United Nations looks at the U.S. Human Rights Record...

And it is not a pretty picture!
The periodic review was last monday and the report has not been issued yet but from all accounts the U.S. received a scathing review... Police violence and racism were some of the issues but there is also the ongoing problem of the U.S. not allowing a full investigation of Guantanamo. Which is not too surprising since even our politicians are not allowed access to the place...
You can look at some of the concerns here.... and some of the questions here...
I will post the report when it is released.

CIA investigates its use of drugs in interrogation....not

Two interesting reports on the so-called investigation by the CIA into its use of drugs in the interrogation of detainees. One from Jeff Kaye here. The other from Jason Leopold here. Not surprising but the investigation by the CIA was quite limited......

A Little Bit of Good News...

It is actually a sorry state of things when what passes for good news is that a nurse who refused to force feed the detainees will NOT be discharged from the military. I am not suggesting this is not good news but WTF- it never should have been an issue.
Anyway you can read more about this nurse who refused to violate medical ethics by force feeding detainees here.

Omar Khadr speaks after his release on bail.......

Center for Constitutional Rights is Reading the Summary of the Torture Report to the Department of Justice--- because the Justice Department refuses to read it....

If DOJ won’t read the torture report, CCR will read it to them

Five months after the release of the executive summary of the Senate CIA Torture Report, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has yet to open an investigation of the government officials who authorized and covered up the heinous crimes detailed in it. This is not surprising given that, apparently, they haven’t even read the full report as doing so would make it subject to Freedom of Information Act requests seeking its declassification. The DOJ is abdicating its duty to investigate and prosecute these crimes, and we must not stand for it. To prevent future state-sponsored torture, it is imperative that the DOJ prosecute government torturers. Last week, CCR joined Amnesty International and other allies to demand that the DOJ read the report as a first step towards justice. The report shows unequivocally that the CIA tortured men like our client Majid Khan, whose name is mentioned hundreds of times, and lied repeatedly to Congress about the effectiveness of the program. If the DOJ won’t read the report, we'll read it to them, one page at a time, as a reminder of the state crimes they are willfully ignoring. In this video, CCR's Wells Dixon reads page 115, which concerns the rape of Majid Khan.

happy mothers day to Razak Ali's mother and all of the other mothers whose children have been disappeared

And a word or two from Khadr's attorney

I will not try to paraphrase. You can read his words here.

Mr. Khadr you are free to leave....

And so, with those words Omar Khadr finally became a free man....well so to speak... he is out on bail.
congrats to Khadr and his legal team.
Read more here.

And Harper.... I hope you lose this coming election.....big time.

While we wait....

Today we will find out if Mr. Khadr will be allowed out of prison on bail. A psychological assessment of the young man discusses his attitudes and fears.

 "The statements from Mr. Khadr, now 28, are contained in an assessment by a prison psychologist that paints an unprecedented portrait of his inner life, often in his own words. A judge is to rule Thursday on whether the Canadian citizen can be set free after 13 years of incarceration in Afghanistan, the United States and Canada."

Read more about that assessment here.

I of course do not know what will happen today but I will say that the Canadian courts have generally been fair to Mr. Khadr-- it is the Harper administration that continues to cause the problems.

Thursday

That is the new date for the Canadian judge to decide whether to release Khadr on bail.
Read more here.

AND ACROSS THE POND IN ENGLAND

Seems that British lawmakers have finally figured out why British resident Shaker Aamer has been held so long- despite being cleared for release for approximately 7 years. Many of us have long suspected it was because of torture that he witnessed. Maybe even the death of the three men whom the military claimed committed suicide at the same time. A story that has never rung true.
Anyway, maybe now British lawmakers will demand the return of Aamer.
Read the rest here.

EWWW CANADA

So today Harper's Canada plans to make good on their mean spirited quest to block bail for Khadr (the Canadian teenager who was held at Guantanamo since he was 15 years old).
"The Canadian government announced Monday that it would seek an emergency stay on bail granted by a Canadian judge to former Guantanamo detainee and Canadian national Omar Khadr, who has spent almost half his life behind bars." 
Harper is justifying his actions by saying that he is doing it because the U.S. wants Khadr to stay in jail. But U.S. officials are not backing up that claim... appaarently Harper just made it up and thought the U.S. would agree- but we didn't (for once!)
Read the rest here.

Really Harper?

I guess Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper is going to try one last time to keep the teenager- who was held at Guantanamo for more than 10 years - in a Canadian prison.
Harper is so pathetic.
We will know tomorrow whether or not Khadr will be released on bail.
Best of luck to Khadr's attorneys who have fought this battle all these years.
Read more here.

From Roger Fitch and our Friends Down Under at Justinian

Being droned to death

ROGER FITCH ESQ • THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2015

Show us the kill-list criteria ... New US attorney general needs to fix the FBI ... $4 million investment in judicial election paid off handsomely for litigant ... CIA whistleblower convicted ... Carrying a concealed gun is a "lifestyle" ... Fitch fails to snag a seat at crowded US Supremes same sex marriage hearing 

"It turns out I'm pretty good at killing people."– Barack Obama, in a light-hearted aside

A NY Times headline, "First Evidence of a Blunder in Drone Strike", is old news.

The announcement was unsurprising, as thePentagon admits it doesn't always know who it's killing. 

More here.  

President Obama's death-by-drone policy continues to attract critics, e.g. Germans unhappy to hear it's coordinated through Ramstein AFB, one of many American enclaves still embedded in Germany 70 years after the war ended. 

Drone assassinations can still be averted by capture, as a lucky Texan discovered.  

Muhanad al Farekh was fortunate to be kidnapped in Pakistan and (irregularly) extradited to the US - he's been nominated for drone-death since 2013.

 More here and here. 

Meanwhile, there's a new ACLU lawsuit seeking "kill-list" criteria.

READ THE REST HERE.

THE CIA's Man in the Senate....

I guess I should have really called this "one of the CIA's men in the Senate."
I don't even know where to start with Senator Richard Burr.... so maybe I will just start in a random place-- calling him a lapdog for the CIA is grossly underestimating his role but I will roll with that title for now-- seems Burr has been in a snit since Senate staffers unearthed a copy of a CIA report called the Panetta Review- which confirmed such things as the fact that the CIA exaggerated the "effectiveness" of torture. When the Senate staffers realized what they had (admissions from the CIA itself questioning the effectiveness of torture) they decided to take a physical copy- or at least a portion of the physical copy- and bring it to the senate offices. Its a long story but it seems this explains why the CIA broke into Senate computers back in 2013-- they wanted to see how much of the report the Senate had--- and what else the senate had. That brings me back to Burr....Seems Burr has been particularly irked about the leaking of information from the CIA's report and being the lapdog that he is he is now holding up the nomination of a lawyer for the department of defense who first discovered the report. Anyway, read this article as its a fascinating look at one of the enablers of the CIA's torture program.