UK government lies over torture, Damning documentary evidence unveiled

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Damning documentary evidence unveiled. Dissident bloggers in coordinated exposé of UK government lies over torture.

Help us beat the British government's gagging order by mirroring this information on your own site or blog!

Constituent: "This question is for Mr Straw; Have you ever read any
documents where the intelligence has been procured through torturous means?"

Jack Straw: "Not to the best of my knowledge... let me make this clear... the British government does not support torture in any circumstances. Full stop. We do not support the obtaining of intelligence by torture, or its use." - Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, election hustings, Blackburn, April 2005

I was summoned to the UK for a meeting on 8 March 2003. Michael Wood gave his legal opinion that it was not illegal to obtain and to use intelligence acquired by torture... On behalf of the intelligence services, Matthew Kydd said that they found some of the material very useful indeed with a direct bearing on the war on terror. Linda Duffield said that she had been asked to assure me that my qualms of conscience were respected and understood. - Ambassador Craig Murray, memo to the Foreign Office, July 2004

With Tony Blair and Jack Straw cornered on extraordinary rendition, the UK government is particularly anxious to suppress all evidence of our complicity in obtaining intelligence extracted by foreign torturers.

The British Foreign Office is now seeking to block publication of Craig Murray's forthcoming book, which documents his time as Ambassador to Uzbekistan. The Foreign Office has demanded that Craig Murray remove all references to two especially damning British government documents, indicating that our government was knowingly receiving information extracted by the Uzbeks through torture, and return every copy that he has in his possession.
Instead, the documents are today being published simultaneously on blogs all around the world.
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Holy Moly I've gotten hits!

Wow just checked my "Hit" counter my new lil' site for the first time. I've
gotten a few hits! Sorry for the sparse postings. We have a new 12 year old
adopted daughter!! Say hello to Brittany!! Back of boys!
Just ONE of the reasons my posting is sparse
Merry Christmas ALL! Happy Holidays Bill (dumbass) O'Reilly, add me
to your naught list.

More tells of prison torture and "Death Squads" in Bushopotamia

I'm sure dubya's man in Iraq, John "Death squads" Negroponte has heard
nothing about this.

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oldamericancentury
turkishpress

Iraqi general tells of prison torture horror
AMMAN - An Iraqi general formerly in charge of special forces said on Sunday he witnessed horrific scenes of torture in Iraqi prisons and accused a Shiite militia of being responsible.
"It was horrific. Thousands of detainees, often teenagers, beaten, burned, receiving electric shocks, then the majority killed," Muntazar al-Samarrai, who fled Iraq for Jordan five months ago, told AFP.

In video footage Samarrai said he filmed at one detention center, men show whip marks and acid burns. One of them has lost an eye. Another's legs are broken. Still another has nails driven into his body.

The video also shows the mutilated corpses of three men who Samarrai said died as a result of torture.

Samarrai, 45, a Sunni Arab with a long career in the military, left Iraq for Jordan in July after two attempts on his life, yet said he remained convinced he had to tell of the abuses he had witnessed in numerous clandestine prisons, which he had visited as part of his work.

He said Iraq's Interior Minister Bayan Jabr Solagh had named as ministry policemen 17,000 fighters from the Badr organization, the disarmed militia of the pro-Iranian Shiite fundamentalist Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

The ministry forces "continued to receive salaries from Tehran," and "spoke amongst themselves in Farsi," he said.

Samarrai said the interior ministry chiefs were all members of SCIRI or the Shiite Dawa party and that the prisoners were "all Sunnis."

"The torturers were all Iranians or Iraqis who had lived in Iran and had come to Iraq after the (US-led) invasion" in 2003, he added.

Samarrai said he began to encounter problems with his superiors in the interior ministry after he fired a 14-member inquiry commission and replaced it with what he called "men of integrity," and also freed 124 "innocent" detainees from a facility north of Baghdad.

Last month, the US military said it dismantled one of Iraq's secret detention facilities in Baghdad, but Samarrai said nine other such facilities are lurking throughout the country.

Three are located in the Iraqi capital, the largest of which holds 600 detainees, and at least three more are in largely Shiite regions of the country, he said.

He also said there are two detention centers for women in Baghdad where "female prisoners are tortured and raped."

The testimony given by a Shiite woman during ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's trial last week "could have been the testimony of a female prisoner in one of these centers. Nothing has changed," he said.

Samarrai was making reference to "Witness A," who testified on December 6 with a chilling account of how she was tortured by intelligence agents and flung into Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib jail in the early 1980s for four years.

US forces announced on December 2 that they would conduct surprise inspections on Iraqi prisons to assure that detainees are not victimized by Iraqi guards.

Samarrai said US forces "should be aware of what is happening. Arrests are made during night-time raids when a curfew should be in effect, and vehicles used by the interior ministry are clearly visible."

Samarrai, a father of four, said he plans to move to another undisclosed location shortly, though he would never have left Iraq had he not realized his life was in danger.

He said he was proud to have been able to free some detainees before he left, the last of whom was a Muslim religious leader Abdel Karim Abdel Razzak, who recently told Arab television of how Samarrai liberated him.

Richard, 1940-2005

Another great one died. I'll leave it to
firedoglake
and
digby
among others to give him the words he deserves. I caught his original
appearance on Saturday Night Live in the seventies and saw comic genius.


Richard Pryor, 1940-2005

The great Richard Pryor died today:
There is an entire generation or two around today that don't really
know Pryor in his prime, and it's hard to explain in retrospect.
Sure, he brought the "N word" to vogue; but that doesn't even begin
to touch upon the magic. He came off as a God child; angry and
remorseful about the state of race relations, but at the same
time amused and dismissive of it - he grasped the absurdity of
it, and threw it back out there for people to see.

"Why they never have a hero - a black hero? I always wanted to
go in the movies and see a black hero. I figured out maybe some
day on television they'll have it, man - like you see on the
television, they come out, 'Look- up in the sky! It's a crow!
It's a bat! No - it's Supernigger! Yes, friends, Supernigger!
Able to leap tall buildings with a single bound! Faster than
a bowl of chitlins! We find Supernigger with his X-ray vision,
that enables him to see through everything except whitey."

To say that Pryor's career skyrocketed would be an
understatement. If all the researched dates are right, he
would have reappeared in '72, went straight into "Lady Sings
the Blues," for which he received an Oscar nomination, helped
write Lily Tomlin's legendary TV special, was then up for the
lead in "Blazing Saddles" but couldn't be used because of the
controversial nature of his stand-up act, and instead co-wrote
the film with Mel Brooks, then wrote for -and appeared on -
"The Flip Wilson Show." Then he recorded his act and released
"That Nigger's Crazy" in 1974, and busted the charts. The next
year, he recorded live again and put out "Is It Something I
Said?," and busted the charts. Again. The next year he felt
patriotic and released "Bicentennial Nigger," and busted the
charts yet again.

Then, in succession "Car Wash," "Silver Streak," "Which Way
is Up?," "Blue Collar," "The Wiz," "Stir Crazy," "Bustin'
Loose" and finally his amazing "Live on Sunset Strip" in
1982. Richard Pryor had done more than capture the attention
of America; he had unlocked the door. The man who was "too
controversial" to star in "Blazing Saddles" in 1974 had
hosted the Oscars twice, appeared as a presenter twice
more and guested on Johnny Carson three times. No matter
what well-earned reputation he has in the pantheon of
comedy, it has to be remembered how much he contributed
towards the "normalization" of blacks in Hollywood.
Richard Pryor always knew better than to become too
respectable, and maybe that was simply due to a massive
self-destructive streak, I don't know. But one of the
mistakes he never made was to become what he despised.

Sixty five years was just way too short.


--Jane at firedoglake

Dubya's favorite Democrat

Lonely Lieberman:
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), yesterday
on the Bill Press Show: “I’ve spoken to Joe Lieberman and he knows
he’s out there alone. I mean, literally alone. Joe is a fine man,
he has strong feelings, but he’s just alone. Even Republicans
don’t agree with Joe.”

Audio
Sources:

Atrios

thinkprogress

Rain

I hear the rain in early dawn
it wakes me from my sleep alone
the sweetest sound, the sound of home
and the whisper, the murmour
of voices long gone
just a beat of sadness
against my windowpane
just a song of heartbreak
calling out your name
--RDean'85, (this poem is 20 years old and
it's STILL a work in progress)

Bloody dubya

From:

Americablog

White House still pushing torture

The Bush/Cheney torture squad is still alive and kicking:
The White House is seeking a compromise with a leading Senate Republican over its efforts to exempt the CIA from a proposed ban on torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners, President George W. Bush's national security adviser said on Sunday.

"We are working hard in good faith on both sides to come up with an approach that can be supported by the president and the Congress, to both find a way to be aggressive in the war on terror and still comply with U.S. law," national security adviser Stephen Hadley said on "Fox News Sunday."
Now that sounds good, but it's code for saying the White House is opposed to the ban on torture.

We're having a debate in America about allowing torture. What a great legacy for the Bush/Cheney team.

Star nursery

Aah, this helps me put dubya and his band of privateers
in perspective.....I wish I had a small fast ship and could visit a few of these
....just once...is all I ask..

Top Ten

From David Letterman:

BREAKING!! Top Ten New President Bush Strategies For Victory in Iraq...

10. Make an even larger 'Mission Accomplished' sign

9. Encourage Iraqis to settle their feud like Dave and Oprah

8. Put that go-getter Michael Brown in charge

7. Launch slogan, 'It's not Iraq, it's Weraq'

6. Just do whatever he did when he captured Osama

5. A little more vacation time at the ranch to clear his head

4. Pack on a quick 30 pounds and trade places with Jeb

3. Wait, you mean it ain't going well?

2. Boost morale by doing his hilarious 'Locked Door' gag

1. Place Saddam back in power and tell him, 'It's your problem now, dude'

atrios

Well deserved

O'Really wins big

From the November 30 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann:

KEITH OLBERMANN (host): But first, time for Countdown's list of today's three nominees for the coveted title of "Worst Person in the World."

The bronze goes to Bill O'Reilly. He has solidified in his status as this generation's Joe McCarthy. Just like the "Red Baiter," he now has his own list. His website reads: "The following media operations have regularly helped distribute defamation and false information supplied by far left Web sites." The list: the New York Daily News, the St. Petersburg Times, and MSNBC! You call it defamation, Bill. We call it precise quotes from your show.

The runner-up: Bill O'Reilly. On the Today show, no less. Now how the hell did that happen? Says, quote, "These pinheads running around going, 'Get out of Iraq now,' don't know what they're talking about. These are the same people before Hitler invaded in World War II that were saying, 'Ah, he's not such a bad guy.' " Watch. That will turn up tomorrow on his list of defamations.

But tonight's winner: Bill O'Reilly! You know this whole attack on Christmas nonsense that he made up? Some sort of fantasy in which the liberals are coming to your town to force you and your family to not call it Christmas anymore? The fantasy that we can't say "Merry Christmas," but you can only say "Happy Holidays"? The thing designed to stir up religious hatred and paranoia in this country? Guess what they're selling over at the Fox News online store? The Fox News "Holiday" ornament! And the O'Reilly Factor "Holiday" ornament. Who is trying to change "Merry Christmas" into "Happy Holidays"? Bill O'Reilly, that's who. Today's worst person in the world!

Contact:
Bill O'Reilly--oreilly@foxnews.com

Contact:

Olbermann

MSNBC TV
One MSNBC Plaza
Secaucus, N.J. 07094
MSNBC contacts