TORTURE MEMO AUTHOR PUNKED

John Yoo, formerly of the Department of Justice, played a key role in the Bush administration's justification of torture. He authored the infamous "torture memo," and for his trouble he got "punked."



A man dressed as an Abu Ghraib prisoner disrupted John Yoo's class (he currently lectures at Berkeley and Chapman University). The actor climbed on a desk while Yoo was discussing constitutionality and said, "I've got one question: How long can I be required to stand here 'til it counts as torture?"

Yoo was flustered, but not as much as if he had his balls wired to an army field telephone. When Yoo ended the class, a student yelled at the actor to leave. The actor replied, "I'd love to move but every time I do my balls get buzzed."


Yoo's interview with human rights scholar Doug Cassel is a horrifying moment of candor:

Cassel: If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty

Cassel: Also no law by Congress -- that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo...

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

- John Yoo, interviewed December 1, 2005

YOU CAN'T SAY THAT ON TV

Marcy Wheeler appeared on MSNBC Monday to argue for an investigation of secret CIA operations under President Bush. Instead of concentrating on the content, the anchors focused on--and even apologized for--Wheeler's use of the word "blow job."

Have we all gone crazy? Obscenity may reside in the eye of the beholder, but as far as I'm concerned CIA torture and violence against unarmed prisoners ranks higher on the obscenity scale than a common term describing oral sex. Get real, America. Grow up!

According to ABC News, the CIA sources described a list of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" that were practiced on prisoners. Bear in mind, this is what they will admit to, so actual practices are most likely far worse:

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.

3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.

5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

This is obscene.

DIDN'T YOU GET THE MEMO?

People are furious about torture. Sort of. They're actually upset with Obama for releasing the torture memos. It turns out the CIA was torturing like crazy while President George W. Bush was denying it to the American people--so naturally conservatives are angry with Obama. God forbid we learn what our government is doing in our name. That's bad for security, they say. Of course they should be angry with the CIA for turning into the Gestapo when our backs were turned, but apparently that's too logical for these dunderheads.

It's not like we invented it or anything...waterboarding scene from the Spanish Inquisition.

According to the released memos, CIA interrogators were allowed to choke off prisoners' breathing in the simulated drowning technique called waterboarding; slap them and slam them against walls; confine them in small boxes for hours on end, sometimes with insects; and keep them awake for as many as 11 days. One captive was waterboarded 183 times in a month, another 83 times. Aside from the "intelligence" extracted in these conditions, which most agree is unreliable, moral issues arise from torturing a defenseless captive.

Shocking strangers--the Milgram study

You may remember the series of social psychology experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram to measure the willingness of participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to commits acts--such as inflicting electric shocks on others--acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.

In a 1974 article, "The Perils of Obedience," Stanley Milgram summarized his experiment:

I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

Playboy journalist Mike Guy bet he could undergo "waterboarding" for 15 seconds. How hard could it be? Maybe these guys are just whining.



The New York Times guide to the torture memos is located HERE. Read the actual memos on the ACLU website HERE.

Here is Jon Stewart's take on torture and the Bush apologists:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
We Don't Torture
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LADIES & GENTLEMEN, THE PRESIDENT

Barack Obama slams Dick Cheney on Sunday's 60 Minutes. Recently, Cheney said we are less safe without torture. In the clip, Obama remains the perfect gentlemen and makes his point without resorting to violence. Still, I'd love to see him punch Cheney in the nose. Cheney's face is just so punchable.

A singularly punchable face

In related news:
Newsweek (March 21, 09) reports that more "torture memos" from the Bush Administration are soon to be released. "Over objections from the U.S. intelligence community, the White House is moving to declassify—and publicly release—three internal memos that will lay out, for the first time, details of the "enhanced" interrogation techniques..."

locked in coffin-size boxes; swung by towels around their necks into plywood walls; and forced to stand naked for days

Newsweek continues: "The debate about torture ramped up again last week with an account in the New York Review of Books about a secret International Red Cross report that was delivered to the CIA in February 2007. The report, according to journalist Mark Danner, quotes detainees describing, often in gruesome detail, how they were locked in coffin-size boxes; swung by towels around their necks into plywood walls; and forced to stand naked for days while their arms were shackled above their heads."

Cheney would have loved these guys: Nazis practicing "enhanced" techniques for a "safer" Germany

SCREW YOUR RIGHTS!

With all due respect, do you remember these bums?

Previously secret memos written by the Bush administration outlined their reasons for why the military had the right to warrantless wiretaps and warrantless search and seizures of people in the U.S. they deemed to be terrorist suspects. The Obama administration released the memos. More secret memos are on their way. Don't be alarmed, but we might have been a doll's hair away from a police state.

Now that most right-minded people have wised up to George W. Bush (with the possible exception of Rush Limbaugh and my cousin Angie who blames liberals for everything including the high cost of cigarettes) it's time for an independent commission to investigate and make public what the Bush administration did in "the global campaign against terrorism." Things like tossing out habeas corpus, burning the Bill of Rights, giving the Geneva Convention the bum's rush, wiretapping citizens without a warrant, and basically setting up the possibility of martial law. Not to mention gutting the economy for personal gain and the enrichment of the already rich.

These bums had no shame!

Republicans, are you embarrassed yet for supporting these fools? You think Bobby Jindal can save you now? Admit you were wrong, and for a limited time only there will be a general amnesty for idiots.



"The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, said the revelations, together with the release of new information about the CIA’s destruction of 92 interrogation videotapes, had underscored the need for a commission that would have the power to subpoena documents and testimony." -Huffington Post

Read the secret documents here.

C.I.A. DESTROYS TORTURE TAPES

The C.I.A. destroyed hundreds of hours of videotapes documenting interrogations of suspected Al Qaeda members. In fact, a secret branch of the C.I.A. gave advance approval for the destruction, according to the New York Times. With so many government officials condoning "harsh interrogation techniques," to use their euphemism, might we conclude that these tapes contained evidence of torture?

Then again, maybe the C.I.A. is innocent. Let's not presume a crime has been committed, even if circumstantial evidence seems to suggest this might be the case. The presumption of innocence is a cornerstone of our legal system, and even C.I.A. operatives are innocent until proven guilty -- even if they don't seem to recognize that right for others. A long drawn-out legal investigation may be difficult (after all, the evidence may have been deliberately destroyed), but proceeding with caution is worth the trouble because it protects us all. We might be willing to surrender the rights of others, but would we want to lose our own right to a fair trial? Probably not. Those so eager to employ gestapo tactics should remember this, especially when hiring thugs with thumbscrews to do their dirty work.

BUSH SAYS TORTURE NOT TORTURE

President George Bush explains that torture is not torture. We don't like that word. Besides, we don't torture people. But if we did, we'd have a good reason to. But we don't. But if we did, we wouldn't have to tell you about it, either. But we don't. Period. Okay?



For more, see NYTimes story below.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/us/nationalspecial3/06interrogate.html?ref=us