controlled. In the final weeks of the military withdrawal, the son of Iraq’s prime minister began evicting Western companies and contractors from the heavily fortified Green Zone, which had been the heart of the United States military operation for much of the war. read more>>>

Guide into Torture and Rendition Inquiries - UK not U.S.

2012-01-15T10:33:00.000-05:00

UK investigations into torture and rendition – a guide

A series of investigations have sought to get to the bottom of claims that British officials were implicated in abuse of detainees 12 January 2012
Operation Hinton
Scotland Yard's investigation into MI5's interrogation of Binyam Mohamed after the CIA told the agency he was being "continuously deprived of sleep", shackled and threatened. Details of what MI5 knew before the official identified as Witness B was sent to Pakistan to question Mohamed were made public on the orders of the appeal court after the last Labour government failed in lengthy attempts to keep them secret. Compensation was paid to Mohamed in an out-of-court settlement. The police investigation lasted two and a half years, during which time detectives at the Yard attempted to trace responsibility for Witness B's actions up the chain of command. Police and the Crown Prosecution Service concluded there was insufficient evidence to press charges.
Operation Iden read more>>>

Spain Re-Launched Guantanamo Torture Probe

2012-01-14T08:27:00.000-05:00

Spanish judge reopens Guantanamo torture probe

Jan. 13, 2012 - A Spanish judge on Friday re-launched an investigation into the alleged torture of detainees held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, one day after a British authorities launched a probe into CIA renditions to Libya.
The twin developments demonstrated that while the Obama administration has stuck to its promise not to investigate whether Bush administration officials acted illegally by authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques, other countries are still interested in determining whether Bush-era anti-terror practices violated international law.
In Madrid, Judge Pablo Rafael Ruz Gutierrez handed down a 19-page decision Friday in which he said he would seek additional information - medical data, a translation of a Human Rights Watch report, elaboration on material made public by WikiLeaks, and testimony from three senior U.S. military officers who served at Guantanamo - in the case of four released Guantanamo captives who allege they were humiliated and subjected to torture while in U.S. custody.
Ruz said, however, that it would be premature to notify the former U.S. officials named in the former detainees' complaint that they are under investigation. Those officials include former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and two former Guantanamo commanders, retired Marine Maj. Gen. Michael Lehnert and retired Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller. read more>>>

Demanding Truth on Torture

2012-01-14T08:09:00.000-05:00

We demand the truth about British involvement in torture

Torture victims like me don't accept the decision not to prosecute agents. There are many serious allegations to be examined
12 January 2012 - The announcement by the CPS and Scotland Yard regarding the decision not to pursue certain individuals from British intelligence in relation to allegations of complicity in torture may, on the face of it, seem to have brought the matter to a close. That, however, is not quite it. While it is true that in the case of Binyam Mohamed criminal prosecutions may not be taking place there has been an admission, for the first time, that he was rendered and held in extrajudicial detention – which is a victory of sorts.
But there's more. Mohamed maintained – like many other torture victims in countries as diverse as Morocco, Pakistan, Syria, Egypt, Bangladesh and Libya – that he was tortured with British knowledge and complicity but not in the presence of British agents.
Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo – who marked the 10th anniversary of his time in the US military prison this week with yet another hunger strike – has often claimed through his lawyers that his head was repeatedly smashed against the wall during an interrogation at the Bagram airbase prison in 2002, right in front of an MI6 agent. For the truth of these allegations to be fully investigated the police need to speak with Aamer.
In the cases of both Libyan rendition victims, Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi – both of whom I visited in Tripoli some weeks ago – the evidence is too compelling and the case too politically sensitive to even attempt to brush aside, like Mohamed's. Saadi, a key Islamist opponent to Muammar Gaddafi whose two brothers had been killed during the infamous Abu Salim prison massacre of 1996, told me how he was lured by the British into thinking that he could come back to the UK, where he had once lived, from Hong Kong. Instead, he was arrested along with his wife and four young children, hooded and shackled and put on an Egyptian-registered plane on a one-way trip to Tripoli. Saadi was greeted in prison by intelligence chief Moussa Koussa who personally made threats against him and ordered his torture in the same Abu Salim prison where his brothers were murdered.
The case of Belhaj – who was surrounded by men kissing his hands and forehead as a people's liberator (shortly after the visits of David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Recep Tayyip Erdogan) when I met him – is even more embarrassing for the British government. He, like Saadi, was offered up as a gift to Gaddafi – the new ally in the "war on terror" back then – read more>>>

'Tortured' Gitmo Prisoner Seeks Once Real U.S. Justice

2012-01-10T07:15:00.000-05:00

Seeks Release of Secret videos

10 January 2011 - A new lawsuit seeks to force the U.S. government to make public “extremely disturbing” videotapes of a Saudi national whose abuse at the Guantanamo Bay prison has been called “torture” by a former Bush administration official.
The suit, filed in New York federal court on Monday, comes 10 years after the first prisoners in the United States’ global war on terror arrived at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. The prison, within a U.S. Navy base, was considered by Bush administration lawyers outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.
The controversial prison was ordered closed within a year by President Barack Obama when he took office, but stiff resistance in Congress over housing detainees in the United States and trying them in civilian courts have left most of 171 detainees in limbo as the base remains open.

snip
The case of Qahtani first came to light in 2005 when Time magazine published secret log files from Guantanamo that detailed harsh interrogation techniques on the Saudi suspect.
In February 2008, he was charged with war crimes and murder, but on May 11 of that same year those charges were dropped. The reasons at the time were not made public.
In 2009, a Bush administration official revealed the reason to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post:
"We tortured Qahtani," Susan J. Crawford said. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution. read more>>>

NY lawsuit: Public release of Guantanamo detainee video could alter anti-terrorism debate

January 9 2011 - A lawsuit filed Monday seeks to force the U.S. government to make public the videotapes of harsh interrogation carried out on a Saudi citizen who authorities once said was supposed to have been the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights said the videos have been seen by attorneys for Mohammed al-Qahtani but cannot be shown to the public because they are classified. He remains at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
They noted that al-Qahtani’s treatment since he was seized in December 2001 and later transferred to Guantanamo has drawn the attention of the public, Congress and internal agency investigations.
“The American public should now be permitted to see what occurred for itself,” the lawsuit said. “Releasing the videotapes and photographs of Mr. al-Qahtani’s interrogations will serve the public interest, by providing the American public with unique documentation of the systematic abuses at Guantanamo.” read more>>>

Iraq: A country in shambles

2012-01-09T08:01:00.000-05:00

Despite promises made for improvements, Iraq's economy and infrastructure are still a disaster

Seven years after sieges, Fallujah struggles. With their city largely destroyed by two US military assaults, residents of Fallujah continue to suffer. ( 04-Jan-2012 )
09 Jan 2012 - As a daily drumbeat of violence continues to reverberate across Iraq, people here continue to struggle to find some sense of normality, a task made increasingly difficult due to ongoing violence and the lack of both water and electricity.
During the build-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration promised the war would bring Iraqis a better life, and vast improvements in their infrastructure, which had been severely debilitated by nearly 13 years of strangling economic sanctions.
More jobs, improved water availability, more reliable electricity supplies, and major rehabilitation of the medical infrastructure were promised.
But now that the US military has ended its formal military occupation of Iraq, nearly eight years of war has left the promises as little more than a mirage.
Ongoing water shortages read more>>>

Results of Iraq War Inquiries Coming Out This Year

2012-01-06T19:04:00.001-05:00

Other inquiries may be opening into the torture that took place and the CIA rendition flights and imprisonment of mostly the innocent, found out much later.

But as the world still waits, especially those invaded and occupied, the U.S. still hasn't done, nor demanded, the responsible Accountability a Country should do as we still condemn others for same, like always!

Inquiries into Iraq war embarrass UK

Jan 5, 2012 - The Iraq War will further shadow Britain's track record in violating human rights as several public inquiries into the invasion are due to reveal their findings in 2012.
The findings of an inquiry chaired by retired senior civil servant Sir John Chilcot into Britain's role in invading Iraq in 2003 are to be revealed in the summer and two more inquiries will be investigating the illegal techniques employed by British occupying forces in torturing and abusing Iraqi civilians.
The Al-Sweady Inquiry, conducted by a group of retired British investigators, will examine claims that British troops killed tens of Iraqi civilians in the wake of the Battle of Danny Boy, which took place on May 14, 2004 in Maysan province, southern Iraq, The Independent reported on Monday.
Nevertheless, the inquiry is expected to be subjected to delays due to difficulties involved in obtaining evidence as Britain's Ministry of Defence continues to deny the allegations saying the Iraqis were killed on the battleground.
“There is no sign of it opening because we have found hundreds of thousands of relevant documents, in particular all the emails from theatre (in Iraq) back to PJHQ (the military's Permanent Joint Headquarters) and they have got to go through all of that. I won't be surprised if the oral hearings in the Al-Sweady Inquiry don't start until the summer,” said Solicitor Phil Shiner representing the Iraqi victims. read more>>>

Iraqi Torture Scandal

2012-01-06T17:35:00.000-05:00

Touches Highest Levels of NATO

5 January 2012 - A scandal unfolding in Denmark over the transfer of Iraqi prisoners by Danish forces to Iraq authorities, even as they knew they would be tortured, threatens to implicate the current Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen, formerly prime minister of Denmark from 2001-2009.
The defense ministry in the government of former Prime Minister Rasmussen is charged with withholding its knowledge of Iraqi torture from legislators when a copy of a 2004 inspection at Al Makil prison in Basra was sent to Parliament.
According to an article last month in the Danish paper Politiken, portions of the report describing prisoner abuse were "blacked out," with the reason given that such "information could harm Danish-Iraq cooperation." read more>>>

Reprieve and Access Info Europe: CIA Renditions on Record

The Media and the Iraq War

2012-01-04T08:41:00.000-05:00

Commentary: Media should be exposing Iraq War’s years of ineptitude

January 4, 2012 - The U.S. war in Iraq ended just before Christmas, and if you blinked you probably missed it. TV news coaxed some seasonal sentiment out of the troops getting home for the holidays, but the Sunday-morning talk shows — where news of consequence is usually autopsied — barely noticed.
The Beltway sages had weightier matters to discuss, such as the Gingrich ascendancy and the latest congressional standoff.
The silence was understandable because the topic is so awkward. The Iraq war wasn’t a defeat, like Vietnam. But it wasn’t a win either: Saddam Hussein is long gone, but the strategic menace the invasion was meant to thwart was bogus, the installation of democracy seems shaky at best, and the country seems on the verge of tearing itself apart again.
Besides, the Iraq victory lap was used up back in 2003 when George W. Bush, in a supreme moment of presidential buffoonery, pranced across a carrier deck in flight regalia to declare peace just as a calamitous civil war was starting.
So while the news media might like to imply that the war concluded successfully, that’s a hard case to make, especially with our Iraqi friends referring to it as a “foreign occupation.” read more>>>

Still No Accountability as the World Waits but Especially those on the receiving end of our years of terror reaped on them, as we still condemn others for what is now Very Publicly Known of what we do and the many within that supported it all but especially didn't nor won't serve!!

As Well As:

No Revenues = No Sacrifice = No Support = DeJa-Vu all over again!. Now a decade and counting added to the previous decades of under funding the VA, while the peoples reps Still try and lay blame on the Agency, after rubber stamping wars and costs of and those represented cheer on these wars!

While the wealthy and other investors garner their booty, still, from both and many have the chutz·pa to call themselves more patriotic{?} then others wrapped in those false flags, using false slogans and various cheap symbols of!

USN '67-'71 All Shore GMG3 Vietnam In Country '70-'71 and not forgetting the joy and laughter with the 'purple heart bandages' nor the rest of the verbal and symbolic symbols spitting on us and all who didn't walk in lockstep with the criminal executive branch then!!