Sunday, 14 December 2014

The 'Success' of CIA Torture: Raising Anti-Americanism to its 'Zenith'

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'Success' of CIA Torture: Anti-Americanism at its Zenith (L'Orient Le Jour, Lebanon)
 
"It was the U.S. Department of Justice that had to disgrace itself by acting the hypocrite: the case will remain closed for 'the admissible evidence would not be sufficient.' … In 577 dense pages a mirror is placed under Uncle Sam's nose that seems to say: look at what you are: liar, charlatan, sometime criminal, arrogant, domineering, violent, pretentious, death-merchant, unworthy preacher. In the end, no more and no less virtuous than any other country: human, all too human. … All that the CIA has managed to achieve, talking only of the Middle East, is the return of an al-Qaeda hardened by years of trial, the hatching of a Daesh [Islamic State] which we haven't heard the last of, the re-destabilization of Afghanistan - pending the same or even worse for Pakistan - and almost everywhere an anti-Americanism at its zenith now shining with every ray. "
 
By Christian Merville

Translated By Martyn Fogg

December 12, 2014
 
It was Barack Obama (is it any wonder?) who found the right words: "No nation is perfect. But one of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and do better."
 
It was the incomparable New York Times which had the most merciless editorial: "It is hard to believe that anything will be done now. ... Maybe George Tenet, who ran the CIA during this ignoble period, could make a tiny amends by returning the Presidential Medal of Freedom that President Bush gave him upon his retirement" [video, third from top, right].
 
It was the U.S. Department of Justice that had to disgrace itself by acting the hypocrite: the case will remain closed for "the admissible evidence would not be sufficient."
 
And yet … in 577 dense pages, accompanied by 2,725 footnotes summarizing a text of more than 6,700 pages, a Senate report - a bill of indictment rather than the findings of an investigation - a mirror is placed under the nose of Uncle Sam which seems to say: look at what you are: liar, charlatan, sometime criminal, arrogant, domineering, violent, pretentious, death-merchant, unworthy preacher. In the end, no more and no less virtuous than any other country: human, all too human.
 
For isn't that the way to read this indictment against the war on terror, a pretext of which authorizes, or rather requires, the post-9/11 Republican administration to resort to every weapon, even the most reprehensible of all, torture? It was believed that that everything, or almost everything, had already been said in a book published in 1958 [La Question, about French torture in the Algerian Civil War] Well no! Here is a new version that has been served to us, with special American sauce this time, with a mass of detail that would make jealous the Marquis de Sade, including simulated executions, sleep deprivation, Russian roulette, sexual abuse, threats, rectal forced-feeding, death from hypothermia …
 
One is almost tempted to beg for the mercy of public opinion if such remedies had produced some results. In fact, all that the Central Intelligence Agency has managed to achieve, talking only of the Middle East, is the return of an al-Qaeda hardened by years of trial, the hatching of a Daesh [Islamic State] which we haven't heard the last of, the re-destabilization of Afghanistan - pending the same or even worse for Pakistan - and almost everywhere an anti-Americanism at its zenith now shining with every ray. At no time, the report's authors maintain, has it been established that these techniques prevented a single terrorist act; any feeble coerced confessions were always obtained prior to the use of torture.
 
It must be recognized that these strong-arm tactics bore one benefit: they allowed their two godfathers to build up quite a gold mine. Indeed, Drs. James Mitchell and Bruce Jensen [video below], psychiatrists of the state, based on estimates, were royally paid: $1,800 per day (!). The business was so juicy that they started their own company charged with taking the baton from the CIA, which had to pay out to them the tidy sum of $81 million, in addition to $1 million to protect its offspring from eventual prosecution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmNUi0itl-8

The Senate's condemnation remains to date the most severe since the scandal denounced by the 1970's Church Committee, named after the Idaho senator who went to war against the House of Spies Inc. for espionage, failed assassination attempts and administering LSD to uncooperative detainees. When one considers that, in a report submitted to Congress in 1989, the CIA denounced some "inhumane" techniques as being "counter-productive," it is clear that since then, it has had at its disposal a new Perfect Torturer's Handbook - an updated 21st century edition - which also takes account of the financial demands of modern times. An example: On November 20, 2002, for having caused a death from hypothermia - of Afghan terrorist Gul Rahman, the officer in charge of the interrogation was condemned to … receive a check for $2,500 for a task performed to perfection.

To read Senate torture report fragment on death of Afghan terrorist Gul Rahman, CLICK ABOVE

 
George W. Bush told CNN on Sunday: "We are fortunate to have men and women who work hard at the CIA on our behalf. They are patriots." [video, top, right]
 
Former Vice President Dick Cheney: "The report's full of crap. The agency had received all the authorization it needed, starting from the attorney general." [video, second from top, right].
 
Oh! These firemen-arsonists who, believing they are extinguishing a fire, fan the flames
SEE ALSO ON THIS: 








NRC Handelsblad, The Netherlands: No Leniency for CIA Torture 







Financial Times Deutschland, Germany: Obama: Inviting the Next Torture Scandal












Guardian Unlimited, U.K.: Criminal Justice Rendered Impotent










River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
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