We do torture

Alfred McCoy (University of Wisconsin) Lateline, June 13:

Guantanamo is not a conventional military prison. It’s an ad hoc laboratory for the perfection of the CIA psychological torture. Guantanamo is a complete construction. It’s a system of total psychological torture, designed to break down every detainee contained therein, designed to produce a state of hopelessness and despair that leads, tragically, sadly in this case to suicide.

McCoy systemically explains that the Bush administration is simply the latest US administration to administer torture to “terror” suspects. Conservative commentators like Andrew Sullivan naively believe that the US government never tortured or abused prisoners until George W. Bush won office. This is clearly untrue.

Speaking of torture:

US Army Colonel James Steele, who was involved in the Iran-Contras scandal along with international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles at his command, is now an advisor to death squads in Iraq.

The presence of the US army officer in Iraq has just been revealed by US Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich, Granma daily reports.

Luis Posada Carriles, currently under arrest in the US charged with illegal entry into that country, was the first to report to Colonel Steele about the downing of a DC-3 aircraft in Nicaragua and the arrest of Eugene Hassenfus, the incident that led to the Iran-Contras scandal.

In a letter addressed to the US State Department, Kucinich notes that Colonel Steele, a current advisor to the US ambassador in Iraq, implemented a plan in El Salvador under which tens of thousands Salvadorans “disappeared” or were murdered, including Archbishop Oscar Romero and four American nuns.

Colonel Steele has been assigned to the new counter-insurgence unit known as the Special Police Commando, which operates under the Iraqi Interior Ministry, said Kucinich.

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