(Artwork: Mark Clifford)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama declared Monday he would try to block the court-ordered release of photos showing U.S. troops abusing prisoners, abruptly reversing his position out of concern the pictures would “further inflame anti-American opinion” and endanger U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The White House had said last month it would not oppose an appeals court ruling that set a May 28 deadline for releasing dozens of photos from military investigations of alleged misconduct.
CIA Refuses to Turn Over Torture Tape Documents
Bush Advisor Says President Has Legal Power to Torture Children
Don:
I don’t understand how you made the leap from what I or other posters said to a universal conspiracy that is 500 plus years old.
I have said for years now that the Western nations have functioned on a central banking-warfare model for the last 500 years. That is the fundamental investment model that we have used. There is a difference between a business or investment model and an organized conspiracy. A model develops, evolves and is much more organic. Are there conspiracies? Yes, lots of them. Is there only one big one at the top and it has been in existence for 500 years? That, I don’t know.
The fundamental economics of the central banking – warfare model require force to make them go. Slavery — in all of it various forms — and the things that go with it are an integral part of the model, including torture.
Catherine
PS – If what you are raising relates to the extent of the use of sex slavery by the system, I would recommend you read John De Camp’s The Franklin Cover Up.
This is getting more weird than is imaginable for me. This is tantamount to a Universal conspiracy where the motives of our leaders and friends can no longer be trusted. Are we to believe that there is a core of evil that every president since Washington has been initiated into? Is it possible that this conspiracy is so well constructed and that the evil so great that no one but a few have ever seen the depth and breadth of its existence?
I am willing to acknowledge that good intent can be directed into evil channels the further away it is from the initiating source; but, I am not willing to believe that every national leader and 4 star general is in on the conspiracy.
Yes, crimes happen in the military and in prisons by people that are evil at heart but that does not mean that it is all directed by some super evil person in an Oval office. We need to be diligent and punish people who commit atrocities and heinous crimes but hopefully without destroying our libertarian form of government in the process.
I want the truth without the innuendo. Careful, your credibility is being overextended.
Don Lowrance
Diane:
Bravo!
There is a way to align our ethics with our money. We have not invented it yet, but we can and we will…
Catherine
Catherine, I agree with what you are saying and say many times in many ways….our “money system” is tied to values(the wrong ones) and if we want things to be different, we have to use different values. When I tried “socially conscious” investing, I discovered the disconnect between people wanting ethics and still wanting double digit earnings. I was disenchanted with what I was offered (which included Enron and Toys ‘R Us). I was turned off by the CEO letters that came from a solar company I invested in who was irritated by his employees wanting holidays off. Still putting the earnings pressure on these investments, is like saying “Lie to me. Give me something I can believe is better but still give me my money. I won’t check into it to deep to see if it’s really true.” I really wanted it to be different, and so I gave up on “socially conscious” investment or any hope that our investment system or banks can really be different. It puts those investment counselors in a “double bind” as well. I’m pursuing what you are. Learning to do more for myself and buy less.
I believe that the pictures will put our soldiers at risk.
If the situation is as Catherine describes, there would be mass protests. The concealment of the evidence is a guarantee that this abuse will continue. Most of us have seen images of the cross and there isn’t too much more barbaric than that unless children are involved. The truth is not going to hurt our soldiers. It is going to hurt those who deserve justice.
Some say that the volume of pictures show that this practice was not just a few bad apples. I had never even considered that children were the targets. That explains a lot.
Hummingbird:
What I am saying is that to take the positions that:
1. We don’t want significant change
2. We want financial security
3. Torture is not permitted and the people who use it would be prosecuted
are internally inconsistent,
Catherine
What do you mean by “immoral irresponsible morality? Sex Slavery! Torture! Blowing up the World Trade center in order to start a policy of terrorist suppression and totalitarian rule, the march toward the wars in Irac and Afghanistan under the umbrella of the War on Terror and last but not least the plan to implement total genocide not just in this country but across the world to stop the protest of an awakening global population. Finally most loathsome of all claiming to be moved by the hand of God while ultimately being a surrogate of the Devil himself?
This is my take on things: To hell with Treasury Bills CDs and Bonds they are worthless peices of paper!
Dangerous people are in the binds they made for themselves and because they plan to kill all of us sooner if not later I think it’s very important that their evil intentions be brought to light!
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Here is my guess:
1. Pictures exist of young boys being sodomized. Whether this was in front of mothers/female relatives as the allegations contend, I don’t know.
2. Such practices are much more common than widely understood — both in the US and areas that we target and occupy globally.
3. I would note that when we went into Iraq, we awarded a $500 billion sole source contract to a private company to run prisons and enforcement that had just settled two tracks of litigation relating to documented sex slave trafficking by their personnel in Eastern Europe.
4. Sex slavery is a integral part of maintaining the type of Empire we run. One of the business lines of occupations is culling the attractive children who do not have strong family protection and selling them into slavery or sex slavery.
5. Since we as a nation do not want to push the red button http://solari.com/blog/?p=1949, then the question for the military industrial complex is how do they keep the slow burn going particularly as the population ages, the dynamic growth shifts to the middle east and Asia and the economy globalizes. This all means you need lots of force, and the reality that implies an entire infrastructure of people and activities that are criminal in nature.
6. Slavery works. Crime works. The system depends on it. This is not what we are. This is what we have been for 500 plus years. If all sex slavery stopped tomorrow, the global financial system would melt down within one to three months. Without control files and sex benefits, the whole thing grinds to a halt.
7. Asking the CIA and DOJ et al. to keep the red button from being pushed but insisting that they can not use torture to do it is putting a group of people in a horrible double bind. Do you want your Treasury bills, bonds and CD’s to have value? Or do you want to the torture to stop? The notion that you can have both without significant spiritual, culture and political global transformation is irrational.
8. When you put dangerous people in unfair double binds they become disrespectful, frustrated and if you make it worse and insist on their investigation and prosecution, they do things like use bio warfare to have flu epidemics. While I don’t condone their tactics, I empathize with what it is like to be on the receiving end of immoral and irresponsible morality.
Way it is. That is my 2 cents,
Catherine
POLITICS OF POWER AND PLUNDER!
The torture of “anyone” in United States Custody is a despotic act calculated to terrorize the very citizens, it professes to make secure. If the U.S. government had meant to hide that it tortures, that fact would have remained hidden not only from Americans but from the rest of the world. A Congress and a justice system that thwarts prosecution of those deemed “too POWERFUL to ANSWER for their crimes”, is an unspeakable betrayal of duty, called TREASON. Failure to act in the face of such violations of international law and human rights, tars us all with the same brush of inhumanity, and makes scapegoats and targets of all Americans. The purposeful and wholesale assault on our National identity forces us to face the most heartbreaking of questions. “WHO ARE WE AS A PEOPLE AND A COUNTRY WHEN THOSE WHO WE TRUSTED TO ACT IN OUR NAME COULD BETRAY OUR VALUES AND OUR TRUST SO COMPLETELY”? That betrayal has made us prisoners within our own borders and pariahs if we dare to venture outside of them. This leads us to the next question. “WHO ARE THE REAL TARGETS OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT’S WAR ON TERROR?” The chilling answer is there in black and white, in the Patriot Act, The Emergency State Health Powers Act, The Military Commissions Act, The Homegrown Terrorism Act HR 645 and the National Security Presidential Directive 59, to name a few. NSPD 59 creates a secret state police run by the FBI and created to spy on and terrorize U.S. citizens. As if the CIA, NSA, NORTHCOM, FEMA, and DHS weren’t enough! Furthermore those don’t include the civilian contractors financed from behind a 20 trillion dollar a year wall of secrecy who can only perpetuate their profits by creating a need for security infinitum. The list goes on and on. The reason may sound simplistic, however it’s consistent with what has always been the motivator of those addicted to power. Money, which buys, controls and shifts more power. The true irony is that the same power that runs the engines of progress is inextricably entwined with that other kind of power the megalomaniacs are so addicted to. That second kind of power involves corporate, gobal, imperalistic, interests that, like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, visits the plagues of revelation upon every corner of the globe. Wherever there are resources to steal, people to exploit and pristine environments to destroy, Sovereignty, becomes meaningless, outside, and even inside our national borders. While Multinational Corporate treachery financed by a 20 trillion dollar a year shadow government plans the end of our future, “Our leaders” “continue” to steal the lives of our children and love ones under the False Flag of Militant Patriotism. The limits and ultimate end of the first kind of power, is coming toward us, at warp speed. And with it, ramifications of sustainability of human populations of less than a third than what now inhabit the earth. With that inside information, there is even further consolidation, in the evil few, of the second kind of power. They say power corrupts and with no exception comes the misguided idea that “they decide” who lives and who dies. How we as Americans understand and deal with the unthinkable, will ultimately decide whether we survive as a people, a country, or as a species on the fragile face of our beautiful and beloved planet. D
You pose an interesting point, certainly possible. I think a lot of things that happen are for the reasons you mention, so, if one is paying attention, it’s not hard to feel that it’s not only possible but true. Brandon Mayfield found out how possible it was. Leonard Peltier is in prison, most likely, just to serve as an example. However, if you read a book like “The Lucifer Complex”, it’s also a “natural” human progression to behave that way when people are separated into groups of ‘those with power’ and ‘those without power’. In his experiment, in a very short time, the ‘guards’ were pushing the limits of what they could do without being told and it had to be stopped. Some learned some things about themselves that they didn’t want to know. The experiment was for humane purposes but then it was “reverse engineered” for other purposes. I’m sure there are more photos and it’s been wide spread and not a “few bad apples” like they always try to make it seem.
Jacob Hornberger explains: Ever since the inception of the United States, by and large the quest of people who have been attracted to federal power has been to break free of constitutional constraints, oftentimes with the best of intentions and the greatest zeal. What has prevented them from doing so has been a citizenry that has treasured its freedom and has been knowledgeable about the history and nature of the Constitution as well as a federal judiciary determined to enforce the Bill of Rights.
The terrorist attacks on 9/11, however, provided the opportunity that the lovers of power had long been waiting for – the opportunity to arrest and punish people, including Americans, without the constraints of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
How did they accomplish that monumental feat without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment? By simply announcing that a criminal offense – namely, terrorism – would henceforth be treated as an act of war. Since this was war, the argument went, federal officials would no longer be required to comply with procedural requirements outlined in the Bill of Rights when arresting and punishing people, including Americans.
How clever and devious is that? It will undoubtedly go down in U.S. history as the most brilliant – and perhaps the most evil – end-around of the Constitution ever. While there have been, of course, innumerable violations of constitutional provisions in U.S. history, what was revolutionary about the post–9/11 power was that it was intended to a become permanent feature of American life, given the perpetual nature of the war on terrorism.
And, again, what is amazing is how this power grab was accomplished: through the simple act of declaring that a certain federal criminal offense – terrorism – was now being considered by federal officials as an act of war.
Yet, it’s not as though they converted terrorism from a crime into an act of war. As previously noted, terrorism is a federal criminal offense. It was before 9/11 and it continued to be after 9/11. Again, that’s why both Americans and foreigners (e.g., Padilla and Moussaoui) have been prosecuted for terrorism in U.S. district court.
Therefore, after 9/11 U.S. officials did not cancel terrorism as a federal crime. Instead, they simply declared that it could also be considered as an act of war, at their option. Of course, the power associated with that option gave them almost complete control over the American people, an omnipotence that the Bill of Rights was intended to prevent.
I agree with the above comments. This ‘torture story’ is mostly made-up hogwash intended to distract Americans from real news, which goes unreported. (Besides, I don’t really give a fig if the CIA did torture any terrorists). When, oh when is this story going to die? Move along folks, there’s nothing to see here …
Sorry Bert, I have to disagree. I don’t think there is any question that these nasty pictures exist, and that they are more shocking than the pictures that preceded them.
I do agree with you, however, that fear is being actively manufactured by corrupt business and political entities to keep the American people from thinking for themselves, and to feed the evil Military Industrial Complex in the USA.
Bottom line: torture was used to manufacture consent in order to start an illegal war against Iraq. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, and thousand of others are guilty of war crimes and genocide. They must be tried for these war crimes, found guilty, and then executed on live television for all the world to see.
I am adamantly opposed to the death penalty, except in cases like these. Psychopathic world leaders cannot be contained, or deterred in the future, in any other manner.
I tried to email Catherine to request her emails to use normal darker and larger fonts, also none of her links can be clicked on in Outlook 2003 and probably other email clients. Makes it more work to copy and paste every link we are interested in. Hope my comment goes to the right person/department, sorry to post an off topic comment in this section!
Bert, I agree with your meaning.
I don’t believe torture is used to get information. It is state terrorism intended to terrify those who would otherwise be willing to sacrifice their lives in opposition of the state. It is one thing to be willing to die in a gun fight, be hanged, or rot in prison. It is another to be willing to risk that you or people you care about will be tortured indefinitely.
It also is part of a broader set of actions designed to reduce people’s belief in themselves, their community and humanity at large. If one learns of a wrongful act being carried out against another and fails to act in their defense, it reduces that belief. There is a big matrix of such set-ups that both involve cutting off avenues of meaningful direct action to help victims, and bribing people to participate in the abuses such as saving money at a Big Box store or sharing profits via stock appreciation/dividends.
I think if a system has effects it was designed and implemented to have them. I don’t indulge in the dysfunctional system explanation. The, “if only they’d do this or that”. Nah. Systems are easy to understand. They work the way they are designed to work. It is the stated motives that don’t match.
I’d like to present an alternative view just for the sake of thought and discussion.
I’m not convinced that more torture photos exist. And if that is the case, then this is a manufactured story.
Let’s just say that the torture may have been manufactured as a story in the first place. Why, because the American public is supposed to be afraid of its government and convinced that we are only a legal maneuver away from being tortured ourselves.
To believe that widespread torture occurred would mean believing in the entire concept that Muslim terrorist actually conspired against the USA and were able to successfully execute the 911 attacks. This is quite a stretch of the imagination if one asks themselves the most simplistic questions. So, if the Muslim terrorism frame is an illusion, then why would wouldn’t wide spread torture also be an illusion?
So, what better way to perpetrate the belief of fear in the public then to create a story that more photos exist but that the government will not release them. How are we to know what really happened?
I certainly can’t proved my speculation. It’s merely provided as a thought exercise, just to make sure none of us are getting too caught-up government-media manufactured frames of thinking.
I hope Catherine lets this one through 🙂
When I saw this portrait http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb234/vurdlak8/illusions/obama_by_gerada_02.jpg I imagined Obama with one hand closing a door and through the doorway, seeing someone being waterboarded.