Every statement George Bush has ever made about torture is wrong.
Every statement George Bush has ever made about torture has been based on the delusion that waterboarding is not torture.
George Bush authorized waterboarding after his pet lawyers told him it wasn’t torture. (It doesn’t cause organ damage, which was essentially their standard)
NOW six years after the fervor of 9/11 ……waterboarding has been rejected by our society and the world, the “debate” is over. Waterboarding IS torture.
Let me state it clearly:
Waterboarding is torture. America has waterboarded. America tortures.
The CIA has destroyed evidence that showed torture. Waterboarding. Any other conclusion is ludicrous rationalization. Let’s not focus on the tapes, but what they showed that made the CIA destroy them. They showed torture.
Torture that was authorized by The President of the United States. Torture that was approved by the silence of the heads of Congressional Intelligence Committees.
Torture that was approved by all but one Democratic head of an Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman.
America is GUILTY of Torture.
The highest echelon of OUR government has tortured people…in YOUR name.
Now what?
Let me restate this part for emphasis. The puppet Bush lawyers, Yoo, Bybee, etc. told Bush and (presumably) the CIA that waterboarding is not torture.
They were wrong.
Waterboarding IS torture….the United States has prosecuted people in the past for waterboarding….because it is torture. We all remember the ‘debate’ on whether waterboarding is torture, culminating in Mukaseys confirmation. Mukasey would not say waterboarding is torture for one simple reason. If he said that, he would be saying that…America tortures. Opening America up to War Crimes trials…because waterboarding is torture and America has used waterboarding.
America tortures.
America set up a network of secret prisons to waterboard and torture. The President has admitted this, and again said that according to his puppet lawyers….waterboarding and secret prisons and transporting kidnapped suspects to secret prisons to be tortured are legal. They aren’t legal.
Watch it.
.
Now what?
In ordinary circumstances…when a President has committed a crime, especially one as heinous as torture…one might expect the Speaker of the House to start investigations for the purpose of impeachment. But The Speaker of the House KNEW America was engaging in torture …and did not object. And make no mistake…the purpose of those briefing the Intelligence Committee heads is specifically in place to allow them to object to programs and practices that cross the line of decency, and legality. It is their purpose. There is NO excuse for not objecting.
Now what?
The CIA is investigating itself, the infamous Bush Administration Department of Justice is investigating, the Senate and House Intelligence Committees are investigating….all of these investigating entities have been involved to some extent in the organized programs of torture. The very systems that justified and approved of torture are now investigating themselves….is this good enough? Will they find themselves guilty of torture or of approving torture or of not objecting to torture…which is a War Crime? Will they have the will to aggressively investigate and prosecute?
America tortures.
America has committed War Crimes.
The CIA has broken domestic and international laws. The President of the United States has broken domestic and international laws. The entities that should prosecute these War Crimes are compromised.
Now What, America?
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The renewed torture question is unfortunately popping up at a time when the the American public can be counted upon to be distracted in a consumerist haze.
It also forces Americans to asks themselves hard questions about themselves, something they loathe to do. Reagan was popular because he made Americans “feel good” about themselves again, we like to avoid pain and we certainly do not look kindly on any leader who might force us to do that. Naturally, I hope I am wrong but the response from the Dem leadership and the general populace is going to be to avoid substantive discussions or to engage in self interested justifying behavior that diverts away from the question of why and how we have become a nation that sanctions torture.
And America cannot be its own judge. The time will come for these criminals. But the international community will see to it, not us, IMO.
i decided recently that, were i to see something suspicious or suspect someone of ‘terra’, i would NOT feel comfortable turning them in/reporting them. i would feel responsible for the treatment they received….and i dont trust the ‘good guys’ any more than i trust the ‘bad guys’…wait….we’re still the ‘good guys’, arent we??? 😉
seriously, tho…how creepy is it to live in a world where you feel like you cant report a threat??? way creepy…
Waz up?
After seeing that video again, I was just thinking, with protectors like Boo-sh & Cheney, who needs enemies???
Anyway, Mr. Boo-sh, I don’t need your “protection”!
I AM NOT AFRAID!!!!
F.ck the fear!
Stop the torture!
Boo!
…that’s all I can think of. I am recalling small waves of articles in the 80’s when French veterans of Algeria, self professed torturers all, would take some government post or another. It played the same way this is currently playing, that is, it outraged the left and bored the shit out of everyone else.
All I can think of is the title line of this comment — make pushing for renewed US ICC participation a huge issue, and push it at every turn.
well, I’m sure they will come up with all the evidence.
Madness, sheer madness.
It’s obvious no one else is looking so wouldn’t it be
prudent of us to start our own search? Perhaps we need
to start yelling at anyone who was in on any briefings
and get them to come clean. How about starting with a list
of the people who attended these meetings. Names, damn it,
I want names!
I’d rather forgive someone who asked late for forgiveness that someone who never
asked at all. Questions to the candidates need to be
framed differently. Waterboarding is torture, no question
about it, but we need to be asking what each candidate is
going to do to correct this madness.
It appears that Nancy Pelosi has a choice.
Either take down George Bush, end the occupation of Iraq and all of this torture bullshit as well as all the rest of the crap of the past seven years before next November… and save herself.
Or take down the Democratic Party, and possibly America with it.
You have to make the presidential candidates answer that question.
Clinton, Obama and Edwards – What next?
If they get the answer wrong, we sink their campaigns starting with Clinton, then Obama, then Edwards.
So, Clinton’s campaign has to be finished off or else we have no voice.
Remember, incumbents like Pelosi don’t give a rat’s ass about us. The presidential candidates are vulnerable.
Clinton’s campaign ends first.
Because if we do nothing, we’re all on this…
BTW…Where’s Waldo???
…during Vietnam, when it was discovered that the U.S. was torturing (usually but not always via its surrogates in the military and intelligence services of South Vietnam), the revelations were denied because everybody knew torture was wrong. But, of course, the torture went on.
In the 1980s, when the CIA torture manual for Central America was exposed, people were outraged because they knew torture was wrong. The CIA denied it had really meant to suggest that its surrogates in the death squads and fake rebels of those countries should engage in torture. But, of course, the torture went on.
In the ’00s, when torture was revealed, our leaders said, nah, that’s not torture. Awash in cognitive dissonance, one of the torturers now admits that he tortured, and that “we” shouldn’t do that because we’re “better than that,” but he couldn’t forgive himself if something had happened and he hadn’t tortured to find out about that something beforehand. Today, torture is not denied, but admitted, and viewed as legal, as if legal makes it moral.
And, of course, the torture goes on.
Now what, indeed?
It starts with us. With each and every one of us. Let’s start by cleaning our own house.
OUST PELOSI & ROCKEFELLER NOW.
Repeat this everywhere. If we can’t clean our own house, then nothing else can be done. Nothing.
Not without stepping completely out of the system.
(And rewatching that Matt Lauer interview, it may not be perfect, but that took a lot of courage to go after Bush, who’s standing right in front of him, poking at you with his finger, this very powerful man. In general, I don’t like ML, and I hated Bush’s self-serving demagogic answers, but it took guts to ask Bush these questions to his face. But if you’ve ever got up to speak against someone, or had to confront a boss, or whatever, you know how nerve-wracking it can be.)