Famous Liar Says Britain Not Complicit In Torture

by craig on August 10, 2009 3:14 pm in Rendition

Head of MI6 Sir John Scarlett has come out saying the UK is not complicit in torture. I can tell you from direct personal knowledge that the man is a lying.

That is, of course, hardly news. Scarlett was responsible for the dossier on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, which was a tissue of lies from beginning to end. Any sane journalist would treat him with ridicule and opprobrium as one of the most notorious liars in British history. Instead they afford him undue respect.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8188307.stm

Not one of the government’s reponses has addressed the irrefutable evidence I gave to the Parliamentary joint committee. The extraordinary thing is that all the meetings I discussed were minuted and the minutes exist in the FCO. I released official documents referring to those meetings. If I were lying, the government would only have to release the minutes. This they refuse to do.

32 Comments

  1. Keith Tully

    10 Aug, 2009 - 3:36 pm

    Craig

    Real journalists dont exist now .Just notetakers who believe the spin and do what their editors tell them. Ask Helen Thomas.

  2. anticant

    10 Aug, 2009 - 4:02 pm

    His sins may be as Scarlett, but his words are white as snow.

  3. MJ

    10 Aug, 2009 - 4:06 pm

    The great thing is that these matters are now being discussed openly in the mainstream media. Even two weeks ago this would have seemed highly unlikely.

    Of course Scarlett is lying. Hopefully most people are savvy enough to know that this is his job and that his denials can be tacitly understood as admissions.

  4. George Laird

    10 Aug, 2009 - 4:36 pm

    Dear Craig

    I have to agree with Keith, there are no real journalists of note anyone.

    If they can’t understand it on an A4 page, they don’t want to turn over to page two.

    People like Sir John Scarlett aren’t interested in anything but a quiet life and the gold plated pension.

    He probably thinks if he keeps repeating lies then somehow it will become the truth.

    Yours sincerely

    George Laird

    The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

  5. dreoilin

    10 Aug, 2009 - 4:41 pm

    “I released official documents referring to those meetings. If I were lying, the government would only have to release the minutes. This they refuse to do.”

    So. What address should we all write to, demanding that they release these documents? Like we did to demand that Craig be heard at the Parly Joint Cmmtee? Can we start another email campaign?

  6. Tom Welsh

    10 Aug, 2009 - 4:43 pm

    I came across a psychological explanation of your observation about the British media. Oddly enough, it was in a blog almost purely focused on software: Open Source at Eclipse http://eclipse-projects.blogspot.com/.

    http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/11/i-cant-believe-my-eyes-conforming-to.php

  7. glenn

    10 Aug, 2009 - 4:44 pm

    Last night’s Radio-4 Westminster Hour talked about this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_westminster_hour/8192510.stm

    One of the speakers mentioned that he had a lot of sympathy for Craig Murray over what had happened in Uzbekistan.

    But the question “Shouldn’t we torture, if it makes us safe?” was put by Carolyn Quinn, which thankfully was dismissed by her correspondents. This type of debate, “Well – shouldn’t we be torturing them?” is thrown around in the US every time the subject is raised. Then torture becomes a matter of opinion, rather than the clear criminal activity it actually is.

    If we don’t watch it, we will join the US in getting bogged down with debates about what _really_ constitutes torture? Is anybody _really_ responsible anyway, now we’ve rooted out a few bad apples and so on? Didn’t the evil-doers deserve “harsh treatment”? What could we do otherwise, if interrogators were so restricted? And the whole subject spins off and drifts away.

    The position that _we_ didn’t torture them, so we have no responsibility, is akin to telling a judge that we have no responsibility for having a stolen car stereo in our possession, it was bought in good faith for £10 from a man in a pub.

    Our security services provided a list of questions for interrogators. Did they expect these to be discussed in a legal manner with the suspects? Again, wouldn’t this be like having goods stolen to order, then claiming we got them in good faith?

  8. Stevie

    10 Aug, 2009 - 4:54 pm

    Well the BBC seem to be covering the story this time as opposed to just covering it up. Although I admit I was perplexed as to why the interviewer on the Today programme this morning gave Shami Chakrabarti even more of a grilling and working over that John Scarlett and Kim ‘Official Mouthpiece of Gordon Brown’ Howells. I am sure there are still some decent, principled people who have remained Labour Party members throughout this torrid period of its history. Indeed I met one of them campaigning in Norwich. However I am sure they would not be too disappointed to lose the next general election as it would offer them a chance to get their party back away from the opportunists.

  9. Strategist

    10 Aug, 2009 - 4:59 pm

    Thanks for this post, Craig, which says it all very neatly.

    Glenn: “Last night’s Radio-4 Westminster Hour… one of the speakers mentioned that he had a lot of sympathy for Craig Murray over what had happened in Uzbekistan.”

    Glenn or others, any recall of who exactly that speaker was? I may add him to my Christmas card list.

  10. ingo

    10 Aug, 2009 - 5:06 pm

    If Erik prince has been forced to deal with ‘friendly’ Shia/Sunni units and give out money to muslims to garner support for the US strategy of getthorising Baghdad, against his personal hatred for muslims and his avowed aims, and if he was under investigation, then one could assume that he was in the position from were to ‘generate’discontent and strife, to justify his demands to the US taxpayer.

    Please tell me if my train of thought is implausible after the revelations, yet to hit our journo’s round the chops.

    When will they wake up and realise that they have been listening to a choir of liars, that they have amplified and developed lies, taken them as gospel. Today, reduced to nodding donkeys, partly due to the downturn and the scaling down of media operations world wide, these journo’s are part of the system, every newspaper has its share of spooks, engrained/enbedded as Dijon mustard, so lets not be surprised if the Blackwater story is not seen in its necessarry context over here.

  11. Anwar

    10 Aug, 2009 - 5:08 pm

    I agree with those who say that real journalists don’t exist. I am from Uzbekistan and happened to see some documents related to cases of torture. I wanted to tell about this to the C4 news. I contacted them and asked for a private meeting. Yet, they flew away from me as cats run from dogs. Why? There is only one explanation. Karimov’s regime is very important to the British and American politicians because of Afganistan. Although there is no British or American base, the Germans are still keeping their base in Termez, which is vital in Afgan operation. In other words Karimov is “their (the West’s) son of a bitch”. At least for the moment. Therefore, some journalists wouldn’t want to upset their masters. Another example. Recently the C4 broadcasted a program called “Bankrolling Mugabe” in which some western born businessmen were criticised for cooperation with Mugabe. I wonder if they (C4) know that gold, oil, cotton, tea production and jewellery businesses in Uzbekistan are concentrated in the hands of daughters of Mr Karimov. These industries are corrupt and deal with money laundering thru the offshore banks in the West. Some western businessmen, including from Britain up to some members of Royal family, may heavily be involved in these businesses. Up to 75% of children in Uzbekistan struggle from lack of nutritional food, proper education and medical care. The country is locked absolutely to the outside world. Yet, there is critism all over the British media to the adress of Iranian regime which at least had some form of free elections, than to Uzbekistan, which had no free elections at all since 1991! Hypocrisy, nothing else!

  12. JimmyGiro

    10 Aug, 2009 - 5:16 pm

    We should bound him up in a sack, throw him outside the doors of the Jeremy Kyle show, with a pamphlet “Waterboarding for Dummies”, and see what comes of it.

  13. glenn

    10 Aug, 2009 - 5:19 pm

    Strategist – to answer your question:

    The speaker was actually the con Daniel Hannan, who stated that he was “one of the people who stuck up for Craig Murray in Uzbekistan at the time”, saying the country had a horrible regime. On the same panel, the Lib Dem Dr. Evan Harris led the denouncement of the government’s position.

  14. Roderick Russell

    10 Aug, 2009 - 5:34 pm

    Of course Scarlett is lying since he must know better, but so are former Prime Minister Blair and half the Cabinet. As my own situation demonstrates, MI5, MI6 not only condones torture but actively practices it in Britain. They use a process called Zerzetsen that was developed by the Stasi to persecute dissidents. My case is far from the only example. Its URL is:

    http://zerzetzen.wikispaces.com

    The torture is not the old fashioned medieval style that leaves marks, but a more modern Orwellian 1984 type of torture that is sometimes called Zerzetsen since it was developed by the former GDR secret police “the Stasi” to persecute dissidents. MI5 is actively using zerzetsen today to persecute decent citizens on behalf of its friends in the high establishment. Rule of law in England – what’s that?

    What is interesting is the absence of the human rights industry. Lions when dealing with Pinochet types thousands of miles away, they are scared to assist my case and are wimps when it comes to torture at home. It is almost as if they are set up to justify their existence by finding a few problems abroad while making very sure that they never touch anything close to the establishment at home.

    Have problems understanding that MI5, MI6 are the establishment’s very own Stasi.? Read my wiki. Note that multiple witnesses corroborate much of what I have said, and that there is written evidence that a Cabinet Minister participated in the government cover-up conspiracy

    Roderick Russell – #207, 1733 – 27 Ave. SW, Calgary AB T2T 1G9 Canada – (403) 229. 0864

  15. Strategist

    10 Aug, 2009 - 5:58 pm

    Glenn – thanks

  16. HappyClappy

    10 Aug, 2009 - 9:41 pm

    I do believe whatever Scarlet says!

    This paragon of virtue has spoken the truth ever since he was two years old, and he has never, ever, ever, hope he drops fecking dead, ever, lied!!!!

    Of course I also believe in:

    Tooth fairies,

    Santa Clause,

    Sandman

    Pixies, fairies, and a whole plethora of hob goblins, (in case one can never be sure enough though)

    More importantly I also do believe in democracy, and Freedom, and never running away like the surrender monkeys whom did not want to invade Iraq, and kill all those rag heads, and rape all those rag heads mothers and sisters, and torture them there rag heads cuaz they damn hate our Freedoms, and our way of life.

    However, as anyone sane can discern; at this juncture of history; now we are made to take the words of a mass murdering bastard as gospel truth.

    The same mass murdering bastard whose help, and aid to the grinning neo labor elf, made happen the Iraq war , now this mass murderer by joint enterprise is put on the box to tell us the “truth” in matters of torture, what the next communicate out of the auntie will be?

    Already there is storm of VAT on food because as well know we need food security, and the best way to secure anything is to let its price hit the roof. Then there is the notion of Cameras in people’s houses, because the Cameras in the street just do not catch the bastards at it so royal fashion. Also there is the Swine flu that is getting weaker by the minute and the vaccine that will kill instead story.

  17. opit

    11 Aug, 2009 - 3:31 am

    Indeed, Craig, one would have thought that by now you would recognize you were ending up in the same boat as Orwell : once a trusted apparatchik, now a person of menace to liars and a political hot potato.

    Unhappily, things have progressed apace since his day. Still, the AlterNet article on him was interesting. Wikipedia has notes on his harassment by persons from Official Secrets. I even had a puzzling spate of notes from and to a detainee of that band some years past.

  18. Anonymous

    11 Aug, 2009 - 8:01 am

    The heart sinks when one realises with absolute clarity that the entire political class (and one must include the mainstream media in this) are in chains.

    Not a truth-teller amongst them.

    Anywhere.

    The media and parliament are not comprised of some kind of human sub-species. They are ordinary people, are,’t they?….so how can this happen.

    The only possible answer, it seems to me, is degenerate nature of the powerful and the fact that the pyramidal power-structure that exists in every institution enables the very worst kind of people to enforce their will on everyone below them.

    Only individuals whose ambition exceeds their moral integrity are allowed to rise to positions of authority with organisations.

    Many participants in the system know they are participating in lies and worse kinds of wickedness. Most simply comply with orders.

    ……maybe it has always been thus….but where are the whistleblowers in the media and within the Civil Service? Where are the parliamentarians prepared to stand up in the House of Commons, speak the truth and condemn the indefensible.

    How has it come to this? Why is there such a sense of helplessness abroad? (this sense applies to citizenry in general regarding all matters, great and small)

    Maybe it is the belief or knowledge even that should an individual sacrifice him or herself for truth, their sacrifice will not even make the papers. Their masters have myriad ways of covering up, confusing, dissipating, denying.

    Everyone on this forum (at least)knows this.

    However the public at large are increasingly aware that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark and we must hope that when significant change comes it will trash and transform vested interests in ways previously unseen.

  19. mrjohn

    11 Aug, 2009 - 8:03 am

    From the BBC article

    “We can’t give a guarantee, and no government on earth can give a guarantee that somebody who’s picked up and held in another country hasn’t had their… human rights abused in some way.”

    Dr Kim Howells, Labour chairman of the intelligence and security committee.

    This is how they let themselves off the hook, they don’t look, so they don’t see.

  20. anticant

    11 Aug, 2009 - 8:03 am

    Ed Balls’ proposal to install 24-hour round the clock surveillance cameras in the homes of ‘problem families’ with unruly children is the most appalling invasion of civil liberties perpetrated by this appalling government. It could only occur to people with the totalitarian mindset of fascism or communism. My parent’s generation who won World War Two would be utterly incredulous.

    Even more appalling is the support given to the scheme by Tory spokesman Chris Grayling, who described it as “too little too late”. I wonder what Chloe Smith (who has promised not to let us down) has to say?

  21. hawley_jr

    11 Aug, 2009 - 9:30 am

    MI6 are specialists in propaganda. They ran ‘Operation Mass Appeal’ to help shape public opinion about Iraq and the threat posed by WMD, spreading their propaganda through ‘editors and writers who work with us from time to time’. (Scott Ritter, ‘Iraq Confidential’ and Nick Davies, ‘Flat Earth News’)

    In this post 9/11 world, MI6 are nothing but a propaganda agency, for the enemies of the state are their employers.

  22. ingo

    11 Aug, 2009 - 9:50 am

    Agreed Anticant, this invasion of privacy and two fingers to the European human rights act, spoken of with a smile from Ed ball is the Stasi come alive.

    Were we are using technology the Stasi used neighbours, something to come in MI5/6 policy of ‘zersetzen’ which means ‘corroding, undermining, decomposing’, another version of the divide and conquer theory.

    Playing against such policies are, not talking about stuff on the phone, not to take one’s phone to meetings of importance, not to talk about stuff online, etc. meeting in persons with persons one knows and trusts is now a necessity, because this policy is designed to filter out important information and harrass people with rigmarole and confusion until they had enough.

    Anyone’s computer can be hacked in, I had an email send to me yesterday, from a trusted family member who is part of the Copenahgen effort, I opened it in expectation of some really interesting stuff and my computer went down, switched off, I had been bamboozeled. I done a full check caught a trojan system virus and hope to have cured the problem,unless the virus has a sleeper phase, but thats a way to get to us, silently without us knowing.

    beware folks, there’s only a few of us and we can’t be out of action with fickle journalists about.

  23. Abe Rene

    11 Aug, 2009 - 9:54 am

    MI6 is in big trouble if, even as its head publicly denies complicity in torture, it is still participating in interrogations in repressive states, receiving intelligence originating from torture, sending agents to pat the providers on the head and so creating a market for it. Perhaps Craig can confirm whether this is indeed the case.

  24. Craig

    11 Aug, 2009 - 9:55 am

    haley jr

    yep – Frank Gardner and Dominic Lawson prominent among them.

  25. Jives

    11 Aug, 2009 - 2:09 pm

    Everyone now knows these type of scum are lying throught their teeth.

    The sooner we get rid of these lying,murdering,torturing thugs the better for all of us.

    They are beneath contempt.

    Karma’ll get the likes of Scarlett soon enough though,that’s for sure.

    Bastards.

  26. steve

    11 Aug, 2009 - 3:29 pm

    Journalists nowadays are only used by politicians to help promote spin and other issues that ‘help’ the public understand their ongoing ‘role’. The public are apparently too stupid to be spoken to direct it seems.

  27. Roderick Russell

    11 Aug, 2009 - 3:35 pm

    I would just like to repeat this comment written by somebody else above as it’s a question I continually ask myself

    “but where are the whistleblowers in the media and within the Civil Service? Where are the parliamentarians prepared to stand up in the House of Commons, speak the truth and condemn the indefensible.”

    I would also add – Where is the Human Rights industry? Roderick Russell

  28. gremlins3

    11 Aug, 2009 - 4:27 pm

    7th August 2009

    Reprieve writes to Kim Howells, chair of the ISC, “alerting them to the fact that they were seriously misled by their own Service about crimes committed under their watch.

    “Last week, British judges revealed that the British Secret Services fed questions to the CIA in the full knowledge that the Agency was systematically using torture in interrogations; a clear violation of international law.”

    Reprieve’s letter goes on to detail various instances of apparent perjury and misinformation in the Binyam Mohamed case.

    http://www.reprieve.org.uk/2009_08_07ISCletter

    10th August 2009

    Kim Howells goes on record – this report from the Telegraph -

    “Kim Howells, Labour chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee which scrutinises the secret services, said the issue of UK complicity in torture had been ‘clarified as far as it can be on the evidence that we have’.

    “I can tell you that we’ve found no evidence that there has been collusion between the intelligence services, any Government department and governments that torture their individuals,” Mr Howells told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

    “My committee has been looking at this for a very long time now and we have never been denied evidence from any of the agencies, nor the Cabinet Office, nor any official in any Government department.”

  29. Shugster

    11 Aug, 2009 - 5:41 pm

    _”Shouldn’t we torture, if it makes us safe?”_

    _Salahuddin Amin_ went to the Pakistan police voluntarily on/around 2/3 April 2004. The ‘Operaion Crevice’ arrests had just occurred a few days earlier in the UK.

    Salahuddin Amin was detained & subject to torture in Pakistan (& reportedly visited by the UK security services 11 times) over a period of 10 months.

    Salahuddin Amin was then released without charge by the Pakistani Authorities & put on a plane to London , where he was arrested upon arrival at Heathrow on February 8th 2005.

    So did the torture that Salahuddin Amin was subjected to (with the questions thought up by M15?) not reveal the names of Mohammed Siddique Khan and/or Shezad Tanweer and/or Kazi Rahman, who were all involved with visiting Pakistan alongside the ‘Operation Crevice’ ‘players’.

    It would seem that the torture was used to obtain ‘evidence’ to secure the convictions of the ‘Operation Crevice’ players (finally in May 2007), but that the events of July 7th 2005, who we are told featured the ‘players’ Mohammed Siddique Khan and/or Shezad Tanweer, were not investigated/stopped.

    Operation Crevice is linked in ways that the security services do not wish the public to know about, to the events of July 7th 2005.

    Torture helped to secure the Crevice convictions, in the interests of ‘National Security’.

    I believe that these are miscarriages of Justice in the making.

    http://tinyurl.com/4myb37

  30. George Dutton

    11 Aug, 2009 - 9:13 pm

    “Israeli Medical Association Severs Ties with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) Over Torture Allegations”…

    http://uruknet.com/?p=m56838&hd=&size=1&l=e

  31. tony_opmoc

    11 Aug, 2009 - 9:14 pm

    Craig,

    If you haven’t already see this it was written by some extremely high ranking individuals within the US intelligence services, and is extremely refreshing to read. A google search on “An Anti-Torture Memorandum for President Obama”, returns only 11 hits and none from any Mainstream Media – which is a total disgrace.

    Tony

    Extract

    http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/30

    An Anti-Torture Memorandum for President Obama

    Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

    MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

    FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

    SUBJECT: Torture

    This memorandum is VIPS’ first attempt to inform you on a major intelligence issue, as we did your predecessor; thus, some background might be helpful. Five former CIA officers established Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) in January 2003, when we saw our profession being corrupted to justify an attack on Iraq. Since then, our numbers have grown to 70 intelligence professionals, mostly retired, who have served in virtually all U.S. civilian and military intelligence agencies.

    In our first Memorandum for the President (George W. Bush), dated February 5, 2002, we provided a same-day commentary on Colin Powell’s U.N. speech. We warned the president that “an invasion of Iraq would ensure overflowing recruitment centers for terrorists into the indefinite future [and that] far from eliminating the [terrorist] threat, it would enhance it exponentially.”

    We strongly urged the former president to widen the discussion on Iraq “beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.” VIPS’ second pre-war Memorandum for the President was titled, “Forgery, Hyperbole, Half-Truth: A Problem”-a reference to the bogus intelligence we saw being ginned up to “justify” war.

    President Bush ignored our warning and the warnings of other informed individuals and groups. The corporate media uncritically echoed the Bush administration’s misuse and misrepresentation of the intelligence, despite the questions raised-including those raised by our unique movement. (It was the first time an alumni group of intelligence officials had formed expressly to chronicle and to halt the corruption of intelligence.)

    The cheerleading for war had begun-a war that would fit the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal’s description of a “war of aggression.” Nuremberg defined such a war as “the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes only in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

    Torture: An Accumulated Evil

    Torture is one of those accumulated evils. Violating domestic laws like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 is another. You were right to unceremoniously jettison former CIA director Michael Hayden, who betrayed the thousands of NSA professionals who, until he directed that domestic law could be ignored, had adhered scrupulously to the 1978 FISA law as NSA’s “First Commandment”-Thou Shalt Not Eavesdrop on Americans Without a Court Warrant.

    In contrast, we believe you were badly misguided in giving a prominent White House post to former CIA director George Tenet’s protege John Brennan, who has publicly defended “extraordinary rendition” in full knowledge that its purpose was torture. Brennan also had complicit knowledge of the lengths to which Tenet conspired with the Department of Justice to distort history and the law in drafting opinions that attempted to “justify” torture.

    With all due respect, Mr. President, it would be another mistake for you to believe what you are hearing from the likes of Brennan and Hayden and the journalists they have fed and domesticated. Please do not be deceived into thinking that most intelligence officials, past and present, condone torture-still less that they are angry that you have put a stop to such techniques. We are referring, of course, to what President Bush called “an alternative set of procedures” involving cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment that violates domestic and international law. We focus on torture in the VIPS statement that follows these introductory remarks.

    The Senate Armed Services Committee recently concluded that it was President Bush himself who, by Executive Memorandum of February 7, 2002 exempting al-Qaeda and the Taliban from Geneva protections, “opened the door” to the abuse that ensued. You need to know that the vast majority of intelligence professionals deplore “extraordinary rendition” and the other torture procedures that were subsequently ordered by senior Bush administration officials.

    Sadly, President Bush was not the first chief executive to find a small cabal of superpatriots, amateur thugs, and contractors to do his administration’s bidding. But never before in this country were lawless thugs given such free rein. The congressional “oversight” committees looked the other way.

    Tenet and his acolytes successfully ingratiated themselves with President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the faux lawyers who devised what actually amounts to a very porous “legal” shield for those who carried out the torture. It was a shield designed for and applied exclusively to those “just following orders” at the CIA black sites, and not for the low-ranking soldiers doing similar things at Abu Ghraib.

    Some of the latter have done time in prison; one is still there. It would appear that some are less equal than others. And, to this day, the organizers and apologists for torture have managed to escape the consequences of their actions.

    No doubt you appreciate better than anyone that the official Department of Justice memoranda you insisted be released last week are a national disgrace. Worse still are the first-hand accounts by young soldiers at Guantanamo of perversions like “rape by instrumentality.” You should be aware that this was a practice adamantly defended by former White House lawyers when Congress attempted to draft legislation expressly prohibiting it. Asked to explain their objection, Bush administration lawyers acknowledged that they were worried that such legislation might subject practitioners to prosecution under state and federal criminal statutes.

    * * *

    Statement of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity on Torture

    Interrogation Abuses and Those Responsible Must Be Fully Exposed

    Inasmuch as we have gone on record as strongly opposed to torture, both on moral and practical grounds, from the first public awareness that the Bush administration had decided to violate international and domestic law, treaty provisions, and American tradition;

    As former intelligence officials we understand that unless intelligence is “actionable”-accurate, specific, and timely enough to be acted upon with some confidence-it is ineffective. Equally important, we acknowledge our responsibility to expose fallacious reasoning regarding the utility of torture in acquiring actionable intelligence. This issue comes to the fore especially in the celebrated, but specious “ticking time-bomb hypothetical”-a regular feature of Jack Bauer TV fiction.

    The fact that the exploits of Jack Bauer have injected a dangerous level of fiction and fear among impressionable viewers, and have misled not only interrogators at Guantanamo but also the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Silvestre Reyes-not to mention Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia-leaves no doubt that such illusionary scenarios need to be addressed by professionals with real-life experience.

    Inasmuch as the recently released legal memos that comprised part of the “golden shield” constructed by Bush Administration lawyers do shed some light but also provide inadequate information on “harsh interrogation tactics,” and that the memos sow confusion regarding which officials were responsible for institutionalizing those methods-not to mention whether they were actually effective, as former vice president Cheney continues to insist;

    Inasmuch as it has come to light that two detainees were waterboarded at least 266 times, throwing strong doubt on various rationalizations regarding the effectiveness of waterboarding in providing timely actionable intelligence (in a “ticking time-bomb” scenario, for example);

    Whereas CIA Director Leon Panetta has insisted that the “harsh interrogation tactics that some officials have declared to be torture” (the circumlocution now in vogue in the corporate media) might again be used in a future “ticking time-bomb hypothetical;”

    Whereas, when the torture technique of waterboarding, a practice with antecedents in the Spanish Inquisition was applied by Japanese troops in WWII to American and British prisoners-Japanese officers were later tried and executed;

    Whereas there has been no better system devised- despite some shortcomings-to ascertain the truth of potential wrongdoing than the criminal investigative and judicial adversary process, which provides the right to attorney and right to jury and is governed by judicial rules which attempt to ensure fairness;

    Whereas we recognize that the criminal justice process serves the important goal of stopping and deterring criminal actions and cannot be dismissed as merely “retribution;”

    Whereas 92 videotapes showing application and results of the “harsh interrogation tactics that some officials have declared to be torture” have already been destroyed, and there is understandable concern that other evidence is being destroyed as the days go by;

    Whereas other civilian and military intelligence professionals have also gone on record (see attached Annex) with respect to how torture tactics are not only ineffective in terms of getting reliable, actionable intelligence but have fueled recruitment by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to the point that, arguably, more U.S. troops have been killed by terrorists bent on revenge for torture than the 3,000 civilians killed on 9/11;

    Whereas the false confessions that were elicited by the torture of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, for example, were used by the president, vice president, and the secretary of state (at the U.N.) to claim that proof existed of operational ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, and whereas such false confessions also diverted limited investigative resources to pursue bogus leads;

    We of VIPS call for a full, truthful, and public fact-finding process to begin without delay. We ask that you give careful consideration to Senator Carl Levin’s suggestion that the attorney general appoint retired judges with solid reputations for integrity to begin the process. Another viable possibility would be the appointment of an independent “blue-ribbon commission,” perhaps modeled on the Church Committee of the mid-Seventies, to assess any illegal or improper activities and make recommendations for reform in government operations against terrorism.

    We commend the administration for releasing the Department of Justice memos attempting to legalize torture. We believe the remaining relevant information must be released promptly so that the citizenry can make informed judgments about what was done in our name and, if warranted, an independent prosecutor can be appointed without unnecessary delay. We believe strongly that any judgments regarding amnesty, forgiveness, or pardon can only be made on the basis of a fully developed, public record-and not used as some sort of political bargaining chip. Finally, we firmly oppose the notion that anyone can arrogate a right to ignore the Nuremburg Tribunal’s rejection of “only-following-orders” as an acceptable defense.

    (signatories are listed alphabetically with former intelligence affiliations)

    Gene Betit, US Army, DIA, Arlington, VA

    Ray Close, National Clandestine Service (CIA), Princeton, NJ

    Phil Giraldi, National Clandestine Service (CIA), Purcellville, VA

    Larry Johnson, CIA & Department of State, Bethesda, MD

    Pat Lang, US Army (Special Forces), DIA, Alexandria, VA

    David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council, Linden, VA

    Tom Maertens, Department of State, Mankato, MN

    Ray McGovern, US Army, CIA, Arlington, VA

    Sam Provance, US Army (Abu Ghraib), Greenville, SC

    Coleen Rowley, FBI, Apple Valley, MN

    Greg Theilmann, Department of State & Senate Intel. Committee staff, Arlington, VA

    Ann Wright, US Army, Department of State, Honolulu, HI

    *****

  32. Clark

    11 Aug, 2009 - 10:27 pm

    Ingo,

    you shouldn’t be using Windows… Get secure, get Linux.

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