TOM CLARK: Aida cries

DEVILS 2 [Sevilla]: photo by culega, 23 September 2017

DEVILS 2 [Sevilla]: photo by culega, 23 September 2017

DEVILS 1 [Sevilla]: photo by culega, 23 September 2017

n.t #16: photo by Peter Dunsche, 3 October 2017

Post Hurricane María. Morovis, Puerto Rico | by sam_ortiz

Post Hurricane María, Morovis, Puerto Rico: photo by sam_ortiz, 25 September 2017

Fátima, Portugal: photo by Miguel M.A.S, 27 June 2017

Fans of Argentina's River Plate fill the stands with their team's colors during a Copa Libertadores soccer match against Argentina's Lanus in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2017.: photo by Natacha Pisarenko/AP, 24 October 2017

Red [Ghana]: photo by Nic Miles, 30 August 2017

Hospitality staff members laugh as they stand on Tiananmen Square before the closing ceremony of China's 19th Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2017. The ruling Communist Party on Tuesday formally lifted Xi Jinping's status to China's most powerful ruler in decades, setting the stage for the authoritarian leader to tighten his grip over the country while pursuing an increasingly muscular foreign policy and military expansion.: photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AP, 24 October 2017

In this Sept 18, 2017 photo, Tasleema Akhter speaks with the Associated Press after her braid was chopped off by unidentified assailants, in Srinagar, India. Assailants have chopped off long-braided hair of over 100 mostly teenage girls and young women since last month in Indian-controlled Kashmir. The attacks have intensified fear and panic, protests and even vigilantes in the disputed Himalayan region, where most population is already exhausted and traumatized by decades of brutal conflict.: photo by Mukhtar Khan/AP, 18 September 2017

In this Monday, Oct. 16, 2017 photo, Kashmiri protesters shout slogans during a protest over increasing braid chopping incidents in many parts of Kashmir, in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir. In more than 100 cases confounding police over the past month, women said they were attacked by masked men who sliced off their braids. The attacks have intensified fear and panic, protests and even vigilantes in the disputed Himalayan region, where most population is already exhausted and traumatized by decades of brutal conflict.: photo by Mukhtar Khan/AP, 16 September 2017

In this Monday, Oct. 16, 2017 photo, Kashmiris run for cover as Indian police use tear gas to disperse them during a protest over increasing braid chopping incidents in many parts of Kashmir, in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir. In more than 100 cases confounding police over the past month, women said they were attacked by masked men who sliced off their braids. The attacks have intensified fear and panic, protests and even vigilantes in the disputed Himalayan region, where most population is already exhausted and traumatized by decades of brutal conflict.: photo by Mukhtar Khan/AP, 16 September 2017

In this Monday, Oct. 16, 2017 photo, a Kashmiri protester throws stones at policemen during a protest over increasing braid chopping incidents in many parts of Kashmir, in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir. Unidentified assailants have chopped off long-braided hair of over 100 mostly teenage girls and young women since last month in Indian-controlled Kashmir. The attacks have intensified fear and panic, protests and even vigilantes in the disputed Himalayan region, where most population is already exhausted and traumatized by decades of brutal conflict.: photo by Mukhtar Khan/AP, 16 September 2017

DSC_9308 [Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia]: photo by lee shung Chu, 19 July 2014

Red Mat [Bangkok]: photo by TAVEPONG PRATOOOMWONG, 30 December 2016

Hen Party. OBSERVE Collective. [Iserlohn, Germany]: photo by Michael May, 19 October 2017

Untitled: photo by BoRIS THE FLASH, 30 August 2015

Kailua, Hawaii, Mar 2016 | by Shin Noguchi

Kailua, Hawaii, Mar 2016: photo by Shin Noguchi, 29 March 2016

Twenty in Paris. Paris 2012.: photo by slow paths images, September 2012

Munster 2017: photo by Alvaro Gómez Pidal, 29 April 2017

Untitled: photo by Blue Rattanapol, 21 May 2017

We Love Yoga [Bangkok]: photo by TAVEPONG PRATOOMWONG, 6 March 2015

DSC_4408 [Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia]: photo by lee shung Chu, 3 June 2017

Risky Journey [Dhaka]: photo by Newaj Sharif Polash, 27 January 2017

NYC 12-26-30-1608: photo by sam_ortiz, 5 March 2017

NYC 12-26-30-1608: photo by sam_ortiz, 5 March 2017

A family escapes from fierce fighting between Free Syrian Army fighters and government troops in Idlib, north Syria, on March 10, 2012. This image was one in a series of 20 by AP photographers that won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Photography. (Photo: Rodrigo Abd/AP)

<p>A family escapes from fierce fighting between Free Syrian Army fighters and government troops in Idlib, north Syria, on March 10, 2012. This image was one in a series of 20 by AP photographers that won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Photography. (Photo: Rodrigo Abd/AP) </p>

A family escapes from fierce fighting between Free Syrian Army fighters and government troops in Idlib, north Syria, on March 10, 2012.: photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP, 10 March 2012

Untitled. Richmond, BC. 2017 | by Skyid J. Wang

Untitled. Richmond, B.C. 2017: photo by Skyid Wang, 22 October 2017

I finally got out . . . and back into Iowa! | by Lights in my hometown

Untitled [Carroll County, Iowa]: photo by Lights in my hometown, 20 August 2016

Untitled [Carroll County, Iowa]: photo by Lights in my hometown, 20 August 2016

Goodbye Iowa. On the road home. Gotta get back to writing. Will try to tweet in useful ways.: image via Reinhold Neibuhr @FormerBu, 23 October 2017

Free Syrian Army fighters ride a motorbike to approach Syrian Army tanks in Idlib, northern Syria, on March 11, 2012. (Photo: Rodrigo Abd/AP)

<p>Free Syrian Army fighters ride a motorbike to approach Syrian Army tanks in Idlib, northern Syria, on March 11, 2012. (Photo: Rodrigo Abd/AP) </p>

Free Syrian Army fighters ride a motorbike to approach Syrian Army tanks in Idlib, northern Syria, on March 11, 2012. : photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP, 11 March 2012

Watching migrating white pelicans in Iowa thinking about Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer.: image via Reinhold Neibuhr @FormerBu, 22 October 2017

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971): The Serenity Prayer

Good to be back in Iowa.: image via Reinhold Neibuhr @FormerBu, 20 October 2017

End of Battue. OBSERVE Collective. [Iserlohn, Germany]: photo by Michael May, 18 October 2017

"I know this much: it's large, round, and contains money, which I already have a lot of, and you're about to give me some more of it." Hillary Clinton speaking at the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul on 18 October 2017.: photo Handout/AFP/Getty Images, 18 October 2017

Saturday [Sussex]: photo by Nic Miles, 27 August 2016

Saturday [Sussex]: photo by Nic Miles, 27 August 2016

Image, Source: b&w film copy neg. of print

Boy hopping freight train, Dubuque, Iowa, April 1940: photo by John Vachon (1914-1975) (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Boy hopping freight train, Dubuque, Iowa, April 1940: photo by John Vachon (1914-1975) (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Yellow Burger #2 | by Monty May (OBSERVE)

Yellow Burger #2. OBSERVE Collective. [Iserlohn, Germany]: photo by Michael May, 25 October 2017

STORM COMING. Alkeny, Iowa.: photo by akahawkeyefan, 30 June 2017

© Spiros Soueref, Cape Coast, Ghana, 2017 www.instagram.com/spiros_soueref www.spirossoueref.com | by Spiros Soueref

Cape Coast, Ghana, 2017: photo by Spiros Soueref, 30 August 2017

Chocolate Hills [Bohol, Philippines]: photo by Reuben Wu, 2 September 2014

Animals, what can I say - it's complicated. I don't embrace them, I fear them, and yet I find them fascinating and love shooting them for street photography. I use and eat all sorts of animal products yet I boycotted a zoo for years. I dislike when people get more upset over animal cruelty than child cruelty. We have fish I never look at, yet mourn the loss of. Animals, what can I say - it's complicated.: photo by Danielle Houghton, 8 September 2017

DSC_5684 [Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia]: photo by lee shung Chu, 18 March 2017

[Untitled]: photo by Soumyendra Saha, 13 February 2017

Death spirit [Ndolo, Kinshasa]: photo by Kim SOLA, 21 December 2016

Bangkok, Thailand 2015 | by Hearhun Hun Shiun

Bangkok, Thailand: photo by Hearhun Hun Shiun, 28 January 2015

Untitled: photo by Blue Rattanapol, 15 March 2017

Untitled: photo by Blue Rattanapol, 15 March 2017

Aida cries as she recovers from severe injuries after the Syrian Army shelled her house in Idlib, north Syria. Aida’s husband and two of her children were killed after their home was shelled, March 10, 2012. This image was one in a series of 20 by AP photographers that won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Photography. (Photo: Rodrigo Abd/AP)

<p>Aida cries as she recovers from severe injuries after the Syrian Army shelled her house in Idlib, north Syria. Aida’s husband and two of her children were killed after their home was shelled, March 10, 2012. This image was one in a series of 20 by AP photographers that won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Photography. (Photo: Rodrigo Abd/AP) </p>

Aida cries as she recovers from severe injuries after the Syrian Army shelled her house in Idlib, north Syria. Aida’s husband and two of her children were killed after their home was shelled, March 10, 2012.: photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP, 10 March 2012

Chinatown, NYC 2017: photo by Kanrapee Chokpaiboon, 19 June 2017

William S. Burroughs: Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986

For John Dillinger
In hope he is still alive

Thanks for the wild turkey and the Passenger Pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts —

thanks for a Continent to despoil and poison —

thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger —

thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcass to rot —

thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes —

thanks for the AMERICAN DREAM to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through —

thanks for the KKK, for nigger-killing lawmen feeling their notches, for decent church-going women with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces —

thanks for “Kill a Queer for Christ” stickers —

thanks for laboratory AIDS —

thanks for Prohibition and the War Against Drugs —

thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business —

thanks for a nation of finks — yes,

thanks for all the memories… all right, let’s see your arms… you always were a headache and you always were a bore —

thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

William S. Burroughs (1914-1997): Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986, from Tornado Alley, 1989

Aerial view of CIA 'black site' in Afghanistan: photo via The Guardian, 9 October 2017

Afghanistan: Inside the CIA's black site torture room: Larry Siems, The Guardian, 9 October 2017 [extract]

Gul Rahman: photo by Anonymous/AP

There were twenty cells inside the prison, each a stand-alone concrete box. In sixteen, prisoners were shackled to a metal ring in the wall. In four, designed for sleep deprivation, they stood chained by the wrists to an overhead bar. Those in the regular cells had a plastic bucket; those in sleep deprivation wore diapers. When diapers weren’t available, guards crafted substitutes with duct tape, or prisoners were chained naked in their cells. The cellblock was unheated, pitch black day and night, with music blaring around the clock.

“The atmosphere was very good,” John “Bruce” Jessen told a CIA investigator in January 2003, two months after he interrogated a prisoner named Gul Rahman in the facility.

“Nasty, but safe.”

Bruce Jessen: photo by ACLU

Jessen, one of the two contract psychologists who designed the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques,” spent ten days in the secret prison near Kabul, Afghanistan in November 2002. Five days after he left, Rahman, naked from the waist down and shackled to the cold concrete floor, was discovered dead in his cell from hypothermia.

In August, Gul Rahman’s family and Mohamed Ben Soud and Suleiman Abdullah Salim, two surviving prisoners of the Afghan black site, reached an out of court settlement in their lawsuit against Jessen and James Mitchell seeking restitution for torture.

James Mitchell: photo by ACLU

By settling the suit, Mitchell and Jessen avoided a trial that would have brought into the full light of an American courtroom what happened in the prison codenamed Cobalt, and known simply as “the Darkness” to its prisoners.

But much of what the plaintiffs hoped would be aired before a jury can be found in 274 documents the CIA and Pentagon were forced to declassify and release during pretrial discovery.

These documents, many of them scheduled to be entered as exhibits at trial, provide the fullest picture yet of what the three men suffered in that secret CIA dungeon – and of how fatefully their lives intersected with the rise and fall of James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, the men who designed the torture regime.

Among the most illuminating of these documents is the report CIA investigators delivered to James Pavitt, the agency’s deputy director for operations, on 28 January 2003 on the death of Gul Rahman. In 32 clear-eyed pages, and in attachments that include a stark "Chronology of Significant Events" and notes from interviews with Jessen and the young CIA officer assigned to manage the black site, the investigation reconstructs the decisions that killed a prisoner just sixty-nine days after the facility opened.

Opened in September 2002 and filled to capacity within a month, the site operated by a combination of careful planning and impulsive improvisations, investigators found.

The cells were designed for sensory deprivation, but the site manager put his own spin on what this would mean. The blaring stereo was his idea, and his purchase.

“As to darkness,” the investigator learned from the site manager, “that again was his decision.” One light switch controlled all the lights in the cellblock, interview notes record, and “[f]aced with the choice to keep them on all the time or off all the time, he chose the latter”.

The site manager, whose name is redacted in documents released for the lawsuit but who was first identified as Matthew Zirbel in the footnote of a report provided to Congress, had no experience in prison operations and did not know until three days after he arrived at Cobalt that he would be running the facility.

Previous revelations have highlighted his actions during Rahman’s detention, which began when Rahman was renditioned from Pakistan into the prison. But the new documents suggest Rahman might still be alive if Jessen had not arrived at Cobalt around the same time and taken a direct role in Rahman’s interrogation.

Jessen, who interrogated Rahman six times over a two-week period, and Mitchell, who met with him once, claimed throughout the lawsuit that they tried to mitigate the harsh conditions of Rahman’s confinement. But cables show it was Jessen who debated whether to subject Rahman to enhanced interrogations techniques with CIA headquarters, and it was Jessen whose advice held sway when he and Zirbel plotted Rahman’s interrogation.

“He could tell that [the site manager] was running all of his suggestions through his ‘bullshit filter,’” the investigator notes from his interview with the psychologist, but “Jessen said he was the guy with all the tricks”.

Zirbel accepted Jessen’s suggestion that when Rahman complained that he was cold, he was using a sophisticated al-Qaida resistance technique. When Rahman “claimed inability to think due to conditions (cold),” “complained about poor treatment,” and “complained about the violation of his human rights,” as a cable recorded after one of Jessen’s interrogations, these were evidence, Jessen said, of a “health and welfare” resistance strategy.

But in the uninsulated prison, with winter approaching, Rahman was just cold, dangerously so, for at least two weeks before he died from hypothermia. A CIA supervisor who visited the facility just after Rahman arrived told the CIA’s investigator “it was very cold in [Cobalt] when he was there … and the issue of hypothermia crossed his mind as he saw Rahman wearing only socks and a diaper.”

The supervisor discussed Rahman’s situation with a colleague, the CIA’s inspector general reported in a 2005 internal investigation of Rahman’s death, but took no action because “he assumed that the officers there would realize it was cold and would not leave a prisoner unclothed for a long period”.

In fact, guards and interpreters told investigators that Rahman was naked, naked below the waist, or naked but for a diaper almost his entire time in the prison.

Jessen knew this, and saw it was having a physical effect. He acknowledged to the investigator that “Rahman would have lost his clothes at our direction.” He described seeing Rahman “shaking [and] showing the early signs of hypothermia” after he was given “a cold shower as a deprivation technique”.

Notes from one of Jessen’s interrogation sessions begin, “Rahman spent the days since his last session with station officers in cold conditions with minimal food and sleep. Rahman appeared somewhat incoherent for portions of this session.”

Nevertheless, when Jessen left Cobalt on or around 14 November 2002, he told Zirbel that overcoming Rahman’s resistance would require more of the same deprivations that were clearly weakening him. “It wasn’t going to happen fast,” he told the investigator in the January 2003 interview. “[Rahman] is physically strong, hitting him isn’t going to do any good. You have to wear him down physically and psychologically … It would take one to several months to get him to a level of cooperation,” he predicted.

Five days later, at 3pm on 19 November 2002, “Rahman was shackled in a sitting position on bare concrete while nude from the waist down,” the 2003 investigation recorded.

Guards checked on Rahman four times overnight, at 10 and 11pm, and at 4 and 8am.

During the 4am cell check, with the outside temperature now 31F, a guard “looked into his cell and whistled.” At 8am, “Rahman was sitting in his cell, alive and shaking”, his “eyes were open and blinking”. “Rahman’s shaking did not seem unusual,” the guard told the investigator, “because all of the prisoners shake.” Two hours later, a guard looked into the cell and found Rahman lying on his side. When he tapped the door with his nightstick, the prisoner did not move.

***

Many CIA officers who participated in the black site torture program were later hired by Mitchell Jessen and Associates, which continued to bill the CIA millions of dollars for interrogation-related services long after the program ended.

The settlement reached last month in the lawsuit brought the first official acknowledgment that men were harmed by “enhanced interrogations” in the CIA’s black sites, the first gesture of restitution for victims of the agency’s post-9/11 torture program. In a statement released for the settlement, Mitchell and Jessen said “it is regrettable that Mr Rahman, Mr Salim and Mr Ben Soud suffered the abuses”, while denying responsibility for the men’s mistreatment.

The statement added: “Drs Mitchell and Jessen assert that the abuses of Mr Salim and Mr Ben Soud occurred without their knowledge or consent and that they were not responsible for those actions. Drs Mitchell and Jessen also assert that they were unaware of the specific abuses that ultimately caused Mr Rahman’s death and are also not responsible for those actions.”

Timeline

November 2002 Rahman wearing only socks and diaper; supervisor has concern regarding hypothermia

Rahman subjected to 48 hours of sleep deprivation, rough treatment, cold shower and other measures but remained noncompliant.

--- Subjected to cold conditions and minimum food and sleep... confused due to dehydration and fatigue.

--- Cable recommends future use of continued environmental deprivations with interrogations 18 out of 24 hours daily

--- Linguist asks questions about the temperature at which hypothermia occurs

November 19 2200 hrs guard check - Rahman is alive.

2300 hrs guard check - Rahman is alive.

November 20 0400 hrs guard check - Rahman is alive.

0800 hrs guard check - Rahman is alive.

1000 hrs guard check - Rahman is dead.

San Francisco, USA 2015 | by Hearhun Hun Shiun

San Francisco, USA: photo by Hearhun Hun Shiun, 25 August 2015

Mist [Brighton]: photo by Nic Miles, 6 March 2017

Freedom [Sanam Luang, Bangkok]: photo by TAVEPONG PRATOOOMWONG, 18 January 2016

Untitled: photo by Blue Rattanapol, 19 October 2017

Children playing by road near school house, iowa or Kansas [?]: photo by John Vachon, c. 1942 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

In Remembrance of our beloved king. King Bhumibol Adulyadej 1927-2016 | by noppadol.maitreechit

In Remembrance of our beloved king. King Bhumibol Adulyadej 1927-2016 [Chumphon, Thailand]: photo by noppadol maitreechit, 24 January 2017

Reports that ‘stealing the royal body’ just took place where the late king’s body was quietly transferred to the crematorium #KingBhumibol

: image via Richard Barrow @RichardBarrow, 25 October 2017

I was born in the reign of King Bhumibol #KingBhumibol

: image via DreammK

Thai people wearing raincoats and holding umbrellas with portrait of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej as people queue up to take part in the Royal Cremation ceremony, in Bangkok, Thailand, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2017. The exactingly planned five-day funeral for Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej will be governed by strict protocols for how the public and media conduct themselves.: photo by Wason Wanichakorn/AP, 24 October 2017

Copenhagen's players acknowledge their fans as a heavy fog lands in the pitch during the Europa League soccer match Group F between Zlin and FC Copenhagen at the Andruv stadium in Olomouc, Czech Republic, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017.: photo by Petr David Josek/AP, 19 October 2017

Untitled: photo by Tim White, 16 September 2017

TOM CLARK

Wednesday 25 October 2017

Aida cries

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971): The Serenity Prayer

William S. Burroughs (1914-1997): Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986, from Tornado Alley, 1989

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