Government admits filming torture of Gitmo inmate, alleged 9/11 plotter

[clambake]

Yeah I read it the afgahns were starteling few most seem to be from Yemen, alot of Saudis alot of Pakis. go read it........Darrins right I think you and Chimp are the same person.

you mean that there's other people there besides afghans?

[LnGrrrR]

These people were captured in a friggen war zone by solidiers. Of course they weren't mirandized and treated from the start as if getting a conviction in an America court was the primary purpose of detention. Do we need to be sending attorneys out with the Marines to make sure the ing Talibans civil rights aren't violated?

Uhm... incorrect. Not all of them were captured in a 'war zone'. In fact the whole war on terror pretty much negates the idea of a 'war zone'. Look up info on Jose Padilla and where he was 'captured'.

Do you think that America is too weak to provide a model system of justice, even to those who might be terrorists? Our system of justice is one of the things that makes America great. We should take pride in knowing that, when we find someone guilty, we've given them their fair chance to explain their actions. That's justice. Kangaroo courts aren't justice.

[LnGrrrR]

The point isn't your interested in justice, it is your intrested in throwing this into the court system which then becomes a gordian's knot of bull at which wahhbist, and radical funds can be thrown forever.

Actually, I am interesting in justice. I thought that was one thing liberals and conservatives could agree on, at least. Seems I was wrong.

I mean Al Capone never spent a day in jail for murder nor did Bill Ayers though both had blood on thier hands.Courts don't always find justice.

You bring up a good point here. The government KNEW that Al Capone was committing murder, right? Why didn't they just arrest him? I mean, why let due process get in the way? PEOPLE WERE BEING MURDERED. Isn't it the government's job to keep people safe?

[Winehole23]

I say form a tribunal, find those guilty who are, and execute them.

We formed tribunals designed to convict everyone as guilty; they were incompetent in every sense of the word.

We already have a system that works: the criminal justice system. We also have very broad anti-terrorism laws that apply to anyone to gives material support to terrorists.

Given the fiasco of military commissions and the national disgrace of Gitmo, (besides black ops) criminal justice appears to be the way to go in the future.

[hope4dopes]

We formed tribunals designed to convict everyone as guilty; they were incompetent in every sense of the word.

We already have a system that works: the criminal justice system. We also have very broad anti-terrorism laws that apply to anyone to gives material support to terrorists.

Given the fiasco of military commissions and the national disgrace of Gitmo, (besides black ops) criminal justice appears to be the way to go in the future.

I have not seen any national outcry from the American people about gitmo. I've seen leftist ideolouges try and stage one but it doesn't have any legs.The thousand and thousands that marched on washington this summer, the millions that packed town halls, seem to have a very different idea of what consitutes a national disgrace.

[clambake]

I have not seen any national outcry from the American people about gitmo. I've seen leftist ideolouges try and stage one but it doesn't have any legs.The thousand and thousands that marched on washington this summer, the millions that packed town halls, seem to have a very different idea of what consitutes a national disgrace.

[Winehole23]

These people were captured in a friggen war zone by solidiers. Of course they weren't mirandized and treated from the start as if getting a conviction in an America court was the primary purpose of detention. Do we need to be sending attorneys out with the Marines to make sure the ing Talibans civil rights aren't violated?

Yep, we did.

They weren't the worst of the worst. Most of them weren't even bad guys.

We detained them without cause, held them without hearings before a neutral magistrate, and tortured them, and held them in prison for years.

Why did GWB release 75% of them without any charges if that were all bad guys?

[Winehole23]

the commies at Military.com are undermining our government:

The "Dirty 30" probably weren't all Osama bin Laden bodyguards after all. The "Karachi 6" weren't a cell of bombers plotting attacks in Pakistan for al-Qaida. An Afghan man captured 14 years ago as a suspected chemical weapons maker was confused for somebody else.

An ongoing review shows the U.S. intelligence community has been debunking long-held myths about some of the "worst of the worst" at Guantanamo, some of them still held today. The retreat emerges in a series of unclassified prisoner profiles released by the Pentagon in recent years, snapshots of much larger dossiers the public cannot see, prepared for the Periodic Review Board examining the Pentagon's "forever prisoner" population.


Afghan Abdul Zahir is a case in point: U.S. Rangers captured him and some "su ious items" in a July 11, 2002, raid on his home on su ion of "involvement with chemical/biological weapons activity." During George W. Bush's presidency he was briefly charged with war crimes, accused of being an al-Qaida conspirator named Abdul Bari, a nickname used by Zahir as well. The parole board cleared him for release on July 11, 2016 -- no trial necessary -- after an intelligence assessment concluded he "was probably misidentified as the individual who had ties to al-Qaida weapons facilitation."


"They had the wrong guy the whole time," said Air Force Lt. Col. Sterling Thomas, his defense attorney since 2010. "Abdul Zahir shared a name with a terrorist that they thought they were looking for. He unfortunately was further condemned by the fact that United States forces couldn't distinguish between bomb-making materials and the salt, sugar and petroleum jelly he had nearby when he was wrongly arrested."

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...rst-myths.html

[Winehole23]

most of them were bounty babies:

The do ents also offer a window into the wobbly world of early war-on-terror intelligence gathering and analysis where a su ion built on cir stances of capture gelled into allegations of membership in a terror cell that on reflection more than a decade later probably didn't exist. In a series of interviews, intelligence sources -- including people who served at Guantanamo at the time -- blamed bad intelligence on a combination of urgency to produce, ignorance about al-Qaida and Afghanistan at the prison's inception and inexperience in the art of investigation and analysis.


"It was clear early on that the intelligence was grossly wrong," said Mark Fallon, a retired 30-year federal officer who between 2002 and 2004 was Special Agent in Charge of the Department of Defense's Criminal Investigation Task Force. Most "weren't battlefield captives," he said, calling many "bounty babies" -- men captured by Afghan warlords or Pakistani security forces and sent to Guantanamo "on the sketchiest bit of intelligence with nothing to corroborate."

[Winehole23]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/wo...anamo-bay.html

[Winehole23]

At least 119 men moved through the C.I.A. jails, where the interrogations were designed to disrupt the senses and increase helplessness — factors that researchers decades earlier had said could make people more susceptible to psychological harm. Forced nudity, sensory deprivation and endless light or dark were considered routine.


Many of those men were later released without charges, unsure of why they were held. About one in four prisoners should never have been captured, or turned out to have been misidentified by the C.I.A.

[Winehole23]

will another 9/11 plotter go free because we tortured him?

(warning: gruesome medical details)

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nati...107451907.html

[Winehole23]

Video of the US att'y arguing children don't need soap, toothbrushes or a blanket has deservedly gone viral, but Popehat makes a great point. The USA has a long history of defending abusive detention.

[boutons_deux]

https://www.spurstalk.com/forums/sho...=1#post9849482

[Winehole23]

It will seem like a non-sequitur to some, but Obama's failure to hold anyone to account for torture, warrantless domestic surveillance of people not suspected of anything, and the rampant financial fraud that caused the crash of 2008 -- normalized it all and in part made Trump's ascendancy possible.

Obama expanded the powers of the executive, increased official secrecy, assailed the privacy of citizens, normalized the assassination of citizens by the government and prosecuted whistleblowers. His chief policy achievement was a deal done behind closed doors with insurance and pharma companies that only slowed, but did not reverse health care costs.

Obama delegitimized government and Democratic Party rule, to the detriment of us all. Trump owes a big debt to Obama for the power he wields now.

Obama greased the skids for an authoritarian grifter like Trump.

[DMC]

Everything that's happened since the dawn of time has made things that come afterward possible.

Why is it notable in this one instance?

[Winehole23]

Everything that's happened since the dawn of time has made things that come afterward possible.

Why is it notable in this one instance?

Proximate in time and place. Obama is Trump's immediate predecessor.

God, you're trite.

[boutons_deux]

It will seem like a non-sequitur to some, but Obama's failure to hold anyone to account for torture, warrantless domestic surveillance of people not suspected of anything, and the rampant financial fraud that caused the crash of 2008 -- normalized it all and in part made Trump's ascendancy possible.

Obama expanded the powers of the executive, increased official secrecy, assailed the privacy of citizens, normalized the assassination of citizens by the government and prosecuted whistleblowers. His chief policy achievement was a deal done behind closed doors with insurance and pharma companies that only slowed, but did not reverse health care costs.

Obama delegitimized government and Democratic Party rule, to the detriment of us all. Trump owes a big debt to Obama for the power he wields now.

Obama greased the skids for an authoritarian grifter like Trump.

Obama's plate was full of with Repug Congress obstructing everything.

Obama could have spent all of his 8 years trying clean the plate full of Repug that the Repugs handed him, and probably failed, while not having any political capital do the good stuff he did accomplish beyond the reach of the Repug scorched earth obstructionism.

His first 2 years were preoccupied by the Banksters' Great Depression and trying to get ACA passed by a thread

Then he lost Congress in 2010 as White Male Christian Supremacists rose up to block their hatted knitter.

I think he and his staff knew they had to pick their battles, and Repugs left them dozens of battles.

iow, the dubya/ head storm Reign of Error was insurmountable, and now unpunished but still poisoning America.

Now all the good Obama stuff has been cancelled and even reversed, as the Repugs/Trash/oligarchy bulldozes America, Americans deeper into decline and un ability.

[koriwhat]

Obama's plate was full of with Repug Congress obstructing everything.

Obama could have spent all of his 8 years trying clean the plate full of Repug that the Repugs handed him, and probably failed, while not having any political capital do the good stuff he did accomplish beyond the reach of the Repug scorched earth obstructionism.

His first 2 years were preoccupied by the Banksters' Great Depression and trying to ACA passed by a thread

Then he lost Congress in 2010 as White Male Christian Supremacist rose up to block their hatted knitter.

I think he and his staff knew they had to pick their battles, and Repugs left them dozens of battles.

iow, the dubya/ head storm Reign of Error was insurmountable, and now unpunished but still poisoning America.

Now all the good Obama stuff has been cancelled and even reversed, as the Repugs/Trash/oligarchy bulldozes America, Americans deeper into decline and un ability.

excuses as always for your faux golden god


btw, you playing with words still shows your racist ways bouts... "knitter" just say what your racist ass truly wants to say. ing loser!

[Winehole23]

Obama's plate was full of with Repug Congress obstructing everything.

Obama could have spent all of his 8 years trying clean the plate full of Repug that the Repugs handed him, and probably failed, while not having any political capital do the good stuff he did accomplish beyond the reach of the Repug scorched earth obstructionism.

His first 2 years were preoccupied by the Banksters' Great Depression and trying to ACA passed by a thread

Then he lost Congress in 2010 as White Male Christian Supremacist rose up to block their hatted knitter.

I think he and his staff knew they had to pick their battles, and Repugs left them dozens of battles.

iow, the dubya/ head storm Reign of Error was insurmountable, and now unpunished but still poisoning America.

Now all the good Obama stuff has been cancelled and even reversed, as the Repugs/Trash/oligarchy bulldozes America, Americans deeper into decline and un ability.

After Obama was elected, Dems lost traction nationwide for a decade. Any more such victories and the Dems will be finished for good.

[Winehole23]

Biden fights to keep the US black site in Poland and what happened there a secret.

Continuity, not change.

One of the longest-held prisoners in the U.S. global war on terror is finally getting a day in court. Sort of. The prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, who has never been charged with a crime, has been waiting 14 years for a federal judge to rule on his habeas corpus pe ion that challenges the legality of his detention. But next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on a separate case: Zubaydah’s request that he be permitted to take testimony from the two CIA contractors who oversaw his torture.


The Trump administration intervened to block public disclosure about how Zubaydah was treated while in U.S. custody, or even where he was held, and the Biden administration is continuing the fight. In its Supreme Court briefs, the administration has cited an array of arguments against allowing the two men to be deposed, citing everything from the state secrets privilege, which shields highly sensitive government information from being revealed in civil litigation, to the plot of the Oscar-winning thriller “Argo.”


Zubaydah’s case has reached the Supreme Court circuitously, beginning with an investigation in Poland five years ago into whether any of its government officials were complicit in Zubaydah’s detention and torture. The United States has refused to cooperate with the Polish prosecutors, citing national security concerns.

https://www.propublica.org/article/w...site-in-poland

[Winehole23]

the US wrecked its human rights prestige and its reputation for impartial justice for nothing, tbh

Zubaydah was the first prisoner on whom Mitc and Jessen tested their techniques, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report released in 2014.


After the CIA seized Zubaydah in Pakistan in March 2002 and secretly took him to a black site in Thailand, Bush administration officials asserted that he was al-Qaida’s third-highest-ranking leader. The government has since acknowledged that he was not a senior terrorist leader and that he had no known connection to the 9/11 attacks. He had been in and out of Afghanistan and Pakistan for nearly a decade and had suffered a serious head injury while fighting against the Soviet-backed government. Intelligence officials concluded he was more of a facilitator, providing false passports, housing and other arrangements for men, some potential terrorists, who moved between the two countries.


“He wasn’t hatching plots and giving orders,” Robert Grenier, the CIA station chief in Islamabad when Zubaydah was being monitored and eventually seized, wrote in his book “88 Days to Kandahar.” “I did not expect that he would know the time or place of the next attack.” However, in Washington, CIA officials were convinced that Zubaydah knew about plans to attack the United States, and Mitc was determined to extract the information, according to declassified do ents.


After being waterboarded 83 times in Thailand, Zubaydah had still not revealed any “actionable intelligence,” cables from Thailand to Langley reported. Later, interrogators would conclude he knew nothing about al-Qaida’s plans.

[Winehole23]

As the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a nonprofit organization in London, put it in a brief recently filed with the Supreme Court in support of Zubaydah, “Study after study, report after report, emerging from the CIA, DOJ and SSCI, along with flight record after flight record, flight invoice after invoice, have confirmed, in graphic and granular detail, what the world already knows: that the CIA had black sites in Thailand, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.”


Even the former Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski has acknowledged that the CIA had set up a black site in his country. “Of course, everything took place with my knowledge,” he told Poland’s leading newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, in 2012. “The President and the Prime Minister agreed to the intelligence co-operation with the Americans, because this was what was required by national interest.”

[Winehole23]

If Zubaydah wins his bid to admit evidence of his own “interrogation” at his secret military trial, that could be (by my casual count) three alleged 9/11 perps who got off because we tortured them.

[Winehole23]

"no one cares"