In light of yesterday’s rush of events — some tense, some moving, some confusing, all demonstrating that the issues in Iran have moved beyond a challenge over a disputed Presidential election — how significant is the pressure for “something to be done” about the Iranian system? And what exactly is to be done?
Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim of the Los Angeles Times, who excelled in their coverage of the “40th Day” memorial, offer one dramatic answer:
Protesters swarmed Tehran’s main cemetery and fanned out across a large swath of the capital Thursday, defying truncheons and tear gas to publicly mourn those killed in weeks of unrest, including a young woman whose death shocked people around the world….Thirty years ago, such commemorations helped build momentum for the Islamic Revolution that overthrew the shah. The resilience of the thousands of protesters this time set the stage for more clashes next week, when hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to be inaugurated for a second term.
I am still concerned that the Obama Administration’s release of four Bush-era memoranda documenting the authorisation of torture (or, as Politico insists, “interrogation techniques”) is, in part, a deflection from ongoing issues over Executive power and surveillance/rendition/indefinite detention. And I suspect we’ll be pursuing those matters in days to come.
But for today, as former members and acolytes of the Bush Administration absolve themselves in the press:
This was torture sanctioned by President Bush and his chief advisors. This was torture that was illegal, immoral, and ineffective. This was a torture that did not win the “War on Terror” but damaged US foreign policy and American standing with other countries and peoples.
This was a brute exercise of power, sanctioned by (but not actually responding directly to) the brutal attacks upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001. Read the rest of this entry »
The Independent of London reveals that the US Government offered a deal to British resident Binyam Mohamed, held in Pakistan, Morocco, and then Guantanamo Bay for more than six years: he could go free “if he pleaded guilty to terrorism charges, ended his High Court case to prove his claims of torture, and agreed not to speak to the media about his ordeal”.
The plea bargain was offered to Mohamed last year while he was still at Guantanamo Bay; under its terms, he would have received a 10-year sentence, nine years of which would be suspended. He rejected it.
After a sustained campaign earlier this year revealed further evidence of his rendition and torture, Mohamed was returned to the United Kingdom.
The 29-year-old Safayi’s blogs were mostly on music and culture, but he was charged with “insulting Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei” and inciting others against national security. He was sentenced to two years in prison. A pending case accused him of “insulting sacred values”. Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
The United Nations report released yesterday is clear and concise: Britain was complicit with a US-created system which violated basic human rights and condoned the torture of detainees.
The Special Rapporteur remains deeply troubled that the United States has created a comprehensive system of extraordinary renditions, prolonged and secret detention, and practices that violate the prohibition against torture and other forms of ill-treatment. This system required an international web of exchange of information and has created a corrupted body of information which was shared systematically with partners in the war on terror through intelligence cooperation, thereby corrupting the institutional culture of the legal and institutional systems of recipient States.
The report continues:
While this system was devised and put in place by the United States, it was only possible through collaboration from many other States. There exist consistent, credible reports suggesting that at least until May 2007 a number of States facilitated extraordinary renditions in various ways. States such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Georgia, Indonesia, Kenya, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Pakistan and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have provided intelligence or have conducted the initial seizure of an individual before he was transferred to (mostly unacknowledged) detention centres in Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Thailand, Uzbekistan, or to one of the CIA covert detention centres, often referred to as “black sites”. In many cases, the receiving States reportedly engaged in torture and other forms of ill-treatment of these detainees.
[A] former senior State Department official said: “Far from being a threat, it was solicited [by the Foreign Office].” The Foreign Office asked for it in writing. They said: ‘Give us something in writing so that we can put it on the record.’ If you give us a letter explaining you are opposed to this, then we can provide that to the court.”
The letter, sent by the State Department’s top legal adviser John Bellinger to foreign secretary David Miliband’s legal adviser, Daniel Bethlehem, on 21 August last year, said: “We want to affirm in the clearest terms that the public disclosure of these documents or of the information contained therein is likely to result in serious damage to US national security and could harm existing intelligence-sharing arrangements.”
Binyam Mohamed, the UK resident detained in Guantánamo Bay, is to be visited by British officials and could be returned to Britain shortly, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, signalled today. The US authorities have agreed to treat Mohamed’s case as “a priority”, the minister said, enabling Britain to work with Washington for “a swift resolution”.
London and Washington may want to act quickly, because yet more embarrassing detail on the case has emerged today.
You, as commander in chief, are being denied access to material that would help prove that crimes have been committed by US personnel. This decision is being made by the very people who you command.
In light of yesterday’s rush of events — some tense, some moving, some confusing, all demonstrating that the issues in Iran have moved beyond a challenge over a disputed Presidential election — how significant is the pressure for “something to be done” about the Iranian system? And what exactly is to be done?
I am still concerned that the Obama Administration’s release of four Bush-era memoranda documenting the authorisation of torture (or, as Politico insists, “interrogation techniques”) is, in part, a deflection from ongoing issues over Executive power and surveillance/rendition/indefinite detention. And I suspect we’ll be pursuing those matters in days to come.
The Independent of London reveals
News is emerging of 
From today’s New York Times
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