Suspect in Torture Case Was Imprisoned For Reading Magazine's H-Bomb Satire
By Susie Madrak Tuesday Feb 10, 2009 2:45pmMind you, this is the man for whose case the Obama administration is citing the state secrets act. This could be any one of us:
A British ‘resident’ held at Guantanamo Bay was identified as a terrorist after confessing he had visited a ‘joke’ website on how to build a nuclear weapon, it was revealed last night.
Binyam Mohamed, a former UK asylum seeker, admitted to having read the ‘instructions’ after allegedly being beaten, hung up by his wrists for a week and having a gun held to his head in a Pakistani jail.
It was this confession that apparently convinced the CIA that they were holding a top Al Qaeda terrorist.
But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the offending article – called How To Build An H-Bomb – was first published in a US satirical magazine [Seven Days] and later placed on a series of websites.
Written by Barbara Ehrenreich, the publication’s food editor, Rolling Stone journalist Peter Biskind and scientist Michio Kaku, it claims that a nuclear weapon can be made ‘using a bicycle pump’ and with liquid uranium ‘poured into a bucket and swung round’.
Despite its clear satirical bent, the story led the CIA to accuse 30-year-old Mohamed, a caretaker, of plotting a dirty bomb attack, before subjecting him to its ‘extraordinary rendition programme’.
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Wow. I was afraid Obama was going to take up where Bush left off.
So much for change if he won't look into the Bush mis-administration's crimes
investigate and punish everyone involved. The president should publicly apologize to the individuals and the world. Right now we're now better than Nazi Germany. My Dad, a WWII veteran told me "Never in my life have I been ashamed of My country, but I am now". What a tragedy.
Stay away from any websites like that! No more Mad. No more the Onion. No more Truthout. Big brother is watchin you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLKKe2o9WnM
Somebody's Watchin You!!
So I'm definitely being watched, since I sometimes go to Al-jazeera English ........ for more balanced news coverage.
Me also. It is surprisingly objective world news. Russia Today the Russian English language news channel is better than most of our corporate media.
I sometimes visited FARQ in english too. But I think they did not have to make a new file on me for that. I hung out with the Seattle 7 and was suspended for disseminating radical material at my highschool in '70...
at least once a week. They actually have journalists!
"Journalists...."
What are they?
they are appointed Senators. Go figure. LOL.
I clicked on the link and got: This video is not available in your country. :-0
The video is obviously more than the average Norwegian can handle. Sheeesh.
It's strange. I send links to a pal in England and she can't see them. What you are missing is a Michael Jackson Live performance, Michael Jackson- Somebody's Watching Me.
I think it may be an EU copyright restriction thing...
Edit...I just found this on the internets, teh google, to be exact:
Don't know if it will work...
I think it's a marketing pact for web content distribution at play.
To watch anyway get a snoop blocker like Hotspot Sheild. Might as well start encrypting your communications too. That have them for phones too you know.
While I don't doubt that the case against him is thin to nonexistent, and any "confession" is rendered moot by the torture, the tendency of British newspapers (especially the Daily Mail) to print any kind of nonsense makes me suspect that the "reading satirical web site makes CIA think he's obsessed with bomb-making" is baloney.
what you seem to suggest is that the case should be reviewed and investigated in full, right?
The so called war on terror was and is a hoax from top to bottom. For those that don't agree, remind me why the USA killed three million Vietnamese 35 years ago?
like this:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/7280304
This article sounds like political satire.
It's like something out of "Brazil." "We were meant to torture Tuttle, not Buttle."
No need to actually face the disgrace the neocons and the Bush administration brought upon our country, or prosecute those who broke the law. And if Obama thinks looking the other way is the way to go, fuck him, he's just as complicit.
Obama is no different than Clinton or Bush 41 and 43. They are all members of the same organization that sticks it to ordinary people all over the world 24/7.
It's us against them. They are the CFR. (Council on Foreign Relations)
Is this the same Barbara Ehrenreich that wrote "Nickled & Dimed" or "Bait & Switch" or her latest, a satirical work, "This Land is
OurTheir Land" ?I have 'Hyperspace, A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension' which is a fabulous explanation about other dimensions...
I can't imagine them not trying to do something to help this poor guy.
They are just normal citizens like us.
Michio Kaku I think will be gutted by this. I see him on tv and have read his books, and he is just a humanist from the get go. I don't think he's old enough to have been interred, but IIRC, his parents were imprisoned for being Japanese, a situation not unlike this one.
of surprise from all y'all smart people that Prez.O's continuing existing "national security" programs and policies.
Why, I wonder, would anyone think that the hegemons, corporatists, oligarchs, and such, would place even the appearance of control of their incredibly expensive, immensely powerful, ridiculously influential, fantastically rich system in the hands of anyone who posed the even the faintset, slimmest, slightest chance of actually undoing the Status Quo??? Nobody whose loyalty to that system was not absolute, and tested, and vetted, and confirmed--written somewhere in blood--would ever even be permitted to be taken seriously as a CANDIDATE for that position.
do the will of the people, if we make him. We do have the power. Publicly funded elections, a breakup of the Media monopoly: those are essential for the US to survive as a democracy.
how are you going to "make" Obama do "the will of the people"?
What lever do we have that will make any difference, other than riots in the streets, revolution, or some kind of overthrow of the government, or any other way to get him to listen?
You got it dude! My name is Big John and I been telling them like is is for years but they never get it. All the feel gooders are just like Charlie Brown trying to kick that football; Lucy just will never let it happen.
I for one ain't no Charlie Brown Democrat gotta keep it real
brudda
It's been that way since the 1924 Presidential (s)election. The Council on Foreign Relations has total control of the media and the election process. They decide what candidate gets nominated and gets positive PR/smeared in the media.
Barack Obama approved the continuation of "Torture by Proxy" or "Extraordinary Rendition" with his recent Executive Order which only reviews the closing of Guantanamo Bay torture in 18 months. But does not officially close the camp or stop the torture.
New Boss, Same as the old Boss!
H-Bomb story was just a little gag, that's the scary part. Susie's right, this could have been any of us.
Obama - An Accessory AFTER the Fact.
It's pretty damn scary knowing that every person who read that article is a dirty bomb plotter isn't it? You know it definitely doesn't suprise me that the Bush government would perputrate this illegal kidnapping, detention and torture but it sure as hell is disturbing that the Obama government seems to see fit to continue the illegal policies.
I often visit cooking websites that show recipes, but hell, that doesn't mean I want to cook or bake a screwin' cake. My husband will vouch for that.
Yeah bur you know the CIA will ahve to torture your husband to get the truth don't you?
No torture needed just ask him when he's cooking dinner.
I understand POP but the CIA might just not be that bright.
general hayden? very bright
the satanists and fetishists who fill the ranks of rogue black ops? not so much
.
"... a screwin' cake..."
Man, I guess they make 'em for ALL occasions...
The Erotic Bakery
Mmmmm. Frosting.
(Blocked.) Darn - guess I'll have to go home to view this!
It worked for me. But if you are at work, the word 'erotic' might be a filter word that causes a block...
http://www.theeroticbakery.com/ is the entry page. It has a disclaimer and you have to be 18 to click it. I KNOW a 14 year old would totally back off when they saw that...
:D.
I have a killer 'Sex in a Pan' recipe ...
you cookin for your husband Patricia? Ah..nevermind...
Hey, Homeland Security guy!! What recipies does Patricia surf for?
or the publisher of Seven Days? The ISP that hosted the article?
They just went after the end user? Oh silly ass me -- all white probably non-Muslim people.
Can you say racial AND religious profiling?
wrote the article. One of them was Barbara Ehrenreich. I asked upstream if she was the same who wrote Nicled and Dimed and other books. Hell, I have a few of her books..she is a teriffic writer.
If this is the same author, I can't imagine why she has not spoken up about this, or maybe she doesn't know.
Mind you, this is the man for whose case the Obama administration is citing the state secrets act. This could be any one of us:
“First they came for the Communists and I did not speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Trade Unionists and I did not speak up because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I did not speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me - and by that time there was no one left to speak." -- Pastor Niemoller
Thanks Susie!!
Amen!
...as always, o.
and o-t, but it relates to the geithner thread below:
TIM GEITHNER, YOU TAX CHEAT, YOU CAN KISS MY ASS YOU G*DDAMN EGGHEAD IN A GHERI CURL WIG.
well i have to agree orangutan but i might not carry much weight on the subject of obama carrying on the bush policys! oh hell why not?after all whos been saying it longer on here then meeee!
you are and always have been my hero, there now shut up. lmao
sorry slick im not looking for acololades or hero worship just trying to wise the home folks up, as for shutting up thiers an old saying maby you heard it! all thats needed for evil to prevail is that good men stand back and say nothing! so stuff it!
It was a joke.
and i greatly appreciated it! lmao too!
Just wondering, did you used to post on the CBC back when it was a real site?
no i only post on here!
sorry muzzy but i get sniped at on here so much its not easy recogniseing a joke from a jab!
...not because of his fearlessness in korea in the early fifties, because of what he's doing for america, right here, right now.
while "big tough guy" don rumsfeld was flying cargo planes, away from any real battles, jack tyree was a frontline gunner in the u.s. navy.
... a pretty damn well decorated one at that.
but you already know that :)
hi calgary i love you too youve grown up on here as a good blogger!;}
Thank you, sweetie :)
thanks bullfroggy your makeing me blush , glad you decided to come back and stand tall before the mast! the blog needs you, if for no other reason then to take some of the heat off me , he he were two left feet in a two right world!
they took a scalpel to his pecker to get him to talk? Ouch! I think I might have confessed from that. IF I HAD ANYTHING TO CONFESS TO NSA!
Peace!
That's what I understand.
From the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/aug/02/terr...
Don't worry I'm sure they'd come up with something for you to confess to.
... nor the F.B.I.
it's rogue, lawlesss C.I.A. black-ops, plain and simple.
the true reason for the torturing, etc. was to scare US, American people. And Iraq (secondly) and the rest of the World.
"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
1984, George Orwell
...isn't info-gathering.
everyone in the world understands a tortured person will say anything.
the point of torture is to keep YOU scared out of your wits...
Don't forget wiretapping. AT&T ROOM 318.
to prove a point that the bush and maybe the obama
administrations are straying into the delusional
patriot dimension--everyone should declare they have
also read this article. what is the govt going to
do extraordinary rendition the entire American citizen
population whether or not you have actually read
this article?
This is sickening, and nobody should let the Obama administration off the hook about it.
What, exactly, is the state secret that must be kept hidden? The time of day they tortured this poor soul? The name of the guards' uniform launderers? The name of the prison fencing contractors? The prisoners' barbers' names? The cooks' names? The kind of gun held to this prisoner's head?
The names of those who tortured him?
The names of those who tortured him.... I'll bet this is the state secret the Obama administration wants to keep hidden, since we already know the worst -- if their names and faces were known, Obama might not be able to convince us or anybody else that the CIA torturers should not be prosecuted. And heck, somebody might spirit those guys away and similarly torture them.
Good for you, Obama. That's the way to show America your integrity and principles...
and I suspect that having a name like 'Binyam Mohamed' is one of the reasons he was targeted.
This is disturbing on so many levels. I am speechless at Obama's continued support and cover-up of such policies.
This is why Bush fought so hard to keep these people out of the courts.
Is this a different CIA, like "Central Imbecilic Agency"?
All of you who complain that Obama is continuing a b.s. policy, the least you can do is leave a comment at the White House website:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
This guy (Obama) is here because we put him there. Tell him what you think, and he might be responsive.
I am hoping that the reason the DOJ attorney said that he was continuing the policy of the Bush administration is because Holder just got in there a couple days before and hadn't reviewed everything yet. Maybe its unrealistically optimistic, but between that and drinking, I get by.
Yeah, I think they need time to sort it all out. I appreciate your bringing a little perspective to this subject Old Billy.
Someone please tell Obama to stop flushing the US down the toilet! We are so festooned with feces from past administrations that the sewer is the only place to go.
And unfortunately, Obama seems to be happily leading us there.
I mean, are you F**king kidding me? I thought the last dozen or so highly publicized terror busts were comedy gold, but this takes the cake! This man was raped, electrocuted, beaten, sodomized and tortured at the behest of our government over this?
Are we still a country?
Obama had nothing to do with the torture or prosecution of this man. For you to say Obama " seems to be happily leading us there" is bullshit. I don't think there is a simple solution to this evil clusterfuck and I don't blame Obama for it's creation. There's more to this than we know and I'm willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, not indefinately, but for now.
Obama is perpetuating this notion of a War of Terror and its destruction of American Constitutional freedoms. That leads us deeper into unfiltered waters.
His policy support of Israeli concentration camps and Israeli land annexation has butchered any hope of resolution for stateless Palestinians.
Notice that I didn't put the clusterfuck's creation on Obama, nor Bush. But rather previous administrations, most inclusive of Bush and now, as current affairs stand, Obama.
Genitial slicing demented war criminals are protected and innocent people are tortured and imprisoned on no charges. The US has turned into a very sick and sadistic country and it appears it's going continue. Obama has proved too be a total fraud on many issues. Very very sad for a once great nation.
Maybe things will start to move forward now that they know they have to deal with it. Sane, honest people in government know they have to deal with it now.
"One of the plaintiffs in the case which the Obama DOJ is seeking to have dismissed is Ethiopian citizen and British resident Binyam Mohamed, who is currently close to death at Guantanamo due to a hunger strike. It is his case in England, against the British government for its complicity in his torture and rendition, that prompted a British court to conclude that although there was very credible evidence to substantiate his claims of brutal torture, they would not disclose any of the relevant information due to threats from the U.S. to terminate intelligence-sharing agreements with Britain."
That's the relevant issue in this case; the rights of the individual are sacrificed for the safety of the whole (society, majority).
The Obama administration, in this case as in the case of the abysmal state of the U.S. (and world) economy, inherited an ugly 8-year situation in which this person was interrogated and abused by MI5 and the CIA in Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo.
Without knowing any more, I suspect the Obama administration wants to find out which loose cannons are still rolling around the deck in the CIA before they take another step; i.e., "time out".
This may work out badly for Binyam Mohamed on an individual level, but if the CIA is less toothless than they were under Carter and less unregulated than they were under Reagan and Cheney...er, G.W.Bush, the U.S. might regain a bit of respect.
So discraceful, and utterly guilty to add blackmail to cover up your torure you guys. How utterly guilty - i couldn't have written a better book.
I clicked on the link, so I guess I'd better watch out for the Men In Black now that I've marked myself a terrorist. No, wait, I'd better just forget about it before they stick me in a torture chamber in a foreign country to get me to tell them what they want to hear.
Except I'm just fine, because I'm white and born on US soil. Irony being that, with a physics degree, I *do* know how to make a nuclear bomb. Maybe not a good one, but certainly more useful information about the process than that article will teach you, or than this poor schmuck knows.
That said, I agree with an above poster that The Mail may well be hyperbolizing this. That doesn't make it ok to "rend" the man, nor does it excuse Obama's backing Herr Bush's insane and indefensible position on "interrogation" and due process. One big step forward, then one big step back.
I guess we can be thankful that on average he's a big improvement, for as little as that is worth.
What about the soldier(s) That was charged , sentence and place in jail from West Virginia!!!
She stated that she was following orders , but they were very quick to charge , sentence and place her in jail so the story would die down..
They were quick to call this torture or abuse and place her in jail ,, while she was stating all the time that she was following orders. But they refuse to investigate , charge and sentence Bush , Cheney and Rumsfield and Cheney and others and Cheney and others have arrogantly omitted to the act on public television..
The deal not to prosecuted them was made a long time ago and that is why they have been so arrogant and blatant about it.. I think that some democrats are involved in these criminal crimes of Bush and the republicans and that is why Bush and other republicans are so arrogant about their acts...
refusal to investigate the criminal and war crimes of Bush and company they are just as guilty as the persons committing the crimes..
There is no middle ground... Clinton was attacked for years to create a crime and that was a lie about sex to save his marriage... Bush and his criminals have lied , committed crimes against our country and the world and they are arrogantly laughing at us and the world.
Obama and other took the oath to uphold our constitution and laws when being swore into office..
Refusal to do their sworn duty makes then just a guilty as those committing the crimes and they should step down from office and give the seat to those who wish to honor our country and it's laws..
It's a matter of principle. Do the Democrats [and the opposition] choose to abandon their principles over the crimes of a previous administration or not. Very simple, but discraceful to watch so far..
Johnathan Turly tells it like it is:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/vp/291287...
I have some right-wing relatives who say that even imprisonment and torture of innocent people makes them feel safer. I don't fully understand it, but they seem to feel that US military, police, and proxies being arbitrarily cruel makes everybody afraid to do anything to "us." But they never stop to think that someday they might be one of the deterrent examples themselves.
that they won't be so fine with it when it's one of them.
I have a brother like that. I know what you are talking about. One look on his bookshelf, and I want to vomit.
fold the page together to decipher the mad magazine hidden message?
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