Haaretz:
“CIA cited Israeli Supreme Court rulings to justify torture, Senate report says 'Israeli example' cited as possible justification for use of torture when interrogating terror suspects 'where there is no other available means to prevent the harm' they might inflict.
The scathing report published Tuesday by the United States Senate Intelligence Committee on the CIA's interrogation of terror suspects reveals that the CIA's lawyers used the rulings of Israel's Supreme Court to construct a legal case justifying torture.”
—>For all of the reporting the NYT has done on the CIA torture report, Israel’s link to interrogation abuses is left out. Even in the area of prisoner torture, the NYT avoids stories that make apartheid Israel look bad.
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Mondoweiss:
“Suicide Drones and the Spoils of War: Israeli arms manufacturers look to cash in on the war in Gaza.
Three weeks after Israel’s latest assault on the Gaza Strip concluded, Israeli military and political leaders attended a conference next to Ben Gurion Airport to sell the successes of what Israel dubbed Operation Protective Edge, which killed more than 2,200 Palestinians including 521 children.
The annual conference, named ‘Israel Unmanned Systems 2014,’ took place in business-as-usual atmosphere — even with a complimentary beer keg. But the fare was anything but humdrum. Among the offerings were suicide drones, ‘loitering munitions’ that need to explode; a 16-year-old showing off high-tech robots designed by fellow high schoolers and future drone makers; and ‘premature’ weapons, armaments that have not been fully tested before they are used on a live Palestinian population. Such is Israel, the military power.
—>War is good for business, both in the US and Israel. Each new slaughter of the innocents creates billions more in pofits. Our mainstream media will be the last to report such links between the weapons makers and the pro war politicians in either country.
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Guardian UK:
“It wasn’t that bad, we’ve been told, over and over again, for more than a decade. ‘We only waterboarded three people’ goes the line American officials have been force-feeding the world for years. ‘We tortured some folks,’ Barack Obama admitted recently, still downplaying war crimes committed in America’s name. But we now know those statements do not even begin to do justice to the horrific activities carried out by the CIA for years – atrocities that now have been exposed by the US Senate’s historic report on the CIA’s torture program, finally released on Tuesday after years of delay.
There are stories in the CIA torture report of ‘rectal rehydration as a means of behavior control’, threats to murder and ‘threats to sexually abuse the mother of a detainee’ – or cut a mother’s throat. There are details about detainees with broken bones forced to stand for days on end, detainees blindfolded, dragged down hallways while they were beaten. There were even torture sessions that ended in death. The list goes on and on, and on and on.
But beyond all the the depravity, perhaps the most shocking part of this exposed history is the action of US officials who knew these horrors were unfolding – and covered them up.”
—>Yes, the NYT came out against the torture exposed in the recent Senate report. Yet, many specifics like anal rape and threats to kill family members got swept under the rug. So to did the mention of international laws that both forbid torture and require that our current leaders prosecute such human rights violators. The NYT loves to condemn past abuses, just as long as current war criminals are protected.
