What is waterboarding?

This picture depicts how a Khmer Rouge member uses "waterboarding" method to force his victim to answer his questions....

(The Washinging Post reported the other day that Thailand was one of the countries where the CIA had used as a detention centres for terrorist suspects...an issue now under investigations by the US House Intelligence Committee.

One of the accusations was that the then CIA's station chief in Thailand had sought permission to destroy tapes recording the questioning of the suspects -- and, according to some reports, one of the alleged methods employed to extract information or confessions from the victims was "waterboarding." )

What's "waterboarding?"

"Waterboarding" is a practice of extracting information or confession from a victim by forcing a person to inhale water into his sinuses, pharynx and lungs to cause panic and suffering.

The victim's head is tilted back and water is poured into the upturned mouth or nose. The subject eventually can't exhale more air or cough out more water, the lungs are collapsed -- and the sinuses and trachea are filled with water.

An expert on this torture practice likens the feeling of the victim this way: "His suffering must be that of a man who is drowning but cannot drown.."


New Instruments of Surveillance and Social Control: Wireless Technologies which Target the Neuronal Functioning of the Brain

Increasingly there are indications that the uses of wireless technologies have been developed to target an individual’s biological body, with specific focus upon the neuronal functioning of the brain. In this paper I examine how some of these uses have had detrimental effects, and what this implies for both present and upcoming developments for particular wireless/sensor technologies. I consider whether this is not shifting dangerously towards a psycho–civilised society, where greater emphasis is placed upon social control and pre–emptive strategies.

These technologies show uses of wireless–to–body communication and directed energy weapons for possible military attack or defence purposes. Another area for research and development is in both military and industrial uses for operator enhancement.
Real–time brain scanning of pilots and similar operators under stress is an increasingly active area for research involving military and industrial partnerships. Since the early 1990s research has been made into detecting and interpreting brain and body signals, especially brainwaves, for computerized monitoring of pilots. This information can be used to measure pilot fatigue and to compensate for this with increased automation of the airplane in order to avoid pilot error. Initially this was conducted by measuring the pilot’s brain waves through unobtrusive sponge sensors in the flight helmet:

By measuring the amplitude of the brain waves generated, fatigue of the pilot can be recognized. By increasing the brightness of the instrumental panel lights, the amplitude of the brain waves can be returned to their normal height, thus compensating for fatigue. To get the “evoked response” from the pilot’s brain, the instrument panel lights could be made to flash so fast that the pilot would not be aware of the flashes. More...

To view video click below:CIA Torture Jet crashed with 4 Tons of COCAINE

VIDEO: Click to view Five girls burned to death in Lhasa riot

These are the images that the Western media does not want you to see, in their biased coverage of the Tibetan "Protest Movement"

Is the CIA behind the China-bashing Olympics protests?

"Blood and Religion"
A Review of Jonathan Cook's book

Jonathan Cook is a British-born independent journalist based (since September 2001) in the predominantly Arab city of Nazareth, Israel and is the "first foreign correspondent (living) in the Israeli Arab city...." He's a former reporter and editor of regional newspapers, a freelance sub-editor with national newspapers, and a staff journalist for the London-based Guardian and Observer newspapers. He's also written for The Times, Le Monde diplomatique, the International Herald Tribune, Al-Ahram Weekly and Aljazeera.net.

He is also a frequent contributor to Global Research. In February 2004, he founded the Nazareth Press Agency. Cook states why he's in Nazareth as follows: to give himself "greater freedom to reflect on the true nature of the (Israeli-Palestinian) conflict and (gain) fresh insight into its root causes." He "choose(s) the issues (he) wish(es) to cover (and so is) not constrained by the 'treadmill' of the mainstream media....which gives disproportionate coverage to the concerns of the powerful (so it) makes much of their Israel/Palestine reporting implausible."

Living among Arabs, "things look very different" to Cook. "There are striking, and disturbing, similarities between" the Palestinian experience inside Israel and within the Occupied Territories. "All have faced Zionism's appetite for territory and domination, as well as repeated (and unabated) attempts at ethnic cleaning."

Introduction - The Glass Wall

Israel has a penchant for walls, fences and barriers as exemplified by its best known one being erected in the West Bank. It's mammoth in size and when completed will encircle most of the Territory's inhabitants and measure nearly 700 km. It's ghettoizing Palestinian communities, cutting them off from each other, and isolating them all from the outside world. It devours the landscape, uproots ancient olive groves, destroys pastures and greenhouses, and expropriates around 10% of occupied Palestine by an inexorable land-grab masquerading as security.

Israel's Fifth Column

Israel used the second Intifada politically - presenting it as a well-planned assault on the Jewish State and blaming it on Arafat. He was unfairly scapegoated for rejecting Camp David in 2000 even though Israel designed talks to fail. Ehud Barak insisted Arafat sign a "final agreement," declare an "end of conflict," and give up any legal basis for additional land in the Territories. Nothing was in writing, and no documents or maps were presented. The deal was so duplicitous that had Arafat accepted it any hope for peace would have been dashed. He didn't, was unfairly blamed, and "government spin-doctors" went further.

A False Reckoning

Defending accused Arabs in Israel and the Territories is risky, thankless, and not a way to win legal victories. Nonetheless, courageous lawyers try, and one Cook cites is Hassan Jabareen of the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. The name means "justice" in Arabic.

The Battle of Numbers

In 2003, the Knesset passed a temporary amendment to the landmark 1952 Nationality Law - the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law. It denies Israeli Arabs a residency permit for a Palestinian spouse living outside Israel or the right to bring that spouse into Israel.

International and human rights groups were outraged, and B'Tselem called the legislation a violation Israel's Basic Law on Human Rights and Liberty. Still, it's the law, it supercedes previous ones, and Shin Bet's (Israel's internal security service) Avi Dichter claimed it was "vital for Israel's security." Others were more forthright about its true purpose - to prevent Palestinian applications for citizenship through marriage from eroding the country's Jewish majority. That was Ariel Sharon's view in these public comments: "The Jews have one small country, Israel, and must do everything so that this state remains a Jewish state in the future...."

Redrawing the Green Line

Professor Arnon Sofer heads up geopolitics at Haifa University. He also counts Jews and Arabs and expresses concern for what he finds. In his opinion, "in the next 15 years either we will see Israel surviving or we will see the end of the Zionist dream....We are counting down to the end of Israel." Only one viable option remains - partitioning the land. "We can no longer think about Greater Israel; we have to think about divisions." Why? Because Palestinians, especially in Gaza, reproduce faster than Jews.

Zionism and the Glass Wall

In 1937, David Ben-Gurion was blunt about his vision: "A partial Jewish State is not the end, but only the beginning." Today it means "an Arab Israeli is not a real Israeli" because they're as much part of the regional conflict as Palestinians in the Territories. An influential minority of hardcore Zionists believe Israel is the Promised Land, Jews are God's Chosen People, and they have a "divine obligation to settle the whole of Greater Israel." According to them, Jews have as much right to Gaza, Hebron and East Jerusalem as they do to Tel Aviv and Haifa.

More...