The Guardian has revealed that Underwear Bomber II, who was about to blow up a passenger jet with an undetectable explosive codpiece when he was somehow detected, was actually a CIA agent.

Based on a number of interviews with those involved (zero is a number, right?) and my expertise as a Ph.D. Arabist and terror expert, I can tell you pretty much what happened.

Underwear Bomber II – let’s call him Kharah Ibnulkilab – was a CIA agent provocateur. His controller at Langley handed him fifty thousand dollars in cash and sent him to Yemen, with the promise of another fifty thousand if he could create a Return-of-Son-of-Underwear-Bomber incident to help keep the phony War on Terror going.

Kharah arrived in Yemen and started going to mosques and waving around fistfuls of cash. “All of this, plus a bevy of heavenly virgins, will be yours if you promise to wire some explosives to your testicles and detonate them on an airplane,” he inveighed.

After he was 86ed from seventeen mosques, beaten up eleven times, robbed twice, and laughed out of thirteen of Yemen’s eighteen provinces, Kharah finally took his third wad of CIA-furnished, US-taxpayer-supplied hundred dollar bills back to CIA headquarters. “Couldn’t you guys just build the bomb? Then I’ll turn it in and say I got it from al-Qaeda.”

“The CIA doesn’t build bombs for terrorists,” his case officer snapped.

“What about the World Trade Center demolitions?’

“That was the Mossad.”

“What about the first World Trade Center bomb, and the Oklahoma City bombs?”

“That was the FBI.”

“Well, then send in the FBI!”

So thanks to the new inter-agency cooperation protocol established by the Patriot Act, an FBI terrorist-bomb-construction team was sent to Yemen to create a detection-proof exploding codpiece.

When Kharah was handed the exploding codpiece at FBI headquarters in Sana, he almost exploded. “You want me to wear THAT?”

The FBI codpiece-maker responded: “We have to scare people, right?”

“Scare them?! They’ll be laughing so hard THEY’LL explode! I mean, you call THIS undetectable?! Why did you have to make it so big? How the hell is that thing going to fit into my underwear?”

“Look, we had to include enough plastique to make a big bang. And we had to include a detonator. That was a big problem with Underwear Bomber I – we sent him with no detonator, and the conspiracy theorists figured it out. So this time we decided to do the job right.”

“But how can I possibly get through security wearing THAT?”

The FBI codpiece expert groaned. “You’re not SUPPOSED to get through security. Do you think we’d let our own agent get on a plane with a bomb that could actually explode? I mean, what if you scratched your nuts or something and it went off?”

“So I’m supposed to be apprehended at the airport before I get on the plane?”

“Got a problem with that?”

“As long as I’m outa here with my fifty Gs five minutes later…no problemo.”

So on the appointed day, Kharah strode through the Sana Airport wearing his exploding codpiece. Heads turned, then turned away. Scowls formed behind beards, titters behind niqabs.

At the security checkpoint, Kharah loudly announced: “I do not wish to be irradiated by the naked body scanner. I demand a full body patdown, complete with gropes and pinches.”

Embarrassed, the security guy waved him through, saying “Go ahead, just take it easy on the viagra next time you fly.”

Kharah stood his ground. “I demand that you search me!” The explosive codpiece swelled menacingly.

The security guy waved his boss over.

Kharah decided it was time to let it all hang out.

“I am wearing a brand-new special-model undetectable al-Qaeda™ exploding codpiece! Death to the infidels!” he screamed.

Three ordinary-looking Americans standing in the security checkpoint line suddenly jumped on Kharah, wrestled him to the ground, and started stripping off his pants yelling “Freeze! We’re the CIA!” and whispering into Kharah’s ear “pretend to fight back so we can beat you up!”

“No way!” screamed Kharah as CIA guy #1 ripped his pants to his knees, exposing the enormous FBI-crafted plastique organ of mass destruction.

Four passengers fainted, and one elderly woman suffered a minor heart attack. Five more casualties of the war that won’t end in our lifetimes.

After the CIA had dragged Kharah off to an undisclosed location, recovered the codpiece, apologized for breaking his arm, paid him his $50,000, and sent him on his way, they were faced with a problem: How to write the press release.

“We have a beautifully-crafted codpiece. We have an attempted crime. We have plenty of witnesses. But we don’t have a perp!” fumed the Sana Station Chief.

“Couldn’t we just bring in some retarded guy and waterboard him until he’s internalized our script?” asked Agent #1.

“We already used that one on Abu Zubeyda and KSM,” the Station Chief snarled. “If we try it again, and get caught, it could blow the 9/11 cover story. After all, the witnesses might…”

“I’ve got it!” said Agent #2 brightly. “We admit that our guy was CIA, but we’ll say he infiltrated an al-Qaeda cell and THEY built the codpiece!”

“But what if the true story gets out? We’ll end up getting that codpiece returned to us, right up the –”

“The story will never get out,” said the Station Chief.

“What are we going to do, terminate Kharah?”

“Won’t be necessary. We’ll just give the whole story, exactly as it really happened, to a professional conspiracy theorist. He publishes it. His audience more or less believes it. The gatekeepers write it off as paranoid fiction. That way everybody’s happy.”

And there you have it.

The truth – more or less – behind Crotch Bomber II.

Through the Beyond the Border agreement released in December 2011, the U.S. and Canada are implementing initiatives that are working towards establishing a North American security perimeter. This includes expanding trusted traveler programs, as well as enhancing integrated law enforcement and information sharing cooperation which has raised many privacy concerns that have yet to be properly addressed.

There are questions surrounding the Conservative government’sBill C-38, the Budget Implementation Act that also contains changes related to the U.S.-Canada Beyond the Border action plan. This includes ratifying and making the Shiprider a legal and permanent program which will require amending the Criminal Code, along with the RCMP and Customs Act. The joint initiative officially known as the Integrated Cross-Border Maritime Law Enforcement Operations first began as a pilot project. It allows RCMP and U.S. Coast Guard officers to operate vessels together and pursue criminals in the waters of both countries. The Council of Canadians reported that the NDP is demanding that the Shiprider policing program be taken out of budget implementation bill. Brian Masse, the NDP border critic is pushing for separate legislation and pointed out that, “it’s totally irresponsible to have it as part of the Budget Implementation Act.” He added, “There’s significant policing issues that really warrant a standalone bill. If it was so important that they did all the fanfare for it, why doesn’t it warrant its own process?” The proposed changes could have serious sovereignty implications with regards to accountability, due process and civil rights and therefore, need to be fully scrutinized. 

The U.S. and Canada are also scheduled to deploy a land-based version of the Shiprider program at some point this summer. As part of the security perimeter deal, both countries will, “implement two Next-Generation pilot projects to create integrated teams in areas such as intelligence and criminal investigations, and an intelligence-led uniformed presence between ports of entry.” In September 2011, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder revealed plans that would allow law enforcement officers to operate on both sides of the border. He announced that, “the creation of ‘NextGen’ teams of cross-designated officers would allow us to more effectively identify, assess, and interdict persons and organizations involved in transnational crime.” Holder went on to say, “In conjunction with the other provisions included in the Beyond the Border Initiative, such a move would enhance our cross-border efforts and advance our information-sharing abilities.” Both countries continue to expand the nature and scope of joint law enforcement operations, along with intelligence collection and sharing.

On April 20 of this year, the Red River Integrated Border Enforcement Team’s (IBET) joint intelligence office was opened in Altona, Manitoba. The facility will house representatives from the RCMP, U.S. Border Patrol, Homeland Security. Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), as well as U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The IBET is a binational partnership designed to, “enhance border integrity and security along the shared Canada/U.S. border through identification, investigation and interdiction of persons, organizations and goods that threaten the national security of both countries or that are involved in organized criminal activity.” The specialized teams have been, “established in strategic regions to ensure more effective border enforcement capability between ports of entry, based on intelligence-led policing.” The new joint headquarters could serve as a model for other IBETs along the northern border.

On May 8, the CBP and the CBSA announced that, “they are delivering on key commitments under the U.S.-Canada Beyond the Border Action Plan for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness—increasing benefits to NEXUS members, streamlining the NEXUS membership renewal process and launching a plan to increase NEXUS membership.” Under theNEXUS program, pre-screened travelers are granted expedited access across the border, by air, land or sea. Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews explained that, “The Border Action Plan is designed to speed up legitimate trade and travel, and improve security in North America by aligning the entry of people and goods at the perimeter while streamlining processes at the Canada-U.S. border. With these commitments to retain and increase NEXUS membership, Canada and the United States will increase efficiency to better focus their resources and examination efforts on travellers of high or unknown risk.” NEXUS is part of the process of implementing equivalent biometric standards across North America which could be used to restrict, track and trace our movements.

Last month, Canada’s federal privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, along with her provincial and territorial colleagues urged transparency and respect of Canadian privacy standards with regards to the perimeter security agreement. A joint resolution recommended that, “Any initiatives under the plan that collect personal information should also include appropriate redress and remedy mechanisms to review files for accuracy, correct inaccuracies and restrict disclosures to other countries; Parliament, provincial Privacy Commissioners and civil society should be engaged as initiatives under the plan take shape; Information about Canadians should be stored on Canadian soil whenever feasible or at least be subject to Canadian protection; and Any use of new surveillance technologies within Canada such as unmanned aerial vehicles must be subject to appropriate controls set out in a proper regulatory framework.” According to a self-imposed deadline, the U.S. and Canada are supposed to release privacy provisions associated with the perimeter security deal by May 30.

The perimeter agreement is also getting the attention of provincial and state leaders. B.C. Premier Christy Clark and Washington Governor Chris Gregoire have signed, “a joint letter to President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper commending the U.S.-Canada Beyond the Border Action Plan and committing British Columbia and Washington to support and expedite federal commitments to improve the flow of people, goods and services across the border.” When the perimeter security deal was first released last year, Premier Clark issued a statement which welcomed the announcement. In addition, Washington’s state Legislature passed a joint memorial which also acknowledged its support. The backing of governments at all levels will further assist in implementing some of the Beyond the Border initiatives. Not to mention the fact that state and provincial regional integration is already being achieved in areas of trade, the environment and energy.

As the U.S.-Canada action plan implementation process continues, there still remains many concerns with the further integration and militarization of the northern border. This includes the loss of sovereignty and risks to privacy rights related to more cross-border sharing of personal information. While there have been online consultations surrounding the perimeter security agreement, there has yet to be any open public hearings or congressional and parliamentary debates.

by Spencer Ackerman, Wired

More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them.

Earlier this month, Petraeus mused about the emergence of an “Internet of Things” — that is, wired devices — at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm. “‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,” Petraeus enthused, “particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft.”

All those new online devices are a treasure trove of data if you’re a “person of interest” to the spy community. Once upon a time, spies had to place a bug in your chandelier to hear your conversation. With the rise of the “smart home,” you’d be sending tagged, geolocated data that a spy agency can intercept in real time when you use the lighting app on your phone to adjust your living room’s ambiance.

Read more at this link.

After Daniel Chong was arrested in a federal drug raid, he wasn’t taken to Gitmo. Instead, the Feds thoughtfully arranged to bring Gitmo to him, nearly torturing him to death in the process.

Chong, a senior at the University of California-San Diego, was one of nine people swept up in an April 21 narcotics raid by the Drug Enforcement Administration. After his arrest he spent four hours handcuffed in a cell before being questioned. One of the agents who questioned Chong described him as someone who was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

After being interrogated, the student was told that he would be released and provided with paperwork to sign. He was then handcuffed and put into a five-by-ten-foot detention cell, where he was held for five days in conditions that qualify as torture under any rational reading of either domestic or international law.

The DEA’s story was that Chong was simply “forgotten.” A likelier explanation is that he was ignored, or even singled out for deliberate abuse. Chong shouted and screamed for help, kicking against the heavy door of his cell. Although his hands were cuffed, he managed to tear a small fragment from his jacket, which he shoved under the door in an effort to get the attention of his jailers.

Since Chong had no difficulty hearing conversations and other sounds outside his cell, there’s no reason to doubt that his pleas were heard, and simply disregarded.

For at least two days and nights, Chong was left alone, handcuffed, in complete darkness, and began to hallucinate. Fearing that he might die in captivity, Chong shattered his eyeglasses and used broken shards to carve the words “Sorry, mother” into his arm.

Although Chong has admitted he had gone to a friend’s house to commemorate “4/20,” an unofficial observance celebrating recreational marijuana use, he was not charged with a narcotics offense. Through its prohibition enforcement action, DEA managed to create conditions in which Chong ingested substances much worse for him than marijuana. Left for several days without food or water to sustain him, Chong made a futile attempt to trigger an overhead fire sprinkler, and then eventually drank his own urine. Tormented by the insistent protests of an empty stomach, he consumed a small amount of a white, powdery substance that was found to be methamphetamine.

By the time two agents “discovered” him, Chong was literally pleading for his captors to kill him. After being released, he was hospitalized for severe dehydration, renal failure, a perforated esophagus, and cramps. He had shed 15 pounds. He has never received an apology.

If a dog had been subjected to treatment similar to the abuse inflicted on Daniel Chong, those responsible would face felony charges. Thanks to the spurious principle of “supremacy clause immunity,” there is no measurable likelihood that the people who nearly tortured Chong to death will face criminal charges. It’s quite likely they will never be identified.

It’s not just the Feds employed by the DEA – an agency best described as the CIA’s slow-witted sibling – who enjoy this privilege.

No criminal charges have been filed against the Lee County, Florida Sheriff’s Deputies responsible for the torture death ofCleveland resident Nick Christie. The emotionally disturbed 62-year-old man was detained for several days in March 2009 after his frantic wife Joyce made the fatal mistake of calling the police for “help.”

Mr. Christie, who had recently been prescribed a potent anti-depressant called Lexapro, suddenly left his home in Cleveland to visit family in Ft. Myers. When he arrived at his brother’s house, Christie’s behavior became dangerously erratic.

Acting on the common and entirely misplaced assumption that police intervention is a good idea in situations of this kind, Joyce called the Lee County Sheriff’s Department to ask them to find Nick and get him to a hospital. After deputies found the retired boilermaker, they arrested him on trespassing charges.

Over the next 43 hours, Christie was repeatedly shackled in a restraint chair, hooded, and attacked with military-grade pepper spray. The chemical assault was so intense that it left other inmates gagging on the fumes. Christie, who suffered from respiratory and heart disease, pleaded with deputies to remove the spit mask because he couldn’t breathe. One inmate described how Nick turned “purple and almost blue” as he suffocated.

When medical personnel arrived to check on Nick, they were overwhelmed by the pepper spray residue. The victim died of heart failure two days after his arrest. The death was ruled a homicide – but the State Attorney’s office insisted that there is no evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of the deputies who tortured Nick Christie to death.

The same blanket immunity from prosecution shields the members of the thugscrum –at least ten and as many as fifteen officers – from Fresno, California, who beat, pepper-sprayed, and repeatedly tasered a man named Raul Rosas.

The police had arrived at Rosas’s residence on June 6 of last year in response to an unspecified “domestic disturbance.” When the police arrived, Rosas took refuge in the bathroom. One of the officers kicked open the front door and dragged out the unarmed man, who was immediately hit with a dose of pepper spray. The chemical weapon attack was a prelude to a full-scale onslaught: Witnesses reported hearing the sounds of a taser being used for at least eight to ten minutes.

After hog-tying Rosas, the assailants earned extra points for creative sadism by using a garden hose to drown him as he pleaded for water – a crude but effective simulacrum of waterboarding. This atrocity was witnessed by Rosas’s horrified children and several neighbors, who repeatedly warned that the victim was suffocating. “After some time had passed, [Rosas] had clear spit bubbles coming out of his mouth,” recounts a lawsuit filed by the victim’s family. “Witnesses observed [his] lips turn purple.”

When one of the witnesses told the cops they were killing Rosas, one of them sneeringly insisted that the victim was “faking it.” Eventually one of the officers felt for a pulse and found nothing. None of the officers involved in this torture-murder has ever been publicly identified, much less subjected to prosecution or administrative punishment.

Given the foregoing cases, it could be said that Pennsylvania resident Derena Marie Madison was comparatively fortunate: Although she was physically abused and humiliated, she wasn’t killed or severely injured.

At about 2:30 a.m. on February 3, 2011, Pennsylvania State Troopers Chad Weaver and Michael Zampogna pulled over a vehicle driven by Jamie Cornell, who was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. After Cornell was taken into custody, the troopers threatened to have the vehicle towed. This prompted Madison, who was a passenger, to exit the car in protest. This gave the troopers an excuse to arrest her for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct.

Shackled at the wrists and ankles, Madison was taken to a nearby State Police barracks, where she was chained to a bench with her hands cuffed behind her back. Without provocation, Weaver hit Madison with two blasts of pepper spray to her face. None of the other officers intervened.

Still trussed with handcuffs and leg shackles, Madison was unable to wipe the pepper spray residue from her face. In response to her pleas for help, several troopers – whom she couldn’t identify, because she was blinded from the pepper spray — carried her downstairs and outside the barracks. After being thrown to the snowy ground and doused with a large quantity of water, Madison blacked out. When she regained consciousness, she quickly realized that one or more of the assailants had urinated on her head, face, and neck.
Taken back to inside the barracks, Madison was chained to the bench again and briefly held before being released without receiving medical attention. Eleven days later, she was formally charged with public drunkness and disorderly conduct, and eventually found guilty on both charges.

Responding to Miss Madison’s lawsuit, the State Troopers didn’t contest her account; instead, they claimed that their actions were taken pursuant to their duties, and therefore they were protected by “sovereign immunity,” maintaining that “subduing persons is one of the acts law enforcement officers are employed to perform [and that] officers are also permitted to use force, if necessary, in the commission of their duties.”

Although the Troopers described Madison as an “out-of-control person,” there is no evidence that she did anything other than express her displeasure over the prospect of being abandoned once Cornell’s vehicle had been towed away.

Displaying an honesty uncommon among those in his profession, U.S. District Judge Gary L. Lancaster rejected the “sovereign immunity” claim. Repeatedly assaulting a handcuffed woman with pepper spray and urinating on her serves “no legitimate law enforcement purpose,” but indicates a “personal motivation, rather than intent to serve the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” This raises the troubling possibility that behavior of this kind could be considered appropriate if it were “authorized” as a matter of official policy.

A similar possibility was raised by a ruling in the case of Niagara, New York resident Ryan S. Smith, who was tortured into providing a DNA sample to police.

Smith, a repeat offender, was suspected of involvement in a July 2006 home invasion and kidnapping. When three of the suspects took one of the hostages to another home, Smith allegedly remained behind to guard two small children, who had been bound and gagged. While there, the suspect helped himself to a soda, apparently unaware that by doing so he would leave behind potentially incriminating DNA evidence.

The DNA residue from the soda can was eventually matched by theFBI’s Combined DNA System (CODIS) with a sample previously taken from Smith. In August 2008, Niagara County Court Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza issued an order requiring Smith to provide a DNA sample via a painless swab of his inner cheek. Smith didn’t object, and the sample was taken without difficulty.

A leaked U.S. Army document prepared for the Department of Defense contains shocking plans for “political activists” to be pacified by “PSYOP officers” into developing an “appreciation of U.S. policies” while detained in prison camps inside the United States.

The document, entitled FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations (PDF) was originally released on a restricted basis to the DoD in February 2010, but has now been leaked online.

The manual outlines policies for processing detainees into internment camps both globally and inside the United States. International agencies like the UN and the Red Cross are named as partners in addition to domestic federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA.

The document makes it clear that the policies apply “within U.S. territory” and involve, “DOD support to U.S. civil authorities for domestic emergencies, and for designated law enforcement and other activities,” including “man-made disasters, accidents, terrorist attacks and incidents in the U.S. and its territories.”

The manual states, “These operations may be performed as domestic civil support operations,” and adds that “The authority to approve resettlement such operations within U.S. territories,” would require a “special exception” to The Posse Comitatus Act, which can be obtained via “the President invoking his executive authority.” The document also makes reference to identifying detainees using their “social security number.”

Aside from enemy combatants and other classifications of detainees, the manual includes the designation of “civilian internees,” in other words citizens who are detained for, “security reasons, for protection, or because he or she committed an offense against the detaining power.”

Once the detainees have been processed into the internment camp, the manual explains how they will be “indoctrinated,” with a particular focus on targeting political dissidents, into expressing support for U.S. policies.

The re-education process is the responsibility of the “Psychological Operations Officer,” whose job it is to design “PSYOP products that are designed to pacify and acclimate detainees or DCs to accept U.S. I/R facility authority and regulations,” according to the document.

The manual lists the following roles that are designated to the “PSYOP team”.

- Identifies malcontents, trained agitators, and political leaders within the facility who may try to organize resistance or create disturbances.

- Develops and executes indoctrination programs to reduce or remove antagonistic attitudes.

- Identifies political activists.

- Provides loudspeaker support (such as administrative announcements and facility instructions when necessary).

- Helps the military police commander control detainee and DC populations during emergencies.

- Plans and executes a PSYOP program that produces an understanding and appreciation of U.S. policies and actions.

Remember, this is not restricted to insurgents in Iraq who are detained in prison camps – the manual makes it clear that the policies also apply “within U.S. territory” under the auspices of the DHS and FEMA. The document adds that, “Resettlement operations may require large groups of civilians to be quartered temporarily (less than 6 months) or semipermanently (more than 6 months).”

The historical significance of states using internment camps to re-educate detainees centers around the fact that it is almost exclusively practiced by repressive and dictatorial regimes like the former Soviet Union and Stalinist regimes like modern day North Korea.

We have exhaustively documented preparations for the mass internment of citizens inside America, but this is the first time that language concerning the re-education of detainees, in particular political activists, has cropped up in our research.

In 2009, the National Guard posted a number of job opportunities looking for “Internment/Resettlement Specialists” to work in “civilian internee camps” within the United States.

In December last year it was also revealed that Halliburton subsidiary KBR is seeking sub-contractors to staff and outfit “emergency environment” camps located in five regions of the United States.

In 2006, KBR was contracted by Homeland Security to build detention centers designed to deal with “an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S,” or the rapid development of unspecified “new programs” that would require large numbers of people to be interned.

Rex 84, short for Readiness Exercise 1984, was established under the pretext of a “mass exodus” of illegal aliens crossing the Mexican/US border, the same pretense used in the language of the KBR request for services.

During the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987, however, it was revealed that the program was a secretive “scenario and drill” developed by the federal government to suspend the Constitution, declare martial law, assign military commanders to take over state and local governments, and detain large numbers of American citizens determined by the government to be “national security threats.”

Under the indefinite detention provision of the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed by Barack Obama on New Year’s Eve, American citizens can be kidnapped and detained indefinitely without trial.

Read a portion of the Internment and Resettlement Operations manual below.

The following portions of the document make it clear that the policies apply “within U.S. territory” (as well as abroad in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan) and that domestic federal agencies are involved.

10 Torture Myths Debunked

The so-called “debate” about whether torture helped to keep us safe is reemerging, as the former chief of CIA clandestine operations Jose Rodriguez is about to publish a bookclaiming that the use of “enhanced interrogation” practices including water-boarding saved lives.

“We made some al-Qaeda terrorists with American blood on their hands uncomfortable for a few days,” Rodriguez said in an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” that will air on Sunday, April 29. “I am very secure in what we did and am very confident that what we did saved American lives.”

Torture is also back in the news because Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats areproducing a report stating that torture isn’t effective in producing information.

We will quote the top American military and intelligence interrogation experts to debunk the following 10 common myths about torture:

1. Torture is a partisan issue

2. Waterboarding isn’t torture

3. Torture increases our national security

4. Torture is necessary to break hardened terrorists

5. Torture is necessary in a “ticking time bomb” situation

6. The “enhanced” interrogation techniques were aimed at producing actionable intelligence

7. Torture helped to get Bin Laden

8. Torture provided valuable details regarding 9/11

9. Only bad guys were tortured

10. America doesn’t torture any more

Myth # 1: Torture Is a Partisan Issue

George Washington – the father of our country before there were any parties – wasagainst torture. Torture is not leftwing or rightwing … it is simply un-American.

And both Democrats and Republicans approved torture. As we noted in 2009:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy told the New York Times:

The temptation to abuse powers in a crisis is bipartisan and the [proposed truth] commission’s review should include the role of Democrats in Congress in approving the Bush policies.

As I have previously written, Nancy Pelosi was secretly briefed on torturemany, many years ago, and yet did nothing to stop those unlawful programs. Indeed, she egged the torturers on. Pelosi was also secretly tipped off about warrantless spying on Americans.

And Pelosi hid from the 9/11 Commission and the American people the fact that the interrogations of 9/11 suspects were videotaped, and that the alleged “confessions” of those held at Gitmo were wholly unreliable. She could have stopped the whole farce cold — but chose to go along with it.

Leading democrats Harman, Rockefeller and others in Congress were also war criminals, accessories after the fact, and co-conspirators.

And as shown below, many conservative military and intelligence officers oppose torture.

Myth # 2: Waterboarding Isn’t Torture

Yes, waterboarding is torture:

• President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, Malcolm Nance (an advisor on terrorism to the US departments of Homeland Security, Special Operations and Intelligence), Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples(the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency) and many other interrogation experts and high-level politicians say that waterboarding is torture

• The United States has always considered waterboarding to be a crime of torture, including when the Japanese did it in WWII (and see this)

• Waterboarding is torture, Downing Street confirms

• Everyone claiming waterboarding is not torture has changed their tune as soon as they were exposed to even a small dose of it themselves. See this, this and this

(In addition, a lot more than waterboarding was used on detainees. See this, this andthis.)

Myth # 3: Torture Increases Our National Security

Torture apologists say that torture is a necessary evil for protecting our national security. In fact, torturereduces our national security:

• The head of all U.S. intelligence said:
  

  “The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world,” [Director of National Intelligence Dennis] Blair said in the statement. “The damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”

• A top counter-terrorism expert says torture increases the risk of terrorism (and seethis).

• One of the top military interrogators said that torture by Americans of innocent Iraqis is the main reason that foreign fighters started fighting against Americans in Iraq in the first place (and see this).

• Former counter-terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke says that America’s indefinite detention without trial and abuse of prisoners is a leading Al Qaeda recruiting tool

• A former FBI interrogator — who interrogated Al Qaeda suspects — says categorically that torture actually turns people into terrorists

• A 30-year veteran of CIA’s operations directorate who rose to the most senior managerial ranks,says:
  

  Torture creates more terrorists and fosters more acts of terror than it could possibly neutralize.

• A former US Air Force interrogator said that torture just creates more terrorists

• A former U.S. interrogator and counterintelligence agent, and Afghanistan veteransaid, “Torture puts our troops in danger, torture makes our troops less safe, torture creates terrorists. It’s used so widely as a propaganda tool now in Afghanistan. All too often, detainees have pamphlets on them, depicting what happened at Guantanamo.”

• The Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously stated:

“The administration’s policies concerning [torture] and the resulting controversies … strengthened the hand of our enemies.”

• Two professors of political science have demonstrated that torture increases, rather than decreases, terrorism

• General Petraeus said that torture hurts our national security

• The reporter who broke Iran-Contra and other stories says that torture actually helped Al Qaeda, by giving false leads to the U.S. which diverted its military, intelligence and economic resources into wild goose chases

• Raw Story says that torture might have resulted in false terror alerts

• Hundreds of other experts have said the same things

Myth # 4: Torture Is Necessary to Break Hardened Terrorists

We’ve repeatedly noted that virtually all of the top interrogation experts – both conservatives and liberals (except for those trying to escape war crimes prosecution) – say that torture doesn’t work:

• Army Field Manual 34-52 Chapter 1says:
  

  “Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.”

• The C.I.A.’s 1963 interrogation manual stated:

Intense pain is quite likely to produce false confessions, concocted as a means of escaping from distress. A time-consuming delay results, while investigation is conducted and the admissions are proven untrue. During this respite the interrogatee can pull himself together. He may even use the time to think up new, more complex ‘admissions’ that take still longer to disprove.

• According to the Washington Post, the CIA’s top spy – Michael Sulick, head of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service – said that the spy agency has seen no fall-off in intelligence since waterboarding was banned by the Obama administration. “I don’t think we’ve suffered at all from an intelligence standpoint.”

• The CIA’s own Inspector General wrote that waterboarding was not “efficacious” in producing information

• A 30-year veteran of CIA’s operations directorate who rose to the most senior managerial ranks (Milton Bearden) says(as quoted by senior CIA agent and Presidential briefer Ray McGovern):
  

  It is irresponsible for any administration not to tell a credible story that would convince critics at home and abroad that this torture has served some useful purpose. *** The old hands overwhelmingly believe that torture doesn’t work ….

• A former high-level CIA officer (Philip Giraldi) states:

Many governments that have routinely tortured to obtain information have abandoned the practice when they discovered that other approaches actually worked better for extracting information. Israel prohibited torturing Palestinian terrorist suspects in 1999. Even the German Gestapo stopped torturing French resistance captives when it determined that treating prisoners well actually produced more and better intelligence.

• Another former high-level CIA official (Bob Baer) says:
  

  And torture — I just don’t think it really works … you don’t get the truth. What happens when you torture people is, they figure out what you want to hear and they tell you.

• Michael Scheuer, formerly a senior CIA official in the Counter-Terrorism Center,says:
  

  “I personally think that any information gotten through extreme methods of torture would probably be pretty useless because it would be someone telling you what you wanted to hear.”

• A retired C.I.A. officer who oversaw the interrogation of a high-level detainee in 2002 (Glenn L. Carle) says:
  

  [Coercive techniques] didn’t provide useful, meaningful, trustworthy information…Everyone was deeply concerned and most felt it was un-American and did not work.”

• A former top Air Force interrogator who led the team that tracked down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has conducted hundreds of interrogations of high ranking Al Qaida members and supervising more than one thousand, and wrote a book called How to Break a Terrorist writes:

As the senior interrogator in Iraq for a task force charged with hunting down Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former Al Qaida leader and mass murderer, I listened time and time again to captured foreign fighters cite the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as their main reason for coming to Iraq to fight. Consider that 90 percent of the suicide bombers in Iraq are these foreign fighters and you can easily conclude that we have lost hundreds, if not thousands, of American lives because of our policy of torture and abuse. But that’s only the past.Somewhere in the world there are other young Muslims who have joined Al Qaida because we tortured and abused prisoners. These men will certainly carry out future attacks against Americans, either in Iraq, Afghanistan, or possibly even here. And that’s not to mention numerous other Muslims who support Al Qaida, either financially or in other ways, because they are outraged that the United States tortured and abused Muslim prisoners. In addition, torture and abuse has made us less safe because detainees are less likely to cooperate during interrogations if they don’t trust us. I know from having conducted hundreds of interrogations of high ranking Al Qaida members and supervising more than one thousand, that when a captured Al Qaida member sees us live up to our stated principles they are more willing to negotiate and cooperate with us. When we torture or abuse them, it hardens their resolve and reaffirms why they picked up arms.

He also says:

[Torture is] extremely ineffective, and it’s counter-productive to what we’re trying to accomplish.When we torture somebody, it hardens their resolve … The information that you get is unreliable. … And even if you do get reliable information, you’re able to stop a terrorist attack, al Qaeda’s then going to use the fact that we torture people to recruit new members.

And he repeats:

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

He saidlast week:

They don’t want to talk about the long term consequences that cost the lives of Americans…. The way the U.S. treated its prisoners “was al-Qaeda’s number-one recruiting tool and brought in thousands of foreign fighters who killed American soldiers.

• The FBI interrogators who actually interviewed some of the 9/11 suspects say torture didn’t work

• Another FBI interrogator of 9/11 suspects said:

I was in the middle of this, and it’s not true that these [aggressive] techniques were effective

• A third former FBI interrogator — who interrogated Al Qaeda suspects — says categorically thattorture does not help collect intelligence. On the other hand he says that torture actually turns people into terrorists

• A declassified FBI e-mail dated May 10, 2004, regarding interrogation at Guantanamo states “[we] explained to [the Department of Defense], FBI has been successful for many years obtaining confessions via non-confrontational interviewing techniques.” (see also this)

• The FBI warned military interrogators in 2003 that enhanced interrogation techniques are “of questionable effectiveness” and cited a “lack of evidence of [enhanced techniques’] success.

• “When long-time FBI director Mueller was asked whether any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through “enhanced techniques”, he responded “I don’t believe that has been the case.”

• The Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously found that torture doesn’t work, stating:
  

  The administration’s policies concerning [torture] and the resulting controversies damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority.

• The military agency which actually provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects warned the Pentagon in 2002 that those techniques would produce “unreliable information.”

• General Petraeus says that torture is unnecessary

• Retired 4-star General Barry McCaffrey – who Schwarzkopf called he hero of Desert Storm – agrees

• The number 2 terrorism expert for the State Department says torture doesn’t work, and just creates more terrorists.

• Former Navy Judge Advocate General Admiral John Hutson says:
  

  Fundamentally, those kinds of techniques are ineffective. If the goal is to gain actionable intelligence, and it is, and if that’s important, and it is, then we have to use the techniques that are most effective. Torture is the technique of choice of the lazy, stupid and pseudo-tough.

  He also says:

  Another objection is that torture doesn’t work. All the literature and experts say that if we really want usable information, we should go exactly the opposite way and try to gain the trust and confidence of the prisoners.

• Army Colonel Stuart Herrington – a military intelligence specialist who interrogated generals under the command of Saddam Hussein and evaluated US detention operations at Guantánamo – notesthat the process of obtaining information is hampered, not helped, by practices such as “slapping someone in the face and stripping them naked”. Herrington and other former US military interrogators say:
  

  We know from experience that it is very difficult to elicit information from a detainee who has been abused. The abuse often only strengthens their resolve and makes it that much harder for an interrogator to find a way to elicit useful information.

• Major General Thomas Romig, former Army JAG, said:
  

  If you torture somebody, they’ll tell you anything. I don’t know anybody that is good at interrogation, has done it a lot, that will say that that’s an effective means of getting information. … So I don’t think it’s effective.

• Brigadier General David R. Irvine, retired Army Reserve strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner interrogation and military law for 18 years with the Sixth Army Intelligence School, says torture doesn’t work

• Former counter-terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke says that America’s indefinite detention without trial and abuse of prisoners is a leading Al Qaeda recruiting tool.

• A former U.S. interrogator and counterintelligence agent, and Afghanistan veteransaid,Torture puts our troops in danger, torture makes our troops less safe, torture creates terrorists. It’s used so widely as a propaganda tool now in Afghanistan. All too often, detainees have pamphlets on them, depicting what happened at Guantanamo.

• The first head of the Department of Homeland Security – Tom Ridge – says we were wrong to torture.The former British intelligence chairman says that waterboarding didn’t stop terror plots.

• A spokesman for the National Security Council (Tommy Vietor) says:
  

  The bottom line is this: If we had some kind of smoking-gun intelligence from waterboarding in 2003, we would have taken out Osama bin Laden in 2003.

• The Marines weren’t keen on torture, either

• As Vanity Fair reports:

In researching this article, I spoke to numerous counterterrorist officials from agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. Their conclusion is unanimous: not only have coercive methods failed to generate significant and actionable intelligence, they have also caused the squandering of resources on a massive scale through false leads, chimerical plots, and unnecessary safety alerts…Here, they say, far from exposing a deadly plot, all torture did was lead to more torture of his supposed accomplices while also providing some misleading “information” that boosted the administration’s argument for invading Iraq.

• Neuroscientists have found that torture physically and chemically interferes with the prisoner’s ability to tell the truth

• An Army psychologist – Major Paul Burney, Army’s Behavior Science Consulting Team psychologist –said (page 78 & 83):

was stressed to me time and time again that psychological investigations have proven that harsh interrogations do not work. At best it will get you information that a prisoner thinks you want to hear to make the interrogation stop, but that information is strongly likely to be false.*** Interrogation techniques that rely on physical or adverse consequences are likely to garner inaccurate information and create an increased level of resistance…There is no evidence that the level of fear or discomfort evoked by a given technique has any consistent correlation to the volume or quality of information obtained.

• An expert on resisting torture – Terrence Russell, JPRA’s manager for research and development and a SERE specialist – said (page 209):

History has shown us that physical pressures are not effective for compelling an individual to give information or to do something’ and are not effective for gaining accurate, actionable intelligence.

Indeed, it has been known for hundreds of years that torture doesn’t work:

• In the ancient Far East, torture was used as a way to intimidate the population into obedience (rather than a method for gaining information)

• As a former CIA analyst notes:

During the Inquisition there were many confessed witches, and many others were named by those tortured as other witches. Unsurprisingly, when these new claimed witches were tortured, they also confessed. Confirmation of some statement made under torture, when that confirmation is extracted by another case of torture, is invalid information and cannot be trusted.

• Top American World War 2 interrogators got more information using chess or Ping-Pong instead of torture than those who use torture are getting today

• The head of Britain’s wartime interrogation center in London said:

“Violence is taboo. Not only does it produce answers to please, but it lowers the standard of information.”

• The national security adviser to Vice President George H.W. Bush (Donald P. Gregg)wrote:

During wartime service with the CIA in Vietnam from 1970 to 1972, I was in charge of intelligence operations in the 10 provinces surrounding Saigon. One of my tasks was to prevent rocket attacks on Saigon’s port.Keeping Saigon safe required human intelligence, most often from captured prisoners. I had a running debate about how North Vietnamese prisoners should be treated with the South Vietnamese colonel who conducted interrogations. This colonel routinely tortured prisoners, producing a flood of information, much of it totally false. I argued for better treatment and pressed for key prisoners to be turned over to the CIA, where humane interrogation methods were the rule – and more accurate intelligence was the result. The colonel finally relented and turned over a battered prisoner to me, saying, “This man knows a lot, but he will not talk to me.” We treated the prisoner’s wounds, reunited him with his family, and allowed him to make his first visit to Saigon. Surprised by the city’s affluence, he said he would tell us anything we asked. The result was a flood of actionable intelligence that allowed us to disrupt planned operations, including rocket attacks against Saigon. Admittedly, it would be hard to make a story from nearly 40 years ago into a definitive case study. But there is a useful reminder here. The key to successful interrogation is for the interrogator – even as he controls the situation – to recognize a prisoner’s humanity, to understand his culture, background and language. Torture makes this impossible. There’s a sad twist here. Cheney forgets that the Bush administration followed this approach with some success. A high-value prisoner subjected to patient interrogation by an Arabic-speaking FBI agent yielded highly useful information, including the final word on Iraq’s weapons programs. His name was Saddam Hussein.

• Top interrogators got information from a high-level Al Qaeda suspects through building rapport, even if they hated the person they were interrogating by treating them as human

Senator John McCain explains, based upon his own years of torture:

I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence but often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear — true or false — if he believes it will relieve his suffering. Often, information provided to stop the torture is deliberately misleading.

Myth # 5: Torture Is Necessary In a “Ticking Time Bomb” Situation

According to the experts, torture is unnecessary even to prevent “ticking time bombs” from exploding (see this, this and this).

Indeed, a top expert says that torture would fail in a real ‘ticking time-bomb’ situation

Myth # 6: The “Enhanced” Techniques Were At Least Aimed at Producing Actionable Intelligence

The torture techniques used were Communist techniques specifically designed to producefalseconfessions:

As I notedin 2009:

Senator Levin, in commenting on the Senate Armed Services Committee report on torture declassified today, drops the following bombshell:

With last week’s release of the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinions, it is now widely known that Bush administration officials distorted Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape “SERE” training – a legitimate program used by the military to train our troops to resist abusive enemy interrogations – by authorizing abusive techniques from SERE for use in detainee interrogations. Those decisions conveyed the message that abusive treatment was appropriate for detainees in U.S. custody. They were also an affront to the values articulated by General Petraeus. In SERE training, U.S. troops are briefly exposed, in a highly controlled setting, to abusive interrogation techniques used by enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions. The techniques are based on tactics used by Chinese Communists against American soldiers during the Korean War for the purpose of eliciting false confessions for propaganda purposes. Techniques used in SERE training include stripping trainees of their clothing, placing them in stress positions, putting hoods over their heads, subjecting them to face and body slaps, depriving them of sleep, throwing them up against a wall, confining them in a small box, treating them like animals, subjecting them to loud music and flashing lights, and exposing them to extreme temperatures. Until recently, the Navy SERE school also used waterboarding. The purpose of the SERE program is to provide U.S. troops who might be captured a taste of the treatment they might face so that they might have a better chance of surviving captivity and resisting abusive and coercive interrogations.

Senator Levin then documents that SERE techniques were deployed as part of an official policy on detainees, and that SERE instructors helped to implement the interrogation programs. The senior Army SERE psychologist warned in 2002 against using SERE training techniques during interrogations in an email to personnel at Guantanamo Bay, because:

[T]he use of physical pressures brings with it a large number of potential negative side effects… When individuals are gradually exposed to increasing levels of discomfort, it is more common for them to resist harder… If individuals are put under enough discomfort, i.e. pain, they will eventually do whatever it takes to stop the pain. This will increase the amount of information they tell the interrogator, but it does not mean the information is accurate. In fact, it usually decreases the reliability of the information because the person will say whatever he believes will stop the pain… Bottom line: the likelihood that the use of physical pressures will increase the delivery of accurate information from a detainee is very low. The likelihood that the use of physical pressures will increase the level of resistance in a detainee is very high… (p. 53).

I also pointed out:

McClatchy fills in some of the details:

Former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration… For most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there.” It was during this period that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaida detainees repeatedly — Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Sheik Muhammed 183 times in March 2003 — according to a newly released Justice Department document… When people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s people to push harder,” he continued.”Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn’t any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam . . . A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility were under “pressure” to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq. “While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq,” Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. “The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results.” “I think it’s obvious that the administration was scrambling then to try to find a connection, a link (between al Qaida and Iraq),” [Senator] Levin said in a conference call with reporters. “They made out links where they didn’t exist.” Levin recalled Cheney’s assertions that a senior Iraqi intelligence officer had met Mohammad Atta, the leader of the 9/11 hijackers, in the Czech Republic capital of Prague just months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The FBI and CIA found that no such meeting occurred.

In other words, top Bush administration officials not only knowingly lied about a non-existent connection between Al Qaida and Iraq, but they pushed and insisted that interrogators use special torture methods aimed at extracting false confessions to attempt to create such a false linkage.

Writing about this today, Paul Krugman says:

Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link. There’s a word for this: it’s evil.

The Washington Post reported the same year:

Despite what you’ve seen on TV, torture is really only good at one thing: eliciting false confessions. Indeed, Bush-era torture techniques, we now know, were cold-bloodedly modeled after methods used by Chinese Communists to extract confessions from captured U.S. servicemen that they could then use for propaganda during the Korean War. So as shocking as the latest revelation in a new Senate Armed Services Committee report may be, it actually makes sense — in a nauseating way. The White House started pushing the use of torture not when faced with a “ticking time bomb” scenario from terrorists, but when officials in 2002 were desperately casting about for ways to tie Iraq to the 9/11 attacks — in order to strengthen their public case for invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 at all.

***

Gordon Trowbridge writes for the Detroit News: “Senior Bush administration officials pushed for the use of abusive interrogations of terrorism detainees in part to seek evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq, according to newly declassified information discovered in a congressional probe.

I wrote last month:

One of the two senior instructors from the Air Force team which taught U.S. servicemen how to resist torture by foreign governments when used to extract false confessions has blown the whistle on the true purpose behind the U.S. torture program.

Truth Out reported yesterday:

Jessen’s notes were provided to Truthout by retired Air Force Capt. Michael Kearns, a “master” SERE instructor anddecorated veteran who has previously held high-ranking positions within the Air Force Headquarters Staff and Department of Defense (DoD). Kearns and his boss, Roger Aldrich, the head of the Air Force Intelligence’s Special Survial Training Program (SSTP), based out of Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington, hired Jessen in May 1989. Kearns, who was head of operations at SSTP and trained thousands of service members, said Jessen was brought into the program due to an increase in the number of new SERE courses being taught and “the fact that it required psychological expertise on hand in a full-time basis.” Jessen, then the chief of Psychology Service at the US Air Force Survival School, immediately started to work directly with Kearns on “a new course for special mission units (SMUs), which had as its goal individual resistance to terrorist exploitation.” The course, known as SV-91, was developed for the Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (SERE) branch of the US Air Force Intelligence Agency, which acted as the Executive Agent Action Office for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Jessen’s notes formed the basis for one part of SV-91, “Psychological Aspects of Detention.” *** Kearns was one of only two officers within DoD qualified to teach all three SERE-related courses within SSTP on a worldwide basis, according to a copy of a 1989 letter written Aldrich, whonominated himofficer of the year.

***

The Jessen notes clearly state the totality of what was being reverse-engineered – not just ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ but an entire program of exploitation of prisoners using torture as a central pillar,” he said. “What I think is important to note, as an ex-SERE Resistance to Interrogation instructor, is the focus of Jessen’s instruction. It is exploitation, not specifically interrogation. And this is not a picayune issue, because if one were to ‘reverse-engineer’ a course on resistance to exploitation then what one would get is a plan to exploit prisoners, not interrogate them. The CIA/DoD torture program appears to have the same goals as the terrorist organizations or enemy governments for which SV-91 and other SERE courses were created to defend against: the full exploitation of the prisoner in his intelligence, propaganda, or other needs held by the detaining power, such as the recruitment of informers and double agents. Those aspects of the US detainee program have not generally been discussed as part of the torture story in the American press.” *** Jessen wrote that cooperation is the “end goal” of the detainer, who wants the detainee “to see that [the detainer] has ‘total’ control of you because you are completely dependent on him, and thus you must comply with his wishes. Therefore, it is absolutely inevitable that you must cooperate with him in some way (propaganda, special favors, confession, etc.).” *** Kearns said, based on what he has read in declassified government documents and news reports about the role SERE played in the Bush administration’s torture program, Jessen clearly “reverse-engineered” his lesson plan and used resistance methods to abuse “war on terror” detainees.

So we have the two main Air Force insiders concerning the genesis of the torture program confirming – with original notes – that the whole purpose of the torture program was to extract false confessions.

Read the rest here.

Some believe it was about protecting civilians, others say it was about oil, but some are convinced intervention in Libya was all about Gaddafi’s plan to introduce the gold dinar, a single African currency made from gold, a true sharing of the wealth.

“It’s one of these things that you have to plan almost in secret, because as soon as you say you’re going to change over from the dollar to something else, you’re going to be targeted,” says Ministry of Peace founder Dr James Thring. “There were two conferences on this, in 1986 and 2000, organized by Gaddafi. Everybody was interested, most countries in Africa were keen.”

Gaddafi did not give up. In the months leading up to the military intervention, he called on African and Muslim nations to join together to create this new currency that would rival the dollar and euro. They would sell oil and other resources around the world only for gold dinars.

It is an idea that would shift the economic balance of the world.

A country’s wealth would depend on how much gold it had and not how many dollars it traded. And Libya has 144 tons of gold. The UK, for example, has twice as much, but ten times the population.

“If Gaddafi had an intent to try to re-price his oil or whatever else the country was selling on the global market and accept something else as a currency or maybe launch a gold dinar currency, any move such as that would certainly not be welcomed by the power elite today, who are responsible for controlling the world’s central banks,” says Anthony Wile, founder and chief editor of the Daily Bell.

“So yes, that would certainly be something that would cause his immediate dismissal and the need for other reasons to be brought forward from moving him from power.”

And it has happened before.

In 2000, Saddam Hussein announced Iraqi oil would be traded in euros, not dollars. Some say sanctions and an invasion followed because the Americans were desperate to prevent OPEC from transferring oil trading in all its member countries to the euro.

A gold dinar would have had serious consequences for the world financial system, but may also have empowered the people of Africa, something black activists say the US wants to avoid at all costs.

“The US have denied self-determination to Africans inside the US, so we are not surprised by anything the US would do to hinder the self-determination of Africans on the continent,” says Cynthia Ann McKinney, a former US Congresswoman.

The UK’s gold is kept in a secure vault somewhere in the depths of the Bank of England. As in most developed countries, there is not enough to go around.

But that is not the case in countries like Libya and many of the Gulf States.
A gold dinar would have given oil-rich African and Middle Eastern countries the power to turn around to their energy-hungry customers and say: “Sorry, the price has gone up, and we want gold.”

Some say the US and its NATO allies literally could not afford to let that happen.

Nineteen years ago, just outside Waco, Texas, the FBI demonstrated once again that the state at its core is a killing machine. Monarchy, democracy, or republic – any government as conventionally defined is a legal monopoly on violence. The state is always inclined toward oppression, division, conquest, and bloodshed, because these are its tools of trade.

Matters are no different here. The myth of a free America was always seen with bitter irony by those not blessed by such freedom. In the founding generation, as half a million labored in slavery, many who fought in the Revolution genuinely believed in liberty, but for the ruling elite who chided them on, liberty was hardly more than a slogan. This has always been true of our political leaders. The Father of the Country was a centralizing slaveowner. Old Hickory talked up freedom as he threatened war on South Carolina and forced the Cherokee to flee from their ancestral land on a barbarously murderous walk of shame. The Great Emancipator turned America into a military dictatorship and abolished the revolutionary right of secession. Wilson’s New Freedom was cover for a Prussianized war machine generating revenue for his profiteering buddies on Wall Street. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms failed to include the freedom not to be drafted or interned in a concentration camp. Ronald Reagan threw the word freedom around as he trained Latin American torturers and raped the Bill of Rights in the name of fighting drugs. The United States has never lived up to its rhetoric.

But the events from February 28 through April 19, 1993, still stand out in my mind as a watershed. It was the post-Cold War regime’s coming of age, signifying a major event in cultural history.

Everything about Operation Showtime was brazen, and it seemed like an overreach even by some of the government’s establishment defenders. Yet today Washington’s fixers must look back at these embarrassments as a hiccup at most, as growing pains on the way to establishing a militarized law-and-order apparatus of nearly unlimited power. That this stepping stone was reached on the eve of the Internet era, right before the old media began its decline in influence, was most convenient for the police state and its solidification.

The propaganda against the Branch Davidians was perfectly tuned to appeal to the masses, each adjustment in frequency coming just in time to keep the people listening. Religious fanatics with a meth lab, armed and dangerous, abusing their children – few wanted to stand up for these people during the siege. Even fewer wished to identify the Davidian response to the original raid for what it was: self-defense. The Davidians fired on the ATF so long as the ATF fired upon the Davidians, and when the ATF ran out of ammo, the Davidians held their fire. The government’s officials were the aggressors. What followed were fifty-one days of psychological warfare designed to isolate the Davidians – from water, from food, from the press, their lawyers and family – and break them down like any wartime enemy.

So preposterous was the standoff that eventually even the mainstream media began asking questions. A New York Times exposé on March 28 raised all sorts of troubling issues, which only multiplied in the days that followed. Federal agents said that supervisors had known they had lost the element of surprise, but decided to go ahead with the February 28 raid anyway. Agents were reportedly unhappy with their equipment and communication methods. The poor planning and lack of contingency options were exposed. No medical assistance had been prepared for the ATF’s raid. Reports emerged that some of the ATF agents had injured or killed one another in friendly fire. There were hints that other agents might have even been captured and let go by the Davidians. The ATF intelligence chief stopped holding press conferences as the heat continued to mount.  

On April 19, tired from the boredom and bad publicity of just standing around outside the “compound,” the FBI drove a tank through the Davidians’ home, pumped it full of CS gas, launched incendiary devices at the building, and watched it go up in flames. As soon as the stakes became higher, as soon as questioning the feds meant implying they had committed mass murder, the media stopped barking defiantly and jumped back to the government’s lap.

The Democrats, home of America’s center-left, oversaw this exceedingly important event in the development of the police state. Unsurprisingly, every respectable liberal defended the government and believed Clinton’s people when they demonized the Davidians. The entire respectable right went along with the bloodletting, too. Why wouldn’t they? It was a raid planned by George H.W. Bush’s ATF, carried out by the Clintonistas, and ultimately rubberstamped by the Republicans in Congress, and so everyone could get behind it. Some libertarians wavered, including Randians and other proponents of violent national secularism, and much of the radical left went limp too.

The Oklahoma City incident two years later was spun by the media as an example of anti-government extremism somehow being a greater threat than the government itself. It became increasingly un-PC to bring up what had happened in Texas. The election of Dubya and 9/11 washed away the paranoid anti-statist instincts of much of the Clinton-hating right.

Waco, from the raid’s planning to the cover-up and show trials, taught the U.S. government what it could get away with – which is to say, practically anything. It can gas innocent children with internationally banned chemicals. It can hoist a federal flag atop a torched American home, claim victory, and see its public image improve. It can throw grenades at people trying to escape a building and claim they are being held hostage. In the name of protecting these “hostages” and children, it can watch as they burn and keep the firefighters away. And the massacre will be tolerated, even applauded.

Dozens of people of color died at the hands of the federal government, and the official Civil Rights movement hardly spoke up. Dozens of people were targeted for their religion, and it hardly bothered many of the very conservatives who allege a war on religion waged by DC. The largest federal-military killing of civilians on U.S. soil in a century has now become one more notch on the progressive left’s timeline of major events in anti-government extremism, as opposed to a principal example of government extremism where a tiny minority community was virtually exterminated.

Indeed, in 1993 the Davidians were only the most conspicuous and recent example in America’s long history of the demonized Other, the marginalized underclass in the official hierarchy of human worth. Slaves, Indians, Mexicans, Southerners, Catholics, Irish and German-Americans, Chinese immigrants, Japanese-Americans, Mormons, homosexuals, alleged Communists, rightwing extremists, and many others have played the role, often for their imagined association with the wartime enemy, but always for being out of step with the government’s accepted definition of legitimate humanity. Many look back at incidents of intolerance with disbelief that Americans could be so blind to oppression. Yet when the topic of Waco comes up, they will think only of those nutcases who, according to the government and media, attacked federal agents and then killed themselves.

In the nineteen years since Waco, we have seen the police state explode in every direction and now we are all ensnared. Some groups are always more threatened than others, but no one is truly safe. The prisons have swollen to the largest detention system since Stalin’s gulags. The police conduct three thousand SWAT raids a month. The war on terror has made a total mockery of what remained of the Fourth Amendment. Torture has lost its taboo. So has indefinite detention. The feds irradiate and molest airline passengers by the millions. People are jailed for taking medicine, buying Sudafed, sharing songs, and selling milk. The Kafkaesque regulatory state threatens people of all economic classes with crushing fines and a fate in a cage. The public schools, always authoritarian institutions, have become explicit adjuncts of the criminal justice system and military recruitment offices. Every major police department has tanks and battle rifles and drones are being used for surveillance and God knows what else. Each federal department has enough firepower to conquer a small third-world country. DHS alone has ordered enough ammo to shoot every American man, woman, and child. The president claims the right to kill American citizens anywhere on the planet on his say-so alone. And he exercises that power.

Why do some of us continue to fixate on Waco? If for no other reason, because April 19, 1993 was a squandered opportunity if ever there was one. The people could have risen up and said, “Enough!” They could have demanded the military occupation retreat from their own neighborhoods – both the federal presence and its satellite jackboots in the city police. They could have demanded an end to the gun laws, drug war, and federal war on crime, each of which was instrumental in ending the lives of more than twenty children at Waco. They could have turned against the media whose elites stood and applauded the White House as it announced and defended its latest killing spree. They could have seen the federal government for the clear and present danger it obviously poses – the only government that had militarily mass murdered American civilians on American soil since the collateral damage at Pearl Harbor. They could have turned their backs on the killers in DC, refusing ever to believe in their lies again, saving the lives of uncountable Americans, Serbians, Afghans, Iraqis, Libyans, Yemenis, Palestinians, and so many others who would bear the wrath of an unhampered imperial executive in the nineteen years to come, sparing the priceless liberties we have seen shredded on the altar of state power.

Instead, they looked the other way, they yawned, even cheered. There might still be time to turn things around. But the tanks are closing in.

As protests against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters’ worst fears. An analysis (pdf) of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study’s assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York’s Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere. But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world’s transnational corporations (TNCs).

“Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it’s conspiracy theories or free-market,” says James Glattfelder. “Our analysis is reality-based.”

Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world’s economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy – whether it made it more or less stable, for instance.

The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company’s operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.

The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What’s more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world’s large blue chip and manufacturing firms – the “real” economy – representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. “In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

John Driffill of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, says the value of the analysis is not just to see if a small number of people controls the global economy, but rather its insights into economic stability.

Concentration of power is not good or bad in itself, says the Zurich team, but the core’s tight interconnections could be. As the world learned in 2008, such networks are unstable. “If one [company] suffers distress,” says Glattfelder, “this propagates.”

“It’s disconcerting to see how connected things really are,” agrees George Sugihara of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, a complex systems expert who has advised Deutsche Bank.

Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), warns that the analysis assumes ownership equates to control, which is not always true. Most company shares are held by fund managers who may or may not control what the companies they part-own actually do. The impact of this on the system’s behaviour, he says, requires more analysis.

Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power, the analysis could help make it more stable. By finding the vulnerable aspects of the system, economists can suggest measures to prevent future collapses spreading through the entire economy. Glattfelder says we may need global anti-trust rules, which now exist only at national level, to limit over-connection among TNCs. Sugihara says the analysis suggests one possible solution: firms should be taxed for excess interconnectivity to discourage this risk.

One thing won’t chime with some of the protesters’ claims: the super-entity is unlikely to be the intentional result of a conspiracy to rule the world. “Such structures are common in nature,” says Sugihara.

Newcomers to any network connect preferentially to highly connected members. TNCs buy shares in each other for business reasons, not for world domination. If connectedness clusters, so does wealth, says Dan Braha of NECSI: in similar models, money flows towards the most highly connected members. The Zurich study, says Sugihara, “is strong evidence that simple rules governing TNCs give rise spontaneously to highly connected groups”. Or as Braha puts it: “The Occupy Wall Street claim that 1 per cent of people have most of the wealth reflects a logical phase of the self-organising economy.”

So, the super-entity may not result from conspiracy. The real question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted political power. Driffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion. Braha suspects they will compete in the market but act together on common interests. Resisting changes to the network structure may be one such common interest.

The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies
1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc
21. Morgan Stanley
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc
23. Northern Trust Corporation
24. Société Générale
25. Bank of America Corporation
26. Lloyds TSB Group plc
27. Invesco plc
28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA
30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company
31. Aviva plc
32. Schroders plc
33. Dodge & Cox
34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc*
35. Sun Life Financial Inc
36. Standard Life plc
37. CNCE
38. Nomura Holdings Inc
39. The Depository Trust Company
40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
41. ING Groep NV
42. Brandes Investment Partners LP
43. Unicredito Italiano SPA
44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan
45. Vereniging Aegon
46. BNP Paribas
47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc
48. Resona Holdings Inc
49. Capital Group International Inc
50. China Petrochemical Group Company

* Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used