Illegal torture equipment – right on your doorstep! The adverts shaming Britain’s arms trade

“Horrific killer drones! Ankle-shattering leg irons! Cluster bombs! And electric stun batons that cause excruciating pain but leave no trace!” The cheery voice and cartoon imagery leave no doubt that this advert for the world’s biggest arms fair is a sharp spoof, produced for Amnesty International to highlight the British government’s willingness to flog weapons to repressive regimes via the Defence and Security Equipment International’s jamboree at the ExCeL Centre in London’s Docklands.

But a separate campaign is also leading to many posters cropping up at bus stops and on tube trains that require a second glance. “Important announcement, Travelling on the DLR from 15th to 18th September?” reads one, using London Underground fonts and branding with the DLR line turning into the image of a tank. “This September, a swarm of arms dealers will be descending on the DLR … Customers are requested to help stop the arms fair.”

The 300 posters are by artists who exhibited work at the Museum of Cruel Designs (PDF) in Banksy’s Dismaland. A collective called the Special Patrol Group helped distribute it around London using “Ad Space Hack Packs”, a £6 pack of Allen keys which it claims “gain access to around a third of bus stop advertising space on the planet”. (Transport for London is not amused by this flyposting “vandalism”.)

More at the The Guardian

Chelsea Manning Faces Solitary Confinement for Having Vanity Fair's Caitlyn Jenner Issue in Her Cell

U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning could face punishment of indefinite solitary confinement for having an expired tube of toothpaste, an issue of Vanity Fair in which transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner describes her new life living openly as a woman, the U.S. Senate report on torture and other "prohibited property" in her cell at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth. Manning is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking U.S. government cables to WikiLeaks. On Thursday, an Army spokesperson said it is committed to "a fair and equitable process" in Manning’s case, which is now pending before a disciplinary board.

Democracy Now!

List of Songs the CIA Used to Torture Muslim Prisoners

Just imagine for a second that you are alone in a small dark room while your head chained between your legs and you has been forced to listen same song again and again for numberof hours and days with headphones which you can’t take off. Music torture has been normal practice for the CIA after it started its “improved examination program” in the early 2000s.

The U.S. Psychological Operations team member Sgt. Mark Hadsell, said: “If you play it for 24 hours, your brain and body functions start to slide, your train of thought slows down and your will is broken. That’s when we come in and talk to them.”

Any torment technique is of easy to refute merit — music torment was, partially, mainstream on the grounds that it appeared to be more tasteful to the general population. Anyhow to find out about the knowledge of individuals who’ve been subjected to these tunes is to see exactly how frightful it is to have a darling tune betrayed you.

See the list of songs which CIA used to torture their prisoners at AnonHQ

Were Gitmo Murders Covered Up As Suicides?

What really happened at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility on the night of June 9, 2006.

Cheney’s Torture Anthem

Even though Dick Cheney isn’t the only one responsible for the stain of torture on the United States, he’s the most, shall we say, colorful? If you think the awfulness of Bush-era torture is behind us, think again. Thanks to the just-released Senate torture report, we now know of all kinds of new and awful ways the CIA and Bush Administration screwed up the hunt for Al Qaeda and disgraced this nation. You can read more at http://www.MarkFiore.com

CIA torture report

The full, abhorrent scale of how the US used torture as an everyday weapon in the ‘war on terror’ was laid bare last night. On a day of shame for the West, a Senate investigation revealed the sadistic abuse of detainees in a network of secret prisons around the world. The devastating report – described as ‘a stain on the values and conscience’ of the US – last night triggered demands for a similar, full-scale inquiry in Britain to uncover its own secrets.

One detainee was so brutalised he was left unable to speak and on life support. Another, chained almost naked to the floor, died from hypothermia while a third was hung by his arms from an iron bar for 22 hours. The agency – which worked hand in glove with MI5, MI6 and the Blair Government – repeatedly lied and misled the White House, Congress and the public about its so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’. In the long-awaited report, immediately rejected by the CIA, the Senate Intelligence Committee said the claims – repeated in public by former President George W Bush – had been ‘inaccurate’. In fact, the plots had already been foiled by the time any information was extracted from 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others.

More at the Daily Mail Online

Do You Enjoy Your Post 9/11 World?

September 11th, 2001 is the most influential day in modern history around the world. A day that shocked the masses, and had the power hungry salivating at the chance to take advantage of an incredible tragedy. As they say, “never let a tragedy go to waste“. This is my take on the events that followed, the events that have molded this nation as we know it today. Egregious violations of constitutional rights, torture, corruption, political greed, and perpetual war are the new norm.

Let’s dive into the rabbit hole, and see how far it goes…

What is the Military Industrial Complex?

Military-industrial complex, a network of individuals and institutions involved in the production of weapons and military technologies. The military-industrial complex in a country typically attempts to marshal political support for continued or increased military spending by the national government.

See The Anti-Media for more on this.

CIA misled on interrogation program, US Senate report says

A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that the CIA misled the government and the public about aspects of its brutal interrogation program for years — concealing details about the severity of its methods, overstating the significance of plots and prisoners, and taking credit for critical pieces of intelligence that detainees had in fact surrendered before they were subjected to harsh techniques.

The report, built around detailed chronologies of dozens of CIA detainees, documents a long-standing pattern of unsubstantiated claims as agency officials sought permission to use — and later tried to defend — excruciating interrogation methods that yielded little, if any, significant intelligence, according to U.S. officials who have reviewed the document.

“The CIA described [its program] repeatedly both to the Department of Justice and eventually to Congress as getting unique, otherwise unobtainable intelligence that helped disrupt terrorist plots and save thousands of lives,” said one U.S. official briefed on the report. “Was that actually true? The answer is no.”

More on The Washington Post

Iraq illegally detains, tortures and rapes thousands of women

Iraqi authorities are detaining thousands of women illegally and subjecting many to torture and ill-treatment, including the threat of sexual abuse, Human Rights Watch said in a report published on Thursday.

Many women were detained for months or even years without charge before seeing a judge, HRW said, and security forces often questioned them about their male relatives' activities rather than crimes in which they themselves were implicated.

In custody, women described being kicked, slapped, hung upside-down and beaten on the soles of their feet, given electric shocks, threatened with sexual assault by security forces during interrogation, and even raped in front of their relatives and children.

"The abuses of women we documented are in many ways at the heart of the current crisis in Iraq," said HRW's deputy Middle East and North Africa director Joe Stork in a statement accompanying the report, titled: "'No One Is Safe': Abuses of Women in Iraq's Criminal Justice System."

"These abuses have caused a deep-seated anger and lack of trust between Iraq's diverse communities and security forces, and all Iraqis are paying the price."

More on Reuters - HRW

Evidence of 'industrial-scale killing' by Syrian regime

The UN and independent human rights groups have documented abuses by both Bashar al-Assad's government and rebels, but experts say this evidence is more detailed and on a far larger scale than anything else that has yet emerged from the 34-month crisis.

The three lawyers interviewed the source, a military policeman who worked secretly with a Syrian opposition group and later defected and fled the country. In three sessions in the last 10 days they found him credible and truthful and his account "most compelling".

They put all evidence under rigorous scrutiny, says their report, which has been obtained by the Guardian and CNN. (Read here)

The authors are Sir Desmond de Silva QC, former chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, the former lead prosecutor of former Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic, and Professor David Crane, who indicted President Charles Taylor of Liberia at the Sierra Leone court.

The defector, who for security reasons is identified only as Caesar, was a photographer with the Syrian military police. He smuggled the images out of the country on memory sticks to a contact in the Syrian National Movement, which is supported by the Gulf state of Qatar. Qatar, which has financed and armed rebel groups, has called for the overthrow of Assad and demanded his prosecution

More on The Guardian

Blair's Government Face Crime Probe Over Iraq War Crimes

The British government has insisted it will fight a bid to trigger prosecutions of former ministers and senior military figures over alleged war crimes in Iraq. Two senior ministers in Tony Blair’s government are facing a possible criminal probe over the alleged torture and unlawful killing of hundreds of Iraqis by British soldiers.

A complaint filed with the International Criminal Court (ICC) has accused British forces of abusing and killing detainees in their custody. The shocking dossier says "those who bear the greatest responsibility" for alleged war crimes "include individuals at the highest levels" of the British Army and political system. UK military commanders "knew or should have known" that forces under their control "were committing or about to commit war crimes". The head of the army, General Sir Peter Wall, ex-defence secretary Geoff Hoon, and former defence minister Adam Ingram are among those named in the 250-page dossier, according to the Independent on Sunday. Human rights lawyers have drawn on the cases of more than 400 Iraqis, arguing they represent "thousands of allegations of mistreatment amounting to war crimes of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment". They describe incidents ranging from "hooding" prisoners to burning, electric shocks, threats to kill and "cultural and religious humiliation".

Huffington Post

Bounty Hunters Search for Tony Blair After Latest Sightings of UK's Most Wanted War Criminal

British forces are detaining dozens in Afghanistan

Philip Hammond, the British defence secretary, has confirmed that dozens of people are being detained by British forces at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan following allegations that the army is running a secret detention facility at the base.

Hammond said 80 or 90 people were being held at the site. He said many of them posed a danger to British troops, and reiterated that they could not yet be handed over to Afghan authorities because of concerns that they would be mistreated.

UK lawyers acting for eight of the men, some of whom they say have been held for up to 14 months without charge, have launched habeas corpus applications in the UK high court in a bid to free them, raising comparisons with the outrage over the Guantánamo Bay prison camp.

The International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) rules dictate that British forces are only allowed to hold suspects for 96 hours. But in November last year, Hammond halted plans to hand suspected insurgents captured by British troops to Afghan security forces on the grounds they risked being abused and tortured.

The Guardian

Horrifying Revelations About Force-Feeding at Guantanamo

The practice of force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as a response to the mass hunger strike there has been increasingly criticized. But the military has continued to carry it out. Now, Al Jazeera has revealed in detail how the practice is takes place--and it’s not pretty.

The document states that prisoners who are force-fed are restrained by being shackled to a chair. Prisoners are also required to wear masks over their mouths to “prevent spitting and biting.” In some cases, Guantanamo prisoners are shackled for two hours. The masking and shackling of the prisoners is done to facilitate the tube that is snaked through prisoners’ nostrils until an X-ray or test dose of water confirms that the nutritional supplement reached their stomach.

Once the forced feeding process is over, a prisoner is placed in a cell that does not have running water. A guard then observes the prisoner to make sure he does not vomit up the nutritional supplement that was forced inside him. If the prisoner does vomit, he is punished. “Participation in the dry cell will be revoked and he will remain in the restraint chair for the entire observation time period during subsequent feedings,” the document reads.

More on Alternet - UN calls force-feeding at Guantanamo 'torture' (RT) - Gitmo hunger strike: Timeline

Pentagon's link to Iraqi torture centres revealed

The Pentagon sent a US veteran of the "dirty wars" in Central America to oversee sectarian police commando units in Iraq that set up secret detention and torture centres to get information from insurgents. These units conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the country's descent into full-scale civil war.

Colonel James Steele was a 58-year-old retired special forces veteran when he was nominated by Donald Rumsfeld to help organise the paramilitaries in an attempt to quell a Sunni insurgency, an investigation by the Guardian and BBC Arabic shows.

After the Pentagon lifted a ban on Shia militias joining the security forces, the special police commando (SPC) membership was increasingly drawn from violent Shia groups such as the Badr brigades.

A second special adviser, retired Colonel James H Coffman, worked alongside Steele in detention centres that were set up with millions of dollars of US funding.

Coffman reported directly to General David Petraeus, sent to Iraq in June 2004 to organise and train the new Iraqi security forces. Steele, who was in Iraq from 2003 to 2005, and returned to the country in 2006, reported directly to Rumsfeld.

The allegations, made by US and Iraqi witnesses in the Guardian/BBC documentary, implicate US advisers for the first time in the human rights abuses committed by the commandos. It is also the first time that Petraeus – who last November was forced to resign as director of the CIA after a sex scandal – has been linked through an adviser to this abuse.

More on The Guardian

Link to video: US special forces veteran links General Petraeus to torture in Iraq

More Than 50 Countries Collaborated With CIA On Torture Program

Torturing: it brought the United States together with Iran, Syria, Libya, and Zimbabwe. Wired reports:

A new report from the Open Society Foundation details the CIA’s effort to outsource torture since 9/11. Known as “extraordinary rendition,” the practice concerns taking detainees to and from U.S. custody without a legal process and handing detainees over to countries that practiced torture.

The report found that 136 people went through the post-9/11 extraordinary rendition, and 54 countries were complicit in it. Some were official U.S. adversaries, like Iran and Syria, brought together with the CIA by the shared interest of combating terrorism.

The most famous case involves Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen snatched in 2002 by the U.S. at JFK Airport before the CIA sent him to Syria under the mistaken impression he was a terrorist. In Syrian custody, Arar was “imprisoned for more than ten months in a tiny grave-like cell, beaten with cables, and threatened with electric shocks by the Syrian government.”

The full 54 countries that aided in post-9/11 renditions: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

Disinformation

Zero Dark Thirty, Manhunt and Obama Admin. Justify Use of Torture

Recent films and Obama's lack of prosecution of CIA and Bush Cheney for torture is creating conditions for its public acceptance.
Watch full multipart The Ratner Report.

The Real News

Military Industrial Complex, Drones, & Torture

CIA torture whistleblower sentenced to prison by US judge

A CIA whistleblower who was among the first to expose details of the spy agency’s use of waterboarding and other torture methods against Muslim suspects accused of terrorism was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison by a US judge.

The 48-year-old former CIA agent John Kiriakou, who worked for the spy agency between 1990 and 2004 and was involved in the capture of a ‘terror suspect,’ received the jail term on Friday by US District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who proclaimed that the sentence she issued was “way too light.”

The judge harshly rejected the notion that Kiriakou was a whistleblower concerned about the illegal use of harsh torture tactics by American spies and intelligence officers and said, “This is a case of a man who betrayed a solemn trust.”

In a 2007 televised interview with the US-based ABC News, Kiriakou offered a dramatic description of the use of waterboarding in torturing a suspect that he had helped capture, Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, also identified as Abu Zubaida.
Furthermore in 2008 and 2009, Kiriakou reportedly revealed to journalists the name of a CIA agent who had taken part in interrogation and torture of suspects captured by the agency’s operatives abroad, court documents allege.

PressTV

Manning Testifies About His Torture; Was it Aimed at Turning Him on Assange?

The Real News interviews Michael Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York and Chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. He is currently a legal adviser to Wikileaks and Julian Assange.

The subject of this proceeding was the government or United States and military's treatment of Bradley Manning during the two and a half years he's been in custody. And it was particularly over the first year of his custody to year and a half when the allegations are that he was tortured in custody, or at least treated with cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. There's been a lot of substantiation of that treatment. The rapporteur for the United Nations, Mendez, basically said he was treated contrary to the Convention against Torture. And this was a trial in which that conduct was going to be talked about.

The Real News

State of siege

Scenes from a very hard-to-find movie made in 1972: "State of Siege". It's a fictionalized account of a true story.
Using an "aid" program as a cover, the CIA trained police officers throughout South America to fight "subversives" using of torture, assassination, and police-staged explosives to blame on terrorists.

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