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CIA Kept Prisoners Alive So It Could Torture More

Abuse 'sickening': human-rights lawyer

By Will McCahill,  Newser Staff

Posted Oct 28, 2009 9:37 PM CDT
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(Newser) – Detainees tortured to the brink of death were sometimes given medical treatment to keep them alive so CIA operatives could torture them further, a human-rights lawyer alleges. “The CIA engaged in some horrendous abuses, but they appear to have taken precautions to have actually prevented people from dying—which might sound humanitarian, but in fact was kind of sickening,” John Sifton tells Russia Today.

Sifton says the CIA and US military intelligence ran parallel programs, with the CIA’s more secretive and the military’s more careless: “The military subjected a lot of people to the same techniques, but without the precautions, and as a result a large number of detainees in military custody died.” Meanwhile, the CIA program “only had a few dozen detainees at any given time—but it’s the one that saw the biggest abuses, the most serious forms of torture.”

A protester.
A protester.   (Wikiemedia Commons)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 34 comments
ChickenChopper
Oct 30, 2009 3:23 AM CDT
i second kokua on that. all of it
kokuaguy
Oct 30, 2009 1:48 AM CDT
Your careless post resulted in a discussion here that might not otherwise have occurred, yummi. But I did initially read into it the opposite of what you intended. Rather than inquiring (albeit in and abrupt and perhaps insensitive way as logo did) I'd probably have just thumbed you down and moved on. Now I'll go to your posts and see if Deebs's assessment of your skills and intellect is one that I share. But in any case, keep posting. Writing in any format is something those your age should try to do as often as you can. And newser can definitely benefit from the contributions of those who share your youthful perspective and curiosity. By the way, I miss 2-bits.
brawne
Oct 29, 2009 8:26 AM CDT
I leave this place very happy that yummines, a high school kid eating a sandwich is a better writer and thinker than most here. That is our future and we should all be beholden. Thank you yummines. If there are more of you then I might get my social security. Well, not that but at least my medicare. And if not that at least not nuclear winter, which is the closest we've been since '62. You guys forget that we gave Pakistan all those nukes to win the war over Russia. What do you think this thing is all about? Like we care about how the Taliban treats people--some dumb fuck in the eighties--who could that be gave them some nukes and now we have to be there forever to protect them. READ A BOOK!!!! I can barely come here any more because the width and depth of the ignorance here is almost overwhelming. My brother-in-in law West Point, Ranger, Helicopter pilot for Patraous in the nineties and fell into the NSA and CIA never to be heard from again, told me seven years ago that we are doomed. The nice thing about the cold war is that it kept everything cold--now we have a very warm war. But, hey, keep watching Beck and whomever is his opposite on the opposite channel. It will keep you busy while your eyeballs melt.. To yummines--very sorry that we did not give you the world that got handed to us. I wouldn't worry about that student loan.

 
Iraq • CIA • torture • human rights abuse • John Sifton

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