A recently released CIA report from 1956 shows the agency once condemned the torture techniques of communist regimes as immoral. But the agency would later end up using many of those same methods — and worse — in the War on Terror.
Recently released CIA documents show the agency was aware that detainees subjected to its “enhanced interrogation” would say anything — especially what their torturers wanted to hear — to get the torture to stop. Maybe that was the whole point?
Baseball’s Fay Vincent defends CIA lying to “protect our boys.” But what is really being protected are the private interests, the deals, the mines, the cheap labor, and the extracted resources around the globe.
The US Senate has confirmed Gina Haspel as CIA director. Because three Republicans opposed her, some Democrats were needed to get the necessary votes. In the end, six of them voted with the rest of the GOP to confirm “Bloody Gina.” That’s some #Resistance. Haspel oversaw torture at a secret CIA prison in Thailand during Read More
CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou explains why acting CIA director Gina Haspel has said “Yes” to torture at every opportunity, and what the CIA under her control might look like.
A recently unearthed 1950s report by an international commission concluded the US used bioweapons on North Korea. It raises doubts about claims that captured Americans were brainwashed into confessing the use of such weapons.
Gina Haspel played a key role in America’s post 9/11 torture program and was a leader in covering up its excesses. Should that disqualify her from being CIA director? Whistleblower John Kiriakou believes it should.
President Donald Trump has nominated Gina Haspel — a person deeply involved in the agency’s former torture program — to be the new director. Last year, we interviewed CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou about his role in exposing this illegal program.
The government’s post-9/11 legacy of torture continues to hamper Guantánamo Bay legal proceedings. President Donald Trump is not helping.
John Kiriakou was a 15-year CIA veteran before he exposed its torture program. Today he analyzes an agency unchecked by oversight and whose power is underestimated by the Trump administration.
A psychotherapist takes us face to face with the evil of torture and tells the story of a government that interfered with the gathering of evidence to stop it.
A federal judge ruled that a lawsuit against the architects of the CIA torture program — brought by former detainees — can go forward. Here is a video with useful background.
Activist Rebecca Gordon argues that it’s time to bring to justice those in the US government responsible for war crimes, such as Abu Ghraib.
Donald Trump’s comments about rounding up Muslims and keeping Muslims out of the country are not so far-fetched in light of what happened after 9/11. The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is filled with internees who have never been charged with a crime. WhoWhatWhy’s Jeff Schechtman talks with the editor of a diary written by one of Gitmo’s longest-serving prisoners.
On behalf of CIA torture victims, the ACLU is suing the two psychologists who designed the US torture program and became millionaires in doing so.
CIA is again moving around someone who knows something and has a motivation to cover it up.
Let’s look a little further at what ails Obama—and us. It’s about the pretty small part of the One Percent that really calls the shots, and keeps a president from doing what he surely knows he must.
On torture and secrecy, Obama is carefully treading a path laid by his predecessor. What gives?
While the US government expresses outrage over the brutality of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi toward his own people, we’re missing a complex but significant wrinkle that ties Qaddafi to America’s cover-up of the true path to war in Iraq.
In May, 2009, a man named Ibn Shaikh al-Libi supposedly committed suicide while being held in a Libyan jail. Al-Libi is a deeply, deeply interesting fellow. Back in 2002, he was tortured by Egypt under US direction. It appears that the reason the US government had him tortured was not to stop some imminent attack on the United States, but to generate alleged—and false— links between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein that could justify invading Iraq.
Recently, I raised some questions about the impact of imprisonment at Guantánamo and how it affected those who were released. For example, I wrote: As for those who returned to jihad, one would like to know whether they were more motivated to do so as a result of their treatment at Guantánamo, or less. In Read More