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POPS'Mother of all suicide bombers' warns of rise in attacks The necessity of killing these women will only gain the world's sympathy for their cause. Who is ready and up to this task? How does one combat this kind of fanaticism? Look at those pitiful eyes and can you have sympathy for those who exploit these poor women? That "Mother" needs to be silenced so she can *breed* no more children.
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POPSGuantanamo's SERE Standard Operating Procedures 1. Purpose. This SOP document promulgates procedures to be followed by I I P-GTMO personnel engaged in interrogation operations on detained persons. The premise behind this is that the interrogation tactics used at U.S. military SERE schools are appropriate for use in real-world interrogations. These tactics and techniques are used at SERE school to “break” SERE detainees. The same tactics and techniques can be used to break real detainees during interrogation operations. 2. Training. All interrogators will undergo training by certified SERE instructors prior to being approved for use of any of the techniques described in this document. Scope. Applicable to military and civilian interrogators assigned to JTF-GTMO, Cuba. Guantanamo Abu Ghraib
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POPSMilitary judge says detainee was tortured While I welcome the decision of a judge who will call it like he sees it in spite of constant and documented pressure from the Pentagon, I question the absence of things that were not said. Mainly, if a threat is sufficient to constitute torture, how is the gauntlet of abuse detainees are subjected to by Gitmo interrogators not considered torture?
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POPSAbu Nidal notorious Palestinian terrorist mastermind was US spy
At least Saddam was lead to believe. The documents state that Egyptian and Kuwaiti intelligence officers had asked Abu Nidal, whose real name was Khalil al-Banna, to spy for them "with the knowledge of their American counterparts". Five days after his death, Iraq's head of intelligence, Taher Jalil Habbush, told a press conference in Baghdad that Abu Nidal had committed suicide after Iraqi agents arrived at the apartment where he was hiding in the city, but the secret reports make it clear that the notorious Palestinian had undergone a long series of interrogations prior to his violent demise. The records of these sessions were never intended to be made public and were written by Iraqi "Special Intelligence Unit M4" for Saddam. While Abu Nidal may have lied to his interrogators – torture is not mentioned in the reports – the documents appear to be a frank internal account of what the Iraqis believed his mission in Iraq to be. The papers name a Kuwaiti major, a member of the ruling K
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POPSIntelligent Computers Put To The Test It could also raise profound questions about whether a computer has the potential to be 'conscious' - and if humans should have the 'right' to switch it off. >>> I haven't seen humans having too much problem in 'shutting off' each other. What does it say about consciousness ?
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POPSTuring test, put to test next week. "I think the reason Alan Turing set this game up was that maybe to him consciousness was not that important; it's more the appearance of it, and this test is an important aspect of appearance.' "The test will be carried out by human 'interrogators', each sitting at a computer with a split screen: one half will be operated by an unseen human, the other by a program. The interrogators will then begin separate, simultaneous text-based conversations with both of them on any subjects they choose. After five minutes they will be asked to judge which is which." "a program needs only to make 30 per cent or more of the interrogators unsure of its identity to be deemed as having passed the test, based on Turing's own criteria"
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POPSPentagon To Expand Intel Ops at US Prison in Afghanistan
What incredible crap they sling at us... Originally built as a Soviet air base in the 1980s, the Bagram prison was meant to be a short-term holding site. Bagram has been a flash point in the debate over U.S. treatment of detainees. The International Red Cross has negotiated with U.S. officials about conditions and access to detainees. After peaking at nearly 700 prisoners in 2006, the population at Bagram has hovered for the past year at its 600-prisoner capacity, according to Central Command figures provided in response to a USA TODAY inquiry. The intelligence hires are to be in place before next summer's scheduled completion of the new detention center that will hold 1,000 prisoners, an increase in capacity by 65%. "In 2001 ... we never thought we'd still be (at Bagram) today," said Brig. Gen. Robert Holmes, deputy operations chief at U.S. Central Command, which oversees Afghanistan operations. "Now that we see this as a sustained activity, there were improvements to be mad
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POPSMy Country, Tis Of Thee, Sweet Land Of Liberty Long before the Hamdan trial, we already knew that we were offered bin Laden in transit from Sudan to Afghanistan. But we did not want him. Our lawyers had no battle, our leaders no mettle. Most of us, though not all, have learned nothing. After thousands smote and seven years of war, we are back to our superior ways, demanding Habeas Corpus and noting in the very first trial that bin Laden’s deputy was read no Miranda rights upon his capture - or was it arrest? They say history repeats itself. Never before has it applied so swiftly, within the same generation and within the same conflict. A selfish society incapable of sacrifice is equally incapable of self-defense. Our greatest concern is not the pursuit of madmen or the states which feed them. It is not even the cost of oil and its affect on our economy and future.
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POPSThe putsch that imperiled America "Others have been less scrupulous for reasons that do them even less credit than ideological fanaticism. Take, for example, former Pentagon general counsel William J. Haynes II. In a sworn statement, Air Force Col. Morris Davis -- the former top prosecutor in the Office of Military Commissions -- says he resigned after being pressured by Haynes to move forward with politically "sexy" prosecutions even though Morris believed the evidence against the defendants had been obtained by torture. Davis said he also told Haynes that a few acquittals at Guantanamo, if warranted, would send a message that the commissions sitting there were fair, just as the not-guilty verdicts against some Nazi defendants had done for the Nuremberg trials. Haynes' response was emphatic, according to Morris: "We can't have acquittals! We've got to have convictions! ... If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off?""
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POPS"Good Faith" Torture Deemed OK Interesting that they set a subjective standard for torture: viz., if the interrogator thought in "good faith" that the method wouldn't cause long-term mental harm. Note that it didn't require that the method would probably cause long-term mental harm, only that the interrogator didn't believe it would. By defining torture subjectively, the Bush administration: 1. Consigned the definition of torture to belief, thereby making it impossible to adjudicate by objective measures. 2. Totally marginalized the detainee's likely reaction to the method and, thereby, nullified the detainee's humanness and recognition as a rights-bearing being. This kind of sophistry one would expect of a brutal dictatorship.
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POPSEverything he touches... Our president that is... I am for the ethical treatment of prisoners: no matter who they are or what they've done. Our morality doesn't depend on the actions of others (no matter how henous). That's part of the very definition of morality. But our "moral" president has likely made it difficult, if not impossible to prosecute some of these people... Some that are likely a real threat. Chock it up to incompetence... once again.
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POPSJailing Palestinian Children for Throwing Stone at a Wall Now how fucked up is that twisted filthy little society that they would actually kidnap, beat, torture and jail a boy for throwing rocks at a stone fucking wall? How low below the bottom of human decency can this mad state of Israel go? Everytime we think they can go no lower, they do just that. The state of Israel is a moral cesspool.
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POPSText Message To Capture Team, "I am with KSM" His cooperation came in fits and starts, and interrogators said they believed at times that he gave them disinformation. But he talked most freely to Martinez. The intelligence riches ultimately gleaned mount to a detailed history of Mohammed's initiation into terrorism along with his nephew, Yousef; his plotting of mayhem from Bosnia to the Philippines and his alliance with Osama bin Laden. Mohammed also claimed a role in a long list of completed and thwarted attacks, including the beheading of Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter Martinez told colleagues that Mohammed volunteered out of the blue that he was the man who killed Pearl. Intelligence analysts eventually were convinced because Mohammed pointed out to Martinez details of the hand and arm of the masked killer in a videotape of the murder that appeared to show it was him. For now, Deuce Martinez teaches other CIA analysts the arcane art of tracking terrorists.
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POPSDid Gitmo Interrogators Destroy Evidence? This should be illegal on a lot of levels -- obstruction, evidence tampering, conspiracy, etc. If the allegations are proven, however, expect the administration to argue that the law doesn't apply at Guantanamo -- which is supposedly outside of US jurisdiction because it's Cuba. If they do this, what they're basically saying is that Gitmo is an anarchy where law is meaningless. The problem with this argument, of course, is that it renders any trials of Gitmo detainees a pointless sham.
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POPSCrouching in a corner, covered with a sheet for hours - tragic! Your tax dollars at work: Most evidence against so-called "20th hijacker" comes from torture-induced statements. He appears to have lost his mind at the hands of his torturers; no case against him has ever been made; his internment continues indefinitely. It's the Spanish inquisition, by medieval American government. We'll never know if he's guilty or not, just that he was hurt badly enough to confess before he became too crushed to face trial. This is as completely criminal as 9/11 itself.
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POPS'Torturer's Dicks got Hard with New Ideas'. She didn't have a Dick!
On December 2, Detainee 063 was in an isolated, plywood interrogation booth at Camp X-Ray. He was bolted to the floor and secured to a chair, his hands and legs cuffed. He had been held in isolation since August 8, nearly four months earlier. He was dehydrated and in need of regular hook-ups to an intravenous drip. His feet were swollen. He was urinating on himself. The pattern was always the same: 20-hour interrogation sessions, followed by four hours of sleep. Sleep deprivation appears as a central theme, along with stress positions and constant humiliation, including sexual humiliation. These techniques were supplemented by the use of water, regular bouts of dehydration, the use of IV tubes, loud noise, nudity, female contact, pin-ups. An interrogator even tied a leash to him, led him around the room and forced him to perform a series of dog tricks. He was forced to wear a woman's bra and a thong was placed on his head. Author Philippe Sands is a UK Queen's Council
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POPSHey, it was legal! on admitting to govt sanctioned waterboarding- they won't be able to blame the "rogue" CIA this time!
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POPSMaiming in your Name: "the sovereign" Bush In a 2003 memo released yesterday, the US justice department extended the sweeping wartime powers claimed by Bush to military interrogators, giving them freedom from criminal laws when questioning al-Qaida suspects. The 81-page brief was released by the American Civil Liberties Union, which fought the administration in court to secure the release of documents. ...Guardian
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