May 2002 seems to have been chosen at random by Miller; it’s the kind of freedom available a person who just makes up shvt as convenient.

Karen Greenberg‘s book provides the most detail on the first six months of the prison.

Cheney, Feith, Addington, Miller etc etc should all be tried at the Hague. Hope there is a hell bacause they are sure to be going

never really expected intellectual consistency from Judy Miller

You are so kind with such words. She is a manipulator. Period.

To Mary @26, re Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling in the al-Rabia case. It should be noted that all of Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s references to the Army Field Manual were to the older version of it (FM 34-52). The later and current version (FM 2-22.3) has changes that, as pertains to the al-Rabia case, would allow much of what was done to al-Rabia. For instance, the earlier version of the manual did not allow for sleep deprivation. The later version allows four hours of sleep per night for 30 days or more, with no limitations on shifts in circadian timing. Nor does it prohibit “frequent flyer” programs. The current field manual practice of sleep deprivation can be evinced in the interrogation log of al-Qahtani.

The same goes for threats. I looked carefully at both manuals. FM 2-22 does indeed disallow use of threats (such as to be rendered to another country). But it does so in a more limited or conditional fashion than FM 34-52.

From FM 2-22 (bold emphasis added):

No physical or mental torture or any other form of coercion may be inflicted on EPWs to secure from them information of any kind whatever. PWs who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind (p. 96)….

Other forms of impermissible coercion may be more subtle, and may include threats to turn the individual over to others to be abused; subjecting the individual to impermissible humiliating or degrading treatment; implying harm to the individual or his property. Other prohibited actions include implying a deprivation of applicable protections guaranteed by law because of a failure to cooperate; threatening to separate parents from their children; or forcing a protected person to guide US forces in a dangerous area. (p. 98)

Threats to turn an individual over to hostile forces, e.g. to submit them to rendition, is prohibited by Article 31 of the Geneva Conventions protecting “civilian persons in time of war”. Such civilians, the protocols make clear, can include spies (see Article 5), i.e., this is a category above and beyond prisoners of war, who have all the same protections, by the way, and then some.

FM 34-52 prints the relevant sections from Geneva and makes the points about threats, etc., in its text. What the Stephen Cambone-generated Army Field Manual of 2006 does is eviscerate the earlier protections, primarily by carving out a special category of prisoners that are not considered Prisoners of War, and not allowed other Geneva protected status.

In her muddled headed way, Judy registers the kinds of briefings she has most likely attended, in order to get her talking points. She “knows” or has been told that “standards” have changed. What she most likely doesn’t understand, and what hasn’t been emphasized enough or understood by most who have looked at the Kollar-Kotelly ruling, is that what was forbidden or curtailed by the Army Field Manual at the time of al-Rabia’s torture is now allowed under the auspices of the current Army Field Manual. Of course, the current AFM was not applicable during the period that al-Rabia was being abused, so an argument based upon it is not relevant.

But for those who can read between the lines, Kollar-Kotelly’s plea that the prohibited techniques in the pre-2006 AFM “[are] not necessary to gain the cooperation of intelligence sources,” and in fact lead quite often to the production of false confessions (as in the case of al-Rabia), is a direct slam against the use of such techniques as must currently go on at Guantanamo, Bagram, or other U.S. prisons in the “war on terror.”

I have long argued that the switch in army interrogation manuals late in the Bush term was meant to preserve the essence of the torture program, in particular the aspects related to isolation, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, and the use of fear — the four horsemen of modern torture, if you will. Today, the Obama administration embraces the current version of the Army Field Manual as the humane alternative to the Bush policies. But the AFM was written by Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld acolytes, and while it gets its share of criticism from right-wing military troglodytes and slippery military reformers (who complain it’s not “scientific” enough, but have no problems with the techniques I’ve enumerated above), it is the primary policy around which the current practitioners of torture in the U.S. government have solidified their position.

And therefore that closing it and relocating its inmates is a largely empty political gesture that makes little sense

From a largely empty mind and soul.

Notice how even Dick Durbin – an attorney and officer of the court – betrays here that he implicitly accepts that if our military merely accuses – or detains, in lieu of formal accusation – a non-citizen, the accused non-citizen is self-evidently guilty, before, after, or without charge, and regardless of the presence or absence of trial or GC Article 5 competent tribunal adjudication.

The same military which allows female American members of its organization to be raped and beaten, tortures rather than refusing to obey illegal orders, and increasingly plunders the national budget. Yeah, I’d take their word for anything, too.

i’d ship her off to gitmo, along with a few hundred other neo-cons and bushivites

and just a thought: would it be about time for us to perhaps do some sort of timeline that charts these dick and co. push events? i know this is far-fetched, but is there any chance they precede some legal move that they may get wind of and be trying to head off at the pass.

a bit tinfoil hat, sure; but would not put a damn thing past the big dick.

All of this bullshit came out of the mouth of a man who was part of the team that completely ignored Richard Clarke. They really do not have any shame. Madmen…absolute madmen.

Is it appropriate for Gaffney to refer to Cheney as the “Vice President” I thought it was appropriate to put “former” in front of that title?

Gaffney gave Feith, John Hannah awards also. Gaffney just mentioned that they will be giving David Addington his award at a later date