A secret report from 2004 has been leaked, and the leaks are saying that CIA interrogators conducted mock execution on terror suspects.
Here's the articles from the AP and Newsweek:
http://news.yahoo.com/...
http://www.newsweek.com/...
More below.
Here a highlight from the AP article:
In one case, interrogators brought a gun and power drill into a session with suspected Cole bomber Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, the report says. The suicide bombing of the warship USS Cole killed 17 U.S. sailors in Yemen in 2000.
And another highlight from the Newsweek article:
Nashiri's interrogators brandished the gun in an effort to convince him that he was going to be shot. Interrogators also turned on a power drill and held it near him. "The purpose was to scare him into giving [information] up," said one of the sources. A federal law banning the use of torture expressly forbids threatening a detainee with "imminent death."
Nashiri was one of the suspects who was also waterboarded, and now we are learning that he was also subject to a mock execution. Nashiri was subjected to multiple forms of torture. The veracity of any information obtained from his is suspect. This conduct is outrageous and completely illegal.
We are continually finding out that suspects have been tortured, and now we are finding out that suspects have been subjected to mock executions. This is illegal under US laws. How on earth can anyone claim that this is the work of a few bad apples? This conduct was so widespread that any claims that the top brass did not know about, or sanction it, are ludicrous. These acts must be prosecuted; if not we will establish a precedent that torturing foreign individuals may be illegal in name but not in practice. This is not only morally reprehensible, but also puts our troops at risk. How can we demand that our troops be treated humanely and demand others respect the Geneva Conventions when we do not do so ourselves?
These acts are international war crimes. Obama must demand a complete investigation of these atrocities, and demand that anyone who sanctioned these acts be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Words fail me. We are supposed to be a nation of laws, damnit. What good is any kind of law if we do not respect it, and do not demand that anyone who breaks the law is prosecuted? We are entering an era of selective enforcement of our fundamental laws. We don't prosecute war crimes, we don't enforce anti-trust laws on corporations that have local monopolies (like health insurance companies), and we certainly don't enforce our tax laws on the richest individuals. We can no longer claim to be a nation that respects the rule of law, and are becoming a nation of individuals. This is the definition of tyranny. This must be stopped.