U.S. arranges to detain and interrogate terror suspects in secret

[seemslikeadream]

An Iraqi detainee waits to see visiting officials at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad yesterday. She later said members of the Iraqi Governing Council and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, commander of U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, visited her and the other four women in the camp.

Three deaths investigated


CIA employees are under investigation by the Justice Department and the CIA inspector general's office in connection with the death of three captives in the past six months, two who died while under interrogation in Iraq, and a third who was being questioned by a CIA contract interrogator in Afghanistan. A CIA spokesman said the hiding of detainees was inappropriate. He declined to comment further.

None of the arrangements that permit U.S. personnel to kidnap, transport, interrogate and hold foreigners are ad hoc or unauthorized, including the so-called renderings. "People tend to regard it as an extra-judicial kidnapping; it's not," former CIA officer Peter Probst said. "There is a long history of this. It has been done for decades. It's absolutely legal."

In fact, every aspect of this new universe — including maintenance of covert airlines to fly prisoners from place to place and the legal justification for holding foreigners without due process — has been developed by military or CIA lawyers, vetted by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and, depending on the particular issue, approved by the White House General Counsel's Office or the president.

more
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001926465_detain12.html

[htuttle]

1. Hitler never broke any of Germany's laws, either

He just changed them to suit. Turns out, the rest of the world wasn't impressed by this apparently legality.

Theoretically, it should not be possible to create US policy that violates treaties we've signed and ratified. According to the Constitution, they are of equal importance as laws passed by Congress. Since we signed the Geneva Convention, we are bound by it, no matter what 'legal findings' some Bush administration toadies draw up for presentation.

[seemslikeadream]

3. The Santiago Treaty was signed by George Bush Sr.

little georgie broke that one too. How long will Aristide and the Haitians have to wait for their day?

[ScrewyRabbit]

2. And torture them in secret

of course.

[saigon68]

4. IN SECRET---THAT WORKS

According to Hersh in the New Yorker a 16 year old boy was sodomized and ANALLY RAPED by a civilian interrogator while the BRAVE (tm) soldiers stood around filming the action as his RECTUM was penetrated numerous times and his PITIFUL SCREAMING was recorded by the video camera

[seemslikeadream]

5. saigon68 I found that photo

[saigon68]

6. Here's one

THE WAR IS OVER




A banner depicting the abuse of a hooded Iraqi prisoner is seen Tuesday, May, 11, 2004, on an overpass over the
Interstate 10 West Freeway in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

There is more of this to come.

[Just Me]

7. Wow. That is impactful!!! n/t

[progressivebydesign]

10. Was this what sickened the Senate today?

They looked pretty shaken up by what they saw in secret this afternoon. Or perhaps it was the photos of the corpses on ice... or the other rapes. When can we offiically be allowed to make comparisons to aspects of Hitler's regime when talking about Bush? I would never go as far as to equate anything Bush and his contractor government has done, to that of the Holocaust; However, there are aspects of Hitler's world that are being paralelled these past weeks as the Iraq War comes crashing down around us. I resent that so many are saying this was the work of a few bad apples.. As Tim Russert said on Daily Show (and the only time I've agreed with him), the hoods and other props used in the prison did not come to Iraq in the soldier's suitcases.. they were supplied. Now, even Rumsfeld appears to be saying these are acceptable methods of interrogation. I'm not sure how he can justify the rapes and murders.... Are those people in the White House and Pentagon just pretty much out of their fucking minds?

[bemildred]

8. I really don't care what they say.

I don't care if it's legal or not, change the
fucking law, it's dishonest and immoral and evil.

[teryang]

9. Approved by the WH General Counsels Office?

So what?

They've concocted out of whole cloth, an American sponsored Gulag. There is nothing legal about it.

The pathetic thing is that they go to such unlawful means, including violating human rights and international law, when it isn't even necessary. More sophisticated interrogations conducted by people who know the culture and language could gain valuable information without using force or psychological torture, and readily separate innocent detainees from hardened criminals or combatants.

An Army interrogator said this tonight on Faux and it is true as well as consistent with their lawful interrogation methods. What's the point in violating the law, because sadists get off on it or because the ubercrowd of despots is attempting to establish as precedent a body of so called "law" that justifies a gulag, kidnappings and torture for "enemies of the state?" I think the latter.

[vajraroshana]

11. Hasn't it already been pretty much in secret? eom