Tuesday Morning Open Thread
9 hours ago
WE'VE MOVED
Please note that we've moved to a new blog at www.LibraryGrape.com.
Showing posts with label Torture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Torture. Show all posts
Friday, October 17, 2008
Torturing Democracy - Must-Watch PBS Documentary
You owe it to yourself and your country to watch the explosive new documentary "Torturing Democracy" that PBS has been browbeaten by the Bush administration into not airing until he leaves office. The documentary delves into the culture that pervaded the Bush administration and how it led to the illegal torturing of detainees.
Go here to watch it.
Here's a blurb from the site:
When the publication of the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq made prisoner abuse an international controversy in April, 2004, both the National Security Archive and Washington Media Associates were already pursuing the story.
Award-winning producer Sherry Jones was in the final stages of editing the first full-length television investigation of the Administration's detention and interrogation policies, with a focus on the detention camp at Guantanamo. That ABC news special, "Peter Jennings Reporting: Guantanamo" aired on June 25, 2004.
The Archive had just published a reference collection of more than 1500 documents on U.S. counter-terrorism policy - from the earliest plane hijacking crises in 1968 through the war in Afghanistan in 2002 - and had filed hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests for Bush administration documents on terrorism and detention policies.
In May, 2004 the Archive was the first to post on the web the historic CIA interrogation manuals that were precursors to the treatment of prisoners in U.S custody during the war on terror. In June and July, 2004 the Archive added the full posting of the administration's legal and decision memos on interrogation policies - from the officially released papers, and the more revealing leaked documents.
Over the next two years, Washington Media would keep in touch with its sources and keep on the story. And the Archive would collect thousands of primary source documents, thanks to a multitude of investigations, leaks, journalistic coups, and successful lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Associated Press, and others. (For a more complete list of sources, see the introduction to the "Entire Archive.")
In January, 2007, the Archive and Washington Media decided to join forces, as we had done on documentary film projects over the past 20 years. The results are seen on this web site: The documentary, "Torturing Democracy," and the first stage of a comprehensive Torture Archive that aims to serve as the online institutional memory of the essential documentary evidence.
Posted by Metavirus at 10/17/2008 10:30:00 AM 1 comments
Tags: Bush , Election 2008 , General Election , John McCain , Republicans , Scandal , Torture
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Palin: Worst Thing Cheney Did Was Shoot Guy in Face
From the Greatest Hits Collection of the Palin/Couric interview, Sarah Palin thinks that the very worstest thing in the whole wide world that Dick Cheney did was shoot that guy in the face:
Katie Couric: What do you think is the best and worst thing that Dick Cheney has done as vice president?
Palin: Worst thing, I guess that would have been the duck-hunting accident, where you know, that was an accident. And that I think that was made into a caricature of him. And that was kind of unfortunate.
So, an accidental hunting mishap is the worst thing our law-breaking, ultrasecretive war criminal of a Vice President has done, eh?
Not shredding the Constitution?
Not crafting a sweeping illegal wiretapping program?
Not architecting the systematic torture of detainees?
Not leaking the identity of a CIA agent?
This woman isn't just unqualified, she's terrifying.
Posted by Metavirus at 10/02/2008 07:18:00 PM 1 comments
Tags: Election 2008 , General Election , Interviews , Sarah Palin , Torture , Veepstakes
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Torture is Bad?
Sad that I have to put the question mark in my title but, apparently, many Southern evangelicals think it A-OK to torture people:
USA Today: A new poll reveals 57% of southern Evangelicals are pro-torture, compared to 48% of the public at large.
Torture is exactly the kind of thing that I envision Jesus being cool with.
As The Independent points out, in an article entitled "Who Would Jesus Torture?":
Americans are now among the people on earth most supportive of government's torturing prisoners.
The only other countries where support for torturing terror suspects has grown are India, Nigeria, Turkey, South Korea and Egypt. In all other developed countries, support for an absolute ban on torture has actually risen in the past two years and America is now leading the way in legalising torture as a tool for governments fighting terrorism.
Lest we forget, John McCain agrees with these enlightened Southern Evangelicals (and Jesus), as long as the torturing is done by the CIA:
When the Senate joined the House in passing an intelligence bill that would ban waterboarding and other forms of torture, the President vowed to veto the bill. The bill would have required the CIA to abide by the Army Field Manuel, which also prohibits beatings, electric shocks, forced nudity, mock executions, and the use of dogs. McCain had a choice between standing on his principles or pandering to the extreme right-wing of his party by supporting the President. Knowing what he to get the Republican nomination, he voted against the bill.
Posted by Metavirus at 9/17/2008 02:23:00 PM 0 comments
Tags: Election 2008 , General Election , John McCain , Torture
Thursday, August 28, 2008
US Threatens UK Court Over Torture Evidence
Wow, this is truly disturbing. Apparently, our State Department is explicitly trying to interfere in the case of a man who claims that he was tortured by Moroccan authorities who were acting as US proxies:
In a remarkable development at the High Court in London, an email from a senior US State Dept. official has been revealed, apparently threatening to curb co-operation with Britain on international intelligence sharing if details on a detainees interrogation are revealed. Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, held at Gitmo, have taken legal action in the UK to force the release of details which, they say, will prove Mohamed was ilegally abducted and tortured into a confession. Mohamed claims that his torture included having his penis cut with a razor blade by Moroccan proxies for the US.
In an email to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which was sent on to the court, Stephen Mathias, a legal adviser to the US state department, said that the disclosure of information would cause “serious and lasting damage to the US-UK intelligence-sharing relationship and thus the national security of the UK, and the aggressive and unprecedented intervention in the apparently functioning adjudicatory processes of a longtime ally of the UK, in contravention of well-established principles of international comity.”
Posted by Metavirus at 8/28/2008 02:49:00 PM 0 comments
Tags: Bush , Election 2008 , General Election , John McCain , Torture , War Crimes
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
