Human Rights Watch accuses US of covering up extent of waterboarding

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Guardian

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the US government of covering up the extent of waterboarding at secret CIA prisons, alleging that Libyan opponents of Muammar Gaddafi were subjected to the torture before being handed over to the former dictator's security police.

The New York-based human rights group has cast "serious doubt" on Washington's claim that only three people, all members of al-Qaida, were waterboarded in American custody, claiming in a new report to have fresh evidence that the CIA used the technique to simulate drowning on Libyans snatched from countries in Africa and Asia.

The report, Delivered into Enemy Hands: US-Led Abuse and Rendition of Opponents to Gaddafi's Libya, also says that the CIA, Britain's MI6 and other western intelligence services were responsible for "delivering Gaddafi his enemies on a silver platter" by sending the captured men to Tripoli for further abuse after the American interrogations.

The HRW report is based on documents seized at the Libyan intelligence headquarters after Gaddafi's fall, and interviews with 14 former detainees, mostly members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which attempted for 20 years to overthrow the former regime in Tripoli. The group joined last year's revolution and some of those tortured by the US now hold leadership positions in the new Libyan administration.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/06/human-rights-watch-us-waterboarding

---

Rights Watch: Evidence of wider US waterboarding.

CAIRO (AP) -- Human Rights Watch said it has uncovered evidence of a wider use of waterboarding in American interrogations of detainees than has been acknowledged by the United States, in a report Thursday that details further brutal treatment at secret CIA-run prisons under the Bush administration-era U.S. program of detention and rendition of terror suspects.

The report also paints a more complete picture of Washington's close cooperation with the regime of Libya's former dictator Moammar Gadhafi in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. handed over to Libya the Islamist opponents of Gadhafi that it detained abroad with only thin "diplomatic assurances" that they would not be mistreated, and several of them were subsequently tortured in prison, Human Rights Watch said.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_LIBYA_US_CIA_INTERROGATIONS_?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-09-06-03-46-46

[Kolesar]

1. So, these were well traveled fighters who left Libya and were captured in Afghanistan

I am trying to envisage the world of "fighters" who are motivated to travel the world to bring battle to a wide range of foes. Hate Gadhafi one day, then America the next. I suppose that is what got them into Afghanistan.

Yes, I read the article in The Guardian.

[OnyxCollie]

2. The Democratic party has given waterboarding its seal of approval.

No investigations, no prosecutions, nothing.

Everyone who was pissed at Bush/Cheney, well, you're just a bunch of haters 'cause Eric Holder says the admissible evidence would not support a conviction.

When Bush said, "We do not torture," Eric Holder could not find anything to disprove that statement.

The invasion of Iraq- O.K. (Panetta says 9/11 is the reason we're in Iraq.)

The DoD propaganda campaign- O.K. (The investigation by the DoD said so.)

Waterboarding Enhanced interrogation techniques- What's the problem?

Targeted assassinations- The Obama administration found the authority in the Constitution.

Indefinite detention of US citizens- Understandable, as long as the war wages on (forever.)

The structural mechanisms between government and corporations are now visible. How can one fool himself to believe Barack Obama was going to change that?

[msanthrope]

3. Who are you voting for for President then? nt

[OnyxCollie]

4. I dunno, dude.

Who's running?

[msanthrope]

5. If you aren't voting Obama for President, then why are you here? nt

[OnyxCollie]

6. I didn't say I wasn't, dude.

You came to that conclusion on your own.

And when did you become hall monitor?

[Remmah2]

7. One was too many.

Nuff said.

[Bozita]

8. "The scope of the Bush administration abuse appears far broader than previously acknowledged."

September 6, 2012 at 11:02 am
Rights Watch: Evidence of wider U.S. waterboarding
By Sarah El Deeb and Lee Keath
Associated Press

-snip-

The 154-page report features interviews by the New York-based group with 14 Libyan dissident exiles. They describe systematic abuses while they were held in U.S.-led detention centers in Afghanistan — some as long as two years — or in U.S.-led interrogations in Pakistan, Morocco, Thailand, Sudan and elsewhere before the Americans handed them over to Libya.

"Not only did the U.S. deliver (Gadhafi) his enemies on a silver platter, but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first," said Laura Pitter, counterterrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch and author of the report.

"The scope of the Bush administration abuse appears far broader than previously acknowledged," she said.

-snip-


From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120906/NATION/209060437#ixzz25iezHxnU

[Hell Hath No Fury]

9. Shhhhhh...

you're messing up the afterglow.

[proverbialwisdom]

10. Jan 2011 Op-Ed: "Eat, Drink, Human Rights" by Kenneth Roth (HRW Exec Director)

Incomplete info available to the public, as below, described last year causes me to reserve judgement.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/23/opinion/la-oe-roth-china-human-rights-20110123

Op-Ed

Eat, Drink, Human Rights

At the recent state dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao, human rights had a place at the table.

January 23, 2011 | By Kenneth Roth

When the White House invited me to the state dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao, I knew that I was being used as a symbol — to signal a tougher approach on human rights. The Obama administration was widely seen as having flubbed the November 2009 summit in China. In the lead-up to his visit, President Obama had refused to meet the Dalai Lama, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had insisted that human rights "can't interfere" with other U.S. interests in China. The administration hoped this soft approach would win points that could be cashed in at the summit, but instead it looked weak and unprincipled.

This time, the administration was determined to do better. Before the summit, Clinton gave a strong speech defending civil society and Internet freedom, and Obama met with human rights experts for advice. During the summit, Obama stood at Hu's side and stressed the "universal rights of all people." Mentioning freedoms of speech, press, association and religion, he anticipated the false claim that these rights are foreign impositions by noting they are all "recognized in the Chinese constitution." In response, Hu did not announce prisoner releases or offer concrete reforms, but he did repeat the party line that "a lot still needs to be done in China in terms of human rights."

The administration's decision to extend me an invitation reflected this new and more assertive approach — another statement that human rights should be a normal part of the U.S.-China conversation. That's what I wanted too, but I must admit I didn't have high hopes for the evening.

And things didn't start off auspiciously. As I approached Hu, I couldn't help feeling misgivings about meeting him in such glitzy circumstances. After all, this was a man whose government has launched an intensifying crackdown on dissent that began in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics and continues to this day. But I donned my diplomatic facade, explained that I represented Human Rights Watch and said that I hoped human rights groups could discuss abuses with the Chinese government in the same way we do with governments around the world, including the United States. He returned a blank smile, as if my comments were lost in the translation. The pace of the receiving line kept our conversation perfunctory, and he wasn't to be found during the cocktail hour.

But when it came time for dinner, I was pleasantly surprised. Rather than being relegated to one of the dinner's satellite rooms, I found myself seated in the main State Dining Room, at a table with the White House China director, Jeffrey Bader; the U.S. ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman Jr.; and China's ambassador to Washington, Zhang Yesui. This was another statement, and a strong one.

<...>

[Solly Mack]

11. I've never believed the "only 3" confession.

and it was a confession to war crimes.

As an aside...saying

We only tortured* 3 people is like saying your actions weren't so bad because you only murdered 3 people.

*waterboarding IS torture and only liars and the guilty pretended otherwise

[OnyxCollie]

13. It's a non-rational justification,

like "looking forward" or refusing to criminalize "policy differences."

It doesn't have to be legally rational, it only has to be acceptable to the mass public (who know nothing about the law.) President Daddy said so, so there.

"When the President does it, that means it is not illegal."

[Solly Mack]

14. Many people just don't care...legal, illegal...they don't care.

Torture satisfied their base desires. Sick animals all of them.

That idea that committing war crimes is merely a matter of policy differences is just so disgusting and low; so incredibly offensive to all things decent.

Every morning I wake up in a country that refuses to prosecute its war criminals and that's not something I can just shrug off. (and I do think about it every day)


Thank you for listening.

[OnyxCollie]

15. "A symptom of the emergence of the mass

is the direct, emotionalized adherence to patriotic stereotypes, associated with a loss of intuitive understanding and a willingness to sacrifice the traditional content of the belief in exchange for emotional release."

Thank you for thinking.

[bobthedrummer]

12. K&R-it also happens in some US law enforcement centers if you are on a "list" or look like a stereo-

type of some ambiguous "threat"...