Jun 7 2010

Human Experimentation at the Heart of Bush Administration’s Torture Program

Reprinted with permission (and creative commons) from TruthOut.org
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by Jason Leopold – Sunday, June 6, 2010

PHR Reports Experiments in Torture

PHR Reports Experiments in Torture

High-value detainees captured during the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” who were subjected to brutal torture techniques, were used as “guinea pigs” to gauge the effectiveness of various torture techniques, a practice that has raised troubling comparisons to Nazi-era human experimentation. according to a disturbing new report released by Physicians for Human Rights, an international doctors’ organization.

PHR, based in Massachusetts, called on President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and the US Congress to launch investigations into the role of physicians and psychiatric experts in the monitoring and assessments of the brutal interrogations.
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Apr 21 2010

An amazing letter from 2 Iraq war vets to Iraqi citizens

The ongoing mantra from war apologists is still, “war is hell”. This phrase sounds as if it is an inevitable part of life or we should simply accept that “war is hell”. What seems to be missing in this theme is human accountability for creating hell on earth. In the days following the Wikileaks video showing us all how inhuman our soldiers are trained to be while gunning down human beings, thus..liberating them. The savage attack wasn’t the most shocking part of the video. The part that shocked many people was the com chatter as a trigger happy gunner murdered people who were of no threat. Fog of war? No. This is a manufactured apologist response.

One way we can learn about what we’re doing to our soldiers and to civilians in countries we war upon.

Please read the following from:
Josh Stieber, former specialist, U.S. Army
Ethan McCord, former specialist, U.S. Army

AN OPEN LETTER OF RECONCILIATION & RESPONSIBILITY TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE
From Current and Former Members of the U.S. Military

Peace be with you.

To all of those who were injured or lost loved ones during the July 2007 Baghdad shootings depicted in the “Collateral Murder” Wikileaks video:

We write to you, your family, and your community with awareness that our words and actions can never restore your losses.

We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. Josh Stieber was in the same company but was not there that day, though he contributed to the your pain, and the pain of your community on many other occasions.

There is no bringing back all that was lost. What we seek is to learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to tell others of our experiences and how the people of the United States need to realize we have done and are doing to you and the people of your country. We humbly ask you what we can do to begin to repair the damage we caused.

We have been speaking to whoever will listen, telling them that what was shown in the Wikileaks video only begins to depict the suffering we have created. From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region.

We acknowledge our part in the deaths and injuries of your loved ones as we tell Americans what we were trained to do and what we carried out in the name of “god and country”. The soldier in the video said that your husband shouldn’t have brought your children to battle, but we are acknowledging our responsibility for bringing the battle to your neighborhood, and to your family. We did unto you what we would not want done to us.

More and more Americans are taking responsibility for what was done in our name. Though we have acted with cold hearts far too many times, we have not forgotten our actions towards you. Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity, that we were taught to deny.

Our government may ignore you, concerned more with its public image. It has also ignored many veterans who have returned physically injured or mentally troubled by what they saw and did in your country. But the time is long overdue that we say that the value of our nation’s leaders no longer represent us. Our secretary of defense may say the U.S. won’t lose its reputation over this, but we stand and say that our reputation’s importance pales in comparison to our common humanity.

We have asked our fellow veterans and service-members, as well as civilians both in the United States and abroad, to sign in support of this letter, and to offer their names as a testimony to our common humanity, to distance ourselves from the destructive policies of our nation’s leaders, and to extend our hands to you.

With such pain, friendship might be too much to ask. Please accept our apology, our sorrow, our care, and our dedication to change from the inside out. We are doing what we can to speak out against the wars and military policies responsible for what happened to you and your loved ones. Our hearts are open to hearing how we can take any steps to support you through the pain that we have caused.

Solemnly and Sincerely,
Josh Stieber, former specialist, U.S. Army
Ethan McCord, former specialist, U.S. Army


Jun 11 2009

Whitehouse Condemns Nation's "Descent into Torture" During Bush Years

Sheldon Whitehouse laid the truth on the Senate floor the other night:

Full text from Sen. Whitehouse site at Senate.gov

June 9, 2009

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I wish to now change the subject and speak about an incident that is not part of anybody’s proud heritage and that is the evidence we have recently heard about America’s descent into torture. I know it is an awkward subject to talk about, an awkward subject to think about. On the one hand, we, as Americans, love our country, we hate the violence that has been done to us, and we want more than anything to protect our people from attacks. On the other hand, torture is wrong and we have known it and behaved accordingly in far worse circumstances than now.

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May 30 2009

Remarks of US Senator Carl Levin at the Foreign Policy Association

Thank you, Tim, for that introduction, and my thanks to the Foreign Policy Association for inviting me to be here tonight. It is an honor to speak to the members of an organization who have added so much to our nation’s foreign policy debate over the years.
With Video
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May 18 2009

The Truth About Richard Bruce Cheney

(Thanks to our friends’ site: NoQuarterUSA.net for heads up on this.  Thank you to Steve Clemons for allowing us reprint the full text with Col. Wilkerson’s and Steve Clemons’ express permission from The Washington Note.)

This is a guest post exclusive to The Washington Note by Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who is former chief of staff of the Department of State during the term of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Lawrence Wilkerson is also Pamela Harriman Visiting Professor at the College of William & Mary.

Last night I was on Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC at the top of the hour. But before I came on, through the earpiece I listened to the five minutes that Rachel sketched as a lead-in. Most of it was videotape from the last few days of former Vice President Dick Cheney extolling the virtues of harsh interrogation, torture, and his leadership. I had heard some of it earlier of course but not all of it and not in such a tightly-packed package.
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Mar 13 2009

Seymour Hersh: The Bush Administration ran "Executive Assassination Ring"

Seymour Hersh is reporting that the Cheney Bush Administration were operating an “Executive Assassination Ring” under the “Joint Special Operations Command” which reported directly to the White House. Hersh is planning on writing an article on the revelation and spoke of it Tuesday night at the University of Minnesota.
Hersh: Bush Admin Ran “Executive Assassination Ring”

Mr. Hersh claims the operation involved sending agents to countries and executing suspects on a “target list”

We’ll follow this story and keep you posted.


Mar 9 2009

Follow Up With Your Local D.A. Now That They Have The Bugliosi Book On Prosecuting Dick & W

From http://www.peaceteam.net

From We want you to know that we are gearing up for actions on many critical and substantive issues, health care, mass media issues, real food safety and more, and we will have much more on all these soon.

However, this week there is a special priority. We told you that another activist group was sending copies of the Vince Bugliosi Book, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” to each and every local county district attorney in the country, nearly 3,000 books in the mail which were due to arrive at their destinations on or about Feb. 21, so they should be there by now.
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Mar 5 2009

Truth and Consequences hearing

On Wednesday, March 4, 2009, Patrick Leahy convened a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the creation of a “Truth and Consequences Commission” to hear the abuses and remedies of the George Bush and Dick Cheney administration. Joining this panel were Thomas Pickering, Ret. Vice Admiral Lee Gunn, John Farmer, F.A.O. Schwarz, David Rivkin and Jeremy Rabkin.


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Feb 25 2009

Richard Perle says…There are no NeoCons

Well blow me down…there are no such things as neoconservatives. That seems to be the invention of those loony leftist commie pinkos….or so Richard Perle wants you to believe:

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