September 11 2017- and it continues.

I wonder if my remaining client at Gitmo would not have been happy to just have hurricane Irma blow the place away and put an end to the endlessness. But alas, word has it that all have survived at the gulag.

As I do every September 11th, I turn this over to my friend The Talking Dog- a person who was actually closer to the New York devastation than most of us- to put all of this in perspective.

Read was he has to say here.

From Our Friends Down Under at Justinian...

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The CIA's rendition plane. Yours for $27.5m

For those wanting to own a piece of history, the infamous aircraft N313P, one of the planes used for CIA torture renditions, was recently put on sale for $27.5 million. N313P ferried torture victims to US vassal states such as Poland and human rights violators like Uzbekistan, Egypt and Libya.

Neither the US government nor American courts have provided any civil remedy for the victims of such CIA operations, and both the Bush and Obama administrations invoked the state secrets doctrine - along with other shameful ruses - to block any recovery of damages by those affected.

Except for a settlement some Abu Ghraib abuse victims obtained from the US government contractor L-3 Services (and others may possibly achieve in a pending suit against the contractor CACI International), victims of US abduction and torture have only received compensation from a few of the accomplices such as Macedonia and Poland, through claims in the European Court of Human Rights.

A new avenue has now opened up, however, through which the CIA could be indirectly obliged to pay compensation, even though the former head of the CIA's Thai torture camp, Gina Haspel, is now the top official at the agency. 

CIA torture gurus: Jessen & Mitchell

When we last visited Ms Haspel (see March Fitch), she'd been evading a deposition in Salim v Mitchell, the lawsuit brought by two CIA-tortured men and the family of a third who was tortured to death (the depositions of other CIA identities were successfully taken).  

Venue for the civil damages suit lay in the progressive enclave of Washington state, due to the Spokane residency of the defendants, the CIA's contract "psychologists" James Mitchelland Bruce Jessen, who designed and implemented the (shudder) "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" used by the CIA.

While these plaintiffs were tortured at Bagram, in Afghanistan, Mitchell and Jessen began their highly unethical experiments on Gina Haspel's turf in Thailand, with the very first man tortured by the CIA, Abu Zubaydah, as their guinea pig.  

The psychologists relied on worthless "legal" authorisations they received, some from the odious Stephen Bradbury, now Trump's General Counsel at the Transportation Department (see June Fitch). 

Thanks in part to the stubborn persistence of a long-serving federal judge, the crusty 88-year-old Justin Quackenbush, the case of Salim v Mitchell was set for trial in September, after the judge refused the defendants' motions for summary judgment.

Unmoved by the defendants' startling reliance on the Nazi-era acquittal of a gas technician for Zyklon-B, the judge ruled that the Alien Tort Statute was applicable to the charges, including torture, involuntary human experimentation and war crimes.  

The psychologists quickly settled, more here and here.  

Quackenbush: opened up settlements against the CIA

The settlement against Mitchell and Jessen suggests that other men (the Feinstein Report lists over 100),  tortured by the CIA under the psychologists' protocols, could receive compensation at the expense of the agency.  

How? The psychologists wisely obtained an indemnity from the CIA, now activated by settlement of the initial case against them.

As promised, the Trump administration has now returned all copies of the Senate's full 6,700-page Feinstein Report to the Senate in the hope that the "torture report" will be undiscoverable in civil or criminal litigation. 

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In June, the five defendants in the Guantánamo "9/ll" military commission appealed a decision of the Court of Military Commission Review that had reinstated dismissed chargesfor which limitations had run. Lawfare had more on this order and the al Qosi order, below.

The 9/11 men appealed on grounds that included a claim that one of the CMCR judges should have recused himself, and the DC court of appeals, agreeing, reversed. More here from Steve Vladeck. 

In the other order, the renegade CMCR remanded the al Qosi appeal to the commission with an odd sua sponte direction to determine whether the now freed "convict" might have since re-offended (i.e. become an "enemy combatant"), as indeed it appears he has, and implied his post-release conduct might affect his appeal. There was no statutory basis for the direction, and surely, post-conviction behaviour is irrelevant. 

At the pretrial hearings at another of Guantanamo's farcical military commissions - that of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the government's own witness, Ahmed al Darbi, has been testifying about the depraved treatment he received at the hands of his US interrogators. 

The prosecution must have reasoned this would lessen the effect such damning testimony would have if obtained in cross-examination. Al-Nashiri, it will be recalled, is on trial for sundry fake "war crimes" - offences not committed in a time, or a place, of war - trivial matters to the Pentagon. 

Judge Pohl: allowed prosecution to destroy protected evidence

The 9/11 defence lawyers are asking that the presiding judge, Col James L Pohl withdraw from the case, based on the secret, ex parte permission he gave to the prosecution to destroy evidence that was under a protective court order. 

In the meantime, the 9/11 prosecutors are diabolically claiming that Judge Pohl can't read the defence brief, for "security" reasons.  

The lead defendant, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, responded:

"I'm used to the idea that they can kill me based on things I can't see. But now it seems they want to kill me based on things the judge can't see."  

Franz Kafka was, after all, a lawyer. 

Read the rest here.

CIA psychologist abusers reach settlment...

The ACLU sued the two main psychologists who were involved in torturing men at Guantanamo. The suit has been pending with many important victories along the way- (I have been meaning to do an update on the lawsuit but was too busy)- today that lawsuit was settled.

"The lawsuit was filed in 2015 on behalf of Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud and the estate of Gul Rahman. It sought unspecified monetary damages from the psychologists, whose company was based in Spokane.

Rahman, an Afghan, was taken from his home in Pakistan in 2002 to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan. He died of hypothermia several weeks later after being shackled to a floor in near freezing conditions.

According to the lawsuit, Salim and Ben Soud both were subjected to waterboarding, daily beatings and sleep deprivation while inside CIA secret prisons. Salim, a Tanzanian, and Ben Soud, a Libyan, were later released after officials determined they posed no threat."

READ MORE HERE....

THANKS ONCE AGAIN TO THE ACLU FOR FIGHTING FOR THE RULE OF LAW IN MY COUNTRY--- WHERE THE RULE OF LAW IS QUICKLY EVAPORATING.

From Our Friends Down Under...

Khadr: 10 years at Guantanamo on a bizarre murder charge

The Canadian government has paid former Guantanamero Omar Khadr compensation of $10.5 million for its violation of his rights, and apologised. 

Some media were mystified by the mean-spirited reaction of Canadian citizens to the Khadr payout and apology. It was hardly unprecedented: a Toronto paper cited Australia's (apology-free)  settlement with Mamdouh Habib.

The best exposition of Khadr's case can be found in a 2013 video presentation by his Pentagon-appointed appellate counsel, Sam Morison. In 2017, Fitch found only one Canadian report that acknowledged the elephant in the room, the bizarre murder charge against a combatant legally responding to an attack: 

"Under the laws of war, a combatant who kills another combatant cannot be charged with murder. That's called combatant immunity. Non-combatants who kill a combatant can be charged with murder, and they are entitled to the procedural protections owed to a criminal accused. Mr Khadr was treated neither as a combatant nor as an accused criminal. Instead, the United States invented a new war crime called "murder by an unlawful alien enemy combatant". 

The new offence made it lawful for US soldiers to kill Mr Khadr, but made it a war crime if he killed a US soldier. This ersatz war crime was invented by the United States after his capture and then applied to his actions retroactively. No system governed by the rule of law does this." 

The widow of the US soldier who, even if Omar Khadr threw the grenade, was legally killed, has lost her suit to freeze the compensation payout pending a proceeding to enforce a default Utah judgment for $US 134 million. 

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READ THE REST HERE

A break from our usual programing to give you this news bulletin.......

McCain return to Senate Tues. for health care vote. WTF? Takes leave of cancer treatment to deny care to millions? https://t.co/7kueArmAud

— Donald J. Putin (@donald_j_putin) July 25, 2017

Freedom to get back to torturing....

At Guantanamo this past week there was a celebration over the 4th of july weekend- and it seems they celebrated by bringing in one of the bands whose music was used to torture detainees. I guess this makes it official- the gloves are off again.

Read more here.

Some countries actually apologize for their misdeeds....UPDATED

Not the US of course.
But it seems Canada is preparing to apologize and pay a settlment to Omar Khadr for it's role in the detention of Mr. Khadr at Guantanamo for 10 years. The Canadian government also held Mr. Khadr in a Canadian prison for several years and then under house arrest. Khadr was 15 years old when he was captured by the US. There has never been any real evidence that the child was engaged in any combat but of course we here in the US like to blame people without evidence. However, even if he was engaged in combat he was still a child and we actually have rules for dealing with children in combat situations.... Ahhh, but who needs damn rules.

But anyway, not to be outdone, the widow of a man killed at the time Khadr was captured is sueing him to collect any monies he gets in the settlment. They of course wont get any of Khadr's money but that is not stopping them from suing him.

Read more here.

Seems that the deal is done and Mr. Khadr will finally be compensated for Canada's complicity in his torture. Now if only my country would start paying those it tortured.
Read the update from Intercept here.

unknown individuals unintentionally listened to GITMO attorney/client meetings

Well of course both of those things cannot be true- if we don't know who did it how can anyone say it was unintentional. The farce continues....

Read the latest on the surveillance by the military/ spy agencies on attorney/client meetings at Guantanamo here.

Let me pretend to be optimistic....

And the 4th continues....

The 4th in the time of trump....

Happy 4th.... i guess.

From our Friends Down Under at Justinian.....

It's bad enough that Gina Haspel, ex-commandant of the CIA's Thai torture camp, is the agency's new chief (although she is currently at risk of German arrest). Sadly, a leading member of the "dirty dozen" - the torture-counselling lawyers who greased the way for Gina's torture regime - will be general counsel at the Department of Transportation.  

Stephen Bradbury is arguably the most culpable of all George Bush's "torture memo" men.  


Roger Fitch has much more to say about my corrupt government..... read the rest here.

This is not good.....UPDATED

As my friend The Talking Dog points out in this updated post- we cannot look away for even a moment. These are dangerous times in this here U.S. of A .--with the lunatic at the helm.

And speaking of torture......

OK- so I wasn't speaking of torture (this time) but I am now.... It seems we just can't stop doing the torture thing. Now it is Yemen, and it sounds like alot of the same things that went on at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and a miriad of other places that we invaded and tortured men and women.

Read more here.