Harper's Magazine's Scott Horton has reported that although the decision to commence prosecution of six former Bush administration officials for torture was delayed until a meeting between Obama and Spanish leaders was over, the Obama administration has been keeping close tabs:
the Obama State Department has been in steady contact with the Spanish government about the case. Shortly after the case was filed on March 17, chief prosecutor Javier Zaragoza was invited to the U.S. embassy in Madrid to brief members of the embassy staff about the matter. A person in attendance at the meeting described the process as "correct and formal." The Spanish prosecutors briefed the American diplomats on the status of the case, how it arose, the nature of the allegations raised against the former U.S. government officials. The Americans "were basically there just to collect information,"
In addition Horton says that the Spanish are in essence waiting to see if the US will prosecute its own alleged war criminals:
The Spanish prosecutors advised the Americans that they would suspend their investigation if at any point the United States were to undertake an investigation of its own into these matters.
The Bush Six includes John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales. The list of tortures which occurred under Bush is steadily worsening, and makes for nauseating reading. The Obama administration has already sought to have a case dismissed involved the slicing of a man's genitals after extraordinary rendition. Britain's Daily Mail reported that a victim of the extraordinary rendition case targeted in a Boeing lawsuit which Obama seeks to dismiss:
"was identified as a terrorist after confessing he had visited a 'joke' website on how to build a nuclear weapon. ... [He] admitted to having read the 'instructions' after allegedly being beaten, hung up by his wrists for a week and having a gun held to his head in a Pakistani jail."
The Telegraph reported that:
Telegraph reported that "Mohamed’s genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated drowning, 'is very far down the list of things they did'."
We are not talking about waterboarding anymore, folks. This is the real thing, for those who say waterboarding is mild compared to what will happen to you in most countries. Worse, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Chief of Staff for Colin Powell, has come out saying the administration knew damned well it had captured many of the wrong guys.
The Justice Jackson Center is preparing a criminal complaint against Bush officials, which alleges:
· Savage Beatings. Prisoners were severely and regularly beaten with clubs, rifles and fists. They were beaten to the point that bones were broken, ribs were fractured, and prisoners sometimes were killed.
· Peroneal Strikes. Peroneal strikes are a specific form of savage beating, consisting of blows to the soft tissue and nerves just above the knee. The falsely accused prisoner beaten to death at Bagram had been given so many peroneal strikes that a coroner testified that his leg tissue had ‘"basically been pulpified.’"
· Hanging By The Arms. A highly excruciating "stress position" torture used on many prisoners, sometimes every day for two to three months, is hanging them by their arms, often or usually on tiptoe.
· Slamming A Prisoner’s Head Into Concrete Walls. In this torture a towel is wrapped around a prisoner’s neck and is then used to propel the prisoner head first into a concrete wall. This torture was so fraught with risk of serious injury to or death of a prisoner that the CIA kept a doctor on hand at all times to guard against death or crippling injury.
· Additional "Stress Positions" And Electric Shocks. "Palestinian hangings," they were hung by the arms with their feet on a drum through which electric shocks were applied to their feet; the shocks would cause the feet to "dance."
The dirty little secret of Bush's conduct of the War on Terror is that Jack Bauer tortured the wrong guys. PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS RADIO INTERVIEW OF DEAN LAWRENCE VELVEL, HEAD OF THE JUSTICE JACKSON PROJECT AND DEAN OF THE MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL OF LAW, for the full story. Then please email the link to your congressmember and ask that they listen to it.
Scott Horton article