American Empire Imploding Both At Home And Abroad

The last gasps of a dying, megalomaniacal criminal regime and the long foreseen demise of the psychopaths that run it  

STRATEGIC CULTURE FOUNDATION
06/15/2015

The crisis and chaos engulfing the Middle East and Ukraine is evidence of US imperial decline, as Washington learns the harsh lesson that no empire lasts forever.

In the wake of the Vietnam War - the end of which was marked by news footage of US personnel and a select few Vietnamese collaborators being evacuated from the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon in 1975 - the United States entered a prolonged period of decline when it came to its ability to embark on major military operations. For all the massive destructive power in its arsenal, the Vietnamese had exposed US imperialism as a giant with feet of clay. The name given to this period of hard power retreat was the ‘Vietnam syndrome’ and lasted from 1975 to 1991, when the US embarked on the First Gulf War to force Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. 

We are witnessing a similar period of US imperial decline now with regard to Washington’s inability to stage large-scale military operations. It arrived as a consequence of the failed occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which achieved nothing except the eruption of terrorism and extremism across the region, and by extension the world. 

The huge resources expended have further crippled Washington’s imperial power, while the fragmentation of social cohesion in the US itself – witnessed by the brutal treatment of the nation’s poor, migrants, and blacks - reveals a society that is close to imploding. The parallels with the sixties and seventies are clear in this regard.

As far back as 2005, the Washington Post had identified this ‘Iraq syndrome.’ In an article exploring the record of then outgoing US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the newspaper asserted: “Whenever Rumsfeld finally packs up his office at the Pentagon, he will leave behind an even more burdensome Iraq syndrome - the renewed, nagging and sometimes paralyzing belief that any large-scale US military intervention abroad is doomed to practical failure and moral iniquity.” 

Ten years later, with an Islamic version of the Khmer Rouge in the shape of the so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) running rampant across Syria and Iraq, the present administration is reduced to conducting a desultory and, up to this point, impotent, air campaign against IS, which continues growing and increasing its grip on territory in Syria and Iraq. 

The complexities of the Middle East are well known. The presence of the bulk of the world’s energy reserves has ensured the region’s status as the frontline in the struggle for and against US hegemony. At the same time, the multiple ethnic, confessional, and tribal identities that crisscross the region have long ensured it remains a potential powder keg, ready to explode if exacerbated.

Such an explosion took place with the NATO air war against the Gaddafi regime in Libya in 2011. Intended to ensure the Libyan phase of the Arab Spring landed safely upon the shores of Western geopolitical interests, the toppling of Gaddafi instead opened the gates of hell out of which have poured tens of thousands of primeval fanatics whose bloodlust knows no bounds. 

Washington and its European allies have been unable to control the spread of this fanaticism, which has grown with the connivance of its regional allies – Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the various Gulf monarchies that together make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). 

Obama’s decision not to proceed with planned airstrikes against the Syrian government in the aftermath of an alleged chemical weapons attack against a rebel-controlled Damascus suburb in 2013 left his credibility in tatters. Perceiving the president as weak, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been acting in pursuit of their own agendas, which means doing whatever it takes to stem Shia Iranian influence, and/or working to reassert Sunni domination region-wide.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a virtue out of defying the Obama administration’s attempts to broker a settlement of the intractable Palestinian question, while his ongoing efforts to undermine the administration’s negotiations with Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program are a studied insult to the US leader’s authority. 

The Saudis and their Turkish counterparts, we also know, have recently agreed a joint strategy coordinating their energies and resources in striving to bring down the Assad regime. Growing nervous over the popularity and sway of IS within the global jihadist movement, both governments have swung behind their own preferred jihadist groups – "The Army of Conquest" – as a counterweight and proxy in the conflict. 

Bread (GMO), Circus and Wars

Compounding the unraveling of Washington’s ability to project its imperial power is the nonsensical and desperate attempt to effect Russia’s compliance with its writ in Eastern Europe, which involves the imposition of sanctions and attempts to isolate the country politically and culturally. 

The dollar has been underpinning US hard power and hegemony since the Second World War, exploiting its role as the world’s international reserve currency. But US currency hegemony is also in the process of being contested with the creation in October 2014 of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) by China as a counterweight to the IMF. Interestingly, among the 20 nations who’ve since joined this new international investment bank is the UK, much to the consternation of its Washington ally.

The AIIB joins the New Development Bank that China also set up last year in partnership with Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa. Also known as the BRICS bank, it took its place alongside the pre-existing Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) development bank as part of a new global financial infrastructure operating independently of Washington. The SCO has also established its own currency reserve to help cushion its members against financial shocks or crises, such as the one that emanated from the US financial system in 2008. 

Taken together, we are able to chart the relative decline of US hegemony and unipolarity, unfolding economically, geopolitically, culturally and militarily. The dangers as this process unfolds are evident in the spread of extremism and fanaticism as regional allies increasingly pursue their own agendas, regardless of how damaging to US interests they may be in terms of sowing instability. 

As with the Roman Empire centuries before it, Washington is learning that the only thing permanent in this world is impermanence, especially imperial power resting on foundations of hypocrisy and injustice.

This news bureau contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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Russia Says Will Retaliate If U.S. Weapons Stationed On Its Borders

Insane Obama, NATO's Breedlove, JCS have just brought America and Europe to the brink of WWIII; Poland, Germany will become molten glass parking lots, the UK a smoking, radioactive rock in the Atlantic  

REUTERS
By Gabriela Baczynska and Wiktor Szary

06/16/2015

MOSCOW/WARSAW - 

A plan by Washington to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states on Russia's border would be the most aggressive U.S. act since the Cold War, and Moscow would retaliate by beefing up its own forces, a Russian defense official said on Monday.

Madman Obama believes he and his criminals can ride

out WWIII in their luxury bunkers built with American

taxpayer dollars to emerge and rule what is left of the 

world

The United States is offering to store military equipment on allies' territory in eastern Europe, a proposal aimed at reassuring governments worried that after the conflict in Ukraine, they could be the Kremlin's next target.

Poland and the Baltic states, where officials say privately they have been frustrated the NATO alliance has not taken more decisive steps to deter Russia, welcomed the decision by Washington to take the lead.

But others in the region were more cautious, fearing their countries could be caught in the middle of a new arms race between Russia and the United States.

"If heavy U.S. military equipment, including tanks, artillery batteries and other equipment really does turn up in countries in eastern Europe and the Baltics, that will be the most aggressive step by the Pentagon and NATO since the Cold War," Russian defense ministry official General Yuri Yakubov said.

"Russia will have no option but to build up its forces and resources on the Western strategic front," Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

Spastic, Strangeglovian psychopath

Breedlove ready to move into new

underground digs with master Obama

He said the Russian response was likely to include speeding up the deployment of Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave bordered by Poland and Lithuania, and beefing up Russian forces in ex-Soviet Belarus.

"Our hands are completely free to organize retaliatory steps to strengthen our Western frontiers," Yakubov said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said: "We hope that reason will prevail and the situation in Europe will be prevented from sliding into a new military confrontation which may have dangerous consequences."

ALLIED ARMY

The Pentagon said on Monday the U.S. military was in the process of deciding where to store a battalion's worth of military equipment in Europe. The decision is part of a long-term effort to maintain equipment for a heavy brigade in the region to facilitate U.S. rotational training with NATO allies.

"This is purely positioning of equipment to better facilitate our ability to conduct training," said Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, noting that two battalions of equipment already was stored there.

Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, told Reuters in December the equipment set for the full brigade would be about 160 M-1 tanks plus M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers. A Pentagon official said on Monday the total number of vehicles would be about 220.

JCS psychopath, armchair admiral Dempsey - who has never seen a day of real war - and crew line up to kiss the ass of the warmongering fruitcake who is about to destroy America in a nuclear exchange with Russia and possibly China

U.S. officials said a proposal under review envisages storing a company's worth of equipment, enough for 150 soldiers, in each of the three Baltic nations: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Enough equipment for a company or possibly a battalion, or about 750 soldiers, would also be located in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly Hungary.

For her efforts and support of Obama, Merkel will see

Germany once more turned into a parking lot - this time

owned solely by Putin

The idea was that, in the event of an attack on NATO's eastern border, the United States could quickly fly in troops who would use the equipment, cutting out the weeks or months it would take to transport convoys of gear overland across Europe.

However, the U.S. proposal could cause tensions within NATO, an alliance that often struggles to accommodate more hawkish members such as Poland or Lithuania alongside other states that want to avoid a military stand-off with Russia at any cost.

Speaking after talks in Warsaw with the U.S. Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, Polish Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said he expected a final U.S. decision on the equipment within a few weeks.

"They know how important this is to us, because we want to build a permanent U.S. presence, the allied army here on the Polish territory," Siemoniak told reporters.

"It seems to me that such enterprises, that is equipment warehouses, are a very crucial step when it comes to building such a presence."

A spokesman for Lithuania's foreign ministry, Kestutis Vaskelevicius, said any increased NATO presence was intended to improve the security of the Baltic states. "(It) is not directed against anyone, and it does not threaten anyone," he said. 

TWO-SPEED NATO

Since Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula and a rebellion by Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states - countries with a history of Russian occupation - have pushed NATO for a muscular response.

Obama poodle Erdogan will assure Turkey is the

next province of Russia

But proposals for a permanent NATO combat presence in eastern Europe were blocked by Germany and some other alliance members. Instead, NATO intensified exercises, rotating troops through the region and set up a command headquarters for a rapid reaction force in north-west Poland.

Sources close to the government in Poland, and other states in the region, said that response persuaded them they could not fully rely on NATO, and that their best bet in the event of an attack was that the U.S. military would come to their aid.

At a NATO summit in Wales last year, agreement was reached on "pre-positioning" military equipment in eastern Europe, but the Pentagon's plan appeared to go further and faster than measures envisaged by the alliance.

It is Obama's naked aggression that has now put the entire world at risk of nuclear annhiliation 

The initiative could force some former Warsaw Pact countries now in NATO to make uncomfortable choices.

Obama may very well wind up giving

Putin no other choice but to take him

and NATO out - permanently

Bulgaria and Hungary both say they are committed members of the alliance, but they have maintained close cultural and commercial ties to Moscow, and may not want to jeopardize those links by storing U.S. military equipment on their soil.

Rosen Plevneliev, the Bulgarian President, said it was too early to say if his country would join the Pentagon's initiative.

"At the current moment there is no proposal whatsoever to the Bulgarian government upon which we can start discussions," he said. 

Additional reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilniu, Tsvetelia Tsolova in Sofia, Katya Golubkova in Moscow and Adrian Croft in Brussels; editing by Giles Elgood.

This news bureau contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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Greece Enters Fateful Week As Brussels Talks End Fruitlessly

Greek politicians know there will be a revolt if further looting of country is permitted by Merkal and Lagarde    

BLOOMBERG
By Jonathan Stearns and Marcus Bensasson

06/15/2015

Greece enters what could be a defining week after last-ditch negotiations between representatives of the Greek government and its creditors collapsed on Sunday.

Gig is up for Merkel: there will be no further looting

The euro dropped as the European Commission said the talks in Brussels had broken up after just 45 minutes with the divide between what creditors asked of Greece and what its government was prepared to do unbridged. 

The focus now shifts to a June 18 meeting in Luxembourg of euro-area finance ministers, known collectively as the Eurogroup, that may become a make-or-break session deciding Greece’s ability to avert default and its continued membership in the 19-nation euro area.

“While some progress was made, the talks did not succeed as there remains a significant gap,” the commission said in a text message. “On this basis, further discussion will now have to take place in the Eurogroup.”

Lagards has stolen her last Euro from Greece

The latest failed attempt to find a formula to unlock as much as 7.2 billion euros ($8.1 billion) in aid for the anti-austerity government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras brings Greece closer to the abyss. 

With two weeks until its euro-area bailout expires and no future financing arrangement in place, creditors had set June 14 as a deadline to allow enough time for national parliaments to approve an accord. The euro dropped 0.4 percent to $1.1219 in early trading on Monday in New Zealand on news of the breakdown. 

Greek bank stocks led the decline at the end of last week as the Athens Stock Exchange Index posted its biggest drop in four months.

Ever Nearer

Failure to reach a deal in Luxembourg wouldn’t necessarily spell the end of the road for Greece. Assuming the government has enough cash tucked away, its finances could survive until July, when it owes about 3.5 billion euros in redemptions on bonds held by the European Central Bank. 

Thursday’s meeting is still key to any resolution, with incalculable consequences for Greece and the euro region if the sides remain deadlocked.

“The shadow of a Greek exit from the euro zone is becoming increasingly perceptible,” German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel wrote in an op-ed to be published in Bild on Monday. “Greece’s game theorists are gambling the future of their country. And Europe’s too.”

Pensions, Taxes

More than four months after he was swept into office on a wave of public discontent about budget cuts that deepened a six-year Greek recession, Tsipras has refused to meet the demands of the euro area and the International Monetary Fund. The core points of contention are pension cuts, tax rises and targets for a budget surplus before interest payments, known as a primary surplus.

Tsipras had sent a delegation to Brussels with proposals to narrow the differences. The commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said the weekend talks were President Jean-Claude Juncker’s “last attempt” to reach a compromise.

“The Greek proposals remain incomplete,” the commission said after Sunday’s session. The gap between the parties on fiscal measures needed is “in the order” of 2 billion euros annually, according to the commission.

The Greek government blamed the euro area and the IMF, which together finance Greece’s 240 billion-euro rescue program first drawn up in 2010, for sticking with demands that it says are economically senseless and politically unacceptable.

German Warnings

Greece’s creditors insisted that the difference between the two sides on the size of the primary surplus needed to be covered entirely by pension cuts and increases in value-added tax, Greek Deputy Prime Minister Yannis Dragasakis said in an e-mailed statement on Sunday. He was part of the Greek delegation in Brussels.

Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said in an interview with Bild newspaper published Monday that Greece would only be able to pay back its debt if creditors accept a restructuring to reduce the amount owed. An agreement could be reached “in one night” if German Chancellor Angela Merkel took part in the talks, he told Bild.

As the deliberations in Brussels were taking place, lawmakers from across the political divide in Germany, the biggest country contributor to Greece’s aid, united to issue the most explicit warnings yet that Greece is at risk of exiting the euro.

Greeks are done with Merkel and Nazi looting of their wealth

“A Grexit must be factored in if the Greek government doesn’t do what it’s long been called upon to do,” Michael Grosse-Broemer, the parliamentary whip for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic-led bloc, said in a ZDF television interview on Sunday. Gabriel, the leader of Merkel’s Social Democratic Party coalition partner, who in February urged patience and dialogue with Greece.

“We will not let the German workers and their families pay for the overblown election promises of a partially communist government,” he said.

This news bureau contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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CIA Torture Appears To Have Broken Rules On Human Experimentation : Bush/Obama "Doctors" Committed War Crimes

The tip of the iceberg, barely touching on the satanic atrocities committed by the CIA in the name of the American people - document release a transparent "limited hangout" attempt in the hopes it will deflect further demands for information and exposure of the CIA's torture chambers and human experimentation: WAR CRIMES TRIALS FOR BUSH AND OBAMA along with their "doctors" and "scientists" that have surpassed Unit 731 and the Nazi "Doctors of Death" for sheer evil  

THE GUARDIAN
By Spencer Ackerman
06/15/2015

The Central Intelligence Agency had explicit guidelines for “human experimentation” – before, during and after its post-9/11 torture of terrorism detainees – that raise new questions about the limits on the agency’s in-house and contracted medical research.

Bush/Obama "doctors" and "scientists" must be held

accountable along with their satanic masters

Sections of a previously classified CIA document, made public by the Guardian on Monday, empower the agency’s director to “approve, modify, or disapprove all proposals pertaining to human subject research”. The leeway provides the director, who has never in the agency’s history been a medical doctor, with significant influence over limitations the US government sets to preserve safe, humane and ethical procedures on people.

CIA director George Tenet approved abusive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, designed by CIA contractor psychologists. 

Bush awarding Tenet bogus "Medal of Freedom" in failed attempt to sanitise him and keep his mouth shut regarding torture and medical experiments Tenet and his murdering CIA undertook

He further instructed the agency’s health personnel to oversee the brutal interrogations – the beginning of years of controversy, still ongoing, about US torture as a violation of medical ethics.

Spawn of Satan: CIA director John Brennan now 

authorises "limited hangout" of CIA torture and

medical experiments to head off more inquiries

But the revelation of the guidelines has prompted critics of CIA torture to question how the agency could have ever implemented what it calls “enhanced interrogation techniques” – despite apparently having rules against “research on human subjects” without their informed consent.

Indeed, despite the lurid name, doctors, human-rights workers and intelligence experts consulted by the Guardian said the agency’s human-experimentation rules were consistent with responsible medical practices. The CIA, however, redacted one of the four subsections on human experimentation.

“The more words you have, the more you can twist them, but it’s not a bad definition,” said Scott Allen, an internist and medical adviser to Physicians for Human Rights.

The agency confirmed to the Guardian that the document was still in effect during the lifespan of the controversial rendition, detention and interrogation program.

Bush, Obama approved CIA torture flights to

"Black Sites" 

After reviewing the document, one watchdog said the timeline suggested the CIA manipulated basic definitions of human experimentation to ensure the torture program proceeded. “Crime one was torture. The second crime was research without consent in order to say it wasn’t torture,” said Nathaniel Raymond, a former war-crimes investigator with Physicians for Human Rights and now a researcher with Harvard University’s Humanitarian Initiative.

Informed Consent, The Director And His ‘Human Subject Research’ Panel

The document containing the guidelines, dated 1987 but updated over the years and still in effect at the CIA, was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the ACLU and shared with the Guardian, which is publishing it for the first time.

The relevant section of the CIA document, “Law and Policy Governing the Conduct of Intelligence Agencies”, instructs that the agency “shall not sponsor, contract for, or conduct research on human subjects” outside of instructions on responsible and humane medical practices set for the entire US government by its Department of Health and Human Services. A keystone of those instructions, the document notes, is the “subject’s informed consent”.

Torture at Abu Ghraib

That language echoes the public, if obscure, language of Executive Order 12333 – the seminal, Reagan-era document spelling out the powers and limitations of the intelligence agencies, including rules governing surveillance by the National Security Agency. 

But the discretion given to the CIA director to “approve, modify, or disapprove all proposals pertaining to human subject research” has not previously been public.

The entire 41-page CIA document exists to instruct the agency on what Executive Order 12333 permits and prohibits, after legislative action in the 1970s curbed intelligence powers in response to perceived abuses – including the CIA’s old practice of experimenting on human beings through programs like the infamous MK-Ultra project, which, among other things, dosed unwitting participants with LSD as an experiment.

Frank Olson, victim of  CIA projects "ARTICHOKE" and "MK-ULTRA"

The previously unknown section of the guidelines empower the CIA director and an advisory board on “human subject research” to “evaluate all documentation and certifications pertaining to human research sponsored by, contracted for, or conducted by the CIA”.

CIA Doctors, Waterboarding And Blurred Lines Of Policy

Experts assessing the document for the Guardian said the human-experimentation guidelines were critical to understanding the CIA’s baseline view of the limits of its medical research – limits they said the agency and its medical personnel violated during its interrogations, detentions and renditions program after 9/11.

Guantanamo prisoner being moved 

The presence of medical personnel during brutal interrogations of men like Abu Zubaydah, they said, was difficult to reconcile with both the CIA’s internal requirement of “informed consent” on human experimentation subjects and responsible medical practices.

Abu Ghraib: A very dead Manadel Al-Jamadi

packed in ice to slow decomposition of the body

When Zubaydah, the first detainee known to be waterboarded in CIA custody, “became completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth”, he was revived by CIA medical personnel – known as the Office of Medical Services (OMS) – according to a CIA account in the Senate intelligence committee’s landmark torture report.

The OMS doctors were heavily involved in the torture of detainees in CIA custody. They advised interrogators on the physical and psychological administration of what the agency called “enhanced interrogation techniques”. 

After observation, the doctors offered perspectives on calibrating them to specific detainees’ resilience.

OMS staff assigned to the agency’s black sites wrote emails with subject lines like: “Re: acceptable lower ambient temperatures."

Medical staff working for CIA oversaw atrocities while providing "cover" and legitimacy to CIA torture chambers and satanic medical clinics

The CIA, which does not formally concede that it tortured people, insists that the presence of medical personnel ensured its torture techniques were conducted according to medical rigour. 

Several instances in the Senate torture report, partially declassified six months ago, record unease among OMS staff with their role in interrogations.

War criminal Cheney was a major proponent of  CIA "rendition" and torture

But other physicians and human rights experts who have long criticized the role of medical staff in torture said the extensive notes from CIA doctors on the interrogations – as they unfolded – brought OMS into the realm of human experimentation, particularly as they helped blur the lines between providing medical aid to detainees and keeping them capable of enduring further abusive interrogations.

Doctors and "medical staff" employed by the

CIA were well aware of what was happening at

Abu Ghraib 

Doctors take oaths to guarantee they inflict no harm on their patients.

Zubaydah “seems very resistant to the water board”, an OMS official emailed in August 2002. “No useful information so far ... He did vomit a couple of times during the water board with some beans and rice. It’s been 10 hours since he ate so this is surprising and disturbing. We plan to only feed Ensure for a while now. I’m head[ing] back for another water board session.”

Doctors and intelligence experts said they could imagine legitimate, non-abusive CIA uses for human experimentation.

Steven Aftergood, a scholar of the intelligence agencies with the Federation of American Scientists, suggested that the agency might need to study polygraph effects on its agents; evaluate their performance under conditions of stress; or study physiological indicators of deception.

War criminals Rice, Cheney and Bush sponsored CIA torture, medical experiments and now must be held accountable along with the doctors and medical personnel that aided and abetted them

But all said that such examples of human experimentation would require something that the CIA never had during the interrogation program: the informed consent of its subjects.

“There is a disconnect between the requirement of this regulation and the conduct of the interrogation program,” said Aftergood. “They do not represent consistent policy.”

A Director’s Decision, Oversight And An Evolving Rulebook

Months after Zubaydah’s interrogation, Tenet issued formal guidance approving brutal interrogation techniques, including water boarding. 

Tenet, Brennan authorised sick, sadistic, 

perverted sexual torture and abuse of 

female subjects at Abu Ghraib and other

so-called "Black Sites"

Tenet explicitly ordered medical staff to be present – a decision carrying the effect of having them extensively document and evaluate the torture sessions.

“[A]ppropriate medical or psychological personnel must be on site during all detainee interrogations employing Enhanced Techniques,” Tenet wrote in January 2003. 

“In each case, the medical and psychological staff shall suspend the interrogation if they determine that significant and prolonged physical or mental injury, pain or suffering is likely to result if the interrogation is not suspended.”

In response to the Guardian’s questions about the newly disclosed document and its implications for the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program, CIA spokesperson Ryan Trapani provided the following statement:

“CIA has had internal guidelines interpreting Executive Order 1233 in place continuously from 1987 to present. While some provisions in these guidelines have been amended since September 11, 2001, none of those amendments changed provisions governing human experimentation or were made in response to the detention and interrogation program.”

Victim of CIA biological weapons experiment 

Ironically, the only part of the CIA’s torture program in which agency officials claimed they were hamstrung by prohibitions on human experimentation is when they were asked by John Helgerson, their internal inspector general, if torture was effective.

Bush, Obama mouthpieces Dana Perino and James Carney are equally responsible for CIA and other atrocities through their lies and cover-ups in the service of their satanic masters, and will be held accountable along with them at The Hague War Crimes Tribunals

Their response was framed as an example of the agency respecting its own prohibition on human experimentation. In more recent days, the CIA has used it as a cudgel against the Senate report’s extensive conclusions that the torture was ultimately worthless.

“[S]ystematic study over time of the effectiveness of the techniques would have been encumbered by a number of factors,” reads a CIA response given to Helgerson in June 2003, a point the agency reiterated in its formal response to the Senate intelligence committee. Among them: “Federal policy on the protection of human subjects.”

Harvard’s Raymond, using the agency’s acronym for its “enhanced interrogation technique” euphemism, said the CIA must have known its guidelines on human experimentation ruled out its psychologist-designed brutal interrogations.

“If they were abiding by this policy when EIT came up, they wouldn’t have been allowed to do it,” Raymond said. “Anyone in good faith would have known that was human subject research.”

This news bureau contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.  We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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