Judge allows American to sue Rumsfeld over torture

Well its about time someone from the Bush administration is held accountable for their crimes.

Judge allows American to sue Rumsfeld over torture

A federal judge has ruled that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld can be sued personally for damages by a former U.S. military contractor who says he was tortured during a nine-month imprisonment in Iraq.

The lawsuit lays out a dramatic tale of the disappearance of the then-civilian contractor, an Army veteran in his 50s whose identity is being withheld from court filings for fear of retaliation. Attorneys for the man, who speaks five languages and worked as a translator for Marines collecting intelligence in Iraq, say he was preparing to come home to the United States on annual leave when he was abducted by the U.S. military and held without justification while his family knew nothing about his whereabouts or even whether he was still alive.

The government says he was suspected of helping pass classified information to the enemy and helping anti-coalition forces get into Iraq. But he was never charged with a crime, and he says he never broke the law and was risking his life to help his country.

Court papers filed on his behalf say he was repeatedly abused while being held at Camp Cropper, a U.S. military facility near the Baghdad airport dedicated to holding "high-value" detainees, then suddenly released without explanation in August 2006. Two years later, he filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington arguing that Rumsfeld personally approved torturous interrogation techniques on a case-by-case basis and controlled his detention without access to courts in violation of his constitutional rights.

AP

If they can prove in court that Rumsfeld personally authorized torture on a case by case basis, it could open the floodgates for more lawsuits.

I'm lovin' it!

reply to post by FortAnthem


Put the whole lot in jail and throw away the keys! These war criminals all have blood on their hands and they have never been held accountable for their actions. Kudos for the judge who doesn't feel intimidated by the powerful elite.

reply to post by FortAnthem


I love this s---t.....

The American Civil Liberties Union alleges that extraordinary rendition was developed during the Clinton administration by CIA officials in the mid-1990s who were trying to track down and dismantle militant Islamic organizations in the Middle East, particularly Al Qaeda.[8] According to Clinton administration official Richard Clarke: “ 'extraordinary renditions', were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgment of the host government.... The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: "Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, 'That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.'"[28] ” Both the Reagan and Clinton cases involved apprehending known terrorists abroad, by covert means if necessary. The policy later expanded.

en.wikipedia.org...

fort i agree with alot of things you say just not on this one go after one you gotta go after them all

reply to post by neo96


I'm not saying that they should end with Rumsfeld. I'd like to see them all behind bars as well.

Hopefully this one judge having the balls to take on the establishment will give others the courage to allow other, and hopefully even higher ranking, officials to be brought to justice for their crimes.

At least this guy will get his day in court to display the facts of his case and expose the lawlessness of the government.

Well apparantly the judge saw enough evidence to allow this through so it will definetly be a case to watch.

Very interesting indeed.

reply to post by neo96


I think the point was this will open the flood gate so to speak and we will perhaps see more people being brought to court for their crimes. I will bet nothing comes of this but a start is a start.

reply to post by kro32


unfortuntely there probably wont be anything to watch...
I realy hope this guy win and rummy is held responsible. That mayset enough precident to go after the rest of the administration for thier complicity in these types of war crimes, the day i see bush on trial in the Hague is the day i can die a happy man. (sorry... a little bit biased there)

This is exactly why we need "Loser pays" introduced into the legal system.

Frivolous lawsuits like this are ridiculous.

The US does not torture, and this enhanced interrogation was already OK'd by the Justice Department.

reply to post by Carseller4


liar past 3 years we have been tortured by obama and the democrats

reply to post by RadicalRebel


Highly doubt Bush had the level of responsiblility you give him credit for. His father yes and Cheney and Rumsfield but I think Bush Jr. was there just because he was electable and was guaranteed to bring in these other players.

He probably didn't know anything about the tortures going on, if they happened.

reply to post by kro32


he is still complicit in the death of every american soldier who died over there looking for "WMD"!!!
I KNEW, the day he stood in front of that crowd at ground zero what the next move was, and told people to prepare for it, my Boss fired me over it 2 years before we ever set foot back in IRAQ.
True it probably wont ever happen but they all need to pay for thier lies

Originally posted by RadicalRebel
reply to post by kro32

 

he is still complicit in the death of every american soldier who died over there looking for "WMD"!!!
I KNEW, the day he stood in front of that crowd at ground zero what the next move was, and told people to prepare for it, my Boss fired me over it 2 years before we ever set foot back in IRAQ.
True it probably wont ever happen but they all need to pay for thier lies

edit on 3-8-2011 by RadicalRebel because: (no reason given)

Well to be fair he was basing it off of intelligent reports and the democrats believed it as did all the other country's in the coalition. People often forget that and don't bring up conspiracy stuff that you have no proof of as it cheapens the discussion.

Originally posted by FortAnthem
Hopefully this one judge having the balls to take on the establishment will give others the courage to allow other, and hopefully even higher ranking, officials to be brought to justice for their crimes.

...even if someone wins in the lower courts, rumsfeld et all will have the decision overturned in the supreme court... didnt the supreme court already agree that the gwb executive order that permits torturing was okay?...

Originally posted by FortAnthem
At least this guy will get his day in court to display the facts of his case and expose the lawlessness of the government.

...yep, thats something, i reckon - if it happens and if his testimony isnt sealed under the false premise of protecting national security...

Originally posted by kro32
don't bring up conspiracy stuff that you have no proof of as it cheapens the discussion.

...since all the media outlets are tainted, where do you suggest posters get proof?...

Originally posted by Wyn Hawks

Originally posted by kro32
don't bring up conspiracy stuff that you have no proof of as it cheapens the discussion.

...since all the media outlets are tainted, where do you suggest posters get proof?...

Proof of what?

Wmd's?

Originally posted by kro32
Well to be fair he was basing it off of intelligent reports and the democrats believed it as did all the other country's in the coalition. People often forget that and don't bring up conspiracy stuff that you have no proof of as it cheapens the discussion.

Is it conspiracy that WE supplied Iraq with the onyl WMD they ever had to fight against Iran?
Is it conspiracy that Saddam tried to have Bush Sr. assassinated...just prior to the 1991 Gulf war?

Just pointing out theobvious connections i made back in Oct 2001, March 2003 an the lies abou WMD's proved me right...no conspiracies needed

Originally posted by RadicalRebel

Originally posted by kro32
Well to be fair he was basing it off of intelligent reports and the democrats believed it as did all the other country's in the coalition. People often forget that and don't bring up conspiracy stuff that you have no proof of as it cheapens the discussion.

Is it conspiracy that WE supplied Iraq with the onyl WMD they ever had to fight against Iran?
Is it conspiracy that Saddam tried to have Bush Sr. assassinated...just prior to the 1991 Gulf war?

Just pointing out theobvious connections i made back in Oct 2001, March 2003 an the lies abou WMD's proved me right...no conspiracies needed

Well if you had assumed the stories about wmd's were incorrect than yea you got it right.

Not much more I can add other than that.

reply to post by kro32


to be honest, i had only assumed an attack on Iraq was imminent, i had not at the time (late 2001) made any assumption other than a family retaliation on Hussien, The subsequent stories of WMD's and thier eventual falsehood was only icing on the cake (which i am saving for bush's trial)

He got his revenge on Saddam, but at what cost?
I only hope this "JOE" gets to eat his cake after rummy is found guilty, the rest ill have to wait on.

Originally posted by kro32

Originally posted by RadicalRebel
reply to post by kro32

 

he is still complicit in the death of every american soldier who died over there looking for "WMD"!!!
I KNEW, the day he stood in front of that crowd at ground zero what the next move was, and told people to prepare for it, my Boss fired me over it 2 years before we ever set foot back in IRAQ.
True it probably wont ever happen but they all need to pay for thier lies

edit on 3-8-2011 by RadicalRebel because: (no reason given)

Well to be fair he was basing it off of intelligent reports and the democrats believed it as did all the other country's in the coalition. People often forget that and don't bring up conspiracy stuff that you have no proof of as it cheapens the discussion.

You're kidding, right? Intelligence reports said exactly the opposite:

"...On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.

On April 23, 2006, CBS's "60 Minutes" interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. "We continued to validate him the whole way through," said Drumheller. "The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy."

Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller's account...and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it..."

www.salon.com...