CIA staged ‘mock execution’ of detainees, then destroyed the video tape evidence.
CIA staged ‘mock execution’ of detainees, then destroyed the video tape evidence.
Newsweek reports that a forthcoming CIA Inspector General report that will be released next week “reveals that CIA interrogators staged mock executions as part of the agency’s post-9/11 program to detain and question terror suspects.” CIA interrogators used a handgun and an electric drill to try to frighten captured al-Qaeda detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri into giving up information:
Nashiri’s interrogators brandished the gun in an effort to convince him that he was going to be shot. Interrogators also turned on a power drill and held it near him. “The purpose was to scare him into giving [information] up,” said one of the sources. A federal law banning the use of torture expressly forbids threatening a detainee with “imminent death.”
Marcy Wheeler notes that the torture of Nashiri compelled him to falsely confess that al Qaeda was working on a nuclear bomb. Conveniently, the Bush administration destroyed tapes of Nashiri’s interrogations in 2005.
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I saw a report on this on Rachel Madow the other night. I don’t think Holder’s going to be able holding off asigning a Special Prosecutor.
It’s been a while coming but I think the creaky wheels of justice are about to start turning.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:56 pmIt is time to fit a good portion of the Bush administration including Darth Cheney and George W Gump for orange jumpsuits. Anyone who facilitated torture anyone that stood by anyone that comitted it. All of them need to do the appropriate prison time.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:09 pmThey didn’t have to make a videotape.
But having the tape and anticipating that it could be used as evidence against a crime, they destroyed it.
Of course, it was extremely unfair for them to get to see the tape and then decide whether it would be more harmful to the defendant or weaken the charges against the defendant. (and the fact they destroyed it pretty much means the tape could have freed the defendant).
But also, surely they knew that such a tape could be used against them for war crimes.
Isn’t there some sort of legal term for destroying evidence that they knew could be relevant in 2 extremely important criminal trials ?
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:11 pmMens Rea evidence of a guilty mind
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:13 pmWhy is it that it’s so much easier for government officials to be prosecuted for the cover-up, than the crime?
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:18 pmBut holding a power drill to the side of a prisoners head is just fun and games.
I’m sure Yoo must have authored a memo on that.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:19 pmThat not just Jay Bybee mentioned above. That’s federal Judge Jay “Torture Is AOK” Bybee and he should be in prison.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:22 pmRachel is all over this.
I felt sick just watching her segment on this on Friday, and the report itself will be worse.
Assuming it isn’t redacted by f ucking cowards.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:27 pmThe Washington Post notes that Jay Bybee, the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, advised the CIA in an August 2002 memo that threats of “imminent death” were not illegal unless they deliberately produced prolonged mental harm.
What kind of threat of imminent death does NOT produce prolonged mental harm? Especially if the threatener has the apparent means to follow through on said threat?
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 pmThe character and identity of the United States is at risk. Historically, the US has made heinous mistakes at times. However, we have always corrected those mistakes and we are better for it. We occupy the moral high ground not because we are perfect but because we are committed to correct our failings. The torture program of the Bush administration is a blot against the United States of America. Even so, it will not cause lasting damage if the crimes are punished. If not, if we just decide to go forward because of a legislative expediency and ignore these war crimes, the Obama administration will damage the US every bit as much as G.W. Bush
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:36 pmBybee, the psychologist advisor and part time lawyer.
And this guy Bybee, who doesnt give a fig about actual law, is a judge?
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:39 pmZep,
George W. Bush appointed Bybee to the Federal bench. For life.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:41 pmFigures
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:45 pmBetter than the Medal of Freedom!
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:46 pmThe Washington Post notes that Jay Bybee, the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, advised the CIA in an August 2002 memo that threats of “imminent death” were not illegal unless they deliberately produced prolonged mental harm.
The abstract application of law wingnut judges are known for, full of jargon in CYA mode. Just how would the interrogator avoid “deliberately produced prolonged mental harm” when threatning imminent death? With a fortune cookie?
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:12 pmI’m not even surprise anymore about what the Bush criminals did while they were in office. It’s just sickening and disturbing that they held the country in peril like they did for 8 years. I’m ready for them to be put on trial and placed in jail where they belong.
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:36 pmCheck this out here we go again with more conservative lies and distortion this one is pretty interesting heres the headline:
How Conservatives Got The Facts Wrong On Their Latest Obsession: The “Death Book” For Veterans
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/22/how-conservatives-got-the_n_266275.html
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:48 pmOh, I bet this is really gonna upset the teabaggers…
destroying evidence and all…
…oh, wait, forgot, they are one big Criminal Mafia…
…so criminal activities are fine with them…fcukheads.
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:56 pmThis is a conspiracy to defraud the government. That’s now the knowable truth. If it isn’t prosecuted then the justice system is also involved in the conspiracy by definition. How long now before the DOJ becomes an acting conspirator in the eyes of the law?
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:59 pmOT
Obama May Abandon Effort to Reach Health Deal With Republicans.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20090822/pl_bloomberg/a9fjicd6ygqk
August 23rd, 2009 at 12:22 amIts weird to think all this was caused by 9/11. and 9/11 still has never been explained. I mean, who paid for it? where are the black boxes? Anyways, I don’t think anything to do with this war on drug, er , terror is legal in the first place. I doubt I’ll be traveling by plane until they realize the security show is pointless. Yoo give these people all the power and no of the consequences you’re gonna get touture.
August 23rd, 2009 at 12:43 amI thought we don’t torture… :|
August 23rd, 2009 at 12:59 amThink Progress says, “CIA interrogators used a handgun and an electric drill to try to frighten captured al-Qaeda detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri into giving up information”.
The Israelis have been terrorizing and torturing Palestinians for decades. Now they’re teaching the CIA everything they know.
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:14 amSo once again torture is shown to have produced totally false information.
Any minute now Liz Cheney will pop up to defend this.
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:25 amthreats of “imminent death” were not illegal unless they deliberately produced prolonged mental harm.
OK. So now I can go down the street threatening to kill everybody. And as long as it doesn’t produce mental harm, it is Okey-dokey ?
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:29 amSeveral things come to mind on this issue.
The first is that Bybee’s notion of what does and does not constitute torture is just crap from an arsehat. Sure, he’s a lawyer, but he doesn’t have any particular expertise in evaluating matters regarding physical duress; I suspect he has no expertise other than brown-nosing.
To determine whether some activity is torture, or just torment, or simply unethical and nasty, we’d really need to consult some organization like the International Committee of the Red Cross. That particular route wasn’t available to anyone on the Shrub team, assuming that there was anyone there that wanted to know; after all, they’d decided to cut out our obligations under the Geneva Conventions and they certainly weren’t going to consult any other human rights organizations. We might have some case law on what constitutes duress and torture, but the Shrubbery wasn’t about the law, they were about power and fear, so they’d not resort to a reading of our law either.
Then there’s the matter of who they were dealing with, assuming the interrogatee is an actual alQaeda or long-time jihadist operative; while the CIA interrogation team is playing with guns and drills, pushing the limit on some movie version of giving a bad guy the modern third degree, their bad guy, given the resume of some of those people, is 1) not really impressed, because he isn’t a coward – he’s committed and ready to die – he’s not in the cause for the money or the virgins or whatever – he’s a true believer or was and still carries the courage of his convictions, and 2) he may have already seen worse in a jail or prison somewhere in the Arab or Gulf states where he’d already been worked over by people who make Langley’s “interrogators” look like a pack of junior high bullies. Starting with al Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s lieutenant, and working down, we’re confronted by a number of people who’ve spent time being thumped on and being locked into verminous holes by the Egyptian state, the Saudis, etc. We might startle them by firing a gun next to them, but that’s about all; the moment after that, when they don’t wake up dead and they aren’t injured, they immediately grasp the true nature of the situation; our guys might grind on them a bit and bruise them, etc, but probably aren’t going to do something where they haven’t already been through worse. And that’s why a number of those guys got a rendition flight somewhere else before they ended up at Gitmo.
As for the poor grunts who got picked up and ended up being “harshly” interrogated at Gitmo or Bagram or some other shit hole through some serious error of assessment on the part of the intake personnel, they have been damaged by all the mistreatment dealt out to them. They weren’t prepared for it, they probably haven’t had the encounters with their own authorities that gave the officer equivalents and managers some inadvertent training. And yes, that damage may include being always ON in a revenge seeking state of mind, but blowback isn’t the point here. The point is that our own people did this crap, it’s still being covered up, and as far as anyone knows, it may still be going on; as far as some of our people are concerned, I suspect that they’ll only stop if some manager or Leon Panetta himself is standing over their shoulder saying “No”.
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:31 amOh, I might add to my previous that destroying the tapes may have been illegal, very probably was illegal. Destruction of a “public” record usually is; sure, the videos were classified, but by virtue of being a type of government document, they’re publicly owned. They weren’t the private property of whoever created them or whoever decided to destroy them or whoever had them in their possession. Apart from that, there’s the issue from a couple of years ago or so where Langley was ordered by a judge to preserve all such documents. Somebody should have to answer for that destruction, and not just the dope running the bulk eraser or degausser – or shredder and incinerator.
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:45 amSheesh republicans are astonishingly abominable people.
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:49 amLet’s hope those creaky wheels of justice grind up Cheney, Addington, Yoo and all the rest of the criminal conspirators.
August 23rd, 2009 at 3:22 amI don’t get it.
When they torture someone on 24, he always coughs up the necessary information right away, and it’s always totally accurate. Then they break for commercial.
I mean, it works every time. What’s wrong?
August 23rd, 2009 at 5:34 amThis comment has been voted down. Click to read.
So you’re a bliovating, self-professed “active duty member” who would wilfully violate a code of military conduct (giving intel to the enemy)? Sounds more like a lying sack of shit, honestly. Or perhaps you’re just dumber than a bag of toenail clippings? Either way, you couldn’t be considered a useful “asset” to our Armed Forces…
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:09 amWe are going to need more prisons.
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:17 amIt shocks me that we have not even begun to lock any of the torture proponents yet. We are no longer a nation of laws, and I don’t think we can remain a nation much longer without them.
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:22 amYeah, we’re the civilized portion of our society, remember?
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:37 amConveniently, the Bush administration destroyed tapes of Nashiri’s interrogations in 2005.
Hmmmm…destroyed tapes??? Reminds me that Waterboardee Abu Zubaydah’s interogation Tapes were also destroyed….amid Allegations that Zubaydah implicated 3 Saudi Princes and the head of the Pakistani Air force in the tragic terrorist attack on Sept. 11.
Tinfoil time??? maybe…but ALL FOUR Died under mysterious circumstances shortly thereafter.
Destroying evidence begs the Question…what Don’t they want us to know.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-posner/the-cias-destroyed-interr_b_75850.html
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:37 amI’ll bet if this justice department would only look at obstruction of justice, they will find a trail of easily prosecutable crimes leading all the way to the top of the Bushb administration pyramid. But then Obama would have to endure the Gee Oh Pee backlash.
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:42 amJesus Christ Sgt. Higgins – you need to go to the VA and ask for immediate medical attention. You should be no where near any military actions until you do.
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:52 amGive me back my broken night
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:09 ammy mirrored room, my secret life
it’s lonely here,
there’s no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that’s an order!
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I’ve seen the future,
it is murder
leonard cohen…. The Future
Hey Sgt. Higgins (if you are) WE, meaning the USA don’t do this kind of crap, it’s proven you don’t get good intel.
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:11 amThis is crazy talk. How could anybody read that and not realize the writer has mental problems?
I’d like to see a full psych evaluation of the entire Bush administration.
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:38 amI need more plastic sheeting and duct tape…
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:54 amGood Morning youngsters….#44 I don’t want to see a syc. eval on them I want to see numbers on their chests and them all dressed in orange jump suits complete with shackles and chain’s…My personal moral compass knows what’s right and wrong and murderers and thieves need to be locked up forever based on the extent of the crime’s…Millions killed in illegal wars and trillions stolen from our country warrent the most severe punishment…
Any one who has gone through abuse knows the level of mental and physical damage long term that occures from said abuse….Each persons ability to cope is individule…What seem’s terribly harsh to one may seem slight to another but the bottom line is torture is torture and lies are lies…
Back on tract here…If President Obama and Holder don’t get their act together soon he will not get a second term…Like wise if all the bush madness is not stopped by President Obama soon he is going to be held just as guilt…Just as I have said in the past it do’s not matter if one is driving the get away car or weilding the gun in a bank robbery or murder both are just as guilty in my mind….
So Mr. President get your act and that of your cabinet in order or you will have a bull shit bush the 3rd legacy…P. B. & J
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:59 amThings are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant.
You don’t know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I’m the little jew
who wrote the Bible
I’ve seen the nations rise and fall
I’ve heard their stories, heard them all
but love’s the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It’s over, it ain’t going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil’s riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder.
Things are going to slide …
There’ll be the breaking of the ancient
western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There’ll be phantoms
There’ll be fires on the road
and the white man dancing
You’ll see a woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
tryin’ to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin’.
Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don’t like children anyhow
I’ve seen the future, baby:
it is murder.
Things are going to slide …
When they said REPENT REPENT …
Leonard Cohen THE FUTURE
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:04 amOff to pick huckleberries where the indians have spent summers for thousands of years .
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:17 amSleeping beauty !
Chao for now .
If they showed ti on “24,” they tried it at Gitmo…
Guaran-fuukin-teed
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:29 amI agree witch1, if Obama does not order Holder to place them all under arrest, and try them for any number of a dozen or so crimes, Obama is just as guilty as if he performed the torture himself. I realize the political ramifications of doing such a thing are not plesant, but every day where Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove (et. al.) go unpunished, is an abomination.
These men should spend every day of the rest of their lives in shakles shoveling pig slop.
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:33 amIt’s kind of funny some troll would pick a name that rhymes with Raplhie Wiggums.
August 23rd, 2009 at 12:36 pmIf sanity and justice were restored, we’d be seeing indictments.
Everyone disappointed in Obama so far say aye
Aye.
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:33 pmAye…..Blessings
August 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pmIndictments or anarchy.
Aye.
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:32 pmLock them up. Now. Today. All of them. Every single war criminal. Top to bottom.
Judgment at Nuremberg, please.
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:50 pmI agree.. terrorist rights trump all others, except animals, trees, whales…
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:25 pmWhat was the timw frame of VP CHeney’s missing e-mails again? Does the it coincide with someone at the CIA gaining the go ahead to erase interrogation tapes?
August 24th, 2009 at 9:43 ammsims2 says:
I agree.. blah dee blah dee blah
You know, you’re aiming to be funny or something, but you’re failing so hard, it’s painful to read.
August 24th, 2009 at 11:31 ammsims2 says:
Yeah we KNEW you were a coward. Most of you ignorant punks are. You snivelling gutless conservatives. You shiver under mommys bed begging others to violate any code of decency so you can FEEL better about what a yellow bellied coward you are. This is not news to us. We KNOW what a snivelling punk you are. You bring shame to all decent Americans. I could point out the fallacies in the idiocy you just posted but what is the point. You dont think. You are too stupid to think. You react. You are a coward. That is all you know. No way to reach snivelling punks like you your cowardice controls you. Your yellow streak defines you. You should be ashamed but you have no dignity or self respect so of course you wont be
August 25th, 2009 at 1:46 ameugendeb, you are sooo predictable..insert__________stupid,moron,punk.
August 25th, 2009 at 8:19 amvery thanks for article!
August 29th, 2009 at 9:32 am