by publius
More on this to come, but good lord:
A long-suppressed report by the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general to be released next week reveals that CIA interrogators staged mock executions as part of the agency's post-9/11 program to detain and question terror suspects, NEWSWEEK has learned. . . .
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."
The report also says, according to the sources, that a mock execution was staged in a room next to a detainee, during which a gunshot was fired in an effort to make the suspect believe that another prisoner had been killed. The inspector general's report alludes to more than one mock execution.
Good Lord, indeed. We ration health care by income, we spy on our own citiens, and now this. You'd think the Bushies would have the decency to at least be embarrassed, but the response to Tom Ridge's revelation of political motivation in the use of terror alerts (as if we were supposed to be surprised) has elicited only the usual "Of couse we did no wuch thing. Mr. Ridge must havemisunderstood."
And no one will be punished.
Posted by: Bob L. | August 22, 2009 at 05:01 PM
in for a penny, in for a pound
Posted by: russell | August 22, 2009 at 05:07 PM
Robert Mueller, the head of the FBI, has launched a scathing attack on this mockery of justice.
Oh, wait, not this mockery of justice. Apparently this was OK, it was a Scottish judge following the rule of law in Scotland that was sufficiently mockworthy of justice for Mueller to get worked up about it.
He assumed office on 4th September 2001, and kidnapping, extra-judicial prison camps, torture: those apparently do not rouse Mueller's ire as a "mockery of justice".
Posted by: Jesurgislac | August 22, 2009 at 06:21 PM
Bah. Fraternity pranks!
Posted by: Nombrilisme Vide | August 22, 2009 at 06:23 PM
This seems familiar.
Jes: "extra-judicial prison camps"
No points for this step, I trust?
Posted by: Gary Farber | August 22, 2009 at 06:26 PM
"but good lord"
Besides, never seen this film? If it's good enough for Sean Connery, it's good enough for anyone!
Posted by: Gary Farber | August 22, 2009 at 06:27 PM
U!S!A!
U!S!A!
Posted by: cleek | August 22, 2009 at 06:30 PM
Apparently this was OK, it was a Scottish judge following the rule of law in Scotland that was sufficiently mockworthy of justice for Mueller to get worked up about it.
Considering the horrors our own government has unleashed on the world with impunity, I'm finding it really hard to get worked up about the Lockerbie bomber being allowed to go home to die.
Posted by: Uncle Kvetch | August 22, 2009 at 06:59 PM
Since it was straight out of the Jack Bauer "24" playbook, a lot of people who should be outraged by this will not be (including a nephew of mine who loves that show).
Posted by: JimV | August 22, 2009 at 07:26 PM
Straight out of the Pinochet/Videla playbook.
Posted by: Randinho | August 22, 2009 at 07:46 PM
Hate to say it, but I am neither surprised nor shocked anymore.
Disgusted? Yes, continuously. But neither surprised nor shocked.
I hope when all the history has been written, professors will teach the history of the previous administration as truly disgusting as it was.
On the other hand (playing off Randy's post above) there are still an awful lot of GOP apologists for Pinochet...
I can hope, can't I?
Posted by: efgoldman | August 22, 2009 at 07:53 PM
Straight out of the Pinochet/Videla playbook.
When practiced by Iranian radicals holding US embassy personnel hostage in '79-'80, a source of mighty US outrage....
Posted by: Davis X. Machina | August 22, 2009 at 10:48 PM
The power drill is especially disturbing since that became a favorite of 'extrajudicial killings' in Iraq. Many corpses found in Iraqi streets showed signs of the use of that very instrument (and I doubt that too many Iraqis read American Psycho).
Posted by: Hartmut | August 23, 2009 at 04:06 AM
...or watched http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frightmare_%28film%29>Frightmare (1974).
Posted by: Hartmut | August 23, 2009 at 04:09 AM
Given the number of actual homicides during the interrogation process, mock ones do not surprise.
Posted by: Joe | August 23, 2009 at 09:06 AM
"To be a human being among human beings, and remain one forever, no matter what misfortunes befall, not to become depressed, and not to falter--this is what life is, herein lies its task."
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in a letter to his brother, December 22, 1849. Written immediately after experiencing his own mock execution in Semyonovsky Square. (cf.)
Posted by: S.G.E.W. | August 23, 2009 at 11:29 AM
I'm thinking three backlit individuals in masks (how else shall we achieve facelessness) and robes, each with a power drill in front of them, sitting at a slightly elevated table as granny is led before them.
She'd probably drop her tatting and keel over from sheer fright and we can call it natural causes.
It will be reported at Redstate as "mock death panels".
Followed by mock outrage.
Posted by: John Thullen | August 23, 2009 at 11:41 AM
If it "worked" on "24," the CIA pigs tried it at Gitmo/Baghram, etc...
Posted by: Woody | August 23, 2009 at 11:42 AM
The most serious crimes were at the top, and the culture of impunity is most poisonous at the top.
These lurid details, which really aren't particularly shocking in light of what we already know and have known for years (Joe's point) should not distract us from the outrageous Obama/Holder plan to enshrine the Yoo/Bybee memos as "law" by restricting prosecutions to those who "went outside" them.
Posted by: Nell | August 23, 2009 at 02:54 PM