British official claims (Hilary) Clinton threatened him..

British Foreign Secretary: Clinton threatened to cut-off intelligence-sharing if torture evidence is disclosed

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/30/mohamed/

<snip>

New facts emerged yesterday about the threats issued by the Obama administration. Back in February, the British Foreign Minster, David Miliband, denied that he was explicitly threatened by the Bush administration. But now, The Guardian reports that -- at least according to Miliband -- threats were issued by the Obama administration not only in the form of that previously disclosed letter, but also personally by Hillary Clinton in a May meeting with him and other British officials:

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, personally intervened to suppress evidence of CIA collusion in the torture of a British resident, the high court heard today. . . . David Miliband, the foreign secretary, has repeatedly told the court that the US would stop sharing intelligence with the UK if the CIA material was published. . . Today, it heard how Miliband met Clinton in Washington on 12 May this year.

In a written statement proposing a gagging order, Miliband told the court that she "indicated" that the disclosure of CIA evidence "would affect intelligence sharing". Pressed repeatedly by the judges on the claim yesterday, Karen Steyn, Miliband's counsel, insisted that Clinton was indeed saying that if the seven-paragraph summary of CIA material was disclosed, the US would "reassess" its intelligence relationship with the UK, a move that "would put lives at risk".

Whatever the truth here is about these threats, it is undeniably clear that the U.S. and British Governments are working in collusion to keep concealed the evidence of Mohamed's torture. In February, the Obama administration issued a public statement praising the British Government for convincing its High Court to keep these facts concealed and said that this concealment would "preserve the long-standing intelligence sharing relationship that enables both countries to protect their citizens" -- certainly an implied threat that the opposite would happen in the event of disclosure. And in the U.S., the Obama administration has engaged in its own extraordinary efforts to deny Mohamed a day in court, invoking the "state secrets" privilege to argue that the torture program which victimized him must be kept secret, and then after the Obama DOJ lost in the Ninth Circuit, trying to get that decision reversed by the full Circuit court.

What could possibly justify this full-scale joint effort by the Obama administration and the British government to cover-up evidence of Mohamed's torture? In April, when I interviewed one of Mohamed's lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith, he pointed out:

Covering up evidence of torture is a criminal offense for which you can go to prison here in Britain, and I imagine in the US but I'm not quite sure about that. And the idea that the British government would conspire with the US or be threatened by the US to do this is again an independent violation of the law.


<snip>

Much more at link..

It's extortion and inconsistent with the mandate to make torture information public and prosecute it.

Would leave official Washington essentially depopulated.

I'm starting to believe that there were a huge number of officials who knew what was going on, the Dubya administration made sure of that in order to insulate themselves from prosecution.

the Neocons retro-actively put themselves above the law......if only there was a group somewhere to stop this madness......

Ooo weawwy hurt my ittuw feewings..

;)

unflattering truths.

Kick.

Keeping the totals a secret is diabolical...

"There is a purpose to everything under heaven"..

They would no doubt unrecommend this thread also. K&R from me though.

A wonderful way for a few folks to jamb their fingers in our ears and yell "La la la la..."

They objected to having the last "jewel in their crown" removed. The British press has printed extremely rude things about Clintons esp. Hillary. If I read it in the French press I may pay attention.

But the article doesn't so much refer to UK media as it does to UK courts. It also seems to corroborate the information and focus on US-UK relations, rather than Hillary herself.

Your claim of purposefully refusing to pay attention seems a bit ludicrous under the circumstances.

I am always critical of articles whose titles seem to be hyperbolic compared to the substance. Or stories in which the first and last paragraphs do not match the middle.

It is very easy for journalists to say something different than what they claim to have said. All they have to do is manipulate the title---which is all that some folks will read. Or slant the opening and closing paragraphs and offer the other case buried in the middle. We see that a lot in the US press in propaganda for corporations and the GOP.

That's perfectly normal. Sad beyond belief, but it's normal in just about every developed country. Global news reporting is falling into the pit of profiteering, and very very few outlets seem to be truly professional about their reporting.

BBC tries, since it's sucking on the UK budget and operating at a loss anyway, and so do some smaller nationalized (dear me, socialism) media outlets in other countries.

As for small independent media, online upstarts and left-wing sources... I'm afraid the old saying is true all too often. "Even the biggest revolutionaries become conservative the day after the revolution."

Denial is for everyone, not just pukes.

Of course as the repubs lose members, dems gain some of those they lost.

At any rate...a puke is a puke.

... will likely receive "special treatment" courtesy of the U.S. policy on torture.

In 1997, in a speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Hillary Clinton said,

"...critics dismiss human rights violations as harmless... I believe, and the women I've listened to believe, that human rights are as essential to life as air or water, that they are felt beyond culture and tradition as innate....For if they are not innate, how have people throughout history known to fight for them so valiantly?"

" Paradoxically, the proof of universality lies with the perpetrators of human rights violations themselves. Why would those who have dishonored humanity run to cover their tracks were it not for the knowledge that wrong had been done? The Nazis tried to hide their concentration camps. Communism kept its terrors in the shadow of the Iron Curtain. Scores of bodies are hidden in the hard ground of places like Bosnia and deep in the forests of places like Rwanda.

"Throughout my hemisphere, people have disappeared. Why go to the trouble? Because human rights transcend individual regimes and customs. ...

"Sophocles wrote about them 2,500 years ago when he had Antigone declare that there were ethical laws higher than the laws of even kings. P.C. Chang, who helped draft the Universal Declaration, pointed out that Confucious articulated them in ancient China. The belief that we must respect our neighbors as we would respect ourselves resides in the core of the teachings of all the major faiths of this world....

"It is because every era has its blind spots that we must see to our own unfinished business with even greater urgency now while we stand on the threshold of a new millennium. We must rededicate ourselves to completing the circle of human rights once and for all."

Edited for emphasis...

interesting and ironic. i think i liked her better back then...

Gross violations of the UD, as we helped overthrow the democratically elected government of J. Aristede, while at the same time changing our policy toward refugees from the island, in direct violation of article 19.

That's what http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=467772&mesg_id=467772">one is forced to wonder (includes link to Greenwald's take).

--

I think the same Dems who stood with Bushes in the 90s on IranContra, BCCI and CIA DRugrunning have also been involved in backing the Bush-Cheney war policies. Unfortunately, too many Dems have turned them into heroes.

But as you say, there were times to do nothing while evil flourished. At this point I don't know that they'd say boo if cheney started broadcasting commands to troops and agents in the field over FauxNewz.

---

.

I'm shocked I tell you, shocked.

K&R

shocked I tell you!!

Now that is change I tell you..and transparency I tell you!!

a sad LOL..

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/07/hbc-90005452

Clinton Intervened to Keep Lid on Torture Account
By Scott Horton
The Daily Telegraph reports the same exchange:

Mrs Clinton personally told the Foreign Secretary that the US government would consider the dramatic step if a short summary of the treatment of Binyam Mohamed is placed in the public domain, the High Court was told. A hearing was told that the move could cause “serious harm” to Britain’s national security and potentially put the lives of British citizens at risk.

Binyam Mohamed is an Ethiopian national who was granted protected status in Britain. He was arrested in April 2002 when he attempted to board a plane in Karachi, Pakistan, to fly back to Britain. Pakistani authorities turned him over to the CIA, and he was held in the CIA’s extraordinary renditions program until 2004, when he was transferred to Guantánamo. His accounts of torture at the hand of captors in Pakistan and Morocco were previously validated by British courts, which noted the involvement of the CIA and British intelligence in the process.

Miliband explains Clinton’s objection in terms of the “principle” that intelligence furnished should not be disclosed, even in court proceedings. However, it is fairly obvious that the American State Department is acting as a proxy for American intelligence services in this process. And there is a far more powerful principle in play. The torture practiced on Binyam Mohamed was a serious crime. Evidence is being suppressed to preclude the full investigation of that crime and to block possible criminal prosecutions of those involved. That’s called obstruction of justice, and it’s also a crime. This case well exemplifies how the Obama Administration is using claims of national security interests to preclude serious investigations of criminal conduct and accountability of those involved.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/07/hbc-90005452

Clinton Intervened to Keep Lid on Torture Account
By Scott Horton
The Daily Telegraph reports the same exchange:

Mrs Clinton personally told the Foreign Secretary that the US government would consider the dramatic step if a short summary of the treatment of Binyam Mohamed is placed in the public domain, the High Court was told. A hearing was told that the move could cause “serious harm” to Britain’s national security and potentially put the lives of British citizens at risk.

Binyam Mohamed is an Ethiopian national who was granted protected status in Britain. He was arrested in April 2002 when he attempted to board a plane in Karachi, Pakistan, to fly back to Britain. Pakistani authorities turned him over to the CIA, and he was held in the CIA’s extraordinary renditions program until 2004, when he was transferred to Guantánamo. His accounts of torture at the hand of captors in Pakistan and Morocco were previously validated by British courts, which noted the involvement of the CIA and British intelligence in the process.

Miliband explains Clinton’s objection in terms of the “principle” that intelligence furnished should not be disclosed, even in court proceedings. However, it is fairly obvious that the American State Department is acting as a proxy for American intelligence services in this process. And there is a far more powerful principle in play. The torture practiced on Binyam Mohamed was a serious crime. Evidence is being suppressed to preclude the full investigation of that crime and to block possible criminal prosecutions of those involved. That’s called obstruction of justice, and it’s also a crime. This case well exemplifies how the Obama Administration is using claims of national security interests to preclude serious investigations of criminal conduct and accountability of those involved.

:puke:

That's really a sensational headline.

Makes it sound like she pinned him against the wall and told him she was going to kick his ass.

Would that suit you better?

Meanwhile, all she's doing is trying to get them to cover up war crimes. What's the big deal? :shrug:

Desperate flailing theories as to how this has been misconstrued....

Anyone? Care to defend this?

Will there be a response from the Whitehouse? It will certainly be interesting to see what they have to say on the matter.

Take a big grain of salt with everything you read about her in the British press. No kidding. I document their editorial misdeeds in some of my old journals. British colonialists are still convinced that N. Ireland should be a jewel in their tiara.

The British hate Clinton so much that their press is inventing stories about redacted court testimony - all because of Northern Ireland.

The sun never sets on Clinton hate, I guess.
:crazy:

Bill played a part, as did Kennedy, however much of the movement towards peace was made by Major and then Mo Mowlam.

Utter claptrap.

Do you really believe that Britain was preciously guarding Northern Ireland as a 'jewel in their imperial crown'? Really?

For years politicians across the spectrum (well, across the House of Commons at least) struggled to find a solution, or something resembling a solution. It was not black and white in Northern Ireland. It was orange and green. Believe me, a far more complicated state of affairs. A dangerous mine-field that people like John Major, Tony Blair, Mo Mowlam and Senator Mitchell (among many) had to tred.

You appear to be suggesting that the British press dislike Hillary Clinton because of Northern Ireland.

That's bewildering quite frankly.

they believe that we are the reason Ireland rebelled and that IRA weapons come from us. To them, we are like Al Qaeda.

Over all, both Clintons were very positively covered in the British media for years. In addition, the British were with us in wanting peace in Northern Ireland. Now, the British media has many many competing voices and they are colorful - so I don't doubt you have examples. But, that isn't what you and others claimed when arguing the Hillary Clinton would be an incredible Secretary of State.

In addition, Hillary Clinton did not broker piece in Northern Ireland, former Senator Mitchell did. It is true that as First Lady, she could have been helpful as an additional friendly, trusted voice to people on both sides - just what you are denying she was.

I had the impression that most Irish people found the claim that she brokered peace there laughable.

Maybe the Brits think it's legit? :shrug:

:shrug:

We live with the illusion of what was The United States of America.

I'll go through this one more time.

Why did we hate the Nazis? They wore different helmets than we did. They spoke German-so did my ancestors. They marched funny. They loved malted grain beverages just as I do. These were not reasons to hate the Nazis. No, we hated the Nazis for their cruelty. Because they tortured. Because of what they did to the Jews. And because they violated the Geneva Convention. Just something to think about.

I literally had this url on my clipboard when I found this thread here. Check this out:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/30/759830/-Genital-Slicing-Torture-Case:-Clinton-Threatens-to-End-Spy-Links-to-UK-if-Made-Public



Mwa ha ha welcome to another room of the Bush-Cheney House of Horrors, friends, step right in. This is your country's recent past, things done in your name and creating brand-spanking new terrorists every day as we speak. America tortures. Then they cover it up, and Americans don't even care. Aren't these nice people?

Ethiopian-born Mr Mohamed came to the UK as a 16-year-old asylum seeker and lived in the U.S for seven years. Shortly after September 11, 2001, he was picked up by the American secret service in Pakistan.

While in detention, Mr Mohamed says he was hung up by straps, beaten and had his genitals mutilated with a scalpel to make him confess to a 'dirty bomb' plot, very similar to that previously alleged of Jose Padilla. He was released in 2009 and sent back to the UK. Some dangerous terrorist, huh?...

...snip...

Now, in a lawsuit against the British government, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has threatened to end intelligence sharing if the High Court publishes its findings on what happened. Clinton sticking her face in it means there may be more details more explosive, according to court documents and credible UK investigators. The link to Jose Padilla and the suspiciously similar sounding "dirty bomb plot" calls into question one of the Bush administration's most celebrated examples of "keeping us safe": the Padilla Railroad Show. Mohammed's interrogators said they were going to "change his brain," a la the now-a-vegetable Padilla.

...snip...

it would request Mrs. Clinton to appear and explain herself, and verify that she really said it. And why? A law-respecting court would never let someone make a self-serving allegation like that without proof.

But the Brits never have been willing to face up to their responsibilities regarding the bad intelligence or the torture, and I doubt they will start now. The fix is still in.

I would like to hear the administration's position on this issue. Did it really take place the way Miliband portrayed it? What was the criteria if it did?

From the full article:

"It later emerged that this was based on communications between the Government and the outgoing BUSH administration. The claims were the first time the threat has been attributed to senior members of Mr. Obama's administration. Mr. Obama has promised to close Guantanamo Bay and has already published detailed evidence of the treatment of some detainees there."

"Karen Steyn, representing Mr. Miliband told the court that the Foreign Secretary was convinced that publishing the redacted paragraphs would seriously threaten the "unique" intelligence sharing relationship between Britain and the US, despite the change in administration.

"The conversations that he has had with the US Secretary of State are part of the information that he has taken into account in forming that assessment," she said.

"In lengthy and heated exchanges, Lord Justice Thomas repeatedly pressed Miss Steyn on whether Mr. Miliband had been told personally that a warning had come directly from the Obama administration.".

A lot of allegations, but few facts....

:eyes:

It shatters many of our ideals.