Mark Danner: "US Torture - Voices from the Black Sites"

Related Post: Red Cross - The US Tortured Detainees in CIA “Black Sites”

The opening of Mark Danner's article from The New York Review of Books:

We think time and elections will cleanse our fallen world but they will not. Since November, George W. Bush and his administration have seemed to be rushing away from us at accelerating speed, a dark comet hurtling toward the ends of the universe. The phrase "War on Terror"—the signal slogan of that administration, so cherished by the man who took pride in proclaiming that he was "a wartime president"—has acquired in its pronouncement a permanent pair of quotation marks, suggesting something questionable, something mildly embarrassing: something past. And yet the decisions that that president made, especially the monumental decisions taken after the attacks of September 11, 2001—decisions about rendition, surveillance, interrogation—lie strewn about us still, unclaimed and unburied, like corpses freshly dead.

How should we begin to talk about this? Perhaps with a story. Stories come to us newborn, announcing their intent: Once upon a time... In the beginning... From such signs we learn how to listen to what will come. Consider:

I woke up, naked, strapped to a bed, in a very white room. The room measured approximately 4m x 4m [13 feet by 13 feet]. The room had three solid walls, with the fourth wall consisting of metal bars separating it from a larger room. I am not sure how long I remained in the bed....

A man, unnamed, naked, strapped to a bed, and for the rest, the elemental facts of space and of time, nothing but whiteness.

Red Cross: The US Tortured Detainees in CIA "Black Sites"

From today's New York Times:

The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda captives "constituted torture," a finding that strongly implied that CIA interrogation methods violated international law, according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document.

The article continues:

The report, an account alleging physical and psychological brutality inside CIA "black site" prisons, also states that some U.S. practices amounted to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Such maltreatment of detainees is expressly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

The findings were based on an investigation by ICRC officials, who were granted exclusive access to the CIA's "high-value" detainees after they were transferred in 2006 to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 14 detainees, who had been kept in isolation in CIA prisons overseas, gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding, or simulating drowning.

The Times report is based on an article in The New York Review of Books by Mark Danner, who obtained a copy of the Red Cross's findings. Danner quotes the specific claim of the ICRC, "The ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture."

The response of the US Government? ""It is important to bear in mind that the report lays out claims made by the terrorists themselves." Officially, the Bush Administration only admitted to the use of "waterboarding" against three "high-value" suspects and claimed that the practice was halted in 2004.

The leak of the ICRC report follows last week's publication of a United Nations report that a US-led system authorised torture, a Center for Constitutional Rights study of continuing abuses at Guantanamo Bay,  and a Human Rights Watch report that Britain "colluded" in the torture of detainees.

Breaking News: Khatami Withdraws from Iran Presidential Election

Former President Mohammad Khatami (pictured) has withdrawn from June's Presidential election in Iran to "back another moderate candidate who will be announced shortly in a statement". Khatami met another candidate, former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi, on Sunday.

The move appears to be an attempt to unify "reformists" behind a leading candidate in the June primary against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and possibly Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

Pakistan: The Long March of Victory?

12 noon GMT: Imran Khan, the leader of the Tehrik-i-Insaf (Pakistan for Justice) party, has told the media that Supreme Court Chief Justice Chaudhry was "restored by the power of the masses". He called for cases of detentions and missing persons to be pursued by the courts.

10:15 a.m. GMT: Scenes of celebration and dancing at Iftikhar Chaudhry's house. Dawn reporter Musadiq Sanwal writes, "Only thing everybody is saying is that this is beginning of a revolution and they expect a lot more to happen.

Morning Update (5:45 a.m. GMT): The overnight news is stunning. In the early-morning hours, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani addressed the nation and announced the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry (pictured) and almost 50 judges forced from their positions by Pervez Musharraf, President Asif Ali Zardari's predecessor. Hundreds of activists have been released from detention.

On the political front, Gillani confirmed the news that the Government will pursue a review of the court ruling that disqualified the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), Nawaz Sharif, and his brother Shahbaz, the Governor of Punjab, from public office.

Sharif reacted with the statement, "We are now calling off this long march," saying that the decision was made after discussions with lawyers and other political leaders such as Imran Khan. He continued, "Very soon we will play our role in implementing real democracy in this country."

A cautious but welcoming American reaction came through the US Embassy in Pakistan, "This is a statesmanlike decision taken to defuse a serious confrontation, and the apparent removal of this long-standing national issue is a substantial step towards national reconciliation."

The speed of the Zardari Government's concession to its legal and political opponents is almost breath-taking. As late as Sunday morning, the President was holding out against the restoration of Chaudhry, partly because of the legal difficulties it might cause for him, partly because it would hand a notable victory to the political opposition in general and Nawaz Sharif in particular.

Why Zardari gave in will be the subject of speculation today, but his political support was crumbling, with the resignations of former allies such as Information Minister Sherry Rahman as well as leading security commanders. As early as Thursday, Washington had made clear that it wanted a compromise with the opposition, and the presence of the head of the Pakistani military, Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, at yesterday's Zardari-Gillani meetings is a signal that the military was looking for a settlement.

Indeed, according to sources speaking to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Kiani's intervention was the catalyst for Zardari's concessions. He told the President and Prime Minister "that they needed to reverse some of the controversial decisions before the situation spiralled out of control....It was after his not-so-veiled warning that the two top civilian leaders agreed to roll back some of the controversial decisions of the previous and present governments."

Flashback: Jon Stewart, Politics, and Crossfire in 2004

Related Post: Jon Stewart: Can “Mainstream” Media Put Him Back in His Box?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE[/youtube]

One of the delicious ironies of the post-mortem of The Daily Show-CNBC clash, which we've covered elsewhere this morning, was the appearance of puffed-up talking head Tucker Carlson. Carlson, who rose to small-screen prominence in the 1990s pundit explosion with a distinctive appearance (his bowtie) rather than any expertise or insight, had Jon Stewart all figured out as a "partisan demagogue":

[Jim Cramer's] real sin was attacking Obama's economic policies. If he hadn't done that, Stewart never would have gone after him. Stewart's doing Obama's bidding. It's that simple.

To be fair to Carlson, who in no way is a partisan demagogue, he may still be smarting from a 2004 incident during his short-lived tenure as co-host of Crossfire on CNN. In a few minutes, Stewart --- no doubt as a comic rather than as a "serious" observer --- took apart the artifice of "political" commentary. Crossfire, which had been a useful forum for debate with Tom Braden and Pat Buchanan in the previous decade but which had become a shouting pit with the likes of Carlson, was soon cancelled.