Federal Court Gives “Early Christmas Present” to War Criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Others, Immunizing Them From Civil Inquiry Regarding Iraq War. ● Late Friday, a federal judge dismissed a civil claim filed against George W. Bush and other high-ranking officials regarding their conduct in planning and waging the Iraq War, and immunized them from further proceedings.

“This is an early Christmas present to former Bush Administration officials from the federal court,” Inder Comar of Comar Law said. Comar brought the claim on behalf of an Iraqi refugee and single mother, Sundus Shaker Saleh. “This was a serious attempt to hold US leaders accountable under laws set down at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. I am very disappointed at the outcome.”

The tribunal at Nuremberg, established in large part by the United States after World War II, declared international aggression the “supreme international crime” and convicted German leaders of waging illegal wars. The case alleged that George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz committed aggression in planning and waging the Iraq War. Specifically, the lawsuit claimed that high-ranking Bush officials used the fear of 9/11 to mislead the American public into supporting a war against Iraq, and that they issued knowingly false statements that Iraq was in league with Al-Qaeda and had weapons of mass destruction, when none of those things were true. “The decision guts Nuremberg,” Comar said. “Nuremberg said that domestic immunity was no defense to a claim of international aggression. This Court has said the opposite.”

Patrick Martin & David North ■ The New York Times calls for torture prosecutions || The editorial published Monday in the New York Times, headlined “Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses,” marks a new stage in the political crisis triggered by the publication of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture authorized by the Bush administration. The language of the editorial, beginning with the headline, is remarkably blunt in condemning the torture carried out in CIA secret prisons under the Bush administration. [...] In effect, the most influential newspaper in the United States has declared that the Bush administration was a criminal government.

In the film 'Zero Dark Thirty' she was known as 'Maya,' the CIA analyst who spent years tracking down Osama bin Laden. Her story is more complicated with its ties to rendition and torture, and now several news outlets have revealed her identity. ● In real life, however, her story is more complicated with ties to the rendition and torture of terrorist suspects, as well as a missed opportunity to head off the attacks of 9/11. And now she’s been forced out of the shadows with several news outlets revealing her identity. Most recently, that’s the website The Intercept, whose stated missions are “to provide a platform to report on the documents previously provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden” and “to produce fearless, adversarial journalism across a wide range of issues.” For years, the CIA has argued forcibly against naming the analyst, frequently referred to as a bin Laden expert. Some outlets, including the Associated Press have agreed to use only her middle name – Frances – since both her first and last names are unusual and easily identifiable.

The Intercept ■ Meet Alfreda Bikowsky, the Senior Officer at the Center of the CIA’s Torture Scandals

Buried accounts of horrors in the U.S.-led war on terror raise questions about the 9,000 documents still withheld by the CIA. ● After the release of the CIA torture report by Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) the world is reeling in shock at the level of brutality revealed in the documents. In fact, the whole report is nothing more than a confession of sadistic procedures that could have been lifted from the diaries of Torquemada, from “rectal feeding” to nude beatings and humiliation — horrors that were well-known but not officially confirmed. But the report remains incomplete. Indeed, some 9000 documents have been withheld. What new horrors could be discovered with the publication of these records? Perhaps the most gut-wrenching story to emerge from Bagram has been buried in the German media and remains unknown to much of the world. Published by German author and former politician Juergen Todenhoefer in his latest book, "Thou Shalt Not kill, the account stems from a visit to Kabul. At a local hotel, a former Canadian soldier and private security contractor named Jack told Todenhoefer why he could not longer stand working in Bagram. "It's not my thing when Afghans get raped by dogs,” Jack remarked.

Darkmoon ■ Rape dogs used by US in Afghanistan || It is no surprise that Todenhofer should be “roundly maligned by pro-Israel and US-friendly figures.” This is because any exposé of America’s torture regime, whether at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib or Bagram base, invariably leads to the subject of Israeli torture advisors standing by to offer hot tips to the Americans on the best torture techniques. “The CIA did not just emulate Israel’s legal system to sanction torture,” we read in a recent report, “but it copied the same Israeli torture methods.” (See "Israel — America’s Torture Consultant“)

After Donald Rumsfeld testified on the Hill about Abu Ghraib in May, there was talk of more photos and video in the Pentagon’s custody more horrific than anything made public so far. “If these are released to the public, obviously it’s going to make matters worse,” Rumsfeld said. Since then, the Washington Post has disclosed some new details and images of abuse at the prison. But if Seymour Hersh is right, it all gets much worse. Hersh gave a speech last week to the ACLU making the charge that children were sodomized in front of women in the prison, and the Pentagon has tape of it. The speech was first reported in a New York Sun story last week, which was in turn posted on Jim Romenesko’s media blog, and now EdCone.com and other blogs are linking to the video.

Possibilité que Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et des fonctionnaires de la CIA soient jugés pour torture? Demande de procès pour crime de guerre déposée en Allemagne. ● Un groupe de défense des droits à Berlin, en Allemagne, a déposé une plainte pénale contre les architectes du programme de torture de l’administration de George W. Bush. Le Centre européen pour les droits constitutionnels et les droits humains (ECCHR) a accusé les anciens fonctionnaires de l’administration Bush, y compris l’ancien directeur de la CIA George Tenet, le secrétaire à la Défense Donald Rumsfeld, de crimes de guerre, et a appelé à une enquête immédiate par un procureur allemand. Le mouvement suit la publication d’un rapport du Sénat sur ​​la torture de la CIA qui comprend le cas d’un citoyen allemand Khalid El-Masri, qui a été capturé par les agents de la CIA en 2004 en raison d’une erreur d’identité et torturé dans une prison secrète en Afghanistan. Jusqu’à présent, aucune personne impliquée dans la programme de torture de la CIA a été accusé d’un crime – sauf le dénonciateur John Kiriakou, qui avait révélé des informations classifiées concernant l’usage de la torture par l’administration Bush. (…)

According to a new poll released Tuesday by The Washington Post and ABC News, a majority of Americans believe that torture of suspected terrorists can be justified — even in the wake of graphic revelations by a Senate Intelligence Committee report of exactly what such tactics look like. That public approval conceals partisan differences, as colleagues Adam Goldman and Peyton Craighill write:

Views on the CIA’s tactics break down sharply along ideological lines. Liberal Democrats are most disgusted with the agency’s actions, while conservative Republicans are most likely to defend it. Democrats who identify as moderate or conservative are more supportive of the program, joining majorities of independents and Republicans who say it was justified.

Those ideological poles at opposite ends of public opinion aren't that surprising. But the distribution of demographic groups between them is. A majority of nearly every group — non-whites, women, young adults, the elderly, Midwesterners, suburbanites, Catholics, moderates, the wealthy — said that torture of suspected terrorists can be often or sometimes justified.

Mike Shedlock ■ New Poll Shows US Citizens in Every Demographic Support Torture

Former White House Counsel & key witness in the 'Watergate' investigation John Dean tells Larry why Obama was easy prey for America's 'shadow government' of national security agencies. Plus, what he says Obama does that probably has Nixon smiling.

According to a number of global mainstream media sources, the Pentagon is covering up a disturbing video that was never made public with the rest of the recent torture report. According to various well respected journalists, including Seymour Hersh, the appalling video was recorded at Abu Ghraib, the notorious US torture dungeon in Iraq that made headlines roughly a decade ago, when the inhumane tactics being used at the prison were exposed. Sadly, it seems that the evidence released years ago was only scratching the surface. While the video has remained under wraps thus far, Hersh says it is only a matter of time before it comes out.

Physicians for Human Rights had not received any response from the US Federal Commission to their call to investigate the role of health professionals in CIA’s torture program, Deputy Director of the organization told Sputnik. ● US government has not responded to calls to prosecute doctors, who participated in CIA torture program, the Deputy Director of Communications for Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) told Sputnik News Agency. Earlier this week, PHR published expert analysis of CIA Torture Report and called for US Federal Commission to hold health professionals accountable. “Physicians for Human Rights have not received any response directly from the government, regarding our call for a federal commission to investigate the role of health professionals in CIA’s torture program,” Deputy Director of Communications for Physicians for Human Rights Vesna Jaksic Lowe said. Two former military psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, played a key role in the CIA torture program, according to the US Senate Select Committee’s report. The contractors received $81 million for developing an interrogation method to deal with Al-Qaeda detainees. Their potential violations include intentional harm on detainees, human subject research, failing to document evidence of torture and profiting from the torture program.

Thierry Meyssan ■ Publicly released excerpts of the report of the Senate Committee on the CIA’s secret torture program reveal a vast criminal organization. Thierry Meyssan has read for you the 525 pages of this document. He found evidence of what he has been saying for years. ● The declassified portion corresponds to only one-twelfth of the initial report. The report itself does not address the vast removal and sequestration system that the US Navy had put in place during the terms of President George W. Bush; a program that has led to worldwide kidnapping and sequestration of more than 80 000 people aboard 17 flat-bottomed boats stationed in international waters (these ships are: USS Bataan, USS Peleliu, USS Ashland, USNS Stockham, USNS Watson, USNS Watkins, USNS Sister, USNS Charlton, USNS Pomeroy, USNS Red Cloud, USNS Soderman, USNS Dahl MV PFC William B Baugh, Alex Bonnyman MV, MV Franklin J Phillips, MV Huage Louis J Jr, James Anderson Jr. MV). It is content to study 119 cases of human guinea pigs subjected to psychological experiments in Guantánamo and fifty secret prisons from 2002 to late 2009, a year after the election of Barack Obama. ● The extracts of the report do not indicate the criteria by which these human guinea pigs were chosen. They merely state that each prisoner denounced the following, while indicating that the confessions were not coerced but learned. In other words, the CIA sought to justify its choices by making denunciations post. In the initial report, the names of agents and contractors of the CIA involved have been replaced by pseudonyms. In addition, the declassified extracts were widely censored, mainly to clear the names of foreign accomplices of the CIA.

Tom Carter ■ This is the first of three articles summarizing the contents of the unclassified executive summary of the US Senate Intelligence Committee’s 6,700-page report on the CIA torture program, released last week. The US Senate Intelligence Committee Report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s “enhanced interrogation program” exposes the CIA as a globe-spanning enterprise of criminality, deceit, and violence—as well as rank incompetence, petty intriguing, and porno-sadistic depravity.

xymphora ■ There is almost nothing new in the Torture Report, except perhaps for demonstrating how obsessed the CIA is with the male butt. I wonder if they have some kind of 'fruit machine' to determine whether someone is qualified to join the CIA interrogation squad. Don't you know your queen? [...] We could even go further back to the Executive Intelligence Review News Service, 2005: "DIA Proof Of Cheney's Lies Released" (based on the CIA's President's Daily Briefing of September 21, 2001, before Ibn Shaykh al-Libi had been captured and interrogated by the Americans, and before his rendition to Egypt, where torture created his testimony of an Iraq-al Qaeda connection). This means that the intelligence community knew the stories they were creating using torture were lies. The newest revelation, separate from the Torture Report, is that Levin has details from the classified March 2003 - just before the American attack on Iraq started - CIA cable warning that the allegation that Mohamed Atta had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague was false. Ironically, it appears that Brennan has released this in order to attempt to protect the CIA's reputation by emphasizing that Bush/Cheney/Powell had been given due warning from the CIA that the propaganda basis for the American attack on Iraq was a lie.

Photos allegedly depict soldiers raping and sexually abusing prisoners. ● Thousands of images depicting U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan may be released this week following the Senate's 'torture report'. The images, part of a collection from 203 investigations into detainee abuse by U.S. military, are said to depict horrifying methods of torture. One photo reportedly shows an American soldier raping a female prisoner, while other pictures allegedly depict sexual assaults on prisoners with truncheons, wire and a phosphorescent tube. Some of the photographs were initially set to be released in 2009, but were blocked after President Obama backtracked, stating that it could pose a safety risk to troops on the ground. In May 2009, Obama claimed publishing the pictures would inflame anti-American feeling in Iraq and Afghanistan.

‘They need to know that they’ll run into severe trouble’ if they enter Europe. Wolfgang Kaleck represented Khaled El Masri, who was tortured by the CIA. ● A leading German human rights lawyer has called on prosecutors across Europe to “get active” and prepare to seize any CIA agents and US officials involved in torture who enter their territories. Wolfgang Kaleck said the US Senate committee report on CIA torture was giving new impetus to European resolve to hold those in positions of power responsible for the use of unacceptable interrogation techniques. “We’re preparing reams of dossiers, and demanding of prosecutors that they do the same for those who are named in the report and those known as the higher-ups who directed and conducted this system,” said Kaleck, the director of the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) in Berlin. “If these people enter European territory, they need to know that they’ll run into severe trouble,” he told the Guardian. The Senate intelligence committee concluded that the CIA misled the White House, the Justice Department, Congress and the public over a torture programme, launched in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, which was both ineffective and more brutal than the agency disclosed.

The BRussells Tribunal ■ Torture: Accountability - YES. Impunity - NO (Petition)
Matthew Schofield ■ Yet no apology: CIA’s mistaken detention destroyed German man’s life
RT.com: Cheney defends CIA torture, calls interrogators heroes
PressTV: UK parliament inquiry mulls summoning Blair, Straw
The Daily Mail: Now put Blair and Straw on trial for torture
Patrick Martin ■ Cheney on CIA torture: “I’d do it again in a minute”
Washington's Blog ■ US Government Officials Admit: We’ll Torture Again, Unless You Prosecute Us
Robert Fisk ■ Once again language is distorted in order to hide US state wrongdoing
RT.com: 'Stripped naked, kept in solitary': Manning tortured like terrorist

Alex Lantier ■ The defense of CIA torture by Marine Le Pen, the president of France’s neo-fascist National Front and 2017 French presidential hopeful, testifies to the bankruptcy and criminality of Europe’s political establishment. ● Asked about the US Senate’s torture report on BFM-TV, she said the United States should stop “giving morality lessons to the whole world,” but defended the CIA: “I am not going to condemn this ... On such subjects, it is pretty easy to come on television and say ‘Oh my God, that’s awful.’” Asked if one could use torture, she replied: “Yes, yes, of course, it has been used historically. I think people who take care of terrorists and therefore of getting information out of them that saves civilian lives are responsible people.”

Le Monde: Torture: les propos de Marine Le Pen, dans la lignée de son père
DW: CIA morale 'deeply hurt' following Senate report
Malaysia Insider: US may have had ‘black site’ in Romania, says ex spy chief
The Guardian: US hid UK links in CIA torture report at request of British spy agencies
Wayne Madsen ■ U.S. Senate Torture Report Exposes Eastern European Torture Lackeys of Washington
Melvin A. Goodman ■ Torture Report Exposes Sadism and Lies
Scott McPherson ■ Torture Report Reveals Brutality, Dishonesty

Legality - The Last Resort of A Scoundrel: Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr has stated that the CIA's interrogation methods are legal and the recent Senate report does not offer the American people any new knowledge. ● The enhanced interrogation techniques, used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and described in a recent Senate report, may be alarming to US citizens, but are justifiable from the legal perspective, incoming Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr has told Sputnik. "We may look back and say we should never do this again, that is fine. But it was legal, it was directed by the [US] president and the individuals were cleared by the Justice Department," Burr said Thursday. The senator added that the new report on CIA activities, released by the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday, does not offer the American people any new knowledge.

Xymphora ■ The CIA: Deep torture
Paul Craig Roberts ■ The CIA’s Torture Program
Igor Volsky ■ 17 Disgraceful Facts Buried In The Senate’s 600 Page Torture Report
CIA chief challenges torture report claims, defends Bush-era tactics (RT.com)
Former CIA directors defend waterboarding, rectal rehydration (RT.com)
10 most shocking facts we found in CIA torture report (RT.com)

“The content of this shocking report shows violence, extremism, and secrecy as institutionalized in the US security system,” Afkham said in a statement on Wednesday. She voiced concerns that the “illegal processes and inhumane measures” presented in the report “still continue and there has been no guarantee from the US government to prevent the repetition of such disasters.” The report has drawn harsh criticism from the United Nation and prominent rights groups, which have called for prosecution of those responsible for the use of torture during the George W. Bush administration.

PressTV: Russia slams CIA torture revelations as ‘shocking’
HuffPo: More Than A Quarter Of The World's Countries Helped The CIA Run Its Torture Program
CNN: World reacts to U.S. torture report
PressTV: CIA operates outside law, without oversight: Barry Grossman
ABC.net.au: Poland hosted CIA 'black sites'; China joins countries condemning US actions
■ "U.S. Tortured and Killed Innocent People for the Specific Purpose of Producing False Propaganda"
Chris Floyd ■ Obama and the Senate Report: Torture is Good?

For four years, according to Central Intelligence Agency records, no one from the agency ever came to the Oval Office to give President George W. Bush a full briefing on what was happening American officials did in the dark dungeons of Afghanistan and Eastern Europe. For four years, interrogators stripped, slammed and soaked their prisoners without the president’s being told exactly what was going on. By the time the C.I.A. director came in April 2006 to give Mr. Bush the agency’s first briefing about the interrogation techniques it had been using since 2002, more than three dozen prisoners had already been subjected to them. And when told about one detainee being chained to the ceiling of his cell, clothed in a diaper and forced to urinate and defecate on himself, even a president known for his dead-or-alive swagger “expressed discomfort,” according to a report released Tuesday.

Barry Grey ■ CIA torture and the crimes of the state || The Intelligence Committee Democrats, led by Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, do not name a single top Bush administration official, limiting their exposé to former high-ranking CIA officials. There are no formal proposals or calls for criminal prosecutions or other actions to hold those responsible for these heinous actions accountable. The report seeks to maintain the absurd fiction that the torture program was an isolated aberration, involving only a handful of operatives. In fact, the program of CIA torture was planned, implemented and monitored at the highest levels of the state.

Threatened to sexually assault the wife of one detainee and cut the throat of another prisoner's mother
Hypothermia, Broken Limbs, and Rectal Feeding: Details from the CIA Torture Report
The Nazis Used the Same “Enchanced Interrogation” Techniques the U.S. Did
RT.com: Facing justice: UN, HRW, Amnesty call for prosecuting US officials for torture
Le Monde: Tortures de la CIA : la complicité des pays européens
New York Times: Report Portrays a "Broken C.I.A." [nonsense] Devoted to a Failed Approach
CNN: Senate report: CIA misled public on torture
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey ■ CIA files: Can pigs fly?
Eric London ■ Brutal torture detailed in Senate report on CIA interrogation

The CIA is bracing for what could be one of the most damaging moments in its history: a public airing of its "post-9/11" embrace of torture. ● The Senate intelligence committee is poised to release a landmark inquiry into torture as early as Tuesday, after the Obama administration made a last-ditch effort to suppress a report that has plunged relations between the CIA and its Senate overseer to a historic low point. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday the administration welcomed the release of the report, but warned US interests overseas were at risk of potentially violent reactions to its contents. Despite months of negotiation over how much of the 6,000-page report will be declassified, most of its findings will never see the light of the day. But even a partial release of the report will yield a furious response from the CIA and its allies.

RT.com: Senate accuses CIA of torturing prisoners, overstepping legal boundaries
HuffPo: With CIA Torture Report Set For Controversial Release, Washington Braces For Fallout

Paul Craig Roberts ■ UN Torture Report Condemns US Government As The Leading Violator Of Human Rights. A report on the UN document is available HERE. The text of the UN report on the US is available HERE.

The United Nations harshly criticized the United States on Friday for torturing detainees in prison, the militarization of police and "numerous reports" of police brutality against minorities. ● A report by the UN Committee against Torture concluded that the US has failed to comply with international anti-torture treaties, citing police shootings of unarmed black youth, military interrogations, maximum security prisons and extensive use of solitary confinement among areas of concern. The UN Convention's first review of the US record on preventing torture since 2006 came amid high tensions and violent protests in the US against a grand jury's decision to exonerate a white police officer after he shot dead a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, last summer. The UN committee cited deep concern about the frequent sexual assault of inmates, shackling of pregnant women in some prisons, racial profiling, as well as the "excruciating pain and prolonged suffering” of prisoners during "botched executions."

The WAFA News Agency said the child, Khader al-‘Ajlouni, 16 years of age, was pushed down a flight of stairs at the police station, and suffered serious injuries to his neck, arms and back. It added that the child was transferred to a hospital in the city after becoming unable to move one of his arms and one of his legs. Also in Jerusalem, small groups of Israeli extremists invaded the yards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque through the al-Magharba Gate, under heavy Israeli military presence. Late on Tuesday at night, Israeli soldiers invaded a number of homes in the occupied city, and kidnapped several children, before taking them to an interrogation facility.

PressTV: Israel continues to abuse, torture Palestinian minors || The Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC) said some 40 percent of Palestinian children are reportedly subjected to sexual abuse during interrogation. It said Israeli soldiers have arrested more than 600 Palestinian children in al-Quds (Jerusalem) since June 2013.

More than 10,000 Palestinian children have served time in Israeli jails since 2000, PA Minister in charge of prisoners’ affairs Issa Qaraqaa said in a press release on Wednesday. ● The statement came on the anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 November 1989 and entered into force on 2 September 1990. 300 Palestinian children are currently held behind Israeli bars, according to the statement. ● Since June 2014, Israeli occupation forces arrested nearly 3,000 Palestinian citizens, 30% of whom were children. Most of the reported arrests were carried out in occupied Jerusalem, where 850 Jerusalemites were nabbed during the reporting period. ● 95% of the detained children were subjected to torture and severe beating during their arrest and investigation process as part of the Israeli policy to forcibly extract confessions from the detainees, Qaraqaa added. ● The minister for prisoners’ affairs called for cancelling the Israeli bill to impose additional penalties on Palestinian children, who throw stones at Israeli soldiers, that could reach 20-year imprisonment sentences. Israel does not provide any immunity for children and regularly violates international agreements on children's rights by humiliating and torturing them and denying them fair trials, the PA official concluded.

Thomas Gaist ■ A recent report to the UN Committee Against Torture concludes that the US presidential administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama are responsible for far-reaching violations of international law for directing and covering up a global torture program developed by the US Central Intelligence Agency in the years following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The report, prepared by the “Advocates for US Torture Prosecutions,” Dr. Trudy Bond, Prof. Benjamin Davis, Dr. Curtis F. J. Doebbler, and The International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, states unequivocally that entire sections of the state apparatus are responsible for “breathtaking” crimes against international law.

Say American leaders have “eroded the very freedoms and rights that generations of their young gave their lives to defend”. ● Twelve winners of the Nobel Peace Prize asked President Barack Obama late Sunday to make sure that a Senate report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of harsh interrogation tactics is released so the U.S. can put an end to a practice condemned by many as torture. The release of the report, which is the most detailed account of the CIA’s interrogation practices in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, would be an opportunity for the U.S. and the world to come to terms with interrogation techniques that went too far, the laureates said in an open letter and petition. The release of the report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has stalled as the Obama Administration the CIA, and lawmakers clashed over how much of it should be redacted.