Torture memos here

[Magda Hassan]

Here are the released torture memos:
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/olc_memos.html

[Peter Lemkin]

Here are the released torture memos:
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/olc_memos.html

Interesting and revolting reading! Shame on America - SHAME! And more shame that people are not apparently to be punished for all this - and that this in some ways continues [now perhaps offshore, but for us and by us]. It is often said one often becomes like ones enemies. We sadly did during WW2 and have not shaken it, only refined it into a kind of 'kinder, gentler' policestate, complete with torture.

The ICRC has listed many of the things in the memos, in particular waterboarding, as torture. Period.

[Magda Hassan]

Makes me wonder what Lindy England thinks about all this. But who cares what she thinks. She can carry the can for them all. That's why she was chosen. So much for justice being seen to be done.

[Peter Lemkin]

Makes me wonder what Lindy England thinks about all this. But who cares what she thinks. She can carry the can for them all. That's why she was chosen. So much for justice being seen to be done.

I have little idea how this is 'going down' in the US, but can tell you it is being met with much upset and anger in Europe. Europeans are VERY slow to give-up on America, as they still remember the good from the War and jazz and jeans and stuff like that....but I sense they are coming to a turning point....if Obama disappoints, Europe will go it alone and may even eventually downgrade and then leave NATO. Minus England, of course - our poodles sniffing our butts and wagging their tails on that drizzly little isle.

[Magda Hassan]

I have little idea how this is 'going down' in the US, but can tell you it is being met with much upset and anger in Europe. Europeans are VERY slow to give-up on America, as they still remember the good from the War and jazz and jeans and stuff like that....but I sense they are coming to a turning point....if Obama disappoints, Europe will go it alone and may even eventually downgrade and then leave NATO. Minus England, of course - our poodles sniffing our butts and wagging their tails on that drizzly little isle.

Isn't the UK the off shore aircraft carrier for the US?

Funny how many of the Europeans fell for that PR campaign. Jeans, jazz, the good war and all. Better late than never. It was only a matter of time. It would be good if NATO went the way of the dinosaurs. What are the Finns doing in Afghanistan for god sake? Their paths would never cross normally. There must be better ways to interact with others than militarily. Still if it takes a Spanish judge to get the US to keep to it's own laws it is good. Maybe the US will eventually learn by example.

[Peter Lemkin]

I have little idea how this is 'going down' in the US, but can tell you it is being met with much upset and anger in Europe. Europeans are VERY slow to give-up on America, as they still remember the good from the War and jazz and jeans and stuff like that....but I sense they are coming to a turning point....if Obama disappoints, Europe will go it alone and may even eventually downgrade and then leave NATO. Minus England, of course - our poodles sniffing our butts and wagging their tails on that drizzly little isle.

Isn't the UK the off shore aircraft carrier for the US?

Funny how many of the Europeans fell for that PR campaign. Jeans, jazz, the good war and all. Better late than never. It was only a matter of time. It would be good if NATO went the way of the dinosaurs. What are the Finns doing in Afghanistan for god sake? Their paths would never cross normally. There must be better ways to interact with others than militarily. Still if it takes a Spanish judge to get the US to keep to it's own laws it is good. Maybe the US will eventually learn by example.

Isn't the UK the off shore aircraft carrier for the US?

I believe it was constructed at the same shipyard as Israel now claims to be from.

There must be better ways to interact with others than militarily.

Hey, you one of them *ucking pinko 'socialist symps' that thinks that people can live in peace and just make love/have parties/co-exist - and not make endless war!?! What ugly thoughts you have! - and so far from the 'true path' of the warrior!.....(full of dead burnt bodies, gore and guts)......certainly you have values not compatable with the Empire. "You will be assimilated" - the Borg

Maybe the US will eventually learn by example.

Don't hold your breath. Sadly. [I'm growing cynical that humanity has the luxury of the time until America does so learn to learn.....]

[Peter Presland]

Those memos really are sick, sick SICK. I've been acutely aware of the whole, undeniable gross, mistreatment of prisoners thing for years now. I've met Mossam Begg personally and I still follow Andy Worthington's mammoth Guantanamo files work, but seeing those documents is still shocking - not surprising but truly shocking. I was forcefully reminded of the NAZI's penchant for legalistic documentation of their atrocities. The West really has totally lost the plot when it comes to any shred of a claim to 'the moral high ground'. But, like its protege, Zionist Israel, it appears totally oblivious to its wretchedness.

There was an interview with a young black 'CIA Spokesman' on our Channel 4 TV News last night. The guy was maybe 30-35 years old, handsome, clean cut, a bit like a young Sidney Poitier in appearance. His job was clearly damage limitation and his performance was surreal. As usual with our MSM, he was given an easy ride by Krishnan Guru-Murthy the interviewer but no matter. He was like a smiling automaton. I lost count of the stock phrases: Terrorism worlds biggest threat; Americans safe from terrorism; Americans free from the fear of terrorism, Terrorism, Terrorists, Americans this, Americans that - like clockwork. Substitute 'Terrorist' with 'Witch' and the meaning would have been unchanged. Inevitably and quite unprompted he invoked 9/11 with the words 'we lost over 3,000 innocent lives to terrorists on 9/11 and our job is to make sure it does not happen again. Had I been that interviewer I would have shot back something like "..... but you have lost over 300,000 innocent lives on your roads since then - that's the equivalent of over 100 9/11's !! - with maybe a million dead and over 3 million displaced lives ruined by your military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you not think it high time we found some sense of proportion here?"

But of course such a question is absolutely verboten and more than any interviewers job is worth - and the interviewer knows it too (not to mention that the interviewee was clearly incapable of understanding such a question). So we are fed pap: "Americans have the right" etc etc ad-infinitum and of course, as loyal poodles we in the UK must support and assist in the enforcement of those 'rights'. Frankly I am sick to the stomach of hearing about "Americans" -'My fellow Americans" hand-on-heart, misty-eyed stares into the middle-distance to the strains of the 'By the Dawn's early light' - It's enough to make any sane human being puke. Patriotic nationalism - particularly of the sickly sentimental goodies -v- baddies American variety has one hell of a lot to answer for.

All IM ever so HO of course.

[David Guyatt]

Fuck me. I thought Tolkein’s character “Worm-tongue” was fictional until I read the following double-speak from the fist memo.

In 1ight of the information you believe Zuba:i-'dah has and the high level of threat you believe now exists, you wish to move the interrogations into what you have described. as an "increased pressure
phase.'"

Water-boarding is apparently an “increased pressure phrase”. Silly me. I always thought of it as torture.

In this phase, you would like to employ ten techniques that you believe will dislocate his expectations regarding the treatment he believes he will receive and encourage him to disclose
t h e crucial information mentioned above.

“Dislocate his expectations”... More like dislocate his finger and shoulder joints.

Where do these cowardly polegal pricks get these worm-tongued phrases from? Do they have a convention of the timidly irresponsible and cruel - a sort of CYA “blame-storming” session?

[Myra Bronstein]

Here are the released torture memos:
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/olc_memos.html

Note that Obama only released the memos in response to a FOIA lawsuit. He basically had to do it thanks to the ACLU.

[Peter Lemkin]

Here are the released torture memos:
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/olc_memos.html

Note that Obama only released the memos in response to a FOIA lawsuit. He basically had to do it thanks to the ACLU.

The 'ACLU' was one of the contant spits of the Ultra-Right. If we didn't have groups like that the USA would have long ago slipped into full policestate and total unconsitutional dictatorship. We may yet anyway...but at least they and a few others FIGHT against this march over the abyss. Take a look around their site or that of the Center For Consitutional Rights. etc. The minority fighting to save the majority of sheep from another minority hellbent on taking us back to feudal times [albeit with computers, electronic spying and mobile phones] when the sheep become serfs again [with the rebelious in the dungeons].