BRITISH GOVERNMENT WARNS AGAINST INVESTIGATION INTO TORTURE

Yet another government is claiming that its security position could be harmed if there is an investigation into claims of torture of suspected terrorists. Haven't we heard this all before from Dick Cheney, Michael Chertoff, Michael Mukasey et al.? What they mean is that investigations into government-sanctioned torture will embarrass the higher-ups of government.

Jenny Percival reports in The Guardian on the use of this tired argument, this time put forth by the Home Secretary of the British government.

"Scotland Yard said last week it was launching an investigation, at the request of Lady Scotland, the attorney general, into claims of torture made by former Guantánamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed."

But Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary (equivalent to Homeland Security), claimed that such an investigation would harm Britain's security services.

Writes Percival:

""Alan Johnson, the home secretary, has said Britain's security could be put at risk by a police investigation into allegations that MI5 agents colluded in torture.

"Johnson said he had "nothing but admiration" for the work of the security service and believed it operated "to the highest ethical and professional standards". He suggested that Britain's interests would be at risk if the service's counter-terrorism capabilities were "diminished and diluted"."

This is just as much rubbish and bull as was the American argument. In fact, worse damage will be done if the events and practices charged are covered up and not shown the light of day. For then the security services will have gotten away with horrendous crimes committed against individuals without any need to explain or justify their crimes. And surely they will think that they can operate with impunity, no matter what the criminal law says or prohibits.

Johnson sounds like Leon Panetta who has counselled Obama not to release photos or conduct an investigation into American waterboarding. Praise the culprits and perpetrators as being British (or American) patriots, say that you have great admiration for their work, add that whatever they did was in the service of the country.

Here's Johnson's version, as reported by Percival:

"Johnson, who took on responsibility for MI5 when he became home secretary last month, told the Daily Telegraph: "I haven't sat around the last six weeks not looking into these things. I have looked very closely at them and I just say this: we have one of the best counter-terrorism capabilities in the world and we diminish and dilute it at our peril."

"He added: "In my six weeks in this job I am so reassured and so amazed at the work that is going on, on our behalf, by people who do not have a voice, who are not able to express their views, who work in the most difficult and dangerous circumstances.

""I have nothing but admiration for them. As I am in effect their voice I will defend them and defend what they do, and it does worry me.""

WHY DOES OBAMA CONTINUE INHUMANE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS AT BAGRAM?

The BBC has talked to 27 former inmates at the notorious U.S. military prison at Bagram, Afghanistan, and reports that most say that American soldiers inflicted periods of sleeplessness, forced standing, loud music and other wise inhumane and cruel treatment.

Ian Pannell reports for the BBC on this story:

"Many allegations of ill-treatment appear repeatedly in the interviews: physical abuse, the use of stress positions, excessive heat or cold, unbearably loud noise, being forced to remove clothes in front of female soldiers.

"In four cases detainees were threatened with death at gunpoint.

""They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans," said one inmate known as Dr Khandan.

""They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer. They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death," he said.

""They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you.""

So who is responsible for the operation of this prison and who made up these harsh interrogation methods and installed them as standard operating procedure? We know the answer to the two latter questions: it was George Bush and Dick Cheney who devised and then implemented these methods of torture, not some sergeant or specialist in the U.S. Army. But as to who is responsible - now it is Barack Obama and his Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. It is anyone's guess as to whether this awful treatment of Afghanis still continues. But if it does continue, it is up to Obama and Gates to shut it down without delay.

Furthermore, Obama has adopted the Bush line that prisoners in Afghanistan are not deserving of the protections of the U.S. constitution. This means that Obama is trying to deny to these prisoners basic human rights, such as receiving a fair trial, and asking for habeas relief from an independent court, such as that found in the Fourth Amendment that allows a court to consider whether a person is being held unjustly.

Obama's position against granting basic protections to these prisoners at Bagram is beyond comprehension. Americans voted for Obama as president because they believed that he would end the injustice and violations of human rights. Has he now dismissed the views of all those who voted for him?

STOP CIA'S PRACTICE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE

Tom Dispatch prints an analysis written by Alfred McCoy of torture techniques long used over the years by the CIA, centering on psychological methods. Why doesn't Obama repudiate these methods and initiate an investigation of these CIA policies? And why did Obama appoint Leon Panetta as head of the agency when he must have known that Panetta would try to quash any hearing or investigation of CIA dark practices?

U.S. UNDER BUSH/CHENEY ORDERED CRUEL, HARSH METHODS BEYOND WATERBOARDING

Last night on PBS, Bill Moyers Journal featured excerpts from Torturing Democracy, a film from producer Sherry Jones, that takes a close look at various forms of torture and cruel punishment meted out by the U.S. military and by the CIA.

We saw depictions of prisoners being shackled to the ceiling or to the floor, being blasted by non-stop high decibel music, being deprived of sleep for days, being held in complete darkness for months at a time, being stuffed into small containers and/or cages. And all of this inhumane treatment was over and above being subject to the trial by water, where water is poured into one's mouth and nose, causing the fear and sensation of drowning.

When I was watching the program, it was hard to reconcile that these methods of torture were American methods of interrogating prisoners, many of whom were ordinary sheepherders and farmers, picked up in Afghanistan and sold to the Americans. Yet it was Bush himself who signed off on these cruel and harsh methods, and it was Dick Cheney who followed up and made sure that the military and the CIA were enforcing them.