torture
389 Articles
“New Torture Files”: Declassified Memos Detail Roles of Bush White House and DOJ Officials Who Conspired to Approve Torture
An alleged CIA prison near Kabul, Afghanistan. Image credit: Trevor Paglen via Wikimedia Commons. Last week, I wrote, both here and in the New York Times, that after reading all…
Sexual Torture, Rape, and Gender-Based Violence in the Senate Torture Report
The ramifications and significance of the Senate Torture Report continue to spin out in various fora. While I have noted that the use of certain torture methods used at Guantanamo…
Al-Nashiri can now speak about his treatment … plus news about full SSCI Report
[Editor’s note: This post was originally published at 9:00 PM E.S.T. on February 22, 2015] Two weeks ago, I reported here that the prosecution had submitted motions to the…
On Rereading the Torture Report – SSCI Focus Gave Too Many Perpetrators a Pass
I have an opinion piece in today’s New York Times Sunday Review provocatively titled (by the NYT editors), “Did the Torture Report Give the CIA a Bum Rap?” Why now, and why…
Torture and the CIA’s Unaccountability Boards
Last Saturday, January 31, CIA Inspector General David Buckley resigned after a little more than four years in office. His departure came at the end of the same month his office…
Charlie Hebdo, The Interview, and Censoring Torture Photos
In France and the United States, there seems to be near-universal agreement that to self-censor because of threats of violence is unwise and cowardly. The slogan “Je Suis Charlie,”…
The Torture Report, the CIA’s “Work of Fiction,” and a Friday-afternoon Letter From DOJ
In an earlier post, I called attention to the revelation in the Senate torture report that the CIA contemplated disclosing information about the torture program under cover of…
The Shrinking Military Commissions
Yesterday’s news that the Convening Authority for the Guantánamo military commissions has “disapproved the findings and sentence,” and dismissed the charges…
No Impunity for Torturers [Updated]
[Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on December 15, 2014. Check out a substantial Update published on January 5, 2015 and appended below.] In a post called…
Not to be Forgotten: The Case of Maher Arar
In the midst of our ongoing coverage of the content of, and fall out from, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee Report, and debates about the obligation to devise some form…
Guest Post: Torture is Still on the Table
The recent Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA interrogations is a parade of horribles. Detainees by the dozen arrested wrongfully and later released, including innocent…
Flashback—Ex-Bush Official, Col. Wilkerson: “I am Willing to Testify” If Dick Cheney is Prosecuted for Torture
I was reminded yesterday of an interview on Democracy Now! with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.) in 2011, in which he was asked about Vice President Dick Cheney’s recently released…