Torture update

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern - It is bizarre; the Executive and Congress both live in fear of the thugs of the CIA, who have now been joined by Secretary of State John Kerry (probably after checking with the White House) issuing spurious warnings regarding the dangers of releasing the report -- as if the 'bad guys' have not yet heard of CIA torture...  Far too many 'notables' approved the torture or, at least, had guilty knowledge -- House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, for example."

Daily Beast  James Elmer Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen are not the first Americans to employ waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” against our enemies. But they are almost certainly the only ones to get rich doing it. And they might have gotten even richer. The Senate Intelligence Committee report says they secured a contract with the CIA in 2006 valued “in excess of $180 million.” The CIA canceled the deal three years later, but by then the duo had received $81 million. They had more than enough to build fabulous new domiciles that surely at least equal their wildest dreams. Mitchell’s pied a torture is in Florida. Records describe a waterfront residence on six-tenths of an acre and appraised at more than $880,000, with 4,233 square feet of living space, four bathrooms, a three-car garage, a pool, central air-conditioning, and a wooded walkway leading to a lakeside combination dock and gazebo. Jessen’s is in the state of Washington, situated on 15 acres and appraised at $1,599,900. Records describe this house as 6,916 square feet, with six bedrooms and eight bathrooms. An aerial image shows what appears to be a spa, roiling water apparently carrying no nasty connotations. “We are proud of the work we have done for our country,” Mitchell and Jessen have said in a joint statement  

Human Rights Watch - Make no mistake: the evidence is strong enough to formally investigate and likely prosecute CIA officers, contractors employed by the CIA, and senior U.S. government officials for a range of crimes, from torture and kidnapping to rape. These are crimes that violate U.S. law and, though they occurred years ago, in many cases can still be prosecuted, either because there is no applicable statute of limitation, or because actions by the CIA as recently as this year demonstrate an ongoing criminal conspiracy.

These crimes also violate many other countries’ laws, and countries in which some of the most egregious detainee abuse took place have a clear path toward opening their own investigations. Indeed, they are obligated to do so under the Convention against Torture. Beyond that, the principle of universal jurisdiction allows any country to prosecute alleged torturers. The prosecution of former U.S. officials by foreign governments might be politically unpalatable. But if the U.S won’t do it, someone has to. The victims of abuse deserve nothing less.

Glenn Greenwald -  What’s striking to me about the lying is just how clearly it shows that the CIA in many ways is operating outside the system of democratic accountability. It’d be wrong to say it’s like the CIA runs the country, since there’s a bunch of stuff they don’t really care about besides intelligence and so forth, but it certainly looks like they don’t really answer to anyone.

Andrew Sullivan - There is no organization in the US government that exercises the kind of power the CIA does–over the presidency, Congress, and the media," he writes. "It is unimaginable that any other agency in government could commit war crimes, torture innocents, murder people, wreck this country’s moral standing… and yet escape any consequences... There is no other government agency that launches elaborate public relations campaigns to discredit and undermine its Senate oversight committee. There is no other organization whose head can tell blatant lies about spying on its overseers and receive the president’s wholehearted support. There is no other agency where you can murder someone already in your captivity and get away with it.

John Brennan admitted that waterboarding detainees and threatening them with power drills was “abhorrent,” but refused to say it was torture -- or promise it wouldn't be used again.

Songs used to torture prisoners