Jeff Kaye

Reposted with permission from Andy Worthington’s blog, Guantanamo hunger striker Younus Chekhouri describes what happened when prison camp authorities raided the hunger strikers on April 13. Chekhouri also describes his own physical and mental anguish, as he experiences both the abuse and torture inside the prison and the effects of the hunger strike undertaken out of desperation, as he has been imprisoned without charges for over 11 years, and while cleared for release, has no idea when or if he will ever leave the U.S. military prison.

Everyone thought President Obama had eliminated all the torture memos by Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury, Bush’s old OLC team. But they were wrong. One of them was not revoked, and it concerned “restricted” techniques to be included in the revision of the Army Field Manual. As a result, torture and abuse remain a part of U.S. military interrogation doctrine.

Considering the way the military has handled the situation at Guantanamo — forbidding reporters at the island, making nice to the ICRC only to conduct violent raids on detainees as soon as Red Cross officials leave, force-feeding hunger-striking detainees against all medical ethics and protocols — you’d think the Pentagon thought they had another Koje-Ko prison camp rebellion on their hands.

Apparently the White House was notified in advance of the nighttime raids on the debilitated hunger strikers, who according to military accounts (which one must take with maximum suspicion), fought back with mop and broom handles and plastic water bottles.

Whatever military police met in terms of opposition, what they certainly encountered were emaciated prisoners, worn down by years of interrogation, isolation, brutality, and now hunger, as they wield the only real weapons they know, their very bodies, choosing death over the hopelessness and torture that is indefinite detention.

Ahmed Abu Ali was framed up by the notorious torturing security forces of Saudi Arabia. A confession, including incredible assertions he was a member of Al Qaeda, was planning another 9/11-type terrorist plot, and planning to assassinate former President George W. Bush, was coerced out of him via use of physical and psychological torture. But the evidence for this torture was contested in court. A judge decided to ignore psychiatric testimony from defense experts and use his own biased judgment on what a tortured person might remember while under torture to condemn Ahmed as guilty and condemn him to decades in solitary confinement. How could this have happened?

The UK Guardian has published a “staggering… blockbuster” investigatory report, including 51-minute video, detailing the role of top US government and military officials in the organization of terror and torture during the Iraq War. The report has been largely ignored by the US media. It should be introduced as evidence in the trial of Bradley Manning, as it was US connivance with torture in Iraq that motivated him to turn whistleblower.

The military attorney for two Kuwaiti detainees at Guantanamo, Fayiz Al-Kandari and Fawzi Al-Odah, expressed great concern for the conditions of his client, who are hunger striking in protests to conditions at Guantanamo. Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues to deny the prisoners meaningful review of their cases, or a UN investigator access to the prisoners. In addition, attorneys and doctors fear the death of

The U.S. Southern Command has announced that after three months, they’ve released the remains of Adhan Farhan Abdul Latif to Yemen. This first official statement verified earlier reports Latif supposedly overdosed on prescription drugs, but the announcement also adds the surprising new information that “acute pneumonia” was a contributing cause of death. DoD is not answering any questions right now, though their press release only adds a new wrinkle to what was already a murky picture about Latif’s death.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has released a major new report detailing how the Bush Administration and other allied governments tortured and imprisoned opponents of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The prisoners were then rendered to Gaddafi’s own prisons where many of them were tortured. Perhaps the most explosive new information in the report concerns charges by one of the prisoners that he was waterboarded. Meanwhile, a new document released by a Canadian news outlet charges former Guantanamo child prisoner Omar Khadr was subjected to waterboarding-like torture while in U.S. custody.

A new report by an agency of the UN describes “systematic” torture to produce confessions by Afghan police and security agencies. It’s ten years since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. The government is their propped up puppet. Given the U.S. love for torture, as exemplified by past practice, enshrining elements of the torture program in their Army Field Manual, and refusing to prosecute U.S. officials responsible for torture, the results of this study examining their Afghan partners is not surprising. There is little or nothing that differentiates the U.S. at this point from the enemy they face, and given they supposedly represent progressive democracies, the harm they incur is even worse than what the Taliban offers. The report also makes clear that such human rights abuses by an invading force only drives individuals into the ranks of the Taliban.

Just when a big scandal hits Washington over an ATF/DoJ operation-gone-bad that allowed massive smuggling of guns to Mexican drug cartels, Eric Holder’s DoJ decides this is a good time to get tough with… medical marijuana dispensaries! But wait, what’s the CIA doing in the middle of all this? Or are they? Will cancer patients get their pot? Will drug kingpins in Sinaloa get their AK-47s? Guess which one matters more to the U.S. government.