the Shackle Report

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

SATURDAY

A cheerier torture story from the NY Times :

LOYAL TO KERIK, GULIANI MISSED WARNING SIGNS

If the rise of Bernard B. Kerik under the mentorship of Rudolph W. Giuliani was meteoric, the speed of his fall was breathtaking.

When Mr. Giuliani became mayor, he gave Mr. Kerik a job in the Correction department. A year later, the mayor asked him to drop by Gracie Mansion.

The two men sat upstairs and shared a bottle of red wine, a gift to the mayor from Nelson Mandela…

—To whom Mr. Guliani said; “Thanks, Mannie. Hey, let me tell you my views on torture; I’m ok with it. You?”

Mr. Giuliani said he planned to appoint Mr. Kerik as first deputy correction commissioner.

“Mayor, I appreciate your confidence in me, I really do,” Mr. Kerik said. “But I ran a jail. One jail. Rikers is like 10 jails.”
Just do it, the mayor replied.
Mr. Kerik followed Mr. Giuliani downstairs to a dimly lighted room…

—…Thinking: ‘Oh, boy, this could be bad…’

There waited Mr. Giuliani’s boyhood chum Peter J. Powers, who was first deputy mayor, and other aides…

—’…not looking good, here, no windows…oh, fuck…’

One by one, they pulled Mr. Kerik close and kissed his cheek.

—’…I’m fucking dead. They’re touching me there…Mom, I love you, I’m sorry…’

…Mr. Kerik wrote. “I was being made.”

—’Oh, fucking thank god, thank you god…I wonder if they can smell that….’

THURSDAY

From the NY Times on a polite debate over barbarism:

NOMINEE’S STAND MAY AVOID TANGLE OF TORTURE CASES

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — In adamantly refusing to declare waterboarding illegal, Michael B. Mukasey, the nominee for attorney general, is steering clear of a potential legal quagmire for the Bush administration: criminal prosecution or lawsuits against Central Intelligence Agency officers who used the harsh interrogation practice and those who authorized it, legal experts said Wednesday.

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee’s top Republican, said at a hearing Wednesday that any statement by Mr. Mukasey that waterboarding is torture could fuel criminal charges or lawsuits against those responsible for waterboarding.
“The facts are that an expression of an opinion by Judge Mukasey prior to becoming attorney general would put a lot of people at risk for what has happened,” Mr. Specter said.

—And after he’s Attorney General, it’s a risk-free deal.

Also from the NY Times on mercenary barbarism:

BLACKWATER MOUNTS A DEFENSE WITH TOP WASHINGTON TALENT

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — Blackwater Worldwide, its reputation in tatters and its lucrative government contracts in jeopardy, is mounting an aggressive legal, political and public relations counterstrike.

Blackwater is pursuing a bold legal strategy, going so far in a North Carolina case as to seek a gag order on the lawyers for the families of four Blackwater employees…

—Are they waterboarding them, too?

And just a wee bit more…

IN RAPE CASE, A FRENCH YOUTH TAKES ON DUBAI

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 31 — Alexandre Robert, a French 15-year-old, was having a fine summer in this tourist paradise on the Persian Gulf. Just after sunset, Alex says he was rushing to meet his father for dinner when he bumped into an acquaintance, a 17-year-old native-born student at the American school, who said he and his cousin could drop Alex off at home.

There were, in fact, three Emirati men in the car, including a pair of former convicts ages 35 and 18, according to Alex. He says they drove him past his house and into a dark patch of desert…then they stripped off his pants and one by one sodomized him in the back seat of the car.

The authorities not only discouraged Alex from pressing charges, he, his family and French diplomats say; they raised the possibility of charging him with criminal homosexual activity, and neglected for weeks to inform him or his parents that one of his attackers had tested H.I.V. positive while in prison four years earlier.

Mr. Demas, from the Dubai attorney general’s office, said he had no intention of prosecuting Alex and was seeking the death penalty for the two adult attackers.

—Does that mean you’re going to stone them to death and tip a wall over on them?

—Scot Crawford