On the recent revelations surrounding profound torture and mistreatment at Guantanamo and around the globe by American authorities

The recent release of documents authorizing torture at Guantanamo and in prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other parts of the globe by American operatives has proven that torture was authorized by the hierarchy of the former Bush II administration. It's now irrefutable and part of the historical record.

This week, we're getting some more corroboration in the form of an oral testimony that was posted by CSHRA (The Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas) on their website of Spc. (Specialist) Brandon Neely, a former U.S. Army MP who served at the detention facility in its first months. Neely's story account is a short one, but it indicates a compartmentalized bevy of horror that would shock and stagger the imagination of Edgar Allan Poe.

Neely's story corroborates previously released documents that state medical doctors, psychiatrists, and nurses were utilized in torture sessions on Guantanamo inmates on numerous occasions, and at various locations around the world. The use of physicians by the CIA for these purposes is not unknown, however, and is nothing new. But the solid proof of authorization by the executive branch is, and it's going to open a Pandora's Box that could hamper such methods. The Obama administration's recent comments on the issue aren't reassuring.

It should be a foregone conclusion in our culture that these methods are a direct threat to the liberties and human rights of almost everyone, especially our children. Children? Yes, children.

While it's doubtful that many of these physicians are working in the outlying society (we can presume that many are military physicians and medics), they are committing not only grievous actions that deprive these internees of their basic human rights, they are violating their oaths as practitioners. Where is the AMA and the rest of the medical and mental health profession over this? The suicides of three Guantanamo detainees in 2006 prompted action on their part.

On July 3rd, 2006, along with the American Psychiactric Association (APA), the AMA ruled that physicians couldn't participate in interrogations in any way of war on terror detainees.

The CEJA opinion also says physicians have a duty to disclose how much access interrogators have to prisoners' medical information and to report any coercive interrogations to authorities. If action isn't taken after they raise awareness, the opinion says, doctors are ethically obligated to report the offenses to independent authorities empowered to investigate.

David Fassler, MD, an American Academy of Adolescent and Child Psychiatry delegate who proposed a resolution on interrogation at the 2005 Interim Meeting, applauded the CEJA report. "Physicians should not design, participate in or monitor the interrogation of prisoners or detainees," he said. "Such activities are incompatible with our primary obligation to do no harm. ... I'm glad to see that organized medicine will now be able to speak with one voice on this issue." ("AMA adopts policy on interrogations," AMNews, 07.03.2006)

But the Pentagon's rules around that time allowed for psychiatrists to intervene in some cases "to monitor questioning," and presumably still do. What if laws are broken? Who reports them then? The key appears keeping certain personnel under military authority and control, ignoring civilian professional rulings when it comes to psychiatrists. While I don't entirely agree with journalist Larisa Alexandrovna's recent take (see link at the bottom) that these people could be treating some of our loved ones now (we don't really know, as she points-out, but we definitely should know, and soon), some of them will be.

The CEJA's recommendations were picked-up, and follow that physicians:

• "Must neither conduct nor directly participate in an interrogation;"
• "Must not monitor interrogations with the intention of intervening in the process, because this constitutes direct participation in an interrogation;"
• And when physicians "have reason to believe that interrogations are coercive, they must report their observations to appropriate authorities. If authorities are aware of coercive interrogations but have not intervened, physicians are ethically obligated to report the offenses to independent authorities that have the power to investigate or adjudicate such allegations." ("AMA: Prisoner Interrogation Unethical for Physicians, Declares AMA Panel," Medpage Today, 06.12.2006)
  

I agree with Ms. Alexandrovna and others who contend that the physicians who violated their professional oaths should be stripped of their licensing--all of them, even military ones--for their participation in these activities that they agreed to engage in at Guantanamo and other locations. After that, they should be investigated for the commission of war crimes, human rights violations, and the violation of international and American law.

Spc. Neely's account offers some insights, and others who worked in these facilities are beginning to come forward. Additional details are emerging from documents that go as far as detainees being beaten to death, their genitals mutilated with a scalpel, and even the sexual abuse and the detention of the elderly and children, and there are more revelations to come. Authorizing torture techniques that result in death, even one, is a criminal act and a war crime.

No accountability means that these people--these psychopaths who broke their professional ethics and got involved in torturing human beings--are murders among us. Best to start prosecuting from the top, down. Ask yourself why the mainstream media isn't covering this. While you're at it, why not ask them directly some time? At the moment, the new administration isn't offering much change in this direction at all, but redress could be coming from certain quarters of Congress, two bills calling for looser state secrets rules have been proposed. The new president has a strange way of interpreting the constitution, being a scholar of it.

"AMA adopts policy on interrogations," AMNews, 07.03.2006: http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AMA/3530

"AMA: Prisoner Interrogation Unethical for Physicians, Declares AMA Panel," Medpage Today, 06.12.2006: http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AMA/3530

2002 Bush II administration memos authorizing torture (available since 2004): http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB127/

"Unspeakable Abuse at Gitmo--We Need the Names of These Medical Personnel," Huffington Post, 02.16.2009: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/we-need-the-names-of-thes_b_167247.html

"Newly Unredacted Torture Documents Reveal Deaths, Abuse," Blog.ACLU, 02.11.2009: http://blog.aclu.org/2009/02/11/newly-unredacted-torture-documents-reveal-deaths-abuse/

The ACLU's Page on National Security and Torture (lots of links): http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/index.html

"Two Bills in One Day-State Secrets Fix on the Horizon," Blog.ACLU, 02.13.2009: http://blog.aclu.org/2009/02/13/two-bills-in-one-day-state-secrets-fix-on-the-horizon/

Breaking News: Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler Removed from Palfrey Case

SIXTH AMENDMENT - "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."

Washington D.C.--In an extremely belated administrative move, Judge Gladys Kessler has been removed from hearing the case of the accused Deborah Jeane Palfrey. This is likely due to a recent order by the jurist that was not only improper, but out-of-character based on the previous arc of the case. Also contingent is the fact that Judge Kessler was contributing greatly to an overlong pretrial process, while placing the blame almost solely on the defendant.

This would be a peculiar denial of due process (as guaranteed under section 1 of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution) if it weren't for the obstructionism and shenanigans of the prosecution and Palfrey's previous court appointed criminal counsel that has been damaging to the defendant. What's interesting is that many of the rulings of Kessler and the behaviors of her former criminal counsel played-into-the-hands of the prosecution. Presumably, the removal and replacement ('transferred') of Kessler with fellow District of Columbia Federal Judge James Robertson is from a motion by the defendant and her counsel regarding both the criminal and civil cases.

A new trial date will be set at a scheduled December 14th hearing by Judge Robertson, and will also cover other aspects of the proceedings. These could include motions for removing injunctions by Kessler and the prosecution regarding public release of information on former clients of Pamela Martin & Associates. The action begins at 10:00 am EST in federal courtroom 23A in the District of Columbia. Unlike Judge Kessler, Judge Robertson ruled that the Guantanamo Bay tribunals were illegal as constituted back in November 8th of 2004 in 'Salim Ahmed Hamdan v. Donald H. Rumsfeld.'

What's been implicitly clear in the previous pretrial proceedings is an unwillingness to address the defendant's Fourteenth (and by inclusion) Sixth amendment rights to due process and the basic American right to confront one's accusers. Poorly-intentioned federal trial procedures-be-damned. It should be noted that Judge Roberston was also a FISA court judge, resigning from it in late-2005 once the New York Times ended its year-long suppression of the warrantless surveillance story. Some commenters believe that Judge Robertson is one of the primary leakers in the story of the Bush administration bypassing the FISA courts through a secret NSA program. [Ed., 08.28.2008--I now believe Judge Robertson to be a Trojan Horse who was brought in to crush the defense, and that he's just another "star chamber" freak. Sorry Jeane, he was a fascist clown.]

The leak concerning the illegal surveillance of the American public under the umbrella of the NSA by the White House is interesting as nobody knows who unmasked it, though the Justice Department began an investigation that appears to have gone nowhere. All of this is interesting since Palfrey's case could have begun under such illegal surveillance programs, possibly in-conjunction with SWIFT in Europe.

December could be that month where a number of gifts to the American public are exchanged: a return of several of our embattled liberties. Kessler had scheduled the criminal trial of Palfrey for February 19th. It's unclear until the scheduled hearing this month when that date will be, and even then we may not know.

On Judge Robertson's decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/politics/08cnd-gitm.html?ex=1257656400&en=c00930119f53c9ab&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

Babs Streisand Bullish on Billary Clinton, as Lilli Marlene was for Adolf Hitler

NYC--Ever notice you can take the prose from Poe's 'The Raven,' and put it to the melody of 'Superman'? Try it, it works. Right, not all Jews are Noam Chomsky, Karl Marx, David Cronenberg, or Jesus. Some are wrongheaded turds like everyone else, happily helping shovel the bodies into the ovens. Babs is no exception to this kind of insensate human being, and she loves parading her iniquities everywhere she can.

Gay men: stick with Judy Garland, she was the best. But we knew this, or why would you have rioted over her memory at Stonewall? That was a real woman--a mother--with genuine class. She suffered so much in her life. Babs is a far-cry from Judy, more like the groveling, fawning Lilli. But there's a certain kind of woman who claws-her-way to the tyrants, those strongmen who display (b)absolute certainty at every turn.

Let's not forget about Waco in 1993, or the fact that it was Bill Clinton who authorized and pushed for most favored trading status with China. He was just finishing the work that began with Nixon, carrying over from Ford, Reagan, Bush, and finally Bubba. Sure, he's our first 'Black President' alright--black as the eyes of a lion before it sinks it teeth into the flesh of a gazelle. Forget Babs, forget the schnoz, and the ridiculously high tickets prices for the so-so shows of a terminally spoiled psychotic.

Retire Babs, you always sucked. You just hate actually paying your share, you tax cheat. We should also remember that Bill Clinton ordered the destruction of Iraqi-infrastructure during the 1990s during the 'no-fly zone' period, bringing about the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children.

That's genocide, Babs, that's what you're supporting. You don't care, you spoiled, evil bitch. The Clintons also bombed Kosovo in 1999, causing over 200,000 Eastern Orthodox Serbs to flee. That's ethnic cleansing, but our crimes never happened. Barbara Streisand is our era's Lilli Marlene, a singing whore for neo-Nazis.

Perhaps we can conduct the killing of our victims with Barbara's songs blaring in-the-background. Hey, they played music at Auschwitz, so why not her crappy singing? That would be torture enough.

It would make a lot of sense for those interned at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to have to listen to her drivel all-the-time. Marlene Dietrich knew a fascist when she saw one--what's your excuse you walking parody of humanity? What a moral imbecile, that Babs.

Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler: Unwilling Unitary Executrix?

"I know it's a sad day when a federal judge has to ask a DOJ attorney this, but I'm asking you -- why should I believe them?" --Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler, March 2nd, 2006. (Washington Post, March 3rd, 2006)

Washington D.C.--With the recent shuttering of any due process in the pretrial proceedings of Deborah Jeane Palfrey (labeled the 'DC Madam' by a preemptively biased press), a brief overview of Judge Kessler's past rulings and judicial behaviors is in order. It should be remembered that Kessler was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994.

In all fairness, her rulings run-the-gamut, but she shows a great deal of deference towards the executive branch in general in a number of key decisions. Her most questionable rulings relate to the release of sensitive government documents, and Palfrey's case is no exception. Ironically, Kessler has repeatedly argued for disclosure in the Bush administration's execution of arrests and detentions in the storied 'war on terror, virtually from its inception.

The Bush administration contends that it cannot protect national security and also meet a judge's deadline to reveal names of those held in the investigation of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled Aug. 2 that the Justice Department has not proven the need for a blanket policy of secrecy about more than 1,000 people picked up since the jetliner attacks. She gave the government 15 days to provide the names. ('Bush administration condemns order to release detainee names,' AP, 08.05.2002)

Judge Kessler applied no enforcement 'teeth' in the ruling to 'allow for appeal' by the government (the DOJ). But by June 17th of 2003, the Bush administration successfully appealed the limp ruling, and even utilized an aspect of its original logic by homing-in on FOIA-provisions that pushed the appeals decision in their favor. By all appearances, Kessler showed them the way through the FOIA-loophole door. In early-April 2003, she ruled predictably to quash a request to allow the release of documents surrounding Clinton's 177 pardons his last day as president:

Then, Tuesday the Bush Justice Department won a victory in federal court. It persuaded U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler to stymie a request from the watchdog group Judicial Watch to release a batch of documents relating to former President Clinton's 177 "midnight pardons" issued on his last day in office. The fact that the Bush administration would go to court to protect the secrecy of the Clinton administration seems to validate the charge by Judicial Watch chairman Larry Klayman that the action was politically motivated - to keep the Bush administration from having potentially embarrassing documents made public after the current president leaves office. ('Obsessive Secrecy/Bush Administration Plays Politics With,' The Colorado Springs Gazette, 04.07.2003)

But Kessler has also ruled in favor of America's unions, forcing an injunction against new financial filing rules that would have cost all of them $1 billion-per-year due to new filing regulations pushed by Bush's then Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. Kessler's ruling is likely due to her time during the 1970s as a low-level employee of the National Labor Relations Board, and she appears to understand the concept of the public interest, which is commendable. But she has a strange way of applying it in other areas of law, and in other cases.

District Judge Kessler has displayed a consistency in this area of the common good, and could be applying this understanding to her rulings over Palfrey's motions for discovery and the calling of particular individuals for testimony: 'Is the public being served by this?' appears to be her primary concern in the majority of her rulings. But Kessler has also been known for backtracking on some of her decisions and her about-face and credulity towards the prosecution in the Palfrey case is not entirely in-character for her. Night is day when it comes to the case of the so-called 'DC Madam.' Nonetheless, the Wednesday ruling's language canceling the November 28th hearing over whether to end the temporary restraining order in Palfrey's civil case against Paula Neble is instructive--Kessler's contends that she's showing judicial independence and also applying the federal trial procedures (presumably dictated by Congress).

The answers might be related to the particulars of the case--facts not allowed to be presented to the defendant at any point of pretrial proceedings--and there is the appearance that Judge Kessler may have already formulated opinions of her own on Palfrey's innocence or guilt a priori. [Ed., 08.28.2008-I no longer believe most of this. I think that Judge Kessler knew Palfrey was suicidal and was removed for this and other, darker reasons.] What's potentially disturbing is that Kessler has made statements condemning the treatment of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base prisoners, and even quashed motions by the government to continue stays (delays) on their motions for complaint hearings...but little resulted from any these criticisms coming from the bench in any substantial sense up to late-2006 and 2007.

Opinions are fine, but they don't accomplish much without enforcement teeth. The wheels of justice turn slowly in the chambers of Judge Kessler, yet she's facilitated this slowness in Palfrey's case while simultaneously complaining about it. There are other problems in her legal logic. The November 21st cancellation of the hearing that would have brought Senator David Vitter, Paula Neble, and others into the sunlight (being that best disinfectant) rests on some shaky contentions:

7. In granting the original request for a Temporary Restraining Order, the Court found that "it is apparent that Defendant is pursuing the Neble [underlined] case in order to obtain from those civil defendants discovery to which she would not be entitled in her criminal case." [Dkt. #12]. ('United States of America v. Deborah Jeane Palfrey, Defendant. Memorandum Order,' November 21st, 2007)

Yet Kessler allowed the hearing earlier this month, irregardless of this previous observation that she's selectively trotted-out in a new, but substantially similar context. There is no detailed summary of what evidence is and is not allowable under federal criminal trial procedure anywhere in the new order. According to what has already occurred in proceedings, it must mean that virtually no discovery is necessary under current federal law in a criminal trial. How can this be constitutional? Where was the assertiveness required for a genuine flexing of constitutional checks-and-balances?

In another case, we have a surprise turn: on October 9th of this year, her unsealed decision to block the transfer of Mohammed Rahman to his home country of Tunisia came in the form of an injunction--it was unprecedented. A week earlier, she blocked the transfer of an Afghani-detainee without a 30-day notice to the individual's lawyer. That's fairly aggressive, but there's no sign of this in Palfrey's proceedings. The Afghani detainee opinion seems to be a more important ruling than the one over Rahman, as it injects direct judicial supervision in a more substantial sense over the processing of foreign detainees and their access to legal representation in the so-called war on terror. ' “It is the only time a court has said the government does not have the unfettered right to do what they will with these people,” ' said an attorney for Rahman, Joshua W. Denbeaux. ('Judge Halts Transfer of Guantanamo Detainee,' New York Times, 10.10.2007) So why all the acquiescence in the pretrial proceedings of Ms. Palfrey?

You can't say Judge Kessler hasn't acted with reasonable independence against the Bush administration as she is directed to under the Constitution of the United States of America, but has it been aggressive enough overall, or has it all just been window-dressing? There are a gamut-of-opinions on this issue which cannot begin to be covered by the space and format of this site (and also thanks to Google's glitchy layout software), but this writer believes Kessler's constitutional vigilance simply lacks enough teeth. Federal Judges are only allowed to overrule the decisions and behavior (law or statutes, and administrative code and actions) of the other branches of our government (the legislative and executive) when there is a constitutional issue, but what could be more obvious than the lack of due process in Ms. Palfrey's pretrial proceedings?

An aside in Kessler's cancellation of the November 28th hearing: she doesn't contend at any point that she believes prosecution's witnesses are being 'harassed,' yet claims the right to continue what is now deemed a 'protective order.' It's just one example of many in the November 21st court order that contradicts other areas of the document, making for a painful read. Judge Kessler isn't wrong that the defendant is attempting to achieve discovery (the exchange of evidence and information between the plaintiff/prosecution and defendant), because she isn't getting any in either her civil or criminal proceedings. Kessler's take on it, however, is selective and appears forced. The fact is: Palfrey's not getting any discovery process, and Judge Kessler originally allowed the hearing to proceed.

She has now abruptly canceled it with a statement that is rife with legal gymnastics that would make anyone's head spin. According to my first year law textbook, Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler has more leverage in her interpretation of federal criminal trial procedure than she's letting-on. What happened before Wednesday of this week? Was it a dramatic ex parte (a decision where not all of the parties need be present) confrontation by the prosecution? What's going on here? Defendants are supposed to be able to avoid a legal ambush in court through genuine due process. By all appearances, this is not America.

Larry Flynt, AP, and the meaning of "several"

AP Universe, domain of the flunky careerist--I've written it several times before, but it's rare that the name of the author of a wire piece ever gets named here...unless they lie, distort, or just act too-credulous (a problem with most mainstream journalists). OK, we all know that Larry Flynt posted a bounty of $1 million USD for any solid-leads that expose hypocritical national politicians, mostly in the GOP. But Larry isn't stopping there, and he doesn't seem to care if any of the guilty are Democrat or Republican, which speaks well for him. [Ed., 09.13.2008-Except that he was and is still Larry Flynt.]

We've got 20-some investigations that all look good," Flynt said during a news conference at his Beverly Hills office."We have got some high-ranking Republican and Democratic members of the Senate and the House," he told reporters. "If I get just a couple of those phonies out of there, maybe it will be a step forward."Flynt provided no names or details about the investigations. His comments conflicted with a press release issued by the magazine that put the number of investigations at "several." (AP, 07.12.2007)

The name! The name! One Michael R. Blood[money]. It's hard to say how he was trying to spin this one. Most dictionaries cite "several" as meaning "three or more, but not many." So, is he saying the Flynt cited fewer-or-greater numbers of good leads? Is 20 several? I would say yes. One can assume that Blood was told by an editor to insert that particular angle into the story. Why? We can only speculate, but AP's inviting it.

It's just a strange article with a weird subtext--that Larry Flynt cannot be trusted on this, even though he's been right on this before, back in 1998. What they're saying is that Larry Flynt is contradicting himself. Why? We can guess why, but meditate on this: who does it serve? Is it several?

AP spoke earlier this week with Jeane Palfrey's civil attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley and Flynt's primary investigator, Dan Moldea:

Sibley confirmed that author Dan Moldea, who is writing a book with Palfrey, discovered Vitter's number in Palfrey's phone records, which she has publicly released. In an interview Tuesday, Moldea said he called Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, for whom Moldea has done consulting work. Moldea said a Hustler editor called Vitter's office late Monday afternoon. Moldea was the lead investigator on Flynt's probe in 1998-99 of lawmakers who were investigating President Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. They included Rep. Robert Livingston, a Louisiana Republican, who stepped aside days before he was expected to become House speaker replacing Newt Gingrich. Livingston, whose House seat was later filled by Vitter, revealed that he, too, had an extramarital affair. (AP, 07.10.2007)

So what gives AP? I've caught you reporting rumors as fact before, such as the case of AG Gonzales's Law School Reunion where you claimed most of the alumni gathered for a group photo didn't see law school students dressed as Guantanamo inmates.

Insofar as the fact that Hustler is a porn magazine, they have a good batting-average--several--in downing corrupt politicians. Perhaps even better than you, AP. They've nailed several people who were hypocritical and corrupt before, and they're now poised to do it again-and-again. For some reason, you don't appear to like this fact on several-points.

The passage that stated "comments conflicted" is a journalist's weapon, just like "refused to comment." They love the latter the most, it implies a source is hiding something...whether they are-or-not. Journalistic objectivity? Don't be silly, editors nullify that every day. I've had a journalist tell me, "Sometimes a journalism degree comes-in-handy." Cheers go to those journalists who don't care anymore and run the truth (sometimes hidden within a news release) anyway. Without them, I and several others, wouldn't have much to analyze.

AP-AP-AP: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/11/america/NA-GEN-US-Senator-DC-Madam.php

Michael R. Blood doing career gymnastics?:http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/12/ap3907393.html

[Ed., 09.13.2008-They're dead, they're all messed-up. Al Goldestein claims that Flynt used to brag about having-sex with a chicken, something I told Palfrey once. Maybe, it wouldn't surprise me. Moldea's reputation precedes him too.]