The media took little notice of this bipartisan move to try and end the administration's outsourcing of torture - which President Bush continually says is not happening, despite mounting evidence from human rights organizations, freed tortured detainees, and journalists worldwide.

http://www.decaturdailydemocrat.com/articles/2005/04/13/news/opinion/editorial03.txt


From Information Clearing House

Center for Constitutional Rights Responds to Shocking New Torture Allegations at Guantanamo

http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0413-14.htm

A key figure in the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse scandal has given Army investigators a lengthy sworn statement accusing others of misconduct at the Iraq prison.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article8533.htm

by Jeffrey Fleishman

Masri said he was kidnapped in Macedonia, beaten by masked men, blindfolded, injected with drugs and flown to Afghanistan, where he was imprisoned and interrogated by U.S. intelligence agents. He said he was finally dumped in the mountains of Albania.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article8524.htm

In one case, according to court documents, a judge blurted out: ''I don't care about international law."

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article8515.htm

It appears that Dick Cheney himself gave the greenlight for the kidnapping and torture scenario.

http://www.counterpunch.com/stclair04092005.html


From Information Clearing House

Pete Yost and Matt Kelley, Associated Press

April 9, 2005

Startribune.com

WASHINGTON — In a development the Bush administration had hoped to avoid, the stories of about 60 detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base have spilled out in court papers.

A U.S. college-educated detainee asks plaintively in one: "Is it possible to see the evidence in order to refute it?''

In another transcript, the unidentified president of a U.S. military tribunal bursts out: "I don't care about international law. I don't want to hear the words 'international law' again. We are not concerned with international law.'' [...] Read the rest at:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5339113.html This link came from the http://mparent7777.blog-city.com blog which keeps track of and posts breaking stories.


© Virginia Metze

04/09/05

The Bush administration hasn't tried very hard to keep its torture-by-proxy program a secret. That's because the administration's torture lawyers, such as John Yoo, former deputy to Alberto Gonzales and now a law professor at Berkeley, argue that the administration is free to breach international and domestic laws in its pursuit of suspected terrorists. While working for the Bush administration, Yoo drafted a legal memo, which set the framework for the rendition program. He argued that the US was not bound by the Geneva Accords (or US prohibitions on torture) in its pursuit of al-Qaeda members or Taliban soldiers because Afghanistan was 'a failed state' and therefore not subject to the protections of the anti-torture laws. The detainees were slotted into a newly created category called 'illegal enemy combatants,' a legal rubric which treated them as subhumans lacking all basic human rights...

http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair04092005.html

from CounterPunch, by Jeffrey St. Clair


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp