This stuff is really coming out all over the place.
Please read below...
Everyday this stuff gets worse and worse.
Here is an article I just read at HuffPo of a congress woman being interviewed re: torture at Guantanamo:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Congresswoman Diane Watson's Trip to Guantanamo: Paid Contractors Interrogate, Not the Military.
April 25, 2009 by Kathleen Wells
On, April 11, 2009, Congresswoman, Diane Watson, who represents, California's 33rd District, which is located in Los Angeles, held a Resource Fair in her district.
The following week, the Congresswoman, was gracious enough to sit down with me for an interview. Below is Part I of that interview.
Kathleen Wells: Last week, it was reported in the New York Times and re-published on Huffingtonpost, that the NSA had wiretapped a member of Congress without a warrant. Can you give me your thoughts on that?
Congresswoman Watson: Well, number one, that is patently illegal. Number two, it happened often in the last administration. Number three, not every person working in an agency, leaves when the administration, changes. Those who are career personnel, stay -- the appointees, leave. And so, it was a mentality under the Bush administration, that it was alright to tap in, without alerting the member, because it was all about Homeland Security. A lot of lines were breached, after 9-11, in terms of protecting America. We have a Constitution; we have a Bill of Rights that lays out the right of an individual in America. And the right to privacy, Freedom of Speech, is the first one. Why couldn't they go to a judge who would be available 24/7 and get permission?...
I always heard from family and friends, who travelled to the USA before I did years ago, that the USA had hypocritical policies.
They used to say that the US wanted to tell people what to do but never listened. The USA, they said, loved to have their cake and eat it too.
However, I was not detered. I longed to come to this country. I wanted to discover for myself the glossy world that was on display in the magazines I read.
I arrived here in 1986 to a hail of bullets,police sirens, murder, poverty, homelessness and chaos. My first taste of life in the USA was in Brooklyn. I learned to ignore and live and let live.
My determination to bite off a piece of the Big Apple was still deep and strong but finally my rose tinted glasses were off.
Over 26 years later I am learning of what the USA did to prisoners after 9/11 and I feel a heaviness in my heart and in my whole being. I am now a resident and have achieved quite alot but I am now daily drawn back in memory to the things my family and friends used to say about this country.
I still love this country, which is now my home, but my love is now tempered by loss. I am not quite sure yet how this loss will play out in my life regarding my feelings for this country but all I know is that a perpetual sadness has come over me since the airing of the memos.
The story of the interogator who is now speaking up in Newsweek
see:
‘We Could Have Done This the Right Way’
How Ali Soufan, an FBI agent, got Abu Zubaydah to talk without torture.
http://www.newsweek.com/...
The arguments at the CIA safe house were loud and intense in the spring of 2002. Inside, a high-value terror suspect, Abu Zubaydah, was handcuffed to a gurney. He had been wounded during his capture in Pakistan and still had bullet fragments in his stomach, leg and groin. Agency operatives were aiming to crack him with rough and unorthodox interrogation tactics—including stripping him nude, turning down the temperature and bombarding him with loud music. But one impassioned young FBI agent wanted nothing to do with it. He tried to stop them.
The agent, Ali Soufan, was known as one of the bureau's top experts on Al Qaeda. He also had a reputation as a shrewd interrogator who could work fluently in both English and Arabic. Soufan yelled at one CIA contractor and told him that what he was doing was wrong, ineffective and an affront to American values. At one point, Soufan discovered a dark wooden "confinement box" that the contractor had built for Abu Zubaydah. It looked, Soufan recalls, "like a coffin." The mercurial agent erupted in anger, got on a secure phone line and called Pasquale D'Amuro, then the FBI assistant director for counterterrorism. "I swear to God," he shouted, "I'm going to arrest these guys!"...
I now ask myself, after reading this entire article, If this guy stood up and said HELL NO! why did the others follow through?
I also saw some polls today showing that a slight majority of Americans find there should not be an investigation and they seem to agree that torture was ok.
I am really hurting inside but should I be surprised? I guess not. Afterall not so long ago Americans felt it was ok to lynch, rape and murder folk from a different race. And Americans felt it was ok to fight against interacial marriage. Americans also allowed the likes of the Klu Klux Klan to flourish. They interred the Japanese, set dogs on women, men and children, and kept school children apart in education. Last year Americans choose to take away rights of folk to get married in California and still fight to have guns amidst rises in gun violence and related deaths. Should I even mention slavery etc?
This country has done some shameful and horrible things but what drew me to its shores was a dream of a better life. After fighting for 26 years and finding my 'white picket fence' I am now jobless, 3 months away from losing the fence and once again questioning my purpose in life.
Yet, I still love this country and am proud of what has transpired with the election.
Looking at Obama I am reminded of the lotus flower and how it thrives amidst mud and muck. The beauty of the lotus is never compromised by its surroundings.
Obama gives me hope and courage to go on and to believe that if I keep on plugging a better day will come and I will rise once again.
Lets hope the same can be said of America.
If we can get through all this karmic sludge and come out on the other side a better country then it will be worth it.
If not, may the universe help us all.
Please read:
Obama Off to Solid Start, Poll Finds
But Release of Memos on Detainee Interrogations Reveals Deep Partisan Split
By Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 26, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...