The following is the reproduction of a letter sent to the US Correspondent for one of the big newspapers in Australia. I have had some communication with this correspondent previously. In this email I write to her about an article written by one of her colleagues- Simon Mann. [I would have emailed Mann directly but I don't trust the guy because his article reeked so badly of Pentagon PR.]
... In my humble opinion it's always worth writing to the journos since not all of them can be bought or corrupted (?).
________________________________________________
EMAIL:
Subject: Simon Mann OBL Article
Hello [Name Redacted],
I thought to email you about the problems with Simon Mann's recent article "Osama's still taunting, terror threat mutated."
As much as I would like to believe OBL is alive, there is a preponderance of evidence to suggest he has been dead for several years. The claims made by various officials to the media, regarding OBLs whereabouts and existence, need to be treated highly skeptically.
You might ask, why should we question "trusted officials" regarding such a thing ? Because, 1.) generally, as a matter of course, officials should not be trusted, even when it comes down to issues of "life and death" and 2.) that specifically OBL represents an ideal boogieman for a perpetual war (something which is good for the corporate cronies).
When it comes down to perpetuating the myth of OBL remaining alive, there are many reasons why "our side" should want to keep up the status quo.
I would send the following tips to Simon Mann himself, but his article is so poor I don't trust he will be able to think rationally about the bubble he is in. Here goes:
1. Here is a basic outline of some key arguments against OBL being alive today:
2. Here is some specific analysis indicating some OBL terror threat tapes (likely all) are most certainly fake: http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/osamatape2.html
3. Here is a spoof on the fake OBL tapes. It's food for thought:
Later in Mann's article there is mention of the trial of KSM. This is another joke. The suspect held as KSM allegedly confessed to being involved in 911 only after being waterboarded over a hundred times. He was reported as saying he made stuff up to stop the punishment (see here: http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/16/accused-911-mastermind-i-make-up-stories/) I'm sure anybody would have confessed to 911 after only a short period of this torture. The only reason to continue this treatment, waterboarding a person over a hundred times, is to mentally damage the individual.
Also see this headline dealing with another alleged 911 plotter, Abu Zubaydah
U.S. Recants Claims that Detainee Who Was One of the Main Sources for the 9/11 Report, and Repeatedly Tortured, Was Involved in 9/11 or Even Al Qaeda For the whole story, visit the site (Washington's Blog is a very good source of news and analysis.)
There is a big game being played here and I hope Mr Mann and yourself do not appreciate being pawns in an effort to maintain the Terror Wars.
Please take this stuff under consideration.
XXXXX
ps. Already we are seeing millions of people turning away from the mainstream papers precisely because the real news is found online. We have better background information and journalists who are still highly skeptical of authority. We have research and history-based reports that show patterns of official deceit whereas often in the mainstream we only see repetitions of officially sanctioned PR.
END EMAIL.
Related Info:
BBC Propaganda: Is Osama bin Laden dead or alive?
Refuting the Hollow Arguments of the So-called 9/11 Debunkers & Truthers
Showing posts with label CIA torture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CIA torture. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Obama and the War Criminals
PuppetGovCom
YouTube.com
May 02, 2009
Five Things You Should Know About the Torture Memos
No. 1. I have read the 175 pages of legal memoranda (the memos) that the Department of Justice (DoJ) released last week. They consist of letters written by Bush DoJ officials to the Deputy General Counsel of the CIA concerning the techniques that may be used by American intelligence agents when interrogating high value detainees at facilities outside the U.S. The memos describe in vivid, gut-wrenching detail the procedures that the CIA apparently inquired about. The memos then proceed to authorize every procedure asked about, and to commend the CIA for taking the time to ask.
No. 2. In the process of explaining to the CIA Deputy General Counsel just what his folks could do in order to extract information from uncooperative detainees, it is immediately apparent that the writers of the memos are attempting to find snippets of language from other memoranda that they or their colleagues have prepared and from unrelated judicial opinions that justify everything that the CIA wants to do. "This is not rocket science and it is not art. Everyone knows torture when they see it."
The bias in favor of permitting torture may easily be concluded from a footnote in one of the memos. In that footnote, the author, now-federal judge Jay Bybee, declines to characterize such notorious medieval torture techniques as the thumbscrew and the rack as torture. With that incredible mindset, he proceeds to do his Orwellian best to define away such terms as pain, suffering, and inhumane in such a way as to require that the interrogators produce near death experiences in order to have their behavior come under the proscriptions of the federal statute prohibiting torture, and the Convention (treaty) Against Torture, which was negotiated by and signed in behalf of the U.S. by President George H.W. Bush.
No. 3. The logic in the memos is simple: The government may utilize the ten procedures inquired about (all of which were publicly known except confinement on a coffin, bound and gagged, and in the presence of insects), so long as no one dies or comes close to death. This conclusion is startling in the case of walling (banging a detainees head against a solid but moveable wall) and waterboarding (near drowning) since the federal governments own physicians, cited in the memos themselves, have concluded that both techniques are always a near occasion of death. The conclusion is also startling since it fails to account for numerous federal and state prosecutions, and prosecutions in Thailand — where these torture sessions apparently occurred — that have defined torture according to its generally accepted meaning:
Any intentionally inflicted cruel or inhumane or degrading treatment, unauthorized by a court of law, perpetrated for the punishment of the victim, to extract statements from the victim, or to gratify the perpetrator.
This universally-accepted definition makes no reference and has no condition that anything goes short of a near occasion of death.
No. 4. The memos also fail to account for the Geneva Conventions, which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled govern American treatment of all foreign detainees, lawful or unlawful. The third of those conventions PROHIBITS TOUCHING the detainee in any way, other than for the purpose of moving him from place to place, if he refuses to go voluntarily and when told to do so.
No. 5. The memos place Attorney General Holder, who argued for their release, in an untenable situation. He has stated under oath, at his confirmation hearings, that waterboarding is torture and torture is prohibited by numerous federal laws. He has also taken an oath to uphold all federal laws, not just those that are politically expedient from time to time. He is correct and he must do his moral and legal duty to reject any Nuremberg defense. This is not rocket science and it is not art. Everyone knows torture when they see it; and no amount of twisted logic can detract from its illegal horror, its moral antipathy, and its attack at core American values.
By Judge Andrew Napolitano
Visit: http://www.puppetgov.com
Music by: Trillion/Jody Lloyd
http://www.trillion.co.nz/
We encourage you to copy and repost this and any of our videos in the hope of educating more people.
Every ripple counts.
YouTube.com
May 02, 2009
Five Things You Should Know About the Torture Memos
No. 1. I have read the 175 pages of legal memoranda (the memos) that the Department of Justice (DoJ) released last week. They consist of letters written by Bush DoJ officials to the Deputy General Counsel of the CIA concerning the techniques that may be used by American intelligence agents when interrogating high value detainees at facilities outside the U.S. The memos describe in vivid, gut-wrenching detail the procedures that the CIA apparently inquired about. The memos then proceed to authorize every procedure asked about, and to commend the CIA for taking the time to ask.
No. 2. In the process of explaining to the CIA Deputy General Counsel just what his folks could do in order to extract information from uncooperative detainees, it is immediately apparent that the writers of the memos are attempting to find snippets of language from other memoranda that they or their colleagues have prepared and from unrelated judicial opinions that justify everything that the CIA wants to do. "This is not rocket science and it is not art. Everyone knows torture when they see it."
The bias in favor of permitting torture may easily be concluded from a footnote in one of the memos. In that footnote, the author, now-federal judge Jay Bybee, declines to characterize such notorious medieval torture techniques as the thumbscrew and the rack as torture. With that incredible mindset, he proceeds to do his Orwellian best to define away such terms as pain, suffering, and inhumane in such a way as to require that the interrogators produce near death experiences in order to have their behavior come under the proscriptions of the federal statute prohibiting torture, and the Convention (treaty) Against Torture, which was negotiated by and signed in behalf of the U.S. by President George H.W. Bush.
No. 3. The logic in the memos is simple: The government may utilize the ten procedures inquired about (all of which were publicly known except confinement on a coffin, bound and gagged, and in the presence of insects), so long as no one dies or comes close to death. This conclusion is startling in the case of walling (banging a detainees head against a solid but moveable wall) and waterboarding (near drowning) since the federal governments own physicians, cited in the memos themselves, have concluded that both techniques are always a near occasion of death. The conclusion is also startling since it fails to account for numerous federal and state prosecutions, and prosecutions in Thailand — where these torture sessions apparently occurred — that have defined torture according to its generally accepted meaning:
Any intentionally inflicted cruel or inhumane or degrading treatment, unauthorized by a court of law, perpetrated for the punishment of the victim, to extract statements from the victim, or to gratify the perpetrator.
This universally-accepted definition makes no reference and has no condition that anything goes short of a near occasion of death.
No. 4. The memos also fail to account for the Geneva Conventions, which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled govern American treatment of all foreign detainees, lawful or unlawful. The third of those conventions PROHIBITS TOUCHING the detainee in any way, other than for the purpose of moving him from place to place, if he refuses to go voluntarily and when told to do so.
No. 5. The memos place Attorney General Holder, who argued for their release, in an untenable situation. He has stated under oath, at his confirmation hearings, that waterboarding is torture and torture is prohibited by numerous federal laws. He has also taken an oath to uphold all federal laws, not just those that are politically expedient from time to time. He is correct and he must do his moral and legal duty to reject any Nuremberg defense. This is not rocket science and it is not art. Everyone knows torture when they see it; and no amount of twisted logic can detract from its illegal horror, its moral antipathy, and its attack at core American values.
By Judge Andrew Napolitano
Visit: http://www.puppetgov.com
Music by: Trillion/Jody Lloyd
http://www.trillion.co.nz/
We encourage you to copy and repost this and any of our videos in the hope of educating more people.
Every ripple counts.
Related Info:
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