SYRIA - War Criminal Bashar al-Assad's Prisons

WANTED - Dead or Alive

"In Syria, more than 100,000 have entered Assad’s prisons — and never returned" PBS NewsHour 5/13/2019

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SUMMARY:  While one phrase of Syria's brutal nine-year civil war may be concluding, the systemic forced disappearance, torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of Syrians has not ceased.  Amna Nawaz talks to Anne Barnard of the Council on Foreign Relations and formerly The New York Times about the staggering inhumanity of Bashar al-Assad's regime and what accountability, if any, it will face.

AMERICAN POLITICS - Gina Haspel

"Gina Haspel vows never to resume CIA interrogation as Senate presses her on moral code" PBS NewsHour 5/9/2018

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SUMMARY:  Gina Haspel couldn't talk about her work for three decades.  On Wednesday, she had to defend it.  Haspel, who played pivotal roles in the agency's most controversial recent actions in the years after 9/11, promised to never restart brutal interrogation techniques.  But Democrats wanted her to go farther.  Nick Schifrin reports.

"The arguments for and against Gina Haspel as CIA director" PBS NewsHour 5/9/2018

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SUMMARY:  Should the Senate confirm CIA director nominee Gina Haspel?  Nick Schifrin gets two views on her background and role in a controversial detention and interrogation program from John Rizzo a former DIA chief legal officer, and retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Stephen Xenakis.

NORTH KOREA - Response to Otto Warmbier's Death

"Will Otto Warmbier’s death affect U.S. strategy on North Korea?" PBS NewsHour 6/20/2017

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SUMMARY:  President Trump condemned the death of 22-year-old American student Otto Warmbier -- who was released from North Korean detention in a coma -- and seemed to abandon his goal of enlisting China to pressure the regime.  How does Warmbier’s tragic end affect the U.S. approach?  John Yang explores what's at stake with Kathleen Stephens, former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea.

NORTH KOREA - Freed Student in Coma

"U.S. college student freed from North Korea after falling into extended coma" PBS NewsHour 6/13/2017

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SUMMARY:  Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old American college student, has been medically evacuated under desperate circumstances after being detained in North Korea.  North Korean authorities arrested Otto, who is now comatose, almost 18 months ago during a trip to the reclusive nation and sentenced him to 15 years of hard labor for taking a poster.  Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner reports.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now to the release of Otto Warmbier from captivity in North Korea.

The American college student was arrested almost 18 months ago during a trip to the reclusive nation, and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

This morning came word suddenly that the United States had secured his release, but under apparently desperate circumstances.  Warmbier is comatose, and has been for a year.  An American delegation in Pyongyang petitioned for his immediate release yesterday.

SYRIA - House of Death

"Amnesty documents 'human slaughterhouse' in Assad's Syria" PBS NewsHour 2/7/2017

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SUMMARY:  Somewhere between 5,000 and 13,000 people were tortured and executed at one Syrian military prison between 2011 and 2015, according to Amnesty International.  A new report alleges that officials at the high level of government approved the killings.  William Brangham discusses the disturbing details and larger implications with Amnesty's Sunjeev Bery.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Amnesty International has just issued a report documenting what it says is clear evidence that the Assad regime in Syria has been illegally imprisoning, torturing and murdering political opponents.

William Brangham has more.

And a warning:  Some of the details here are disturbing.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  Amnesty's report says that somewhere between 5,000 and 13,000 people were tortured and executed at one military prison outside Damascus between 2011 and 2015.

Amnesty alleges that officials at the highest level of the Syrian government approved the killings, as did the grand mufti of Syria, the highest ranking religious figure in the country.

I'm joined now by Sunjeev Bery.  He's Amnesty's director of advocacy for the Middle East and North Africa.

SUNJEEV BERY, Amnesty International:  Thank you for having me.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Very, very troubling reading in this report and the stories of the people who were tortured and executed at this prison.

Can you tell me, who were these people?

SUNJEEV BERY:  There were thousands of civilians, as well as some ex-military officers, who are held at Saydnaya prison in Saydnaya, Syria.

We estimate that between 10,000 and 20,000 people are held there now.  And for years, on a weekly basis, as many as 50 people have been hanged in mass executions by the Syrian government at this prison.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  And are these people who are picked up — what are the crimes that they're accused of?

SUNJEEV BERY:  Many of them are perceived to be opposition to the government, although when you're doing this kind of mass arrest, mass torture and miss execution, who knows what the individual people's backgrounds are?

And, of course, peaceful, nonviolent opposition to a government is certainly not a crime.  But with that background, many of them are subjected to forced confessions through extraordinarily brutal torture, and once that confession is put via ink to paper, then the execution process begins.

WAR ON ISIS - The Torture Before Beheadings

"The Horror Before the Beheadings" by RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, New York Times 10/25/2014

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ISIS Hostages Endured Torture and Dashed Hopes, Freed Cellmates Say

The hostages were taken out of their cell one by one.

In a private room, their captors asked each of them three intimate questions, a standard technique used to obtain proof that a prisoner is still alive in a kidnapping negotiation.

James Foley returned to the cell he shared with nearly two dozen other Western hostages and collapsed in tears of joy.  The questions his kidnappers had asked were so personal (“Who cried at your brother’s wedding?”  “Who was the captain of your high school soccer team?”) that he knew they were finally in touch with his family.

It was December 2013, and more than a year had passed since Mr. Foley vanished on a road in northern Syria.  Finally, his worried parents would know he was alive, he told his fellow captives.  His government, he believed, would soon negotiate his release.

What appeared to be a turning point was in fact the start of a downward spiral for Mr. Foley, a 40-year-old journalist, that ended in August when he was forced to his knees somewhere in the bald hills of Syria and beheaded as a camera rolled.

His videotaped death was a very public end to a hidden ordeal.

The story of what happened in the Islamic State’s underground network of prisons in Syria is one of excruciating suffering.  Mr. Foley and his fellow hostages were routinely beaten and subjected to waterboarding.  For months, they were starved and threatened with execution by one group of fighters, only to be handed off to another group that brought them sweets and contemplated freeing them.  The prisoners banded together, playing games to pass the endless hours, but as conditions grew more desperate, they turned on one another.  Some, including Mr. Foley, sought comfort in the faith of their captors, embracing Islam and taking Muslim names.

Their captivity coincided with the rise of the group that came to be known as the Islamic State out of the chaos of the Syrian civil war.  It did not exist on the day Mr. Foley was abducted, but it slowly grew to become the most powerful and feared rebel movement in the region.  By the second year of Mr. Foley’s imprisonment, the group had amassed close to two dozen hostages and devised a strategy to trade them for cash.

It was at that point that the hostages’ journeys, which had been largely similar up to then, diverged based on actions taken thousands of miles away; in Washington and Paris, in Madrid, Rome and beyond.  Mr. Foley was one of at least 23 Western hostages from 12 countries, a majority of them citizens of European nations whose governments have a history of paying ransoms.

Their struggle for survival, which is being told now for the first time, was pieced together through interviews with five former hostages, locals who witnessed their treatment, relatives and colleagues of the captives, and a tight circle of advisers who made trips to the region to try to win their release.  Crucial details were confirmed by a former member of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, who was initially stationed in the prison where Mr. Foley was held, and who provided previously unknown details of his captivity.

The ordeal has remained largely secret because the militants warned the hostages’ families not to go to the news media, threatening to kill their loved ones if they did.  The New York Times is naming only those already identified publicly by the Islamic State, which began naming them in August.

Officials in the United States say they did everything in their power to save Mr. Foley and the others, including carrying out a failed rescue operation.  They argue that the United States’ policy of not paying ransoms saves Americans’ lives in the long run by making them less attractive targets.

Inside their concrete box, the hostages did not know what their families or governments were doing on their behalf.  They slowly pieced it together using the only information they had, their interactions with their guards and with one another.  Mostly they suffered, waiting for any sign that they might escape with their lives.

There is much more in the full article.

CIA - Misled Americans Says Senate Report

"Senate report says CIA misled Americans on severity, efficacy of interrogation program" PBS NewsHour 4/1/2014

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JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  A classified report by the Senate Intelligence Committee alleges that the CIA misled the government and the public over aspects of its interrogation program for years.

A Washington Post story today based on interviews with those who have seen the document says that the CIA concealed details about the severity of its interrogation methods, overstated the significance of plots and prisoners, and took credit for pieces of intelligence that were already obtained from detainees before they were subjected to harsh techniques.

We examine the details now with Greg Miller of The Washington Post.

Greg Miller, welcome.

First of all, I just want to say that, we, the NewsHour, received a statement from the CIA just a short time ago, saying they are not going to respond to this report in The Washington Post until they get a final copy of the study from the Intelligence Committee.

Having said that, 6,300-page report — why was the Senate Intelligence Committee conducting this kind of study of the CIA?

GREG MILLER, The Washington Post:  Well, this all started a number of years ago now, and it was launched largely because there was a debate at the outset of the Obama administration, when Obama was dismantling this program, about whether it worked.

I mean, there were always sort of different categories of debate about this program.  Was it moral?  Was it legal?  And then this question of, was it effective?  A lot of defenders of the program said, look, after 9/11, we didn’t have any choice but to take these kinds of extreme measures, and it worked, it saved lives, it prevented attacks.

And so Senator Feinstein, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, when she took over that committee, made this one of her first jobs was to zero in on that question, is it true?  Did it work?  What do the agency’s own records say about that?

WAR ON TERROR - Opinion, Torture and the "Counterinsurgency Field Manual"

"How The Media, Pentagon And Human Rights Groups Sold Us An Army Field Manual That (Still) Includes Torture" by Jeffrey Kaye, The Public Record 1/23/2014

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I’m marking the 12th anniversary of the abomination that is Guantanamo with a couple of repostings related to how the Bush administration, with the connivance of key members of the press and the human rights community, sold a continuation of torture as an end to torture.

Such a reposting seems necessary as the entire press, human rights groups, and blogging world continues to ignore the ongoing issue of torture via interrogations.  While indefinite detention, forced cell extractions aka beatings, and the painful forced-feeding of hunger strikers still garners attention, and rightly so, the fact the U.S. continues to have an official policy of torture in its interrogation manual continues to be ignored, even though it is the most important issue about torture facing America today.

Eschewing the worst-looking forms of torture, like waterboarding, in 2006, at the same time that “high-value detainees” like Khalid Sheik Muhammad and Abu Zubaydah were transferred out of the CIA black sites and sent to Guantanamo, the U.S. put out a new Army Field Manual (AFM) with instructions on interrogations that claimed to be “humane.”

Origin of AFM Rewrite Out of Ashes of Abu Ghraib Scandal

Only recently have I found the possible origin of the new AFM’s drafting in the August 2005 recommendations of a Joint Chiefs of Staff panel subsequent to the military investigations into the Abu Ghraib scandal. (See pg. 315-16 of this document)

Recommend a policy-level review and determination of the status and treatment of all detainees, when not classified as EPWs [Enemy Prisoners of War].  This review needs to particularly focus on the definition of humane treatment, military necessity, and proper employment of interrogation techniques. (e.g. boundaries or extremes)….

Recommend study of the DoD authorized interrogation techniques to establish a framework for evaluating their cumulative impact in relation to the obligation to treat detainees humanely.

The study of “authorized interrogation techniques” was tasked to the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone.

But a number of the new techniques that ultimately showed up in the newly written AFM were not humane at all.  In fact, they amounted to torture and/or cruel, inhumane and degrading behavior.  Over the years various human rights groups recognized this and came out publicly for changes to the AFM.

The AFM made changes to its text that allowed wider latitude in use of drugs in interrogations, while eliminating prohibitions against sleep deprivation and stress positions that had been in the pre-2006 AFM.  Even worse, a category of prisoners that were not considered subject to Geneva Convention POW protections was singled out for a special kind of interrogation “technique,” as described in the manual’s Appendix M.

Appendix M allowed for use of isolation for 30 days, and potentially indefinitely; sleep deprivation for up to 30 days, but potentially indefinitely; manipulation of environment and diet (so long as it wasn’t “extreme”); and forms of sensory deprivation, so long as every form of sensory input wasn’t affected.

There was very little interest in whether or not or how these new techniques were being used.  In fact, no one had apparently even thought to ask the government until I did in January 2010 whether or not Appendix M had even been used.  Not surprisingly, the Department of Defense confirmed it was using Appendix M interrogations at Guantanamo.

More surprising was my discovery, confirmed by a DoD spokesman, that the use of the Appendix M torture techniques was approved in a Bush-era Office of Legal Council memorandum, and left in place by the Obama administration despite claims that all such memos were withdrawn in January 2009.  Even to this day, in a massive political failure, not one human rights group or legal organization has recognized this fact.

The Torture Never Stopped

Intense abusive interrogations continue.  We know from a filing by Omar Khadr in his Canadian court case that prior to release from Guantanamo to Canadian authorities, and shortly after his plea deal with Military Commissions authorities in October 2010, Khadr was subjected to prolonged interrogation that likely was conducted, given the key presence of the use of isolation, to Appendix M parameters: “Following the Pre-Trial Agreement, the Americans transferred Omar to a maximum security detention facility restricted for prisoners convicted of offenses.  Omar was thrown back into solitary confinement and continued to be subjected to months of prolonged interrogations consisting of a sequence of 9 hours of interrogation per day for 9 days at a time.”

With an even dozen years of crimes at Guantanamo — fully over 1/3 of them under the auspices of the Obama administration — I think it’s time to review just how consensus around torture takes place in actuality.  As we shall see, it is a complex story, involving media manipulation, psychological effects such as denial, and subordination of human rights to party politics and an achingly slow platform of reformist change.  I say “consensus” because silence about all this amounts to consensus.

The following was published at Alternet and my own blog, Invictus, in January 2009.  (My first writingrecognizing torture in the AFM goes back to the introduction of the new manual in September 2006, when I wrote under my pseudonym Valtin)  In a day or two, I will publish part two, which will look at how the foreign press saw through what DoD was doing, and how a major blogging news and opinion site helped cover that up.

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How the Press, the Pentagon, and Even Human Rights Groups Sold Us an Army Field Manual that (Still) Includes Torture

A January 17 [2009] New York Times editorial noted that Attorney General designate Eric Holder testified at his nomination hearings that when it came to overhauling the nation’s interrogation rules for both the military and the CIA, the Army Field Manual represented “a good start.”  The editorial noted the vagueness of Holder’s statement.  Left unsaid was the question, if the AFM is only a “good start,” what comes next?

The Times editorial writer never bothered to mention the fact that three years earlier, a different New York Times article (12/14/2005) introduced a new controversy regarding the rewrite of the Army Field Manual.  The rewrite was inspired by a proposal by Senator John McCain to limit U.S. military and CIA interrogation methods to those in the Army Field Manual.  (McCain would later allow an exception for the CIA)

According to the Times article, a new set of classified procedures proposed for the manual “was pushing the limits on legal interrogation.”  Anonymous military sources called the procedures “a back-door effort” to undermine McCain’s efforts at the time to change U.S. abusive interrogation techniques, and stop the torture.

WAR ON TERROR - Band 'Skinny Puppy' Gets Big DoD Paycheck

(click for better view)

"Here’s A Copy Of The Invoice Skinny Puppy Drafted For The Pentagon For Using Its Songs At Guantanamo" by Jason Leopold, The Public Record 2/5/2014

There’s been quite a bit of media attention directed toward Skinny Puppy over the past week following revelations that the industrial band’s music was allegedly used during the interrogations of “war on terror” suspects detained at Guantanamo.  Band members said they were informed in March 2013 by ex-Guantanamo guard Terry Holdbrooks [see update] that its songs were used as a form of torture at the detention facility.  Following that disclosure, Skinny Puppy drafted a $666,000 invoice for the U.S. government for using its songs. But the band never sent the invoice. [See update 2.]

Despite all of the news coverage Skinny Puppy has received over the past week revolving around the invoice, it appears that reporters never bothered to ask members of the band for a copy of the document.  But I did.  Here it is (at top).  It’s dated March 7, 2013 and addressed to “Guantanamo Intelligence.”

In an interview Wednesday afternoon with HuffPostLive, Kevin “Ogre” Ogilvie, Skinny Puppy’s lead singer, discusses the story behind the invoice, how the band arrived at the $666,000 figure, and gives a shout out to yours truly for trying to obtain information via the Freedom of Information Act about the use of songs during interrogations at Guantanamo.  (Segment starts at 21:51).

UPDATE (2/7/14):  Former Guantanamo guard Terry Holdbrooks told me he first met Skinny Puppy in 2011 and interviewed band members.  It was during this 2011 interview that he informed them that their music was used at Guantanamo as a form of torture.  The issue resurfaced in early 2013 when the band was working on a documentary and that’s when the invoice was created.

UPDATE 2 (2/7/14):  Band members said they “recently” mailed a copy of the invoice to the Department of Defense and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which had played a role in developing and overseeing some of the interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo.

SYRIA - UN Report, Torture and Executions of Children

If you believe in reincarnation, this could be proof.  Bashar al-Assad as the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler and the evil brought on the world.

"UN says children caught in Syria’s civil war suffer ‘unspeakable’ abuse" PBS Newshour 2/6/2014

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SUMMARY:  A UN report has found that in addition to the thousands of children who have been injured, killed or displaced as part of the war, the Syrian government has also tortured kids they suspect of being connected to the opposition, while others have been executed by armed opposition groups.  Judy Woodruff learns more from Leila Zerrougui, a UN special representative for children and armed conflict.

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  This week, the United Nations released a report on children and the Syria conflict.  It found that the Syrian government is responsible for thousands of deaths, and charged that it put children as young as 11 in prisons where they suffered — quote — “beatings with metal cables, sexual violence and mock executions.”

It also accuses armed opposition groups of summary executions of children.

Joining me now is one of the authors of the report.  She is Leila Zerrougui, the U.N. special representative of the secretary-general for children and armed conflict.

AMERICA - Indisputable Proof of U.S. Torture

Well... so goes the early official denial.

"Report Finds 'Indisputable' Proof That U.S. Tortured Detainees After 9/11" PBS Newshour 4/16/2013

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JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  It is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture after 9/11.  That was the starkest finding in a report released today by the Constitution Project, a bipartisan legal research and advocacy group, after a two-year investigation by a task force of former high-ranking government, military, and law enforcement officials.

Among much else, the report concludes that the nation's highest officials bear some responsibility for allowing and contributing to the spread of torture, and that information gleaned via harsh interrogation yielded little valuable intelligence.  The report also criticizes the Obama administration for what it calls excessive secrecy.

Two members of the task force that produced the report join us now.  James Jones, a former Democratic congressman and ambassador to Mexico, co-chaired the group, along with Republican Asa Hutchinson.  Also with us is David Irvine, a retired Army Brigadier General and former Republican state legislator.

DOJ - Ends CIA Torture Investigation

"Justice Department Ends Investigation on Alleged Use of Torture by CIA" PBS Newshour 8/31/2012

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MARGARET WARNER (Newshour): Late yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced no one would be prosecuted in the last two outstanding cases involving the deaths of CIA detainees after 9/11.

His statement said, "The admissible evidence wouldn't be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt."

Three years ago, Holder launched a probe into whether any CIA personnel in secret overseas prisons exceeded the harsh interrogation techniques approved by the Justice Department in 2002 and in 2005.

The final two cases involved the 2002 death in Afghanistan of a suspected al-Qaida figure in an agency prison near Bagram Air Base and the 2003 death in Iraq of an Abu Ghraib prisoner during interrogation by CIA officers. A military autopsy ruled that a homicide.

The American Civil Liberties Union called Holder's decision nothing short of a scandal. Holder noted the larger issues around torture still aren't resolved, saying, "Our inquiry doesn't resolve broader questions regarding the propriety of the examined conduct."

And, for more, we turn to Ken Dilanian, who covers national security for The Los Angeles Times.

POLITICS - Federal Government According to "King George"

"Who Needs Congress or Courts With Bush in Charge?" by Ann Woolner, Bloomberg

Congress passes a law that says the U.S. won't torture people. The president says OK, we won't -- unless we really need to, thus adopting an exception Congress had specifically and vociferously rejected.

Congress passes the Sarbanes-Oxley law to reform business practices. In signing it, the president issues a statement to cut back on protection for corporate whistle-blowers.

Congress passes a law telling the administration to inform it on specific matters. The president issues statements saying he won't disclose anything he doesn't think he should.

So Congress tells him to notify it when he decides to ignore a law. He repeats that he will disclose only what he thinks he should, claiming, as he always does, constitutional authority to resist.

As of July 11, President George W. Bush had said no (or, not unless I want to) to 807 provisions enacted by Congress that he signed into law, according to Christopher Kelley, a political science professor at the University of Miami, Ohio.

That number compares to some 600 provisions challenged by all of Bush's predecessors combined, says Kelley. He has been studying presidential signing statements for a decade, and his work is backed up by other scholars.

Now comes a bipartisan American Bar Association task force, which concluded this week that presidential signing statements such as Bush's are "contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers.''

Equal Branches (reformatted):

• The Congress writes the laws
• The president executes them
• The courts decide whether they violate the Constitution

When a president claims he can rewrite a law before executing it, he is acting as all three branches.

In essences, if not fact, Bush says because of the one Constitutional clause that gives the President the job of protecting America, he has the right to ignore all other parts of the Constitution. Including the Bill of Rights. As if any one part of our Constitution overrides another.

There is no way I can know what my readers were taught in school, but the equal Constitutional powers of the 3 branches of our federal government stated above was what I was taught and firmly believe.