Bush's envoy sparks another diplomatic incident over war claims

[Ian David]

Bush's envoy sparks another diplomatic incident over war claims
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Published: 27 December 2005

The US ambassador in London has been forced into an embarrassing retreat after his embassy clarified comments he made denying that the United States was involved in removing terrorist suspects to Syria.

Robert Tuttle told Radio 4's Today programme last Thursday that there was no evidence that US forces had sent suspected terrorists for questioning in Syria, a practice known as "extraordinary rendition".

The US embassy issued a statement yesterday acknowledging that there had been claims that a suspect arrested in New York had been sent by the CIA for torture in Syria.

It is the second time in recent weeks that Mr Tuttle has had to correct misleading statements about the actions of US forces, and provoked a fresh outcry from Labour MPs over the practice of extraordinary rendition.

More:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article335226.ece

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

1. Mr Tuttle has never heard of Maher Arar? n/t

[The Doctor.]

2. It's all unraveling....

The question becomes, "Will it unravel faster than the bushists can weave the bullshit back together?"

[bostonbabs]

3. me think:::::::NOT::::::::TSK TSK TSK

[Canuckistanian]

9. Unraveling, the perfect description

Elaborate lies need even more elaborate planning and justifications. Which lead to bigger lies.

This is their downfall, utterly.

:party:

[TaleWgnDg]

14. cripes. it been taking long enough!! 5 years of this crap! i.e., lies!

[Trevelyan]

21. UK Torture Memo - PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY

http://www.dailykos.com/special/Torture_memos UK Torture Memos

"The first document contains the text of several telegrams that Craig Murray sent back to London from 2002 to 2004, warning that the information being passed on by the Uzbek security services was torture-tainted, and challenging MI6 claims that the information was nonetheless "useful".

The second document is the text of a legal opinion from the Foreign Office's Michael Wood, arguing that the use by intelligence services of information extracted through torture does not constitute a violation of the UN Convention Against Torture.

Craig Murray says: MUCH MORE UZBEKISTAN TORTURE AND MASS MURDER

A very compassionate and courageous man. If Kos reprinting disappears again, I have posted it on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StopTheNewWorldOrder/

[Stephanie]

4. BushCO's web of lies is so vast, they no longer have control of it.

There are too many people involved to keep the the various stories straight. It's unraveling.

[formercia]

5. What I find alarming was that the 'person' was 'arrested'

in New York. I bet they weren't read their Miranda warning, especially the part about the attorney. The last time I was there, New York was inside the territorial limits of the United States.

[gratuitous]

6. O what a tangled web has been woven

They've lied so much to so many people, including themselves, that they're in danger of completely losing their tenuous grip on reality. If they didn't have access to the nuclear launch codes, this spectacle might almost be amusing to watch.

[saberjet22]

7. Bush's envoy sparks another diplomatic incident over war claims

"Extraordinary rendition!" A "misleading statement." A fucking lie!
He "misspoke."

[davidinalameda]

8. does anyone who works for this administration

know what the truth is or can tell the truth or has even thought about telling the truth

[TheBaldyMan]

18. Tuttle is highly qualified for the job of US ambassador ...

being an second-hand car salesman and major donor to the Bush campaign.

[julianer]

26. We are thrilled

to have a man of his calibre amongst us.

[Trevelyan]

22. Conyers has some powerful new writing on his blog

http://www.conyersblog.us/
http://www.johnconyers.com PLEASE SIGN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY LETTER HERE
http://www.dailykos.com/special/Torture_memos

"Another Chapter The President As King

"A couple of days ago, I wrote about the legal theory underlying the spying scandal. This is the theory that the Bush Administration is claiming justifies the President's abuses of power. As I mentioned, it is identical to the theory used by the Justice Department to justify torturing detainees. In a nutshell, the argument goes, we are in a war on terror and America is the battlefield. The President, as Commander in Chief under Article II of the Constitution, according to the Administration's claim, has absolute and unchecked powers in the conduct of this war.

My last post on this zeroed in on the President's view that he is not subject to the laws passed by Congress. I also mentioned that he believes he is not subject to judicial action. Lest you think I was indulging in hyperbole, read today's Washington Post."

Blogged by JC on 12.29.05 @ 04:02 PM ET
==
"It's not the big decisions that are hard. You can decide to invade Russia over dinner, pick Waterloo for battle on a whim, it's easy to decide to risk a million lives. What's hard is to see how your decision affects one life, and if you can't do that, you'll lose your humanity." Ike, before Normandy, according to my recollection.

[Higans]

10. "Extraordinary rendition" or "the Ministry of Love"

http://www.literature-web.net/orwell/1984

[tirechewer]

11. He sure knows how to pick 'em

I can see it now. Bush standing with his arm around Tuttle, going "Heck of a job, Tuttlie!":evilgrin: "Keep up the good work."

[jeff30997]

12. A Canadian citizen had the pleasure to visit Syria too:

"As a nation, does the United States have a conscience? Or is anything and everything O.K. in post-9/11 America? If torture and the denial of due process are O.K., why not murder? When the government can just make people vanish - which it can, and which it does - where is the line that we, as a nation, dare not cross?
...
Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen with a wife and two young children, had his life flipped upside down in the fall of 2002 when John Ashcroft's Justice Department, acting at least in part on bad information supplied by the Canadian government, decided it would be a good idea to abduct Mr. Arar and ship him off to Syria, an outlaw nation that the Justice Department honchos well knew was addicted to torture.

Mr. Arar was not charged with anything, and yet he was deprived not only of his liberty, but of all legal and human rights. He was handed over in shackles to the Syrian government and, to no one's surprise, promptly brutalized. A year later he emerged, and still no charges were lodged against him. His torturers said they were unable to elicit any link between Mr. Arar and terrorism. He was sent back to Canada to face the torment of a life in ruins."

More: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0228-24.htm

[arikara]

13. One thing that I really can't figure out with this

is that Syria is supposedly on the wish list for invasion by bushco and yet they are good enough buddies to subcontract out their torture to them? Makes no sense at all to me.

[TaleWgnDg]

15. It's been said by George Orwell . . .

. . . here you go:


.

[TheBaldyMan]

16. I couldn't find Tuttle's interview on BBC Radio's web site

Does anyone know when the interview actually took place?

link to 'Today' 22nd Dec '05 archive

Although I think Tuttle has had to retract statements before I'd like to hear his comments myself.

[NJCher]

17. don't know

I did extensive searching, too, and I even listened to two of the interviews on the page you cited above, thinking that perhaps it might have been a clip from an interview on a related subject.

Nothing.

Makes you wonder.


Cher

[Trevelyan]

23. Graham-Levin Amendment to the McCain Amendment

http://www.tortureisnotus.org/ - petition
http://www.cageprisoners.com/
http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/home.asp
http://www.witnesstorture.org/
http://katrinafemacamps.blogspot.com/

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=VJQl1vGD5N&Content=684==

"Center for Constitutional Rights Statement on Dangers of Court-Stripping and Graham-Levin Amendment

As Congress supposedly outlaws torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by its support of the McCain Amendment, it will at the same time foster both torture and indefinite detention without judicial oversight if it supports the Graham-Levin Amendment. What McCain gives with one hand, Graham-Levin, as now proposed takes away with the other.

McCain forbids torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading interrogation. Graham-Levin, on the other hand, authorizes the use of evidence obtained through these methods in military tribunals, "if probative," ie, if it is useful or relevant to the proceedings. Since virtually all information is "probative," this provision opens the door wide to the torture that McCain supposedly shuts. In addition, while we have one public document, the Army Field Manual, that forbids torture, the Administration has just introduced a secret "Addendum" to the manual that essentially sanctions torture...." MORE

[Kolesar]

19. Tuttle, Buttle, ...

[Supersedeas]

20. misleading statements????

[Trevelyan]

24. Please Sign Solidarity Letter of Brave Gitmo Protesters

Using the form below, please add your name to show your solidarity with Witness Against Torture.

December 4, 2005

Captain Mark M. Leary, USN
Commander, U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay
and Commanding Officer, U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay
U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay Public Affairs Office
PSC 1005, Box 25
FPO, AE 09593-0025

Donald Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
Department of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Sirs,

I write to you with a heavy heart. As a person who is concerned about justice and human rights, I am heartbroken at what my government is doing in my name, and in the name of my security. Along with millions of other Americans, I believe that torture is terrorism. Torture does not work. It is cruel and inhumane, and as Amnesty International has said, torture degrades us all.

The detention center at the United States Naval Base at Guantnamo Bay, Cuba was made for the purposes of secrecy, unaccountability and impunity. I hear the reports of prisoners - men who are fathers, sons and brothers - without contact with their families, very little or no contact with attorneys, enduring interminable detention without legal charge. I hear the reports of rendition, of kidnapping and the sale of prisoners to U.S. authorities, of the desecration of the Quran, and of unconscionable prisoner humiliation and abuse.

These reports have put the base with its counterpart in Iraq, Abu Ghraib prison, at the center of serious charges of U.S. torture. Despite U.S. government and media attempts to hide it, there is every reason to believe such horrific practices are routine there and in other facilities around the world.

It has to stop. I write to tell you that a small group of people, inspired by the nonviolent tradition of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker, are now marching to the U.S. Naval Base to state their rejection of torture and abuse, and to loudly proclaim their stance in defense of human dignity. I walk with them.

I ask you the men with the power to determine so much in the lives of so many to let this Witness Against Torture group into the base to visit the prisoners.

Sincerely,

http://www.witnesstorture.org/signletter

[Trevelyan]

25. Memos from Rumsfeld posted at Abu Ghraib encouraging the abuse of prisoner

"Lots of rumours about Bush shutting Cheney and Rumsfeld out. Bullcrap. Rumsfeld is a conniver of torturors and human rights abuses.

According to General Karpinski, there were memos from Rumsfeld posted at Abu Ghraib encouraging the abuse of prisoners.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_200...5/ 082405Z.shtml

I love how Rumy doesn't know how far away Iraq is. That just shows how

==If I were General Pace, I'd have someone testing the food I drank for mysterious poisons, or the brakes on his car for severed lines.
==What Rumsfeld meant was, "Report it to someone who could cover it up."
==I'd like to point out that at the 4:34 mark of this video, Donald Rumsfeld did his best Donald Trump "you're fired" gesture as he was saying General Casey's name.

===Sadly, Rumsfeld's response isn't surprising. He, Bush and Cheney all have the same arrogance of command and their indifference to simple mistakes let alone something as vile as passing off torture as mearly "not our problem" is disgusting. This clip should be in a nationally run tv ad."
====
Recommended - Don't forget those many who are suffering unspeakable torture and courageous whistleblowers. Please write or email support of Gen. Pace for standing up to Rummy on TV about US soldiers being required to stop torture if they are physically present when it occurs" [e-mail]

General Peter Pace, USMC
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301