The military agency that provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for prisoners referred to the application of extreme duress as “torture” in a July 2002 document and warned that it would produce “unreliable information.” This according to the Washington Post. In an unsigned memo, the military’s Joint Personnel Recovery Agency said, “The unintended consequence of a U.S. policy that provides for the torture of prisoners is that it could be used by our adversaries as justification for the torture of captured U.S. personnel.”

The White House is joining Senate Democratic leaders in rejecting calls for a special commission to investigate the Bush administration’s torture of foreign prisoners. At a meeting with top Democrats, President Obama said he opposes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s call for establishing a torture panel. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsed Obama’s view, saying a commission would distract from top legislative priorities. Some progressive critics have argued a panel wouldn’t go far enough in seeking justice and have called for immediate indictments of the Bush officials who approved torture.

OK, week long news on torture here in the USA.

Obama Administration has to uphold the law!

Unbelievable President Obama….what a disgrace.

From the ACLU’s website…

On April 16, 2009, the Department of Justice released four secret memos used by the Bush administration to justify torture. Read the release >>

	A 18-page memo, dated August 1, 2002, from Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA. [PDF]
	A 46-page memo, dated May 10, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA. [PDF]
	A 20-page memo, dated May 10, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA. [PDF]
	A 40-page memo, dated May 30, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA. [PDF]

Demand Accountability for Torture! >>

The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report two years ago that the Bush administration’s treatment of prisoners “constituted torture” in violation of the Geneva Conventions. The findings were based on interviews with prisoners once held in the CIA’s secret black sites. The Red Cross said the fourteen prisoners held in the CIA prisons gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding. The author Mark Danner published parts of the secret Red Cross report in the New York Review of Books. Danner said the Red Cross’s use of the word “torture” has important legal implications. Danner said, “It could not be more important that the ICRC explicitly uses the words ‘torture’ and ‘cruel and degrading.’ The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, and when it uses those words, they have the force of law.”

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