Senate Intelligence Committee CIA Interrogation (Torture) Report

Mixed feelings..


Though as a U.S citizen I'm embarassed by the behavior of my country but at the same time somewhat proud that at as nation we are capable of aknowledging these barbaric acts.

Not feeling so bad about those who perhaps deserved it but the facts, seen under the harsh light of day, are painfully hard to look at. Did we really mean to stoop this low? I do believe torture is like masturbation in that many have done it but few are honest enough to admit it. So yeah, so much for lecturing others on their human rights records, but by admitting to it and debating the matter openly I think there is some small hope of redemption.

Two words . . . "rectal re-hydration" . . .

Fear is what propels us to do unspeakable acts.
Fear is the enemy of understanding and compassion.

@farmer, dont feel too proud, they never would of admitted it unless someone brave enough blew their patriotic whistle.

this seems to be a group (torture division) within a group (cia) within a group (gov) conducting these acts and lying about it, i wonder what will be done to them other than to once again divide a country on something that should not of happened to begin with...division by corruption, hashtag politics. justice is what should be strived for in this, we certainly would expect it from other countries.

i wonder what qualifications those who did the torturing had before being hired on 'for the people'. in other news, no more social security for nazis.

Im sorry I fail to see what there is to be proud about?

Acknowledgement? Wow

How about prosecution for war crimes?
and nothing less?

what a joke.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Howard and Blair are war criminals.

For the last hundred years the west and in particular the USA has presented itself as the guardian of truth, honor & democracy.
My own govt condoned this treatment & let one of our own citizens to be subjected to it.

where the fuck is the honor in torture?

and carried out in whose name? mine? yours?
Freedoms?

People wonder why they wanna cut our fucking heads off?
they hate us because we are free. WTF?

Nothing to do with fucking about in other countries business for decades on end?
Nothing to do with killing with impunity via drone from afar?
Torture at abu Grahib? Torture at gitmo?

Land of the free and home of the brave?
Really?

Where is the disgust?
I am shocked at the lack of outrage,
All I see is hypocrisy,
Our society will condone anything as long as it suits the meme of the day,
Just make sure you are on the right side when you do it tho,

Where is our conscience?
and did we really have one in the 1st place?

I would have thought such a subject being discussed on FC would elicit better responses than 'mixed feelings' , 'proud' & anecdotes about 'fear'

The western world should be ashamed of itself.
God knows I am.


Just so we know what sort of things that have been carried out in the name of democracy & freedom.

November 2002 death from hypothermia of a detainee who had been held partially nude and chained to a concrete floor at a secret CIA prison.

Some were deprived of sleep for up to 180 hours, at times with their hands shackled above their heads, and subjected to "rectal feeding" or "rectal hydration" without any documented medical need.


during one of the 83 occasions on which he was subjected to a simulated drowning technique the CIA called "waterboarding", an al-Qaeda detainee known as Abu Zubaydah became "completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open full mouth", though he later was revived.


source-http://www.smh.com.au/world/enhanced-interrogation-torture-techniques-by-cia-were-far-more-brutal-and-ineffective-in-stopping-terrorist-plots-us-senate-report-20141209-123pyc.html




The CIA in the first half of 2003 interrogated four detainees described as having “medical complications in their lower extremities”: two had a broken foot, one had a sprained ankle and one a prosthetic leg.

“The two detainees that each had a broken foot were also subjected to walling, stress positions and cramped confinement, despite the note in their interrogation plans that these specific enhanced interrogation techniques were not requested because of the medical condition of the detainees,” the report says.




One CIA cable released in the report reveals that detainee Majid Khan was administered by enema his “‘lunch tray’ consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts and raisins was ‘pureed and rectally infused’”. One CIA officer’s email was in the report quoted as saying “we used the largest Ewal [sic] tube we had”.

Risks of rectal feeding and rehydration include damage to the rectum and colon, triggering bowels to empty, food rotting inside the recipient’s digestive tract, and an inflamed or prolapsed rectum from carless insertion of the feeding tube. The report found that CIA leadership was notified that rectal exams may have been conducted with “Excessive force”, and that one of the detainees, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, suffered from an anal fissure, chronic hemorrhoids and symptomatic rectal prolapse.



One CIA interrogator at COBALT reported that “‘literally, a detainee could go for days or weeks without anyone looking at him’, and that his team found one detainee who ‘as far as we could determine’, had been chained to a wall in a standing position for 17 days’.’ Some prisoners were said to be like dogs in kennels: “When the doors to their cells were penned, ‘they cowered.’

source-http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/cia-torture-report-worst-findings-waterboard-rectal


That doesnt sound like the actions of a moral power now does it?
many of these people have never been charged with a crime, let alone had their day in court.

how can anyone justify indefinite detainment without charge?

let alone torture?


*I realise what I have written WILL entail a response from some of you and Im not going to debate anyone publicly. My intent here is to generate some inner reflection about where we are headed as a society, not to start a verbal punch up.

These are my feelings on the matter as a citizen of so-called 'Coalition of the willing' & as such, I have just as much right to my opinion as anyone else does to oppose it.
These actions and policies have not only put my country at risk, but also placed myself and those I love in danger as a result of possible revenge attacks.
If anyone has taken offense to what I have written then pls take it up with me via PM.

randybishop said:

Fear is what propels us to do unspeakable acts.
Fear is the enemy of understanding and compassion.

Click to expand...

Yup. It's the same dynamic that was in play when were herded Japanese American Citizens into concentration camps during WW II.

What's also interesting is the way we word these issues to make it "all ok". We called them "relocation camps" rather than "concentration camps" much in the same way that we call "torture", "enhanced interrogation techniques".

And the thing that ties both of these together is........................fear.

FUCK FEAR, WE HAVE MORE WEAPONS THAN THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED.

We are afraid of our own impulses.
What we need is the courage to be compassionate!

"The only person the Obama administration has prosecuted in connection with the torture program is a man who revealed its existence to the media."

crawdad said:

@farmer, dont feel too proud, they never would of admitted it unless someone brave enough blew their patriotic whistle.

this seems to be a group (torture division) within a group (cia) within a group (gov) conducting these acts and lying about it, i wonder what will be done to them other than to once again divide a country on something that should not of happened to begin with...division by corruption, hashtag politics. justice is what should be strived for in this, we certainly would expect it from other countries.

i wonder what qualifications those who did the torturing had before being hired on 'for the people'. in other news, no more social security for nazis.

Click to expand...

dorkus_molorkus said:

Im sorry I fail to see what there is to be proud about?

Acknowledgement? Wow

How about prosecution for war crimes?
and nothing less?

what a joke.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Howard and Blair are war criminals.

For the last hundred years the west and in particular the USA has presented itself as the guardian of truth, honor & democracy.
My own govt condoned this treatment & let one of our own citizens to be subjected to it.

where the fuck is the honor in torture?

and carried out in whose name? mine? yours?
Freedoms?

People wonder why they wanna cut our fucking heads off?
they hate us because we are free. WTF?

Nothing to do with fucking about in other countries business for decades on end?
Nothing to do with killing with impunity via drone from afar?
Torture at abu Grahib? Torture at gitmo?

Land of the free and home of the brave?
Really?

Where is the disgust?
I am shocked at the lack of outrage,
All I see is hypocrisy,
Our society will condone anything as long as it suits the meme of the day,
Just make sure you are on the right side when you do it tho,

Where is our conscience?
and did we really have one in the 1st place?

I would have thought such a subject being discussed on FC would elicit better responses than 'mixed feelings' , 'proud' & anecdotes about 'fear'

The western world should be ashamed of itself.
God knows I am.


Just so we know what sort of things that have been carried out in the name of democracy & freedom.

November 2002 death from hypothermia of a detainee who had been held partially nude and chained to a concrete floor at a secret CIA prison.

Some were deprived of sleep for up to 180 hours, at times with their hands shackled above their heads, and subjected to "rectal feeding" or "rectal hydration" without any documented medical need.


during one of the 83 occasions on which he was subjected to a simulated drowning technique the CIA called "waterboarding", an al-Qaeda detainee known as Abu Zubaydah became "completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open full mouth", though he later was revived.


source-http://www.smh.com.au/world/enhanced-interrogation-torture-techniques-by-cia-were-far-more-brutal-and-ineffective-in-stopping-terrorist-plots-us-senate-report-20141209-123pyc.html




The CIA in the first half of 2003 interrogated four detainees described as having “medical complications in their lower extremities”: two had a broken foot, one had a sprained ankle and one a prosthetic leg.

“The two detainees that each had a broken foot were also subjected to walling, stress positions and cramped confinement, despite the note in their interrogation plans that these specific enhanced interrogation techniques were not requested because of the medical condition of the detainees,” the report says.




One CIA cable released in the report reveals that detainee Majid Khan was administered by enema his “‘lunch tray’ consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts and raisins was ‘pureed and rectally infused’”. One CIA officer’s email was in the report quoted as saying “we used the largest Ewal [sic] tube we had”.

Risks of rectal feeding and rehydration include damage to the rectum and colon, triggering bowels to empty, food rotting inside the recipient’s digestive tract, and an inflamed or prolapsed rectum from carless insertion of the feeding tube. The report found that CIA leadership was notified that rectal exams may have been conducted with “Excessive force”, and that one of the detainees, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, suffered from an anal fissure, chronic hemorrhoids and symptomatic rectal prolapse.



One CIA interrogator at COBALT reported that “‘literally, a detainee could go for days or weeks without anyone looking at him’, and that his team found one detainee who ‘as far as we could determine’, had been chained to a wall in a standing position for 17 days’.’ Some prisoners were said to be like dogs in kennels: “When the doors to their cells were penned, ‘they cowered.’

source-http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/cia-torture-report-worst-findings-waterboard-rectal


That doesnt sound like the actions of a moral power now does it?
many of these people have never been charged with a crime, let alone had their day in court.

how can anyone justify indefinite detainment without charge?

let alone torture?


*I realise what I have written WILL entail a response from some of you and Im not going to debate anyone publicly. My intent here is to generate some inner reflection about where we are headed as a society, not to start a verbal punch up.

These are my feelings on the matter as a citizen of so-called 'Coalition of the willing' & as such, I have just as much right to my opinion as anyone else does to oppose it.
These actions and policies have not only put my country at risk, but also placed myself and those I love in danger as a result of revenge attacks.
If anyone has taken offense to what I have written then pls take it up with me via PM.

Click to expand...

Well, I'm not here to argue the immoral acts that were involved in extraordinary rendition because I think most people would agree on the facts and it goes without saying that it should've never happened.

But, the easy way out would've been to not investigate, publish and disclose the findings. The fact that the report happened at all and that it's now open to global scrutiny, in my mind, goes a long way in aknowledging the errors of our ways. Disclosing the report was the right thing to do and I'm glad that it happened. This self criticism is healthy for a society that strives to be just and there are many places in the world where it would never happen.....this is the point I was trying to make.

And yes, prosecution would probably be the closest thing to full justice that could happen, though everyone knows it won't.

Edited to add: randybishop, lwein and grokit hit the nail directly on the head. It was an act of fear and we need to ask ourselves if we prefer to be directed by our emotions or by our logic and reason. As far as I'm concerned, choosing fear makes us no better than those who we are trying to defeat.

After 911 the Bush Administration got away with a lot. The country was in a panic and had a different mindset. Several law makers did vote against going into Iraq but lawmakers ended up voting to go into war with a country that did not declare war on us. The American people were fed a whole barrel of lies and so were our lawmakers.

Now we're hearing from Mr. " The Dick "Cheney. He best better hide under his sofa and shut up. He would be on my list of those that would be tried for war crimes. He says the investigation "is full of crap and deeply flawed." He says that President Bush was fully aware of everything that was being done, like all the torture of prisoners. What about The Geneva Convention and the rights of prisoners that was passed in 1929? Does that not apply to America? Someone needs to be held accountable. This in dangers any private American or military person that is captured by terrorist or a group that is angry with Americans. All of our past behavior and present is what's fueling a lot of these groups.

I wonder how the World would be different today if we hadn't gone to war with Iraq?

CarolKing said:

After 911 the Bush Administration got away with a lot. The country was in a panic and had a different mindset. Several law makers did vote against going into Iraq but lawmakers ended up voting to go into war with a country that did not declare war on us. The American people were fed a whole barrel of lies and so were our lawmakers.

Now we're hearing from Mr. " The Dick "Cheney. He best better hide under his sofa and shut up. He would be on my list of those that would be tried for war crimes. He says the investigation "is full of crap and deeply flawed." He says that President Bush was fully aware of everything that was being done, like all the torture of prisoners. What about The Geneva Convention and the rights of prisoners. Someone needs to be held accountable. This in dangers any private American or military person that is captured by terrorist or a group that is angry with Americans. All of our past behavior and present is what's fueling a lot of these groups.

I wonder how the World would be different today if we hadn't gone to war with Iraq?

Click to expand...

History will probably judge the Bush admistration pretty harshly. Just as Bill Clinton had his Monica, karma will make this huge mess their legacy. Iraq was another decision based on emotion ruling over reason. Iraq having posession WMDs was a fairly plausible assumption and something to be concerned about it, but unfortunately it was used as an pretext to impose ourselves and our interests under the guise of nation building. We didn't have to invade that country to acheive an acceptable outcome.

It was definately not justfiable and only served to divert our ADD addled minds away from the real task at hand, Al Queda and Afghanistan.

But I digress...

No doubt about it. We are our own worst enemy much of the time.

I'm perfectly OK with blaming this mess on our taste in leadership.

I think Bill Clinton getting a blow job by an intern in the Oval Office is pretty small compared to going to war with another country under false pretenses. Thousands of deaths and broken bodies on both sides.

Its ok, Bill Clintons legacy will be the repealing of the Glass-steagall act which allowed the banks to
engage in the risky & fraudulent behavior that led to the GFC in 2008.

this isnt a bad article.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs...of-glass-steagall-caused-the-financial-crisis

I like slick willie compared to most of these bums, but he fucked us on that one

grokit said:

I like slick willie compared to most of these bums, but he fucked us on that one

Click to expand...

Yeah, at least he's smart and is one helluva politician. The man can schmooze.

Among the report's most striking revelations is that CIA interrogators were often untrained and in some instances made up torturous techniques as they went along.




More coverage of the CIA torture report.

• • "Rectal Feeding," Threats to Children, and More: 16 Awful Abuses From the CIA Torture Report
  • No, Bin Laden Was Not Found Because of CIA Torture
  • How the CIA Spent the Last 6 Years Fighting the Release of the Torture Report
  • Read the Full Torture Report Here
  • 5 Telling Dick Cheney Appearances in the CIA Torture Report
  • Am I a Torturer?

The CIA was "unprepared" to begin the enhanced interrogation program, the Senate report concluded. The agency sent untrained, inexperienced people into the field to interrogate Abu Zubaydah, the first important Al Qaeda suspect the US captured.

Within weeks of Zubaydah's arrival, while he was still in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound, CIA headquarters was planning to throw him in all-white room with no natural lighting, blast rock music 24/7, strip him of his clothes, and keep him awake all day. They did. Extreme interrogations like these, identified as "enhanced interrogation techniques," went on for more than three months before CIA officers received any sort of training in the new techniques from anyone.


Page 10 of the executive summary of the Senate intelligence committee report

False pretenses? Those Iraqi citizens gassed themselves? http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/10/16/new-york-times-reports-wmd-found-in-iraq

We gave him the gas then killed him for using it

It's not the United States job to police the world. They also have a terrible record of nation building. There are plenty of problems in the United States that need to be attended to.

We thought if we went into Iraq we would get cheap oil is the bottom line. All the U.S troops and all the billions of dollars spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are still a mess, it's a quagmire..

CarolKing said:

It's not the United States job to police the world. They also have a terrible record of nation building. There are plenty of problems in the United States that need to be attended to.

We thought if we went into Iraq we would get cheap oil is the bottom line. All the U.S troops and all the billions of dollars spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are still a mess, it's a quagmire..

Click to expand...

Yup. I remember when Bush was questioned about how much this war was going to cost us in dollars he replied that the war would be financed from Iraqi oil revenues. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight................
That worked as good as his statements that Iraq would be a shining example of what a Democracy would look like in the Middle East.

A Senate report on the use of torture by the CIA during the GW Bush administration is due to be released this week.

2005 cartoon from the archives:

• Cheney said he has no regrets and would do it again far as the war was concerned. Also that the torture was the right thing. Remember when we saw those horrendous photos of those prisoners? The prison camp at Abu Ghraib I believe is where the photos were from.

GOP rep calls torture report ‘almost treasonous’
12/15/14 01:03 PM

By Steve Benen

In the week since the Senate Intelligence Committee released its report on Bush-era torture policies, we’ve seen more than a few unnerving responses from Republicans. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, of course, has offered Cheney-esque condemnations of the findings. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) was eager to argue that torture isn’t torture.
Jon Chait flagged an especially interesting pair of tweets from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who, in rapid succession, thanked those who carried out the torture policies, and then condemned “human-rights violators” in Venezuela. Chait added, “The cognitive dissonance surely whooshed right over Rubio’s elegantly coiffed head.”
But if there’s a race among Republicans to see who can go the furthest in this debate, Andrew Kaczynski reports that Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) is arguably near the front of the pack.
Republican Rep. Scott Perry says the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s interrogation and detention techniques nearly qualifies as treason.
Speaking with WPHT radio Friday, the Pennsylvania Republican added the Obama administration seems to care more about the rights of terrorists than those of United States citizens.
The far-right congressman said those responsible for releasing the report decided to “empower and embolden our enemies.” He added, “This is completely regrettable. I think it, for me, as a military guy, it’s almost treasonous, and it borders on treasonous. And it vexes me that this president, this administration, and some of his cohort are happier to be concerned about the rights of savages that will kill every American they can get their hands on, while there seem to be disconcerned [sic] about our rights, and the transparency.”
Scott Perry then compared this to the grand jury process in Ferguson, Missouri, for reasons that no doubt make sense to Scott Perry.
Regardless, it’s hard to know what possesses congressional Republicans to make comments like these in public.
As far as the Pennsylvania congressman is concerned, torturing detainees is acceptable, but publishing a report on U.S. policies “borders on treasonous.”
Treason, by the way, is a capital crime.
Remember, Perry’s over-the-top rhetoric is focused solely on condemning accuracy and transparency. The GOP lawmaker isn’t outraged by what Americans did; he’s outraged by the bipartisan effort to document what Americans did. His moral compass is pointing Perry in a specific direction: torture “savages,” pay no attention to the fact that some of those “savages” were innocent, and condemn those defending American principles as actively trying to undermine the United States.
It’s as if contemporary Republican politics, with limited exceptions, that to take national security seriously is to embrace torture without shame or apology.

Put it in a time capsule. Future generations won’t believe it.

Remember when the US "fought the good fight"?
I sure don't (child of the vietnam age).
Now we're the evil oppressors

Cranky Defenders of Torture Rise Again


Anyone strapped down will say anything, absolutely anything to get the torture to stop. Torture. Does. Not. Work." (Source)

Really? We're back to the topic of a systematic torture of prisoners?

Dick Cheney, former VP and longtime cheerleader for tactics from "the dark side", as he called it, makes no room for doubt - "I'd do it again in a minute!" -- "It" being torture.

Going back to Nov. 2007, a previous post shows Americans decry torture but reserve the right to use it, and such a contradiction carries a heavy price for Democracy ....


The source at the top is a article written by Malcom Nance a military torture expert. He used to be in the Marines. He was on CNN Sunday and is outraged and has been for quite some time the article source at the top is from 2007. It's about torture does not work.

Personally I think Cheney should be rendered to some foreign country and waterboarded there. Lets see how he feels about it from the other side. Refuse to release him until he gives up how much Halliburton paid him for their exclusive no bid government contracts during the Bush Admin...