Senate releases CIA torture report

[Jim Hargrove]

That's just not true that nothing changes.

Wish you were right in this context, but I'm not optimistic.

The majority of self-identified Republicans, I predict, will soon tell pollsters that torture of "terror suspects" is just fine with them, and enough so-called Democrats will agree to make the pro-torture faction a majority. Fox News will rejoice!

In a few days, Republicans will control both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, leaving only a minority President in the White House for balance.

Nothing will change.

[Drew Phipps]

Well, I'll give you another current event example. Remember the last time the government faced a shutdown, the Republicans only controlled 1 house and wouldn't pass a budget? What happened today? They actually got some work done. If you don't see change happening all around you, you've got your eyes closed.

[Jim Hargrove]

Well, I'll give you another current event example. Remember the last time the government faced a shutdown, the Republicans only controlled 1 house and wouldn't pass a budget? What happened today? They actually got some work done. If you don't see change happening all around you, you've got your eyes closed.

Please help me open my eyes.

Show me any change in the policies of the US Government re, for example, torture of "terror suspects."

I'll try to be patient, but I think this line of thought is completely hopeless.

PS. Prez Obama said his government wouldn't torture, but Rachel Madow claims that the original Guantanamo captive is STILL in custody, and probably being tortured.

[Drew Phipps]

1/22/09: Obama signs an "executive order formally bans torture by requiring that the Army field manual be used as the guide for terrorism interrogations. That essentially ends the Bush administration's CIA program of enhanced interrogation methods. "We believe that the Army field manual reflects the best judgment of our military, that we can abide by a rule that says we don't torture, but that we can still effectively obtain the intelligence that we need," Obama said." (BTW that is clear and indisputable example of a positive change (by a mere elected official in the 'thin layer") in the dark and shadowy hidden iceberg-like secret fascist government that apparently is running everything. Thank you for mentioning it.)

Since the CIA is mad right now at the Senate and the White House, the "leak" from a "senior intelligence official" of continuing torture under Obama would have been especially damaging yesterday, or today. But it didn't happen.

So much for "probably."

[David Guyatt]

Strange guy and strange comment: "I like the wilderness a lot -- they're more scared of me than I am of them."

Looks like "fear" is his pleasure doesn't it?

CIA torture report is a 'load of hooey', according to CIA's torture adviser



Dr Jim Mitchell, whose company was paid $81m to interrogate al-Qaeda prisoners, speaks from Florida

SAM MASTERS , HARRY DAVIES

Wednesday 10 December 2014

Jim Mitchell paddles among the alligators on Florida's MyakkaRiver to relax. "I like the wilderness a lot," he told one interviewer. "They're more scared of me than I am of them."

More than a decade has passed since Dr James Mitchell, together with Dr Bruce Jessen, began a programme of "enhanced" interrogation of suspected al-Qaeda militants that this week drew international condemnation. As is now well-documented, the private company set up by the doctors, Mitchell Jessen and Associates, held a contract with the CIA which netted them $81m (£51.5m) between 2002 and 2009.
It was based at 108 Washington Street, Spokane, in Washington state, a five-storey colonial building with a brick façade one of the oldest in the city. The firm had two floors at the top of the building, which were bug-proofed and equipped with high security doors. Today, another company answers the phone when called: Mitchell Jessen has ceased trading.
But for a few years when George W Bush resided in the White House, the doctors cashed in on his war on terror. This week, the doctors became known under different names Grayson Swigert and Hammond Dunbar as the architects of the CIA worldwide programme of torture. At the Fairchild Air Force base on the outskirts of Spokane, the doctors had worked on programmes to train Special Forces to cope with the type of interrogation they might face if captured. The Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (Sere) school still prepares recruits to "return with honour from any type of survival situation".
CIA torture report: Who knew what?
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  [*=center]Honour, however, was far from what resulted from the doctors' time at Sere. "Doc Mitchell" and "Doc Jessen" as they are reported to have been known in the Air Force, knew that the survival techniques they learned at Sere could be applied, more lucratively, in a different context. If they could teach US forces not to talk, they could force suspects rendered to CIA prisons around the world, to talk.
  

Dr Mitchell is today living in Land O'Lakes, a housing complex near Orlando, Florida. Described in 2009 as having the "sometime overbearing confidence of a self-made man", Dr Mitchell was a natural salesman.
According to the Senate investigation, the pair developed theories of "learned helplessness", putting them into practice from 2002 onwards. Neither of the men had any experience in military interrogation, neither knew anything of al-Qaeda neither had "relevant cultural or linguistic expertise".
By early 2002, the men had begun work at the CIA, proposing to use techniques of sleep deprivation, waterboarding and stress position to interrogate America's growing list of enemies. Since it emerged they were the doctors behind the programme, both have insisted they are unable to comment as they are bound by a non-disclosure agreement they signed with the CIA.

Bruce Jessen was Jim Mitchell's partner in the company the CIA outsourced to (ABC News)
But in a rambling interview with The Independent by telephone from Florida yesterday, Dr Mitchell described the Senate investigation and its findings as a "load of hooey". He admitted being involved in "some classified programmes" but claimed the Senate investigation had been biased.
"They had an agenda, the Senate Democrats have an agenda and it's clear to any American that reads [it] that report is selectively produced in a way to produce outrage in the reader," he said. "The choice of adverbs, the choice of verbs, the way the sentences are structured, the way the paragraphs are put together, all of that stuff is written either deliberately, or, well it has to be written deliberately, or to produce outrage."
He added: "And if you want to know the truth, probably I mean this is just me as a consumer, right, this is not me as the caricature that you know people have out there the truth is somewhere in the middle of all these reports."
In 2007, two years before cancelling their contract with the doctors, the CIA provided what it described as a "multi-year indemnification agreement to protect the company and its employees from legal liability arising out of the programme".

Click HERE to view full-size graphic
According to the Senate report, while with the CIA, the doctors' programme was not entirely popular. One head of CIA interrogations knew problems loomed. "This is a train wreak [sic] waiting to happen and I intend to get the hell off the train before it happens," he wrote, before retiring due to his "serious reservations" about the torture in 2003. Another CIA officer said no "professional in the field would credit" the doctors' judgments "as psychologists assessing the subjects". They were both accused of "arrogance and narcissism".
In October 2012, Dr Jessen, about whom much less in known, was appointed as a new spiritual leader of the Mormon church in Spokane's South Hill district. The Spokesman Review reported that Spokane State church head James Lee made Dr Jessen a bishop, approved by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hierarchy in Salt Lake City. According to reports, Dr Jessen resigned within a week.
Finishing his conversation yesterday, Dr Mitchell had another thought. "Look, I don't want to mislead you, and I would be hypocritical if I told you that I don't have a problem with killing terrorists. But killing children in drone strikes is much more a stain."

[David Guyatt]

Gee, Albert, I find your view point on this extremist, and hope you realize that you don't speak for "the people." Most people that I know actually prefer democracy, as imperfect as it may be.

It's not hopeless. If you don't like America, go out and vote, write your congressman, run for office, or find some other meaningful way to add something of value to the community in which we all live.

Respectfully Drew, may I draw your attention to House Resolution 758 in my post numbered 461 HERE

In that document alone one can see the entire edifice of the US democratic system in all it gory glory. 411 votes for. 10 against. It is a resolution to engage in war with Russia via destabilisation and black operations; to overthrow Putin and ensure Russia will be fragmented never to rise again as a counter force to US might.

This officially moves us back into another cold war - as if the first one was not bad enough. I have searched and striven, thus far in vain, to find a major media news story about this. Outside of the alternative media it is unreported, as far as I can tell, anyway.

No amount of voting will repair what is a contemptuously corrupt and broken system of power and corruption.

Apologies if this is slightly off topic. I'll leave it there.

[Peter Lemkin]

The Damascus, Syria Black Site is an interesting one....as 'officially' Syria is and has been an enemy of the USA. Nothing is or was as we were led to believe. It is all Big Lies for Big Money and Big Control.

[Magda Hassan]

Indeed Peter. It is through the looking glass. Try telling the Fox News viewers that the US has happily been doing dirty business with Syria since 911.

[Tracy Riddle]

That's just not true that nothing changes. You guys have all been watching current events very carefully, but why don't you attribute any significance to what you see? You've got a terror report that roundly criticizes in a couple dozen ways the very people you think run the iceberg. You don't think that is a harbinger of change? Obama beat the polls and the pundits to get re-elected in 2012? That's not significant? What about Snowden exposing the secrets of the NSA? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of reputable scientists and engineers speaking truth to power about 9/11.

These little surface events are the things that bring abiding change to the "deep structures" of government, if we can but teach the next generation to expect and demand it. Remember Rosa Parks? (This reminds me of that Who song, "Won't Be Fooled Again." Go and listen to it, or Lennon. I wonder where we would be today without those little messages of hope in our ears as kids?)

Drew, maybe you don't remember the Church Committee, the Pike Committee and the HSCA in the 1970s. A lot of deep government secrets were revealed by Congress. What did it accomplish? Here we are 40 years later and it's much worse.

Obama? Seriously? This guy has performed the magic trick of validating most of Bush's national security/foreign policy agenda and getting most liberals to go along with it.

Yes, I like to have hope too. Except polls show that about half the American people think torture is just fine. Many secrets have been exposed over the decades. Most Americans are not paying attention to them. They're not reading forums like this, Drew. They are watching the Kardashians and planning their next shopping trip. Voter turnout last November was 36%, because of apathy, hopelessness and a sense that nothing important really changes over the long term.

[Tracy Riddle]

Well, I'll give you another current event example. Remember the last time the government faced a shutdown, the Republicans only controlled 1 house and wouldn't pass a budget? What happened today? They actually got some work done. If you don't see change happening all around you, you've got your eyes closed.

You know, I can remember a time when the government didn't shut down every five minutes, when both parties routinely worked together to pass something as simple as a budget. So we're setting the bar pretty low now.

Meanwhile, the shadow government is probably getting its financing from drug trafficking and the trillions hidden away in secret accounts overseas. They don't really care whether the idiots in Congress can agree on anything. The elites are busy building fortresses around their money and power, and don't care if the rest of us have to drive on crumbling roads and bridges, or deal with 80-year-old water mains that break.

Very long-term, this is what the elites would really like: