JESUS FUCKING CHRIST the third point, there is a second half to it that shows what he tried to do to him self after being put through that
> Additional sessions of rectal feeding and hydration followed. In addition to his hunger strikes, Majid Klian engaged in acts of self-harm that included attempting to cut his wrist on two occasions, an attempt to chew into his arm at the inner elbow, an attempt to cut a vein in the top of his foot, and an attempt to cut into his skin at the elbow joint using a filed toothbrush.
This man literally tried to chew through his own body, to bleed out, to avoid having his food forcefully shoved up his ass, for no reason whatsoever. He further attempted to kill himself on several occasions to avoid this as well.
That is the cold truth of that statement. This is fucking disgusting, and someone needs to be held accountable.
Yes. We can't just keep whining "come on, guys, you really ought to stop" to our leaders. This is happening in our names, and our hands are dirty. Stopping this is our own responsibility.
The US is legally required by the Geneva Convention Against Torture, signed into US law by Ronald Reagan, to prosecute the torturers and their chain of command.
The new law authorizes the use of military force to
liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied
country being held by the court, which is located in
The Hague. This provision, dubbed the "Hague invasion
clause," has caused a strong reaction from U.S. allies
around the world [...]
This is not entirely correct; the US is not a party to the Rome Statute, true, but it in fact Bill Clinton did sign the Rome Statute, but it was never submitted for ratification, and George W. Bush's administration sent a note purporting to retract the signature (as a means of avoid obligations that attach to signatories to treaties even prior to ratification under the Vienna Convention on Treaties, specifically, the obligation not to work to undermine the treaty's purpose.)
The US has engaged more positively (but without any moves toward ratification or even retracting the purported retraction of its signature) with the ICC under the Obama Administration.
Thanks for providing these details. (I didn't even know that Bill Clinton did actually sign the statute, even though it was effectively retracted (if only via (GWB) sending a note purporting to retract the signature, as I take it.))
You don't have to be signatory to the ICC for torture to be illegal. The ICC is fairly recent. We didn't need the ICC at Nuremberg. We don't need it now. It can be prosecuted within the US justice system, or a new tibunal can be created for it.
The first step is telling your representative(s) that you think torture is bad. They genuinely don't know if you approve of it or not, and they've got the CIA and associated lobby telling them how necessary it is and that if they try to stop it, they're hurting america and in fact they're basically terrorists themselves.
Start by phoning your representative's office. Today. Tomorrow. The day after that. Every day, ask for your representative's statement on CIA torture. Ask why they haven't condemned it more thoroughly; are they in favour of torture? What exactly are they going to do to make sure it doesn't happen again? Really? Just that? That's not enough. What else? Talk to your neighbours, friends, family, colleagues. Ask them to do the same. Send letters. Send eMails. Visit in person. Don't stop.
Demand also that everybody who has been involved in this in any way be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
And not even just the US law. I'm sure what the Nazis did was totally legal by their own laws, and yet they were still punished. Some crimes supercede local laws.
Given that effecting a change in government policy is what politics is, and that's the aim, what exactly would deal with this situation that isn't politics? You've got a snappy attitude, denigrating the idea of politics; do you have anything that isn't politics, or are you just a smug soundbite?
I'm sure all the previous people who used politics to change things did indeed find it an easy ride. Martin King basically phoned in his efforts, didn't he? And I recall Pankhurst effected her changes with a single stern letter to the London Times.
What other option is there? Revolution? If you can't get enough people together to vote the current crooks out of office, you certainly have no hope of staging a revolution.
In the end, these people need to be prosecuted in order to lock them up. That means the DoJ needs to do its job, but in the corrupt system of the US, it also means that Congress needs to understand the gravity of the situation.
Maybe people don't vote because they are disenchanted with the system they don't believe works as it was supposed to? Where the heck do you get off saying if people aren't capable of the desire to vote, a revolution isn't possible?
Consider for a moment: you can vote for spam or canned tuna.
Do you think people are more likely to take up arms against the government than to vote? You're a fool if you do.
How do you think you can stage a revolution with a minority of the population behind you, while the powers that be are as well-armed and as eager to use violence as they are in the US?
You've got a better chance of voting both parties out of office with a minority vote, and fixing the broken system that people are so disenchanted with.
Your mistake is that you believe that the options they're giving you are the only ones. You can make a third option. If you can get enough people behind you to stage a credible revolution, you can easily get enough people to vote for your third option.
It's totally true that the US electoral system is broken and corrupt and doesn't do justice to the vote of the people, but it's not yet to the point that the vote doesn't matter at all. People do still need to vote, and alternatives to the two ruling parties are still legal. You can take advantage of that to stage a much more peaceful revolution through the ballot box.
A start would be to stop looking to someone else to show you the way. What have you tried?
Working in groups is what makes it so damn easy to discredit, re-brand and dilute movements. Protesting? C'mon, we're way past the useful application of protesting.
While I disagree in particular (because it is believed the agents of the US using this torture practices acted in secret) there is an overarching logic that is sound: to the degree a society is democratic is the same degree its citizens are ultimately responsible for the actions of their government officials.
The only way to avoid being responsible for this, is to take the responsibility you have: to condemn this, and demand justice. Pay reparations to the victims of these sadists (preferably out of the pockets of the culprits, but out of the US treasury if necessary), and put the culprits behind bars.
Anyone not doing that, is guilty of condoning this crime, and ensuring that it can and will happen again in the future.
We as a country allow whistle-blowers to be called traitors, imprisoned, character assassinated, assassinated and exiled from our country. The only people that don't or didn't know are those that wished to continue living the 'American dream' in denial.
The root of the problem is that the state is a monopoly on violence. What is a "citizen" supposed to do? Vote for the red master or the blue master next time? It makes no difference.
The best thing a "citizen" can do is recognize the state is foundationally unethical and has no legitimate political authority and never did. [1] Once we leave behind the mysticism of state authority, perhaps we can find better ways to organize society in ways that are ethically sound.
How is that going to help you? Going rogue on your own is not going to get these people in prison, or prevent that it will happen again.
You need people on your side. You need a majority of Americans on your side. And once you've got that, you can vote the politicians out of office, elect some better ones, and finally see justice done. And maybe before that, you can use the threat of this happening to get the current crop of politicians to finally care about justice.
You say that, but your dismissive attitude to the solution sounds like you're doing the exact opposite. Do you really honestly think you can solve the problem on your own?
The root of the problem didn't start at the voting booth, "Oh I'll check yes to torture those terrorist", or "I'm going to write my Congressmen telling them to torture some folks". In fact Congress voted to outlaaw waterboarding: http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/02/14/us-security-usa-wa... (although it was vetoed by President Bush). This report will help to further clamp down on brutal interrogation techniques. It will push Congress and President Obama to resolve the issue. The CIA, in fact mislead any type of oversight over the torture programs. So instead of jumping to "we're all blame" conclusions, why don't you blame the people in charge that secured the funding for these officers to do it?
I don't understand, how can you blame the citizens for this, when they were ignorant, against their will, about this?
When the institution that is performing these acts out-and-out lies about the impact and severity, how can random citizens be held accountable? That honestly makes no sense to me.
>I don't understand, how can you blame the citizens for this, when they were ignorant, against their will, about this?
>When the institution that is performing these acts out-and-out lies about the impact and severity, how can random citizens be held accountable? That honestly makes no sense to me.
because the institutions and individuals doing it know that they will go unpunished once the truth gets discovered. Whenever stuff like this surfaces nobody gets punished and thus the citizens/society give clear approval to the actions that have already been perpetrated and to perpetrate it in the future as long as visibility of convenient "ignorance" is maintained.
Is this a democracy, or isn't it? And yeah, sure, we're all "ignorant" in the sense that we ignore everything that isn't spelled out in black and white, and then posted at eye level in our line of sight.
At best, the citizens are ignorantly complicit by lack of attention. What did the people do about MK ULTRA? Who was punished? Oh, that's right, the CIA got off with paying their victims off and no-one was held "accountable". The republic has been dead. What's left is just the populace of the most financially successful country, and those people don't want to be told how complacently evil they and their country have become. I've argued with enough people that will reject the truth up until it's completely ill-refutable, the reason being, they like their lifestyle and make-believe country.
> Additional sessions of rectal feeding and hydration followed. In addition to his hunger strikes, Majid Klian engaged in acts of self-harm that included attempting to cut his wrist on two occasions, an attempt to chew into his arm at the inner elbow, an attempt to cut a vein in the top of his foot, and an attempt to cut into his skin at the elbow joint using a filed toothbrush.
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