Architect of CIA torture program claims that release of Senate report put his life in danger. Bummer.

Courtesy of TWC Central:  

The "architect" of the CIA's interrogation program, James Mitchell, accused Senate Democrats of putting his life in danger last week when they released a report detailing the program's "brutal" abuses. 

"They issue this report that essentially stirs up all the crazies and all the jihadists. So now we're getting death threats," Mitchell, a retired Air Force psychologist, said during a Monday night Fox News interview. 

"I'm angry about this. They have a foregone conclusion. They put my life in danger. They put the lives of other CIA personnel ... and our families in danger for some sort of morale high ground?" he said. "You can probably tell I'm a little agitated by this. For me, I don't want to die because the Democrats in the Senate don't have the courtesy to ask the CIA to explain what they view as abuses that occurred."

Hang on I'm going to try and gin up a little sympathy.

Nope, don't give a shit.

The Uniform Code of Justice says that military personnel have a duty to disobey unlawful orders.

As a former member of the Air Force this guy should have known that. And as a human being he should have done that.

The Senate report on CIA torture techniques may only be the beginning. Soon there may be pictures.

Courtesy of The Daily Beast:

The Obama administration is withholding hundreds, perhaps even thousands of photographs showing the U.S. government’s brutal treatment of detainees, meaning that revelations about detainee abuse could well continue, possibly compounding the outrage generated by the Senate “torture report” now in the public eye. 

Some photos show American troops posing with corpses; others depict U.S. forces holding guns to people’s heads or simulating forced sodomization. All of them could be released to the public, depending on how a federal judge in New York rules—and how hard the government fights to appeal. The government has a Friday deadline to submit to that judge its evidence for why it thinks each individual photograph should continue to be kept hidden away. 

The photographs are part of a collection of thousands of images from 203 investigations into detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan and represent one of the last known secret troves of evidence of detainee abuse. While the photos show disturbing images from the Bush administration’s watch, it is the Obama administration that has allowed them to remain buried—all with the help of a willing Congress. 

The president may have entered office promising a new era of transparency—and was even prepared to release at least 21 of the photos in 2009. But Obama pulled back at the last minute at the urging of his top commander in Iraq, who worried the graphic images could generate a backlash against U.S. troops.

The possibility that terrorists might get angry enough to launch an attack on American troops of embassies overseas in response to anything released to the public concerning our torture of detainees is bullshit.

As others have said we are actively bombing the crap out of ISIL. If THAT has not convinced them to attack us it is hard to believe that a couple of reports or photos will push them over the edge.

However it just might cause the conservatives defending CIA torture to suddenly go quiet.

One of the reasons that the incident in Abu Ghraib grabbed the public's attention was that the American people were able to see what we were doing and they were disgusted.

I think the same thing will happen this time.

Which in my opinion would be a good thing, and would do much to ensure that we never revisited this type of inhuman treatment again.

In other words, bring-em on.

Cartoon of the day.

Boy ain't that the truth!

New report finds that yes religion is the source of most of today's terrorism.

Courtesy of the Guardian: 

Religious extremism has become the main driver of terrorism in recent years, according to this year’s Global Terrorism Index. 

The report recorded 18,000 deaths in 2013, a rise of 60% on the previous year. The majority (66%) of these were attributable to just four groups: Islamic State (Isis) in Iraq and Syria, Boko Haram in Nigeria, the Taliban in Afghanistan and al-Qaida. 

Overall there has been a fivefold increase in deaths from terrorism since the 9/11 suicide attacks. 

The report’s authors attribute the majority of incidents over the past few years to groups with a religious agenda. 

Before 2000, it was nationalist separatist terrorist organisations such as the IRA and Chechen rebels who were behind the most attacks. The number of incidents from nationalist separatist groups has remained relatively stable in the years since while religious extremism has grown. 

The prevalence of Islamist groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria is the main driver behind these trends. 

This report is interesting because it flies in the face of  arguments given by Islamic apologists, like Reza Aslan, who argue that religion is NOT the trigger for extremist views or violence.

And in fact making this connection was what got Bill Maher into so much trouble recently.

However I would be quick to mention that just because it seems that Islam is the religion of choice for most terrorists today, there is still plenty of terrorism in the name of Christ as well.

And it could be argued that in the not too distant past Christian terrorism terrorized communities around the world for many hundreds of years before it was brought under some semblance of control by more civilized minds.

As Steven Weinberg once said, "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."