Torture memos, torture judge Jay Bybee

Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow interviewed human rights attorney Scott Horton regarding the Bush-era memos that purported to provide to the CIA a justification for U.S. torture of its prisoners. Horton provided substantial criticism of the memos and of one of the authors of the memos, Jay Bybee, who currently sits in a tenured position on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals:

The clinical detail of the discussion of the torture techniques is just astonishing. You know, I think the bugs-in-the-box instance that you cited, which we really hadn’t heard anything, before the discussion of waterboarding. But just back up and put some perspective on this. These are techniques that federal prosecutors previously charged as crimes. Moreover, in prosecutions that occurred at the end of the World War II, American federal prosecutors sought the death penalty, sought capital punishment, for people who did these things. And now we see a man who is a federal judge sitting in San Francisco writing a memo saying “wink, nod, fine with me, just go right ahead and do it.” It’s just astonishing, and I think also astonishing that that individual in particular can sit as a federal judge today when the world knows that these memos have been crafted and, in fact, when he’s the subject of a pending criminal proceeding in Spain.

The entire interview worth your while.

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Time to yank some professional licenses . . .

Based on the release of additional torture memos of the Bush Administration, Mike Dunford of The Questionable Authority suggests that it's time to revoke some professional licenses. I agree. Here's an excerpt:

Reading these memos, it's very clear that there are quite a few CIA employees who are allegedly medical professionals. Those people need to find new professions. I would strongly suggest that you take a few minutes - particularly if you're a doctor or a psychologist - to suggest to your colleagues at the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association that it might be good to take some formal steps along those lines.

For additional information on the way the American Psychological Association facilitated the torture, consider this DI post, based on Amy Goodman's book, Standing Up to the Madness.

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U.S. torture program results in thousands of U.S. deaths

In an interview with The Washington Post, a U.S. Air Force counter-intelligence specialist explains that he was aghast when he saw how the U.S. was continuing to torture prisoners, even after he arrived in 2006.   He further learned, based on first-hand interviews he conducted, that the torture committed by the…

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Catholic McCain Voters Are Going To Hell!

There’s been a lot of vituperation going on about whether anyone who is Roman Catholic who voted for Barack Obama is going to hell. The answer is “NO!” but, Catholic McCain voters ARE going to hell!

How do I know this? Take a look at the facts:

The Catholic Church has five “non-negotiable issues” regarding its teachings on the sanctity of life. It is a mortal sin to support abortion (McCain does in cases of rape and incest), embryonic stem cell research (McCain does [see second debate!], and has twice voted for expansion of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research), to define marriage as anything other than between a man and a woman (McCain voted against a proposed US Constitutional amendment defining marriage as solely between am man and a woman). The other two are cloning and euthanasia. I don’t know what McCain says about euthanasia but, the stem cell research may use cloning so he’s wrong on that, too!

So, McCain is wrong on 4 out of 5 “non-negotiable issues” regarding the sanctity of life as pronounced by the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. But, that’s not all!

The Catholic Church has condemned torture saying torture “violates the Fifth Commandment” and is “intrinsically evil.” John McCain voted to allow the CIA to use torture on terror suspects, making torture a policy of the US for the first time in history!

McCain is also on the wrong side of the Catholic Church on the Iraq War, the death …

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