Wikileaks Releases DoD Procedure Manual for Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | OCTOBER 26, 2012

WikiLeaks published early this morning hundreds of documents from the Department of Defense that describe the procedures established by the US government to be used with suspects detained by the American government who were sent to the prison Guantanamo Bay.

The first document to be put out is the manual of military procedures at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay which applied to both civilian and military personnel beginning in November 2002. This manual established administrative rules, regulations and code of confinement behavior for officials.

The organization founded by Julian Assange announced through a press release that, over the next month, the website will disseminate files about the detention policy in chronological order with the directions followed by military officials for more than a decade. Today, the founder of Wikileaks is under political asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy and is seeking his extradition to South America in order to avoid persecution from the United States, Sweden and other nations that publicly seek revenge.

The documents released by Wikileaks include standard operating procedures of the detention camps Bucca and Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay and the manuals for interrogation and fragmentary orders (Fragos) on changes in detention policies.

These documents “show the anatomy of the monster created to conduct arrests after the attacks on September 11, which created a dark hole in which the law and the rights do not exist and where people can be detained without a trace and be treated at will by DoD and intelligence personnel,” said Assange in a statement.

“It shows the excesses of the early days of the war against an unknown ‘enemy’ and how these policies matured and evolved” resulting, he said, “in a permanent state of exception in which the United States is now a decade later “. That exception includes but is not limited to, the effective elimination of significant portions of the Constitution, through the partial or total suppression of the First, Second and Fourth Amendments, for example, which is now business as usual in North America.

Assange, who is in a complicated situation of asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador in London to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for alleged sexual offenses, notes the historical importance of these documents, as “Guantanamo has become an example for the systematic abuse of human rights, “he added.

The organization issued several policy documents on interrogation of detainees in Iraq for the years 2004, 2005 and 2008, which revealed techniques to instill fear or emotional pressure to detainees. WikiLeaks said that “although physical violence is prohibited, in writing, a consistent policy of terrorizing prisoners, combined with a policy of destroying records, has caused abuse and impunity”.

Also due out is the “Fragmentary Order”, released after the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib (Iraq) that “eliminates the requirement to keep a record of the interrogation sessions” in certain areas of the prison.
Furthermore, while noting that interrogations carried out in the Division and Brigade Internment should be recorded, it also states that the files should “disappear within 30 days.” A policy that has been overturned by the Obama administration.

The administration of President George W. Bush (2001-2009) enabled the military base of Guantanamo (Cuba) to detain suspected terrorists — without trial — after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

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Threats, Torture and Death during land Expropriations in China

Amnesty International denounces government abuses during illegal property seizures.

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | OCTOBER 11, 2012

China is one of the largest countries in the world. However, its size does not prevent the Chinese government from using force to steal property of the people whenever it see wants. Not even the rapid development experienced by the Asian giant can explain why citizens are being evicted from their houses and other properties so massively, or why the government uses brutality to take them out of their homes without paying them a fair price for them.

The Chinese government increased the number of forced evictions of people from their homes and land throughout the country just as fast as the country develops. These evictions are often done illegally. The government practice of taking people out of their properties almost always includes abuses of power and corruption, as the population gets fed up with the requests to leave. The strong discontent in the population resulted in numerous protests, as documented in the report presented by Amnesty International (AI), headquartered in London.

AI says that cases of forced evictions have increased significantly in China, because local officials collude with developers to seize and then sell the property seized, to pay government debts. The organization, citing activists, lawyers and Chinese scholars, says that evictions have increased during the construction boom that the country has experienced since launched a plan to stimulate the economy in late 2008 to address the global crisis.

Local officials often resort to the sale of land for capital to meet the goals of infrastructure construction set by Beijing. The report issued by AI includes the period between February 2010 and January 2012, details how pressures and violence are used often. The Mafia that runs this scheme resorts to sending thugs on people whose lands are to be seized, which usually results in the torture and death of the property owners.

Of the 40 cases of forced evictions Amnesty International describes on the report, nine ended in deaths when the land owners resisted. In a case, a 70 year old woman was buried alive by a bulldozer while trying to prevent the demolition of her house. The event took place in the province of Hubei.

In a separate case, police in the city of Wenchang kidnapped a baby and refused to return him to the mother unless she signed eviction documents. Some of the people who refused to leave, were sent to jail and concentration camps. Others went to detention centers which are spread all over China.

The report includes testimony from a woman from the city of Hexia, who was beaten and sterilized after she protested her having to leave. Amnesty International documented the occurrence of 41 cases of people who lit themselves on fire in an act of desperation due to the abuse which they were submitted to by the police and the thugs. These events happened between 2009 and 2012.

“The problem of forced evictions is the greatest source of popular discontent in China and is a serious threat to social and political stability,” says AI. The organization requested the end of the evictions and to guarantee that people will not be left homeless or abused because of their opposition to the expropriation process. AI does not have the complete accounting of the number of people who have been forced to leave their properties, but the organization says that there is no question that the number of victims has increased exponentially.

In China, just as it happens in most countries, the land belongs to the government or local authorities, and these entities can simply argue that the evictions are in the interest of the majority and that the projects to be developed there outweigh any property rights. In general, governments are obligated by law to pay the value of the property, but more often than not, the payments are well below the right amount. In China as it happens in other countries, a bribery system is employed to assure developers that they won’t have to pay too much for the property. In other cases, the government buys the land with taxpayer money and hands the property over to the developers, who then make millions on a small investment.

In the case of China, the call from the Chinese Communist Party to force development encouraged local authorities to use any means available to carry out that mission. The plan of the Chinese government includes the seizure of lands to build roads, factories, shopping centers and other infrastructure. The problem is in China is that government has resorted to all kinds of violent acts to kick people out without paying them what they deserve for their homes.

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CIA Tortured Gaddafi Opponents while Bush was in Office

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

“We don’t torture,” said once George W. Bush when he was questioned about the use of enhanced interrogation on supposed terrorists. We now learn that members of terrorist groups supported by the United States in its effort to get rid of Gaddafi, had been tortured by the same CIA and US government before the Arab Spring began.

The U.S. allowed the abuse and rendition of Gaddafi’s government opponents, according to Human Rights Watch.

Some of the people who now occupy key positions in Libya were tortured and subsequently delivered to the Gaddafi regime during the Bush presidency, according to a report Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In its report ‘Delivered to the enemy: the United States allows the abuse and rendition of anti-Gaddafi Libyans’, the NGO cited testimony from former detainees who claim to have been subjected to waterboarding and other forms of torture where water was also used.

Most of those arrested belonged to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which for 20 years tried to overthrow the Gaddafi regime. In fact, when the conflict broke out in 2011 this faction joined the rebels in their fight against the dictator. That same group was given weapons and piles of cash to help the United States defeat Gaddafi later in 2011.

“Not only the United States gave Gaddafi many of his enemies, but also tortured several of these people,” said Laura Pitter, author of the report. “The magnitude of the abuses committed by the Bush administration seems to be much higher than initially admitted, and highlights the importance of launching a full investigation into what happened.”

CIA Documents

The report is also based on documents from the CIA and the British Secret Service that were recently released that Human Rights Watch found abandoned in the office of former Libyan intelligence chief Musa Kusa on September 3, 2011, after Tripoli was taken by rebel forces.

Interviews and documents show that after the attacks of September 11, 2011 in the United States, the government of this country with the assistance of the United Kingdom and several countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, arrested and imprisoned LIFG members who lived outside Libya without charging them with any specific offense, and then deliver them extrajudicially to the Libyan government, knowing that they would be subjected to all kinds of abuse.

The document also cites the grave abuses suffered by former members of the LIFG in two detention centers in Afghanistan that were managed by the U.S.

According to the reports seen by the NGO, the detainees claimed they were chained naked against the wall, sometimes with diapers, in completely dark cells for weeks and months and were required to maintain awkward positions for extended periods with the purpose of causing physical pain and stress.

“For three months, I was first interrogated continuously every day and then applied a different kind of torture. Sometimes water was used, sometimes not … Sometimes I was undressed and other times I was allowed to wear clothes,” related Khalid al Sharif, who said he had been detained for two years in two different U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan that allegedly were under the administration of the CIA.

Al Sharif is now head of Libya’s National Guard. One of its responsibilities is to provide security to facilities where Libya holds some of the most important prisoners captured before, during and after the conquest of Tripoli.

Amnesty says pro-Gaddafi detainees tortured

AFP
January 26, 2012

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International said Thursday fighters loyal to ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have been tortured in militia-run detention centres. Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders suspended operations for similar reasons.

Several loyalists of slain Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi have been tortured and some have even died in detention centres run by armed militias, human rights groups said on Thursday.

Amnesty International said that despite promises, Libya’s new rulers have made “no progress to stop the use of torture”, as Doctors Without Borders suspended its work in the third-largest city of Misrata over similar claims.

Their accusations come after a top UN official raised concerns that armed militias comprising former rebels who helped topple Kadhafi were posing increasing security risk as they regularly clashed with each other.

“Several detainees have died after being subjected to torture in Libya in recent weeks and months amid widespread torture and ill-treatment of suspected pro-Kadhafi fighters and loyalists,” Amnesty said in a statement.

It said its delegates met detainees held in Tripoli, in Misrata and in smaller towns such as Ghariyan who showed visible signs of torture inflicted in recent days and weeks.

“The torture is being carried out by officially recognised military and security entities, as well by a multitude of armed militias operating outside any legal framework,” it said.

Donatella Rouvera, senior adviser at London-based Amnesty, said in the statement that it was “horrifying to find that there has been no progress to stop the use of torture”.

“We are not aware of any proper investigations into cases of torture,” she said.

Detainees told Amnesty they had been beaten for hours with whips, cables, plastic hoses, metal chains, bars, wooden sticks and given electric shocks with live wires.

The rights watchdog said the detainees, both Libyans and foreigners from sub-Saharan Africa, were tortured soon after they were seized by armed militias in officially recognised detention centres in places like Misrata.

Misrata withstood a devastating siege by Kadhafi’s forces during last year’s uprising. Its fighters later unleashed a fierce attack on the dictator’s hometown of Sirte, where he was killed on October 20.

“Several detainees have died in the custody of armed militias in and around Tripoli and Misrata in circumstances that suggest torture,” Amnesty added.

Rouvera said the issue was aggravated as the police and judiciary remained “dysfunctional” cross Libya.

Doctors Without Borders, meanwhile, said it has suspended its work in Misrata.

“Detainees in the Libyan city of Misrata are being tortured and denied urgent medical care, leading the international medical humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) to suspend its operations in detention centres in Misrata,” the group said, referring to itself by its French name.

It said its doctors were increasingly confronted with patients who suffered injuries caused by “torture” during questioning.

“The interrogations were held outside the detention centres,” it said.

MSF general director Christopher Stokes said some officials have sought to exploit and obstruct its work in Misrata.

“Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for further interrogation. This is unacceptable,” he said.

“Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions.”

On Wednesday, the UN special representative in Libya, Ian Martin, expressed concern about the militias which he said were not under the control of the interim government.

Speaking to the UN Security Council, Martin said fighting in the Libyan town of Bani Walid this week — at one stage blamed on Kadhafi loyalists — had been caused by a clash between local people and a revolutionary brigade unit.

“Although authorities have successfully contained these and other more minor incidents that continue to take place across the country on a regular basis, there is the ever present possibility that similar outbreaks of violence could escalate,” he said.

Libya’s new authorities are struggling to reintegrate tens of thousands of these militia fighters into the army and police.

America’s Death Pornography Culture

Celebrating brutal deaths of Muammar Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein.

by Wayne Madsen
Strategic Culture Foundation
November 2, 2011

The United States government and military revel in death and pornographic intimidation. The videos and photographs of howling Iraqis celebrating the hanging of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein after his U.S.-administered kangaroo court trial in Iraq and the physical abuse, alleged sodomizing, and execution of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi by NATO-armed and directed rebels after his convoy in Sirte was reportedly struck by a U.S. drone-launched missile, exemplify America’s fixation with pornographic death scenes…

The George Walker Bush and Barack Hussein Obama administrations share a fascination for displaying the dead bodies of their vanquished enemies. For Bush, it was the gruesome stone-slabbed corpses of Qusay and Uday Hussein, Saddam’s sons, after they were killed in a firefight with U.S. troops in. That was followed by the body of Saddam after his hanging in.

Of course, it did not suit President Obama to broadcast a photograph of Osama Bin Laden, allegedly killed while resisting arrest in Abbotabad, Pakistan. In the case of Bin Laden, there is a strong reason to believe that Osama’s body could not be shown because there was no body of Osama. Whether an Osama Bin Laden look-a-like was killed or not may never be known, but what is certain is that the Obama administration’s explanation for ”Osama’s” burial at sea from a U.S. aircraft carrier appears dubious.

There was also the curious designation of the operation to kill Bin Laden as “Geronimo.” President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were in the White House Situation Room when they heard the news from the strike team: “We’ve ID’d Geronimo,” followed by “Geronimo EKIA” or “Geronimo enemy killed in action.”

There was outrage among Native Americans over the designation of Bin Laden as Geronimo. But the code name has its own ghastly history. In 1918, in another macabre display of ghoulishness by America’s political elite, Prescott Bush, the future U.S. senator and father and grandfather of two future presidents, allegedly dug up the grave of the famed Apache leader Geronimo and stole his skull and some bones. The remains are said to be among the prized possession of Yale’s elite and secretive Skull and Bones society, along with the skull of former President Martin van Buren, the only president of the United States who was not in the blood line, close or distant, of the British royal family.

As Qaddafi’s body, along with those of his son, Mo’tassim, and the former Libyan army commander, Abu Bakr Yunis, rotted in a meat freezer in Misrata – for the whole world to see — more details emerged about Qaddafi’s last hours in Sirte. On October 19, at around 8:00 am in Sirte, a convoy of 70 vehicles departed the heavily-bombed out city, heading west. There were also Twitter messages coming out of Sirte reporting that several white flags of surrender were seen in the city at day break. However, a CIA Predator drone tracking the convoy passed its coordinates on to NATO. French and other NATO jets pounded the convoy, incinerating many of the drivers and passengers. Many of those killed were black Libyans. There are now reports of mass graves in Sirte containing the bodies of scores of Qaddafi supporters and fellow tribal members.

There have been some reports that a truce and a surrender by Qaddafi and his forces was worked out between some rebel leaders and Qaddafi’s entourage through the auspices of the Qaddadfa (the tribe to which Qaddafi belonged) tribal leaders in Sirte. After the convoy was on the highway heading west, with reported white flags from some of the vehicles, the motorcade, which was not engaging in fire with rebel or NATO forces, was set upon by NATO forces. Witnesses to the surrender and/or safe passage negotiations will be hard to come by, since one of those murdered in his home in Sirte by Libyan rebels was reportedly the chief of the Qaddadfa tribe who was part of the negotiations for surrender and safe passage.

Reports that Qaddafi and his group were trying to make a dash through the offensive lines around Sirte make no sense since the convoy left after sun up and in broad daylight, when white flags could clearly be seen by the belligerents, and the Twitter messages out of Sirte indicated that rebels, pro-Qaddafi forces, and neutral observers could all see the white flags. If Qaddafi wanted to make a break for it, he would have done so at night with headlights out.

One of the last things Qaddafi is heard asking his captors is “Do you know right from wrong?” If the rebels or NATO reneged on a promise of safe passage and ignored the universally-recognized white flag signifying truce and surrender, it would constitute a gross violation of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and would, therefore, be a war crime. Under the conventions, the white flag is protected as a sign that an approaching party intends to surrender or negotiate the terms of surrender. Those displaying a white flag may not fire or be fired upon.

If NATO and the rebels violated the white flag in Sirte, it would represent one of the first major violations of a practice that began with the Eastern Han dynasty in China in the year 25, and was recognized by the Roman Empire, armies during the Middle Ages, and every major and minor nation since. A violation by NATO of the flag of truce would represent a flagrant return to barbarism by the “collective defensive” organization.

Hillary Clinton reacted to news of Qaddafi’s death by chortling like a school girl. Preparing for an interview with CBS News, Clinton, who had just paid a visit to Libya, joked, “We came, we saw, he died.” Other NATO leaders, including Obama, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, as well as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who all self-identify themselves as Christians, expressed relief and joy at the news of Qaddafi’s death, a very “un-Christian” trait.

The brutal treatment of Qaddafi and his forces matches the treatment meted out by American forces to detainees in Iraq, including the pornographic abuse of prisoners, including minors, at Abu Ghraib and other prisons. In the report by U.S. Army General Antonio Taguba, there are instances of U.S. guards forcing male and female prisoners into naked and explicit positions, including human piles, and taking photographs and video shots, forcing male prisoners to wear women’s underwear, forcing male prisoners to masturbate while being photographed and videotaped, and sodomizing detainees with broom sticks and chemical lights. One prisoner murdered by U.S. forces, Manadel al-Jamadi, was kept on ice to prevent decomposition and spirited away from investigators to cover up his suffocation by U.S. prison guards.

The abuse at Abu Ghraib continues to have ramifications and has resulted in a lawsuit in California, Ford v. CAARNG (California Army Reserve National Guard). The suit charges that “retired Sergeant Frank G. Ford who, in 2003, was assigned to Iraq with the 223 Military Intelligence Unit under the 205 Military Intelligence Brigade as a Counter Intelligence Agent and Medic, was strapped to a gurney against his will and kidnapped. He was then sent from a war zone [Iraq] to Germany . . . because he reported the torture going on at Abu Ghraib prison as well as the death by torture of a prisoner while in custody.” The suit also alleges that “Ford cared for and treated, as an onsite medic, numerous victims of torture.”

A video currently circulating of a Libyan rebel sodomizing Qaddafi with what appears to be a rifle barrel brings back the scenes of the U.S. house of horrors at Abu Ghraib. Obama’s decision to become judge, jury, and executioner in the death sentences (“targeted killings”) carried out by a CIA drone flying over Yemen on September 30, on U.S. citizens Anwar al Awalaki (a former Islamic confidante of the Pentagon), and Samir Khan, and an additional October 14 drone strike in Yemen that killed Awlaki’s teenage son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, also a U.S. citizen, reinforces a growing belief that Obama lords over a voodoo-like death cult that has taken over U.S. military and foreign policy.

By word and action, the U.S. military and its NATO underlings have discarded thousands of years of chivalric military tradition, common practices, and law against a backdrop of ghoulish and pornographic behavior.

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