Did you ever wonder who provided you with the startling video of American
John Walker being tortured by CIA operative Mike Spann, or those sickening
pictures of hooded, chained, and drugged prisoners being herded onto
American military aircraft at Kandahar Airport? Extraordinary though it
may seem, these and other horrific images were deliberately leaked to you
by members of US Special Forces, who had direct control of the areas where
the images were produced. Considerably concerned by the actions of local
CIA operatives, and certain illegal orders from Washington, members of
Special Forces responded by leaking highly sensitive information to the
public.Do not misunderstand me. American and other western Special
Forces are not a crowd of harp-playing angels determined to protect the
"human rights" of any old Tom, Dick or Harry. Most members of Special
Forces are seriously heavy duty soldiers who go about their business
loaded for bear, and God help anyone who gets in their way. Nor are
Special Forces averse to knocking captured members of the enemy around on
the battlefield, if they believe that the enemy in question has tactical
information that might reduce risks to their own unit. Many years ago I
was stupid enough to volunteer for a "practice interrogation" at the hands
of these folk; a mistake I remember vividly to this day because the
details are etched in my memory.
The main point to note is that although painful, my "practice
interrogation" was swift and soon over. In a tactical battlefield
situation, a soldier or airman is only reckoned to have information
relevant for about 48 hours after capture, because grass roots military
folk are never privy to long term strategic planning. Thus if a
battlefield prisoner hasn't spilled the beans inside 48 hours, chances are
there are no useful beans left to spill. At that stage, Special Forces and
other military units ship the captured enemy off to a normal
prisoner-of-war facility. Put simply, soldiers are not "into" extended
sensory deprivation, and other obscene forms of torture favored by
psychiatrists and psychologists working for most of the intelligence
agencies and security services. Details of this torture and its effects
will be provided later in the report, but first we need to examine the
ways in which the American military in faraway Afghanistan, alerted the
American public at home by using members of the media as unwitting tools.
Early on in the "War on Terror", four hundred Taliban prisoners were
transported by warlords to a fort outside Mazar-e Sharif in northern
Afghanistan. The only cameras and long-range shotgun microphones present
were in the hands of US Special Forces, who used them to film and catch
the sound of CIA operative Mike Spann torturing "American Taliban" John
Walker. Not long after that, someone chucked the so-called Taliban a few
grenades which they used to stage a revolt against their captors, who at
that time were gleefully pouring oil on the Taliban prisoners and lighting
it with matches. A little later, the CIA's Mike Spann was reportedly
beaten to death, and the survivors of the revolt were shipped off to
another prison camp.
Under normal circumstances the footage and sound captured by Special
Forces would be considered as top secret material, for Pentagon eyes only,
especially as this footage showed the CIA torturing a prisoner. But these
were not normal circumstances. A member of the CIA was torturing an
American citizen in the presence of "allied" warlords, the latter directly
responsible for supplying seventy percent of America's heroin until 1995
(UN Estimate). So instead of sending the footage off in a diplomatic pouch
to the Pentagon, Special Forces "lost it" in the immediate vicinity of the
Kabul media pack. If action had not been taken when it was, there is a
high probability John Walker would not have survived his "interrogation"
by Mike Spann, and without the critical video footage you would never have
known Walker ever existed.
 Next
up we have the equally astonishing footage of so-called Al Qaeda and
Taliban prisoners being led hooded, chained, and medically sedated, to an
American C17 transport aircraft parked at Kandahar Airport at the dead of
night. It was this footage in particular that caused such a huge fuss by
human rights groups all over the world. This is not surprising, because
without this video footage, few people would believe that Americans from
the "Land of the Free" would indulge themselves in such barbaric behavior.
So, were members of Special Forces responsible for taking this footage as
well? No they were not, but Special Forces did have complete control of
Kandahar Airport, meaning that they and only they controlled the flow of
people in and out of the Airport proper. In this particular case, Special
Forces "gave the nod" to the media, telling them what time to arrive, and
where to point their cameras in order to get the best shots of the
prisoners.
This activity took place completely outside the US Government chain of
command, and it was a while before Washington found out what had happened.
Then US Government officials went ballistic. Unable to retrieve the
footage from the various news organizations, officers nominated personally
by Donald Rumsfeld frantically asked members of the media pack to sign an
"undertaking" that they would not show the footage until they received
permission. Too late! By then some of the footage had been transmitted by
satellite, and had already been shown to a startled and outraged western
public on international television.
The Defense Secretary, officials, psychiatrists, and psychologists in
Washington had several valid reasons to be alarmed, not least of which was
the fact that this footage in isolation proves exactly what sort of
torture was, and still is, intended for these prisoners. Military contacts
have confirmed that far from being the "very, very dangerous" men claimed
by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, most of the prisoners taken to Cuba
are low grade fighters and others, i.e. those most likely to "crack" under
sustained cruelty, and sign false confessions of the kind needed by
Washington to ramp up its flagging "War on Terror". Interrogators have
been told the confessions must be ready by September at the latest.
Exactly how psychological torture will be used to extract the required
confessions is explained further down this page, but first we have to
consider why the US Government needs confessions all.
At present the US Government is using inference, innuendo, and outright
lies to bolster its ridiculous claim that a bunch of Arab Terrorists were
responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September
2001, story here. . There has never been any hard evidence to support this
wild and inaccurate claim, so as usual, the US Government is planning one
of its more spectacular "Trials by Media" later this year. In the dock on
14 October [shortly after the first anniversary of the World Trade center
attack] will be one Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested on immigration
charges on 17 August 2001, nearly a month before the attacks, and who has
now been charged with "conspiracy" in those attacks. The case against
Moussaoui is pitifully weak, with no hard or even corroborative evidence
that he knew what al Qaeda was, much less that he was part of the alleged
organization. In any case, how can a man firmly in US custody at the time
of the attacks be a suspect?
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| Zacarious Moussaoui |
Richard Colvin Reid |
In a court nearby will be Richard Colvin Reid, the alleged "Shoe
Bomber" on American Airlines Flight 63, said to have tried to light his
shoe in flight in order to blow up the aircraft. The US Government is now
trying to invent "links" to al Qaeda, the principle claim being that Reid
worshipped at the same London Mosque as Moussaoui during late 1998. So
what? I visited Westminster Abbey the same year as Queen Elizabeth the
Second, but I never met Her Majesty personally, and neither of us are
members of the mysterious al Qaeda.
You can see the way this is going, can't you? One creative false link
at a time, until we have enough creative false links to finally convince a
skeptical American public that the official lie of October 2001, should be
accepted as the actual truth in October 2002. But the huge problem facing
the US Government is that neither Moussaoui or Reid have actually been
seen in the company of Osama Bin Laden, or even in Afghanistan, though we
do know the Israelis shipped Reid to Israel for a week aboard one of their
very own El Al jets. This total absence of any proof that either man was
connected to al Qaeda is where the prisoners kidnapped to Cuba finally
come into the picture - God help them.
Before September is out, the American Federal Prosecution will have
signed confessions which "prove" some of the men held in Cuba personally
helped to train Moussaoui and Reid in terrorist techniques, with others
possibly providing flight instruction, bomb making, and so on. All lies of
course, but the US Government doesn't care about that. Think about it
people, think about it! What other possible reason can there be for
importing these Afghans and Arabs into Cuba, after kidnapping them
overseas? If they were the "very, very dangerous" men claimed by Rumsfeld,
they would have been left to the tender mercies of the drug-running
warlords recently restored to power by the CIA. Believe me when I say that
justice would then have been incredibly swift, incredibly terminal, and no
drain on the American taxpayer at all.
To discover exactly how the "disappeared" will be made to "confess", we
need to go back in history to the seventies, when the British Government
made a conscious decision to psychologically torture twelve suspected
members of the Irish Republican Army. Remember very carefully here that,
like the prisoners in Cuba, those tortured in Ireland had not been
convicted of any crime. Indeed, none had even been charged with a crime.
Also like the prisoners in Cuba, hoods, restraints and noise all played a
significant part. Here are some subjective comments from one of the
tortured Irishmen:-
"Plain-clothes men beside us. Four blue bags produced and put over our
heads. Short of breath because of bag. Then released from handcuffs which
connected one to the others and hands handcuffed in front individually.
Then run across field to 'copter. Landed, did not know where. Lorry backed
up to 'copter. Taken out and thrown into back of lorry, like a sack of
potatoes. Lorry smelt of cow dung. Driven in lorry for about 100 yards.
Pulled out of lorry (bag still over head) marched into some sort of
building. Stripped naked, examined by doctor. Bag still over head. Put
lying on bed and examined. Overalls (I later discovered) put on me, taken
into room. Noise like compressed-air engine in room. Very loud, deafening.
"Hands put against wall. Legs spread apart. Head pulled up by bag and
backside pushed in. Stayed there for about four hours. Could no longer
hold up arms. Fell down. Arms put up again. Hands hammered until
circulation restored. This happened continually for twelve or fourteen
hours, until I eventually collapsed. Thinking how that Paisley had seized
power in some way and that I would be executed or tortured to death.
Started to pray very hard. Mouth dried up. Couldn't get moisture in mouth.
Pulse taken. Thought of a youngster who had died at six months old,
started to pray that God would give me strength that I would not go
insane. Fell down several times more. Slapped back up again. This must
have gone on for two or three days; I lost track of time. No sleep. No
food. Knew I had gone unconscious several times, but did not know for how
long. One time I thought, or imagined, I had died."
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Detainees disembarking RAF helicopter sans
hoods, Northern Ireland |
Dr. O'Malley was the first medical man to see any of the men who had
undergone the SD [sensory deprivation] torture. He saw two of the original
twelve men in Crumlin Road jail sixteen days after their ordeal, and one
other somewhat later. He estimated that all three had developed a
psychosis within the first day of interrogation. "The psychosis consisted
of loss of sense of time, perceptual disturbances leading to visual and
auditory hallucinations, profound apprehension and depression, and
delusional beliefs - e.g. hearing Paisley [A Protestant Minister] lead an
evangelical choir intent on slaughtering Catholics." Of the three men,
O'Malley gave as his opinion that one would recover completely, one would
possibly recover but the process would be lengthy, and one was in need of
urgent psychiatric assistance if he was to make a full recovery. Despite
the doctor's recommendations, nothing was done and all were subsequently
moved from Crumlin jail to Long Kesh [an internment camp].
In his book "The Guinea Pigs" (1974), author John McGuffin goes a long
way towards explaining exactly how this type of psychological torture
works. "Sensory deprivation (SD) refers literally to the artificial
deprivation of the senses - auditory, visual, tactile and kinesthetic. In
connection with the Northern Ireland 'guineapigs' it meant (1) hooding
prisoners prior to their interrogation; (2) constant use of a sound
machine which produces white noise', a high pitched hissing, mushy sound;
(3) long periods of immobilization, being forced to lean against a wall,
legs wide apart with only the fingertips touching the wall; (4) little or
no food or drink; and (5) being forced to wear loose overalls, several
sizes too big. In addition, (6) prisoners were deprived of sleep for days
on end; while not technically SD this accentuates the process.
"There is a purpose behind all these actions. Measures (1), (2), (3)
and (5) cause visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile deprivation while
measures (4) and (6) deprive the brain of oxygen and sugar necessary for
normal functioning. In addition, measures (1), (4) and (6) may disturb the
normal body metabolism. Hooding causes an imbalance in the ratio of oxygen
to carbon dioxide in the air breathed and this causes mental confusion.
The wall-standing, which is deliberately made to sound so innocuous by
apologists like Sir Edmund Compton is extremely painful - especially when
accompanied by beatings - and causes, in addition to fatigue and swollen
wrists and ankles, poor circulation of the blood which leads to a reduced
supply of oxygen and sugar to the brain. The restricted and in some cases
almost non-existent diet was also sugar-free (Storr has pointed out that
the brain needs three things if it is to function efficiently: sensory
stimulation, sugar and oxygen)."
The Irish Government later made a formal complaint to the European
Commission for Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. The
Commission found Britain guilty of torture. Where the prisoners in Cuba
are concerned, the US Government is already guilty on more than a single
count. In 1975 the United Nations defined torture as "any act by which
severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally
inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official on a person for
such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or
confession, punishing him for an act he has committed, or intimidating him
or other persons. Torture constitutes an aggravated and deliberate form of
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." The US Government's
use of isolation units in Cuba breaks two United Nations Covenants against
Torture, and the UN Covenant for the Treatment of Prisoners, both of which
the United States has signed.
By now, most readers will appreciate the incredibly awkward position
Special Forces placed the US Government in when it allowed the prisoners
to be filmed boarding the C17 Transport at Kandahar Airport, and leaked
details about the sedatives administered to them. Here was almost a carbon
copy of the torture conducted in Northern Ireland: The same hoods, the
same restraints, and 30 hours or more of high pitched aircraft noise on
the way to Cuba substituting for the "White Noise" used by British
security psychiatrists and psychologists.
Though detailed information about the psychological torture in Northern
Ireland has largely receded into the back rooms of Irish pubs and remote
corners of the Internet, the US Government is very aware that, back in the
seventies, the British Government faced an avalanche of adverse publicity.
Hated though the IRA was in many quarters, there was no excuse for this
shocking use of psychological torture against mere suspects of terrorism -
some of them only teenagers. No doubt in the fullness of time the US
Government will face its own avalanche of adverse publicity, which will be
richly deserved.
In judging its progress to date where the "War on Terror" is concerned,
it seems likely that Washington is listening more to the fawning comments
of external supporters in the "International Community" than it is to its
own citizens, which in the long term could prove to be a fatal error of
judgement. One such fawning external country is Australia, where the
Attorney General, Queens Counsel Mr Daryl Williams, has recently made it
quite clear that whatever the Americans want to do to their illegal
prisoners, that's OK by Australia. With reference to "Australian Taliban"
David Hicks, Mr Williams stated:
"You have to be realistic
about the nature of the potential threat that the prisoners who have been
transferred to Cuba represent .. they have been trained to be terrorists
and to act in accordance with the objectives of al Qaeda. That makes them
about as dangerous as a person can be in modern times."
Trained? By whom, when, where, and what are the charges? Apparently in
their "Queens Counsel 101" courses, Australian law schools neglect to
mention the need for evidence. The prisoners kidnapped and flown under
strict sensory deprivation conditions to Cuba, where they are now housed
in diminutive cages open to the elements, are not dangerous persons at
all. More dangerous by far are politicians of any nation who try to invent
fictional "terrorists" in order to further their own political careers or
other ambitions, and others who cite the conveniently invented
"terrorists" to force additional Draconian controls over ordinary members
of the public.
It seems likely that David Hicks will be released into Australian
custody sometime during the next few months, in order to be tried on some
trumped-up charge around October 2002, the same time as the mammoth "Trial
by Media" of Moussaoui and Reid in America. Combined with other trials in
countries including Great Britain, the last quarter of 2002 promises to
break all records for pure media hype and social engineering.
Regardless of what Australia or other obsequious countries might say or
do, now or in the future, where the Afghan prisoners are concerned the US
Government is acting specifically "in the name of the American people".
Many Americans are of Irish descent, and many took deep offence to British
behavior in Northern Ireland. There is no credible reason to believe that
American citizens in general will condone Rumsfeld's torture of the
Afghans simply because they are "not Irish", nor because they are Muslims
rather than Catholics or Protestants.
Perhaps most important of all, the US Government is forcing members of
the US military to behave in ways which offend their rigid training and
discipline. It is perfectly alright to shoot a man dead in combat if he is
shooting at you, and it is perfectly alright to wound a man in combat if
he is trying to wound you. On the flip side of the coin, torturing
suspects for purely political reasons is not alright under any military
code ever written, and it seems likely there will be more "breaches of
discipline" if the United States Government is not very careful in the
future.
Richard Reid Update
Electronic Hijack
Florida
Attack
Shoe
Bomber
Vialls
Investigations Guinea
Pigs
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