Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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to my mind, there are several problems that i think the top members of the bush administration should be held accountable for--of them, i find the false case for war with iraq almost as outrageous as this sort of thing:
Quote:
Guantánamo Bay: Interrogators told to destroy torture notes, US lawyer claims
* Peter Walker and agencies
* Monday June 9 2008
U.S. military guards walk within Camp Delta military-run prison, at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba
The US high security prison at Campa Delta, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Photograph: AP
Interrogators at Guantánamo Bay were told to destroy their notes to stop them potentially being used to highlight the mistreatment of detainees, according to a US military lawyer.
William Kuebler, a lieutenant commander who is defending Omar Khadr, a Canadian national facing trial for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, said the classified instructions were included in an operations manual that prosecutors allowed him to see last week.
The apparently wilful and officially sanctioned destruction of notes meant he would be unable to challenge supposed confessions given by Khadr, Kuebler said yesterday.
He told reporters the instruction was contained in a US military manual of standard operating procedures, or SOPs, for interrogators that was shown to him during a pre-trial review of possible evidence.
"The mission has legal and political issues that may lead to interrogators being called to testify … Keeping the number of documents with interrogation information to a minimum can minimise certain legal issues," the document was cited as saying in an affidavit signed by Kuebler.
The navy lawyer now plans to seek a dismissal of charges against 21-year-old Khadr, who was detained in Afghanistan at the age of 15.
Khadr, who faces a series of charges, including murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a US special forces soldier in 2002, is set to be one of the first Guantánamo detainees to face a war crimes trial.
Kuebler said the way the interrogations were carried out was central to Khadr's case because prosecutors were relying largely on testimony obtained from him at Guantánamo, and earlier at Bagram air base, in Afghanistan.
"If handwritten notes were destroyed in accordance with the SOP, the government intentionally deprived Omar's lawyers of key evidence with which to challenge the reliability of his statements," Kuebler said.
Prisoners released from both Guantánamo and Bagram have alleged routine mistreatment during interrogation. The Pentagon denies this.
Kuebler said the operations manual, from January 2003, was attached to a 2005 report into alleged detainee abuse at Guantánamo, but that the section covering the manual was not made public at the time.
The 2005 report documented degrading treatment, but stopped short of saying torture occurred.
At the weekend, the Pentagon said the process of trying Guantánamo prisoners for alleged war crimes was a "number one priority". It said it was doubling the total of military lawyers assigned to prosecution and defence teams. About 270 detainees remain at the former naval base, of which the US military hopes to prosecute up to 80.
Critics of the hearings say the US is seeking to rush through trials before the presidential election in November. However, claims that potential evidence was destroyed could be used by lawyers defending other detainees to challenge their alleged confessions.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008...mo.humanrights
and this:
Quote:
US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships
* Duncan Campbell and Richard Norton-Taylor
* Monday June 2 2008
An amphibious assault vehicle leaves the USS Peleliu, which was used to detain prisoners, according to the human rights group Reprieve
An amphibious assault vehicle leaves the USS Peleliu, which was used to detain prisoners, according to the human rights group Reprieve. Photograph: Zack Baddor/AP
The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees.
Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly being used in countries across the world have been compiled as the debate over detention without trial intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was yesterday urged to list the names and whereabouts of all those detained.
Information about the operation of prison ships has emerged through a number of sources, including statements from the US military, the Council of Europe and related parliamentary bodies, and the testimonies of prisoners.
The analysis, due to be published this year by the human rights organisation Reprieve, also claims there have been more than 200 new cases of rendition since 2006, when President George Bush declared that the practice had stopped.
It is the use of ships to detain prisoners, however, that is raising fresh concern and demands for inquiries in Britain and the US.
According to research carried out by Reprieve, the US may have used as many as 17 ships as "floating prisons" since 2001. Detainees are interrogated aboard the vessels and then rendered to other, often undisclosed, locations, it is claimed.
Ships that are understood to have held prisoners include the USS Bataan and USS Peleliu. A further 15 ships are suspected of having operated around the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which has been used as a military base by the UK and the Americans.
Reprieve will raise particular concerns over the activities of the USS Ashland and the time it spent off Somalia in early 2007 conducting maritime security operations in an effort to capture al-Qaida terrorists.
At this time many people were abducted by Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces in a systematic operation involving regular interrogations by individuals believed to be members of the FBI and CIA. Ultimately more than 100 individuals were "disappeared" to prisons in locations including Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Guantánamo Bay.
Reprieve believes prisoners may have also been held for interrogation on the USS Ashland and other ships in the Gulf of Aden during this time.
The Reprieve study includes the account of a prisoner released from Guantánamo Bay, who described a fellow inmate's story of detention on an amphibious assault ship. "One of my fellow prisoners in Guantánamo was at sea on an American ship with about 50 others before coming to Guantánamo ... he was in the cage next to me. He told me that there were about 50 other people on the ship. They were all closed off in the bottom of the ship. The prisoner commented to me that it was like something you see on TV. The people held on the ship were beaten even more severely than in Guantánamo."
Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, said: "They choose ships to try to keep their misconduct as far as possible from the prying eyes of the media and lawyers. We will eventually reunite these ghost prisoners with their legal rights.
"By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been 'through the system' since 2001. The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by immediately revealing who these people are, where they are, and what has been done to them."
Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, called for the US and UK governments to come clean over the holding of detainees.
"Little by little, the truth is coming out on extraordinary rendition. The rest will come, in time. Better for governments to be candid now, rather than later. Greater transparency will provide increased confidence that President Bush's departure from justice and the rule of law in the aftermath of September 11 is being reversed, and can help to win back the confidence of moderate Muslim communities, whose support is crucial in tackling dangerous extremism."
The Liberal Democrat's foreign affairs spokesman, Edward Davey, said: "If the Bush administration is using British territories to aid and abet illegal state abduction, it would amount to a huge breach of trust with the British government. Ministers must make absolutely clear that they would not support such illegal activity, either directly or indirectly."
A US navy spokesman, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, told the Guardian: "There are no detention facilities on US navy ships." However, he added that it was a matter of public record that some individuals had been put on ships "for a few days" during what he called the initial days of detention. He declined to comment on reports that US naval vessels stationed in or near Diego Garcia had been used as "prison ships".
The Foreign Office referred to David Miliband's statement last February admitting to MPs that, despite previous assurances to the contrary, US rendition flights had twice landed on Diego Garcia. He said he had asked his officials to compile a list of all flights on which rendition had been alleged.
CIA "black sites" are also believed to have operated in Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland and Romania.
In addition, numerous prisoners have been "extraordinarily rendered" to US allies and are alleged to have been tortured in secret prisons in countries such as Syria, Jordan, Morocco and Egypt.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008...sa.humanrights
i see this kind of thing as far more serious than the outling of valerie plame or the confirmation of the obvious by scott mclelland.
and i don't see the argument that ace is making above--which amounts to "pshaw..everyone does this" as extending anywhere near these situations.
or the more immediate ones in this thread.
basically, the americans are either a country bound by law or they aren't. if they aren't, then why should anyone else be?
and if the united states administration can authorize the systematic violation of international agreements concerning treatment of detainees, bans on torture--you know, basic human rights---and there are no consequences, what does that say to the rest of the world? either the americans under george w bush define themselves as a menace, or the americans under george w bush erase 75 years of international treaties/law regarding basic human rights.
personally, i would prefer to see elements of the bush administration suffer legal consequences for these actions. guarantees of basic human rights are more important that the imperlial delusions of the neo-cons.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
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