A TALE of TORTURE, TERROR & TYRANNY

News agencies and writers should stop referring to ISIS and any of the other groups as “terrorists.” The term “terrorists” connotes an independence that the “terrorists” do not have. These so-called “terrorists” are organized, financed, and armed by Washington and Washington’s vassals. Washington uses “terrorists” as a foreign policy tool. This has been going on for decades.    Dr. Paul Craig ROBERTS

The US-Senate Investigation into the CIA’s revolting operations to „detain“ and intensively „interrogate“ (post 9-11) terror-suspects had one major (unsurprising) finding:

The CIA has lied systematically in order to shield themselves from any public scrutiny or „oversight“.

Unfortunately the Senators do not use the word „lie“ at all. They call it „repeatedly providing inaccurate information“ in order to make it sound less illegal and immoral. To see for yourself, check-out Appendix 3 >page 462 and take a look at what Senator Udall added to the report:

In Part II of the (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) Report on Torture („Overall history and operation of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation program“- see page 11) we learn that 8 days after 9-11 the CIA was awarded exceptional powers by President Bush that turned them almost into a modern version of the RSHA in Nazi Germany.

„These unprecedented authorities“ granted to the CIA in reality meant that the „RULE OF LAW“ (of a civilized society) was in effect SUSPENDED and that the „company“ became the embodiment of Kafka’s and Orwell’s sinister „anonymous bureaucracy“, a governmental Leviathan hiding behind secrecy with unlimited power and no accountability. So the CIA – in the context of the phony „war on terror“

• determines WHO will be detained, WHY and for HOW LONG (including „for the rest of his life“),
• acts as POLICE, PROSECUTOR, JUDGE (with the DoD as PRISON-DIRECTOR)
• feeds information to the politicians in Washington in order to approve the torture-techniques they present as „necessary“ to prevent further attacks

(The „military-tribunals“ that substitute for due process are a complete FARCE and mockery of justice as we shall see later in the Zubaydah case)

All of this goes well beyond the legal mandate of an „agency“ whose original purpose was to „co-ordinate intelligence“ but as President Truman pointed out in the Washington Post just four weeks after the ASSASSINATION of President Kennedy (1963):

„I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency—CIA. For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government.[…] I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue … [not really a matter of „interpretation“…]

But there are now some searching questions that need to be answered. I, therefore, would like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President, and that whatever else it can properly perform in that special field—and that its operational duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere. […]  There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.“

Sadly for all of us and especially for those unfortunate „detainees“ who are rotting in secret prisons, the Guantanamo Gulag or floating prisons (US-Navy-ships – a „brilliant“ Rumsfeld idea) Truman’s words fell on deaf ears.

The CIA has become a state within a state, a psychopathic, self-righteous, narcissistic monster, ostensibly in the service of „national security“ but what they are really protecting are the profits and political power of the „1%“ (the oligarchic, rich families of the US), not to forget their OWN political power.

THE POWER OF DEFINITION

So if I can „determine“ (CLAIM, DECLARE not PROVE) that you are such a „serious threat“ (accusations based on suspicion and false „intel“) you lose all your rights and there is nothing you can do about it. I can kidnap you, throw you into a dungeon, torture you, drive you (literally) crazy and if you succumb in the end to the inhumane, degrading treatment (mostly mental torture) – so what? Call it a „suicide“.

The psychopaths at the CIA „counter-terrorism“ unit made it clear that the most important issue for them was to „cover their asses“ so before they started the most horrible torture sessions on Abu Zubaydah they agreed that it would be necessary to “detain” him in total isolation „FOR THE REMAINDER OF HIS LIFE“. (If he died under the nightmarish conditions, he would be cremated to prevent an independent autopsy).

The irony here is, that a lot of the CIA‘s „covert-actions“ perfectly fit the definition of „persons who pose a continuing, serious threat of violence or death (to persons in other countries) or who are planning terrorist activities“ (disguised as „counter-terrorism“ or support for „freedom-fighters“). Yet this collection of psychopaths decides who is a „threat“ and then strip the people assigned to this category of their humanity and civil rights. All in the name of defending „American values“.

The unbearable thing is that they always get away with this systematic deception and organized cruelty. After the „Torture Report“ was published (heavily redacted), NOBODY from the CIA (or the „government“) was held accountable for the crimes against humanity they committed. The fate of „Abu Zubaydah“ is a chilling example how this Orwellian system is being administered and shielded against public scrutiny, let alone congressional „oversight“.

THE  SAD TALE OF ABU ZUBAYDAH

We shall take a closer look at this man called ABU ZUBAYDAH in Part 3. Born in 1971, he was raised in Saudi Arabia in a family of Palestinian refugees and then went to college in India to study computer-science. Although he was not religious at all, „someone“ lured him into joining the „jihad“ in Afghanistan in 1991 (after the collapse of the USSR and their defeat by the US-supported Jihadi-proxies in Afghanistan).

On March 28, 2002 Zubaydah was captured during a nightly raid in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad. He was shot three times, (thigh, testicle and stomach) taken to a military hospital and received extensive medical treatment  so they could later „interrogate“ (torture) him in 3 secret dungeons in different countries. In 2006 he was transported to the military gulag in Guantanamo where he still is.

All the CIA-claims about Zubaydah being the „No.3 of Al Qaeda“, „Bin Laden’s lieutenant“, one of the 9-11 „masterminds“, etc. ARE FALSE as the USG has admitted in the meantime (more on this in Part 3 and see below).

In December 2007 John Kiriakou, a former CIA-Counter-Terrorism officer, made headlines when he admitted in several TV-interviews that Abu Zubaydah had been sucessfully „waterboarded“. After only one application „for 35 seconds“ the „detainee“ gave them „actionable intelligence“ so the torture was presented as „effective“ and „necessary“.

Later it turned out that Kiriakou was not telling the truth but for a long time his claims were repeated and amplified in the media (the usual „echo-chamber“ to manipulate public opinion).

As one observant blogger commented in his scathing critique on the Kiriakou „PSYOP“:

„The fact that at a crucial moment in our recent history, the moment when our collective moral compass was to be set one way or the other, this guy came forward and lied through his teeth to the advantage of the CIA and torture in general, seems to be lost on Code Pink and other related “lefties” out there.“

When his first book came out in 2010, Kiriakou told a very different story and „now rather off handedly admits that he basically made it all up“ wrote Jeff Stein in a Foreign Policy article.

He presented himself as a victim of CIA-duplicity implying that his „agency“ had fed him false information. A CIA spokesman responded by saying „He apparently didn’t know as much as he thought he did“.

We may conclude that this is all just theater to „manage perceptions“.

Kiriakou was not just some well-meaning, low-level analyst, he was chief of a counter-terrorism (read: US state terrorism) unit and „still loves the CIA“ (statement in 2007 after the torture was revealed – see also the 2006 report of the ICRC). So his credibility and moral judgement seem heavily compromised. I think he knew very well what they did to Abu Zubaydah and – to this day – he always says „we“ when he describes the torture-techniques.

His „media-blitz“ was a calculated effort by the CIA to manipulate public sentiment and collective moral judgement about the „water-boarding“ revelations. This manipulation reached its peak (in my opinion) when Kiriakou was later sentenced to 30 months in prison and presented to the world as a brave „whistleblower“. I may be wrong but I think this was all one big PSYOP:

A „counter-terrorism“ officer who received a dozen awards from the CIA for „excellent performance“ suddenly has second thoughts and becomes a „martyr“ for truth and justice? I just don’t buy it …

„LOSING YOUR MIND“ WITH THE HELP OF THE CIA

In a recent interview John Kiriakou said about the torture of Abu Zubaydah:

„We did worse things than waterboarding. He was put in a „Cold Cell“ (chained naked to a wall, every hour a bucket of ice-water was thrown at him; we actually killed prisoners with that method. He was not allowed to sleep for as long as 7 days (people begin losing their minds on day 7, dying on day 9). He had a terrible fear of insects so we put him in a dog-cage for  2 weeks and dumped a box of cockroaches on him …just to make him crazy“.

It should be obvious from these statements that „getting accurate information“ was NOT the goal of this (mainly) mental torture program.

Sleep- and sensory deprivation, putting a man in a box (smaller than a coffin) in a cramped position for hours, keeping him totally isolated for days, hanging him from a ceiling, dressed only in diapers and forcing him to urinate and defecate on himself, throwing ice-cold water at his naked, already shivering body, etc. is not a good basis for getting the truth out of somebody.

WHY? Not only for obvious reasons (the prisoners will say anything to make the torture stop) but because it actually impairs the functioning of the brain. As the CIA knows perfectly well, sensory and sleep-deprivation (alone) cause hallucinations and delusions so anything a prisoner would say after such an ordeal has no real value (and would never be admitted in a court)

“Studies of sensory deprivation and sleep deprivation induced a psychosis, in which people lost control of what they said and what they thought.” 

Psychologist Steven Reisner quoted in the NYT, Dec. 10, 2014

Even if one argued that this cruel and degrading treatment will „break his will“ (assuming he actually was withholding important information), after a 24/7 nightmare like this (for 2 weeks or more) the „detainee“ is not able to utter coherent thoughts anymore.  He will be reduced to what psychologists call a state of „regression“. (mental capacity like a toddler or even like an obedient dog). The  CIA-declared „enemy-combatants“ were tortured on a similar basis, a theory called „learned helplessness“. Again a paragraph from the same NYT-article is very revealing:

Severe stress disrupts people’s thinking, and fast. Dr. Morgan recently studied American troops’ levels of compliance and suggestibility after the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) course, a training exercise that includes what he calls a “mini-exposure” to many of the interrogation techniques the C.I.A. was using, including confinement and sleep deprivation. The result: a subset became more compliant, but the vast majority also became more suggestible when given misinformation. “Essentially you’re making people less reliable and more stupid,” he said. “You can see the problem.”

Now we are getting to the point:

The CIA has known this „problem“ all along: (they did not spend millions of dollars on their revolting „Mind-Control“ programs for nothing) greater suggestibility and susceptibility to hypnosis, making people „LOSING CONTROL OF WHAT THEY THINK“, what they ARE (creating multiple personalities through severe trauma), even turning some of them into programmable killers (see the fate of „Sirhan Sirhan“ and the assassination of Robert Kennedy)

As the Senate report rightly concludes – these brutal techniques DID NOT RESULT IN ANY USEFUL INFORMATION (in the sense that planned attacks could be prevented, as the CIA repeatedly claimed).

So WHY would they do it anyway?

Because the purpose of the torture was NOT to elicit information (true statements) from the prisoners but (in addition to using some of them as scientific guinea-pigs) to PLANT false identities into their tortured, regressed minds. In other words: control WHAT THEY THINK, WHAT THEY SAY (in reaction to a certain „trigger“) and in the end, CONTROL THEIR BEHAVIOUR.

WHY would the CIA want to do that?

Because the whole 9-11 fairy-tale (WHO did it and WHY) would fall apart if these men were tried in a civil court with full legal representation and due process.

People who are still able to THINK FOR THEMSELVES MUST KNOW that the official „conspiracy theory“ (19 fanatical Arabic „hijackers“ armed with box-cutters outwitted the multi-billion dollar military/security/intel-apparatus of the mighty US) is SIMPLY RIDICULOUS. (This kind of „operation“ is impossible without the support of a state / intelligence apparatus).

WE SHALL MAKE YOU BELIEVE SIX IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BEFORE BREAKFAST

It is an artificial „master-narrative“, a „deep-seated frame“ that MUST NOT be questioned therefore all critical minds are denounced as „crazy“ conspiracy-theorists. But this cheap name-calling justs serves to shift attention from the content (the valid arguments of the critic) to the personality of the critic, it is an ad hominem attack not honest analysis. The stigmatizing–effect ensures that the audience wants to distance themselves from „such a person“ so they stick to the official version no matter how absurd it is.

Hundreds of investigations by serious scholars, architects, pilots, etc. have shown that in order to give credence to the „airplane impact caused tower-collapse“ myth, the laws of physics must be suspended (to say nothing of the „plane-attack on the Pentagon“ which Barbara Honegger has brilliantly exposed as a Big Lie).

For those who are more interested in the „Rule of Law“ (coupled with democratic control), which supposedly distinguishes the US and the Western countries from many „less-developed“ ones, the case of Abu Zubaydah is essential to understanding what the „war on terror“ really means:

A descent into the „Fourth Reich“ where horrific state-crimes become „legal“ and „necessary“ to fight „enemies of the state“. 

Everything the Nazis did in Germany was „legal“ because under „emergency laws“ the police-state and a concentration of power (secret police, para-military units, intelligence fused together in the RSHA) became the new normal …

WHEN WORDS BECOME PSYCHOLOGICAL AND LEGAL WEAPONS    

In another interview Kiriakou recently said „We (the CIA) made an ASSUMPTION (about Abu Zubaydah) that turned out to be wrong“.

Well, first of all „an assumption“ should not form the basis for stripping someone of their civil and human rights as the status of „enemy-combatant“ (EC) surely does. (As mentioned before, this „assumption“ becomes de facto a moral and legal judgement: what needs to be proven in a court, is accepted A PRIORI AS THE PREMISE for declaring someone an EC.

The purpose of this interview was to publicize a new book „THE CONVENIENT TERRORIST“ written by Kiriakou and John Hickmann (a former security-guard at Guantanamo).

(abbreviations used: > AZ= Abu Zubaydah; OBL = Osama Bin Laden; AQ = Al Qaeda, USG = US government)

The host (David Knight) asks John Kiriakou a very important question at the beginning:

Why the focus on this particular individual [Zubaydah] by the US-government?

Answer:

„Well, we „believed“ at the CIA back in 2002/3 that AZ was the No.3 of AQ. Cheney echoed that in the press, he said AZ was one of the masterminds of 9-11 so we pulled out all the stops to track him down“.

Funny, I thought the CIA’s major job was to gather real, „actionable intelligence“ (FACTS) and analyze it to prevent terrorist-attacks but instead they acted on what they „believed“ to be true. This could be a euphemism for guessing or lying ( I opt for the latter …)

• WHO told Cheney what he „echoed“ in the media?
• WHAT was the FACTUAL BASIS for this „belief“?

Kiriakou does not really answer the question but then he says they found AZ in Pakistan and

„…when all was said and done, it turned out that he was not the No. 3“, in fact HE HAD NEVER JOINED AQ, he had never pledged GUILTY to OBL (Freudian slip! He meant: never pledged allegiance to OBL), so we had this guy in our custody, he was certainly a bad guy, he acted as a logistician for AQ, he ran the training camps for AQ, he ran the „House of Martyrs“ (a safe-house) in Peshawar …for AQ, but he was NOT an AQ „mastermind and certainly not an AQ-leader“.

He later adds

„He (AZ) simply did not have the information!“ (enabling them to capture other „high-level“ AQ leaders), he was „someone who meant us harm, to recruit jihadis to fight against the US“ but he was NOT one of the masterminds of 911 …as the CIA wanted us to believe…“

(he talks about the CIA as if  he never joined their „counter-terrorist“ unit )

So let us summarize the key points Kiriakou made: Abu Zubaydah

• HAD NEVER JOINED AQ and yet
• „ran the training-camps for AQ“
• acted as a „logistician“ for AQ (as a „travel-agent“for Jihad-fighters coming to Afghan training-camps)
• ran a „guest-house“ for AQ (safe-house in CIA parlance) in Pakistan for foreign fighters (during the 1990s)

What does John Hickmann have to say about AZ?

• The USG is still claiming, he is AQ, but this is NOT TRUE
• He was NOT AFFILIATED AT ALL with AQ (his conclusion after doing the research on AZ) but then he states
• AQ members did go through his training-camp (?)
• „We were chasing these guys (looking for AQ-operatives) with the mentality of the American mafia …“

The host then sums it up, saying „he was A LOW-LEVEL TERRORIST“ and Kiriakou enthusiastically responds with

„THAT’S ABSOLUTELY TRUE ….and, and that’s the specific reason why the CIA began its torture program …(although the FBI-interrogator had established a good „rapport“ with him) They started to torture him mercilessly …and to what end? He never gave us anything else of any value once the torture began.“

(Just a reminder : the prohibition against torture is ABSOLUTE.)

Now a rhetoric „specialty“ of Kiriakou is to utter misleading statements that are not completely false but by leaving out the appropriate political context their meaning becomes distorted. Here is an example:

As mentioned above he describes AZ as (though not a member of AQ) „someone who meant us harm, to recruit jihadis to fight against the US“.

This suggests that he was indeed a „threat“ to the US (its „security“ but the geopolitical context is conveniently omitted because it leads to a very different conclusion (moral judgement):

ENGINEERED „JIHAD“: THE WEAPONIZING OF RELIGION

Yes, Zubaydah organized the travel of would-be „Jihadis“ to Afghanistan and sent (not all of) them to Khaldan training-camp. But as he explicitly states in his testimony, this was during the 1990s and the „Jihad“ they conducted was – from their viewpoint – purely DEFENSIVE: they fought against FOREIGN INVADERS in Muslim countries („the enemies of God“, which was their religious „duty“, they were told): first in Afghanistan against the USSR (as the CIA-ISI-supported „Mujahedeen“ in the 1980s), then fighters were sent to Chechnya (again against Russians to drag Putin into a quagmire), to Bosnia (against the (Christian) Serbs to destroy Yugoslavia, to the Philippines, etc.

The irony is of course, that they (most of them) never figured out, HOW THE US HAS BEEN USING THEM as indoctrinated, convenient proxies for its Machiavallian agenda, so that the US-organized violence against a foreign country could be passed off as a „civil war“, a „struggle for freedom“ an „uprising against an evil dictator“, (Putin, Milosevic, and later Assad) you get the drift.

After 9-11, „the US-military relentlessly bombed Afghanistan (killing thousands of civilians) thus they became the new „invaders“ and occupiers. But even then, armed resistance against foreign military aggression (with or without religious overtones) IS NOT UNLAWFUL (at least not for the Afghans). On the contrary, it was – and stil is – the US whose barbaric „hostilities“ in Afghanistan represent a „continuing, serious threat of violence or death“ to the Afghan people (> increasing drone killings).

Of course one can argue that Muslim foreign fighters have no right to use violence in Afghanistan or any other state since it is not THEIR country.

But „the elephant in the room“ is that it was the US (coordinating with Saudi and Pakistani intelligence) WHO CREATED THEM in the first place as proxy-fighters against the USSR (already in the 1970s to lure „the Russians into a trap“ as Brzezinsky admitted) and later USED THEM (in a more radical, fanatical form > Al Nusra, IS) as „mobile terrorist elements“ in Libya, Iraq and Syria (list incomplete).

A brilliant analysis of this strategy and a debunking of the „blowback“ theory can be found here: (by Nafeez Ahmed)

So Kiriakou’s statements puts reality upside down: it is the US – and especially the CIA – WHO IS THE THREAT TO THE SECURITY of other nations, and they created these „Jihadi fighters“ for two purposes:

• as proxies (political tools) to fight dirty wars for them and (in a later stage)
• as a pretext to have to „intervene“ militarily in certain countries (now clearly visible in Syria…)

Kiriakou’s moral highground here rests on the assumption that US-violence is always „good“ because they use it against „bad guys“. This is either ridiculously naive or deliberately misleading.

Joe Hickmann (co-author of „A Convenient Terrorist“) says about Abu Zubaydah in an interview on RT:

 „He DID NOT run the Khaldan camp“. It was Abdul Rassul Sayef, an Afghan „warlord“ who also ran two other military camps.“

So what is the big deal?

Hickmann:

„Sayef has worked FOR THE CIA since 1973 [preparing „jihad“ against the USSR] and is now a high-ranking member of the Afghan parliament.  So AZ was actually with a group that was heavily funded  by the USG and … the CIA. But they don’t want you to know that …“ (You bet).

So by now it should be clear that the CIA fabricated the whole narrative of the monstrous „Al Qaeda“ as the organizer of 9-11 in order to „cover their ass“.

(Israel’s role in this impressive political farce and crime of the century surely needs to be investigated…)

The whole „war-on-terror“-show falls apart when the master-narrative is revealed as false:

• AQ is NOT responsible for 9-11 (there is not a single shred of evidence for the allegation that would stand-up in a regular court)
• AQ (meaning the „base“ in Arabic) was originally a database of „Jihadi“-fighters created by  OBL and later became the PR-name for the fabricated „Big Threat“ of Islamic extremism; this became nessesary after the demise of the USSR when a new „enemy“ had to be invented to justify the gargantuan US „defense-budget“ and the constant „intervention“ in other (preferably oil and gas-rich) countries who also happened to be adversaries of Israel
• OBL was originally a CIA-asset
• Organized „Islamic terrorism“ (as in „ISIS“) is just a new version of the „death squads“ they created in Latin America

The whole „war on terror“ theater is the biggest PSYOP since the Gulf of Tonkin ….

As the Senate report clearly shows, the CIA has been lying systematically about their „high-value targets“ and everything they say about AQ is highly questionable since it is THEY WHO NEED THE AQ-MYTH to deflect attention from their own likely involvement in 9-11 and other „false-flags“ (terror-attacks). People like Abu Zubaydah are turned into Pawlovian dogs (through mental torture and physcial abuse) to hide the unspeakable crimes the CIA has committed.

They are not fighting „terrorists“. They ARE the TERROR.   

“No one can be called a good man who, in order to support himself, takes up a profession that obliges him at all times to be rapacious, fraudulent, and cruel, as of course must be all of those no matter what their rank, who make a trade of war.”

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Art of War

 

 

Important Links:

• http://www.voltairenet.org/article177178.html by KEVIN RYAN
• http://http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/31/government-walks-back-hyp_n_520007.html
• http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/1295-00oppositionpdf
• http://abuzubaydah.com/
• http://scroll.in/article/811444/a-mistaken-al-qaeda-suspect-gives-a-chilling-account-of-brutal-american-torture JUL 2016
• https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2943223/Abu-Zubaydah-Memo-in-Support-of-Motionn-for.pdf
• https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/09/cia-torture-9-11-abu-zubaydah-guantanamo-bay
• https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/23/abu-zubaydah-guantanamo-bay-cia-torture
• https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-06-07/rights-group-asks-germany-to-arrest-cia-deputy-director