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Paper reports Scapel Used on Tortured Gitmo Detainee

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 06:13:46 PM EST
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Via Think Progress, the Independent reports on the details of Binyam Mohamed's torture and the lines left out of the report:

The 25 lines edited out of the court papers contained details of how Mr Mohamed's genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated drowning, "is very far down the list of things they did," the official said.

Another source familiar with the case said: "British intelligence officers knew about the torture and didn't do anything about it. They supplied information to the Americans and the Moroccans. They supplied questions, they supplied photographs. There is evidence of all of that."

Tell us again, Ex-President Bush, the United States Does Not Torture. Memo to President Obama: Release these documents. As the ACLU said today, don't hide behind Bush's state secrets claim. [More...]

"Eric Holder's Justice Department stood up in court today and said that it would continue the Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide the reprehensible history of torture, rendition and the most grievous human rights violations committed by the American government. This is not change. This is definitely more of the same. Candidate Obama ran on a platform that would reform the abuse of state secrets, but President Obama's Justice Department has disappointingly reneged on that important civil liberties issue. If this is a harbinger of things to come, it will be a long and arduous road to give us back an America we can be proud of again."

The following can be attributed to Ben Wizner, a staff attorney with the ACLU, who argued the case for the plaintiffs:

"We are shocked and deeply disappointed that the Justice Department has chosen to continue the Bush administration's practice of dodging judicial scrutiny of extraordinary rendition and torture. This was an opportunity for the new administration to act on its condemnation of torture and rendition, but instead it has chosen to stay the course. Now we must hope that the court will assert its independence by rejecting the government's false claims of state secrets and allowing the victims of torture and rendition their day in court."

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    Paper reports Scapel Used on Tortured Gitmo Detainee | 4 comments (4 topical)

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    My reaction was the one of horror, shock- covering (5.00 / 1) (#2)
    by jawbone on Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 07:17:20 PM EST
    my mouth with my hand.

    It seems to be a universal gesture when faced with things this horrifying. I remember noting how many people had that expression in the videos which caught people watching the awful happenings on 9/11. I remember doing it in the car while driving and hearing the news.

    This is truly terrible. When I'm reacting less emotinally, I'll post a more cogent comment. But, oh, dear god....

    Meet the new boss... (none / 0) (#1)
    by blogtopus on Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 06:17:49 PM EST
    yadda yadda yadda

    The Spelling Police would like (none / 0) (#3)
    by Anne on Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 07:18:28 PM EST
    to advise that "Scapel" should be "Scalpel."

    12 Dimensional Chess (none / 0) (#4)
    by Edger on Tue Feb 10, 2009 at 11:09:39 AM EST
    If Obama is not blown away over this with the loudest possible public outcry, disgust and shaming he's ever heard and millions of people threatening to fire his ass out of there in 2012 if he doesn't stop this bullsh*t, then nothing will change, and his election meant nothing except that many people will allow themselves to excuse torture and sweep it under the rug and allow themselves to be bought off with promises of a little more comfort from some of his domestic policies.

    Maybe he is smarter than the people who voted for him after all.

    I hope the CCR and the ACLU and everybody else in the world drags his ass though court over this.

    But he shouldn't need a court ruling to know what to do,and it shouldn't take a court ruling to make him do it. We had 8 years of Bush and the media selling a fictitious war on terror. We don't need Obama doing it too, and effectively pardoning torturers at the same time.

    "Ford should have been stood up against a wall and shot for that pardon..."

    Obama and Holder are now in open violation of the Geneva Conventions and therefore also in open violation of US law, and accessories at least morally if not legally to the war crimes of Bush and Cheney.

    Obama's Duty To Prosecute Bush For War Crimes

    Patriot Daily, Mon Dec 29, 2008

    As President, Obama will have the constitutional duty to faithfully execute our laws.  

    The constitutional oath of office requires that our President faithfully execute the office of President and preserve, protect and defend our Constitution. Our constitution also requires that our presidents "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed."  The principle of the rule of law is partially based on this Faithfully Execute clause which requires our President to comply with laws, our Constitution and treaties because our Constitution established a government of laws, not of men and women.

    The Geneva Convention is one of the laws which must be faithfully executed.

    Our constitution mandates that treaties are one of the laws that the President must faithfully execute.  Moreover, treaties are recognized as one of our supreme laws of the land alongside our Constitution and federal laws.  For over 200 years, the federal courts have reaffirmed that our President is bound by the laws of war, which include conventions. In fact, both Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) addressed the issue of whether the US government was violating the terms of the 1949 Geneva Convention.  Yet, some will whine that it is partisan to not exempt Bush from 200 years of precedent that governed presidents from both parties.

    The Geneva Convention imposes a duty to prosecute former presidents who committed war crimes.

    The Geneva Convention mandates that the US "search" for persons "alleged" to have committed or ordered the commission of "torture or inhuman treatment" and then prosecute in our courts or extradite to another country for prosecution. The "grave breaches" protected by the Convention also include the rendition or  "unlawful transfer of a non-prisoner of war from occupied territory."

    U.S. Code: CHAPTER 113C--TORTURE
    Paper reports Scapel Used on Tortured Gitmo Detainee | 4 comments (4 topical)

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