A Few Points Of Interest Today…
August 11, 2008, Matthew Good First, from Keith Olbermann…
Second, regarding what is and is not deemed torture.
Last night I revisited the film In The Name Of The Father, the true story of Gerry Conlon and the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven. The film is based on Conlon’s autobiography entitled Proved Innocent, which I highly recommend.
For those of you that don’t know the story, the Guildford Four were the first people detained under the prevention of terrorism act. This act allowed the British government to detain suspects for seven days and nights without charging them. All four were arrested in connection with the Guildford Pub bombings, though none of them had anything to do with it and the evidence against them was based on little more than hearsay and the fact that they were Irish. Paul Hill, Patrick Armstrong, and Carole Richardson were arrested in England. Gerry Conlon, who had returned to Belfast, was arrested at his parent’s house and then flown to England.
During the seven days that all four were held they endured complete sleep deprivation, constant and highly abusive interrogation - which was denied by authorities at their trial - and were threatened, such as Paul Hill having a gun put in his mouth and Conlon finally agreeing to sign a confession after one of his interrogators threatened to shoot his father.
After being charged, seven members of Conlon’s family were also arrested and subjected to the same treatment, among them Patrick Maguire, then only 14. All those charged in connection with Guildford were found guilty and sentenced to various jail terms. Some time later the actual IRA bombers would be apprehended and, during interrogation, admit to being responsible for Guildford. The reaction of the British government was to do nothing and kept those that they had wrongfully imprisoned in jail.
All of that said, if you watch the film or read the book, I defy you to claim that what Conlon was subjected to was not torture.
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That “Frequent Flyer” thing sounds like what they did to us at military college during the 6 weeks of recruit term - I’m positive there has/had to be something similar at westpoint. They called it tornado timings - move your room several times daily. Harder than it sounds.
The Irish are always getting picked on.
I can’t wait to flip through my three national American news networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) in about 10 minutes to see if they even cover the Atta-Iraq forgery letter story . . . . The best guess is that only NBC (for obvious reasons) will run this story.
And, yes, at first take, I believe that the Office of Special Plans is that private intelligence outfit Cheney set up structurally within the Office of the Vice President, being significantly a creation of the Executive, which (unlike the CIA) is free from Congressional (read: “the People’s”) oversight (because it is not an administrative agency).
How “democracy” is not the top issue in the present Presidential campaign is entirely perplexing. What a deficit it is.
The Democrats won’t try to impeach Cheney/Bush or any member of his Cabinet anytime soon because of the timing of the election. In a perfect world, or at least one slightly less skewed than this one is turning into, the democrats would grow a set and initiate impeachment hearings. It’s not like there’s a lack of evidence in the least for Cheney/Bush, but the Democrats are so concerned with not seeming bitter and out for GW’s head that they’ll keep their lips zipped and let this one slide by (like they have so many others) like the good little yes-men that they are.
After all, they wouldn’t want to seem ‘too harsh’, even if it’s the right thing to do, when there’s an election right around the corner and image is everything. Proof positive that things won’t change very dramatically even if Obama wins the White House.
Quoting Matt: “Last night I revisited the film In The Name Of The Father, the true story of Gerry Conlon and the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven. The film is based on Conlon’s autobiography entitled Proved Innocent, which I highly recommend.”
Totally true story except for the fact that he was never actually imprisoned with his father and his father did not die in prison that I know of. Conlon’s book however does not include that innaccuracy.
Either way, your point - that the combined effects of sleep deprivation, torture, threats to family - cannot be considered anything other than inhumane. Unless of course you do it at Guantanamo Bay - then it doesn’t count.
Giuseppe Conlon died in January of 1980 in prison. Technically he was taken to a hospital, but he still died while incarcerated. It is true that they were not imprisoned together. There were numerous liberties taken with the film, the most obvious being that several lawyers represented Conlon and the technical reason for his release was not how it was portrayed in the film. But the truth is that he was falsely imprisoned and his accounts of the interrogation are consistent with those experienced by the others.
My wife and I just watched that movie recently. She was getting her master’s degree in Forensic Psychology and Criminology. That was an amazingly tragic story.
Thanks Matt…I was not aware that his father was incarcerated in whatever form when he passed away…I thought he had been released from prison - sounds like semantics from the lawyers that were trying to cover their arses. I think it’s important to know the detalls - my son and I watched it a few weeks ago and I passed on what I knew (and apparently what I did not know too). We watched “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” as well and talked about the poem by the same name.
Impeaching won’t make a bit of difference now. The damage has been done.
Impeaching will make a difference. While the damage has been done (more still can be done), those who are responsible need to be held accountable for their crimes. It is a disgrace that the proceedings did not commence when evidence was developing for the “first” impeachable offences.
While I put “more can still be done” in brackets above, I think it is an important point to consider. “Public distraction” has been used to pass alot of things without people noticing. What is more distracting than watching Obama dance on the Ellen DeGeneres show or McCain bumble facts and words like he has dementia.
Even in Canada we see this. While I am not “conspriracy nut”, I was interested in why the Mine Filings stories (while of HUGE importance) were all we heard about as Harper passed his military spending budget under the radar by quietly placing it on the Defense website shortly before the summer break.
[quote comment="61466"]Impeaching will make a difference. While the damage has been done (more still can be done), those who are responsible need to be held accountable for their crimes. It is a disgrace that the proceedings did not commence when evidence was developing for the “first” impeachable offences.[/quote]
I certainly agree this should have been done as early as late 2002 to early 2003 - but a few months more is next to nothing when the guy’s been in power 8 years. And impeachment’s going to… fix the practically inordinate damage done by the Bush administration?
Nope. We need to (probably radically) reform the US political system to respond adequately. That Bush was not only not impeached yet but actually quite legitimately reelected says something with regards to that. Our political system is quite sick. I actually don’t want the government to be “democratic”, but I do want it to respond to public opinion (overall) and try not to pervert things too much. Few Americans like the patriot act, or very many other things that have gone through. America is not a democracy any longer. That we consistently claim to be one of (if not ‘the’) the most democratic countries in the world when the reality is we’re one of the worst, by far, makes me very angry. And it’s not as though anyone running for president has any intention of doing it either. It’s horrible.
The electoral college must be changed. Presidents should need to be more transparent. Compulsory voting might even prove beneficial (although its a given that would produce highly leftist results).
But for goodness sake, impeachment is just patchwork. It won’t fix a fucking thing. Seriously. It might be just but it ultimately goes nowhere - what’s to stop our next president from doing the same?
Nothin’.
[quote comment="61466"]Impeaching will make a difference. While the damage has been done (more still can be done), those who are responsible need to be held accountable for their crimes. It is a disgrace that the proceedings did not commence when evidence was developing for the “first” impeachable offences.[/quote]
I certainly agree this should have been done as early as late 2002 to early 2003 - but a few months more is next to nothing when the guy’s been in power 8 years. And impeachment’s going to… fix the practically inordinate damage done by the Bush administration?
Nope. We need to (probably radically) reform the US political system to respond adequately. That Bush was not only not impeached yet but actually quite legitimately reelected says something with regards to that. Our political system is quite sick. I actually don’t want the government to be “democratic”, but I do want it to respond to public opinion (overall) and try not to pervert things too much. Few Americans like the patriot act, or very many other things that have gone through. America is not a democracy any longer. That we consistently claim to be one of (if not ‘the’) the most democratic countries in the world when the reality is we’re one of the worst, by far, makes me very angry. And it’s not as though anyone running for president has any intention of doing it either. It’s horrible.
The electoral college must be changed. Presidents should need to be more transparent. Compulsory voting might even prove beneficial (although its a given that would produce highly leftist results).
But for goodness sake, impeachment is just patchwork. It won’t fix a fucking thing. Seriously. It might be just but it ultimately goes nowhere - what’s to stop our next president from doing the same?
Nothin’.
Sorry for accidentally double-posting. My mouse has a weird click of late.
[quote comment="61484"]Sorry for accidentally double-posting. My mouse has a weird click of late.[/quote]
I agree with you but still think that impeachment or some kind of indictment must happen. It is almost like saying, why charge someone with murder when the victim is already dead? It won’t change a thing, there are bigger institutional and systemic issues that need to change, so what is the point of holding the perpetrator responsible for their crimes?