"There was a before 9/11, and there was an after 9/11. After 9/11 the gloves came off." -Cofer Black, head of the CIA Counterterrorist Center, September 2003

The troops torture their own people to make them hard enough to torture prisoners. We're not talking about a handful of soldiers in one prison only. The story unfolds and Rumsfeld tries to get away with a cheesy courtroom-drama on TV and some "they killed some of our boys too"-revenge-plot . It's frightening how clueless and helpless George W.Bush and his buddies really are.

An officer of british special units dewcribed a system called R21 (Resistance to Interrogation), "a system of degradation developed for use by British and US troops called R2I - resistance to interrogation - which uses sexual jibes and stripping prisoners to prolong 'the shock of capture' when detainees are at their most vulnerable."

"In visits to Iraq's US-administered prison, The Red Cross has been documenting abuse that was not the 'exception' but was close to the norm - abuse that was 'tantamount' to a policy of torture, and tolerated by coalition forces. (...) And what has become increasingly clear in the past few days, in interviews with returning special forces soldiers from Iraq, was that the techniques employed at Abu Ghraib were not simply for the cruel entertainment of military policemen and private contractors running the prison, but an even crueller application of abusive interrogation techniques taught to both US and British special forces. " From a long exclusive story in The Observer

The paper also revealed that "The Red Cross president, Jakob Kellenberger, had personally warned three of George W. Bush's most senior officials - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz - of widespread abuse tantamount to torture." (...) The revelations threaten to drag the British government into the heart of the international scandal over coalition abuse at Abu Ghraib. It follows claims in yesterday's Guardian that the humiliating sexual abuse at the jail was consistent with procedures taught to British and American special forces. British military intelligence officers were interrogating prisoners in the notorious Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq even as the first reports of abuses at the prison came to light. (...) The disclosure will put fresh pressure on British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon to clarify when he first heard of allegations of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners amid claims from the Red Cross that British officials were alerted in November." Full story in The Observer

According to prominent New York attorney Scott Horton, partner at Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler chairing the Committee on International Law of the Association of the Bar of New York City, senior officers warned that Bush appointees in the Pentagon were undermining prisoner safeguards long before the abuse at Abu Ghraib became public. Horton and other members of the New York bar began to compile a report examining U.S. and international legal standards governing the treatment of military prisoners.

"The bar association's 110-page report, released last week, leaves no doubt that the practices revealed at Abu Ghraib violated both U.S. and international law. During the preparation of that report, Horton and his colleagues were more concerned with practices in Afghanistan and Guantánamo than in Iraq. What they have learned recently, however, suggests that questionable practices and attitudes toward prisoners stem from broad policy decisions made at the very highest levels of the Defense Department.´

Full story: "Lack of protection" by Joe Conason at salon.com

Meanwhile George Paine's warblogging.com "has been banned by U.S. Central Command", but it's still out there. Press freedom groups express concern over restrictions imposed on media outlets. NASA-experts are not allowed to talk to the Press about global warming after the movie "Day After Tomorrow" caused a new interest. Things don't exist if you don't talk about them.