Where Was Anal Rape Approved in the OLC Memos?

/9 Comments/in /by

Sorry I’ve been AWOL for the last several days. I’ve been traveling and speaking and traveling. Thanks to Jim and bmaz for holding down the fort.

While I’ve been gone, there has been fairly shocking testimony from Gitmo (thanks, as always, to Carol Rosenberg for her persistence in covering this thankless story). In Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri’s trial, a doctor called to testify to his untreated PTSD described the trauma evidence she found on him.

It includes symptoms of sexual assault.

[Dr. Sondra] Crosby chose her words carefully in court because, in order to make her diagnosis, she was allowed to review Top Secret records and discuss with Nashiri what happened to him. So while she was not allowed to say in open court what she saw in a medical exam of him or what he told her, she was allowed to refer to unclassified government records to support her diagnosis.

“He suffers from chronic pain. He suffers from anal-rectal complaints,” she said. Also, “difficulty defecating, hemorrhoids, pain in sitting for a long time,” which she said are typical of “survivors of sexual assault.”

None of the evidence of this trauma was noted in Nashiri’s medical record.

Anal rape, of course, was never approved in any of the OLC memos. Which is presumably why evidence it happened is not in the documentation.

(Though remember Nashiri was in custody in UAE before we moved him to Thailand, so it’s quite possible our surrogates did it).

It seems we still have a lot to learn about our torture program.

Meanwhile, the doctor Gitmo intended to rebut Crosby’s testimony was permitted to watch her testimony by live feed, a feed Judge Pohl didn’t know existed, yet another episode in Kangaroo justice.

image_print
9 replies
  1. chronicle says:

    quote”Anal rape, of course, was never approved in any of the OLC memos. “unquote

    The mere fact that the USG still holds and tortures human beings for 10+ years renders that point moot. In my universe, the OLC should be the first war criminals prosecuted and hung.

    quote:”Meanwhile, the doctor Gitmo intended to rebut Crosby’s testimony was permitted to watch her testimony by live feed, a feed Judge Pohl didn’t know existed, yet another episode in Kangaroo justice.”unquote

    Meanwhile..Orwell must be seething with envy.

    • Snarki, child of Loki says:

      “Orwell must be seething with envy.”

      Not really. Fiction has to make sense, unlike reality. If Orwell had written up the GWOT/Gitmo it would have been rejected as “too crazy, unbelievable”

      • chronicle says:

        quote”If Orwell had written up the GWOT/Gitmo it would have been rejected as “too crazy, unbelievable”unquote

        Indeed. I stand corrected. Maybe that’s why most of the citizens of the Dumbest Country on the Planet don’t pay attention. They don’t believe it. Irony at it’s best.

        • Anonsters says:

          Or they just don’t care. True story: I was talking to a group of about 30-50 people, all ages 18-45, most in the 18-29 range, all of whom are technically savvy people (the majority of whom work in the tech industry or in school for tech). They were infinitely more concerned about the government’s proposed regulation of “vape” (e-cigarettes, water pipes, etc.) than NSA surveillance. And by infinitely more concerned, I mean almost literally that. The conversation began with me asking for their view about the third-party doctrine (as explained, not just a bare question like that), and the first response was: “Yeah, but what about the government threatening vape?”

        • chronicle says:

          quote”They have different views of privacy from us old farts.”unquote

          Wait till they have grandchildren. By that time, uttering the word “privacy” will be a crime punishable by death, by virtue of Statutes written by the current generation of youngsters. Of course, eCigs corporations will be the stock of choice.

          btw, at least we have one thing in common PJ. :)

  2. bmaz says:

    Defense and government lawyers went into a classified session with the judge to discuss a secret motion on a prosecution plan to have a Yemeni man who was killed in a U.S. drone strike testify through hearsay. Prosecutors apparently propose to have federal agents describe a decade-old interrogation of the “witness,” Fahd al Quso.

     
    Well, that’s kind of novel. You extra-legally execute your own witness whose testimony you wish to proffer, and then claim him “unavailable” (being dead is the ultimate unavailable) thus requiring “hearsay” testimony.

     

    Now that’s cheeky. Really cheeky.

Comments are closed.