Top Bush aides pushed for Guantánamo torture

Apparently, Cheney and Bush weren’ t the only high-ups who authorized torture. There were others.

Top Bush aides pushed for Guantánamo torture

Senior officials bypassed army chief to introduce interrogation methods

By Richard Norton-Taylor

18/04/08 “The Guardian” – America’s most senior general was “hoodwinked” by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, the Guardian reveals today.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture.

The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington, who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date, is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts of which appear in today’s Guardian.

In his new book, Torture Team, Philippe Sands QC, professor of law at University College London, reveals that:

· Senior Bush administration figures pushed through previously outlawed measures with the aid of inexperienced military officials at Guantánamo.

· Myers believes he was a victim of “intrigue” by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of vice-president Dick Cheney, and at Donald Rumsfeld’s defence department.

· The Guantánamo lawyers charged with devising interrogation techniques were inspired by the exploits of Jack Bauer in the American TV series 24.

· Myers wrongly believed interrogation techniques had been taken from the army’s field manual.

The lawyers, all political appointees, who pushed through the interrogation techniques were Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and William Haynes. Also involved were Doug Feith, Rumsfeld’s under-secretary for policy, and Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two assistant attorney generals.

The revelations have sparked a fierce response in the US from those familiar with the contents of the book, and who are determined to establish accountability for the way the Bush administration violated international and domestic law by sanctioning prisoner abuse and torture.

The Bush administration has tried to explain away the ill-treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by blaming junior officials. Sands’ book establishes that pressure for aggressive and cruel treatment of detainees came from the top and was sanctioned by the most senior lawyers.

Myers was one top official who did not understand the implications of what was being done. Sands, who spent three hours with the former general, says he was “confused” about the decisions that were taken.

Myers mistakenly believed that new techniques recommended by Haynes and authorised by Rumsfeld in December 2002 for use by the military at Guantánamo had been taken from the US army field manual. They included hooding, sensory deprivation, and physical and mental abuse.

“As we worked through the list of techniques, Myers became increasingly hesitant and troubled,” writes Sands. “Haynes and Rumsfeld had been able to run rings around him.”

Myers and his closest advisers were cut out of the decision-making process. He did not know that Bush administration officials were changing the rules allowing interrogation techniques, including the use of dogs, amounting to torture.

“We never authorised torture, we just didn’t, not what we would do,” Myers said. Sands comments: “He really had taken his eye off the ball … he didn’t ask too many questions … and kept his distance from the decision-making process.”

Larry Wilkerson, a former army officer and chief of staff to Colin Powell, US secretary of state at the time, told the Guardian: “I do know that Rumsfeld had neutralised the chairman [Myers] in many significant ways.

“The secretary did this by cutting [Myers] out of important communications, meetings, deliberations and plans.

“At the end of the day, however, Dick Myers was not a very powerful chairman in the first place, one reason Rumsfeld recommended him for the job”.

He added: “Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzalez and – at the apex – Addington, should never travel outside the US, except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They broke the law; they violated their professional ethical code. In future, some government may build the case necessary to prosecute them in a foreign court, or in an international court.”

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Useful Meditations-Part 1

Peace and Blessings Everyone

Today I went for a walk and spent some extra time meditating in a beautiful area. There were children playing nearby–Oh, the sound of life. And the sun just shone right at me, so warmly, so joyously. The wind lifted my spirits up as the birds sang an ever so peaceful song. I meditated for an hour, trying to focus within and without, trying to understand, to make sense out of life and such.

I wish to share with you all the meditations which I used today. The world is very chaotic and it hurts really bad to read all this news about war and such. So, I thought to post some meditations for everyone. When the stress from reading all this gets too much, then do meditate and pray to relax a bit inshaAllah.

So, all these are from a book titled “Live Well with One Spirit”. Its published by “One Spirit”

INSPIRING THE MIND

Meditation 1: Sea of Calm.

Prepare for meditation by counting backward from fifty. Visualize yourself rowing a boat toward a peaceful island. With each pull of the oars you count, feel your movements become more languid, your breathing slow down, and your strokes become longer and more relaxed. When you read zero, see yourself arriving on your island to begin your meditation.

Meditation 2: A Candle Meditation.

Whichever posture you adopt in your meditation-full lotus, half-lotus, or sitting on a chair-be sure to keep your back straing tnad your head upright. Close your eyes, empty your mind of thoughts, and imagaine the flame of a candle. See its flickering. Visualize it as your innate spiritual awareness.

Meditation 3: Your Inner Falme

A good object to use for meditation in an actual candle flame. Gaze at the flame, observing its shifting colours. Imagine the flame entering your being. Then look at it for another minute or two. Close your eyes, aware of the afterglow behind your eyelids, and for several minutes hold the image in your mind. As you meditate on the flame, lose all sense of its separateness.

Meditation 4: A Flower Meditation

Meditate on the Chrysanthemum flower, an Eastern symbol of good fortune. (I personally don’t believe in good luck charms and stuff. So I meditate on any flower because therese afterall God’s creations). Either use a real flower… Observe the flower, scanning its main features. Do not look for meaning in it; just allow its shapes, lines, and colors to penetrate your consciousness. Be aware that the image is both in front of you and inside your mind.

Meditation 5: Meditate on Clouds

Clouds make a useful focus for a simple but effective meditation. Sit somewhere comfortable inside your home, close your eyes, and, as random thoughts enter your mind, attach each one to an imaginary cloud, letting it float lazily across the blue sky of your consciousness until it is out of sight. Finish the execise after about fie mintues–feeling relaxed and refreshed.

SELF-BELIEF

Meditation 1: Be Fair to Yourself

Before we can truly give our love to others we must first learn to love and respect ourselves, but often we are our own harshest critics. Each evening spend a few minutes looking back over your day to give yourself the opportunity to learn from your errors. Forgive yourself for them, note and praise your successes, and reaffirms your friendship with yourself before going to bed.

Meditation 2: The Treasure Chest

Reflect on the treasures within you–gift such as love, strength, courage and empathy. Make a point of focusing on these positive qualities; learn to trust and respect all you have and all you are. If you are able to do that in your every day life, your inner treasure chest will spring open and your gifts will be revealed all around you.

Meditation 3: Connect with the Cosmos

Our lives can sometimes seem insignificant, but we can transform this feeling by remembering our place in the cosmos. Pick out a constellation in the night sky…and know that your life, like each of the millions of stars in the heavens, add light and beauty to the universe. In the midst of all this vastness, there is a place for you, and your life interconnects with the whole.

Meditation 4: Project Your Inner Self

See yourself as significant-not just a cog in the machine. You are the leading actor of your own drama, in charge of your own destiny. There are some aspects of life you cannot alter, such as the personalities or motivations of other people, but you can make big changes if you choose to. Act in the full knowledge of your powers, which are both a gift and a responsibility.

Meditation 5: Virtue’s Reward

Prizes and trophies are merely symbols of our attainments and as such they often have no practical value. Think of your own most significant successes in symbolic terms; your virtue may not have brought you material reward, but their effets on others, however modest, are meaningful emblems of your acheievements.

STILLNESS

Meditation 1: The Eye of the Storm

In the eye of the storm there is stillness. No matter what happens at any moment during any day, however hectic or troublesome things appear, and however many tasks we seem to be trying to do at once, we need only to turn inward to find a heaven of peace. To access your heaven, close your eyes, and imagine a stil and gentle light within you . Focus on the tranquility it brings.

Meditation 2: Stress Ballooning

Another way to banish worries is to imagine you are loading them into the basket of a hot-air balloon. In your mind’s eye, release the ballooon from its moorings and see it rise into the sky. Your problems become more and more remote as the balloon gets smaller and smaller. Watch it drift over the horizon, taking all your worries with it.

SELF-AWARENESS

Meditation 1: Many Faces

We create many identities for ourselves-the roles we playh for others in life’s various situations. Trouble arises when these roles obscure yoru understanding of who we really are. We might say “I’m a nurse”, or “I’m an extrovert”, or “I’m a coward”. Self-realization comes from throwing away these labels and focusing on the true, inner person. Esch day spend five mintues freeing yourself from one of your labeles-and see how much lighter you feel.

Meditation 2: The Mirror

This exercise helps you distinguish how you see yourself from how others see you. Take 20 minutes to write a list of all your positive qualities, and draw an image of this positive you. Next day, write a list of all the qualities that other people might see in you, and draw an image of this person. If there are differences, ask youself if, to narrow the gap, you need to change the way you behave or present yourself to the world.

Stereotyping Men

I came across this interesting video today so thought to post here for everyone inshaAllah. It pays to broaden one’s horizons. Its easy to get sucked into this box of stereotypes and difficult to think outside the box. I am still learning how to defeat stereotyping within and outside me. The way I see it, its a life long struggle because learning of all sorts should be continuous. Strive and so you shall find the way inshaAllah.

For more information view MediaEd