Alfred McCoy, in a talk about torture and US policy, discusses the importance of WikiLeaks and what has been released through it,

“In the release of the hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, if you go through them, as people have done—I’ve done it, as well—what you can find is the U.S. using its extraordinary diplomatic power, first under Bush and now under Obama, to stifle those investigations [into torture (ed.)], particularly in Spain, by Judge [Bartasar] Garzón. We placed enormous diplomatic pressure to end Spain’s exercise of universal jurisdiction to investigate top Bush administration officials—Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney and others—for human rights abuse. You know, we leaned on the Spanish authorities very hard.” (read more…)

 

“Instead of becoming penitent, however, prisoners went insane.” Rev. Richard L. Killmer discusses torture and solitary confinement in America, after a recent ABC Nightline piece  ”locked up alone” aired questioning the practice. In the Nightline piece, a reporter volunteered to spend three nights in solitary confinement – in conditions no where near as strict as those Bradley Manning endured for more than a year. He was not stripped naked, and he was not restricted from doing exercise in his cell, yet still he found the experience traumatizing and the piece has managed to shaken many who had no idea what conditions inmates are kept. Killmer writes, “Research consistently demonstrates that the psychological effects are devastating. Even those who enter solitary confinement without pre-existing mental illness have experienced hallucinations and demonstrate increased rates of self-mutilation and suicide.” (Read more…)

“Free Bradley Manning”
Claude, artist in France

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