We tortured some folks

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Sunday, June 1, 2025 14:38
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SIGNYM

Friday, December 12, 2014 11:19 PM

Western media reaction has been muted. Here is an interesting headline from the BBC, that bastion of UK propaganda:

CIA 'torture' condemned by world media

Because depriving someone of sleep for 7 days, or keeping them in a tiny box for days, or repeatedly near-drowning people, or keeping them in painful stress positions for hours .... some of these actions leading to the victims' death... isn't TORTURE, it's "torture".

Ah, those sneaky quotation marks! I give the BBC zero points for its "reportage" but high marks for its propaganda.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30411466

Western press is falling all over itself to excuse or ignore acts which - if committed by the perceived enemies of the USA- would have merited front-page articles on the horrific nature of the regime in power, but in the hands of the USA and it's vassal states merits praise for having come clean.

I think the reality is that the only people that this report might shock are those few moral souls who still believe in the greatness of the USA and its allies. Most Atlanticists are on-board with whatever the USA does to maintain their privilege within the empire. Clearly, massive double standards and the denial needed to maintain them are hard at work!

And pretty much everyone else in the world knows that the USA is will use any means at its disposal - mass bombings, drone strikes, mass surveillance ("Yes we scan"), assassinations, economic warfare, and "color revolutions" - to get its way. Because if you live in a nation ruined by USA-sponsored war, or you've had a black site in your midst, you already know what's going on. This commentary from al Jazeera

Quote:
... But woven into some of the media reaction is another theme, too. It's in the Washington Post's editorial, which states: "This is not how Americans should behave. Ever."

It's in the many references, within the US, to the CIA torture as the antithesis of "national" and "American" values. And it is in Vox editor-in-chief Ezra Klein's observation: "We betrayed our values. We betrayed who we are."

Across the Arab and Muslim world this kind of response from the West might come over as somewhat belated and, well, maybe a little bit delusional, too. After all, "who we are" has been going on since 2001, at the very least (let's not get into the torture that was such an integral part of colonialism, or even the torture training that the CIA gifted a variety of brutal regimes during the 1970s). And "who we are" has for some time been painfully clear to those at the receiving end of it.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/12/cia-torture-arab-worl
d-no-sur-20141211115033414634.html

So much for the "war on terror"!

Now, when are those arrests for ordering, facilitating, and performing torture going to happen?

SECOND

Friday, December 12, 2014 11:47 PM

"Dick Cheney is Lying" http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/12/11/yes-the-cia-is-lying/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Saturday, December 13, 2014 12:00 AM

Quote:
The Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, wept on Wednesday as she unveiled the findings of a Truth Commission investigation into the systematic murder, torture and other abuses carried out during the country’s military dictatorship.

... A share of the blame went to the United States and the UK, which were found to have trained Brazilian interrogators in torture techniques

... Many Brazilian officers went to Panama to train at the School of the Americas, alongside military and police officers from almost every other Latin American country, whether run by dictators or not... Secret instruction manuals used at the school were declassified by the US department of defence in the mid-1990s, revealing training in torture and other serious violations of human rights.

... One of the few former military officers who agreed to talk to the Truth Commission was ex-colonel Paulo Malhães, who was among those sent to the UK for training. Malhães told the commission “psychological torture was best, and England was the best place to learn it”.

... Malhães, by his own admission was also a sadistic physical torturer, who used snakes, crocodiles and rats to terrify prisoners. Two weeks after giving evidence to the Truth Commission in Rio, he was found dead at his home in mysterious circumstances. Former political prisoners believe he was eliminated to stop him talking more to the Truth Commission and providing the names of torturers..

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/10/brazil-president-weeps-re
port-military-dictatorship-abuses

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns. But maybe we can torture people into compliance!

SIGNYM

Saturday, December 13, 2014 12:36 AM

BTW- the response by the CIA that they received "actionable intelligence" has fallen apart on examination and been "clarified" by John Brennan. Reporters have looked into the instances where the CIA has claimed thwarted terrorist atacks and found serious timeline discrepancies, specifically that the torture occurred AFTER a plot was discovered, in one case more than a year afterwards. In no cases were reporters able to verify that torture led to actionable intelligence or prevented a terrorist attack.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SECOND

Saturday, December 13, 2014 1:24 AM

The head of the CIA can go on national television, acknowledge that some CIA officers tortured using "abhorrent" tactics, admit that those tactics went beyond their orders and the law, note that they were never held accountable... and then do nothing more. - www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/cia-director-john-brennan
s-case-for-a-torture-trial/383693/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

JONGSSTRAW

Saturday, December 13, 2014 3:08 AM

Just terrible, a real tragedy; like a bus filled with liberals going off a mountain cliff ..... with one empty seat.

AURAPTOR

Saturday, December 13, 2014 3:10 AM

Dick Cheney is a true American.

I don't give 2 flips what Russia or Iran say about OUR Human Rights record.

Those 2 are stuck in the middle ages compared to our 21st century status.

Cheney's not lying. He's right. 100%. Truth lives here.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Saturday, December 13, 2014 3:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Western media reaction has been muted. Here is an interesting headline from the BBC, that bastion of UK propaganda:

CIA 'torture' condemned by world media

Because depriving someone of sleep for 7 days, or keeping them in a tiny box for days, or repeatedly near-drowning people, or keeping them in painful stress positions for hours .... some of these actions leading to the victims' death... isn't TORTURE, it's "torture".

Ah, those sneaky quotation marks! I give the BBC zero points for its "reportage" but high marks for its propaganda.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30411466

Western press is falling all over itself to excuse or ignore acts which - if committed by the perceived enemies of the USA- would have merited front-page articles on the horrific nature of the regime in power, but in the hands of the USA and it's vassal states merits praise for having come clean.

I think the reality is that the only people that this report might shock are those few moral souls who still believe in the greatness of the USA and its allies. Most Atlanticists are on-board with whatever the USA does to maintain their privilege within the empire. Clearly, massive double standards and the denial needed to maintain them are hard at work!

And pretty much everyone else in the world knows that the USA is will use any means at its disposal - mass bombings, drone strikes, mass surveillance ("Yes we scan"), assassinations, economic warfare, and "color revolutions" - to get its way. Because if you live in a nation ruined by USA-sponsored war, or you've had a black site in your midst, you already know what's going on. This commentary from al Jazeera

Quote:
... But woven into some of the media reaction is another theme, too. It's in the Washington Post's editorial, which states: "This is not how Americans should behave. Ever."

It's in the many references, within the US, to the CIA torture as the antithesis of "national" and "American" values. And it is in Vox editor-in-chief Ezra Klein's observation: "We betrayed our values. We betrayed who we are."

Across the Arab and Muslim world this kind of response from the West might come over as somewhat belated and, well, maybe a little bit delusional, too. After all, "who we are" has been going on since 2001, at the very least (let's not get into the torture that was such an integral part of colonialism, or even the torture training that the CIA gifted a variety of brutal regimes during the 1970s). And "who we are" has for some time been painfully clear to those at the receiving end of it.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/12/cia-torture-arab-worl
d-no-sur-20141211115033414634.html

So much for the "war on terror"!

Now, when are those arrests for ordering, facilitating, and performing torture going to happen?

You must be correct. We should have merely treated them equitably and sawed off their heads with a dull knife. Your chores of paperpushing for the Democrats must be treacherous indeed.

SIGNYM

Saturday, December 13, 2014 5:55 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Just terrible, a real tragedy; like a bus filled with liberals going off a mountain cliff ..... with one empty seat.

Too bad you weren't on it.

(You should have seen that coming)

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns. But we can torture people into it! Or ... hey ... maybe throw acid on people!

AURAPTOR

Saturday, December 13, 2014 6:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? ...

America says " HI ! " .

Yes we can !

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