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Monday, August 24, 2009

New report documents CIA crimes

We now have further evidence of torture and misconduct by the CIA in the Middle-east. Recent reports from the Associate Press, have shown that the US has used mock executions to try and coerce prisoners in to talking.
One case involves mock executions with both a gun and an electric drill to the head of suspected bomber, Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri. He was suspected of involvement with the suicide bombing of the warship USS Cole, which killed 17 U.S. sailors in Yemen in 2000.
Threatening a prisoner with death violates U.S. anti-torture laws.

According to the Associated Press:

“In another episode, a gunshot was fired in a room next to a detainee to make the prisoner believe another suspect had been killed, according to the report, which a federal judge has ordered to be made public Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The IG report's findings were first reported by Newsweek on its Web site.
Nashiri was one of three CIA prisoners subjected to waterboarding, a brutal interrogation technique that simulates drowning that was among 10 techniques approved by the Bush administration's Justice Department in 2002. President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have denounced waterboarding as torture.
"The CIA in no way endorsed behavior_ no matter how infrequent_ that went beyond formal guidance," said agency spokesman Paul Gimigliano. He declined to comment on the contents of the IG report.
Holder is considering whether to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's interrogation practices, a controversial move that would run counter to President Barack Obama's wishes to leave the issue in the past.”

This only shows us once again that the CIA is a rogue agent which acts beyond the law and beyond any oversight or control.
Just last week the AP reported that the CIA hired a private contractor to assassinate certain members of al-Qaida. Do we really want an organization that represents this country assassinating people as if they were James Bond?

Again according to the AP:

“Gimigliano said the career prosecutors at the Justice Department have reviewed the report to determine if any laws were broken and whether the interrogators should be prosecuted.
"Professionals in the Department of Justice decided if and when to pursue prosecution," he said. "That's how the system was supposed to work, and that's how it did work."
Just one CIA contract interrogator, David Passaro, has been prosecuted. He was found guilty in 2007 in the beating death of a prisoner in Afghanistan.”

It would be best if all covert operations by the CIA were ended. That is not likely to happen anytime soon. However, holding former President George Bush and those in the CIA responsible for these actions legally liable—putting them on trial—is the next best thing. At least it is a start. Many of us already no the Central Intelligence Agency or CIA is just a legal terrorist organization.

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