U.S. soldier ‘waterboarded his own daughter, 4, because she couldn’t recite alphabet’

A soldier waterboarded his four-year-old daughter because she was unable to recite her alphabet.

Joshua Tabor admitted to police he had used the CIA torture technique because he was so angry.

As his daughter ’squirmed’ to get away, Tabor said he submerged her face three or four times until the water was lapping around her forehead and jawline.

Tabor, 27, who had won custody of his daughter only four weeks earlier, admitted choosing the punishment because the girl was terrified of water.

he practice of waterboarding was used by the CIA to break Al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Detainees had water poured over their face until they feared they would drown. President Barack Obama has since outlawed the practice.

Tabor, a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Washington, was arrested after being seen walking around his neighbourhood wearing a Kevlar military helmet and threatening to break windows.

Police discovered the alleged waterboarding when they went to his home in the Tacoma suburb of Yelm and spoke to his girlfriend.

She told them about the alleged torture and the terrified girl was found hiding in a closet, with bruising on her back and scratch marks on her neck and throat.

Asked how she got the bruises, the girl is said to have replied: ‘Daddy did it.’

During a police interview Tabor allegedly admitted grabbing his daughter, placing her on the kitchen counter and submerging her face into a bowl of water.

Sergeant Rob Carlson said the punishment was carried out because the girl would not recite the alphabet.

Police have not revealed Tabor’s military service, but his base is home to units that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tabor has been charged with assault and ordered to remain on his base and have no contact with his daughter or girlfriend, who has not been named. He is due to appear in court this week.

The girl has been taken into care. Her natural mother lives in Kansas but Tabor had been granted custody by a court.

BTW, I will be speaking on Psychology of denial and accountability  at the Stop Torture Now conference: Weaving a Net of Accountability: Taking on extraordinary rendition at the state and regional level, April 8-10.]:

Obama’s torture scorecard
A tortured record

President Barack Obama has failed to renounce extraordinary rendition of terrorism suspects—and has yet to hold the Bush and his administration accountable for torturing prisoners.

That’s the message from N.C. Stop Torture Now, which compiled this scorecard to grade the Obama administration on its efforts to curb human rights violations.

The group’s calls for investigations into the role of North Carolina companies in renditions and torture have been stonewalled by state and federal officials, who contend “it’s somebody’s else’s job,” says Christina Cowger, spokesperson for N.C. Stop Torture Now.

It plans to ask the state to create a commission that could call witnesses, compile and request public documents and create an official record of what has transpired in North Carolina.

Positives:

• Banned the use of torture in interrogations. [read report]
• Ordered closure of CIA-administered secret prisons. [read report]
• Ordered release of some torture memos written by previous administration officials. [read report]

Negatives:

• Failed to keep a commitment to close the Guantánamo prison camp by January 23, 2010.
• Is weighing a Department of Justice recommendation to continue holding detainees indefinitely, without charge, and with no opportunity to challenge their detention. [read report]
• Continues to capture and send individuals to a secret prison facility in Afghanistan, refusing the prisoners any right to challenge their detention and blocking the International Committee of the Red Cross from monitoring their condition and treatment. [read report]
• Opposed or blocked legal actions aimed at gaining release of torture evidence, including a public commitment to release photographs of U.S. personnel engaging in torture of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. [read report]
• Worked to deny restorative justice to victims and survivors of U.S. torture, by arguing that perpetrators are shielded from civil remedies by the state secrets doctrine. [read report]
• Has delayed or is now withholding release of internal investigative reports on potential war crimes by former high U.S. government officials. [read report]
• Ignored Nuremberg precedents regarding the responsibility of policymakers for crimes by lesser officials carrying out their instructions. [read report]
• Threatened to end intelligence cooperation with Britain if an investigation there into torture of British nationals at Guantánamo and other U.S. facilities proceeds. [read report]
• Failed to direct an adequate investigation into the death of Guantánamo detainee Mohammed al-Hanashi, an elected leader among the detainees, whom the U.S. military claims killed himself days after finally winning the right to be represented by legal counsel. [read report] [read report]
• Opposed efforts to establish an independent public commission to investigate charges of torture and war crimes by U.S. officials, intelligence operatives and contractors. [read report]
• Evaded direct inquiries about the effort to quash war crimes investigations by officials in Spain. [read report]
• Decided to continue “extraordinary rendition,” or sending prisoners to be interrogated in countries where torture has been routine. Many of those flights have been conducted by North Carolina-based planes and pilots (Aero Contractors of Smithfield). [read report]
• Covered up suspicious deaths of detainees, apparently involving torture, at a secret CIA black site, “Camp No,” at Guantánamo, and opposed lawsuit (Al-Zahrani v. Rumsfeld) by family members of detainees who died. [read report] [read report]

Source: N.C. Stop Torture Now

Today the Seton Hall team has released a new report dissecting the official Department of Defense responses to these previous reports. The new report — DOD Contradicts DOD: An Analysis of the Response to Death in Camp Delta — demonstrates that the DOD responses are about as credible as the original NCIS report, that is, not at all. Rather, the responses suggest a frantic attempt to salvage a cover-up that can’t be salvaged once it receives scrutiny.

The authors demonstrate that the responses contradict key findings of the original NCIS report.

DOD now asserts only one detainee had a rag in his throat at the time of death, but the NCIS investigation shows all three had rags in their throats.

DOD asserts that more than 100 interviews were conducted during the first three days of the investigation; however, only 24 personnel were interviewed on June 10 and none on June 11, 12, and 13. No more than 45 individuals were interviewed during the entire investigation.

DOD now asserts that NCIS reviewed all available video footage, and found nothing of evidentiary value. The record shows NCIS had a videotape of the events. Since either activity in the camp or lack of activity would be relevant to the conflicting claims, it is implausible that there is nothing of evidentiary value on the tape.

DOD now asserts that the detainees hanged themselves while lights were dimmed. The Admiral concluded the detainees hanged themselves with the lights on. The DOD does not explain this discrepancy.

Most importantly, however, the Seton Hall authors point out that all of the military personnel  statements from that nigh are missing. As lead author Seton Hall professor Mark stated in a press release:

Everyone on duty that night, in addition the Alpha Block guards, was ordered to write sworn statements as soon as the detainees were declared dead. And every one of those statements is missing.

Writing these statements is specified by the Standard Operating Procedures. Yet these guards were then ordered to stop writing and were later threatened with perjury charges. After the threats they apparently made statements supporting the Official Story®.

Report coauthor Sean Camoni further pointed out the absurdity of this disappearance of their original statements:

You tell me, why do you order all your witnesses to write out sworn statements and then not use them?

The most obvious reason, of course, is that those statements might contradict the Official Story®.

Read the entire report to see how fanciful the Official Story® is. As the Seton Hall authors state:

If, three and a half years after the three men died, and seven weeks after Seton Hall revealed the failings of the investigation, this is the strongest response the DOD could muster, there is reason to suspect that no good response exists. The initial investigation into the deaths of three detainees on June 9, 2006, was flawed, the DOD’s response is flawed, and a new investigation is necessary to find out what really happened that night.

It is important to remember what is at stake here. If these men did not kill themselves, they were killed by others. There is evidence suggesting that their deaths may have occurred during brutal interrogations at Camp No. However, given three simultaneous deaths on the same night, to my mind, intentional homicide cannot be ruled out. If they were deliberately killed, we need to know why? And why was the fact covered up, rather than thoroughly investigated and exposed? Was it to cover up some secret so potentially damaging that it was worth risking murder and cover-up?

Only a truly independent investigation can clarify these questions. At this point, given the possible involvement of officials from two administrations in a cover-up, and the potentially explosive nature of potential findings, such an investigation cannot be trusted to the usual sources. Either a truly independent counsel must be brought in or some other independent authority.

Any investigation must also investigate the reports by the guards and others of this mysterious Camp No. What was it for? What went on there? Who was involved? Who was incarcerated there? Why? And is it still open today?

We cannot rest until these questions are answered satisfactorily.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

[H/t Crooks & Liars.]

In addition to the point about the cooperation of the bomber’s family, there is another point I haven’t seen made anywhere. The US was warned by the bomber’s father that his son posed a danger. If the father believed his son would be subjected to the “enhanced interrogation” [torture] tactics so beloved by conservatives, it is extremely unlikely that such a warning would have come. It is even likely that the threat of a military commission would have discouraged the family.

The point is that torture destroys the ability to gather intelligence. Sources will not turn in family or acquaintances to be tortured. But they are likely to turn in enemies, often with false accusations. Thus torture and an absence of due process discourage good intelligence and encourage bad.

Glenn Greenwald demolishes Collins in a piece where he takes on the right wing fiction ["lie"] that Constitutional rights only apply to American citizens:

Collins railed: “Once afforded the protection our Constitution guarantees American citizens, this foreign terrorist ‘lawyered up’ and stopped talking” (h/t). This notion that the protections of the Bill of Rights specifically and the Constitution generally apply only to the Government’s treatment of American citizens is blatantly, undeniably false — for multiple reasons — yet this myth is growing, as a result of being centrally featured in “War on Terror” propaganda.

First, the U.S. Supreme Court, in 2008, issued a highly publicized opinion, in Boumediene v. Bush, which, by itself, makes clear how false is the claim that the Constitution applies only to Americans. The Boumediene Court held that it was unconstitutional for the Military Commissions Act to deny habeas corpus rights to Guantanamo detainees, none of whom was an American citizen (indeed, the detainees were all foreign nationals outside of the U.S.). If the Constitution applied only to U.S. citizens, that decision would obviously be impossible. What’s more, although the decision was 5-4, none of the 9 Justices — and, indeed, not even the Bush administration — argued that the Constitution applies only to American citizens. That is such an inane, false, discredited proposition that no responsible person would ever make that claim.

What divided the Boumediene Court was the question of whether foreigners held by the U.S. military outside of the U.S. (as opposed to inside the U.S.) enjoy Constitutional protections. They debated how Guantanamo should be viewed in that regard (as foreign soil or something else). But not even the 4 dissenting judges believed — as Susan Collins and other claim — that Constitutional rights only extend to Americans. To the contrary, Justice Scalia, in his scathing dissent, approvingly quoted Justice Jackson in conceding that foreigners detained inside the U.S. are protected by the Constitution….

[B]asic common sense by itself should prevent people like Susan Collins from claiming the Constitution applies only to American citizens. There are millions of foreign nationals inside the U.S. at all times — not only illegally but also legally: as tourists, students, workers, Green Card holders, etc. Is there anyone who really believes that the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply to them? If a foreign national is arrested and accused by the U.S. Government of committing a crime, does anyone believe they can be sentenced to prison without a jury trial, denied the right to face their accusers, have their property seized without due process, be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, and be denied access to counsel? Anyone who claims that the Constitution only protects American citizens, but not foreigners, would necessarily have to claim that the U.S. Government could do all of that to foreign nationals. Does anyone believe that? Would it be Constitutionally permissible to own foreigners as slaves on the ground that the protections of the Constitution — including the Thirteenth Amendment — apply only to Americans, not foreigners?

CIA workers trained Wall Street firms to detect lies

By Daniel Nasaw

It is hard to imagine two more distrusted and reviled professions. One has been accused of torturing detainees and failing to track down Islamist terror suspects; the other is widely perceived to be responsible for the worldwide recession.

Now, in a move likely to provoke a perfect storm of opprobrium, the two have joined forces: enterprising CIA officers who want to earn a little extra have been given the green light to moonlight for Wall Street firms.

According to a forthcoming book by US reporter Eamon Javers and confirmed by the CIA, financial firms have recruited spooks on active service to help determine if colleagues are telling the truth.

According to Javers, Business Intelligence Advisors (BIA), a Boston-based investment research firm that boasts links to the US intelligence apparatus, employed workers with backgrounds in interrogation and interviewing to train hedge fund managers in a technique called tactical behaviour assessment. This purports to allow practitioners to tell if someone is being dishonest by reading verbal and behavioural clues, such as fidgeting or qualifying statements with words like “honestly” and “frankly”.

One case described by Javers shows how veteran CIA workers helped hedge fund clients to make enormous investment decisions by assessing the veracity of a company’s financial presentation.

In an episode described by Javers, BIA specialists listened in on a financial presentation by executives at a company called UTStarcom, a purveyor of internet and networking equipment. The BIA specialists had problems with an answer about the company’s revenue recognition, finding in the response a “detour statement” intended to avoid commenting on the matter. The specialists said the statement indicated the executive was minimising the accounting problems. The next quarter, UTStarcom’s results shocked the market with revenues significantly below expectations. The reason? Problems with revenue recognition accounting. Shares declined and anyone who had sold the shares short would have reaped huge profits.

In a statement, BIA said it had not co-operated with Javers on the book, and described the depiction of its work in Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy: The Secret World of Corporate Espionage as “inaccurate and misleading”.

The company said: “There are no active-duty CIA personnel providing services to BIA’s clients” – although it acknowledged that it had employed active-duty CIA officers in the past.

It is common for retired CIA officers to take lucrative jobs in security, defence and intelligence contracting, working for private clients as well as the federal government. But others take on extra work while still employed by the agency, doing everything from teaching at local colleges to training clients in lie-detection techniques.

Like other federal government workers, agents must get permission from their bosses for outside work.

“If any officer requests permission for outside employment, those requests are reviewed not just for legality, but for propriety,” CIA spokesman George Little said.

Fun times as Joe Lieberman has a grand old time yukking it up about Dick Cheney and waterboarding during a speech last night at the Alfafa Club:

On foreign affairs, I understand what Guantanamo has come to mean in world opinion. But we can fix that, without closing Guantanamo.

All we have to do is change its name. How about calling it the Richard B. Cheney Resort and Rehabilitation Spa?

I bet the water sports will be really great.

Can the voters on Connecticut please retire this guy?

I post both Mills’ comments and Eidelson’s reply here. Mills:

The American Psychological Association has been a strong advocate for full civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people for nearly 35 years. We are proud of that record of advocacy based on the social science research on sexual orientation and gender identity.

APA has supported legal benefits for same-sex couples since 1997, and civil marriage for same-sex couples since 2004. Most notably, we have adopted policy statements, lobbied Congress in opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act and the Federal Marriage Amendment, and filed amicus briefs supporting marriage equality for same-sex couples in legal cases in eight states, including California. The APA brief was cited by the California Supreme Court when it ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in May 2008.

While we strongly disagree with Doug Manchester’s position vis-à-vis Proposition 8, APA has decided against joining the boycott based on several important factors that have not changed despite an expected budget surplus: a legally enforceable contract, the convention’s need for a large number of sleeping and meeting rooms, and APA’s intention to use the meeting in San Diego as an opportunity to promote public knowledge about scientific research relevant to marriage equality and communicate clearly where we stand on the issue.

This decision is consistent with that of several other large organizations—the American Public Health Association, the National Education Association and the American Educational Research Association–that are also supportive of LGBT civil rights.

Although honoring the contract is not purely a financial issue, it is important to realize that if APA were to cancel the contract, Mr. Manchester would lose nothing; his hotel would receive a $1 million penalty fee from APA. Furthermore, the reality of the situation is that the Hyatt is the only hotel in the San Diego area (other than hotels we have already booked) that offers the number of sleeping and meeting rooms required by our meeting. In short, canceling the Hyatt contract would put our ability to host the 2010 convention in jeopardy. In addition, there are several facts relevant to the decision regarding a boycott that the Dr. Dreger did not mention: the boycott has been spearheaded by the union Unite/HERE; the hotel is managed by Hyatt, which has a good record on sexual orientation non-discrimination; and the boycott will also affect the hotel’s highly diverse work force at a time when unemployment is high and jobs are difficult to find.

The bottom line is we believe our resources are better devoted to other meaningful and powerful ways to stand up for our values. We see the San Diego convention as an important opportunity to call attention to the social science research on sexual orientation, the abilities of gay and lesbian parents, and the benefits of marriage for all people.

We plan to offer significant convention programming on these topics. We also plan to devote considerable resources to a national media outreach effort to generate coverage of the APA’s support of marriage equality and the benefits of marriage for all people.

APA believes that a boycott, although a strong symbolic gesture, would not achieve the desired results. In summary, APA’s goals are to give our members full information, respect the personal choices of convention attendees, publicize the social science research on sexual orientation, and use APA resources in productive ways that will move forward the cause of marriage rights for same-sex couples.

Kim I. Mills
Associate Executive Director
Public & Member Communications
American Psychological Association
Posted by: kmills@apa.org

Eidelson response:

As a spokesperson for the American Psychological Association (APA), Kim Mills offers a series of unconvincing arguments in response to Alice Dreger’s recent essay, “Attention Shoppers: LBGT Rights Apparently Not Worth $6.67 to the American Psychological Association” (http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=4260). Mills attempts to defend the refusal of APA leadership to change course regarding plans to use the Manchester Grand Hyatt as the lead headquarters hotel for the August 2010 annual convention in San Diego. As is well known, the hotel’s owner Doug Manchester contributed $125,000 to the Proposition 8 campaign that abolished the right of same-sex couples to marry in California.

My reply focuses on several of the specific claims Mills makes.

First, although APA’s past advocacy efforts on behalf of civil rights for LGBT people are commendable, they are no excuse for failing to directly confront the current issues surrounding the Manchester Grand Hyatt. In 2004 APA declared that the association “shall take a leadership role in opposing all discrimination in legal benefits, rights, and privileges against same-sex couples.” Such a resolution carries with it responsibilities–otherwise it has no real meaning.

Mills’ claim that APA signed “a legally enforceable contract” provides little in the way of clarity. APA leadership has refused to reveal important details of the contract, including possible clauses relevant to cancellation for cause (e.g., failure to provide a quiet and non-controversial venue). Similarly, the $1 million “penalty fee” has been mentioned repeatedly, but requests for further information about it have gone unanswered. For example, it’s not clear what APA’s financial exposure would be if the Manchester Grand Hyatt were not used as a headquarters hotel but all of its sleeping rooms were filled during the convention anyway. There is also a troubling contrast in priorities worth noting here. When APA recently faced difficulties and embarrassment over errors in its latest publication manual, the association decided to pay as much as $1 million to provide replacement copies. In describing this potential financial loss, APA’s Rhea Farberman explained that it was “important to our long term reputation as a publisher.”

Meanwhile, Mills argues that APA has no choice but to use the Manchester Grand Hyatt because “a large number of sleeping and meeting rooms” are needed for the convention. This claim lacks credibility. A successful convention for APA might indeed bring as many as 15,000 attendees to San Diego in August. However, that is a relatively small number when compared to another event scheduled for San Diego just a month earlier. The annual July Comic-Con convention draws well over 100,000 attendees and uses dozens of local hotels.

At the same time, Mills diverts attention from the real issue when she emphasizes that APA intends to use the convention “as an opportunity to promote public knowledge about scientific research relevant to marriage equality and communicate clearly where we stand on the issue.” This is a laudable plan, but it doesn’t require APA to use the Manchester Grand Hyatt as its lead headquarters hotel (where meetings of the Board of Directors, the Council of Representatives, and other groups are currently scheduled to be held).

Finally, Mills claims that the Manchester Grand Hyatt boycott has been “spearheaded” by UNITE-HERE. This deceptive statement appears to be little more than an attempt to split the boycott organizers, a coalition of LGBT and labor groups–and it’s similar to the strategy adopted by Doug Manchester himself. Not only is this approach dismissive of the LGBT community, no explanation is offered for why APA leadership has adopted such an anti-labor stance. In this regard, it’s noteworthy that in an earlier communication about the Manchester Grand Hyatt, the APA Board encouraged association members to visit the explicitly anti-union websites of Richard Berman, a well-known lobbyist for big business.

In light of the misleading claims Kim Mills makes in responding to Alice Dreger’s essay, it’s rather stunning that she concludes by highlighting this APA goal: “to give our members full information.” Fortunately, many APA members and APA divisions have chosen a different path to knowledge. They are making independent decisions about the Manchester Grand Hyatt boycott, informed by their own core values and principles. I applaud them for doing so.

Sincerely,

Roy Eidelson, Ph.D.
APA Member
reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com

P.S. As president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, an organization unaffiliated with the APA, I welcome readers to review our recent statement on the APA Convention and the Manchester Grand Hyatt: www.psysr.org/apa-manchester.

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher.

The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake.

Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll.

You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

[H/t Effect Measure.]