US Military Finally Admits To Torture

Torture: The American Way

When we think of torture, what immediately comes to mind are those insidious, evil regimes, yeah, those oppressive despots and tyrants who go out of the way to extract information from dissidents, unyielding folks and others who refuse to submit to their wills and whims. Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il and those evil commies, etc. The whole lot.

Who can imagine, then, that the United States of America, well known for touting itself as the land of the brave, home of the free, being the supposed bastion of human rights and freedom, being a nation which has surreptitiously plotted, schemed and smuggled prisoners to secret locations only to torture their sorry asses for, by and large, next-to-useless information in a dubious "war against terror" bullshit campaign?

As it turns out, an US official has, for the first time, admitted that torture has indeed been meted out to prisoners of Guantanamo Bay. There's no doubt that the Red Cross had already highlighted this heinous act years back, but hey, what better than for the real deal to come straight from the horse's mouth.

The following extract from Telegraph (In Blue):

Guantanamo Prisoner Was Tortured, Admitted US Official

By Alex Spillius in Washington Last Updated: 3:20AM GMT 15 Jan 2009

Susan Crawford, who oversees the tribunals for terror suspects at the US base in Cuba, said she believed the interrogation of Saudi national Mohammed al-Qahtani amounted to torture.

She said the frequency and the adverse effect of the torture on Qahtani's mental and physical state persuaded her that military questioners had crossed the line form harsh interrogation to illegality.

Mrs Crawford told the Washington Post she did not refer the case for prosecution as "his treatment met the legal definition of torture,"

During nearly three months of questioning, Qahtani was twice admitted to hospital with a near-fatal slowing of his heartbeat.

"You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act," said Mrs Crawford."This was not any one particular act. This was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for," she said.

After his capture in Afghanistan, Qahtani was subjected to 48 days of torture from November 2002 to January 2003, usually lasting 18 to 20 hours. He was stripped naked in front of female interrogators, subjected to extreme cold and kept in isolation for five months. He was threatened by a military dog named Zeus and was led around a room naked on a leash and told to perform dog tricks, according to an official summary of his interrogation seen by the Post.

Torture & The US Administration

As the Bush Administration faces its final doldrums, the legacy of torture and human rights abuse has become a hot topic in the media, as if 8 years of inept policies, trip-ups and disastrous military operations had suddenly become a sudden, precipitous problem.

After the 911 Incident, the US military had embarked on two military campaigns, one in Afghanistan, and subsequently another to get rid of Saddam's regime in Iraq. In the process, the US military had arrested and interrogated hundreds of prisoners, deeming them to be "enemy combatants" and proclaiming that these prisoners are not your ordinary prisoners and hence are not considered to be under the protection of the US legal system, the Geneva Convention for treatment of war prisoners (They are classified as "non-uniformed combatants" by the Bush Administration, and cannot be classified as prisoners of war!), or any other legal systems for the matter. It is kind of like being stuck in a legal limbo. This kind of erroneous interpretation poses a big loophole for the US government to smuggle a Boeing-747 load of torture and all kinds of human rights abuses.

To their credit, the Bush Administration isn't all that stupid, even if George Bush is about as intelligent as a single cell amoeba: They can't torture all that many prisoners on US soil; fuck, those human rights bastards will be poking tridents into his ass if they catch Bush in his act! No worries though, America has a land lease from no other than Fidel Castro's Guantanamo Bay to count on! No need to worry about Federal jurisdiction and all that legalistic crap, here we can torture and maim our prisoners and slap our cats and dogs without so much a whimper from these stupid human and animal rights groups!

It is all too easy to brush aside such transgressions against humanity: Sure, these are Islamic fascists, terrorists of the worst order, ready to burn down cities, subways and even humanity at the beck and call of Osama bin laden or some other religious prick.....really?

Justification for Torture???

So it is, years of torture and abuse, and really, is there any justification for this blatant violent of human rights?

Some startling statistics from BBC News:

1. Only a paltry few have ever been charged with any crime. This lot includes Australian David Hicks, Osama bin Laden's former driver Salim Hamdan and USS Cole conspirator Ali al-Bahlul.
That is an appallingly disgraceful result considering that hundreds of detainees have walked through the gates of Guantanamo Bay in the past 7 yrs.

2. As of May 2008, 270 detainees are still stuck in Guantanamo, with a good fifty to seventy of them stuck in the hellish limbo because no nation would accept them (bumper).

Charges against 20th Hijacker Dropped because of Torture Methods Used to Derive Info.

3. Some high-profile "terrorists", such as Mohammed al-Qahtani, known otherwise as "the 20th hijacker" of the 911 attacks, had his charges dropped because of the dubious investigative methods used against him at Guantanamo Bay: Yup, torture. The courts wouldn't allow torture-induced statements to indict anyone. Jesus fucking Christ!

Now here comes the startling moment of truth: A huge majority of these detainees are going to walk out of prison with no charges against them! The idea of detaining people for a potentially indefinite period of time and then releasing them somehow runs smack against the purpose of civil law, and that is why the Bush Administration tries damn hard to distinguish them from mere "common prisoners" or even enemy combatants. Clearly something horrendously wrong is going on here; after all the abuse, the bad PR and the money spent in housing these detainees, all they have got is a measly bunch of less than ten persecuted criminals.

Torture Is Not An Effective Means Of Indicting Criminals

While there are some well-meaning folks who think that in some cases, torture is well-justified, it really isn't, unless, of course, you need to satisfy your sado-masochistic tendencies in which case, this post would be irrelevant to you.

From an ethical point of view, torture belongs to the basest and most inhumane of social behavior: It implies the application of abuse and pain to deduce information from the victim in the most heinous way.

Besides, information derived from torture are mostly useless, as in the classic case of Guy Fawkes, the British rebel who tried to kill King James I in England in the infamous Gunpowder plot of 1605 (he may have been the world's first known terrorist. I stand to be corrected on this one). A weak criminal who is under the duress of torture will divulge any kind of answer the authorities want to hear, and such information can be very difficult to authenticate and are largely useless to the torturer cum interrogator.

On the other hand, the strong criminal will be so stoic that his continued silence will, in the end, infuriate the torturer, who administers and induces more pain until, finally, the criminal dies, and the information is lost forever.





These are the primary reasons why most police departments do not advocate torture, and information obtained from torture usually results in the dismissal of written statements obtained by such inhumane methods. The Bush Administration folks are not morons, and this is precisely why they try so hard to avoid such legalities. But alas, they aren't smart enough to predict the mess they have made, and for the Bush Administration to administer torture (pun intended) in such a insidious manner speaks of the evils and stupidity of George Bush to allow his staff to hoodwink him into this quagmire.


"The strong will resist and the weak will say anything to end the pain."-Ulpian

Amnesty International Backing Abortion For Rape Victim: Vatican Cries Bloody Murder

Wars: The Perfect Excuse for All Kinds of Despicable Crimes

Its a sad, torrid tale: Rape, one of the worst, dastardly tools of human rights violation, particularly so when used as weapons of war, as in the recent case of the Darfur crisis and the Japanese Army's blatant use of "comfort women" during World War II.

Of course, the situation is worsened and horrendously multiplied for the raped woman who simply has no recourse to safe, medical abortions, no thanks to the Vatican's ongoing campaign of outright stupidity that equates abortion with murder. Save the fetus, so the argument goes. The fetus, as a multi-celled organism spawned by the assimilation of sperm by the female egg, apparently has more rights than the mother, who, even after being raped, has to undergo the torment and anguish of bearing the child of the man who violates her. While the poor victim has no say in her rape predicament, the very least the medical profession can do is to offer her after-morning pills or abortion to ease the pain.

Nay, says the archaic, oppressive Vatican, the head honcho of roughly a billion Catholics. The sanctity of the fetus far outweighs the rights and plight of the unwilling mother.

Amnesty Internationals' Pro-abortion Stance

With what seems to be one of the few pieces of heartening international news (forget the recent stocks market clash, Korean hostage crisis, etc), the Amnesty International has once again reaffirmed its support for providing abortion services for rape victims.

Amnesty International Logo

The fact that Amnesty International was founded in 1961 by British lawyer and Roman Catholic convert Peter Benenson, with the explicit support and blessings of the Vatican, did not spare the humane organization from Vatican inspired vitriol.

Consider the unnecessary vilification of Amnesty International by Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace: "If, in fact, Amnesty International persists in this course of action, individuals and Catholic organizations must withdraw their support because, in deciding to promote abortion rights, Amnesty International has betrayed its mission."

Has, according to the accusations of this good Cardinal, Amnesty International genuinely betrayed its true motto? A look at the Amnesty Internationals' introductory website says it all:

Amnesty International (AI) is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights.

AI’s vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the University Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards.

In pursuit of this vision, AI’s mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights.

Apparently, Amnesty International has gotten it priorities right: Human rights, in this case, means that the rights of a woman takes precedence over that of fetuses. Besides taking up such noble causes, Amnesty International has often led campaigns against other blatant human rights abuses, such as state-sanctioned murder in the form of the death penalty, and the rights and plight of citizens caught in the dreadful crossfires of war.

Why Abortion Cannot Be Banned

The idea that banning abortion is an essentially life-saving ban is innocuous and downright abrasive: People who hold the lives of fetuses with more attached importance than the lives of the mothers ought to have their brains checked for explicit signs of faith-induced stupidity.

Every year, scores of women who undergo abortions under the knives of illegal surgeons die or suffer complications under the hands of these unlicensed doctors, no thanks to anti-abortion laws that limit or prohibit abortions outright.

The only success an abortion ban can achieve is murder: Murdering mothers who, for reasons best known to themselves, have been denied the basic human right to decide for themselves whether to terminate a pregnancy or abort it.

While religious morons can come up with divine purposes and reasonings to validate their anti-abortion stance, the reality is simple to understand: Deities don't go through rapes, nor do they have to wrestle with heart-wrenching, mortal decisions: Humans do. Deities can just fuck off.

The Vatican: The Ultimate Nemesis Against Human Rights

A Vatican Session of Ignorance, Bigotry & Irrational Thinking

The Vatican, in its stubborn insistence towards any form of birth control, has proven itself to be the ultimate nemesis against human rights. It also highlights the incredulous beliefs of the few old buggers in that silly, opulent enclave-cum-city-state (no thanks to the divine work of Mussolini, who managed to carve up a demon's liar in once-fascist Italy, whose evil will ultimately outlast his), and the idea that these geezers, plus a couple of nuns with their own missionary positions, can enthrall a billion members with their hysterical nonsense, simply beggars belief.

While AI is no doubt Catholic-inspired, I applaud Amnesty Internationals' stance with regards to the abortion issue. By deviating from the Vatican's demented rhetorics with regards to the sanctity of fetuses, the Amnesty International has lived up to its reputation. Common Sense, it seems, has prevailed in this case.

After all, we cannot expect people to hold on to arcane ideas about women being the instigator of the Original Sin, the temptress who deserves to bear the pains of child-bearing irregardless of the situation at hand.

A Case Against Torture

The Iron Maiden

According to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, torture is defined as:

"Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."

In today's humanized society, one finds it extremely deplorable, even in the most extreme of circumstances, to justify torture, one of the most ancient forms of information-gathering tools ever devised (and an extremely cruel one at that too).

When under the duress of torture, the wretched prisoner, in the midst of severe, mind-boggling pain, ceases to keep his mouth shut: He or she divulges information, allegedly truthful information, be it the admission of being one of those erstwhile, plague inducing witches during the Inquisition Era, or the admission of guilt involving high treason or assassinations.

Of Terrorists And Nuclear Bombs

The Dreaded Scenario

In today's context, the argument for torture has began to creep back into our human conscience with the advent of the "War on Terror". Even the atheist author, Sam Harris, advocates torture in singularly impossible scenarios: A terrorist has been caught. You know he has the answer to where a nuclear bomb is hidden, which, according to intelligence, is hidden somewhere in the middle of New York City. Do you torture this man to get the information you want, or do you simply try to interrogate him, as secs, mins, and hours tick away, inching towards the dreaded detonation?

Pain, it seems, is a great way to ensure loose tongues. The question here, is this: How much information gathered from such a dastardly device can actually be authenticated as true?

The Case of Guy Fawkes

While post 911 America has often brought up the case of terrorism to justify the use of force to coerce information out of suspected terrorists, the idea that torturing someone somehow makes a person spew out fountains of truth may be somewhat misleading, or even delusional.

If history is any guide, torture is a very poor tool for extracting valuable information from its victims.

Guy Fawkes, a rather contentious British rebel, is notorious for his involvement in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

The plot, masterminded by Robert Catesby, was an attempt by a group of English conspirators to kill King James I of England (VI of Scotland), his family, and most of the aristocracy in one fell swoop by blowing up the House of Lords building in the Houses of Parliament during its State Opening. Because of his experience in explosives, he was to be handed the responsibility of executing the deadly plan.

Before he could carry out his plan, he was caught red-handed in his cellar with his weapons of mass destruction.

Hoping that he would divulge the names of all his conspirators, the authorities wasted no time in torturing him: While the torture did coerce him to name his conspirators, all the names of the conspirators he divulged were either dead, or already made known to the authorities. In the end, he was executed for his role in the plot.

USA: An Exclusive Haven For Torture?

Beastly Mania: A Photo From the Now-Infamous Abu Ghraib Prison

According to the Red Cross, terror detainees once held in the CIA's secret prisons were kept and questioned under highly abusive conditions.

In a confidential report based on interviews with 14 high-value terror suspects, the Red Cross said the techniques reported by the 14 prisoners, including sleep deprivation and the use of forced standing and other so-called "stress positions," constituted a sadistic sort of combo that was deemed “harsh” by Red Cross standards.

According to the CIA, The detention methods were designed to "soften" detainees (Kind of like making ice-cream???), making them pliable during interrogation.

The End Result? Only one detainee (Out of more than 700 detainees since the detention program commenced in 2002), an Australian by the name of David Hicks, and that after five miserable years of incarceration without being charged officially with any damn crime.

Torture Does Not Work for the Stoic, Much Less the Weak-Minded

While Sam Harris and other pro-torture advocates have a point in stating their case for torture, the truth is, the use of torture to gain information is a highly unreliable technique.

Contrary to popular belief, obtaining information through the torture of a weak-minded person may be more difficult than a stoic one, since the latter is far more likely to throw up false information under duress, so as to earn temporary respite from the regime of torture. Even if the weak-minded individual is sufficiently convinced to reveal true information, his current state of mind, after having been wrecked by severe pain, may be in no condition to reveal any coherent information, however truthful he may be, hence rendering such leads useless for the interrogator.

A stoic-minded person, hell bent on keeping his evil deeds a secret, would remain silent even under extreme physical pain. He may also divulge false information as a means of throwing his interrogators off-trail, rather than a means of relief against torture. Added to that, the urgency to obtain information, or the sheer impatience or anger of the torturer may hasten the victim’s death, hence rendering the torture as nothing more than cold-blooded murder.

If anything else, torture is one of the most ineffective, archaic methods of coercing information out of prisoners, which is precisely why most police forces around the world no longer advocate torture as a viable means of information collection.

"The strong will resist and the weak will say anything to end the pain."-Ulpian