NewsTrust - Torture - Most Recent Stories

After Obama Shuns Probe, Bipartisan Panel Finds ‘Indisputable’ Evidence US Tortured Under Bush

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - By Amy Goodman - Apr. 17 (Special Report) - The report concludes that never before in U.S. history had there been “the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 9/11 directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.”

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Immigrants Held in Solitary Cells, Often for Weeks

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Ian Urbina, Catherine Rentz - Mar. 24 (Special Report) - New federal data shows that on any given day, about 300 immigrants are held in solitary confinement at Immigration and Customs Enforcement centers, a practice psychiatrists worry is overly punitive.

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BBC-Guardian Exposé Uses WikiLeaks to Link Iraq Torture Centers to U.S. Col. Steele & Gen. Petraeus

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Maggie O'Kane - Mar. 22 (Investigative Report) - A shocking new report by The Guardian and BBC Arabic details how the United States armed and trained Iraqi death squads that ran torture centers. It is a story that stretches from the U.S.-backed death squads in Central America during the 1980s to the imprisoned Army whistleblower Bradley Manning.

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How Israel Gets Away With Torturing Palestinians to Death

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Charlotte Silver - Feb. 26 (Special Report) - The legal impunity of the Shin Bet, commonly referred to as the GSS, and its torture techniques has been well established. Between 2001 and 2011, 700 Palestinians lodged complaints with the State Attorney's Office but not a single one has been criminally investigated.

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Former CIA Agent, Anti-Torture Activist John Kiriakou Toasted By Progressives as He Prepares For Prison

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - Feb. 22 (News Report) - The first person in 27 years to be convicted of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Kiriakou views himself as a whistleblower who is being punished for shedding light on the government’s policy of torturing terrorism suspects through the use of waterboarding and so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

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The Grilling that Brennan Deserves

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Consortium News - By Ray McGovern - Jan. 10 (News Analysis) - CIA Director-designee John Brennan has more to explain about his work over the past decade on the terror war’s “dark side,”

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5 Ways President Obama Has Doubled Down on Bush's Most Tragic Mistakes

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Alex Kane - Jan. 09 (Opinion) - Guantanamo remains open, warrantless wiretapping continues, and drone strikes have accelerated, leading to the deaths of innocent civilians and a burst in support for anti-American forces in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. Instead of breaking with the Bush era, Obama has codified and permanently institutionalized the “war on terror” framework that has characterized American foreign policy since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

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Damn Right, George Bush Should Face Criminal Proceedings

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Katherine Gallagher - Nov. 19 (Opinion) - This week, in a complaint filed with the United Nations committee against torture, they are asking one question: how can the man responsible for ordering these heinous crimes, openly enter a country that has pledged to prosecute all torturers regardless of their position and not face legal action? The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Canadian Centre for International Justice (CCIJ) filed the complaint on the men's behalf. The country in question is Canada, visited last year by former US President George W Bush during a paid speaking engagement in Surrey, British Columbia.

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Why a Romney Presidency May Be Worse Than You Think

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Alex Pareene - Nov. 05 (Opinion) - Mitt Romney (would) be working with a Congress full of Republicans and his Cabinet and administration will be full of Republican political appointees, and that adds up to disaster, especially with the current, insane Republican Party.

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Ellsberg Warns of a Romney Victory

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Daniel Ellsberg - Oct. 18 (Opinion) - An activist colleague recently said to me: “I hear you’re supporting Obama.” Daniel Ellsberg, who risked a long imprisonment in the early 1970s when he leaked the Pentagon Papers, the secret history of the Vietnam War. (Photo credit: Jacob Appelbaum. cropped by MachoCarioca) I was startled, and took offense. “Supporting Obama? Me?!” “I lose no opportunity publicly,” I told him angrily, to identify Obama as a tool of Wall Street, a man who’s decriminalized torture and is still complicit in it, a drone assassin, someone who’s launched an unconstitutional war, supports kidnapping and indefinite detention without trial, and has prosecuted more whistleblowers like myself than all previous presidents put together. “Would you call that support?” My friend said, “But on Democracy Now you urged people in swing states to vote for him! How could you say that? I don’t live in a swing state, but I will not and could not vote for Obama under any circumstances.” My answer was: a Romney/Ryan administration would be no better — no different — on any of the serious offenses I just mentioned or anything else, and it would be much worse, even catastrophically worse, on a number of other important issues: attacking Iran, Supreme Court appointments, the economy, women’s reproductive rights, health coverage, safety net, climate change, green energy, the environment.

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Nicaragua Withdraws from School of Americas: “We Have Been its Victims”

Sat, 06 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - By Colette Cosner - Oct. 06 (News Report) - president Daniel Ortega announced that Nicaragua would withdraw its troops from the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC)—formerly and more widely known as the School of the Americas (SOA). A combat training school located in Fort Benning, Georgia, the WHINSEC is notorious for training Latin American military personnel in techniques of repression, including human rights violations such as torture, forced disappearance, and selective assassination.

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Why Don't Americans Care About Democracy at Home?

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

truth-out.org - By Henry A. Giroux - Oct. 02 (Opinion) - economic darwinism will...ensure the ...eventual elimination of those...willing to fight for public values, rights, spaces and institutions not wedded to the logic of privatization, commodification, deregulation.. we are seeing the breakdown of democracy...

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What Is Happening to Muslims Will Happen to the Rest of Us

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - By Chris Hedges - Oct. 02 (Opinion) - Fair trials are unlikely. A disturbing pattern of gross infringements on basic civil liberties, put in place in the name of national security, has poisoned our legal system. These infringements include intrusive surveillance, vague material support charges, the use of prolonged pretrial solitary confinement, classified evidence that the accused cannot review, and the use of political activities, normally protected under the First Amendment, to demonstrate mind-set and intent. Muslims caught up in the Article III courts are denied the opportunity to confront their accusers and to have their religious and political associations protected, and they rarely find a judge courageous enough to protect their rights. These violations of fundamental civil liberties will not, in the end, be reserved exclusively for Muslims once the corporate state feels under siege. What is happening to them will happen to the rest of us.

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Mitt Romney's Pro-torture Gang of Puppet-Masters

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Marcy Wheeler - Sep. 28 (News Analysis) - Since I noted in August 2011 that Mitt had named two torture architects to his legal advisory committee (Tim Flanigan and Steve Bradbury), I have had zero doubt that Mitt would embrace torture if he were President. So Charlie Savage’s story –reporting on

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As Italy Sentences 23 CIA Agents in Rendition Case, Obama Refuses To Prosecute Anyone For Torture

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Sep. 21 (News Report) - As Italy Sentences 23 CIA Agents in Rendition Case, Obama Refuses To Prosecute Anyone For Torture

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Julian Assange of WikiLeaks Seeks Asylum in Ecuador In Attempt To Avoid Extradition to U.S.

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jun. 20 (News Analysis) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has taken refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in London and asked for asylum. Assange made the move Tuesday in a last-ditch bid to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex crime accusations. Earlier today, police in London announced Assange is now subject to arrest because his decision to spend the night at the Ecuadorian embassy violated the conditions of his bail. Assange is seeking asylum because he fears extradition to Sweden may lead to his transfer to the United States, where he could potentially face charges relating to WikiLeaks.

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The Big Distractions

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Dissident Voice - Feb. 23 (Opinion) - The lesser of two evils is still… evil. Who decides what the American public focuses its attention upon on a day-to-day basis? With this nation at war with innumerable countries, with habeas corpus being tossed into the waste bin, with self-confessed tor

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Ron Paul says torture is banned under U.S., international law

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

PolitiFact - By Louis Jacobson - Nov. 15 (Fact Check) - During the CBS-National Journal Republican presidential debate in Spartanburg, S.C. , on Nov. 12, 2011, one of the moderators, Major Garrett, invited Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, into a discussion of torture. Both Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and former Go

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Checking Ron Paul and Barack Obama on torture

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

PolitiFact - By Louis Jacobson - Nov. 15 (Fact Check) - On Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011, in South Carolina at the Republican candidates' debate, the subject was foreign policy. When the subject of waterboarding detainees came up, both Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and former Godfather's Pizza executive Herman Cain said they favored allowing interrogators to use the practice of simulating drowning to elicit information from a detainee. Waterboarding was permitted under the George W. Bush administration, but the policy was rescinded soon after President Barack Obama took office. Then moderator Major Garrett asked Paul for his opinion. Paul responded that "torture is illegal by our laws. It's illegal by international laws." ... >>More

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S.C. Debate: The Ultimate Waterboarding Championship

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Esquire - By Charles P. Pierce - Nov. 13 (Opinion) - Oh, my goodness, they do love their waterboarding, all of them except Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, who is still battling a chronic case of invisibility. Herman Cain thinks it's okay as long as we call it "an enhanced interrogation technique," albeit one that results in an enhanced inability to breathe. (Otherwise, on Saturday night, Herman Cain announced his willingness to delegate the entire job of being president to various subordinates, which will be the nicest thing he's done to a subordinate in a while. It's going to be like Reagan without the senility.) Rick Santorum, when he's not out there killing Iranian nuclear scientists, as well as their neighbors' cats and whomever's trimming their hedges that day, is fine with it, too, and for many of the same philological reasons that so appeal to Herman. La Bachmann is busy pricing designer thumbscrews and also is busy going completely off her admittedly limited rails and deep, deep into the outer bananasphere.

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Afghanistan: “The War is Unwinnable: It is a Stalemate. There is No Victory”

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Jonathan Steele - Nov. 01 (Interview) - The U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, now entering its eleventh year, shows no sign of ending. On Saturday, 12 U.S. soldiers died in a suicide bombing in Kabul. It was deadliest single ground attack against NATO forces in the decade of war. To discuss Afghanistan, we speak with Jonathan Steele, a longtime correspondent for the The Guardian newspaper and author of the new book, "Ghosts of Afghanistan: The Haunted Battleground.” “The [U.S. military strategy] doesn't work because you create new resistance by being there. So resistance comes 'cause you're there. You're not there because of the resistance. The occupying force itself creates the resistance,” Steele said. “And so the crucial thing now is to recognize now is that the war is unwinnable: It is a stalemate. There is no victory." [Transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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Noam Chomsky on Israel-Palestine Prisoner Exchange, U.S. Assassination Campaign in Yemen

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Noam Chomsky - Oct. 18 (Speech) - MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned linguist and political dissident, spoke Monday night at Barnard College in New York City about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, just hours before Israel and Hamas completed a historic prisoner exchange. "I think [Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit] should have been released a long time ago. But there’s something missing from this whole story. There’s no pictures of Palestinian women, and no discussion, in fact, in the story of—what about the Palestinian prisoners being released?

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Freed U.S. Hiker Shane Bauer

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Sep. 26 (News Report) - "In prison, every time we complained about our conditions, the guards would immediately remind us of comparable conditions at Guantánamo Bay. They would remind of us of CIA prisons in other parts of the world and the conditions that Iranians and others experience in prisons in the U.S.," says Shane Bauer. "We do not believe that such human rights violations on the part of our government justify what has been done to us. Not for a moment. However, we do believe that these actions on the part of the U.S. provide an excuse for other governments, including the government of Iran, to act in kind."

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Genocide-Linked General Otto Pérez Molina Poised to Become Guatemala's Next President

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Juan Gonzalez, Amy Goodman - Sep. 15 (News Analysis) - Human rights groups have accused Pérez of being directly involved in the systematic use of torture and acts of genocide in Guatemala in the 1980s. Pérez has run largely on a platform of using "an iron fist" to crack down on drug cartels. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Mayan activist, Rigoberta Menchú, is one of nine other candidates challenging Pérez.

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U.S. Navy Vet Sues Donald Rumsfeld for Torture in Iraq, Court Allows Case to Move Forward

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Donald Vance, Andrea Prasow - Aug. 11 (News Report) - On Monday, a federal appeals court refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by two U.S. citizens against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and unnamed others for developing, authorizing and using harsh interrogation techniques against detainees in Iraq. Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel were working for a private U.S. government contractor, Shield Group Security, in 2006 when they witnessed the sale of U.S. government weapons to Iraqi rebel groups for money and alcohol. After they became FBI informants and collaborated with an investigation into their employer, the company revoked their credentials for entering Iraq’s so-called Green Zone, effectively barring them from the safest part of the country. Shortly afterward, they were arrested and detained by U.S. troops, moved to the U.S.-run prison at Camp Cropper, and subjected to extreme sleep deprivation, interrogated for hours at a time, kept in a very cold cell, and denied food and water for long periods.

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