Torture, Sadism, Suicide Orders, Impunity in Ancient Rome: Julian - Claudian's Ancestry

"Power over Life and Death - Don't be proud of it. Whatever they fear from you, you'll be threatened with." Seneca (the Younger)

Julio-Claudian Dynasty

http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/emperors-of-the-julio-claudian-dynasty.html#lesson

Enhanced torturers, Enhanced deals

The USA Justice Department prosecutor is still investigating whether any CIA "enhanced interrogation expert", including Torture psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, should face criminal charges.

But just in case the last two ones are not above the Law, the CIA has agreed to cover at least $5 million in legal fees for the architects of the agency’s "interrogation" program.

The full article at :
http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2010/12/17/cia-paying-5-million-to-defend-torture-psychologists/

Extract:

Officials: CIA gave Waterboarders $5M Legal Shield

By Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo
WASHINGTON (AP) – The CIA agreed to cover at least $5 million in legal fees for two contractors who were the architects of the agency’s interrogation program and personally conducted dozens of waterboarding sessions on terror detainees, former U.S. officials said.
The secret agreement means taxpayers are paying to defend the men in a federal investigation over an interrogation tactic the U.S. now says is torture. The deal is even more generous than the protections the agency typically provides its own officers, giving the two men access to more money to finance their defense.
It has long been known that psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen created the CIA’s interrogation program. But former U.S. intelligence officials said Mitchell and Jessen also repeatedly subjected terror suspects inside CIA-run secret prisons to waterboarding, a simulated drowning tactic.
The revelation of the contractors’ involvement is the first known confirmation of any individuals who conducted waterboarding at the so-called black sites, underscoring just how much the agency relied on outside help in its most sensitive interrogations.

More about these guys at PHYSICIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS BLOG: ( click on title)

Psychologists Who Devised US Torture Program Had No Interrogation Experience, Were Paid $1000/Day by CIA

Or visit:

http://phrblog.org/blog/2009/05/01/psychologists-who-devised-us-torture-program-had-no-interrogation-experience-were-paid-1000day-by-cia/

"The United States of America Has Gone Mad."

by British novelist John le Carré - 2003

America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.

The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.

The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world’s poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions.

But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy. Quite what war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer’s pocket? At what cost—because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people—in Iraqi lives?

How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America’s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election.

Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I’m dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam’s downfall—just not on Bush’s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.

The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America’s Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist. [...]

What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America’s need to demonstrate its military power to all of us—to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad.

The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair’s part in all of this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can’t. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can’t get out.

It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain’s opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that’s Britain’s tragedy, as it is America’s: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way. [...]

I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect’s sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can’t explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar.

"But will we win, Daddy?"

"Of course, child. It will all be over while you’re still in bed."

"Why?"
"Because otherwise Mr Bush’s voters will get terribly impatient and may decide not to vote for him."

"But will people be killed, Daddy?"

"Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people."

"Can I watch it on television?"

"Only if Mr Bush says you can."

"And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything horrid any more?"

"Hush child, and go to sleep."

Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: "Peace is also Patriotic". It was gone by the time he’d finished shopping.

Democracy Now! - Broadcast September 20, 2010

American Torture Program: Former CIA agent implicated in torture returns to CIA as contractor and instructor

Associated Press reveals that former FBI and ex-CIA Officer Accused Of Electric-Drill Torture is now Training CIA Operatives As A Contractor:

The former CIA officer accused of revving an electric drill near the head of an imprisoned terror suspect has returned to U.S. intelligence as a contractor. The now instructor at the CIA is an Egyptian descent man who was a FBI agent in New York before joining the CIA.

AP sources: Former FBI man implicated in CIA abuse - Boston.com

More at:

The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/07/ex-cia-electric-drill-contractor-training-operatives_n_708085.html

Former FBI man implicated in CIA abuse is now training CIA operatives:
By Adam Goldman
Associated Press Write
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/09/07/ap_sources_former_fbi_man_implicated_in_cia_abuse/

UNITED STATES TORTURE PROGRAM - current status in 2010: "Above the Law"

More GRITtv

August 8 - Weapons of Mass Destruction - Hiroshima

American Bullets not in the "no fly list" - killing in Mexican soil

“To start using experimental weapons on people is really outrageous in my view.” says University of Toronto adjunct professor Peter Rosenthal

In the news, one handheld weapon from B.C. -based Current Corporation:

May 27, 2010
Toronto police get 'sound cannons' for G20 - thestar.com

The Holy Grail , "those who know" and the Scientists of the "The Ahnenerbe"- Documentary by historian Michael Wood- BBC

"Hitler and the Holy Grail" -documentary by historian Michael Wood, broadcasted in August 1999, BBC Channel 4 (UK) , as part of its Secret History series.

The documentary presents an in-depth analyses of "The Ahnenerbe", a Nazi German think tank, that promoted itself as a "study society for Intellectual Ancient History."
As hundreds of scientists and Institutions joined the organization, the order, the brotherhood of "Holy Grail" around "the Holy Grail of the pure blood" expanded its activities searching for the "truly pure" and noble - eternal life would be valid only to "the trully pure", those "who really know".

PART I of 10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWb8g6X59NM



PART II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTTx3j3wzho



PART III


PART IV -


PART VI - "These guys are all scientists"

PART VII - "Everything we admire is the creative product of a few"




PART X - "other races"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI62Fmx5-EQ

Getting Used to it ?

"Romero" is a documentary film (1989) depicting the life of Catholic Archbishop Óscar Romero, directed by John Duigan, starring Raul Julia.

On March 24, 1980, Romero was shot by an M-16 assault rifle while celebrating Mass at a small chapel located in a hospital called "La Divina Providencia", in El Salvador.

In 1993, an official U.N. report, identified the man who ordered the killing as former School of the Americas graduate Roberto D'Aubuisson, a member of the United States backed death squads that systematically carried out politically-motivated assassinations and other human rights abuses in El Salvador.

March 24, 2010 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the killing of Catholic Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero.
Comments in 2005, with extract of the 1989 film "ROMERO", directed by John Duigan, starring Raul Julia.

"ROMERO" , directed by John Duigan:
Part XI /11

Part I/11

Part II/11

Part III /11

Part IV /11

Part V /11

Part VI /11

Part VII /11

Part VIII/11

Part IX /11

Part X /11


Other Priests assassinated by USA backed death squads in El Salvador during Óscar Romero's time as archbishop (1977–1980):
-Rutilio Grande, S.J.: assassinated March 12, 1977
-Alfonso Navarro: assassinated May 11, 1977
-Ernesto Barrera: assassinated November 28, 1978
-Octavio Ortiz: assassinated January 20, 1979
-Rafael Palacios: assassinated June 20, 1979
-Napoleón Macías: assassinated August 4, 1979
-Ignacio Martín-Baró, S.J.: assassinated November 16, 1989
-Joaquín López y López, S.J.: assassinated November 16, 1989
-Juan Ramón Moreno, S.J.: assassinated November 16, 1989
-Segundo Montes, S.J.: assassinated November 16, 1989
-Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J.: assassinated November 16, 1989
-Amando López, S.J.: assassinated November 16, 1989

HATE GROUPS AT RECORD LEVELS IN USA - March 2010 Report

A new report says the United States is seeing a right-wing extremist groups growth of 244% in 2009. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (HERE), based in Alabama, USA, extremist racist groups grew to 512 in 2009. Right-wing militias tripled over the same period to 127.

(More HERE) - http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/splc-report-number-of-patriot-groups-militias-surges-by-244-in-past-year






A "SMALL THING" ? As BIG THINGS COME FROM LITTLE THINGS ...- "Foolish Frog" - Peggy Seeger - Feb 6, 2010 post), a look at a very public "small thing"(in 2006).

Michael Richards exploded in anger as he performed at a famous Los Angeles comedy club on November 2006, hurling racial epithets that left the crowd gasping.

Along with Julia Louis-Dreyfus (as Elaine Benes), Jerry Seinfeld (Jerry Seinfeld), and Jason Alexander (as George Constanza), Michael Richards plays Cosmo Kramer, one of the main characters in the American TV sitcom "Seinfeld".

More at: http://www.tmz.com/2006/11/20/kramers-racist-tirade-caught-on-tape/#ixzz0hE43dli3

"SHUT UP! 50 YEARS AGO WE'D HAVE YOU UPSIDE DOWN WITH A F* FORK UP YOUR ASS" : by actor MICHAEL RICHARDS , aka "Kramer" in sitcom "Seinfeld") - December 2006

Erik Prince's Company BLACKWATER (NOW "XE") ACTIVITIES FOR/TO/WITH CIA: RAPE, ASSASSINATIONS, PEDOPHILIA and more

Aired August 2009

Does American Congress matter for USA Military and Blackwater ("Xe Services")’s Assassins?

ASSASSINS FOR HIRE - USA MILITARY STRATEGIES:

"Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan"
Article published on November 23, 2009 - The Nation - HERE

Extracts:

"They make much more money being the smarts of these operations, planning hits in various countries and basing it off their experience in Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Ethiopia," said the military intelligence source. "They were there for all of these things, they know what the hell they're talking about. And JSOC has unfortunately lost the institutional capability to plan within, so they hire back people that used to work for them and had already planned and executed these [types of] operations. They hired back people that jumped over to Blackwater SELECT and then pay them exorbitant amounts of money to plan future operations. It's a ridiculous revolving door."

"Colonel Wilkerson said that he is concerned that with General McChrystal's elevation as the military commander of the Afghan war--which is increasingly seeping into Pakistan--there is a concomitant rise in JSOC's power and influence within the military structure. "I don't see how you can escape that; it's just a matter of the way the authority flows and the power flows, and it's inevitable, I think," Wilkerson told The Nation. He added, "I'm alarmed when I see execute orders and combat orders that go out saying that the supporting force is Central Command and the supported force is Special Operations Command," under which JSOC operates. "That's backward. But that's essentially what we have today."

"There's no real oversight. It's not really on people's radar screen."

"Contractors and especially JSOC personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don't care. If there's one person they're going after and there's thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That's the mentality."

"According to federal lobbying records, Kestral recently hired former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, who served in that post from 2003 to 2005, to lobby the US government, including the State Department, USAID and Congress, on foreign affairs issues "regarding [Kestral's] capabilities to carry out activities of interest to the United States." Noriega was hired through his firm, Vision Americas, which he runs with Christina Rocca, a former CIA operations official who served as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 2001 to 2006 and was deeply involved in shaping US policy toward Pakistan. In October 2009, Kestral paid Vision Americas $15,000 and paid a Vision Americas-affiliated firm, Firecreek Ltd., an equal amount to lobby on defense and foreign policy issues."

INTERVIEW :

TORTURE MADE IN THE United States of America

“Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” - documentary film launched in London, UK

TRAILER AVAILABLE HERE

directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington , and inspired by Andy’s book, The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison, it was launched on October 21, 2009 in London, UK.(photos from the launch of "Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo)

The film tells the story of Guantánamo (and includes sections on extraordinary rendition and secret prisons) with a particular focus on how the Bush administration turned its back on domestic and international laws, how prisoners were rounded up in Afghanistan and Pakistan without adequate screening (and often for bounty payments), and why some of these men may have been in Afghanistan or Pakistan for reasons unconnected with militancy or terrorism (as missionaries or humanitarian aid workers, for example).

The film is based around interviews with former prisoners (Moazzam Begg and, in his first major interview, Omar Deghayes, who was released in December 2007), lawyers for the prisoners (Clive Stafford Smith in the UK and Tom Wilner in the US), and journalist and author Andy Worthington, and also includes appearances from Guantánamo’s former Muslim chaplain James Yee, Shakeel Begg, a London-based Imam, and the British human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce.

Focusing on the stories of three particular prisoners — Shaker Aamer (who is still held), Binyam Mohamed (who was released in February 2009) and Omar Deghayes — “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” provides a powerful rebuke to those who believe that Guantánamo holds “the worst of the worst” and that the Bush administration was justified in responding to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 by holding men neither as prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions, nor as criminal suspects with habeas corpus rights, but as “illegal enemy combatants” with no rights whatsoever.

For further information, interviews, or to inquire about broadcasting, distributing or showing “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” please contact Andy Worthington(andy@andyworthington.co.uk) or Polly Nash(p.nash@lcc.arts.ac.uk).

“Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” is a Spectacle Production (74 minutes, 2009).

Andy Worthington is a journalist, and the author of three books, including The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (Pluto Press). Visit his website here.

Polly Nash is a lecturer at the London College Of Communication (LCC), part of the University of the Arts, London, and has worked in film and TV for 20 years. Core funding for the film was provided by LCC.

Review at The Osterley Times :

"The film was intense and powerful, mostly because it did not attempt in any way to emotionalise the story it was laying out before us. [Andy] Worthington, Clive Stafford Smith and others simply told the story of how the US abandoned habeas corpus and found itself in a kind of war with its own legal system, whilst [Moazzam] Begg and [Omar] Deghayes told the tale of what it was like to be on the receiving end of this historic aberration of justice."

Comments:
"The film was brilliantly powerful — both understated and shocking. All night I have had the images in my head and thoughts of these men who, even when released, can’t contact their families. I hate to admit I had no idea about extraordinary rendition — you have lifted the lid on a world that far too many people, like myself, find too easy to avoid."

"I have just returned from a rather extraordinary evening. I attended the film premiere of Andy Worthington and Polly Nash’s film “Outside the Law” — a feature length documentary about Guantánamo. I urge you all to see it. Please do and then when you have seen it pass it on to your friends and family. I have not seen anything at all that compares to understanding the magnitude of what has been happening in Guantánamo and Bagram. After seeing this film and then staying for the Q&A, which featured the film makers, as well as former detainees Omar Deghayes and Moazzam Begg, I was moved, inspired and angered beyond any other event I have been to. People left the venue with changed opinions, far better informed and shocked. Once again please do try and get to a screening."

For more information : Andy Worthington Website at: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/

USA Torture Program and America's History of Human Experiments and impunity - History Channel documentary

To read documents and to learn the History of US torture in SERE, Vietnam, Latin America, GMTO, Black Sites , see Michael Otterman's research site at:

http://www.americantorture.com/

"Getting Used to it???" It took decades to USA to go from experiments in humans(MKULTRA) to a Torture Policy. Why blaming George Bush now?

The American Torture Program and a small, very small piece of its details is revealed and the atrocities are in no way far away from madness and cruelty. This could not have happened just "because of Bush". This has to be the result of a History of years and years of impunity and atrocities.

As History tells and in a very similar manner to detainees expected condition (as described in the memos) , America's History of atrocities become each day more and more "predictable" and probably "sustainable" as impunity is also in the USA agenda.. Because "Yes, they can"!

Although the documents released Monday , August 24, 2009, probably described only a small piece of the CIA’s detention and torture program and are "outdated" since the report dates back to 2004, hopefully it is still shocking to Americans to learn that their country, the self proclaimed "Bastian of democracy" has actually a real face that is far from decent besides having invested itself with the power of turn the rest of the world into witnesses to atrocities and impunity it proclaims to be unacceptable from others.

The memos speak for themselves - They show the real face of the United States of America and of its disregard for any rule or Law that is not convenient for the CIA and "others".

An interesting article about the content and link to the memos by Jason Leopold , The Public Record, August 25, 2009:
"Revealed: Docs Describe in Extraordinary Detail Process of ‘Rendition,’ Torture" HERE

STAND AGAINST RAPE AND IMPUNITY