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oren

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #100 on: August 18, 2018, 02:33:41 PM »
Despite this deplorable attack and its tragic outcome, I think the blame should be laid on those who decided to use such bombs for their purposes - the Saudis, and partially on those who decided to give them these bombs - US officials. Laser guided MK-82 bombs have been around for 40 years, Lockheed Martin makes the guidance kit, while General Dynamics makes the bomb itself AFAIK. Blaming Lockheed Martin "misses the mark" IMHO.

TerryM

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #101 on: August 19, 2018, 06:35:34 AM »
Many may pull back from purchasing Saudi-Tesla products, even Tesla-Saudi ones.
Terry

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #102 on: August 19, 2018, 09:16:15 PM »
Rehabilitation of war criminals proceeds apace: The new heroes of the left:

" ... the nation’s spies are enjoying a renaissance in their public standing, particularly among Democrats ..."

" ... Brennan, Clapper, and Hayden have, in the space of a couple of years’ worth of Trump criticism, seemingly erased the massive scandals that once clung to their names ... "

"Brennan, Clapper, and Hayden are not dispassionate guardians of democratic ideals and decency. They’re the former executives of what Matt Taibbi has accurately called “an authoritarian state-within-a-state,” who created and promoted illiberal programs of torture, assassination, and spying, and have brazenly, and often illegally, lied to the public and the lawmakers who are supposed to hold them to account."

" ... criticism of Trump from figures like Brennan, Clapper, and Hayden is motivated at least as much by their abiding loyalty to the intelligence apparatus he disdains, their longstanding hawkishness when it comes to Russia, and the need to distract from their own checkered histories, as it is by high-minded principles of democracy and patriotism. Every time one of these men does an interview, writes an op-ed, or goes on a talk show, we shouldn’t forget that until very recently, their names were associated with scandal and censure."

Unfortunately the author actually believes there is such a thing called "American Democracy" ...

"Ensuring the survival of American democracy will eventually require taking on this shadow government, too — a task made all the more difficult when liberals turn its architects into idols."

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/08/john-brennan-trump-hayden-clapper

You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

sidd

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Neven

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #104 on: August 29, 2018, 10:23:40 AM »
What kind of world is this ?

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/suspected-cia-black-site-in-thailand-to-become-tourist-destination-20180827-p5001o.html

sidd

I have a good name: Waterboardworld!

Rehabilitation of war criminals proceeds apace: The new heroes of the left:

" ... the nation’s spies are enjoying a renaissance in their public standing, particularly among Democrats ..."

" ... Brennan, Clapper, and Hayden have, in the space of a couple of years’ worth of Trump criticism, seemingly erased the massive scandals that once clung to their names ... "

"Brennan, Clapper, and Hayden are not dispassionate guardians of democratic ideals and decency. They’re the former executives of what Matt Taibbi has accurately called “an authoritarian state-within-a-state,” who created and promoted illiberal programs of torture, assassination, and spying, and have brazenly, and often illegally, lied to the public and the lawmakers who are supposed to hold them to account."

" ... criticism of Trump from figures like Brennan, Clapper, and Hayden is motivated at least as much by their abiding loyalty to the intelligence apparatus he disdains, their longstanding hawkishness when it comes to Russia, and the need to distract from their own checkered histories, as it is by high-minded principles of democracy and patriotism. Every time one of these men does an interview, writes an op-ed, or goes on a talk show, we shouldn’t forget that until very recently, their names were associated with scandal and censure."

Unfortunately the author actually believes there is such a thing called "American Democracy" ...

"Ensuring the survival of American democracy will eventually require taking on this shadow government, too — a task made all the more difficult when liberals turn its architects into idols."

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/08/john-brennan-trump-hayden-clapper

You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

sidd

I watched Brennan in an interview with Bill Maher yesterday. It remains pretty mindboggling.
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

E. Smith

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #105 on: September 11, 2018, 12:43:55 AM »
On third of psychologists in the American Psychological Association are now cool with torture:

"What makes the new vote less than completely satisfying, however, is this: the 2015 vote establishing that policy was 157-to-1. This year, a third of the council was ready to send psychologists back to Guantánamo. Like much of the rest of Donald Trump’s United States, the APA seems to be in the process of backsliding on torture."

"Obama also argued that nothing would be "gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past." He couldn’t have been more mistaken. "

https://original.antiwar.com/Rebecca_Gordon/2018/09/09/psychologists-say-no-to-torture/

sidd

johnm33

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #106 on: September 11, 2018, 01:27:43 AM »
"One third of psychologists in the American Psychological Association are now cool with torture:"
You don't have to read much history to realise morality is a moveable feast, these guys seem to be standing on marbles.

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #107 on: October 15, 2018, 11:51:27 PM »
Sjursen on the myths of the West:

“I have come to kill Indians and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.”

"By 1860, only 30,000 California Indians (out of 150,000) remained alive"

 “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.”

“possession is a disease with them [white men].”

"In 1870, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had the power to “supersede or even annul treaties” with Indian tribes. "

"The original (Hispanic) residents of California and the Southwest were promised their private landholdings would be protected under the provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ... It was not to be. "

 “Mexicans have no business in this country. The men were made to be shot at, and the women were made for our purposes. I’m a white man—I am! A Mexican is pretty near black. I hate all Mexicans.”

"Are “undocumented” Mexican immigrants “illegal intruders,” or rightful residents of “Occupied America”? "

"Indians had adhered to treaties more faithfully than whites and were rewarded with banishment, theft, war and at times extermination."

" [Out of] five of the poorest U.S. counties ...  four—Buffalo, Todd and Shannon in South Dakota and Wade Hampton in Alaska ...  are all Indian reservations ... or places with major Native American majorities"

"These counties, each filled with thousands of tragic individual stories, are living relics of our past; of each phase of the U.S. government’s calamitous Indian policy—first, removal, then concentration, followed by confinement to the reservation, and, finally, hopeless forced assimilation. "

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/american-history-for-truthdiggers-lies-we-tell-ourselves-about-the-old-west/

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #108 on: October 16, 2018, 01:50:23 AM »
Sjursen on the myths of the West:

“I have come to kill Indians and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.”

"By 1860, only 30,000 California Indians (out of 150,000) remained alive"

 “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.”

“possession is a disease with them [white men].”

"In 1870, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had the power to “supersede or even annul treaties” with Indian tribes. "

"The original (Hispanic) residents of California and the Southwest were promised their private landholdings would be protected under the provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ... It was not to be. "

 “Mexicans have no business in this country. The men were made to be shot at, and the women were made for our purposes. I’m a white man—I am! A Mexican is pretty near black. I hate all Mexicans.”

"Are “undocumented” Mexican immigrants “illegal intruders,” or rightful residents of “Occupied America”? "

"Indians had adhered to treaties more faithfully than whites and were rewarded with banishment, theft, war and at times extermination."

" [Out of] five of the poorest U.S. counties ...  four—Buffalo, Todd and Shannon in South Dakota and Wade Hampton in Alaska ...  are all Indian reservations ... or places with major Native American majorities"

"These counties, each filled with thousands of tragic individual stories, are living relics of our past; of each phase of the U.S. government’s calamitous Indian policy—first, removal, then concentration, followed by confinement to the reservation, and, finally, hopeless forced assimilation. "

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/american-history-for-truthdiggers-lies-we-tell-ourselves-about-the-old-west/

sidd

This mirrors the history of the dispossession and genocide of Australian Aborigines.

 >:( :( :'(
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation. - Herbert Spencer

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #109 on: October 17, 2018, 10:38:10 PM »
Another soul in limbo: Defense counsel on Zubadayah:

"The infamous torture memo was, in fact, written specifically to legitimize Abu Zubaydah’s torture."

"This document described Abu Zubaydah as “the third or fourth man in al-Qaida” and “a senior Usama Bin Laden lieutenant” who had been “involved in every major al-Qaida terrorist operation” and was “a planner of the 11 September hijackings.” He “managed a network of [al-Qaeda] training camps,” “directed the start-up of a Bin Laden cell in Jordan,” and “served as al-Qaeda’s coordinator of external contacts, or foreign communications.” He was also alleged to be “engaged in ongoing terrorism planning against US interests.” For good measure, he had supposedly written the organization’s “manual on resistance techniques” and had a particular expertise in thwarting conventional interrogations. "

"The “facts” recounted above to justify this torture were all false. Abu Zubaydah was no lieutenant to Osama bin Laden. He held no position in al-Qaeda, senior or otherwise. He had no part in September 11 or any other al-Qaeda operations. He did not operate a network of al-Qaeda camps, open an al-Qaeda cell in Jordan, or manage al-Qaeda’s external communications. He did not draft any resistance manual, for al-Qaeda or anyone else, and had no special expertise in resisting interrogations.

The government no longer maintains that these assertions are true, and now concedes that Abu Zubaydah was never a member of al-Qaeda."

"The CIA has likewise admitted error, and now affirms that Abu Zubaydah was not part of al-Qaeda. This is also the conclusion of the United Nations Security Council, which has removed Abu Zubaydah from its Islamic State and al-Qaeda sanctions list, based on the earlier recommendation of the UN ombudsman, who similarly concluded that Abu Zubaydah was not a member of al-Qaeda. And years ago, the Department of Justice withdrew all allegations that Abu Zubaydah had a connection to the September 11 attacks or played any part in al-Qaeda’s terrorism."

"Because the demonization of radical Islam has been uncritically embraced by a significant portion of the population and a great many of our elected officials, there is widespread (though not universal) agreement that the federal government may do things to followers of radical Islam that it would never do to a conventional offender"

"because regardless of what he may have done, regardless of whether he is “innocent,” we should not authorize the government to treat him in a way that we would never tolerate if it were done to a dog, or to imprison him incommunicado, in a small, windowless cell, without charges or meaningful process, until he dies, forgotten by a world that has long since moved on."

"the government relies on people continuing to imagine him a monster. Because if he is a monster, the government was right to torture him. If he is a monster, it is not just lawful but good that he remains imprisoned indefinitely. If he is a monster, we may do with him what we will.

But there are no monsters. There is only us."

Read the whole thing:

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/09/28/the-innocence-of-abu-zubaydah/

sidd

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #110 on: January 07, 2019, 10:22:12 PM »
More Guantanamo blues:

" military commissions system is a kangaroo court designed to cover-up CIA torture "

" “forever prisoners,” 26 are specifically held in indefinite detention without charge or trial. "

" too difficult to prosecute, because of inadmissible and often torture-obtained evidence, and too dangerous to release. However, recidivism for former Guantánamo prisoners is low — 4.6 percent. "

" Once you torture someone, it is hard to un-torture them. "

" classifying defendants’ thoughts and memories of the torture they experienced as “state secrets.” "

Kafka could have written this. And I am surprised at only five in a hundred recidivism rate. If I'd been tortured like those guys, I'd be in a throat-slitting kinda mood ...

Read the whole thing, if you have the stomach:

https://truthout.org/articles/fbi-cia-collaboration-reveals-blatant-illegitimacy-of-guantanamo-trials/

sidd

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #111 on: February 23, 2019, 08:06:10 AM »
The Kafka continues:

Apparently, torture disclosure for propaganda is fine.
But such disclosure to defense lawyers for the tortured ?
No way. 

"The lawyers discovered that in the CIA’s year-long cooperation with the film-makers, the agency shared details of Baluchi’s torture at a secret prison, or black site, which they had been told were too secret to be divulged."

"The trial has yet to begin, despite the fact that Baluchi and his four other co-accused in the 9/11 case have been in Guantánamo for 13 years and were first charged in 2008. "

"In the pre-trial hearings, which have been underway for nearly seven years, the defence teams have been repeatedly denied access to witnesses and documentation that might cast light on their clients’ captivity prior to arriving in Guantánamo."

"“Although we have received no orders to do so, we are currently prepared to take in up to an additional 40 detainees with no additional staffing requirements.

“With minimal adjustments to current infrastructure and manpower we could take up to 200 detainees total,” he said. "

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/feb/22/ammar-al-baluchi-pre-trial-911-cia-guantanamo-bay-torture

I got an idea. If they wanna throw more people in there, how about Bush the lesser, Cheney, Tenet, Rice Addington, Yoo, Bybee ... dump em all in Guantanamo. Did they say they had room for 200 ? Toss in some bankers, too.
 
sidd

Shared Humanity

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #112 on: February 23, 2019, 05:32:19 PM »
Don't forget Rumsfeld.

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #113 on: March 21, 2019, 10:42:09 PM »
Ten years after: torturers dragged into court

"The company, CACI Premier Technology, was contracted by the Pentagon to provide interrogators for the jail. To this day, it still has contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars with the US Department of Defence."

"The firm has fought to stop the case from being heard for more than 10 years, according to lawyers involved in the case. But now, the detainees will have their day in court."

Read and weep:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-war-abu-ghraib-prison-court-torture-scandal-soldiers-a8831881.html

sidd

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #114 on: April 03, 2019, 07:34:16 AM »
They dont deserve a clean death: US Supremes cool with painful execution

“executing him by lethal injection will cause the tumors that grow in his throat to rupture during his execution, causing him to sputter, choke, and suffocate on his own blood for up to several minutes before he dies.”

"The corporation that manufactured sodium thiopental stopped supplying it for use in executions"

"there are only narrow grounds for legal challenges by inmates to the method of execution. Bucklew had to prove that the method of execution would be unconstitutionally painful, and he was required to propose an alternative method of execution that was constitutionally permissible."

"dismissing his suggestion of nitrogen gas—approved as a method of execution in three states—on particularly ludicrous grounds, namely, that he did not submit a full plan of operation for his own execution, including such details as what kind of protective gear his executioners should wear when they gassed him."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/02/supr-a02.html

This is a strange and terrible land. Just put a bullet or three though his head, for mercy's sake.

sidd

b_lumenkraft

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #115 on: April 03, 2019, 07:45:59 AM »
Or, just don't execute people.

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #116 on: April 04, 2019, 06:42:34 AM »
Navajo Nation betrayed again. And again. And again.

"Although collective oral histories stretch back thousands of years, most family stories begin in 1868 – the year the Navajo signed a treaty with the United States that ended their incarceration at Bosque Redondo and allowed them to return to their ancestral homeland."

" the treaty spelled out the responsibilities of the federal government ...  the government pledged to provide a school house and a teacher for every 30 students ... The promises were essentially worthless. "

" federal agencies refused to construct roads that would allow children to ride a bus to schools near their home. Instead, they were sent to distant boarding schools that stripped them of their Native language and culture."

Read and weep:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/02/new-mexico-navajo-nation-searchlight-native-american

sidd

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #117 on: April 16, 2019, 12:17:51 AM »
Taub at New Yorker: One who made it out of Guantanamo, and the prison guard who converted to Islam.

"In time, Wood began to think of everything he had known before meeting Salahi as a narrow-minded myth of American superiority, notable for its omissions of overseas misadventures. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration’s pretext for invading Iraq was collapsing, and so was Wood’s trust in government. It was the spring of 2004. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The “mission” had not been “accomplished.” When Wood watched the evening news, he saw photographs of American M.P.s torturing and sexually humiliating Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib. He began to wonder whether the case against Mohamedou Salahi was as flimsy and politically motivated as that for the invasion had been. “I was, like, What else have they lied about?” he said."

"he began to wonder whether what he was actually protecting at Guantánamo was one of the government’s darkest secrets: that its highest-value military detainee was being held essentially by mistake"

"the lead Senegalese officer was convinced that there was no reason to hold Salahi"

 “We had done all our investigations, and we found nothing against Salahi,”

"Abdellahi’s men detained Salahi again in the fall of 2001, at the request of the Americans. “I really have no questions for you, because I know your case,” Abdellahi told him. "

"Salahi found his Jordanian interrogators to be highly knowledgeable ... they understand this whole concept of terrorism much better than the average American interrogator ... they were very reluctant to torture me. It was not every day, the torture—I would say maybe twice a week "

"an intelligence officer, known among the detainees as William the Torturer, forced Salahi into stress positions that exacerbated his sciatic-nerve issues."

"One day, after an interrogator kicked a Quran across the floor, detainees organized a mass suicide attempt. “Once every fifteen minutes, a prisoner tried to hang himself by tying his sheet around his neck and fastening it through the mesh of the cage wall,” ... The protest lasted for several days as twenty-three prisoners tried to hang themselves."

"Yee came to believe that “Islam was systematically used as a weapon against the prisoners.” "

"after McFadden visited the detention camp, he concluded that the detainees were “essentially nobodies.” He told me, “There was not anyone approaching even the most liberal interpretation of a ‘high-value detainee.’ ” "

"In Afghanistan, the U.S. military was inadvertently presiding over a kidnapping-and-ransom industry. "

“What better way to enrich yourself, while resolving old grudges, than to finger a neighbor who was your enemy, regardless of his support for either Al Qaeda or the Taliban?”

" detainees would stop coöperating and start chanting or praying; in an attempt to reassert control, Fallon wrote, “the interrogators would duct-tape their mouths, further guaranteeing that they wouldn’t get any information—and so it would go.” "

" each failed interrogation “was taken as proof that the detainees were both Al Qaeda and trained to resist these methods.” "

"If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong."

"Beaver endorsed “the use of scenarios designed to convince the detainee that death” was “imminent.” "

" “We’re gonna feed you up your ass,” an interrogator said."

"One day they would deprive him of food, and the next they’d force him to drink water until he vomited. "

" He was forced to swallow salt water, and, every few minutes, the men packed ice cubes between his clothes and his skin. When the ice melted, they punched him, then repacked the ice to freeze him again. By the end of the boat ride, Salahi was bleeding from his ankles, mouth, and wrists. Seven or eight of his ribs were broken."

"Salahi wrote in his diary. “But the problem is that you cannot just admit to something you haven’t done; you need to deliver the details, which you can’t when you hadn’t done anything. It’s not just, ‘Yes, I did!’ No, it doesn’t work that way: you have to make up a complete story that makes sense to the dumbest dummies. One of the hardest things to do is to tell an untruthful story and maintain it, and that is exactly where I was stuck.” "

“I took the pen and paper and wrote all kinds of incriminating lies about a poor person who was just seeking refuge in Canada and trying to make some money so he could start a family. Moreover, he is handicapped. I felt so bad, and kept praying silently, ‘Nothing’s gonna happen to you dear brother.’ ”

"Salahi voluntarily sat for a polygraph test. The examiner described Salahi, whose answers contradicted everything he had confessed to Zuley in the preceding weeks, as “eager to prove that he is providing accurate information.” The results were decisive: “No deception indicated.” "

"While Salahi was being tortured, James Yee, the Muslim military chaplain, discovered that he and the interpreters at Guantánamo—many of whom were Muslim Americans, with Middle Eastern backgrounds—were being spied on by law-enforcement and intelligence officers. When Yee went on leave, he flew to Jacksonville, Florida, where he was interrogated and arrested, then blindfolded, earmuffed, and driven to a Navy brig in South Carolina. For seventy-six days, he lived in solitary confinement, in a cold cell with surveillance cameras and the lights always on ... All charges were later dropped, and Yee was honorably discharged."

"More detainees have died at Guantánamo than have been convicted of a crime."

"The prosecutor assigned to Salahi’s case was a lieutenant colonel named Stuart Couch ... he became suspicious that Salahi’s confessions had been elicited through torture ... he resigned from the case."

"The government no longer attempted to prosecute Salahi ... but it argued that he should nevertheless be detained indefinitely."

"Amanda gave birth to a son ... Amanda is an American, and so their son is now a citizen of the country whose purported values Salahi wants to believe in but has never seen. "

Read the whole thing, if you have the stomach:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/22/guantanamos-darkest-secret

sidd


sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #118 on: April 18, 2019, 10:03:51 AM »
Kangaroo courts in Kafka narratives:

"the judge overseeing the proceedings did not appear to be impartial. "

"pursuing a job at the Justice Department while simultaneously presiding over the case against Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri"

"Criminal justice is a shared responsibility. Yet in this case, save for Al-Nashiri’s defense counsel, all elements of the military commission system—from the prosecution team to the Justice Department to the [Court of Military Commission Review] to the judge himself—failed to live up to that responsibility"

"we cannot dismiss Spath’s lapse as a one-time aberration ... not the first meritorious request for recusal that our court has considered "

"the government is seeking the death penalty"

"ruling will void about 460 written orders Spath issued as well as an untold number of oral rulings, including rulings he issued against defense attorneys "

"any trial for Nashiri, an alleged al-Qaida operative, will likely come more than two decades after his alleged crime. "

"upholding the legitimacy of the process had to take precedence over speed"

" no one within the military commission system … did anything even after they came to light"

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/16/guantanamo-military-tribunal-1277790

Hey, look. My tax dollars at work.

sidd

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #119 on: April 30, 2019, 10:21:14 PM »
Lock em up til they die: no trials for the tortured

" the DOD is preparing its 40 remaining forever prisoners at the extralegal detention center of Guantanamo Bay for nursing home and hospice care "

"these final prisoners are never being released ...  DOD is simply planning to keep these folks under lock and key forever. The reason why is more than a little unsettling: most were tortured into confessions that can’t be used in a jury trial"

"almost no one cares."

"a great author – Dostoyevsky – once wrote, presciently, that "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." Well, if that’s true than God help the collective American soul."

"Don’t look for any courage on Capitol Hill, you’ll be searching indefinitely."

"locking foreigners up and throwing away the key makes perfect sense because, after all, we now live in the United States of Incarceration. "

"The Russians took a bit longer, and also worked many Nazi soldiers to death, but even they, after some ten years, released the survivors."

"the evidence demonstrates that yes, apparently, this is who Americans want to be"

Read and weep:

https://original.antiwar.com/Danny_Sjursen/2019/04/29/the-united-states-of-incarceration/

sidd

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #120 on: May 22, 2019, 06:30:24 AM »
Well, well, well. Torture psychologists subpoenaed for Guantanamo trial. Wonder how they'll squirm outta testimony this time.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/architects-post-9-11-cia-interrogation-program-testify-221558849--politics.html

My tax dollars at work. Their contract specifies that CIA pay for their defense. And of course, I'm payin for the whole Guantanamo mess. And the ongoing torture in Bagram and Djibouti and ... and all the wars.

Makes me wanna go full Amish.

sidd

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #121 on: June 11, 2019, 11:44:58 PM »
War without end, amen.

"He's been sitting in Guantanamo Bay for 17 years, but the U.S. government has not charged him with any crimes. It doesn't appear to intend to charge him with anything, but it also refuses to release him ... "

"al-Alwi faces the real prospect that he will spend the rest of his life in detention based on his status as an enemy combatant a generation ago"

https://reason.com/2019/06/10/supreme-court-wont-reconsider-guantanamo-bays-indefinite-detentions/

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-court-guantanamo/yemeni-guantanamo-detainees-bid-for-release-rejected-by-u-s-supreme-court-idUKKCN1TB2EN

sidd

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #122 on: June 24, 2019, 05:49:39 AM »
Deaths of despair: personal note

A friend and neighbour of mine is lying in a hospital bed, death expected within hours. Younger than me, but a much harder life. Beaten up with hard physical labour, exposure to chemicals, insane hours. Back out, both shoulders out, knees out. Worked all his life, uninsured, refused to seek medical help for cost reasons.

I could see he was slowing down, stacked some wood with him a month or two ago, he wasnt doin too well.  Went over monday afternoon, said his back hurt, said he twisted it moving a full crockpot. I learnt he was taken, protesting, to emergency tuesday morn, massive organ failure, liver and both kidneys. Liver was probably alcoholism, alcohol is a good painkiller. Kidneys were probably the chemicals.

Not a possible transplant recipient, one of the reasons being they cant afford post op drugs or other costs.

He woke up briefly wednesday morn, demanded to have all tubes removed, his wife backed him up. Right now they're filling him up with painkiller, unconscious.

This is a strange and terrible land.

sidd

b_lumenkraft

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #123 on: June 24, 2019, 06:13:09 AM »
they cant afford post op drugs or other costs

Quote
refused to seek medical help for cost reasons.

Only in America!

Worked hard his whole life and society refuses to help him when he gets ill. This is worse than the dark ages.

Civilisation when?

I'm so fucking sad right now.

Human Habitat Index

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #124 on: June 24, 2019, 07:02:40 AM »
On average, other wealthy countries spend about half as much per person on health than the U.S. spends

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries/#item-average-wealthy-countries-spend-half-much-per-person-health-u-s-spends

I wonder who benefits from this profligate spending on health care ?

Obviously not the average citizen.
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation. - Herbert Spencer

TerryM

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #125 on: July 04, 2019, 06:31:58 PM »
As the US builds it's walls higher, the least those of us outside of them can do is to reinforce the walls and ensure that the gates remain locked - from our side.
Terry

oren

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #126 on: August 23, 2019, 03:36:29 PM »
David Koch, 79, is dead.
Charles Koch, 83, still alive.

DrTskoul

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #127 on: August 23, 2019, 03:43:30 PM »
One down, one to go ?? Am I too dark?? Or good riddance is in order?

kassy

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #128 on: August 23, 2019, 03:53:42 PM »
He has three kids so the math is probably wrong.  ::)

Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

vox_mundi

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #129 on: August 23, 2019, 04:01:05 PM »

Matthew 19:24
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

kassy

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #130 on: August 23, 2019, 04:06:01 PM »
Thanks for sharing your collection of cartoons.
Smiling is good.  :)
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

DrTskoul

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #131 on: August 23, 2019, 04:43:46 PM »
He has three kids so the math is probably wrong.  ::)

Good thing that the children of these type of men rarely rise to the levels of their fathers IQ and capability (look at trump's)

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #132 on: December 10, 2019, 01:38:42 AM »
Denbeaux et al. at Seton Hall on torture, victims, torturers: consequences and the lack thereof

I attach an image. Note the copyright holder. Read the report if you have the stomach.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3494533

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/06/seto-d06.html

"He was subjected to treatment so egregious that the CIA sought and received official governmental assurances that their prisoner would ‘remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life.'  "

https://www.shu.edu/news/law-school-report-on-u-s-program.cfm

sidd


sidd
« Last Edit: December 10, 2019, 01:46:02 AM by sidd »

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #133 on: January 23, 2020, 01:46:01 AM »
Williams at the intercept on torture architects and victims:

https://theintercept.com/2020/01/21/911-trial-cia-torture-guantanamo/

sidd

TerryM

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #134 on: January 23, 2020, 12:54:11 PM »
^^
The conundrum is that Mitchell, Bush, and everyone involved can't receive the punishments they so richly deserve without the punishers engaging in some variation their crime.


Should Sanders make closing Gitmo a part of his campaign, or has Obama poisoned that well?


...........


Pelosi's position regarding impeaching Bush for torture is well known:


“I have said it before and I will say it again: Impeachment is off the table,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said during a news conference."
[/size][/color]
Impeachment is a very serious matter, and approving mass torture certainly didn't reach such a level, at least in her mind.

.............


All extraditions to America need to be halted until Gitmo is returned to Cuba, the torturers at every level have been punished by international courts, the victims released, and survivors or the victim's families have been compensated.


Anything less is complicity.
Terry

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #135 on: January 27, 2020, 09:24:54 PM »

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #136 on: January 28, 2020, 06:47:19 AM »
Torturers in their own words: Can you feel the spirit

"some facts that were previously unclassified, in published books for example, were reclassified"

"took his students to a black site in Afghanistan, codenamed Cobalt, to practise their techniques on Ammar al-Baluchi and other prisoners. During that training, Baluchi was repeatedly slammed against a wall, suffering brain trauma as a result."

“Looks like they used your client as a training prop,”

"giving courses at headquarters including the banned techniques more than four months later"

"he waterboarded Abu Zubaydah even though he was quite sure the detainee had no actionable intelligence to surrender. It was done purely as a demonstration for the agency VIPs."

“I was tearful, but I cry at dog food commercials,”

"the tears came when he was describing what he saw as his personal sacrifices. In contrast, he described waterboarding dispassionately, characterising it as “temporary discomfort”. "

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/25/some-folks-were-tearful-cia-waterboarding-on-trial-in-guantanamo

My fucking tax dollars at work.

The USA will never have a truth and reconciliation commission. The country cannot face the truth and there will be no reconciliation.

sidd

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #137 on: January 29, 2020, 10:20:59 PM »
Kafka in Guantanamo: a bureaucracy of nightmares

"a new classification guidance redacts categories of information in those books. This means that although the books contain information that is available to anyone with a library card or enough money to buy a copy, the defense lawyers try not to mention the forbidden categories."

"Euphemism is a foundation of the torture structure."

" An overlay of psychological terminology tries to give method and reason to examples of physical abuse. These phrases are used: “intelligence requirements,” “abusive drift,” “countermeasures to resistance,” “Pavlovian response,” “learned helplessness,” “negative reinforcement,” “conditioning strategy,” a chart of “moral disengagement.” "

"a bureaucracy of nightmares."

"Hawsawi had to leave the courtroom to receive a dose of Tramadol for the pain he has suffered since his detention at a black site "

“We never used the word torture. Because torture’s a crime.”

https://theintercept.com/2020/01/29/guantanamo-9-11-forever-trials/

sidd

TerryM

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #138 on: January 30, 2020, 05:11:05 AM »
^^
Powerful stuff sidd.


Scrubbing Hawsari's ass & balls with a stiff wire brush, then hanging him upside down naked while constantly slapping his face may sound like torture to you or I, but we're relatively sane.


To Bush the Younger and his minions this was just another day at the office. Since Dr. Mitchell believes that he has done no wrong, and he'd "Get up today and do it again" he's obviously insane. Violently insane and a danger to others.


An aggressively humane solution would be to sentence him to the lockdown ward of a federal facility for the criminally insane. Daily shock treatments might be therapeutic and should be applied, but a more just sentence would make us as guilty as he.


Terry

nanning

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #139 on: January 30, 2020, 08:31:02 AM »
^^
Thanks for that information sidd and Terry. And for describing it as insanity.

But this:
"Daily shock treatments might be therapeutic and should be applied"

is torture as revenge. Using torture yourself is perceivably justified because you're the 'good guys'. Can you see where that leads to? Very dangerous and very low morality. Don't lower yourself to their morality of hatred. Don't go to the same insanity.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

gerontocrat

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #140 on: January 30, 2020, 12:46:20 PM »

But this:
"Daily shock treatments might be therapeutic and should be applied"

is torture as revenge. Using torture yourself is perceivably justified because you're the 'good guys'. Can you see where that leads to? Very dangerous and very low morality. Don't lower yourself to their morality of hatred. Don't go to the same insanity.
Daily shock treatments were used to "cure" homosexuality in some countries for a good many years after WWII.

I understand that some Christian Evangelical groups in the USA want to use "aversion therapy" for the same purpose today. Presumably after brainwashing the susceptible to believing that homosexuality is a mortal sin and must be driven out from the body.

"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

nanning

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #141 on: January 30, 2020, 04:14:53 PM »
It is natural to have a whole spectrum of mutations in every generation. Homosexuality is one natural part of one of the spectra.
With supremacy over living nature, and thus over your own nature, people want to fight nature and reality where-ever it shines through, e.g. other sexualities and socialist states.
If you are insane it is not necessary to be consistent and true to your believe. Christian groups adore Jezus in their believe. Jezus, who has shown extreme tolerance and respect of other people.
If you are insane you can preach peace and love all the time and also have a proud army of violent men at the ready.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #142 on: January 30, 2020, 04:33:41 PM »
nanning: Jesus also preached about the fire that never ends and said he did not come to abolish the Law (which condemns homosexuality).

gerontocrat

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #143 on: January 30, 2020, 05:34:38 PM »
nanning: Jesus also preached about the fire that never ends and said he did not come to abolish the Law (which condemns homosexuality).
We are told that "the fire that never ends" is after we have thrown off our mortal coil - and anyway is not a justification for torture.

In Christianity, Divine Law consist of the 10 Commandments that are regarded as come directly from God. Homosexuality is not mentioned.

Leviticus claims its words are the word of God passed to Moses, and Chapter 18 verse 22 has the famous phrase "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination."

Bible scholar Idan Dershowitz concludes "there is good evidence that an earlier version of the laws in Leviticus 18 permitted sex between men."

Daniel A. Helminiak, a Christian author and theologian says "the anti-gay 'unnatural' hullabaloo rests on a mistranslation" and that "nowhere does the Bible actually oppose homosexuality".

At the time of the writing of the Book of Leviticus the wandering Jews with Moses as leader were about to evict the existing population of Canaan - the Promised Land - to take it for themselves. Some scholars say the writer(s) of Leviticus was trying to ensure the social customs of the Jews were kept different from those of the Canaanites - i.e. to maintain the racial purity of the Chosen People.
_________________________________________________
ps: Note that the rules laid down ignore women as irrelevant.
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

nanning

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #144 on: January 30, 2020, 06:14:10 PM »
Tom:
People can put words into Jezus' mouth all they want after his death. There are no texts of Jezus himself. I did catch his way, his morality, at a very young age. His morality clearly shines through and opposes many things that are written by others about him. When I was 7yo I found out by my own thinking that the Bible is not written by god.
This whole idea of Jezus seeing himself as a divine being is one of the other things that aren't true. He was a very beautiful human in my view.
I would rather not continue this with a discussion. I think religious things do not belong on this forum. I use religion sometimes as an example. Jezus is not a religion. Jezus, like Buddha did not like to be placed above others and didn't like a religious (male power-)hierarchy constructed after their deaths. They were modest, frugal and pure. Good examples!
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

sidd

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #145 on: February 02, 2020, 07:46:54 AM »
Best torture money can buy: 81 million, in fact, plus legal defense costs.

"If at at any time they didn’t want the techniques to be applied, all they had to do was talk"

" objective was to get the detainees to willingly engage in dialogue "

"some techniques were used even when not necessary "

"my moral obligation to protect American lives outweighed the temporary discomfort of terrorists"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/second-cia-contractor-testifies-9-181320003.html

My tax dollars at work.

sidd

KiwiGriff

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #146 on: February 02, 2020, 09:09:34 AM »
Some  random dude said.
What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.
Another who may have been his disciple also said.
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Some of you should consider these words.
 
Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.
Notebooks of Lazarus Long.
Robert Heinlein.

blumenkraft

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #147 on: February 02, 2020, 01:40:48 PM »
Logic and reason takes you to the same place eventually.

Remember Kant.

KiwiGriff

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #148 on: February 02, 2020, 09:22:08 PM »
The reminder was at others who do not use those processes to deduce their world view.  ;)
The golden rule is independent of religion.
Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.
Notebooks of Lazarus Long.
Robert Heinlein.

nanning

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Re: Qué se ficieron ?
« Reply #149 on: February 03, 2020, 08:55:05 AM »
I thought the phrase is "do not do to others what you don't want them to do to you".

Better is "do not do anything bad to others and use no violence" and "give generously but take sparsely".
"bad" here is from my morality theory, it leads to, or is part of, an unsustainable unnatural inefficient organisation of human tribes/cultures in an ecosystems/biosphere context.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?