"THESE GUYS ARE ALL SCIENTISTS"

New York Times article about Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell, two military retirees and psychologists with no expertise on al-Qaeda, no foreign language skills, no experience in real interrogations, and with no relevant degrees ("...their Ph.D. dissertations were on high blood pressure and family therapy")....but "scientists" - The Torture Designers

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JURIST - Paper Chase: UK lawmakers urge inquiry into alleged torture complicity

UK lawmakers urge inquiry into alleged torture complicity
August 4, 2009 - Christian Ehret at 2:35 PM ET

The UK Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights [official website] released a report [text] Tuesday calling for an independent inquiry into allegations regarding government complicity in the torture of UK terrorism suspects in Pakistan and elsewhere. Maintaining that complicity in torture is a violation of international human rights obligations, the committee examined how complicity can be defined and reported a large number of "credible allegations" of such conduct. Examples set forth include asking foreign intelligence services known to use torture to question an individual, providing such agencies with information or questions regarding an individual, and systematically receiving information known or thought likely to have been obtained through torture. Additionally, the report states that the UK is complicit if they merely should have known that torture was taking place.

ARTICLE HERE

America's Experimental Playground - The Lawless America: "BECAUSE WE CAN"

ON EMBARASSMENT AND SHAME - FROM THE FIRST SLAP IN THE FACE ...TO THE IDEA OF JUSTICE

"What an irony that it is the tortured not the torturer, who feels shame and embarassment from the first slap in the face to the non accountability of those who participated directly or indirectly in torture and its irreversible damages."





"Anyone who has been tortured remains tortured." Anyone who has suffered torture never again will be at easy in the world...faith in humanity , already cracked by the first slap in the face, then demolished by torture, is never acquired again..."
Jean Améry, Austrian philosopher tortured by the Nazis - At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor of Auschwitz and Its Realities - 1980


HOW CAN IT BE THAT THOSE WHO AUTHORIZED, ORDERED AND/OR PARTICIPATED IN TORTURE WALK FREE, RECEIVING THE "DE FACT" IMPUNITY ?

"...I ask you to act in service to the truth and to the principle that no matter how high the position held nor how much power accrues to it, its incumbent must be held accountable to the law. ...to do less is to betray the very idea of Justice"

From the letter of Sister Dianna Ortiz, U.S. citizen tortured in Guatemala in 1989, to President Obama - July 2009



In France, the top Secret "Alliance Base":
"Under the directions of the CIA, the countries that have sent officers to be part of the "Alliance Base" based in France, include: Canada, Britain, France, Australia

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/02/AR2005070201361.html?referrer=emailarticle


see post JULY 3, 2009 HERE

ON EMBARASSMENT AND SHAME - FROM THE FIRST SLAP IN THE FACE ...TO THE IDEA OF JUSTICE

'What an irony that it is the tortured not the torturer, who feels shame and embarassment from the first slap in the face to the non accountability of those who participated directly or indirectly in torture and its irreversible damages."



In France, the top Secret "Alliance Base":
"Under the directions of the CIA, the countries that have sent officers to be part of the "Alliance Base" based in France, include: Canada, Britain, France, Australia

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/02/AR2005070201361.html?referrer=emailarticle

see post JULY 3, 2009 HERE


"Anyone who has been tortured remains tortured." Anyone who has suffered torture never again will be at easy in the world...faith in humanity , already cracked by the first slap in the face, then demolished by torture, is never acquired again..."
Jean Améry, Austrian philosopher tortured by the Nazis - At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor of Auschwitz and Its Realities - 1980


HOW CAN IT BE THAT THOSE WHO AUTHORIZED, ORDERED AND/OR PARTICIPATED IN TORTURE WALK FREE, RECEIVING THE "DE FACT" IMPUNITY ?

"...I ask you to act in service to the truth and to the principle that no matter how high the position held nor how much power accrues to it, its incumbent must be held accountable to the law. ...to do less is to betray the very idea of Justice"

From the letter of Sister Dianna Ortiz, U.S. citizen tortured in Guatemala in 1989, to President Obama - July 2009

The long History of CIA's Abuses: hiding misconduct, harassment , intimidation, false confessions, drugging

The Canadian Participation in CIA and Military abusive Human Experiments

Detailed description and documentation - book:

Torture and Impunity: The U.S. Doctrine of Coercive Interrogation
by  Alfred W. McCoy - 2012

• University of Wisconsin Press (Aug. 24 2012)
• ISBN-10: 0299288544 / ISBN-13: 978-0299288549

http://books.google.ca/books/about/Torture_and_Impunity.html?id=GBGj4PvBfMEC&redir_esc=y

 - The CIA and Canada - Science in Dachau's Shadow  - pg .71 -80

 - Our Man in Montreal - details of Canadian  McGill University funding and participation in the CIA mind control experiments - pg. 63- 72 

In Canada, among inumerous victims were Velma Orlikow, the wife of Canadian MP David Orlikow, Anne Collins , author of the book:

"In The Sleep Room: The Story Of The CIA Brainwashing Experiments In Canada"

A Documentary based on the book was aired as :

The Sleep Room- Documentary by The Fifth Estate - CBC - Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Although this compreensive documentary was available on YOUTUBE, it no longer is. It was first aired on January 6, 1998



A Major Television Documentary  mini-series was based on the book:

In The Sleep Room: The Story Of The CIA Brainwashing Experiments In Canada - by Anne Collins - 1998

http://books.google.ca/books/about/In_the_Sleep_Room.html?id=WJIJAAAACAAJ

(and released official records list bellow


______________________________________

Church Committee Reports:(HERE)

14 published reports of the Church Committee contain a wealth of information on the formation, operation, and abuses of U.S. intelligence agencies and its allies. They were published in 1975 and 1976, after which recommendations for reform were debated in the Congress and in some cases carried out.
THE NAVY INVOLVEMENT :Research - Brain Damage without leaving marks
Top Secret PROJECT #54
Extract from Hearings before the Committee on Intelligence- United States Senate - August 3, 1977
HERE - retrieved July 21, 2009
"Senator SCHWEIKER. Subproject 54, MKULTRA, which involved examination of techniques to cause brain concussions and amnesia by using weapons or sound waves to strike individuals without giving and without leaving any clear physical marks.

Our Tax Money goes to ....harassment and cover-ups

In Chapter Four of the book "Dark Days: The Story of four Canadians Tortured in the name of fighting terrorism" ", by Kerry Pither, the "harassment technique" to "SQUEEZE PEOPLE OUT OF CANADA" is exposed .

"Through first-person testimonials and government records, Dark Days demonstrates that what happened to these men is rooted in a systemic pattern of complicity in torture and cannot be explained away as a coincidence or a series of mistakes ." ("Dark Days: The Story of four Canadians Tortured in the name of fighting terrorism" ", by Kerry Pither)

After his return to Canada on Saturday, June 27, 2009, Abousfian Abdelrazik, is once again facing the same pattern of harassment even after the RCMP and CSIS have supposedly cleared him.

Abousfian Abdelrazik's lawyer, Yavar Hameed, suspects Canadian security agencies are the ones tailing his client.

By now, a lot more is known about the involvement of CSIS in this pattern of harassment and as Mr. Hameed said:

“This [surveillance] is completely inappropriate given one of the factors that drove him out of the country is he was severely harassed by CSIS."

“If that pattern re-emerges, in light of what we know CSIS is involved in, there would be serious consequences,” Mr. Hameed said, referring tothe possibility of obtaining a court injunction.

(photo: Abousfian (right) with his lawyer Yavar Hameed before they boarded the flight in Khartoum to return to Canada)

More on the case: People's Commission on Immigration "Security" Measures - Project Fly Home

The Globe and Mail article published Monday, June 29, 2009 - "Mysterious people tailing Abdelrazik in first days home"- is worth reading:

Article HERE

"Torture does not save lives.Torture costs us lives," says the Senior Military Interrogator of the Elite Task that tracked down Al-Zarqawi

Former Interrogator Rebukes Cheney for Torture Speech - HERE
Dick Cheney says that torturing detainees has saved American lives but those on the field say that Cheney's torture policy was directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of American and allies servicemen and women.



Matthew Alexander was the senior military interrogator for the task force that tracked down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq and, at the time, a higher priority target than Osama bin Laden. Mr. Alexander has personally conducted hundreds of interrogations and supervised over a thousand of them.

"Torture does not save lives. Torture costs us lives," Mr. Alexander said in an exclusive interview at Brave New Studios (HERE). "And the reason why is that our enemies use it, number one, as a recruiting tool...These same foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight because of torture and abuse....literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives."

The Torture Policy - CIA homicides

Intelligence Services ...


An article : "The Bush Administration Homicides" - by John Sifton

Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human-rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.

For five years as a researcher for Human Rights Watch and reporter, John Sifton helped investigate homicides resulting from the Bush administration’s torture policy. His findings include:

• An estimated 100 detainees have died during interrogations, some who were clearly tortured to death.

• The Bush Justice Department failed to investigate and prosecute alleged murders even when the CIA inspector general referred a case.

• Sifton’s request for specific information on cases was rebuffed by the Bush Justice Department, though it was “familiar with the cases.”

• Attorney General Eric Holder must now decide whether to investigate and prosecute homicides, not just cases of torture.

A simple fact is being overlooked in the Bush-era torture scandal: the number of cases in which detainees have been tortured to death. Abuse did not only involve the high-profile cases of smashing detainees into plywood barriers (“walling”), confinement in coffin-like boxes with insects, sleep deprivation, cold, and waterboarding. To date approximately 100 detainees, including CIA-held detainees, have died during U.S. interrogations, and some are known to have been tortured to death.

A review of homicide cases, however, shows that few detainee deaths have been properly investigated. Many were not investigated at all. And no official investigation has looked into the connection between detainee deaths and the interrogation policies promulgated by the Bush administration.

Yet an important report by the Senate Armed Services Committee, declassified in April 2009, explains in clear terms how Bush-era interrogation techniques, including torture, once authorized for CIA high-value detainees, were promulgated to Guantánamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, where (as reporter Jason Leopold recently noted at The Public Record) the policies have led to homicides.

The killings, at least some of them, have hardly been kept secret. As early as May-June 2003, The New York Times and Washington Post reported on deaths of detainees in Afghanistan. Two detainees at Bagram air base died after extensive beatings by U.S. troops in December 2002—a case reported by The New York Times and that was also the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side. Another death involved a man beaten to death by a CIA contractor at a base in Asadabad, in eastern Afghanistan, in June 2003.

In September 2004, the Crimes of War Project, working with investigative journalist Craig Pyes, uncovered a torture murder in Gardez, Afghanistan, in March 2003. Jamal Naseer, a soldier in the Afghan Army, died after he and seven other soldiers were mistakenly arrested. Those arrested with Naseer later said that during interrogations U.S. personnel punched and kicked them, hung them upside down, and hit them with sticks or cables. Some said they were doused with cold water and forced to lie in the snow. Nasser collapsed about two weeks after the arrest, complaining of stomach pain, probably an internal hemorrhage.

In May 2005, as a researcher for Human Rights Watch, I reported on several other cases of torture homicides, including a case in which the military claimed a detainee had died because he was “bitten by a snake.”

To the best of my knowledge, the first death of a U.S. detainee in custody occurred in August 2002—an Afghan detainee named Mohammad Sayari killed by four U.S. military personnel. I first learned about the Sayari case in 2005, reading through a Department of Defense document obtained via a Freedom of Information Act case by the American Civil Liberties Union. The document contained a short description of the incident: A captain and three sergeants “murdered Mr. [Sayari] after detaining him for following their movements in Afghanistan.” The section of the document detailing the result of the investigation was redacted.

More than three years after the murder, human-rights groups and I pressed the military for an explanation. The Army revealed that commanders had declined to prosecute any of the four men implicated in the case, although one of the four soldiers received an “administrative reprimand.” In 2006, additional documents obtained by the ACLU disclosed that the Army investigation had found probable cause to recommend charges of murder and conspiracy against the four Special Forces soldiers. According the investigation, the four soldiers had captured the detainee, a civilian noncombatant, and shot him, presumably after interrogating him. (Investigators also recommended dereliction-of-duty charges against three of the men and a charge of obstruction of justice against the highest-ranking, a captain, who admitted to destroying evidence of the crime.) Inexplicably, without a court martial, the case was closed. The captain received a letter of reprimand for “destroying evidence.”

In February 2006, a review by Human Rights First determined that almost 100 detainees died in U.S. custody in Afghanistan and Iraq facilities as of 2005, and that almost half of the cases were clearly homicides. Several cases discussed in the report were clear cases of torture homicides.

To take one example, in December 2003, a 44-year-old Iraqi man named Abu Malik Kenami died in a U.S. detention facility in Mosul, Iraq. As reported by Human Rights First, U.S. military personnel who examined Kenami when he first arrived at the facility determined that he had no preexisting medical conditions. Once in custody, as a disciplinary measure for talking, Kenami was forced to perform extreme amounts of exercise—a technique used across Afghanistan and Iraq. Then his hands were bound behind his back with plastic handcuffs, he was hooded, and forced to lie in an overcrowded cell. Kenami was found dead the morning after his arrest, still bound and hooded. No autopsy was conducted; no official cause of death was determined. After the Abu Ghraib scandal, a review of Kenami’s death was launched, and Army reviewers criticized the initial criminal investigation for failing to conduct an autopsy; interview interrogators, medics, or detainees present at the scene of the death; and collect physical evidence. To date, however, the Army has taken no known action in the case.

Another infamous case from Iraq involved a CIA “ghost” detainee named Manadel al-Jamadi, who was tortured to death by a CIA interrogation team at Abu Ghraib prison in November 2003. Pictures of Abu Ghraib guards Charles Graner and Sabrina Harman posing with al-Jamadi’s dead body, the so-called Ice Man, were among the most notorious of the Abu Ghraib photographs published in April 2004. A CIA officer named Mark Swanner and an interpreter led the team that interrogated al-Jamadi. Nine Navy personnel were also implicated. An autopsy conducted by the U.S. military five days after al-Jamadi’s death found that the cause: “blunt force injuries complicated by compromised respiration.” Reporting by The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer and NPR’s John McChesney revealed that al-Jamadi was strung up from handcuffs behind his back, a torture tactic sometimes called a “Palestinian hanging.” After an investigation, the CIA referred the case to the Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution of the CIA personnel involved, but no charges were ever brought. Prosecutors accused 10 Navy personnel of the crime; nine were given nonjudicial punishments, such as rank reductions and letters of reprimand, and a 10th was acquitted.

The government is not unaware of these homicides. In April 2006, a colleague of mine at Human Rights Watch and I met with Department of Justice criminal-division officials and requested information and updates on this case and several others. Justice officials were familiar with these cases, but our pleas for information were rejected.

There may be other CIA homicides yet uncovered. One case of concern involves a detainee in the CIA’s detention program named Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani who was arrested in northern Iraq in January 2004. Ghul’s interrogation was discussed in one of the May 10, 2005, Office of Legal Counsel memos signed by OLC head Steven Bradbury. Ghul’s name is mostly redacted but appears by mistake in one part of the memo.

I am starting to suspect that Ghul might be dead. After all, his name was redacted from the OLC memo, unlike that of other CIA detainees now at Guantánamo. Why would the CIA be afraid of mentioning Ghul? CIA doctors appear to have determined that Ghul was in poor health when he was captured, in fact, too unhealthy to be waterboarded. Unlike other former CIA detainees, human-rights groups have not confirmed that he was rendered to Pakistan or to a third country. Did the CIA perhaps torture Ghul to death? We do not know. He has now completely disappeared.

The CIA appears to have had some close calls with detainees dying. The May 10, 2005, Bradbury memo suggests that one of the CIA’s detainees—likely Abu Zubaydah or Khalid Sheikh Mohammad—stopped breathing or lost consciousness at one point during their waterboarding: According to the CIA’s Office of Medical Services, in their “limited experience… extensive sustained use of the waterboard can introduce new [possibly lethal] risks.” (To the best of our knowledge, the only “experience” the CIA has with waterboarding being used extensively or in a sustained manner, is with Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammad). The memo explains: “Most seriously, for reasons of physical fatigue of psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness. An unresponsive subject should be righted immediately, and the integrator should deliver a sub-xyphoid thrust to expel the water. If this fails to restore normal breathing, aggressive medical intervention is required….” The memo also notes that CIA doctors present during waterboarding sessions stood by with necessary equipment to perform a tracheotomy if necessary: “[W]e are informed that the necessary emergency medical equipment is always present—although not visible to the detainee—during any application of the waterboard.”

It would be overly simplistic to suggest that every detainee death in U.S. custody and every act of abuse was part of an authorized and ordered interrogation program designed and run from the highest levels of the Bush administration. Some deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to have involved military or CIA personnel going “off the rails” and engaging in abusive conduct beyond what even White House lawyers had in mind when they crafted their “enhanced interrogation” policies. And some torture techniques were already in use in Afghanistan and spread there earlier than they were even formally approved.

Yet directly or directly, abuse spread and worsened—detainees started dying. Unlike torture, however, homicide is an uncomplicated crime. A criminal homicide occurs when a person or set of persons simply causes the death of another without legal justification. There is little nuance, little room for escape. Once a person is dead, the killer and those assisted him, those who solicited his crime or aided or abetted it, are accomplices.

The bottom line is that many detainee homicides in Iraq and Afghanistan were the direct result of approval and orders from the highest levels of government, and that high officials in the government are accomplices. Any meaningful investigation of those homicides would reveal the initial authorizations and their link to the homicides.

Homicide presents legal issues impossible to ignore. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice cannot conclude their deliberations about Bush-era torture policies without closely investigating the homicide cases tied to them. One cannot speak glibly of “policy differences” and “looking forward” and “distraction” when corpses are involved.

Philip Zelikow, 9/11 Commission Director speaks out: THE TORTURE PROGRAM, ITS FAILURE AND LEGAL JUSTIFICATIONS FOR TORTURE

Philip Zelikow , "9/11 Commission Director", speaks out about the TORTURE PROGRAM:

Zelikow, who had access to the supposed intelligence obtained from the “high-value detainees” through torture even before the recent released memos, has written an article in which he dissects the torture program’s failings.

He goes further:
"But the argument that they gave us vital information, which readers can see deployed in the memos just as they were deployed to reassure an uneasy president, is based on a fallacy."

He also points out that the most important point should not be "waterboarding" but the fact that it was a torture program.

"the program developed “interrogation plans” to disorient, abuse, dehumanize, and torment individuals over time".

Among the torture 'techniques" : "attention grasp", "walling," facial slaps, "facial hold," cramped confinement, sleep deprivation, "wall standing", insects placed in a confinement box, waterboarding, and stress positions.
(more on the USA Senate Armed Services Committee Report released on April 21, 2009 HERE)

Zelikow's article points out the role of lawyers in the Torture Program:

"There is an elementary distinction, too often lost, between the moral (and policy) question -- "What should we do?" -- and the legal question: "What can we do?" We live in a policy world too inclined to turn lawyers into surrogate priests granting a form of absolution. "The lawyers say it's OK." Well, not really. They say it might be legal. They don't know about OK."

Zelikow's article HERE
"The OLC "torture memos": thoughts from a dissenter - By Philip Zelikow - 04/21/2009

The recent released reports and documents also reveal the participation of psychiatrists and psychologist in developing the torture program. More on this at:

"Tortured Logic: How Medical Professionals Rationalized the Bush Administration's Torture Program."
a responce to the release of the Senate Armed Forces Committee report on detainee abuse, by Nataniel Raymond, Director of PHR. (HERE)



Zelikow is currently the White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia and was counselor at the Department of State, a deputy to Secretary Rice, from 2005-2007.

RCMP : "WHO YOU GONNA BELIEVE, ME OR YOUR EYES?" - The RCMP's Propaganda Machine - Drafting the Lies and the "key messages to the media"

_________________________________________________________________________________
View CBC - "Insiders Perspective" April 20, 2009 - (HERE) __________________________________________________________________________________

One has to wonder the price ALL Police Forces , all over the country, have to pay for siding with the RCMP's lies and cover-ups ...
While tons of police officers in other forces are, on a daily basis, working , really working, to bring criminals to Court, the RCMP doesn't need this - it can only roll its propaganda machine and Bingo!, the "Canadian Police Idol" gets the honours!
From complicity in torture, to harassment of Canadians (HERE) , to killing a confused man in front of the public and on and on, it looks like that nothing is bad enough to the RCMP , as long as it can , with impunity, cover it up. This is a Police Force that would make any dictator happy: lies, crimes, cover-ups, no accountability, power, intimidations...Still missing the "death squads" component? maybe...

But soon, for sure, the RCMP will come up with some "sensational news" about some TERRIFIC crime it solved!
Its propaganda machine must be rolling right now, so that Canada and the world, (mainly those who visit Disneyland) , forget or do not believe in their own eyes or in any evidence that contradicts the RCMP.
At the end of the day, this Police Force slogan looks like to be " "Who you gonna believe, ME OR YOUR EYES?"
For our eyes to see and for our ears to listen:


DRAFTING THE LIES - "key messages to the media"



NOT "JUST" TASER BUT A PATTERN OF VIOLENCE - RCMP Pepper Spray BABY ..Is the case just the taser?



AND some of the CASES...only a few...

68 Year Old Stroke Victim Tasered After Double Parking


RCMP using Taser on disabled man - But in this case, the man died some weeks later...in an accident...



THE LAST MINUTES OF Robert Dziekanski - the RCMP caught on video: " "WHO YOU GONNA BELIEVE, ME OR YOUR EYES?"
Paul Pritchard,the school teacher who shot the video, had to threaten Court Action to get his camera back, after the RCMP saw him shooting what happened and seized his camera.