Torture

[CptSternn]

Originally Posted by MaverickZero

L Lucretia, you continue to prove my point by making meaningless and laughable attempts at tearing my posts apart.

Mav -

Don't waste your time trying to debate with them - they have nothing worthwhile to contribute to any of the topics here. I have them on ignore as 99% of every post they have are personal attacks.

They continually attempt to change the topic from whatever it is to a personal attack, like we see above.

They have no real material to contribute, even when they do post on topic. It's usually just the same right-wing rhetoric you see bush spewing, cut-n-pasted word for word.

I just leave them on IGNORE that way I don't have to waste my bandwidth with such tripe.

If you get into name calling with their ilk, then you will fill the thread with immature name calling instead of the topic.

That seems to be their goal here - saturating the threads with droll name calling in efforts to distract people from the topic.

I think it's funny actually. Shows how desperate they are. Also, there is the glaring irony of the fact a self proclaimed goth would support the right -wing. Think about it...

-In high schools across America the rightwing has banned goth attire.

-In a few states the local right-wing governments have moved to ban goth clubs

-The right-wing is trying to ban gay marriage

Seriously - if you show up in goth attire, do you think they will let you attend a bush speech or any other right-wing event?

It safe to say those right-wingers here aren't into the goth scene - as if they were they would be fighting against themselves.

They are spoilers here to keep real discussion from happening. Just put them on ignore and get on with the topic.

I've been here since this forum existed. I was here when this forum was just a custom javascript that had one single forum. In that time, we have had dozens of right-wingers here. They all leave after a while. The ones bothering you just joined - they won't last long - right-wingers get bored trying to cleanse our site, it becomes way to much work, and since they hate the culture they will eventually leave.

Don't feed the trolls, they will fuck off on their own.

[LadyLucretia]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

Mav -

They continually attempt to change the topic from whatever it is to a personal attack.

If you get into name calling with their ilk, then you will fill the thread with immature name calling instead of the topic.

Oh, you mean like you just did:

They have no real material to contribute...just the same right-wing rhetoric

I just leave them on IGNORE that way I don't have to waste my bandwidth with such tripe.


I think it's funny actually. Shows how desperate they are.

right -wing.

rightwing

right-wing

right-wing

those right-wingers here aren't into the goth scene - as if they were they would be fighting against themselves.

right-wingers

since they hate the culture they will eventually leave.

So now not only am I right wing, not only am I not actually "into" the goth scene because I disagree with you politically, but now I also "hate" the goth culture. But you don't believe in personal attacks, huh Sternn?

[delicti]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

It safe to say those right-wingers here aren't into the goth scene - as if they were they would be fighting against themselves.

For once, I don't even want to know what rusty gears spun this one out of your mind.

[MaguMan]

Gears? No, no, no. Sternn's mind operates on the much more primitive gerbil wheel concept.

[LadyLucretia]

Originally Posted by MaguMan

Gears? No, no, no. Sternn's mind operates on the much more primitive gerbil wheel concept.

Stop spouting right-wing propaganda, you right-winger!

[MaguMan]

Originally Posted by LadyLucretia

Stop spouting right-wing propaganda, you right-winger!

Shut up, you ungoth, Bush lovin', bible thumper! Go back to your Mein Kampf and Free Trade, fascist! No one needs to read your driveling American, pro-Bush, propaganda that the so-called historians call, "facts."

Call yourself part of the left? HA! Three lefts make an original right!

[MaverickZero]

You people are pathetic. You are greasing each others palms so much it is disgusting.

[CptSternn]

Mav - click their name, then under PUBLIC PROFILE just select IGNORE.

It works wonders mate!

Also note this - when the right wingers show up here to distrupt things, something you always notice - they don't post to the picture thread, nor do they post links to any social websites like MySpace. They tend to be more withdrawn, obviously because they have no connection to our community. Also, because pictures of them would tell everyone who they really are.

A while back one of the banned right-wingers who posted here tried to create a bogus myspace page to convince us that they were on the level. Of course this backfired when the user the pictures belonged to found the site.

But I digress.

Think about this - four pages of personal attack on you and myself, from the same people - posting back to back. Nothing about the topic.

A topic, which you think people would have an opinion on - I mean an American has been held illegally, tortured, and pretty much all of his rights were violated by the US government.


...however all they want to do is post personal attacks on those who post the article or discuss it, as they have nothing to contribute.

Don't feed the trolls mate!

[delicti]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

Also note this - when the right wingers show up here to distrupt things, something you always notice - they don't post to the picture thread, nor do they post links to any social websites like MySpace. They tend to be more withdrawn, obviously because they have no connection to our community. Also, because pictures of them would tell everyone who they really are.

Seeing as you're so keen to call me a right-winger, I'd love to see you explain why you still engage me in conversation then.

For that matter, I don't post my myspace site in my profile, because I post my real website.

And at over 12 average posts a day, about 3-4 of them in the politics forum, where do you think I'm also posting?

You're accusing me of trying to change topics and making personal insults, but that's your primary modus operandi.

Nothing like some projection to start the morning off with?

[delicti]

Originally Posted by MaverickZero

You people are pathetic. You are greasing each others palms so much it is disgusting.

If that's how you feel, they I suggest you follow Sternn's suggestion and put us all on ignore. It would actually make our lives considerably easier, as well.

[MaguMan]

Originally Posted by MaverickZero

You people are pathetic. You are greasing each others palms so much it is disgusting.

Someone can't take a little satire. By the way, how do your palms feel after Sternn's been putting his arm around you so tight to avoid direct confrontation with anyone else around here? A little greasy, huh?

[MaverickZero]

Hmm, Aug 06, Jul 07, Aug 07, Oct 03?

I'll take the advice of the person who knows what they're talking about, and not the tag-teaming group that likes to disintegrate threads

[delicti]

Originally Posted by MaverickZero

Hmm, Aug 06, Jul 07, Aug 07, Oct 03?

I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.

If you're accusing me of disintegrating threads, you should look at other things I've posted in the politics forum.

I actually discuss things and back them up with research. So far the only thing I've seen out of you is insults and accusations. If you want peoples' respect you might want to contribute, rather than only sitting there and accusing other people of not.

[MaguMan]

Originally Posted by delicti

I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.

Join dates. You know, a detail that's extremely relevant to knowing, "what [people are] talking about."

[LadyLucretia]

Originally Posted by MaguMan

Join dates. You know, a detail that's extremely relevant to knowing, "what [people are] talking about."

Are you saying that you think that time spent on the gothic.net forums is somehow related to the validity of a person's views?

[MaverickZero]

Tag, Tag, Tag, good lord. I don't even have to look at the messages to know they're all some slanted comment to me,

[LadyLucretia]

Originally Posted by MaverickZero

Tag, Tag, Tag, good lord. I don't even have to look at the messages to know they're all some slanted comment to me,

I just wanted to know why you think join dates are important. I'm sorry but that sort of right-wing propaganda just kind of leaks out sometimes. My doctor says I'll see some improvement once I've been taking the medication for a couple of weeks.

[raggedyanne]

::Peeks head back in:: As a liberal I think I shall run away now. But first. I enjoy hearing others views and the reasons behind them, but it's a bit hard to listen when the voice is yelling at you.

[MaverickZero]

Originally Posted by dark_dragon_of_ice

meaning profits go off shore a lot of the time.

I understand the fact that foreign aid is important, however that being said... How can we hand out tax dollars etc, when our economy is not up to par?

Why are we flying food, supplies, building houses overseas, while we still have homeless, unemployed, underpaid citizens in our own shores?

I realize that it's for diplomacy, but really. It's just to look good overall, and show that we care about the little guy...

I'm all for diplomacy, but we should really focus on our own citizens and our own messes here before we go overseas.

Much like the torture issue here.

We go to other countries, and delegate how things should be run, yet we don't have a handle on things under our own nose.

The government makes itself out to be a superhero, liberating "tortured" civilians from "fascist dictatorships" yet, it can't explain what's happening on our own shores.

If North America is going to be the superhero of the earth, along with Britain and the likes, shouldn't they be setting an example by eradicating the problems in its own borders, before pointing the finger at other culprits?

[CptSternn]

My thoughts exactly. In fact, I have an almost identical post in the Iraq thread.

[MaverickZero]

Well it's the relevant argument that nobody can seem to refute against... It's just one glaring point the government regrets to comment on.

Simply to keep the other G8 Nations off their backs.

It reminds me of a club of super-rich billionaires, comparing how much they donated to charity as they all sip chardonnay from their diamond glasses.

Really. Money thrown at other countries could be better invested in our own problems. Then we wouldn't have problems with Public Schooling, or affording Secondary Education, Problematic Health care and extended wait times. There wouldn't be the extreme impoverished begging for booze money at the side of the road.

But no. Instead they cut programs from public schools, raise taxes and tuition, and pick apart health care. Why? Because they want to increase foreign aid? "Improve" immigration laws? Bolster their own wallets with a fat pay raise.

[delicti]

Originally Posted by MaguMan

Join dates. You know, a detail that's extremely relevant to knowing, "what [people are] talking about."

He must have join dates confused with something else, because there's no way he could actually draw that conclusion and consider himself a well-reasoned, logical person. ;-)

Originally Posted by raggedyanne

As a liberal I think I shall run away now. But first. I enjoy hearing others views and the reasons behind them, but it's a bit hard to listen when the voice is yelling at you.

I hear you! As socially liberal, fiscally conservative, Civil Libertarian, I like to hear all sides of an issue. It's really hard to have a debate when the people you're talking to want to make it into a shouting match about how much of a neocon they think you are. :-/

Myself, Lucretia, and Maguman are actually all quite nice when we're not being insulted. ;-)

Originally Posted by MaverickZero

I understand the fact that foreign aid is important, however that being said... How can we hand out tax dollars etc, when our economy is not up to par?

Unfortunately, foreign aid is one of the necessities of the modern era. I say unfortunately, because usually it comes as a form of helping people in countries where the governments are either corrupt or incompetent. That is to say, those are attributes of all government, there are just some extremes we cannot tolerate.

It's a necessity, because advances in communication and the increase in international travel and commerce have made localized problems into global problems. Avian bird flu isn't just China's problem when thousands of people are traveling to and from China every day. Mad cow disease isn't a British issue when England is exporting beef all over the world. The collapse of a goverment overseas may effect our markets here.

So to some extent, there is a side of foreign aid that isn't humanitarian at all, even though the most honorable of aid is humanitarian. Often times now, instead of giving out of charity, we find ourselves giving out of self-protection.

The more global a society we become, the more this will be commonplace. We are already seeing trade groups formed in Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa based on these principles. This was some of the motivation behind forming the EU.

It's a global world these days. If anything, having no foreign aid will only make matters worse for us at home.

[LadyLucretia]

Originally Posted by MaverickZero

I'm all for diplomacy, but we should really focus on our own citizens and our own messes here before we go overseas.

You might want to be sitting down for this, but...I agree with you. It's ridiculous that the gulf coast is *still* struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina, and most of their help is still coming from private charities and volunteers rather than the government. It is a third world country in the lower 9th ward of New Orleans. They aren't even guaranteed clean water, and the local government is basically passing laws so that they can legally steal property from displaced homeowners. How can we help 3rd world countries when we have created one on our own land?

Anyhow, that's off topic - uh oh, right winger highjacking a thread! I do think that foreign aid is necessary - as Delicti said, a small government collapsing can have a big effect on us in today's global economy. However I think the aid should be focused on the most dire situations where it can have a direct and vital impact, and that more needs to be spent addressing issues here in the US.

[CptSternn]

Files raise questions on Gitmo decisions

http://news.**********/s/ap/20071003...V39YizCcCs0NUE

Two dozen prisoners were cleared for transfer from Guantanamo Bay last year even though U.S. military panels found they still posed a threat to the United States and its allies.

Dozens more were cleared even though they didn't show up for their hearings. One Saudi arrested in Afghanistan was approved for release after offering a peculiar account that he had gone to the Taliban-controlled country to lose weight.

Pentagon documents obtained by The Associated Press show seemingly inconsistent decisions to release men declared by the Bush administration to be among America's most-hardened enemies. Coupled with accusations that some detainees have been held for years on little evidence, the decisions raise questions about whether they were arbitrary.

Human rights groups contend the documents show the military panels, known as Administrative Review Boards, often are overridden by political expediency at Guantanamo, where about 340 men are still held.

"What it says on your passport is more important than what it says in your ARB," said Ben Wizner, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, noting that European citizens at Guantanamo were among the first to get out amid intense lobbying by their countries. "It's all about diplomatic pressure."

The Pentagon created the Administrative Review Board process in 2004 as the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was filling up with men captured around the world in the war on terrorist groups. It said the boards would "help ensure no one is detained any longer than is warranted, and that no one is released who remains a threat to our nation's security."

The boards hold sessions in an air-conditioned trailer, hearing testimony from shackled detainees and making recommendations on whether to transfer, release or continue to hold the men. The final decisions are made by Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, who is not bound by the recommendations, but who officials say usually follows them.

The Pentagon, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from AP, released transcripts and memos last month from last year's hearings.

Based on those sessions, England ordered 273 inmates kept at Guantanamo and 55 transferred to authorities in other nations. He didn't order any outright releases, but most detainees transferred from Guantanamo have been freed soon after arriving home.

The heavily censored documents indicate testimony before the panels often had little effect on the outcome. Of the 55 detainees cleared for transfer to their homelands or countries of residence, only 14 participated in their hearings. And 24 found to still pose a threat were ordered transferred by England anyway.

Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a military spokesman, said "a great majority of detainees who left Guantanamo have been a threat," but added that many factors are considered in deciding their fate.

"There are mitigating factors that the deputy secretary of defense can take into account in deciding whether to approve a transfer of a detainee," Gordon said by phone from the Pentagon.

U.S. officials say those include whether the receiving country can confiscate the detainee's passport and monitor or detain him.

The military has kept secret much of the case files, so there is no way for the public to judge the quality of the evidence against each detainee. But defense attorneys say that while classified evidence is often used to justify holding a detainee, it rarely comes into play in decisions to let people go from Guantanamo.

Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, an Army reservist who served as a liaison between Guantanamo tribunals and intelligence agencies, criticized the process used to decide which detainees are sent home.

"The decisions are not orderly nor analytic and only rational if you accept the premise that they are made for political and not legal reasons," Abraham said in an e-mail to AP.

One of the men who was transferred was Mohammad Akhtiar, an Afghan who told the panel he had worked for the U.S.-allied Karzai government in Afghanistan and that he was steadfastly opposed to the Taliban. He listed several senior Afghan officials, including the minister for refugees and repatriation, who he said could vouch for him.

In December, Akhtiar was flown to Afghanistan and immediately released, said his U.S. lawyer, Dicky Grigg. Grigg considered it a happy ending, saying: "I believed that Mohammed Akhtiar was not a terrorist."

But some of the Administrative Review Board results were murkier.

Abdul Rahman Mohammed Hussein Khowlan, a Saudi, said he went to Afghanistan to lose weight and to find the Prophet Muhammad's clothing — even though the founder of Islam had never been in that country.

A board member asked Khowlan to explain the search, but the detainee, who allegedly was carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle when he was captured, responded: "There's nothing to add."

England ordered Khowlan sent home to Saudi Arabia, whose government is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East.

During the Administrative Review Board hearings, the transcripts show, military officers painstakingly questioned detainees to gauge the truth of their accounts. The panel's recommendations are censored from the Pentagon memos, however, meaning only England's final decisions are publicly known. But the military said those decisions differed from the panels' recommendations only occasionally.

Human rights groups say the documents bolster their suspicions the review board hearings are window dressing and that the panels aren't really the mechanism for determining who gets out of Guantanamo and who stays.

"The findings suggest the transfer and release determinations were made independently based on security risks, relations with other countries and other factors that are independent of the ARB process, and that the ARB process may be for show," said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch.

Lawyers said lobbying by detainees' home countries is a major factor in release decisions. Of the 55 men slated for transfer last year, 30 were from Saudi Arabia, which has a reintegration program that provides former detainees with guidance from psychiatrists, clerics and sociologists.

Wizner, the ACLU attorney, said he did not feel dangerous men were being released from Guantanamo, but rather that the Pentagon was labeling them as threats to avoid accusations it had imprisoned innocent men.

One lawyer said the U.S. even sent away two detainees who "failed" their hearings. England determined last year that both Isa al-Murbati and Jumah al-Dossari should continue to be held, but both got out of Guantanamo this summer, said their New York attorney, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan.

Navy Capt. Lana Hampton, a military spokeswoman, said England on occasion "may change his decision, based on the receipt of additional information or for other reasons," even without another hearing.

Colangelo-Bryan said al-Murbati was released upon arrival in his native Bahrain, an island state in the Persian Gulf that is home to the U.S. 5th Fleet. Al-Dossari, who holds dual Bahraini-Saudi citizenship, is in the Saudi reintegration program and will be home soon, the lawyer said.

"If a government is on good terms with the United States and presses for a detainee's release, the release will happen regardless of the ARB findings," Colangelo-Bryan said. "I believe that is what happened with Isa and Jumah."


So these people, who have been tortured are now being released, and nothing has changed about them. It just goes to prove that innocent men, hundreds have been illegally detained, and tortured.

It also shows the lengths the bush administration will go to in efforts to hide the truth.

[CptSternn]

Hayden says CIA videotapes destroyed

http://news.**********/s/ap/20071207...cKTQzOOm.s0NUE

WASHINGTON - The CIA destroyed videotapes it made in 2002 of two top terror suspects because it was afraid that keeping them "posed a security risk," Director Michael Hayden has told agency employees.

Hayden's revelation to the CIA employees became public Thursday and it caused a commotion on Capitol Hill where members of the Senate Intelligence Committee immediately vowed to conduct a thorough review. A leading human rights group voiced alarm about it.

In his message to agency workers, Hayden said that House and Senate intelligence committee leaders had been informed of the existence of the tapes and the CIA's intention to destroy them to protect the identities of the questioners. He also said the CIA's internal watchdog watched the tapes in 2003 and verified that the interrogation practices were legal. Hayden said the tapes were destroyed three years after the 2002 interrogations.

Rep. Jane Harman of California, then the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was one of only four members of Congress in 2003 informed of the tapes' existence and the CIA's intention to ultimately destroy them.

"I told the CIA that destroying videotapes of interrogations was a bad idea and urged them in writing not to do it," Harman said. While key lawmakers were briefed on the CIA's intention to destroy the tapes, they were not notified two years later when the spy agency actually carried out the plan. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said the committee only learned of the tapes' destruction in November 2006.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee from August 2004 until the end of 2006, said through a spokesman that he doesn't remember being informed of the videotaping program.

"Congressman Hoekstra does not recall ever being told of the existence or destruction of these tapes," said Jamal D. Ware, senior adviser to the committee. "He believes that Director Hayden is being generous in his claim that the committee was informed. He believes the committee should have been fully briefed and consulted on how this was handled."

Jennifer Daskal, senior counsel with Human Rights Watch, said that destroying the tapes was illegal. "Basically this is destruction of evidence," she said, calling Hayden's explanation that the tapes were destroyed to protect CIA identities "disingenuous."

The CIA only taped the interrogation of the first two terror suspects the agency held, one of whom was Abu Zubaydah. Zubaydah, under harsh questioning, told CIA interrogators about alleged 9/11 accomplice Ramzi Binalshibh, President Bush said publicly in 2006.

Binalshibh was captured and interrogated and, with Zubaydah's information, authorities in 2003 captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the purported mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

Hayden said that a secondary reason for the taped interrogations was to have backup documentation of the information gathered.

"The agency soon determined that its documentary reporting was full and exacting, removing any need for tapes. Indeed, videotaping stopped in 2002," Hayden said.

The CIA is known to have waterboarded three prisoners since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but not since 2003. Hayden banned the use of the procedure in 2006, according to knowledgeable officials.

The disclosure of the tapes' destruction came on the same day the House and Senate intelligence committees agreed to legislation prohibiting the CIA from using "enhanced interrogation techniques." The White House Thursday threatened to veto the bill.

Hayden's message to CIA employees was an attempt to get ahead of a New York Times story about the videotapes.

"What matters here is that it was done in line with the law," Hayden said. "Over the course of its life, the agency's interrogation program has been of great value to our country. It has helped disrupt terrorist operations and save lives. It was built on a solid foundation of legal review. It has been conducted with careful supervision. If the story of these tapes is told fairly, it will underscore those facts."

The CIA says the tapes were destroyed late in 2005, a year marked by increasing pressure from defense attorneys to obtain videotapes of detainee interrogations. The scandal over harsh treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq had focused public attention on interrogation techniques.

Beginning in 2003, attorneys for al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui began seeking videotapes of interrogations they believed might help them show their client wasn't a part of the 9/11 attacks. These requests heated up in 2005 as the defense slowly learned the identities of more detainees in U.S. custody.

In May 2005, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered the government to disclose whether interrogations were recorded. The government objected to that order, and the judge modified it on Nov. 3, 2005, to ask for confirmation of whether the government "has video or audio tapes of these interrogations" and then named specific ones. Eleven days later, the government denied it had video or audio tapes of those specific interrogations.

Last month, the CIA admitted to Brinkema and a circuit judge that it had failed to hand over tapes of enemy combatant witnesses. Those interrogations were not part of the CIA's detention program and were not conducted or recorded by the agency, the agency said.

"The CIA did not say to the court in its original filing that it had no terrorist tapes at all. It would be wrong to assert that," CIA spokesman George Little said.

The 9/11 Commission referenced the 2002 interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Binalshibh multiple times throughout its report, but cited written documents and audiotapes only.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the CIA did not subvert the 9/11 commission's work by not providing the tapes.

"The agency went to great lengths to meet the requests of the 9/11 Commission. In fact, because it was thought the commission could ask about tapes at some point, they were not destroyed while the commission was active," he added.


So they had to erase all the videotaped torture sessions to hide the identity of the interrogators.

Damn, if there was just technology that would help here - some way they could blur the face or voice of the interrogators so that way they didn't have to destroy all that evidence...oh wait.