Protester in Guy Fox mask demanding the release of Julian Assange of Wikileaks. Unfortunately President Obama is no friend of dissidents and so has designated Assange and Wikileaks and all its staff and those who give aid to Wikileaks are now branded as terrorists just like Al Qaeda and any who support Al Qaeda in any way shape or form. President Obama has by his actions shown he believes in giving greater pwer to the executive and in American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny and in America being blessed by God and therefore doing God's Work. So in many ways he is no different than former President George W. Bush or Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.
“President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law.”
“For the first time in American history, we have a law authorizing the worldwide and indefinite military detention of people captured far from any battlefield. The NDAA has no temporal or geographic limitations. It is completely at odds with our values, violates the Constitution, and corrodes our Nation’s commitment to the rule of law.”
“Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today.”
Quote from ACLU on Obama signing the law allowing for Indefinte detention
Image protesting the indefinite detention and abuse and torture of alleged whistleblower Bradley Manning - Obama believes he can hold anyone including US citizens indefinitely by signing an order which is tantamout to a King's warrant
see for instance: Judge rules against NDAA indefinite detention – Obama Administration immediately appeals Posted on September 14, 2012 by John Pierce
also see video at bottom of post for TYT's Cenk Uygur comments on Obama newly enacted King's Warrant.
Child Soldier who was illegalyy and immorally held prisoner at Guantanamo since he was 15 has just been released fromm Guantanamo but will be held in prison in Canada. He was releasd after years of physical and psychological abuse because he had taken part in fighting in Afghanistan due to pressure from his own father and other adults. But George W. Bush and Obama both have taken issue with the "Child Soldier " designation.
* Mitt Romney business acumen aimed at profit not jobs
* CNN allows right wing propagandist Dinesh D'Souza to make objectively false claims about Obama being unAmerican and an agent of Islamic extremists.
* Obama revvs up warrantless spying on American citizens, designates Wikileaks as a terrorist organization, and doubles down on Drone attacks killing hundreds of inncent civilians creating blowback resulting in even more anti-American terrorists
NEW ROMNEY VIDEO: In 1985, He Said Bain Would "Harvest" Companies for Profits : This clip shows the young CEO focusing on businesses as targets for his investors, not as job creators or community stakeholders. By David Corn at Mother Jones,Sep. 27,2012
You would think after President Obama has defended the use of deadly Drone attacks along the Afghanistan Pakistan border tribal regions and Obama under the cover of NATO and using humanitarian concerns as a rationalization for carpet bombing Libya and sabre rattling about possible bombing and invasion of iran and exaggerating and Demonizing the Iranian Regime and its threat to World Peace or America's ego and hegemony that few would question his tough stance on the Global War on Terrorism .
As in domestic policies Obama's right wing critics are reluctant and refuse to acknowlege that any of Obama's policies and actions meet their standards even though Obama once in office in 2009 continued the failed policies of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. The GOP and Right wing ignore the fact that Obama allows American personnel to abuse and torture so called "detainees" who are actually POWs and should be treated as such under International Law or at least by the requirements of Human decency and justice.
CNN Lets Dinesh D'Souza Peddle Conspiracy Theory That Obama Is "Anti-American" Media Matters, Sept. 28, 2012
The GOP and rightwing 's allegations that Obama is somehow soft on terrorism and may even be secretly on the side Islamic extremist is not supported by the facts. As we see Obama has revved up the Drone attacks , spying on American citizens, alleging Julian Assange and Bradley Manning are enemies of the USA.
I am not here trying to defend these actions by president Obama but simply noting the fallaciousness of the GOP and Right wing allegations against Obama are not grounded in actual facts.These are in fact actions which should be deplored and attacked by liberals and progressives and anyone concerned about the USA expanding its Empire and becoming the most dangerous nation on earth and not Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan ,Pakistan etc.
" Living Under Drones -- Chilling First-Hand Testimony of Escalating Drone Attacks by the US :Drones unleash shocking psychological and social damage to whole families and communities, along with the horrific deaths of many innocents." by John Amick ,Warcost.org via Alternet.org. Sept. 28, 2012
Video preview:
Warrantless Electonic Surveillance has increased alarmingly under the Obama Regime.
" ACLU: Docs Reveal "Exponential" Growth of Domestic Spying New Justice Department documents show huge increase in warrantless electronic surveillance "- Common Dreams staff ,Sept. 29, 2012
and more evidence that President Obama is anything but soft on terrorism or on America's alleged enemies such as Wikileaks and its head Julian Assange and Bradley Manning who allegedly gave government documents to Wikileaks.
US Designates Wikileaks "Enemy of the State" Documents show US policy puts media outlet in same legal category as violent terrorist groups - Common Dreams staff, Sept. 27,2012
And Obama justifies the use of certain interrogation techniques which in fact constitute torture under international law.
Unfortunately many supporters of Obama either just believe whatever Obama says without examining his actions and so are satified that with Obama as president torture is no longer used by US personnel on so called detainees or they just don't see torture as an issue in a time of war -The Global War On Terror" and the war on dissidents and vocal criticsw..
Alleged Whistleblower Bradley manning for instance was and is a victim of torure ie sleep deprivation, sensory overload, prolonged solitary confinement (separation)etc.
The Canadia child soldier Omar Khadr who was just released from Guantanamo Bay after giving what appears to be a false confession after ten years in prison having been tortured and abused by US personnel during the the Bush administration and which was continued without missing a beat under president Obama's administration.
Omar Khadr was captured in Afghanistan when he was 15 and under International Law he was supposed to be designated as a "child Soldier" and therefore not responsible for his actions since he was doing what his father and other adults told him was his duty. So he was honoring the wishes of his elders and for obeying his father and mother he was held in prison for a decade. He was denied his rights to an attorney or to be given medical help by someone not connected with the US military or other government agency, he was held in indefinite detention . Those with power over him managed to get him to make a false confession ala The Spanish inquisition .
But in America there are even liberals and Democrats who see nothing wrong with mistreating a 15 year old child who was captured on a battle field and yet the same people get all upset over some lunatic such as Kony using "child Soldiers" and characterize those children as victims not perpertrators . So shouldn't this also apply to children like Omar Khadr who was being used by Al Qaeda or the Taliban or other such terrorist organizations.
( Last Westerner at Guantanamo ‘returning to Canada’ By Agence France-Presse , via Raw Story, September 29, 2012
As for the continuing of a number of interrogation techniques deemed by International Law as constituting torture President Obama has played fast and loose with erroneous and factually challenged claims that by following the US Army Field Manual that torture would no longer be tolerated by his administration.
What Obama does not admit publicly is that he believes that certain Interrogation Techniques deemed as constituing torture by International Law he has unilaterally just as Bush did before him decided these Interrogation Techniques such as prolonged sleep deprivation, verbal assaults, prolonged solitary confinement , and techniques which rely on sensory deprivation and sensory overload are not torture when in fact they are.
So it is a bit of a red herring or whatevr metaphor you want to raise concerns that Mitt Romney as president would be more inclined to use torture than President Obama. Obama only made a select few techniques unlawful such as waterboarding or pretend executions or maybe electrical shock to the testicles but everything else is usable and legal according to Obama even if this goes against the Geneva Conventions or the special conventions on the use of torture.
How the U.S. Army's Field Manual Codified Torture -- and Still Does
Buried in Appendix M of the Army Field Manual, the Guantanamo virus is spreading, and eradicating it will require all of us to spread the word. by Jeffrey S. Kaye via Alternet.org, Jan. 6, 2009
In early September 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense, reeling from at least a dozen investigations into detainee abuse by interrogators, released Directive 2310.01E. This directive was advertised as an overhaul and improvement on earlier detainee operations and included a newly rewritten Army Field Manual for Human Intelligence Collector Operations (FM-2-22-3). This guidebook for interrogators was meant to set a humane standard for U.S. interrogators worldwide, a standard that was respectful of the Geneva Conventions and other U.S. and international laws concerning treatment of prisoners.
While George W. Bush was signing a presidential directive allowing the CIA to conduct other, secret "enhanced interrogation techniques," which may or may not have included waterboarding, the new AFM was sold to the public as a return to civilized norms, in regards to interrogation.
Before long, opponents of U.S. torture policy were championing the new AFM as an appropriate "single-standard" model of detainee treatment. Support for implementing the revised AFM, as a replacement for the hated "enhanced" techniques earlier championed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the CIA, began to appear in legislation out of Congress, in the literature of human-rights organizations and in newspaper editorials. Some rights groups have felt the new AFM offered some improvements by banning repellent interrogation tactics, such as waterboarding, use of nudity, military dogs and stress positions. It was believed the AFM cemented the concept of command responsibility for infractions of the law.
There was only one problem: the AFM did not eliminate torture. Despite what it said, it did not adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Even worse, it took the standard operating procedure of Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay and threatened to expand it all over the world.
The President of the National Lawyers Guild Marjorie Cohn has stated that portions of the AFM protocol, especially the use of isolation and prolonged sleep deprivation, constitutes cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and is illegal under the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, the U.N. Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Hina Shamsi, an attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project, has stated that portions of the AFM are "deeply problematic" and "would likely violate the War Crimes Act and Geneva," and at the very least "leave the door open for legal liability." Physicians for Human Rights and the Constitution Project have publicly called for the removal of problematic and abusive techniques from the AFM.
Yet, the interrogation manual is still praised by politicians, including then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, who in December 2007 said he would "have the Army Field Manual govern interrogation techniques for all United States Government personnel and contractors."
...Appendix M, titled "Restricted Interrogation Technique -- Separation," misrepresents itself from the very beginning. (One wonders if it was rewritten from an earlier draft, at a time when the Pentagon wanted to keep these procedures classified.) It is not actually a technique (singular), but a set of techniques, though one has to read deeply into its 10 pages of text and be somewhat sophisticated in the history of psychological torture procedures, to assemble a full view of the viral program.
(on sparation or Isolation -used in the case of Bradley manning)
...The primary technique of the separation procedure is the physical isolation of the prisoner for up to 30 days, with further isolation possible upon approval of higher-ups. According to scientific expert Stuart Grassian, the use of isolation, or solitary confinement, causes "severe psychiatric harm." Some detainees will "suffer permanent harm as a result of such confinement." As long ago as 1961, psychiatrist Lawrence Hinkle Jr. wrote in a textbook on interrogations (emphasis added):
It is well known that prisoners, especially if they have not been isolated before, may develop a syndrome similar in most of its features to the "brain syndrome"… they cease to care about their utterances, dress and cleanliness. They become dulled, apathetic and depressed. In due time they become disoriented and confused; their memories become defective, and they experience hallucinations and delusions….
Classically, isolation has been used as a means of "making a man talk," simply because it is so often associated with a deterioration of thinking and behavior and is accompanied by an intense need for companionship and for talk. From the interrogator's viewpoint it has seemed to be the ideal way of "breaking down" a prisoner, because, to the unsophisticated, it seems to create precisely the state that the interrogator desires … However, the effect of isolation upon the brain function of the prisoner is much like that which occurs if he is beaten, starved or deprived of sleep.
Those prisoners who cannot be secured in sufficient isolation, presumably at a forward interrogation site, will be secured via "Field Expedient Separation," during which a both blindfold and earmuffs are put on a detainee for up to 12 hours. Again this is expandable upon official approval. The AFM warns that care must be taken to protect the blindfolded, earmuffed prisoner from self-injury, and the prisoner must be medically monitored. The AFM doesn't explain why this is necessary, but the reason is that such sensory deprivation is intolerable for some people and can lead to hallucinations and self-injurious behavior. The inclusion of a procedure that so obviously needs medical monitoring should be a red flag that it violates basic humane treatment.
The other main use of torture is Appendix M's provision for prolonged sleep deprivation, holding a prisoner to no more than four hours of sleep per night for 30 days. As with isolation and perceptual deprivation, this procedure can be prolonged with official approval. Sleep deprivation is used to break an individual down both physically and mentally. The literature on the corrosive effects of sleep deprivation is not difficult to find. Four hours of sleep per day for a month will decrease thyrotropin secretion and increase levels of cortisol, causing stress and high blood pressure. It impairs verbal processing and complex problem solving. Chronic sleep deprivation is "associated with irritability, depression and a reduced sense of well-being."
The AFM's Appendix M makes a lot of noise about forbidding sensory deprivation, then provides a definition of same that would describe none but the most extreme examples of sensory deprivation, all the while allowing its practice upon prisoners. Similarly, the document claims it is consistent with the Geneva Conventions and other human rights documents. It denies that prisoners held under separation will be treated to "excessive noise," "excessive dampness" or "excessive or inadequate heat, light or ventilation." But rather than appear convincing, these caveats seem to direct the interrogation team to just those kinds of procedures that should be used, as long as it is not judged "excessive." At the September 2006 briefing, Kimmons assured reporters that Appendix M had been legally vetted by "senior DOD figures at the secretarial level, by the Joint Staff, by each of the combatant commanders and their legal advisers, by each of the service secretaries and service chiefs and their legal advisers, in addition to the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the director of National Intelligence, who coordinated laterally with the CIA." It was also "favorably reviewed" by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department. This is not a legal vetting that inspires much confidence.
The total effect of combining all the procedures enumerated above, particularly in an atmosphere of fear and futility or hopelessness, is to produce a state not dissimilar to that described by Albert Biderman in his famous Chart of Coercion, as described elsewhere by this author and by Scott Shane of the New York Times. Social psychologist Biderman had studied the techniques of Soviet, Chinese and Korean interrogators and constructed a model of coercive interrogation that was later used by SERE interrogators at Guantanamo (as described above). Biderman's Chart of Coercion enumerates the key abusive techniques as isolation, monopolization of perception, induced debilitation and exhaustion, threats, occasional indulgences, demonstrating "omnipotence" and "omniscience" (i.e., complete control over a prisoner's fate), degradation and enforcement of trivial demands. What we have here, in sum, is what has come to be known in the 21st century as the Guantanamo model.
Notes:
Video of Cenk Uygur at TYT commenting onObama's signing of what is essentially "The King's Warrant" allowing for indefinite detention of anyone citizen or not. Odd a bit ironic wasn't this one of the issues the 13 colonies raised objections to as part of their need to rebel against the British authorities.
“President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law.”
“For the first time in American history, we have a law authorizing the worldwide and indefinite military detention of people captured far from any battlefield. The NDAA has no temporal or geographic limitations. It is completely at odds with our values, violates the Constitution, and corrodes our Nation’s commitment to the rule of law.”
“Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today.”
Quote from ACLU on Obama signing the law allowing for Indefinte detention
Image protesting the indefinite detention and abuse and torture of alleged whistleblower Bradley Manning - Obama believes he can hold anyone including US citizens indefinitely by signing an order which is tantamout to a King's warrant
see for instance: Judge rules against NDAA indefinite detention – Obama Administration immediately appeals Posted on September 14, 2012 by John Pierce
also see video at bottom of post for TYT's Cenk Uygur comments on Obama newly enacted King's Warrant.
Child Soldier who was illegalyy and immorally held prisoner at Guantanamo since he was 15 has just been released fromm Guantanamo but will be held in prison in Canada. He was releasd after years of physical and psychological abuse because he had taken part in fighting in Afghanistan due to pressure from his own father and other adults. But George W. Bush and Obama both have taken issue with the "Child Soldier " designation.
* Mitt Romney business acumen aimed at profit not jobs
* CNN allows right wing propagandist Dinesh D'Souza to make objectively false claims about Obama being unAmerican and an agent of Islamic extremists.
* Obama revvs up warrantless spying on American citizens, designates Wikileaks as a terrorist organization, and doubles down on Drone attacks killing hundreds of inncent civilians creating blowback resulting in even more anti-American terrorists
NEW ROMNEY VIDEO: In 1985, He Said Bain Would "Harvest" Companies for Profits : This clip shows the young CEO focusing on businesses as targets for his investors, not as job creators or community stakeholders. By David Corn at Mother Jones,Sep. 27,2012
Campaigning for the presidency, Mitt Romney has pointed to his stint as the founder and manager of Bain Capital, a private equity firm, as proof he can rev up the US economy and create jobs at a faster clip than President Barack Obama. Last year, while stumping in Florida, Romney declared, "You'd have a president who has spent his life in business—small business, big business—and who knows something about how jobs are created and how we compete around the world." His campaign spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, has said that Romney's Bain days afford him more expertise than Obama to "focus on job creation and turn around our nation's faltering economy." Romney has even claimed that during his tenure at Bain, "we were able to help create over 100,000 jobs." In his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, Romney smacked Obama for having "almost no experience working in a business" and tied that to the sluggish recovery.
But at Bain, Romney's top priority wasn't to boost employment. As the Wall Street Journal recently noted, creating jobs "wasn't the aim of Bain or other private-equity firms, which measure success by returns produced for investors." And, the newspaper reported, Romney's 100,000-jobs claim is tough to evaluate.
Mother Jones has obtained a video from 1985 in which Romney, describing Bain's formation, showed how he viewed the firm's mission. He explained that its goal was to identify potential and hidden value in companies, buy significant stakes in these businesses, and then "harvest them at a significant profit" within five to eight years.
The video was included in a CD-ROM created in 1998 to mark the 25th anniversary of Bain & Company, the consulting firm that gave birth to Bain Capital. Here is the full clip, as it appeared on that CD-ROM (the editing occurred within the original):
You would think after President Obama has defended the use of deadly Drone attacks along the Afghanistan Pakistan border tribal regions and Obama under the cover of NATO and using humanitarian concerns as a rationalization for carpet bombing Libya and sabre rattling about possible bombing and invasion of iran and exaggerating and Demonizing the Iranian Regime and its threat to World Peace or America's ego and hegemony that few would question his tough stance on the Global War on Terrorism .
As in domestic policies Obama's right wing critics are reluctant and refuse to acknowlege that any of Obama's policies and actions meet their standards even though Obama once in office in 2009 continued the failed policies of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. The GOP and Right wing ignore the fact that Obama allows American personnel to abuse and torture so called "detainees" who are actually POWs and should be treated as such under International Law or at least by the requirements of Human decency and justice.
CNN Lets Dinesh D'Souza Peddle Conspiracy Theory That Obama Is "Anti-American" Media Matters, Sept. 28, 2012
Conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza appeared on CNN this morning to reinforce the message of his error-laden and factually inaccurate movie, 2016: Obama's America, attacking President Obama as "anti-American" and claiming he has "embraced a Third World ideology."
While CNN host Zoraida Sambolin pressed D'Souza to explain his accusations, she offered no pushback to D'Souza's outlandish claims about Obama's character nor did she point out the discredited claims contained in his movie
...Indeed, 2016 is rife with basic factual errors and logical inconsistencies:
■The film attacks Obama for failing to "lift a finger to help" his "destitute" Kenyan half-brother George (who has said he chooses to live in poverty)
■The film falsely claims Obama "block[ed]" the Keystone pipeline
■The film falsely claims Obama loaned "billions of dollars" to Brazil to pursue offshore drilling
■The film gives credence to the paranoid theory of a "United States of Islam"
■The film fearmongers about Iran's nuclear ambitions and falsely attacks Obama for doing "nothing" to impede Iran's nuclear progress
■The film attacks Obama for his support of the new START Treaty, which seeks to reduce nuclear stockpiles globally, and his vision of a world without nuclear weapons. But this was President Reagan's dream when he proposed the original START treaty, a fact the film doesn't mention.
The film is based on D'Souza's book, The Roots of Obama's Rage, which was also filled with false and misleading claims.
The GOP and rightwing 's allegations that Obama is somehow soft on terrorism and may even be secretly on the side Islamic extremist is not supported by the facts. As we see Obama has revved up the Drone attacks , spying on American citizens, alleging Julian Assange and Bradley Manning are enemies of the USA.
I am not here trying to defend these actions by president Obama but simply noting the fallaciousness of the GOP and Right wing allegations against Obama are not grounded in actual facts.These are in fact actions which should be deplored and attacked by liberals and progressives and anyone concerned about the USA expanding its Empire and becoming the most dangerous nation on earth and not Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan ,Pakistan etc.
" Living Under Drones -- Chilling First-Hand Testimony of Escalating Drone Attacks by the US :Drones unleash shocking psychological and social damage to whole families and communities, along with the horrific deaths of many innocents." by John Amick ,Warcost.org via Alternet.org. Sept. 28, 2012
Brave New Foundation has the honor of releasing a new video this week to accompany a seminal report by human rights law experts at Stanford and New York University law schools. The report, entitled “ Living Under Drones ” presents chilling first-hand testimony from Pakistani civilians on the humanitarian and security costs of escalating drone attacks by the United States. The report uncovers civilian deaths, and shocking psychological and social damage to whole families and communities – where people are literally scared to leave their homes because of drones flying overhead 24 hours a day.
This report continues to call into question the U.S. strategy of drone strikes, and presents evidence of profound humanitarian consequences as well as concerns that the strikes actually may have adverse security impacts by fomenting anger against the U.S.
The report is based on nine months of research, including two investigations in Pakistan. The Stanford-NYU research team interviewed over 130 individuals, including civilians who traveled out of the largely inaccessible region of North Waziristan to meet with the researchers. They also interviewed medical doctors who treated strike victims, and humanitarian and journalist professionals who worked in drone impacted areas.
Brave New Foundation is committed to shedding light on the true impact of U.S. drones, and with this video we hope to help share the voices – from the other side of the globe – of those most impacted by the policies of our government. Our campaign War Costs has a coming full-length film exposing the truth about drones, and additionally we are working on a number of shorter videos. We are traveling soon to Pakistan ourselves to collect more stories.
As U.S. citizens, we feel a responsibility to know the real impact of the policies of our government. We hope you will join us at www.WarCosts.com to be part of this fight for a more humane and just world.
Video preview:
Warrantless Electonic Surveillance has increased alarmingly under the Obama Regime.
" ACLU: Docs Reveal "Exponential" Growth of Domestic Spying New Justice Department documents show huge increase in warrantless electronic surveillance "- Common Dreams staff ,Sept. 29, 2012
The release of new Department of Justice documents obtained by the ACLU reveal that federal law enforcement agencies are increasingly monitoring Americans’ electronic communications, and doing so without warrants, sufficient oversight, or meaningful accountability.
Though there is a long history of legal (and not so legal) surveillance by federal and local authorities, the new documents—released by the DOJ following Freedom of Information Act requests by the ACLU and presented in this report—show that under the Obama administration, the rate of surveillance has risen "exponentially" in many key areas, including information gathered from telephone, email, and other Internet communications
and more evidence that President Obama is anything but soft on terrorism or on America's alleged enemies such as Wikileaks and its head Julian Assange and Bradley Manning who allegedly gave government documents to Wikileaks.
US Designates Wikileaks "Enemy of the State" Documents show US policy puts media outlet in same legal category as violent terrorist groups - Common Dreams staff, Sept. 27,2012
Military documents (pdf) obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and posted online by Wikileaks show that the US government has designated the whistleblower website and its founder Julian Assange as "enemies of the state"—the same legal category as Al Qaeda and other foreign military adversaries
As the Sydney Morning Herald reports:
The documents, some originally classified "Secret/NoForn" - not releasable to non-US nationals - record a probe by the air force's Office of Special Investigations into a cyber systems analyst based in Britain who allegedly expressed support for WikiLeaks and attended pro-Assange demonstrations in London.
The counter-intelligence investigation focused on whether the analyst, who had a top-secret security clearance and access to the US military's Secret Internet Protocol Router network, had disclosed classified or sensitive information to WikiLeaks supporters, described as an "anti-US and/or anti-military group".
The suspected offence was "communicating with the enemy, 104-D", an article in the US Uniform Code of Military Justice that prohibits military personnel from "communicating, corresponding or holding intercourse with the enemy".
Mr Assange's US attorney, Michael Ratner, told the Herald that designating WikiLeaks an "enemy" would have serious implications for the WikiLeaks publisher if his fears of being extradited to the US were realized.
Mr Ratner stipulated that under US law it would most likely have been considered criminal for the US Air Force analyst to communicate classified material to journalists and publishers, but those journalists and publishers would not have been considered the enemy or prosecuted.
And Obama justifies the use of certain interrogation techniques which in fact constitute torture under international law.
Unfortunately many supporters of Obama either just believe whatever Obama says without examining his actions and so are satified that with Obama as president torture is no longer used by US personnel on so called detainees or they just don't see torture as an issue in a time of war -The Global War On Terror" and the war on dissidents and vocal criticsw..
Alleged Whistleblower Bradley manning for instance was and is a victim of torure ie sleep deprivation, sensory overload, prolonged solitary confinement (separation)etc.
The Canadia child soldier Omar Khadr who was just released from Guantanamo Bay after giving what appears to be a false confession after ten years in prison having been tortured and abused by US personnel during the the Bush administration and which was continued without missing a beat under president Obama's administration.
Omar Khadr was captured in Afghanistan when he was 15 and under International Law he was supposed to be designated as a "child Soldier" and therefore not responsible for his actions since he was doing what his father and other adults told him was his duty. So he was honoring the wishes of his elders and for obeying his father and mother he was held in prison for a decade. He was denied his rights to an attorney or to be given medical help by someone not connected with the US military or other government agency, he was held in indefinite detention . Those with power over him managed to get him to make a false confession ala The Spanish inquisition .
But in America there are even liberals and Democrats who see nothing wrong with mistreating a 15 year old child who was captured on a battle field and yet the same people get all upset over some lunatic such as Kony using "child Soldiers" and characterize those children as victims not perpertrators . So shouldn't this also apply to children like Omar Khadr who was being used by Al Qaeda or the Taliban or other such terrorist organizations.
( Last Westerner at Guantanamo ‘returning to Canada’ By Agence France-Presse , via Raw Story, September 29, 2012
As for the continuing of a number of interrogation techniques deemed by International Law as constituting torture President Obama has played fast and loose with erroneous and factually challenged claims that by following the US Army Field Manual that torture would no longer be tolerated by his administration.
What Obama does not admit publicly is that he believes that certain Interrogation Techniques deemed as constituing torture by International Law he has unilaterally just as Bush did before him decided these Interrogation Techniques such as prolonged sleep deprivation, verbal assaults, prolonged solitary confinement , and techniques which rely on sensory deprivation and sensory overload are not torture when in fact they are.
So it is a bit of a red herring or whatevr metaphor you want to raise concerns that Mitt Romney as president would be more inclined to use torture than President Obama. Obama only made a select few techniques unlawful such as waterboarding or pretend executions or maybe electrical shock to the testicles but everything else is usable and legal according to Obama even if this goes against the Geneva Conventions or the special conventions on the use of torture.
How the U.S. Army's Field Manual Codified Torture -- and Still Does
Buried in Appendix M of the Army Field Manual, the Guantanamo virus is spreading, and eradicating it will require all of us to spread the word. by Jeffrey S. Kaye via Alternet.org, Jan. 6, 2009
In early September 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense, reeling from at least a dozen investigations into detainee abuse by interrogators, released Directive 2310.01E. This directive was advertised as an overhaul and improvement on earlier detainee operations and included a newly rewritten Army Field Manual for Human Intelligence Collector Operations (FM-2-22-3). This guidebook for interrogators was meant to set a humane standard for U.S. interrogators worldwide, a standard that was respectful of the Geneva Conventions and other U.S. and international laws concerning treatment of prisoners.
While George W. Bush was signing a presidential directive allowing the CIA to conduct other, secret "enhanced interrogation techniques," which may or may not have included waterboarding, the new AFM was sold to the public as a return to civilized norms, in regards to interrogation.
Before long, opponents of U.S. torture policy were championing the new AFM as an appropriate "single-standard" model of detainee treatment. Support for implementing the revised AFM, as a replacement for the hated "enhanced" techniques earlier championed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the CIA, began to appear in legislation out of Congress, in the literature of human-rights organizations and in newspaper editorials. Some rights groups have felt the new AFM offered some improvements by banning repellent interrogation tactics, such as waterboarding, use of nudity, military dogs and stress positions. It was believed the AFM cemented the concept of command responsibility for infractions of the law.
There was only one problem: the AFM did not eliminate torture. Despite what it said, it did not adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Even worse, it took the standard operating procedure of Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay and threatened to expand it all over the world.
The President of the National Lawyers Guild Marjorie Cohn has stated that portions of the AFM protocol, especially the use of isolation and prolonged sleep deprivation, constitutes cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and is illegal under the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, the U.N. Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Hina Shamsi, an attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project, has stated that portions of the AFM are "deeply problematic" and "would likely violate the War Crimes Act and Geneva," and at the very least "leave the door open for legal liability." Physicians for Human Rights and the Constitution Project have publicly called for the removal of problematic and abusive techniques from the AFM.
Yet, the interrogation manual is still praised by politicians, including then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, who in December 2007 said he would "have the Army Field Manual govern interrogation techniques for all United States Government personnel and contractors."
...Appendix M, titled "Restricted Interrogation Technique -- Separation," misrepresents itself from the very beginning. (One wonders if it was rewritten from an earlier draft, at a time when the Pentagon wanted to keep these procedures classified.) It is not actually a technique (singular), but a set of techniques, though one has to read deeply into its 10 pages of text and be somewhat sophisticated in the history of psychological torture procedures, to assemble a full view of the viral program.
(on sparation or Isolation -used in the case of Bradley manning)
...The primary technique of the separation procedure is the physical isolation of the prisoner for up to 30 days, with further isolation possible upon approval of higher-ups. According to scientific expert Stuart Grassian, the use of isolation, or solitary confinement, causes "severe psychiatric harm." Some detainees will "suffer permanent harm as a result of such confinement." As long ago as 1961, psychiatrist Lawrence Hinkle Jr. wrote in a textbook on interrogations (emphasis added):
It is well known that prisoners, especially if they have not been isolated before, may develop a syndrome similar in most of its features to the "brain syndrome"… they cease to care about their utterances, dress and cleanliness. They become dulled, apathetic and depressed. In due time they become disoriented and confused; their memories become defective, and they experience hallucinations and delusions….
Classically, isolation has been used as a means of "making a man talk," simply because it is so often associated with a deterioration of thinking and behavior and is accompanied by an intense need for companionship and for talk. From the interrogator's viewpoint it has seemed to be the ideal way of "breaking down" a prisoner, because, to the unsophisticated, it seems to create precisely the state that the interrogator desires … However, the effect of isolation upon the brain function of the prisoner is much like that which occurs if he is beaten, starved or deprived of sleep.
Those prisoners who cannot be secured in sufficient isolation, presumably at a forward interrogation site, will be secured via "Field Expedient Separation," during which a both blindfold and earmuffs are put on a detainee for up to 12 hours. Again this is expandable upon official approval. The AFM warns that care must be taken to protect the blindfolded, earmuffed prisoner from self-injury, and the prisoner must be medically monitored. The AFM doesn't explain why this is necessary, but the reason is that such sensory deprivation is intolerable for some people and can lead to hallucinations and self-injurious behavior. The inclusion of a procedure that so obviously needs medical monitoring should be a red flag that it violates basic humane treatment.
The other main use of torture is Appendix M's provision for prolonged sleep deprivation, holding a prisoner to no more than four hours of sleep per night for 30 days. As with isolation and perceptual deprivation, this procedure can be prolonged with official approval. Sleep deprivation is used to break an individual down both physically and mentally. The literature on the corrosive effects of sleep deprivation is not difficult to find. Four hours of sleep per day for a month will decrease thyrotropin secretion and increase levels of cortisol, causing stress and high blood pressure. It impairs verbal processing and complex problem solving. Chronic sleep deprivation is "associated with irritability, depression and a reduced sense of well-being."
The AFM's Appendix M makes a lot of noise about forbidding sensory deprivation, then provides a definition of same that would describe none but the most extreme examples of sensory deprivation, all the while allowing its practice upon prisoners. Similarly, the document claims it is consistent with the Geneva Conventions and other human rights documents. It denies that prisoners held under separation will be treated to "excessive noise," "excessive dampness" or "excessive or inadequate heat, light or ventilation." But rather than appear convincing, these caveats seem to direct the interrogation team to just those kinds of procedures that should be used, as long as it is not judged "excessive." At the September 2006 briefing, Kimmons assured reporters that Appendix M had been legally vetted by "senior DOD figures at the secretarial level, by the Joint Staff, by each of the combatant commanders and their legal advisers, by each of the service secretaries and service chiefs and their legal advisers, in addition to the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the director of National Intelligence, who coordinated laterally with the CIA." It was also "favorably reviewed" by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department. This is not a legal vetting that inspires much confidence.
The total effect of combining all the procedures enumerated above, particularly in an atmosphere of fear and futility or hopelessness, is to produce a state not dissimilar to that described by Albert Biderman in his famous Chart of Coercion, as described elsewhere by this author and by Scott Shane of the New York Times. Social psychologist Biderman had studied the techniques of Soviet, Chinese and Korean interrogators and constructed a model of coercive interrogation that was later used by SERE interrogators at Guantanamo (as described above). Biderman's Chart of Coercion enumerates the key abusive techniques as isolation, monopolization of perception, induced debilitation and exhaustion, threats, occasional indulgences, demonstrating "omnipotence" and "omniscience" (i.e., complete control over a prisoner's fate), degradation and enforcement of trivial demands. What we have here, in sum, is what has come to be known in the 21st century as the Guantanamo model.
Notes:
Video of Cenk Uygur at TYT commenting onObama's signing of what is essentially "The King's Warrant" allowing for indefinite detention of anyone citizen or not. Odd a bit ironic wasn't this one of the issues the 13 colonies raised objections to as part of their need to rebel against the British authorities.
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