Johan Spanner for The New York Times: A view of Nisour Square, site of shooting in September 2007 involving former Blackwater contractors that killed 17 Iraqis

April 22, 2011 - A federal appeals court on Friday reopened the criminal case against four former American military contractors accused of manslaughter in connection with a shooting that killed at least 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007.

A panel discussion featuring the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, legal experts and special video testimonials from victims of the U.S. torture program

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 2011, 6:30 p.m.
Lutheran Church of the Reformation
212 E Capitol St, Washington D.C. 20003
(located between 2nd and 3rd Streets, behind the U.S. Supreme Court;
closest metro stops: Capitol South and Union Station)

Continued Prosecution of Manning Will Embarrass U.S. Foreign Policy Establishment

By Kevin Zeese

After months of pressure, the Obama administration is finally transferring PFC Bradley Manning to a military prison appropriately designed for pre-trial detention in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. While the transfer of Manning away from the abusive Quantico Marine Corps Brig may be a positive step, the U.S. government remains trapped in a Manning Quagmire. If they proceed their embarrassment will continue to grow as the truth about U.S. foreign policy is reviewed under a microscope.

Can't say Nobody told them so!!!!

Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq

Reuters: A British Army soldier investigates a large fire near Basra's Shuiba refinery

19 April 2011 - Plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world's largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.

The papers, revealed here for the first time, raise new questions over Britain's involvement in the war, which had divided Tony Blair's cabinet and was voted through only after his claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Retired Colonel: “Obama could end torture with one phone call."

For Immediate Release
For Further Information
Jeff Paterson
Kevin Zeese
Bradley Manning Support Network
press@bradleymanning.org
1-202-640-4388

Mistreatment of Manning Criticized by Leading Law Professors & UN Torture Investigator

Hundreds of Thousands Write Obama Urging End to Manning Abuse

Retired Colonel: “Obama Could End Torture of Manning
With One Phone Call”

Public letter.

List of signers.

Article in the Guardian.

Military Tribunal May Keep 9/11 Motives Hidden

By Ray McGovern

The Obama administration’s decision to use a military tribunal rather than a federal criminal court to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others means the real motives behind the 9/11 attacks may remain obscure.

The Likud Lobby and their allied U.S. legislators can chalk up a significant victory for substantially shrinking any opportunity for the accused planners of 9/11 to tell their side of the story.

What? I sense some bristling. “Their side of the story?” Indeed! We’ve been told there is no “their side of the story.”

Bromides Vice Explanations

For years, President George W. Bush got away with offering up the risible explanation that they “hate our freedoms.” The stenographers of the White House press corps may have had to suppress smiles but silently swallowed the “they-hate-us-for-our-freedoms” rationale.

Right to Peaceably Assemble to Redress Grievances Undermined by Quantico Marine Command that Violates Soldier’s Oath

By Kevin Zeese

“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”

Soldiers Oath

On March 20th, Americans, in a vet led assembly, gathered to support PFC Bradley Manning who is accused of leaking documents to WikiLeaks and who has been held in solitary confinement at the Quantico Marine Base for 7 months. We worked successfully with the Prince William County Police for a safe and peaceful event, but one aspect of the event was in dispute – a veteran led flower laying ceremony.

Omar Khadr's Canadian Lawyer Speaks at U of O

April 1, 2011 - Dennis Edney, the Canadian lawyer for Omar Khadr, gave a powerful talk on Mar. 21 at the University of Ottawa, where he presented the case that Khadr has been pushed through a sham legal system devoid of any real justice.

The event was sponsored by Amnesty International UO and a number of other campus groups, including the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa.

Since its founding three years ago, High Road for Human Rights (www.highroadforhumanrights.org) has vigorously advocated for the restoration of the rule of law in the U.S. – for an end to torture, an end to felonious surveillance of U.S. citizens, accountability for illegal conduct by administration officials, and a commitment to a constitutional balance of power, where the courts once again provide a check on abuses of power by the other branches of government.

From ACSLaw.org

The United States and Torture

Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse

By Marjorie Cohn, editor

[Available Here]

By Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, past president of the National Lawyers Guild, and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Cohn edited The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration and Abuse, a collection of essays.

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is facing court-martial for leaking military reports and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico brig in Virginia. Each night, he is forced to strip naked and sleep in a gown made of coarse material. He has been made to stand naked in the morning as other inmates walked by and looked. As journalist Lance Tapley documents in his chapter on torture in the supermax prisons in The United States and Torture, solitary confinement can lead to hallucinations and suicide; it is considered to be torture. Manning's forced nudity amounts to humiliating and degrading treatment, in violation of U.S. and international law.

Nevertheless, President Barack Obama defended Manning's treatment, saying, "I've actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures . . . are appropriate. They assured me they are." Obama's deference is reminiscent of President George W. Bush, who asked "the most senior legal officers in the U.S. government" to review the interrogation techniques. "They assured me they did not constitute torture," Bush said.

The order for Manning's nudity apparently followed what he described as a sarcastic comment he made to guards after their repeated harassment of him regarding how he was to salute them. Manning said that if he were intent on strangling himself, he could use his underwear or flip-flops.

"In my 40 years of hospital psychiatric practice, I've never heard of something like this," said Dr. Steven Sharfstein, a former president of the American Psychiatric Association. "In some very unusual circumstances, when people are intensely suicidal, you might put them in a hospital gown. ... But it's very, very unusual to be in that kind of suicide watch for this long a period of time."

Sharfstein also was concerned that military officials appeared to defy the recommendations of mental health professionals. "He's been examined by psychiatrists who said he's not suicidal. ... They are making medical judgments in the face of medical evaluations to the contrary," Sharfstein noted.

After State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley criticized Manning's conditions of confinement, the White House forced him to resign. Crowley had said the restrictions were "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid." It appears that Washington is more intent on sending a message to would-be whistleblowers than on upholding the laws that prohibit torture and abuse.

Torture is commonplace in countries strongly allied with the United States. Vice President Omar Suleiman, Egypt's intelligence chief, was the lynchpin for Egyptian torture when the CIA sent prisoners to Egypt in its extraordinary rendition program. A former CIA agent observed, "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear - never to see them again - you send them to Egypt." In her chapter in The United States and Torture, New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer cites Egypt as the most common destination for suspects rendered by the United States.

 She describes the rendering of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi to Egypt, where he was tortured and made a false confession that Colin Powell cited as he importuned the Security Council to approve the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Al-Libi later recanted his confession.

"lived in fear of being killed by them every day."

By their actions, not only in killing civilians but the mistreatment of the bodies of those killed, they raised the bar of more retaliation and blowback, you can't hide atrocities and war crimes in a conflict theater, not only towards them but all the soldiers serving in the occupation as well as a rise in international criminal terrorism, it only takes a few!

JBLM Soldier Morlock Sentenced To 24 Years For Killing Afghan Civilians

March 23, 2011 - Spc. Jeremy Morlock, one of five 5th Stryker Brigade soldiers out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord facing military charges of premeditated murder while deployed in Afghanistan, pleaded guilty in a general court-martial Wednesday and was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

Add your name to the Demand for the Restoration of the Rule of Law and Accountability for War Crimes today.

High Road for Human Rights is building a grassroots network that educates and mobilizes people in local communities nationwide to push for changes in human rights policies and practices.

Since its founding three years ago, High Road has vigorously advocated for the restoration of the rule of law in the U.S. – for an end to torture, an end to felonious surveillance of U.S. citizens, accountability for illegal conduct by administration officials, and a commitment to a constitutional balance of power, where the courts once again provide a check on abuses of power by the other branches of government.

By John Grant

A contingent of 20 right-wing veterans with flags and signs declaring their devotion to “our troops,” marched up to the blocked-off Pennsylvania Avenue area in front of the White House. One of the men wore a blue shirt with Army Security Agency printed on it.

“I was in the ASA,” I said to the man, attempting some kind of cordial dialogue. At nineteen, I had been an Army Security Agency radio direction finder in the mountains west of Pleiku.

The heavy-set man glowered at me and said: “I’m sorry to hear that.” It was as if he were somehow the arbiter of who was, and who wasn’t, a good American, as if he alone gave a damn about "our troops."
I shot back at him: “So, what the hell does that mean?” He turned away, and I moved on. So much for dialogue.

If the past decade plus didn't answer that question, after 9/11, as well as the one about our 'freedoms', because you didn't pay attention to what's done in your names over the decades, maybe these very recent news reports will jog that overwhelming arrogance and total apathy embedded in the minds of this country.

A friend of american christianity is back in the news.

Adding to the recruitment by more then just the actions within the occupations and wars of choice, the ongoing hateful actions and rhetoric. The fear from within under the guise of 'religious?' ideology followed by the hateful and intolerant. But this 'preacher?', and those like him, the rehadists (R), aren't 'fighting them over there' nor anywhere, those we send over and over are!!

U.S. and coalition forces launched missiles and bombs at targets in Iraq including a “decapitation attack” aimed at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other top members of the country’s leadership.

There were nearly 300,000 American, British and other troops at the border.
President George W. Bush warned Americans that the conflict "could be longer and more difficult than some predict." He assured the nation that “this will not be a campaign of half-measures, and we will accept no outcome except victory.”

Read about the cost of this war

Timeline

This Week in Peace History

Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International
Founded by and for People who Have Experienced Torture

The Friends of TASSC
Cordially Invite You to a Fundraising and Recognition Awards Dinner

Featuring Frida Ngwa - “A Survivor’s Perspective”

Honoring
Coleen Kivlahan, M.D., MSPH, J. Schmidt Free Clinic,
Physicians for Human Rights, and
Witness Against Torture
for Significant Contributions to the Struggle Against Torture and the Treatment and Healing of Torture Survivors

Keynote Speaker
Stephen Xenakis, M.D.
Leading Military Critic of U.S. Torture Policy

Retired Brig. Gen., with a 28-year Army career as a medical corps officer, has written widely on medical ethics, military medicine, and the treatment of detainees.

“The Struggle Against U.S. Sponsored Torture”
Saturday, April 16, 2011, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.
(6:00 Drinks; 6:45 Dinner; 7:45 Recognition Awards; 8:00 Keynote Address)
Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington

Torturing Bradley Manning - by Stephen Lendman

A previous article discussed him in detail, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/08/bradley-manning-american-hero.html

Another discussed torture as official US policy, institutionalized under Bush II, continued under Obama, practiced despite official denials, accessed below:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/07/torture-as-official-us-policy.html

Manning, of course, is the courageous Army intelligence analyst turned whistleblower, who admitted leaking thousands of diplomatic cables, many others from Iraq and Afghan war databases, as well as two or more explosive videos, showing US air strikes murdering civilians. As a result, he felt obligated to reveal them. They're criminal acts, demanding prosecution of everyone up the chain of command ordering them.

eighth anniversary of America's invasion of Iraq.

Yep, and it seems now that the U.S. media is trying to spin their own rovian revisionist history as to why they didn't do their jobs, eight years later!

And after all this time, questions still remain as to why the United States launched the war in the first place.

Really Simon, questions? Seems hundreds of thousands here with added millions, us 'focus groups', around this planet were questioning before, on the day the invasion started and all these years later, as well as paying attention to the better late then never Inquiries held as well as all the proof then and through these eight years. Where have all of you been?

This is how we treat a lower rank soldier suspect, as the leaders walk free with no worries, apparently, as to accountability of what they did In Our Names!!

by Debra Sweet

On March 2, the U.S. military announced 22 more charges against Bradley Manning, the accused Army Private imprisoned in solitary confinement since May 2010. One of the new charges, “aiding the enemy,” is potentially punishable with death. This a most outrageous development, echoing the months of right-wingers screaming for his death. View the charges. Word comes that Brad is now held naked overnight, and forced to stand at attention that way.

The system holding him is nakedly unjust!

The charges themselves expose the extent to which the U.S. military is spread across the world is involved in actions with names like “Operation Hammer,” detailed in tens of thousands of reports stored in the internet. I am not the first to point out the irony that the Obama administration offered praise — growing fainter by the day — to those protesting in streets in Egypt and Tunisia with outrage fueled by the very revelations Manning faces death for exposing.

Brilliant and humane playwright Karen Malpede has produced another play that grabs this country by the lapels, shakes it, caresses its cheek, and kicks its ass. The play is called "Another Life" and the life it leaves me thinking about is the life of our dreams.

The play is not so much a national nightmare or a national fantasy as a surreal reproduction of the mixture of horrors and hopes that most dreaming is: the most gruesome and graphic and taboo of our collective fears without exactly the fear itself, the deepest of longings and desires in immediate and mundane form but recognizable as revelations upon awakened reflection.

We will never have any type of full accountability of the deaths of the civilians in Iraq as to the invasion and long occupation, still ongoing, what we do know is the possibility of tens of thousands killed, tens of thousands maimed, unknown numbers of physiological damaged Iraqi's living in the death and destruction of almost daily 9/11's especially in the cities destroyed, millions made into refugee's both inside the country and to neighboring countries and beyond, a country totally destroyed and changed forever! Done In Our Names!

By John Grant

Stripping before men still clothed is the first step toward weakening the prisoner’s psychological defense. … But stripping is also sexually laden. It transposes sexual gestures, acts and innuendo from a strip club to the torture chamber. Thus sex is always present in the torture chamber whether the victim is a man or a woman. The sexing of torture is deeply grounded in the recesses of the torturer’s psyche.

-Marnia Lazreg, Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algeria to Baghdad

The process – employed in the name of “security” – which involves the mutual destruction of human dignity, seems to be an integral part of most police and specialized agency methods.

-Breyten Breytenbach, The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist

by Orla Guerin, BBC

Every other night Saad Iqbal Madni wakes up screaming. For more than five years the Pakistani Islamic scholar was one ghost among many - Prisoner Number 746 in Guantanamo Bay.

In terror-filled moments, in the dead of night, he still is.

"Since they arrest me, up to today, every second night I wake up screaming, yelling and crying," he said, breaking down in tears.

"I can't forget what they did to me. No one can do that with the animals. I don't know how they can do that with human beings."

Read more at: http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/news/40-recent-news/861-2-24-11-f...

Spanish Court Allows Guantanamo Torture Investigation To Continue

Mar 2nd, 2011 - On Friday, the Spanish National Court (Audiencia Nacional) gave hope to those seeking to hold accountable the Bush administration officials and lawyers who authorized torture by agreeing to continue investigating allegations made by a Moroccan-born Spanish resident, Lahcen Ikassrien, that he was tortured at Guantánamo, where he was held from 2002 to 2005.

U.S. Support for War Crimes Investigation of Libya Hinged on Exemption for Americans

March 2, 2011 - In an effort to hold Libya accountable [1] for its violent crackdown on protesters, the U.S. and other members of the United Nations Security Council voted in favor of a resolution [2] asking the International Criminal Court to investigate whether the Libyan government has committed crimes against humanity. The ICC announced today [3]that an investigation was found to be warranted and would proceed.

As the Associated Press has noted, it’s the first time that the U.S. has voted in favor of the war crimes court but in keeping with its longtime fear of being prosecuted by the ICC, the U.S also included in the resolution a carve-out [4] for itself. The AP reports that the provision was a "deal breaker" for the U.S.: