Inside the CIA's notorious "black sites" = "previously unknown twist in the chilling,"

[L. Coyote]

Inside the CIA's notorious "black sites"

A Yemeni man never charged by the U.S. details 19 months of brutality and psychological torture -- the first in-depth, first-person account from inside the secret U.S. prisons. A Salon exclusive.

By Mark Benjamin - Dec. 14, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/12/14/bashmilah/?source=whitelist


The CIA held Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah in several different cells when he was incarcerated in its network of secret prisons known as "black sites." But the small cells were all pretty similar, maybe 7 feet wide and 10 feet long. He was sometimes naked, and sometimes handcuffed for weeks at a time. In one cell his ankle was chained to a bolt in the floor. There was a small toilet. In another cell there was just a bucket. Video cameras recorded his every move. The lights always stayed on -- there was no day or night. A speaker blasted him with continuous white noise, or rap music, 24 hours a day.

The guards wore black masks and black clothes. They would not utter a word as they extracted Bashmilah from his cell for interrogation -- one of his few interactions with other human beings during his entire 19 months of imprisonment. Nobody told him where he was, or if he would ever be freed.

It was enough to drive anyone crazy. Bashmilah finally tried to slash his wrists with a small piece of metal, smearing the words "I am innocent" in blood on the walls of his cell. But the CIA patched him up.

So Bashmilah stopped eating. But after his weight dropped to 90 pounds, he was dragged into an interrogation room, where they rammed a tube down his nose and into his stomach. Liquid was pumped in. The CIA would not let him die.

On several occasions, when Bashmilah's state of mind deteriorated dangerously, the CIA also did something else: They placed him in the care of mental health professionals. Bashmilah believes these were trained psychologists or psychiatrists. "What they were trying to do was to give me a sort of uplifting and to assure me," Bashmilah said in a telephone interview, through an interpreter, speaking from his home country of Yemen. "One of the things they told me to do was to allow myself to cry, and to breathe."

Last June, Salon reported on the CIA's use of psychologists to aid with the interrogation of terrorist suspects. But the role of mental health professionals working at CIA black sites is a previously unknown twist in the chilling, ...........

.............

[BridgeTheGap]

1. So this is what America stands for?

Or just something we put up with?

[L. Coyote]

2. "The told him they would rape his wife and mother."

Say Hello to Bush's fascist buddies!!

[peacetalksforall]

7. Nazism - brown. Fascism - black. Blackwater, black hoods, black sites - but the aircraft

are unmarked white.

Whoever thought that a bear's print would be torture, torment, the ultimate of insult and abuse trademark? Also, in black and white. Trademark as in trade - as in money for death and some rushes of power? Outlet for machoism.

Brought to you under the guidance of their boss in the WH - the head of the State Dept., a female pianist with a doctorate, with a career in academia and the oil business, an expert on the USSR, a black ops contributor in Iran-Contra and in the Bush WHite House.

Plant those images in your head and, if necessary, allow a psychologist/psychiatrist to remove them - hopefully outside of a prison planned and set-up by Republican politicians.

[The Stranger]

3. K&R

Get the word out on this.

[mmonk]

4. Bookmarking.

Thanks.

[midnight]

5. Wow, no wonder some of us are having a hard time with this

war..... This is ungodly.

[The Stranger]

6. Is this what Mukasey is covering up?

[L. Coyote]

12. Precisely. This and much worse. The DEAD can't complain like this!!

Murder is also a crime!! How many died while tortured?

Waterboarding is key to war crimes prosecutions for torture.

[SpiralHawk]

8. Stunningly ugly and anti-moral. Republicon values in action

How perfectly heinous...

[Ezlivin]

9. I'm, like, feeling really safe right now

Well, at least until they decide to come and get me for a little midnight rendition action.

A hard rain is gonna fall.

[lovuian]

10. MKULTRA is a well oiled machine

this makes the Bourne ultimatum look so real

[lonestarnot]

11. Just a word on the machine.

Once it starts running, it is very difficult to turn it off.

[formercia]

19. Plausible denial

If someone says it happened to them, they can claim it was all a part of a fictional movie plot and just a figment of someone's imagination.

Life imitates art, imitates life.

[formercia]

13. CIA Hostile interrogation course

we had to take it in training. It was run by BAD (Behavioral Activities Division). It's amazing how they can get inside your head and make you snap. It's worse than physical punishment and it leaves no visible marks. I went through it and wound up with my hair falling out and a torn diaphragm.

The people running it are graduate shrinks.

[L. Coyote]

15. You tax dollars at work. This absolutely must STOP. We need a revolution of

consciousness and conscience in the USA and the world.

Inhumanity cannot be tolerated, it must STOP now!

[formercia]

16. It's been going on for a long time

Bush Gang just took it to a whole new level.

They didn't call them BAD for nothing.

[L. Coyote]

20. George Bush Sr. May Face Charges: Conspiring to Kidnap and Murder Political Activists

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2459135

How many cover ups are there? Who is being protected? Read the details.

[formercia]

21. Poppy covered his tracks well

Most of the staffers involved are dead. They have a very high accident rate.
He tried having me whacked in 1992. The bullet missed my right ear by a whisker. I felt it go by my face. I id'd two of his personal security detail tailing me. That's how I know he was behind it.

I think he was afraid I would spill the beans before the election. He lost anyway.

[L. Coyote]

24. I was stabbed nine times, nearly died. I wonder how many stories there are untold.

They continue working on hiding documents under the "state security" excuse, removing stuff from the Library of Congress..... covering their tracks daily still, to hide any and every tiny bit of history shedding light on their crimes.

[formercia]

25. That's how they stayed in business for so long

I wouldn't have even known he was behind it if he hadn't sent his most trusted hounds to do the deed. It had been going on for several years until I id'd them.

They are worse than the Mafia. They have the whole US Government to do their wet work and the taxpayer picks up the bill. The Italian Mafia are small fry compared to that gang.

[L. Coyote]

27. One friend assassinated, shot in the head, know another family with a son killed......

The death squads know no borders.

It is overdue to hold the criminals to account.

[formercia]

28. No telling how many died in prison

They tried for years to provoke me into violating the law so they could send me to prison. Once there, they 'Bad Jacket' you and tell the GP that you're a snitch. Plenty of predators who will torture and kill a snitch for entertainment.

[formercia]

29. Rules of engagement

The boys have made them quite clear. Hang in there.

[femrap]

14. K and R

America is being led by an evil sadist. He gets off on inflicting pain and death. He is insane.

[riverdeep]

17. I understand that the resistance to this administration is not something to be proud of,

but sometimes I imagine what if there were NO resistance at all. I would not in any way be surprised if this nation became like the regime of Stalin in a very short period of time. Resistors being disappeared, news bought and paid for, protest zones, and of course, the one who counts the votes wins. There's also some Joseph Mengele-like overtones here, that would no doubt be amplified.

[L. Coyote]

18. Resistance to this administration IS something to be proud, and the DUTY of Patriots

who defend Constitutional governance and Rule of Law.

What is worrisome is that peaceful resistance in the tradition of Ghandi and Martin Luther King will simply be snuffed out by violence and lawless conduct.

[riverdeep]

22. Whoa, let me be clear.

Reading your statement shows mine can be interpreted very differently than what I intended. I meant that the resistance shown in official circles, the media and the Congress in particular, has been severely underutilized. I was wondering out loud what if we didn't even have this scrap of resistance? How far would they go? Damn far.

Resistance to this administration is most definitely the most patriotic thing anyone can do.

[Franc_Lee]

23. Taking into the shape were in Iraq Torture doesn't appear to be doing jack-squat!!!

[Blue_Tires]

26. k+r