New CIA Waterboarding Charges Surface

[pepperbear]

http://www.newser.com/story/153546/new-cia-waterboarding-charges-surface.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=united

– Human Rights Watch has uncovered evidence that waterboarding—and other severe abuse of detainees—was practiced more widely than the Bush administration has acknowledged, according to an investigation by the organization. The newly discovered incidents expose close cooperation between Washington and Libya's late dictator Moammar Gadhafi in the systematic abuse of some 14 Libyan dissidents—swept up in America's hunt for militants after 9/11—while they were held in US-controlled detention centers in Afghanistan, or tortured in American-led interrogations in Pakistan, Morocco, Thailand, and Sudan, says the organization's report. "Not only did the US deliver Gadhafi his enemies on a silver platter, but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first," said Laura Pitter, counter terrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. "The scope of the Bush administration abuse appears far broader than previously acknowledged."

The report comes just days after the Justice Department announced it wouldn't file criminal charges against any CIA personnel over harsh interrogation techniques largely because investigators couldn't prove interrogators exceeded guidelines authorized by the Bush administration. Two of the Libyan dissidents described being waterboarded, and others said they were shackled in their cells for months, often naked, in a variety of painful positions, and in near darkness with music blaring continuously. One man said he nearly went insane, and banged his head against the wall repeatedly, pleading with his captors to kill him, AP reports. Asked about the new accounts, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said the agency "has been on the record that there are three substantiated cases" of waterboarding—which don't include the Libyan cases in the Human Rights Watch Report.

[Berlum]

1. Even before Christ was tortured, it has been known as evil. Why do Republicans love it?

[HiPointDem]

2. nice graphic.

[Berlum]

3. Bush is just one face of the ugly unholy Republican torture values

[Berlum]

4. Republicans skip responsibility for torture. For now.

But karma is a bitch. An absolutely inescapable bitch.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/opinion/no-penalty-for-torture.html

New York Times EDITORIAL
No Penalty for Torture
Published: September 4, 2012

"Any remaining hope for imposing meaningful accountability for torture and other abuses committed against prisoners under President George W. Bush has ended, for all practical purposes.

On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. announced that no one would be prosecuted for the brutal deaths of two prisoners held in C.I.A. custody...."