Happy International Women's Day ( a day early)

THE ICC and the TRUMP TORTURE MACHINE ROLLS ON.....

It is ironic but on March 4th two things happened. First, and must to my glee the International Criminal Court has agreed to investigate the war crimes from the Afghanistan war. The time frame starts with May of 2003. I am not sure how that date was picked as it leaves out some important evidence. However, the important thing is that there will be an investigation. I spent time as a visiting professional at the court in 2008. In my own way I have been pushing for an investigation since that time. And I have at the ready my own investigative documents. I know this will be a battle but since things tend to drag on at the ICC there is a good chance that Afghanistan will still be under investigation when (or if) we finally get a president and congress that believes in the rule of law. You can read more about the ICC's decision here.

The second thing that happened on March 4th is that Trump appointed one of the facilitators of the torture program to be his "nuclear envoy."  Keeping to the Trump playbook the man has a long record as a hawk on nuclear issues.

 "The proposed special negotiator, Marshall Billingslea, is currently the under-secretary for terrorist financing at the US Treasury. His nomination last year for a top human rights job at the state department was stalled by controversy over the extent of his involvement in the torture programme established by the George W Bush administration, in which he oversaw the conditions of detainees in Guantánamo Bay."

Sigh. You can read more here if you dare....

Torture interrogation by trial and error

Carol Rosenberg at the New York Times did an article putting together the recent testimony by the torture psychiatrists... the architects of the torture plan my country used on the men at Guantanamo and other places.
What the testimony (and article) shows is  "that C.I.A. black sites, where some detainees were tortured, amounted to test labs for unproven techniques, with shifting rules shaping operations."

You can read the whole story here.

musical interlude

Sometimes you just need to dream.

And if you are in NYC next week...

Guantánamo [Un]Censored: Art from Inside the Prison

Marking the 18th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo Bay prison, a new art installation features works created by men incarcerated without charge or fair process at the infamous facility. Exhibition Opening Reception Wednesday, February 19, 2020, 6:00 pm City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law The exhibit showcases artworks — the majority of which have never before been displayed — of eleven current and former Guantánamo prisoners, and includes a range of artistic styles and mediums. From acrylic landscapes on canvas to model ships made from scavenged materials such as plastic bottle caps and threads from prayer rugs, Guantánamo [Un]Censored celebrates the creativity of the artists and their resilience. Regarding his artwork, Moath al-Alwi, a Yemeni national and client of CUNY Law School’s Immigrant and Non-Citizen Rights Clinic (INRC), said “Despite being in prison, I try as much as I can to get my soul out of prison. I live a different life when I am making art.” Guantánamo Bay has become a symbol of injustice, abuse, and flagrant disregard for the rule of law. Since the prison camp opened in 2002, 780 men have been unlawfully imprisoned. Many were subjected to torture and other brutal treatment. Today, 40 men remain, nearly all held without charge or trial. While some have already been cleared for release by the U.S. military and national security agencies, they continue to languish in prison. Special thanks to the artists at Guantánamo for sharing their works — and to their lawyers who provide hope. Featured Artists: Mansoor Adayfi, Moath al-Alwi, Djamel Ameziane, Mohammed al-Ansi, Ghaleb al-Bihani, Towfiq al-Bihani, Assadulah Haroon Gul, Khalid Qasim, Sabry Mohammed al-Qurashi, Ahmed Badr Rabbani, Abdulmalik al-Rahabi, Mohamedou Salahi

RSVP NOW

More torture drawings by Abu Zubaydah

Abu Zubaydah has been drawing pictures of the torture techniques used on him by my government. I tried in the past to copy and paste the drawings but that did not work out so well. So click here and view his drawings yourself.

From Roger Fitch and our Friends down under...at Justinian

I am just pasting below the important part of Fitch's latest as it relates to the notorious Patrick Philbin...aka torture enabler. But please click here and read the entire post on the sham impeachment trial.

*   *   *

During the trial's often diversionary question-and-answer phase, the supercilious Patrick Philbin - a product of Boston's Roxbury Latin School (est.1645), Yale, Harvard Law and Cambridge - glibly fielded Dorothy Dixers from Republican senators. He later added his irritating voice to the closing arguments. 

But there is more to Patrick Philbin's CV: a history of meretricious and tainted legal advice for Republican administrations. While a few journalists noted Philbin's former work for the Office of Legal Counsel, no one seemed to recall that he left his unclean handprints all over the infamous OLC "torture memos" and George Bush's Guantánamo policies. 

Apparently no one remembered the opportune "legal" opinions that Philbin concocted for the "war on terror", nor his support for torture in meetings of the National Security Adviser's "Principals Committee". 

Before the first prisoners arrived at Guantánamo Bay, Philbin (with OLC lawyer John Yoo) advised that the Naval Base lay beyond US federal court jurisdiction, and he also made a baseless finding that the Bush-fabricated military commissions, later struck down by the supreme court, were valid. 

Philbin: flawed legal advice

Worst of all, Philbin joined OLC head Jay Bybee in the first Justice Department memo endorsing the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques", practices which no lawyer acting in good faith could regard as other than torture, or "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", clear violations of US statutes, caselaw, and/or international law. 

*   *   *

About that Donald J Putin

It seems like a good time to remind all of you about this EXCEPTIONAL book about
American exceptionalism... you can order it here.

Oh yeah... we also have an impeachment going on.

The preacher --- US torture style

There were three men authorised by the CIA to carry out waterboarding on detainees in America’s “war on terror”. Two of them were contractors who are in Guantánamo Bay this week to give evidence. The third has still not been identified 17 years after the torture was committed.

In the courtroom of the military commission, the CIA officer was referred to only by three-digit code NZ7, or simply as “the Preacher” – a nickname he was given because of his peculiar way of terrorising detainees.

According to James Mitchell, a psychologist on contract to the CIA who helped draft and apply their “enhanced interrogation techniques”, the Preacher “would at random times put one hand on the forehead of a detainee, raise the other high in the air, and in a deep Southern drawl say things like, ‘Can you feel it, son? Can you feel the spirit moving down my arm, into your body?’”

Read the rest here.

and speaking of war criminals...

I guess no surprises here.....
however, I was reminded that one of the men recently added to my sleazy president's legal team has quite a history with  war crimes himself..... Patrick Philbin has joined the president's impeachment "team" following his illustrious career in helping John Yoo in his rather incorrect opinion that Guantanamo was outside the jurisdiction of US federal courts.  If that bad advice was not enough he then went on to assist (now appellate judge) Jay Bybee in his notorious torture memo.
As I said, no surprises here.

Psychologists/war criminals to testify

The infamous psychologists James Mitchell and John Jessen will be testifying about the tortured they subjected several of the men at Guantanamo to. These men have already agreed to settle some of the claims against them for their torture. The issue is (or at least one of the issues is....) whether the men who were subjected to torture and provided statements while being tortured should have those statements used against them in proceedings in which they face the death penalty.
Read more here.

h/o to John

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian.....

Impeachment and other crimes

ROGER FITCH ESQ • MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 2020

What about all the other impeachable offences? ... No immunity for impeachment crimes ... Trump remains unchastened ... Fair elections cauterised by the Supreme Court ... War criminals to the rescue ... Judgeships for ideologues and party hacks ... From Roger Fitch in Washington

"There is a mountain of well-known evidence in the public record ... that the current president is a racist, a coward, a bully, a liar, an ignoramus, a hypocrite, a narcissist, and a fool - in short a very bad guy. Yet by design, the Constitution entrusts an impeachment trial to the Senate, not to a jury selected for its impartiality ... If such Senators are capable of putting aside their longstanding views of the president's character to focus on whether he committed treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanours - as the Constitution assumes they are - then surely they are capable of the much easier task of setting aside any bad-guy inference that propensity evidence might engender." 

- Law Prof Michael Dorf dismissing the danger Trump could be convicted for the wrong reasons. 

There's gangster government in Washington, with a one-man mob taking over a major political party; even so, Donald Trump has received a setback. 

In December, the House of Reps finally confronted - albeit gingerly - the brazen criminality of the US president, a man whose "stench is slowly seeping into every corner of government". 

Remarkably, only two articles of impeachment were adopted, with the Democrat-controlled house impeaching Mr Trump for abuse of power (L'Affaire Ukrainienne) and obstruction of congress. 

There were so many impeachable offences to choose from, a veritable A-to-Z. The articles the house adopted didn't include the Mueller Report findings (e.g. an important obstruction incident), or Trump's response to Russian interference in the 2016 election. Flagrant personal corruption was also missing. 

In a letter to Speaker Pelosi, constitutional lawyers Bruce Fein and Louis Fisher joined Ralph Nader in listing 12 impeachable offences. Just Security noted Trump's pattern of soliciting foreign interference in US elections. The public interest organisation CREW concentrated on five crimes involved in the Ukraine extortion attempts, the basis for the "abuse of power" charge. 

The house impeachment was backed by a 658-page Judiciary Committee report, and also by legal scholars and historians.

The Judiciary Committee produced a memorandum on impeachment law, and one of its lawyer witnesses, Noah Feldman, later elaborated on his testimony, as well as on Donald Trump.

Just before the successful vote on the impeachment articles, Mr Trump sent a bizarre letter to Speaker Pelosi, abusing her and the Democrat House of Representatives for having the effrontery to seek his impeachment. The Washington Post fact-checker had a field-day with Trump's six-pages of persecution mania.  

As Dan Froomkin complained, it still wasn't enough to make the media question Trump's mental state (a few did), but the media did notice the shameful depths reached by Trump's Republican house supporters. 

The Talking dog looks at Gitmo at 18

I like to turn to my friend the talking dog on days like this. Read his post here.
And yes, the bottom line is that Guantanamo remains important... as the dog puts it "the symbol of detached power."

Guantanamo is 18 today...

11 January 2020

Growing old in Guantanamo [Short Film] Today marks 18 years since Guantanamo was opened. Hundreds have been released, but for 40 men, the nightmare is not over. Watch here ››