COMPLICITY

The Bench: The Bush Six: newyorker.com

THE UNIQUE RESPONSIBILITY OF LAWYERS TO UPHOLD JUSTICE IN DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES AND THOSE WHO TAKE THIS RESPONSIBILITY


The Bench: The Bush Six: newyorker.com (HERE)

by Jane Mayer


"Philippe Sands is a law professor and a certified Queen’s Counsel (the kind of barrister who on occasion wears a powdered horsehair wig) who works at the same law practice as Cherie Blair. " Sands’s book, “Torture Team: Deception, Cruelty and the Compromise of Law" ,” offers a forensic investigation of deception at the highest levels of White House and of the steps taken by Bush officials to that shiled those responsible for the "American Torture Program".


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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.

Creating and feeding ISLAMOPHOBIA - how Islamophobes manipulate media

FAIRNESS AND ACCURACY IN REPORTING documents the "ISLAMOPHOBIA INDUSTRY"

Smearcasting documents the public writings and appearances of Islamophobic activists and pundits who intentionally and regularly spread fear, bigotry and misinformation in the media.

A fresh ook at Islamophobia and its perpetrators in today’s media

See snapshots, or case studies, describing how Islamophobes manipulate media.

http://www.smearcasting.com/


(from the FAIR BLOG at http://www.fair.org/index.php)

Torture, Race and Canada-US Relations

Visit the site:
CETCDA - Coalition for the Equal Treatment of Canadians Detained Abroad
"We dream of a Canada that upholds the human rights of at least its own citizens."
Event: Torture, Race and Canada-US Relations - Parliament Hill- Room 214 Wellington Building

12:00-1:00 pm, on Thursday Feb. 12th, 2009

Khadr is just a beginning of many Canadians detained and tortured abroad.

A historic lecture & press conference is held in light of the United Nations findings last week of Canada's inequity against Canadian Muslims, as Arar and Khadr are merely a part of a much broader systemic pattern of deadly discrimination.

There will be representatives of three completely different cases, & the Secretary General of Amnesty International.

CBC's The Current stated, "of Abdullah Almalki -- evidence of Canadian complicity is even more damning than in the case of Maher Arar."