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CIA - "The dark side; that’s what we do."
by justin - CommonDreams Saturday, May 12 2012, 11:41pm
international / injustice/law / other press

Don't kid yourselves, CIA practices are not peculiar to so-called 'intelligence' (criminal) agencies. By way of backgrounding the following story I would relate some of my personal experiences with State crime and the criminals that work for government regulatory agencies.

In Sydney, AUSTRALIA, in the late 70's, I was lured to a location and confronted at gunpoint by what to me appeared to be low criminal scum. I was handcuffed and pummeled into the back seat/floor of a sedan -- no-one having identified themselves at that stage; however, it soon became apparent that my captors were NSW police detectives, as they joked while kicking me to the back of the head and ribs.

For those interested in my 'heinous' offense, I was an opiate user at the time suffering an addiction to heroin -- which I have long since overcome; therefore, to 'police' I was the scum of the earth that deserved no medical or other consideration, only abuse and physical TORTURE, as will soon be revealed.

The entire story has been 'fictionalized' here for those interested in a good read -- but for the purposes of this intro/background, I would detail one aspect of my horrendous experience with the AUSTRALIAN police and the local version of waterboarding.

After taking me to a local station, police began to 'interrogate' me in earnest -- corrupt police required information in order to continue the 'bust chain' of small users to make their 'books look good;' they were almost to a man, taking money from large crime organisations that flooded the streets with heroin.

Unfortunately for me and the police I had no information to give, so the bust chain stopped with me! To say that prospect frustrated the police, is understatement. They proceed to kick me in the testicles, bash me about the head with phonebooks and repeatedly hit me in the kidneys, finally they threatened to kill me if I didn't comply. However, there was nothing I could offer as the person who had set me up was my supplier!

After enduring six hours of terror and horrendous, brutal beatings, one detective brought a bucket of water and a beach towel into the 'interrogation' room and proceeded to soak the towel in the water until it was drenched; he then tightly wrapped the towel completely around my head -- note, I had been handcuffed and completely restrained during the entire 'interrogation.'

Well, I held my breath as long as possible, but soon involuntary gasps for air resulted in water being inhaled into my lungs, this was an excruciating and dreadful torture -- I gasped, choked, retched and passed out a number of times before these sadists ceased this particular torture and left me in a cell to recover or die, they clearly didn't give a damn either way!

Now this occurred in NSW Australia over forty years ago, I make the point to EMPHASIZE that STATE CRIMINALS and STATE CRIME is not a new phenomena it is a systemic SOCIAL DISEASE that must be eliminated. I would add I came from a respectable middle class family of professionals, with a member of my immediate family in the employ of the NSW State Attorney General at the time.

After my family realized what had happened to me they made vigorous protestations to the NSW police and State Attorney General only to have one 'police officer' visit my mother in the night to say that if I pursued charges against the police, "I would be found in a public toilet with a syringe in the back of my head!" Such are the 'honorable' behaviors of Australian police and other regulatory agencies.

As a direct result of this experience I undertook tertiary studies and became a very vocal advocate for Justice and have fought State Corruption ever since.

The following article reveals the same barbaric ideology at work in the United States, only worse! Please note that there is NEVER any justification for torture, NONE whatsoever!

Any person or organization that publicly admits to these practices must be IMMEDIATELY condemned and severely dealt with, as public admission is a (contrived/planned) method of anesthetizing the public to these inhuman, barbaric practices:

Why the CIA is Now Romanticizing 'Harsh Interrogation' Techniques
by Robert Crawford

José Rodriguez, former head of the CIA’s clandestine service, used these words in a "60 Minutes" interview last Sunday to defend the use of water-boarding and other "harsh interrogation" techniques on suspected terrorists. His self-assurance recalls the observation of General Taguba, the lead investigator into the abuses at Abu Ghraib, that "the only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account." Rodriguez’s new book, Harsh Measures is an undisguised justification of CIA torture.

Interviewer Leslie Stahl offered only mild push-back. The broadcast exemplifies the normalization of the monstrous, the transmutation of the radical and stunning reality of U.S. torture into a reasonable topic of "debate." There was no mention of the absolute, no-exceptions-permitted prohibition of torture under the Torture Convention and the Geneva Conventions; no mention of the U.S. Anti-Torture Statute or War Crimes Act; no acknowledgment that the so-called "torture memos," written in secret by the Bush administration and immediately rescinded by the Obama administration, were intended (in the words of a CIA official) as a "golden shield" against criminal prosecution.

Rodriguez claimed that 92 CIA videos of "harsh interrogation" methods were destroyed in order to protect interrogators from Al Qaeda reprisals, but the U.S. government can and regularly does hide the identity of Americans when releasing documents to the public. Missing from the "60 Minutes" exchange was any mention that the CIA was under court order to preserve the tapes, and that their destruction constituted a possible obstruction of justice. The entire discussion unfolded without any mention of the law.

Since Stahl omitted another critical question, I will ask it here: Why now? Why a CIA authorized book justifying CIA torture? There are two possible explanations. First, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) will soon release its long-awaited report on CIA torture. The report is expected to find no convincing evidence that harsh interrogation techniques led to any breakthroughs in the fight against terrorism. We should not be surprised if the CIA might want to preempt this inconvenient finding. How many will heed a report released by Senate Democrats compared to the high-profile interview and book tour of a tough CIA veteran pushing the romance of "dark-side" fixes to America’s security problems?

Second, Romney will soon be asked to clarify his pro-"enhanced interrogation" position, stated most clearly in the 2007-08 Republican primary. Will Romney stick by his defense of the Bush-Cheney program? The Rodriguez-CIA initiative might be designed to provide Romney with more "authoritative" support for his position.

Three responses are essential. First, the SSCI report should be completed and released soon -- with minimal redaction. While the report may sadly fail to address the crucial legal and moral issues at stake, I expect it will demonstrate both that claims of effectiveness are unsupported and that the damage to our nation’s reputation and national security has been severe. The report needs to receive full and sustained attention from the media.

Second, President Obama should avoid the politics of amnesia and speak out more forcefully against torture. His relative silence has ceded the initiative to defenders of "enhanced interrogation" methods. While Obama did issue a critical statement last November after several Republican presidential candidates endorsed coercive interrogations in a televised debate, he needs to do far more.

Finally, the vitality of our democratic republic requires all people of good conscience to condemn torture, recommit our nation to the respect of human rights, and call on our government to return to the rule of law by holding accountable those who committed war crimes. Just as Rodriguez should be more directly challenged for his defense of war crimes, the president should be equally challenged for his failure to live up to the rule of law, particularly his unwillingness to hold accountable those who ordered and administered torture in our name.

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