“Murder’s torture. Murder’s the ultimate torture.”

~ Lawrence Wilkerson, quoted by Richard Leiby in, Down a Dark Road

Senate Report Links Bush to Detainee Homicides: Media Yawns, by Glenn Greenwald (includes ACLU FOIA link to military’s own autopsy findings, some attributing manner of death to “homicide”)

I think you deserve The Fire Dog # 1 award! You go into the toughest places, pull out the facts, then patiently teach us puppies to see the truth of the matter.

You are beautiful!

The British intelligence services, no doubt, have their own skeletons to hide and might welcome a chance to blame Bush for keeping them hidden. At the same time, it’s not credible that hiding Bush’s secrets isn’t an important, possibly the most important, aspect of this affair.

If only I understood how to link!

This I can help with . . .

Type in your comment here at FDL as you usually do, but before you hit “submit comment,” here’s how you add a link.

(1) Open a new tab/window to the item to which you want to link.
(2) Copy the URL of that item into your clipboard
(3) Go back to the tab/window with FDL, and highlight the text of your comment that you want to be the link.
(4) In the bar above the box where you type the comment, there are a bunch of little icons. Between the big quotation marks and the “ABC-checkmark” icon, there is a little icon that looks like a chain — click on that. (chain link; get it?)
(5) This brings up a popup box, where you should paste the URL you copied at step 2 above, then hit OK.
(6) Before you hit “submit comment,” click on “preview” to check your work. Preview is your friend. Edit as needed, and recheck if necessary.
(7) Now you’ve made your link — time to share with the world and hit “submit comment”

Good luck!

However, the court “redacted” these paragraphs after Miliband argued that to publish them could damage Britain’s national security.

A “public interest immunity certificate” he signed set out the reasons: “In reaching my assessment, I have taken into account the fact that the US Administration on the basis of clear, consistent and forceful communications, both written and oral from senior officials, including at the highest national security levels, from all of the Departments and Agencies concerned, have indicated that such damage was likely to occur. A recent open indication to this effect was the letter sent to my Legal Advisor, Daniel Bethlehem QC, by John Bellinger [Condoleezza Rice’s legal adviser at the State Department]. In this letter, Mr. Bellinger affirms in the clearest terms that the public disclosure of these documents or the information contained therein ‘is likely to result in serious damage to US national security and could harm existing intelligence information-sharing arrangements between our two governments.’”

(Does Steve Clemons still think Bellinger is a “good guy?”)

Rose also points out another flashpoint for Miliband:

… the government’s lawyers had been given the judgment several days before it was made public, under an embargo, along with instructions that they should correct any errors. The judgment contains eight separate references to a supposed “threat.” Yet until the political firestorm broke, neither Miliband nor his lawyers raised any objection to the word “threat”

The original motions before the court were only for Mohamed’s lawyers who have classified clearances to get access to the info for use in the GITMO proceedings, subject to the classificaitions there. The court kept trying to get the US to agree to turnover the info itself so the britich court wouldn’t be involved, but when the US were pretty much assholes, the court began to have some hearings and they ruled that those hearings would be sealed from the press while they made determinations.

That’s when Miliband began the song and dance of not being able to turn the info over to Mohamed’s LAWYERS even, bc the US was threateing to cut off cooperation. So the court upped the ante. They “invited” the media to ask the court to “reconsider” it’s earlier ruling sealing the hearings (yes, the court went out to the media and said, ’scuse me, you wanna ask me to release the info -wink wink) and they set it for hearing after Obama would be sworn in.

Miliband then came to the court again and said that they couldn’t release bc the US would stop sharing info, and the court then issued its ruling that it felt the info showed crimes and cruel, inhuman etc. treatment which Britain was REQUIRED to pursue under the torture Conventions, but bc of Miliband’s reps on national security, they would not release.

Someone elsewhere indicated that the House of Lords is actually a court of appeals from this ruling, but I have no idea whether that is how it works or not. In any even, the MPs have jumped on this, Miliband has now said to Parliament that he never meant to represent that the US would withdraw cooperation, although um, yeah, they might not be as sharing and caring; and lawyers have re-filed with the high court, saying in light of Miliband’s reps to Parliament – that there is no national security threat or issue – the court is free to revisit it’s ruling.

Not the kind of thing we see from American courts.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..ia_panetta

Panetta formally retracted a statement he made Thursday that the Bush administration transferred prisoners for the purpose of torture.

“I am not aware of the validity of those claims,” he said.

…
Panetta told the committee that the Obama administration will continue to hand foreign detainees over to other countries for questioning, but only if it is confident the prisoners will not be tortured in the process.

So after first saying no extraordinary renditions, he is now saying that they are just going to be closing down black sites where the US does the torture directly, but will still get “Riceian” assurances and hand off to third party countries for interrogation.

It IS EXTRAORDINARY rendition to take someone outside of extradition except to bring them to your country to face charges in your court system under an outstanding warrant.

91 – This isn’t the link I had in mind, but it is one:
http://www.vanityfair.com/poli…..ture200902

The White House seemed to endorse this argument with a statement, issued after the judgment was handed down, in which it “thanks” the UK for doing what it had done to protect the intelligence-sharing relationship.

This is one of the ones I did see earlier:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_…..870896.stm

In a statement, the White House said it “thanked the UK government for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information”.

It added that this would “preserve the long-standing intelligence sharing relationship that enables both countries to protect their citizens”.

A spokesman at the US Embassy in London added that it did not “threaten allies”.

Someone has pointed out that the foreign minister said one thing in a sworn certification to the court and another thing in Parliment.
He has apparently perjured himself somewhere.

I think the Britsh High COurt was trying to thread a needle. to put out enough info that public outcry would force the political arm of the gov’t to release the info.

Hopefully, their gamble will work

Today the Obama DOJ invoked sttes secrets in court to protect information about extrodinary rendition. To protect the airplane comapany that provided the flights