Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
Now Available!
Today's
Stories
May
15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
May
14, 2004
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's POW Porn
Ron
Jacobs
Secret History of the War on Drugs
William
Blum
God, Country and Torture
Michael
Donnelly
The People v. Corporate Greed: A Victory on the North Coast
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India Shines
Stephen
Gowans
Building Democracy in Iraq and Other
Absurdities
May
13, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Where is Kerry?
Colm
O'Laithian
Torture and Degradation: Revenge American Style?
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassan
Wal-Mart: Scrooge with Hi-Tech Accounting
Practices
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush on the Inhumane Treatment of Iraqi Prisoners
Willliam
James Martin
Deir Yassin Massacre Recalled
Marc
Salomon
Reality TV Bites
Forrest
Hylton
Law 'n Order in La Paz: All Quiet
on the Southern Front?
May
12, 2004
Blanton
/ Kornbluh
Prisoner Abuse: Cheney Warned in
1992
Virginia
Tilley
So, Who's to Blame?
Bruce
Jackson
James Inhofe, the Dumbest Senator
of Them All
Thomas
P. Healy
No Enemies: Making Peace with Bert Sacks
Linda
S. Heard
Racism and Ignorance: a Lethal Cocktail in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
Spinning Torturegate
Lisa
Viscidi
The People's Voice: Community Radio in Guatemala
Jack
Heyman
View from the Bay Bridge: Longshoremen Plan Mass Workers March
on DC
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Rummy's Reprieve
CounterPunch
Wire
Teamsters Corruption Scandal: Hoffa Exec. Assistant Alleged to
Have Quashed Investigation into Mob Influence
Christopher
Brauchli
Detention Camp, USA
William
S. Lind
Bush's Waterloo?
May 11, 2004
Mark
Engler
On the "Necessity" of Torture
Ray
McGovern
More Troops? A March of Folly
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Nukes and Jefferson's Grand Experiment
Mickey
Z.
Less Than Hero
Christopher
Reed
Torture on the Homefront: America's Long History of Prison Abuse
Dennis
Hans
When John Negroponte was Mullah Omar
Bruce
Jackson
Pete Seeger at 85
Mike
Whitney
Killing al Sadr
Simon
Helweg-Larsen
Shrinking the Guatemalan Military
William
A. Cook
The Unconscious Country: Righteous Indignation,
Nakedly Displayed
May
10, 2004
Robert
Fisk
From Hollywood to Abu Ghraib: Racism
and Torture as Entertainment
Wayne
Madsen
The Israeli Torture Template: Rape,
Feces and Urine-Soaked Cloth Sacks
Col.
Dan Smith
The Shame of Abu Ghraib
Joe
Bageant
John Ashcroft, Keep Your Mouth Off My Wife!
Ron
Jacobs
Rummy's Prisongate Blues: Don't Leave Mad; Just Leave
Ben
Tripp
Getting in Touch with Your Inner Savage
Ray
Hanania
Why They Hate Us: Racism, Bigotry and Abuse
Reza
Fiyouzat
"Mishandled" Invasions
Diane
Christian
Images & Abstractions &
Genitals
Website
of the Day
Crushing Iraqi Skulls with Tanks for Sport?
May
8 / 9, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Torture: as American as Apple Pie
Adam
Jones
America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated
and Shot at Kunduz?
Douglas
Valentine
Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press
Kurt
Nimmo
Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib
Brian
Cloughley
Humpty Dumpty is Falling
Lucia
Dailey
Forbidden Games
Joanne
Mariner
* * * *: Redacting Moussaoui
Mickey
Z.
Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders)
John
Chuckman
The Thing with No Brain
Doug
Giebel
Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs
Norm
Dixon
How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11
Sam
Bahour
A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah
Susan
Davis
Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art
Dave
Marsh
In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing
Laura
Flanders
Life with Dick and Lynne
Dave
Zirin
Fans Push Spiderman Off Base
Carolyn
Baker
Why I Won't Vote in 2004
Prince
"Ain't No Sense in Voting"
Dr.
Susan Block
Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska
May
7, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
10 Prisons; 9,000 Prisoners: US Detention
Facilities in Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
UnAmerican? I Wish It Were So
Robert
Fisk
An Illegal and Immoral War
Ahmad
Faruqui
The 50th Anniversary of Dien Bien
Phu
Alexander
Zaitchik
From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib: Doesn't It Ring a (Prison)
Bell?
Mike
Whitney
The Price of Victory
Norman
Solomon
This War, Racism and Media Denial
M.
Shahid Alam
A Comic Apology
May
6, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
They Did It for Jessica: Smeared with
Shit; Kicked to Death
Kathy
Kelly
May Day in Pekin Prison: Prison Labor
for the War Machine
Werther
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: War as Vegas
Casino Game
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
Totalitarian Democracy
Robert
Fisk
"Smoke Him": Video Shows Wounded
Men Being Shot by US Helicopter
John
Janney
Torturing the Way to Freedom?
Christopher
Ketcham
Outlaw Heterosexual Marriage Now!
Alan
Farago
Dead Oceans: So Long, Thanks for the Fish
Sam
Hamod
Bush on Arab TV: Worthless and Demeaning
James
Brooks
Sullen Spring
William
S. Lind
On the Brink of Defeat in Iraq
May
5, 2004
Maj.
Gen. Antonio M. Taguba
Complete US Army Report on Abuse of
Iraqi Prisoners
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Kerry: a Lost Cause for Progressives?
Will
Youmans
Deal with the Devil: a Palestinian
Zionist and the End of the World
Patrick
B. Barr
Terrorists R Us: the Powerful are Exempt from the Label
Lawrence
Magnuson
Nightline's All-American Morgue
Greg
Moses
Pocketbook of Denuded Ideals
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Tormenting Prisoners, Torturing
Truth
Lee
Ballinger
Cinco de Mayo and Unity
Gilbert
Achcar
Bush's Cakewalk into the Iraq Quaqmire
Website
of the Day
Operation Phoenix & Iraq
May
4, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
A Timeline of Torture and Abuse Allegations
and Responses
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Privatized Torture
David
Peterson
CBS, Self-Censorship & Iraq
Barry
Lando
CACI's Private Torture Chambers
Patrick
Cockburn
Torture: Iraqis Disgusted, But Not Surprised
Dr.
Susan Block
Indecent Insurgents: Watch What You Say
Fidel
Castro
A Mindless, Unnecessary War
Mike
Whitney
Empire of Torture
Sonali
Kolhatkar
How to Stop the War: Demonstrate Against
John Kerry
Josh
Frank
The Lost Sierra Club
Stan
Goff
The Role: Another Open Letter to US Troops in Iraq
Agustin
Velloso
Spare Us Your Disgusting Ethics
Stew
Albert
American Know-How
Website
of the Day
Scenes from a Cover-Up
May
3, 2004
Virginia
Tilley
Let the Wall of Silence Fall
May
1 / 2, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
An Army in Disgrace, a Policy
in Tatters, the Real Prospect of Defeat
Robert
Fisk
"Good Guys" Who Can Do No
Wrong
Alexander
Cockburn
Watching Niagara: Stupid Leaders,
Useless Spies, Angry World
Heather
Williams
Gringo, We're Going Home: Latin
American Troops Flee Iraq
Diane
Rejman
An Army Vet on Torture in Iraq:
Abu Ghraib as My Lai?
Diane
Christian
Blood Spilling: Osama, Bush and
Sharon Speak the Same Language
Patrick
Cockburn
Seems Like Old Times in Fallujah
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Torturous Logic: Shocked,
Shocked, Shocked
Chris
Floyd
Suicide Bomber: Neocons, Nihilists
and Annihilation
April
29 / 30, 2004
Dave
Zirin
A Pawn in Their Game: the Unlonesome
Death of Pat Tillman
Kathy
Kelly
The Warden's Tour
Greg
Weiher
Fallujah and the Warsaw Ghetto: the
Banality of Evil
Michael
S. Ladah
Terrorism and Assassination: the
Ultimate Depception
Patrick
Cockburn
The Fallujah Mutinies
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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Weekend
Edition
May 15 / 16, 2004
The Kings of
Pain
United Kingdom,
United States and Israel
By JOHN STANTON
A little publicized piece by Ali Abunimah
in Lebanon's Daily Star titled "Israeli link possible in
US torture techniques: In exchange for interrogation training,
did Washington award security contracts?" should be getting
a lot more attention. While it is doubtful that the Pentagon
and its defense contractors would need to barter with Israel
to get their interrogation techniques (they've had them for decades),
the Abunimah article provides a gold-mine worth of resources
establishing, yet again, the inseparable and often damaging linkage
between US and Israeli interests in the Middle East and Central
Asia. Reading through some of the resource material cited by
Abunimah, it is difficult to figure out where US foreign and
defense policy ends and Israel's begins. But more on that later.
History records how much of
a mess Great Britain made of the Middle East chopping up tribal
lands, establishing arbitrary borders, and at one point even
threatening to "gas" the Iraqi's during the failed
occupation of their country in the early 1900's. But little is
known about the role that Great Britain played in developing
the fine art of torture. It was Great Britain, not Israel or
the US, that pioneered the torture tactics so common in military
practice in 2004.
Five Techniques
For over 30 years Israel and
the US have used time-tested torture practices devised by the
British. The British Army pioneered these methods way back in
1971, using them against the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and
the Irish people. According to one of the world's most respected,
and underrated, human rights groups B'Tselem (btselem.org), in
1971 British security forces in Northern Ireland used coercive
interrogation methods against fourteen IRA suspects. These methods
were known as the five techniques and surfaced in a legal proceeding
known as Ireland versus the United Kingdom. The five pillars
of torture include the following:  Wall-Standing:
Forcing the detainees to remain for periods of some hours in
a "stress position," described by those who underwent
it as being "spread-eagled against the wall, with their
fingers put high above the head against the wall, the legs  spread apart and the feet
back, causing them to stand on their toes with the weight of
the body mainly on the fingers.  Hooding: Putting
a black or navy colored bag over the detainees' heads and, at
least initially, keeping it there all the time except during
interrogation.  Subjection to Noise: Pending their
interrogations, holding the detainees in a room where there was
a continuous loud and hissing noise.  Deprivation
of Sleep: Pending their interrogations, depriving the detainees
of sleep.  Deprivation of Food and Drink: Subjecting
the detainees to a reduced diet during their stay at the center
and pending interrogation.
The United States and Israel
have brutally refined British practices adding cultural torture.
For prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanimo Bay and Israel's
many detention centers housing Palestinian captives, that means
assaulting the integrity of one's culture and religion while
physically pushing the prisoners to the brink of death. Modifications
made by Israel and clearly adopted by the US for the Arab captives
include constant references to hetero-on-hetero sex, forcing
nude inmates to role-play as dogs and simulate hetero-on-hetero
sex, and the common practice of photographing the prisoner in
humiliating circumstances so that in each interrogation session
the broken prisoner, or his comrades/family, can see how far
he/she has been removed from humanity.
Been There,
Done That
In a March 1991 report titled
Interrogation of Palestinians During the Intifada: Ill-Treatment,
"Moderate Physical Pressure?" or Torture? B'Tselem
reported on a method of torture called Shabah which now seems
to be the preferred method of the US military and intelligence
communities. "Shabah entails tying the detainee's hands
in front or behind his body with plastic or metal cuffs. He is
blindfolded or his head is covered to the neck by sacking [hood]
with only a slit left open to breathe. He stands in this position
in an open yard, or sometimes with his hands tied to a pole,
for several days during which he is interrogated for several
hours each day. He is subjected to inadequate food; sleep deprivation
(sometimes for up to a week) and restriction of toilet facilities;
beating (with clubs, fists or boots, sometimes on the genitals
or head, sometimes banging the head on the wall); the "cupboard"
(being placed in a closed dark space, some one meter by one meter
for hours or days); partial suffocation (by pressure on the windpipe
or by placing sacks on the head and pressing them against the
nose and mouth); and Falaqa (beating the soles of the feet with
a stick or plastic hose, usually while the detainee is handcuffed
and hooded)."
What does Shabah feel like?
According to B'Tselem quoting a prisoner, "They had me sit
on a chair about 25cm high that is chained to the floor. One
leg of the chair is shorter than the others, so the chair is
unstable. They shackled my hands behind the back of the chair,
and my legs, and put a sack over my head. The shackles are metal.
The first day they did this, I felt something drip on me, and
the next day I saw that it had been the vomit of a previous detainee.
They played music so loud that I couldn't figure out what it
was. Sometimes the chair was really smooth, and I would slide
downwards whenever I dozed off to sleep. Anyway, like I said,
it wasn't straight. They kept me in Shabah for forty-eight hours"
Meanwhile, back in the mother
country of democracy and torture, Great Britain's prisons have
been the home of brutal practices against the IRA, although they've
apparently managed to whitewash much of their atrocities. In
1997, Amnesty International reported on the despicable conditions
for the Irish in British prisons. "Category A prisoners
(prisoners regarded as a high security risk) were held in conditions
which led to serious deterioration in their physical and mental
health. Róisín McAliskey, who was four months pregnant,
was temporarily detained in a filthy cell in the special security
unit of an all-male prison. She and other prisoners, including
Patrick Kelly, who was suffering from cancer, received inadequate
medical treatment." In another incident in Brixton Prison
in the late 1990's, six Irishmen hanged themselves under suspicious
circumstances. Some of the guards responsible for monitoring
them were former members of the British military.
Peace is
Our Profession
As Abunimah noted in his article,
The Jerusalem Fund of Aish AhTorah earlier this year sponsored
the first annual Defense Aerospace Executives Mission of Peace
to Israel and Jordan (http://www.jerusalemfund.com). Members
of the US Congress such as Friend of Zion award winner Senator
Evan Bayh play a critical role in ensuring that the Judeo-Christian
lines of communication remain open to negotiate lucrative contracts
and ensure that the US will stay in Iraq and support whatever
nutty policy the Sharon government comes up with. Another Friend
of Zion award winner is Robert Liscouski, an Assistant Secretary
of US Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection. The Jerusalem
Fund's honorary chairs include a former head of Mossad and Israel's
Minister of Internal Security. In this case, appearances are
not deceiving.
The Chairman of the Mission
of Peace for the Jerusalem Fund is not an Israeli but the Joe
Reeder, a former US Army undersecretary and now corporate lobbyist
for Greenberg Traurig. Albert Einstein might be surprised to
learn that his name is used by the Jerusalem Fund for four classes
of the Albert Einstein Award (technology, lifetime achievement,
etc.) which, by coincidence, end up in the hands of defense and
security contractors, not to groups like B'Tselem. Just how this
effort translates into some sort of Mission of Peace is something
only George Orwell would understand.
As long as we are talking irony
and oddity, it's worth mentioning that Reeder heads a defense
industry ethics study group in the US whose stated purpose is
to improve the ethics practices of the industry. In reality,
Reeder's effort goes more toward to defending the image of the
defense contractor as ethical patriot in the face of mismanagement
of Iraqi reconstruction contracts, abuse of revolving doors,
overcharging the government and the nightmarish fact that a former
Pentagon official and Boeing employee, Darlene Druyun, is now
a convicted felon. So much for ethics.
Even though the January 2004
gathering in Israel was billed as a Defense Aerospace Executives
gig, Robert Roth of Viacom and Mark Kamlet of Carnegie Mellon
University showed up to talk about telecommunications network
and cybersecurity issues. A number of investment banking firms
were also present. The celebrity of the event was Jack London,
CEO of CACI and Abu Gharib fame, who headed a seminar titled
How to work with the Department of Defense: A prime consolidator
perspective. Reeder, as noted by Abunimah, gave insights on how
to sell to the Pentagon. And this was a Mission of Peace?
Rarefied
Web
So what does all this have
to do with torture? "The visit of the US delegation that
included the CACI head exposes a rarefied web of influence sharing
in which US government officials and congressmen, defense contractors
and lobbyists parcel out huge contracts, and siphon significant
portions off to Israel," wrote Abunimah. That "rarefied
web" includes Great Britain who violated its own sanctions
on Israel and adopted the US arms export approach to that country.
Commenting on the revised British arms transfer policy, Oxfam
stated that "rather than solely basing decisions to export
arms components on human rights, conflict and poverty considerations,
new criteria were introduced to assess potential deals against
their importance for the arms industry."
And that's the rub. The liberating
principles of human rights that took humanity centuries to adopt
are once again being tortured and minimized on behalf of greed,
of fanaticism and of fear. We are back to Britain's five techniques.
We are all drowning in violence. Can Crucifixion for the enemy
be far behind? The simplistic rationale of British, American
and Israeli leaders has led us all into a world where television,
the Net, radio, newspapers, magazines, conversations and dreams
are focused on war, death, and destruction. Bin Laden is winning
big time and dragging us all down with him.
No one is rising above it all
and there's no telling the depths to which this will affect generations
of children. And it all begins when leaders become unaccountable
and their methods go unchallenged. How can the three enlightened
societies that are the UK, US and Israel be so plain stupid when
viewing their unpleasant histories with the Arab and Central
Asian worlds? How did it come to this? There were no consequences
for the political and military dereliction of duty on 911. No
consequences for the lies that led to the Iraq War and Occupation
which, in turn, led to slaughter of Iraqis and Americans in Falluja,
the torture at Abu Gharib and the beheading of American Nick
Berg. As more and more Americans view Arabs as "animals"
it's worth posing the question, Does a 500lb precision guided
munition released from a US aircraft that ultimately incinerates
a Iraqi family make the US any less sick than the group that
beheads an American citizen? Are the 2500 US civilians killed
on 911 worth 20,000 Afghani and Iraqi civilians killed? Is it
ethical that Israel uses British and US military equipment for
assassination missions or the killing of the Rachel Corrie's
of the world?
How much retribution, how much
torture, how many brains splattered across the earth, how much
of the "rarefied web of influence" can the world stand?
When will a Mission of Peace
really become a mission of peace?
John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing
in political and national security matters. He is the author
of the forthcoming book A Power, But Not Super. He is also the
author along with Wayne Madsen of America's
Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II. Reach him at
cioran123@yahoo.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for May 8 / 9, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Torture: as American as Apple Pie
Adam
Jones
America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated
and Shot at Kunduz?
Douglas
Valentine
Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press
Kurt
Nimmo
Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib
Brian
Cloughley
Humpty Dumpty is Falling
Lucia
Dailey
Forbidden Games
Joanne
Mariner
* * * *: Redacting Moussaoui
Mickey
Z.
Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders)
John
Chuckman
The Thing with No Brain
Doug
Giebel
Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs
Norm
Dixon
How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11
Sam
Bahour
A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah
Susan
Davis
Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art
Dave
Marsh
In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing
Laura
Flanders
Life with Dick and Lynne
Dave
Zirin
Fans Push Spiderman Off Base
Carolyn
Baker
Why I Won't Vote in 2004
Prince
"Ain't No Sense in Voting"
Dr.
Susan Block
Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska
|