LYING, TORTURING BITCH

Condoleeza Rice, lying barefacedly to European media today :

• “The US does not permit, condone or tolerate torture,”

  “The US does not transport and has not transported detainees
  from one country to another for the purpose of torture.”

  “Acts of physical or mental torture are expressly forbidden.
  Torture and conspiracy to commit torture are crimes in US law no matter where
  they occur around the world”

  “It ” [ America] “has not transported anyone to a country
  where we believe he will be tortured and where appropriate we seek assurances
  that he will not be tortured

  .”

Oh, is that so, Miss Overpromoted Soulless Token? I suppose this was just ‘dicomfort’? From Media Matters For America’s revamped archive:

After devoting a portion of the October 6 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show to discussing pending legislation that would prohibit “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” of detainees held by the U.S. government, Glenn Beck interviewed a caller who claimed to have worked as an “intelligence officer” and to have “extracted intelligence” from U.S.-held prisoners by torturing them.The caller identified himself only as “Mitch,” a name he later admitted was false.

From the October 6 broadcast of The Glenn Beck Program:

BECK: And what would you — like, what kind of tools would you use? What was your method and what worked the best?

“MITCH”: Well, I had three or four that worked the best. I mean — you’ve had your eyes dilated before?

BECK: Yeah.

“MITCH”: Well, with simple masking tape or duct tape, you dilate the eyes, and they you use halogen lamps, and a person is placed in a rigid position where they cannot move. Their eyes are opened and the halogen lamps, you know, they’re producing 40,000 watts. It’s intense. And that breaks them down. High-pressure water — I mean, you’ve heard the term “drinking from a fire hose.” I wouldn’t do that. That generally wouldn’t extract what you want, and usually would drown somebody quickly. But you can use high-water pressure into one ear, and when that first ear drum is broken with, you know, 14 or 15 hundred pounds of water pressure going in, the don’t — they will talk before that second ear drum is broken.

[…]

BECK: Mitch, I’ve got to tell you I appreciate your service. I don’t know your circumstances at all. I, you know, I have to assume that, because we wear the white hats that we’re not doing this at the drop of a hat.

[…]

BECK: So in other words — let me ask you this. So, you know, you always see, like, they’ll come in with this, like, briefcase, and they’ll open it up and there will be all these tools in there.

“MITCH”: No.

BECK: That doesn’t happen either?

“MITCH”: No. No. I did know a contractor that did drilling on live teeth. You know, well teeth. And you’ve seen that before in different movies.

[…]

BECK: Did you ever accidentally kill somebody?

“MITCH”: No. I made them wish they were dead. You know, when you have — like I was saying the, the best — my most successful use of any technique was high-pressure air. You just think of a small [high] velocity hose with 1,200 PSI [pounds per square inch] of air coming through it. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a hose with that much pressure go off, but once — your ears immediately bleed. One ear blown completely out, and you don’t have to do the other one.

BECK: Wow. Mitch?

“MITCH”: It’s like your head exploding inside is what we always thought —

BECK: Do you ever have a hard time sleeping at night?

“MITCH”: No.

BECK: Good for you. Good for — I mean, good for you. Is it because you did it for the country?

“MITCH”: Yeah. I knew what we — how important it was.

[…]

BECK: I’ve got to tell you, Mitch, it’s — you know, you tell one of these stories, you — I don’t know. If you’re comfortable telling this kind of — it’s not something that when you first meet — say, “Hey, by the way, for 30 years I tortured people.” I mean, it’s kind of an awkward, weird, kind of thing. But I have to tell you, when all is said and done, I’m glad people like you are on our side.

“MITCH”: Well, I’m glad I was on my side, too. I — but, you know…

BECK: [laughter]

Listen here, if you can bear it.

I can almost hear the crazy wingnuts, masturbating frantically as they dream that, if only,if only…….

And this? I guess this just didn’t happen either?

?The stories they told were remarkably similar ? terrible beatings,
hung from wrists and beaten, removal of clothes, hooding, exposure naked to extreme cold, ? ?They all confirmed that all this treatment was by Americans ? … Several mentioned the use of electric shocks ? some had this done; many saw it done?.

Notes of a US lawyer after meeting Kuwaiti detainees in
Guant?namo Bay in January 2005

We, the British, who like to sit on our moral high horses surveying those dreadful, ignorant, yahoo Americans – so vulgar, torture, so socially beneath us – we’re no better. Britain may be worse, because we’re acting from craven expediency rather than any deeply-held, if insane , belief system.

This is one where we’re as dirty as any Runsfeld, Cheney or Rice. We know what’s happening, and we’re not only turning a blind eye, but actively assisting in the illegal rendition and torture of who knows how many desapericidos.

The Scotsman: THEY go by names such as N581GA and N44982, N8068V and N379P – featureless identifiers that reveal nothing of their intriguing role in the fight against international terrorism.

The aircraft of the “ghost fleet”, the CIA-owned collection of jets that has criss-crossed the globe diligently and incessantly since September 11, 2001, have been regular sights on the tarmac of Scotland’s airports.

On at least 170 occasions, at Prestwick, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leuchars, Inverness and Wick, the Gulfstreams have touched down and hung around for anything from a few minutes to overnight stays. Yet, while the world’s news pages have gradually come alive to allegations of “extraordinary rendition”, to the prospect of detainees being carried on the planes, drugged and ferried to “black sites” where they could be tortured in private, they have remained unmolested by the UK authorities.

It was a remarkably neighbourly gesture, particularly at a time of increased international scrutiny, when other foreign governments were either demanding explanations from the Americans or banning “ghost flights” from their air space. Chris Mullin, a Foreign Office minister until earlier this year, last week observed that his colleagues had shown a marked “lack of curiosity” about the developing mystery surrounding the flights.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, UK courts have formally accepted evidence in court that was produced by torture.

That principled civil servant, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who resigned her post as senior government lawyer over the war’s illegality, says in The Independent

“… the UK is in breach of domestic and international law by allowing CIA “extraordinary rendition” flights to land and refuel in Britain.’ […]”The obligation under the Torture Convention has been translated into our law in the Criminal Justice Act 1988, an Act well known from its use in the Pinochet case. The Act creates the offence of torture and allows the courts to try it wherever the offence was committed and by a person of whatever nationality. Even if the persons concerned never leave a plane on the Tarmac at a British airport they are covered by the law.”

A Foreign Office spokesman said:

“We are not aware of the use of UK territory or airspace for the purpose of
extraordinary rendition, nor have we received any requests, nor granted any
permission for the use of UK territory or airspace for such purposes.”

No, I’m sorry Mr Straw, it just won’t do. We are not just going to sit back quietly and let this happen. Liberty wrote to remind the British government that it

“…has committed itself to prevent and combat torture through a number of international instruments”…”These include: The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture and the European Convention on Human Rights.”

[The European Convention obliges the British government] “not only to prevent torture and to investigate allegations of torture within the UK” but also to ensure that no-one within its jurisdiction is removed “by third parties to other countries where there is a substantial risk they will be subjected to torture”.

Director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti said: “It is troubling that our Government chases Algeria for anti-torture assurances but cowers from confronting the USA on the same issue. It is the abhorrence of torture that distinguishes all democrats from dictators and terrorists.

“What can we say to those who perpetrate atrocities in London and around the world if we allow ourselves to become complicit in the cheapening of human life?”

The Blair regime can no longer hide the truth. An all-party group of MP’s has formed to investigate – Andrew Tynie, the Tory MP and chairman of the parliamentary group, said: “By apparently assisting the US in the practice of extraordinary rendition, the UK and the west are losing the moral high ground so valuable to foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.” Add to that that a group of MPs have declared their intention to bring a motion of impeachment against him for High Crimes and Misdemeanours in relation to the invasion of Iraq. (The charges are based on evidence presented in a report commissioned by Adam Price MP entitled A Case to Answer .)

Urge your MP to join the investigation. This has got to stop.