CIA and America's approach to torture: Do it elsewhere.
There's been allegations for a while from various sources that the US has been effectively off-shoring suspected terrorists to countries where torture is commonplace. Looks the Guardian has finally found something conclusive:
MI6 is already using information or "intelligence", as they like to call it from torture victims in countries such as Uzbekiztan, as exposed by Craig Murray. The appeal court has already ruled that evidence extracted under torture is a-ok, as long as us Brits didn't do the torturing.
Furthermore, it's worth remembering that the dirty bomb scenario is a complete red-herring. BBC's Horizon conducted some research that the government and fearmongers would rather you didn't know about:
In other words, they're better off using their bodies as explosive devices, as shown recently, and constantly in Iraq.
Whether this man is a terrorist or planning attacks is beside the point. The US is too cowardly to even torture suspects itself. The horrendous images of Abu Ghraib will forever haunt the Bush administration, and Guantanamo Bay is a scar on the conscience of the American people, or as described by Amnesty International, a modern day gulag.
Torturing and inducing fear in suspects is what groups such as al-Qaida do. How have we sunk so low that we are carrying out the same things they do, supposedly to maintain our freedom? We made it through the second world war without torturing prisoners of war. What's different now?
A former London schoolboy accused of being a dedicated al-Qaida terrorist has given the first full account of the interrogation and alleged torture endured by so-called ghost detainees held at secret prisons around the world.
For two and a half years US authorities moved Benyam Mohammed around a series of prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, before he was sent to Guantánamo Bay in September last year.
Mohammed, 26, who grew up in Notting Hill in west London, is alleged to be a key figure in terrorist plots intended to cause far greater loss of life than the suicide bombers of 7/7. One allegation, which he denies, is of planning to detonate a "dirty bomb" in a US city; another is that he and an accomplice planned to collapse a number of apartment blocks by renting ground-floor flats to seal, fill with gas from cooking appliances, and blow up with timed detonators.
In an statement given to his newly appointed lawyer, Mohammed has given an account of how he was tortured for more than two years after being questioned by US and British officials who he believes were from the FBI and MI6. As well as being beaten and subjected to loud music for long periods, he claims his genitals were sliced with scalpels.
He alleges that in Morocco he was shown photos of people he knew from a west London mosque, and was asked about information he was told was supplied by MI5. One interrogator, he says, was a woman who said she was Canadian.
Drawing on his notes, Mohammed's lawyer has compiled a 28-page diary of his torture. This has been declassified by the Pentagon, and extracts are published in the Guardian today.
Recruits to some groups connected to al-Qaida are thought to be instructed to make allegations of torture after capture, and most of Mohammed's claims cannot be independently verified. But his description of a prison near Rabat closely resembles the Temara torture centre identified in a report by the US-based Human Rights Watch last October.
Furthermore, this newspaper has obtained flight records showing executive jets operated by the CIA flew in and out of Morocco on July 22 2002 and January 22 2004, the dates he says he was taken to and from the country.
If true, his account adds weight to concerns that the US authorities are torturing by proxy. It also highlights the dilemma of British authorities when they seek information from detainees overseas who they know, or suspect, are tortured.
MI6 is already using information or "intelligence", as they like to call it from torture victims in countries such as Uzbekiztan, as exposed by Craig Murray. The appeal court has already ruled that evidence extracted under torture is a-ok, as long as us Brits didn't do the torturing.
Furthermore, it's worth remembering that the dirty bomb scenario is a complete red-herring. BBC's Horizon conducted some research that the government and fearmongers would rather you didn't know about:
Horizon publishes the results of specially commissioned research, modelling two possible dirty bomb scenarios: attacks on either London or Washington DC. The main conclusion is that the health risks from a dirty bomb explosion are localised to people who are close to the incident or are in contact with the contamination. Although the modelled attack scenarios could have wide-ranging economic repercussions, the majority of the population of either capital city would have only a negligible increase in their risk of developing cancer.
In other words, they're better off using their bodies as explosive devices, as shown recently, and constantly in Iraq.
Whether this man is a terrorist or planning attacks is beside the point. The US is too cowardly to even torture suspects itself. The horrendous images of Abu Ghraib will forever haunt the Bush administration, and Guantanamo Bay is a scar on the conscience of the American people, or as described by Amnesty International, a modern day gulag.
Torturing and inducing fear in suspects is what groups such as al-Qaida do. How have we sunk so low that we are carrying out the same things they do, supposedly to maintain our freedom? We made it through the second world war without torturing prisoners of war. What's different now?
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