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TechnoratiRumsfeld Responsible for Torture, Report Says
The Senate Armed Services Committee report accuses Rumsfeld and his deputies of being the principal architects of the plan to use harsh interrogation techniques on captured fighters and terrorism suspects, rejecting the Bush administration's contention that the policies originated lower down the command chain.
"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," the panel concludes. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."
The report, released by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz., and based on a nearly two-year investigation, said that both the policies and resulting controversies tarnished the reputation of the United States and undermined national security. "Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority," it said.
The panel's investigation focused on the Defense Department's use of controversial interrogation practices, including forced nudity, painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and use of dogs. The practices, some of which had already been adopted by the CIA at its secret prisons, were adapted for interrogations at Guantanamo Bay and later migrated to U.S. detention camps in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.
"The Committee's report details the inexcusable link between abusive interrogation techniques used by our enemies who ignored the Geneva Conventions and interrogation policy for detainees in U.S. custody," McCain, himself a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, said in a statement. "These policies are wrong and must never be repeated."
White House officials have maintained the measures were approved in response to demands from field officers who complained that traditional interrogation methods weren't working on some of the more hardened captives. But Senate investigators, relying on documents and hours of hearing testimony, arrived at a different conclusion.
The true genesis of the decision to use coercive techniques, the report said, was a memo signed by President Bush on Feb. 7, 2002, declaring that the Geneva Convention's standards for humane treatment did not apply to captured al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. As early as that spring, the panel said, top administration officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, participated in meetings in which the use of coercive measures was discussed. The panel drew on a written statement by Rice, released earlier this year, to support that conclusion.
In July 2002, Rumseld's senior staff began compiling information about techniques used in military survival schools to simulate conditions that U.S. airmen might face if captured by an enemy that did not follow the Geneva conditions. Those techniques - borrowed from a training program known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, or SERE - included waterboarding, or simulated drowning, and were loosely based on methods adopted by Chinese communists to coerce propaganda confessions from captured U.S. soldiers during the Korean war.
The SERE program became the template for interrogation methods that were ultimately approved by Rumsfeld himself, the report says. In the field, U.S. military interrogators used the techniques with little oversight and frequently abusive results, the panel found.
"It is particularly troubling that senior officials approved the use of interrogation techniques that were originally designed to simulate abusive tactics used by our enemies against our own soldiersand that were modeled, in part, on tactics used by the Communist Chinese to elicit false confessions from U.S. military personnel," the report said.
Defenders of the techniques have argued that such measures were justified because of al-Qaida's demonstrated disregard for human life. But the panel members cited the views of Gen. David Petraeus, now the head of U.S. Central Command, who in a May, 2007 letter to his troops said humane treatment of prisoners allows Americans to occupy the moral high ground.
"Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right," wrote Petraeus, who at the time was the top U.S. commander in Iraq. "Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy."
125 Comments so far
Show AllJohn J.Coghlan
The Senate Armed Services Committee Report is all common knowledge. Why has it taken them this long to release a report? By the time they decide to prosecute the perpetrators of these atrocities, the criminals will have all died of old age. Come to think of it, that is probably why Congress works so slow. They like to get things done, but not so fast that it causes problems for their friends.
If you have ever been active in peace or community events, you will know that when things heat up some unkempt person is likely to show up to grandstand, say ridiculous paranoid things and try to bog down or divert the discussion or start squabbles. Sometimes there are two who argue with or punch each other to get the police involved. At times we later found out they were paid to do so.
It is the same on the internet.
The issue here is to hold Rumsfeld responsible for what he has done.
Joe
Domestic TORTURE has been on the rise in the USA since 1996.
Cointell PRO, D.E.Ws and Gang stalking tactics are being used nation wide by local community watch groups.
These are vigilante groups that have been setup to destroy the lives of certain individuals in a community.
Political reasons , religious reasons, homophobic reasons, anti-war reasons.And of course Home Grown Terrorist reasons.
These groups have organized and are now receiving DHS money to conduct torture.
There are a lot of people out of work in Florida, and participants in the Infragard organization may be employing people under Federal Contracts to conduct Warrant Less surviellance on innocent Americans being accused of being potential terrorist suspects.
Win/Win, companys get money, people have jobs.
The problem is they are using Gang Stalking tactics to disturb there suspects witch makes them act irrationally, giving these people in these organizations a false sense of super-hero importance and justify s the TORTURE.
And allowing them to justify more funds and resources.
The new growth industry in America, National Fake Security.
Domestic TORTURE, and DHS funding abuse to support it.
The more suspects, the more needed the DHS organization and its Infragard program.
It would not take much to prove what I am saying , just the legal and political will to proceed.
BornFreeMen
Warrant less surviellance torture victim 24/7 for 2 years and running, Bradenton Florida.
How do you know this?
Joe
But they didn't torture anyone. Remember that sleep deprivation, humiliation, water torture is no longer in the definition of torture. Of course it always gets better the 'terrorists' in Cuba are not civilians and so not entitled to a civilian trial. But they are not covered by the Geneva convention because they are not Military.
I recall the first address that Bush made to Congress. Both Republicans and Democrats stood and applauded. Neither will accuse the other of war crime for fear of setting a precedent. It appears from the outside to be the birth of a new aristocracy. Sad days for all.
Michael
This is another example of why Gates was a huge improvement.
.Huh?
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Rumsfeld approved torture.
Gates doesn't approve of torture.
.Joe, if I have learned one thing about your posts it is that they appear to be about as consistently inaccurate as possible. Statistics would indicate that ones "facts" be correct at least once in a while, yet I see , in your efforts, a startling untruth almost every time. I cannot say with any degree of certainty that you are a propagandist sitting in some cubicle somewhere, or simply one those folks who simply believe themselves to have a mystical ability to pull truth out of your ears ( some other part of your anatomy):
Perhaps someone will remember that last August, Gates was implicated by the New York Times as a prime participant in the Pentagon's own policy of secret detention in Iraq of foreign fighters, and rendition of prisoners to foreign countries, such as Saudi Arabia, where monitoring of interrogations and possible abuse is impossible. As the Times reported (emphases added):
Many of these militants are initially held, without notification to the Red Cross, sometimes for weeks at a time, in secret at a camp in Iraq and another in Afghanistan run by American Special Operations forces, the military officials said.
They said that foreign intelligence officers had been allowed access to these camps to question militants there, as a prelude to the transfers....
American military officials said the transfers required assurances that the prisoners would be well taken care of, but they would not specify those assurances, and human rights advocates questioned whether compliance could be monitored.
While the militants are in American custody, Pentagon rules allow them to be held at the Special Operations sites in Balad, Iraq, and Bagram, Afghanistan, for up to two weeks, with extensions permitted with the approval of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates or his representative, military officials said.
http://www.americantorture.com/labels/John%20Brennan.html
I could, if required, pull up more articles dispelling your silly assertions about Gates.
So, Joe, perhaps you might 'fess up to your role here as an apologist for Bush and purveyor of untruths or realise that you have a large number of mistaken opinions and supposed facts in your possession. Any well intentioned citizen of our nation would certainly work quickly to reject all those "mistakes", wouldn't one?
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
"Joe, if I have learned one thing about your posts it is that they appear to be about as consistently inaccurate as possible. "
Is this how you get pleasure? Putting others down? You need to find the joy in your heart. Follow your bliss. Find your inner child. Perhaps... find G*d.
"posts it is that they appear to be about as consistently inaccurate as possible."
Examples?
If you will will recall, the army only engaged in so-called "torture" from 2003-2006, after which they issued a new manual, called “Human Intelligence Collector Operations,” which explicitly bans beating prisoners, sexually humiliating them, threatening them with dogs, depriving them of food or water, performing mock executions, shocking them with electricity, burning them, causing other pain and “water boarding”. The new manual, of course, did leave a possible loophole for the CIA. But the point is, Gates took over as Secretary of Defense several months after this new manual was published, so there is no evidence he engaged in torture. Rumsfeld and the CIA on the other hand...
.You continue to astonish with your posts that lack the slightest credibility. You ask for an example directly after I cited one, and linked to prove that citation. Then ,ignoring the NY Times article that specifically linked Gates to statements favoring the use of torture, you repeat an already proven falsehood....I am sorry if I appear abrupt or insulting, but the simple fact is that it is you that insults the intelligence of every contributor on this forum with such a childish ability to ignore truth in favor of your own unique world view.
If you believe that the US stopped the use of water boarding, sensory deprivation and other such methods of abuse of prisoners because a manual was published then you are simply ignoring the sworn statements of many released from detention centers after that date. But you are, after all, really good at ignoring stuff.
By the by, I am certain that you are unaware of the existence of the School of the Americas, or , if aware, ignore it as you do most everything else. That place has taught the use of torture to many of our allies for decades. Thus even your assigning of a time delimiter to our use of torture simply ignores truth, but that seems to be your stock in trade.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
My last post - and thanks for the kind words teddy. We are closer than we ever have been before to losing the soul of this country. Yes, I know we have always been corrupt, and insensitive, and amoral, and homophobic, and imperialistic, and inhumane to peoples we conquered. I know that! But I also know there always existed a subterranean group who, when times were tough, came to the forefront and demanded this country adhere to its 'professed' ideals as opposed to its imperialistic interests. The masses now are more poorly informed, dare I say stupid, than at any time in our recent history. The criminals have been successful in their propaganda; they have tied religion to greed - a marvel of subterfuge in and of itself! They have somehow erased our capacity for compassion, and without compassion - a love of our fellow man - there is no civility, no peace, no justice, no accountability. This is what we must fight for! This is what we must demand - ON A DAILY BASIS - of all who claim to represent us. We can no longer sit back and allow the reactionaries peace of mind because they believe all they have to do is to bully and lie and they will get their way. Peace is not passive! And those who seek peace, and justice, and compassion, and love - cannot be passive in the face of the inhumanity and immorality that now stalks this country. Come together peacefully - but for our children's sake - please come together.
"The thing fascists fear most is intelligence."
that is so right, Odoco..thanks for bringing that.
Didn't Mussolini get credited with clarifying Fascism by:
"FASCISM IS MORE PROPERLY CALLED CORPORATISM...FOR IT IS THE MARRIAGE BETWEEN THE CORPORATION AND THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE STATE...SUPPORTED BY PATRIOTIC FERVOR and RELIGION".
this fairly describes a country that a congressman from texas ,self-admitted proudly as a fascist before being sent to jail for corruption in the 1950's HUEY LONG -- who declared proudly:
"THE DAY WILL COME WHEN THE UNITED STATES WILL BE A FASCIST STATE....ONLY , THEY'LL CALL IT A DEMOCRACY".
A few thoughts: First, Gen. Eisenhower and Adm. Leahy were both opposed to using the bomb against Japan - some food for thought. Secondly, the was a multi-faceted surrender movement inside Japan for at least two months prior to the bombing of H - N, and we knew it. Thirdly - handy little device to use in the face of alleged Russian aggression, heh? Let's sacrifice about 200,000 souls for political purposes - hey - that's the American Way!!! As for Rumseld et al; it saddens me that so many on this site are willing to simply accept they can do nothing in the face of these crimes. We chastise the corruptness and illegality and immorality of the leadership, but simultaneously feel impotent to change the system. Well - we can change the system. And the primary ingredient in that change is two-fold: education of the masses and retaking the objectifying the media. Without those two standards the criminals can't win. Why do you think the Pentagon warmasters want to combine PR and Propaganda into a single budgetary line item as it applies to Afghanistan? The truth shall be as they espouse - for as long as the sheep remain supplicant, the truth remains concealed. A few of my role models in my elderly years have become Cindy Sheehan, Mother Jones, Molly Ivins, the Ladies of CodePink, Ann Wright, Barbara Lee, Sheila Jackson Lee, Dennis Kucinich, and a few others. If these people were / are willing to put their asses on the line - each of us can do the same. We have to change how we live. We have to change the poundage of bullshit we are willing to accept. We have to become absolutely confrontational with politicians who assume themselves sacrosanct merely because the sheeple are quiet. We can rule ourselves again if we wish, if we wish . . . .
For those who want to move on, we should ask: was Nuremberg a waste of time? What is the point of having rules of conduct if there is no accounting?
Joe
UCMJ stands for Uniform Code of Military Justice. Wikipedia it.
Rummy used to boast about standing eight hours a day, implying that subjecting prisoners to forced standing was hardly torture.
In Dante's hell he would be forced to stand, chained to a wall, naked, with the temperature at forty degrees.
The Senate Armed Services Committee took a whole two years to arrive at this report? Fire their asses, for many of us were far ahead of these dork politicians, who seem to likely be playing the "game" of "political opportunism" now that Obama's U.S. President and his foreign policy team consists of people not favourable for the neocons faction, but for the GHW Bush factions; GHW Bush, James Baker, and so on.
McCain, like many other U.S. politicians at the levels of Congress and the Senate will flow with or follow the flow of political current(s), so while someone posted about McCain's bs threatening sort of words towards Iran in another comment in this page, Zbigniew Brzezinski very recently told Israel to back off of Iran, to shut up with the threats, etc., and in what appear to be very stern words of warning; warning Israel that if it strikes Iran, then there'll be big trouble for Israel, as well as for other countries. Brzezinski's surely going to have a lot more influence on the Obama administration, being the top or one of the few top-most foreign policy "advisers", if not "directors", and if he's serious in these words to Israel, then McCain and many others who've been supporting such threats for years now will follow with the new current. I am expecting that anyway.
After all, it [is] ... [politics] and politics is full of ... crap, hypocrisy, cameleon people, ....
Evidently incompetence is a required qualification for a job in any government department as there seems to be a Heck-of-a-job-Brownie in every major branch. It must be a freshman requirement at Yale and Harvard. Or maybe job applications for government positions do not exist. Or it is the old story of it is not what you know, but who you know.
Not that Obama chose who I would have chosen, and some of the choices are disturbing, but at least they are people of normal intelligence in the right job category.
The housing guy comes from a NYC housing background, for instance, rather than having been President of the Arabian Horse Association.
It is a relief to have Barack Who's Sane Obama as president-elect.
Joe
jclientele:I follow NYC housing, being a tenant who the mayor is trying to squeeze out of NYC via killing rent regulation. I listen regularly to "Housing Notebook",host Scott Sommer, radio show on WBAI www.wbai.org of the Metropolitan Council on Housing in NYC. Met Council has a website,too. You can also read Indypendent, an independent paper online from Indymedia www.indypendent.org When Obama announced Shaun Donovan for Housing, my spouse, said "Who?". I am waiting for info on this guy. Bloomberg has a press favorability (no surprise) that does not match his record. (See NY1's website for the furor over the Mayor's endrun around the term limits law.) The Mayor has accomplished almost nothing for housing in NYC in what, 7years in office?
Mayor Bloomberg doesn't like poor people.
Joe
Torture ASSUMES at least three things:
1. The ends justifies the means. NEVER TRUE IN REAL LIFE - The means you use tells everyone what you are. Torture indicates you are evil. What would you think of me if I used kidnap and isolation to in a clever way resulting in a woman falling in love with me and never wanting to leave me? (like Stockholm syndrome)
2. That torture works. People will say whatever will stop the torture. Pain makes truth irrelevant. I know, in terrible pain in the hospital after surgery, I would have done anything for the pain medication. ANYTHING!
3. That you don't know the truth, but will know it when you hear it. If you know the truth you don't need to question anyone. If you recognize truth when you hear it you already know the truth and you just need a person with good imagination to suggest possible truths and you will pick out the actual truth. So again you don't need to question anyone. The torture is just for your sick amusement.
and it was said , i think by someone that was involved in torturing said:
The Real Purpose of Torture is TO TORTURE.
you are absolutely right..IT IS done by people for their sick amusement.
I am trying to recall which famous person said that.
but the Lead American investigator , a psychologist who was tasked with interviewing the Nazis for the Nuremberg trial wrote of his experience in meeting the evil men and concluded:
that "EVIL is the absence of conscience" in a book he called "THE BANALITY OF EVIL".
saying that the nazis he interviewed that designed the torture programs and exterminations were "so ordinary" - they were like your everyday accountant who talked of what they did as if they were talking about counting numbers or explaining CALMLY something so ordinary...
just like Rumsfeld: "i stood for 8 hours at a stretch....this is nothing ..."....or about the chaos and iraqi deaths and suffering, children, women, old people left homeless etc..."stuff happens".
extend this wider -- in our everyday civilized world where we have people who have "families" and lead :"upstanding law abiding lives"......
CEO's who increase their "value" to the ":corporation" by .........
Calmy , like accountants, "cutting costs" - that result in ...3,000 jobs lost....and this is part of "the new normal"...as Cheney would say...
makes sense, doesn't it?
"Humbaba December 12th, 2008 2:27 am
Here's another little atrocity that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are behind.
U.S. keeps silent as Afghan ally removes war crime evidence
..."
YES, that was reported near seven years ago, as well, but while I haven't read the McClatchy article Humbaba provided a link for, the excerpt in Humbaba's post is omissive of some important information. One of the transport or cargo trailers was filled with Taliban fighters shortly after the launch of the war on the Taliban, the trailer having been very packed, and yes, it was reported that Dostum was present, perhaps that he gave the order, and his men or group shot plenty of holes into the trailer box. It was reported that their stated reason was to shoot holes near the roof of the trailer box in order to ensure that enough air would get inside to keep the fighters inside alive, only the holes were not that high and blood poured out of the trailer(s). Given the men inside were at the bottom, on the floor of the trailer box, the murderers shot near the lower part of the trailer box, leaving that they knew this would kill and minimally wound the men inside the box.
And U.S. military commanders, one anyway, but with some other U.S. military personnel present along with hime, well, they were also present when Dostum and his group committed these ... not just killings, but murders; murders, because it was clearly the intent. After all, the group of Dostum's was also composed of fighters, people certainly capable of firing a gun as they intended, to hit where they intended, and it's not difficult to accurately fire at the top of the trailer box when you're standing right next to or beside it.
Anyway, U.S. military command was immediately present and therefore complicit, even if no U.S. military personnel fired a single shot into the trailer boxes. Or, if it wasn't U.S. military, then it was definitely NATO; but I think to recall that they were U.S.
If bush and cheney can kill a million innocent people, torture them, deceive their own people and get away with it for eight years, I wonder what they could do to an individual pushing to have them arrested. Accidents can happen...America, you've been mugged.
Harvey,
Its the American people who are guilty who collaborated and let it happen !!!!
The American Lynch Mob mentality nurtured by FOX & CNN & 9/11 ---
Regular Military Grunts are guilty for perpetrating this horror crime in Iraq & Afghanistan--
USA USA USA --the support our troops -- while they lay waste to people & countries.
Have the American people no shame ???
Support our troops = Support the Mayhem in Iraq & Afghanistan !!!!.
Question -- What country in the World has had the most bombs dropped on it EVER ????
Answer --- Laos ????
How many Americans have even heard of Laos ????
Today & every day Americans grieves for their 4,200 Military dead in an Illegal Iraq "war" but never a mention of the 1.2 Million Iraqi dead the 4 Million displaced -- Depleted uranium -- cluster bombs -- their whole country destroyed ???
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
McCain's call to Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran is acceptable only because the USA is so pro Zionist and anxious to upgrade it war on Islam on behalf of Israel.
Its the American people who are guilty who are/were collaborating in this bogus war -- for WMD's no -- for to bring Democracy to the Infidels -- to "protect" Israel ?? ????
Have the American people no shame ???
Harvey,
don´t forget that the american people are no different than any brainwashed people in any country or from any background. just as those from canada, israel, saudi arabia, pakistan, costa rica, etc. i am a canadian and while i do throw some blame toward the american sheeple i like to think that our anger and our fighting should be aimed at those who control the media, the military industrial complex, banks, etc rather than at the common people. cuz if you look in your own back yard i would wager that no matter where you´re from you´ll see the your people being brainwashed from the other side.
governments manipulate and hide information from the public as they see fit. all governments do it. those with more power tend to do nastier things.
while it is clearly true that governments can easily devolve into nothing more than preservation of power rather than serving people ..often it is also an expression of what people TOLERATE even as the signs are already written on the wall. this often comes through p[eople's OWN cultural acceptance of things the government does in order to , they believe, "preserve" their culture or what is generally considered the norm...and then governments PLAY on those fears that are latent. that is what happens with the USA.
NOTE for example the differences in this instances:
a third world country -- the philippines was ruled by a dictator , marcos, for 25 years, with FULL complicity by the United States, vice-president george bush sent by reagan in the final years to congratulate marcos for being "our friend and protector of democracy"...the citizenry originally voted him to power -- but he didn't want to leave after his first term and when challenged...declared martial law, by means of his own generals creating made-up assassination attempts (later the top general confessed to this) ...and 25 years of military rule followed with US tacit support..in that period the country's economy was ruined (enter IMF, World Bank, etc.) from being one of the TOP economies of Asia for having highly educated people and rich resources (it was then called "the philippine Tiger" by other ASEAN nations that often sent officials and economists to study Philippine programs) ...
so -- one can say - "the people voted him to power" when they thought he was the best person.
but when they had had enough,despite the poverty into which the country was led - people used word of mouth, "texting" (they actually originated it 30 years ago on a countrywide scale) and in the space of 3 days - peacefully removed him from power - and we are talking about NON-Contiguous , more than 7,000 islands that the population had to coordinate itself while UNDEr martial law.
when he sent his army and tanks to the streets of the capital in a show of force against the protests choking the streets - the people surrounded the tanks and offered the soldiers flowers and food....and the army broke down in tears...and all went to the palace ...where reagan sent a US helicopter to take the dictator from the roof of the palace and to a submarine to australia and then to hawaii.
so - you see -- that was an example (regardless of how things went afterwards after the economy was already ruined by him and his cronies and US inspired IMF programs) - where people CHOSE and showed THEIR power all in one fell swoop.
what was the USA going to do - that had ITS navy there? shoot ALL the people who rose up SIMULTANEOUSLY all across the islands? and show the world ITS version of modern genocide in protecting one of its "friendly dictators"?
COMPARED to THAT -- the american citizenry are SHEEP and without any courage at all.
oh yes -- americans are GOOD being VIOLENT and BIG guns and hurting people smaller than they -- but as a NATION? they are SHEEP led to pasture and then slowly consumed by their own masters.
remember how the Chinese faced off the tanks in beijing in those decades - but were massacred? those were ISOLATED and that's how the government could make THEM "an example" to the rest of the 1.5 billion...because they did not have the ability to COORDINATE as the Filipinos did so SWIFTLY ONCE they had all decided (it still is a MYSTERY to me how THEY did that, to collectively , but independently decide as ONE people despite the poverty and lack of resources) ..they tried to copy the philippines - which was of course well-known as today as "PEOPLE POWER" that was the filipino movement that people today forget.
and THEN we saw the berlin wall fall -- AGAIN -- "people power".
so - there have been examples, where governments CAN be made to be AFRAID of the people which is the proper way. and are there ONLY through the TOLERANCE of the people - which of course can be considerable.
but the USA does not seem to possess this "courage" among people. maybe because they feel they have "too much to lose" such as their TOYS, their Automobiles, their credit rating, their "jobs", their "vacations we already planned"...."thanksgiving dinner and the friends are coming"........it's too much of a HASSLE to actually behave LIKE citizens .
what i am beginning to observe about countries is this:
EUROPEANS (and this was confirmed to me by europeans from certain countries) - have a system in which the GOVERNMENTS FEAR the people.
in asia - you can ALSO see that EVEN in communist china - powerful as the government and party is - IT fears the people -- and you can already see how the government is hurrying up to do what it can to shore up the domestic economy - the REAL economy in the INNER provinces that were lagging behind with the infusion of over 600 billion dollars or ELSE the signs of impatience from below will creat social instability. that is a SIGN that they are AFRAID of the people --as SHOULD be the proper relation between governments and the people (who nonetheless are VERY nationalistic and WILL tolerate their own One Party Government SO LONG as it DELIVERS what it promises) .
BUT in the UnITED STATES -- the people FEAR the government.
This is why the Treasury department, the FEDBANK, the politicans can all talk and act on "saving the banks" over and above the heads of people as jobs disappear because the people have already been made to FEAR for their safety and security while being made to feel that THEY could be treated as "threats" if they don't behave..no matter what the recent "sit-in" protests showed.
"Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy."
Exactly. Petraeus and Rumsfeld adhere to the values of depleted uranium and petroleum-fired US world domination. God Bless the United States of America! Get in line, people! We are the champions!
Here's another little atrocity that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are behind.
U.S. keeps silent as Afghan ally removes war crime evidence
DASHT-E LEILI, Afghanistan — Seven years ago, a convoy of container trucks rumbled across northern Afghanistan loaded with a human cargo of suspected Taliban and al Qaida members who'd surrendered to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord and a key U.S. ally in ousting the Taliban regime.
When the trucks arrived at a prison in the town of Sheberghan, near Dostum's headquarters, they were filled with corpses. Most of the prisoners had suffocated, and others had been killed by bullets that Dostum's militiamen had fired into the metal containers.
Dostum's men hauled the bodies into the nearby desert and buried them in mass graves, according to Afghan human rights officials. By some estimates, 2,000 men were buried there.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/57649.html
Don't forget the massacre that took place at the Qala-i-Janghi fortress :
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/11986
And Obama is trying to make this look like the rightious war!
The report refers to people directly working under Rumsfeld. taht was Steven Cambone-- he was specifically authorized to sign off on torture even though the military themselves knew that torture gives bad results, they had to obay Steven Cambone who was insisting on torture because Rumsfeld and the Bush administration were too stupid to know that torture does not work and backfires and they were just interested primarely in revenge and they were cowards and thought that torture would be a shortcut to actually winning the Iraq War right then and there- only years later they figured out it was a good road to losing-- that was when General Petraeus in 2007 - said the obvious that it pays to treat people with respect- and the surge worked because the tactics were changed- US soldiers decided to stand up and actually assist the Iraqi's out there and not just run back to their bases.
Steven Cambone did all the damage of insisting on torture as Rummi wanted it and he has dissappeared completely the day that Rummy resigned and nobody ever asks what has happened to him!!!
General Jeffrey Miller who transferred torture from Guantanamo to Abu Grab should not have been allowed to retire with full military pay.
Both of these men should be serving time just as the few "bad apples" who are imprisoned.
I blame the press for not continuing to remind people that the Geneva Convention is Law that we have signed on to and these people broke the law.
The report refers to people directly working under Rumsfeld. taht was Steven Cambone-- he was specifically authorized to sign off on torture even though the military themselves knew that torture gives bad results, they had to obay Steven Cambone who was insisting on torture because Rumsfeld and the Bush administration were too stupid to know that torture does not work and backfires and they were just interested primarely in revenge and they were cowards and thought that torture would be a shortcut to actually winning the Iraq War right then and there- only years later they figured out it was a good road to losing-- that was when General Petraeus in 2007 - said the obvious that it pays to treat people with respect- and the surge worked because the tactics were changed- US soldiers decided to stand up and actually assist the Iraqi's out there and not just run back to their bases.
Steven Cambone did all the damage of insisting on torture as Rummi wanted it and he has dissappeared completely the day that Rummy resigned and nobody ever asks what has happened to him!!!
General Jeffrey Miller who transferred torture from Guantanamo to Abu Grab should not have been allowed to retire with full military pay.
Both of these men should be serving time just as the few "bad apples" who are imprisoned.
I blame the press for not continuing to remind people that the Geneva Convention is Law that we have signed on to and these people broke the law.
so the question is will the Obama administration hold rummy and the other nazi's in bush's theocracy accountable? Obama needs to make America a beacon of truth, honesty, and democracy, and he can do that by sending the bush thugs to prison.
Agreed from the bottom of my heart.
Some VERY excellent comments. Thank you, folks!
I heard on a TV network (NETWORK!) tonight (Thursday, Rachel Maddow's show) Glenn Greenwald actually say those forbidden words: "the Democrats, including Pelosi, Jane Harmon, and Jay Rockefeller, were just as complicit. They were briefed, and they approved. And a (D)-controlled Congress authorized the bills and the retroactive immunity for all involved."
Way to go, Glenn and Rachel!
"no gods, no masters" --m. sanger
THAT"s why Pelosi declared , upon having the democrats take over congress : "IMPEACHMENT IS OFF THE TABLE"
because the process , if truthfully followed through its every line and to the VERY END ...would implicate THEMSELVES.
they could not and WOULD NOT do it because it is the equivalent of allowing themselves to become the DEFENDANTS if things were truly followed through by an TRULY independent body of investigation...and NEITHER could they play the part of being the investigators THEMSELVES because it would , if the process also had to be followed , become the equivalent of a FARCE
in which the "crime is investigated BY the criminal".
so: what is the solution? DEFY the constitution and say "impeachment is OFF the table".
even if the constitution INSISTED - defining the ONLY CRIME it ever listed : TREASON by any high official , that :
"SHOULD THE executive attempt to withhold from the people information which, if the people knew and understood would never support the executive's desire to go to wars and other designs...that executive has committed TREASON..and MUST be removed from power.. CONGRESS MAY NOT AVOID ITS DUTY to begin impeachment".
they are REQUIRED! and if they don't THAT is treason and criminal in itself.
Here's a stinker of a cartoon to contemplate:
Scene: cold block room w/single light bulb. An interrogation room. A “detainee” being waterboarded. The agent pouring the water says, “OK, Abdul, Who set up 9/11?”. Abdul: “blubDickblubblubblubCheneyblubblub”. Second agent with a clip board, to a third rookie agent with the video camera: “Eh, that’s what they all say the first few times…”.
The little mouse in the corner says, “Must be a conspiracy”….
Hopefully, the following words are suitable only for a int'l intrigue movie, or conspiracy freaks, but...In light of recent revelations* (guesses?), there seems to be a very dark and sad, but plausible case to be made that the secrecy and torturing was not to make the war less dangerous or shorter for our troops or safeguard national security, but to cover up, ferret out and neutralize evidence or anyone who had first hand knowledge of who the perps are and how the whole thing unfolded. If so, articles such as the above would be one more fold in a co-opt/coverup. Can anyone come up with a way to connect the dots that is less painful to patriotic sensibilities? I hope so, because thoughts of such deep treachery and treason are hard to bear.
*In "Shock Doctrine", Klein tells how torture is used to destroy minds.
*Ray McG and others have hinted that raw results of 'interrogations' went right to the top, and orders went from there down. Interesting info would be if different levels/stages of interrogators were talking to each other. And where which detainees were sent to become babbling idiots...IF that ever happened.
*One or two years ago Foreign Affairs mag had an article buried in the back in which high level brass (Powell, too) signed off their oath to obey legal orders only, saying that because in "the conditions of modern war" only the CIC could make that determination. Same as Nixon saying, "...if the President does it, that makes it legal...". It was a sad day in Arlington Cemetary when they penned that.
I just think that this Nation and the people who have died to preserve our ideals deserve better.
File formal charges against all those responsible and bring them to trial. If President Obama needs to appoint a special prosecutor to do this, then he should do so.
Rumsfeld is NOT the only one involved. We know for a fact that the biggest culprits were Addington and Yo who gave the administration secret memos and faked signed letters claiming it was legally OK to torture at the behest of Cheney and Bush with Gonzalez acting as the no-nothing eunich and Rice and all the rest of the kabal egging them on.
teddy, Sir, excellent posts(both)
bidelo, VERY observant.
I, Just wanted to ask, "if the "leader", is guilty of treason", wouldn't it follow that, the whole cabinet, administration, including congress, and senate, are conspirators to the same?
At the least, "fraud", against the American people. Which is very well documented.
I echo, whens the trial?
Also, Rummy "must" be prosecuted, that guy is the worst liar, to the point, of being insulting.
thank you, Bob-oso. it's just my personal view..but i think that anyone that just remembers basic human dignities can not possibly FAIL to see what is so obvious about these things.
i mean: any of us...when we see a DOG because a dog, capable of biting and killing a child, is declared dangerous, and the justification , even if one was EVER needed for these acts, was that some OTHER dog bit and horribly killed a child...don't we , just the same see the horror of it...when THAT dog that had nothing to do with the OTHER dog that bit and killed, is then chained, tortured , starved, etc...JUST because it is a "dog?"
that is what the bushies did:
terrorists attacked and killed innocent people...and certainly NOT without prior provocative , interfering, double-faced policies by the USA for decades...(which STILL does NOT justify the evil of terrorists for murdering people)... and then the bushies came up with a justification:
ANYONE CAUGHT in a net by the USA on its "war on terror" -- whether a real terrorist or by mere suspicion according to bush the king's declaration is to be chained, jailed, kidnapped, tortured outside of human view.
something like that is designed, intended for the preservation and protection of POWER -- NOT the people's "safety"...power that has within it the EVIL tendencies of WISHING to TORTURE as the ULTIMATE POWER FIX!!!!
is THIS different from a child who is not taught that torturing a dragon-fly , or a cat, is wrong? is this REALLY different from these cases of paretns or adults sexually abusing , kidnapping, chaining children and mutilating people? for the SHEER FEELING of being able to apply POWER over another human being, except that it is justified with GRANDIOUS "adult" concepts of "nationalistm, patriotism, security, protecting and defending our way of life which terrorists who hate us want to destroy?"
and then you look at the difference between the terrorists or the bearded people of other cultures and the clean-cut, pinstriped george bush , corporate masters like cheney,
the difference between soldiers of osama bin laden brandishing their kalashnikov rifles and shooting in the air and ramming planes into the twin towers and killing people....
FROM george bush and cheney and company - so well-cut and so polite - surrounded by "civilized" people , BRANDHISHING THEIR weapons of mass destruction, the BEST and most advanced technology and institutions can put together , flown , triggered , "guided" by a GRAND ARMY that goes thousands of miles away openly destroying a culture that is thousands of years old that had NOTHING to do with the soldiers of bin laden...and in secret the CIA and other covert operations of george bush - operating under HIS SIGNED approval
DOES what terrorists are supposed to be doing:
DESTROY human beings with torture, humiliate THEM and THEIR culture because "they are going to destroy OUR culture", and instill FEAR on their populations....
what is THAT>?
THAT IS TERRORISM - STATE SANCTIONED!!!
some historians or observers through the years said:
"when a single person or a few kill and murder and create chaos it is called TERRORISM....when the STATE does it , it is called a NOBLE ACT OF DEFENSE".
according to the UN treaties and declarations, signed by the USA - of "WAR CRIMES" coming out of the Nuremberg Trials against the axis powers : "TO MERELY CONTEMPLATE WAR is to be considered a WAR CRIME".
it doesn't even BEGIN with bush signing torture ...it begins with george bush BEFORE 9/11 asking his cabal to "find me a reason"....to go to war in Iraq...it even begins as far back as CHEVRON officials having meetings leaked out in the 1990's ..when condi rice was STILL with chevron ...saying:
:"if we can only get in there (iraq) the SKY's the LIMIT".
this is such a DEEP , BROAD american pattern of "civilized behavior" that , imo, it is the reason obama will NOT and can NOT prosecute it. it speaks right to the heart and essence of american foreign policy in which TORTURE is MERELY ONE OF MANY INSTRUMENTS , and merely openly made into official policy by george bush , and brought to the surface from where it had LIKELY -- ALWAYS been practiced in the dark by the likes of the CIA and FBI and Police forces so long as they "got away with it" and justified by ":law and order" as it used to be -- and NOW reshaped into "protecting our way of life from terrorists".
TOO MANY people, of both left and right , are and have been COMPLICIT in creating THIS kind of "civilized behavior".
and the ROT is too deep and broad for obama to be the one to "fix" it, imo. i am just being skeptical.
i related in another ARticle's thread that I once sat down and chatted with a very old gentleman ...he is 104 years old -- and saw how the first and second world wars arose...the rise of fascism, how he and his brothers played as boys and teens sensing what was coming...and UNDERSTANDING WHY...(unbelievably HALE in health, not even wearing glasses when he reads newspapers, clear memory, extremely sharp and talking about philosophy, engineering, culture, history, etc.)
and he told me:
"we of the west , in order to become more prosperous colonized many countries because they were weaker and had resources we wanted to enrich ourselves...when we should have HELPED them. Instead we EXPLOITED THEM and their people and their lands...naturally - it left them poorer than ever before and more desperate..and we still are surprised that they come to our shores whether as immigrants or terrorists..and we complain that we can not absorb them and that they want to destroy us....I am a roman, and i know what Imperial rome did. and it was wrong to subjugate other people...THAT is what the USA is now doing".
Lots of good comments Teddy, and the rest, but I’d ask you to just consider one thing. If military and CIA and all the rest already knew long before 9-11 that torture does not work to get reliable intelligence, and there is no doubt about that all these clever and highly advised people did, then why insist to use torture?
The report clearly states why! "Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority,". The war on terror is supposed to support the military neo-colonial empire add-infinitum but to do so you have to have an enemy. Where there is none you must create one, and as one develops you must strengthen it.
You state that 9-11 was terrorists hitting buildings with planes…. How do you know? No one has proved anything of the sort to me. In fact whoever caused that event fabricated a profitable pump primer to get the dumbed down haters to think in terms of “them” and “us”. You can call me a conspiracy theorist if it makes you happy, but is it not a conspiracy when your government lies consistently in order to justify what are obvious war crimes? In that sense why anyone should consider that there is even a slight possibility that they are not lying about how the pump was primed is just amazing to me.
Of course these people are criminals but what is not being faced or questioned is the degree depth and pervasive penetration of the corruption. The only reason anyone would not confront this evil, is not the consequences of the partisan divide, but is that in any respect, every respect, they are part of that self same machine. It stretches from Tel Aviv to Riyadh to London to Rome to Tokyo to and Washington, and goes far beyond the US and its "national" interests.
When you realise that you can better understand, how oil prices can fluctuate by 70% in a matter of months and how suddenly global credit can evaporate. You then will understand why MA Matriarch above posted articles about the “indoctrination” of youth through schools and the “insanity” that our education systems lead to. And then it becomes clear how people can be taught to see the deliberate murder of tens and hundreds of thousand of civilians in WWII in Dresden or Hiroshima or Nagasaki as something other than a war crime, and yet see themselves as “civilised”, one of “us”……
My point is, I thank you for, and hope you carry on, thinking for yourself. You and many others here.
And for some time now the top 1/4 of the USA has been subjugating the bottom 3/4 of its society in the same way. Our slave labor is the resource they're after to enrich themselves.
it's time to release all those incarcerated privates, corporals, and buck sergeants over to the v.a. for the psychological help they need for following orders. then it's time to turn all the officers in the field and the civilian policy setters over to the hague for war crimes trials ... yea, like that's gonna happen - it's the victors that decide who the evil doers are ... makes you proud to be an american, don't it now? ...
Can we get past describing waterboarding as "simulated drowning"? There's nothing simulated about it. They literally drown you, but, with luck, stop before they actually kill you. The fact is they drown you and your body reacts accordingly.
Interesting comments so far. I have to tip my hat to Teddy's COMMENTS.
I would like to comment about the reason why these brutal Torture techniques were used by Rumsfeld. Believing that 9/11 was a conspiracy, Rumsfeld and gang needed to use Torture to get the rounded up Arabs to confess to 9/11 crimes, so we could go into Iraq and control one of the greatest reserves of oil. Why else would Rumsfeld want to study and "use tactics used by the Chinese Communists to elicit false confessions"???
Also, CIA has secret prisons...I am not surprised, but what the F@%#!!!
"How wonderful it is that nobody needs wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." -Anne Frank
thanks too Politricks.
it's really questions, very probing ones, by individuals like you and others here that always help me to clarify and form better observations . sometimes it CAN be difficult to piece together so many things and what they mean until clear-minded questions are being asked that we would NEVER really see openly discussed in the "maintstream" media since IT is also an arm of propaganda which LEADS to such things as torture....which also , once the ROT is exposed, PRETENDS as if they were ONCE offended by such things rather than being ENABLERS towards conditions that bring these evil acts ...in the name of "god country, liberty, freedom, justice, truth and the american way of life" -- because
SUPPOSEDLY -- "ONLY THE CHINESE COMMUNISTS, RUSSIAN KGB, TERRORISTS, BARBARIANS DO SUCH THINGS"..........
the leaders and their "legalizers" and other enablers that institutionalised these things in the name of "war on terror" as the way to "protect america from those who hate us and want to destroy our way of life" (which NOW INCLUDES TORTURE ,as IF police brutality, imprisonment of a STRANGELY high ratio of black and colored americans for generations, etc. - way of life indeed, and of course INVADING countries for their resources and cheap labor to SERVICE america's prosperity ....because they are weaker) are so embedded and cloaked and protected in their POWER to do as they wish because of the CuLTURAL mindset that is the basis of america's "way of life" _- its EXCEPTIONALITY -- that it EITHER merely ESCAPES them in its irony or they are FULLY AWARE - as perhaps many americans are in the same situation of duality in thinking , though perhaps more distracted from REALLY confronting it....that it would be difficult if not impossible in this point in time when the USA and its leaders are STILL the premiere power to change that .
it is ironic, i think, that as they perpetuate these acts as a reflection of that "exceptionality".....
the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr...are so forgotten which, imo, SUMS UP his entire sacrifice:
"IT IS WITH GREAT SADNESS AND SHAME THAT I MUST SAY THAT THE GREATEST PURVEYOR OF VIOLENCE IN THE WORLD TODAY IS MY OWN GOVERNMENT".
I really think that because he SAID that openly and acted according to THAT realization -- which embraced everything he fought against:
vietnam war, economic injustice, racism, etc... ALL ACTS OF VIOLENCE perpetrated by the State/Business/Corporate/congressional "complex" as Eisenhower warned about .....
that Martin Luther King Jr was killed.
to say such things , especially from a man so powerful in his message was a NO NO about the USA. because he showed the USA was EXCEPTIONAL in ONE THING:
the PERPETRATION OF VIOLENCE , such that NO country, not the soviet union, NOt communist china, NOT cuba, NOT south americans, NOT terrorists, NOT africans or asians or europeans could compare! ..and the irony is that this has been cloaked in grandiose words of "freedom, justice, liberty"......
soldiers are trained to do ONE thing -- KILL.
soldiers in "secret" such as the KGB, CIA, FBI are trained for such things and OTHER things -- that is why they are SECRET.
that is simple enough.
when you have a country so powerful that it has "military" "soldier culture" installations across the globe - over 800 of them as of this day -- each of them HAS to have "secret" components justified as "national interest".....
ANY intelligent observer will NOT have to think further ...TORTURE is a natural component of it. PERIOD.
when you see that all this is put in place by leaders and enablers of all kinds and backgrounds under the guise of "civilization" - showing themselves as so dignified and so "corporate" and so "law and order" , following protocols of "noble actions" ....such as "military code of honor"...etc...
you remember something that the AMERICAN LEAD PROSECUTOR of the Nurember Trials who interviewed the nazi criminals came way from his harrowing experience of meeting and trying to understand THOSE inhumane criminals with this statement:
"we have always thought that such people are those with wild-eyed looks, -- but i finally faced EVIL directly -- and EVIL is the ABSENCE of conscience...and the greatest evil even comes with such BANAL ordinariness....these people were so ORDINARY and so decent looking".
THAT is what bush , cheney , yoo, addington, etc...are....
they APPEAR as decent, civilized people who are the very essence of EVIL...FAR MORE than the wild-eyed, bedraggled "terrorists" They CLAIM to "defend the USA " from.
The whole lot of them should be taken to the current world court,including everyone in the chain of command starting with George W., followed with Cheesy Chainey,
then Gonzales, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice,
then the rest of the higher ups in the military,
starting with the chairman or the Joint Chiefs,
and everyone down to the lowest ranked soldier that was 'just doing his job',
which should have known better, and had the obligation NOT to follow an illegal order per the UCMJ.
Well as "Gomer Pyle" always said, Surprise-Surprise. Did
anyone ever believe that "a few bad apples" bullshit? I'm
quite sure it went a little higher than Rumsfeld. Only
someone with an IQ of a rock would believe Bush and Cheney
wasn't just as guilty. I have a suggestion, waterboard the
three of them until they confess.
Knowing that the the headline is not written by the AP, there is one glaring omission from the article - the word "torture". Instead, these euphemisms were used:
abuses
serious offenses
harsh interrogation techniques
aggressive techniques
controversial interrogation practices
abusive interrogation techniques
coercive techniques
coercive measures
interrogation methods
abusive tactics
OBAMA THE HYPOCRIT
Yesterday President elect Obama called on Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to resign.
As you all know Blagojevich was charged by the Feds with trying to sell Obama's campaign seat and trying to get columnists critical of him at the Chicago Tribune fired.
Yet when it came to the crimes of President George W. Bush, which are FAR more serious, and which there's an identical mountain of indicting evidence Obama had a different response.
Here's what Obama said in 2007 regarding impeaching Bush:
"There's a way to bring an end to those practices, you know: vote the bums out,...That's how our system is designed....I think you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breaches, and intentional breaches of the president's authority,".
"I believe if we began impeachment proceedings we will be engulfed in more of the politics that has made Washington dysfunction,...We would once again, rather than attending to the people's business, be engaged in a tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, non-stop circus."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-06-28-obama-impeachment_N.htm
So I ask you Barack Obama, why do you believe Governor Blagojevich should resign for crimes, the worst of which he never actually committed, while you support Bush finishing out his Presidency for far more HORRIFYING crimes that have hurt literally BILLIONS of people?
Is this that "change" thing you were talking about?
We are always supposed to "get this thing behind us", "move on" and "get back to the people's business" because to dwell on past "errors" would be to invite "partisan bickering". It doesn't matter how grievous the harm, how outrageous the abuse. What matters is how fast we forget about it.
I am 100% certain that these same exact arguments were used by white South Africans, Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Serbians, Rwandans and countless others vs. criminal proceedings against them and vs. truth and reconciliation proceedings. This kind of ugly, specious temporizing is exactly what Hannah Arendt meant by the "banality of evil".
Sadly it doesn't surprise me in the least to hear it from Obama. We won't get even a word's worth of satisfaction from him or the Dems. We will get truth and reconciliation only if very large numbers of us demand it. Alas I am not holding my breath.
Sioux Rose
JAREILLY: Important comments/observations.
I think he did explain, and I agree with him -- as far as he went. It would be an event which would log jam a partisan legislature for decades. It's moot now anyway, except for the best part -- the civil suits brought by people who can pass muster on "standing". These matters can be pursued more effectively off the political stage, and, unlike campaign ads, under oath.
So the torturing was started when the war started and then in May, 2007 General Patreaus finally gets around to sending out a letter to the troops saying torture methods are wrong?? What took him so long?! Or did he send out this letter with a wink and a nod?
Petreaus had only just caught the change in the wind's direction, May 2007. In the following September*, sure of the smell the breeze brought to his nostrils, he decided to move upwind after handing a carbon-filter gasmask and a large shit-shifting shovel to Gen. Odierno.
*Obama's Democratic sanitation bandwagon could just be made visible, approaching over the horizon.
Donald Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials are directly responsible for abuses of detainees by commission. The House and Senate are also directly responsible for abuses of detainees by omission. If these war criminals are not prosecuted in the U.S. then it is up to the ICC and/or other World Court to do so. Without bringing all these thugs to justice our government will lose it's last bit of legitimacy. Who then will pay taxes?
the likeliest thing to happen , even if the actual names.: Bush, Cheney, etc. were mentioned......is:
NOTHING.
this is nothing more than an excercise in APPEARANCE by the us leaders or these senators. ..an appearance to "uphold the rule of law". and then it fritters away to the background after pundits and politicians and the public has been satisfied that "democracy is alive and well".....as they also allow themselves to get distracted or -- as they would see it, FOCUSED on "More immediate and important matters" -- such as "the economy"......
this is pURE THEATRE to show the world, themselves (levin and mccain and co sponsors and those that will nod their heads "aye, aye" (forgetting they were ALL culpable for 'prosecuting the war on terror' based on lies and paranoid HYPING up of fear, which still goes on anyway) ....and americans that "we are doing something" .
it is a way to DIFFUSE the actual , utterly important value of ACTUALLY PROSECUTING and JAILING these war criminals...and they are doing it right in front of everyone by coming up with a "report" that EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS ABOUT ANYWAY!!!
so --what they are really doing is merely FORMALIZING what the whole world knows =- the USA leadership has been run by a cabal of WAR CRIMINALS and TORTURERS -- to be followed by perhaps MORE of the SAME --
except that it will be aide and abetted and "fuzzed up" with a PRIOR senate "report" giving "blame" -- which NO ONE is going to do about -- "because we must MOVE ON TO MORE IMPORTANT MATTERS and NOT BE DISTRACTED BY LOOKING BACK".
it's the US leadership's way to "atone" without atoning, "taking responsibility" without being anywhere near it, "changing" without actually changing in essence, JUST DIFFERENT ACTORS who promise to do -- IT -- better and more "acceptably" ....
until of course the CIA "warns" of the "possibility of another terrorist attack" and there goes your principles of freedom, justice, truth.....
because "THIS IS DIFFERENT....and we are AT WAR." forever and ever , amen.
typical!
"THE NATION THAT SACRIFICES RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES FOR THE SAKE OF SECURITY, NO MATTER HOW TEMPORARY, DESERVES NEITHER LIBERTY NOR SECURITY". .....benjamin franklin.
THAT is where the USA is ....right this moment.
and that is why this "excercise" in theatre for "blaming' (someone HAS to be blamed, u know) - isn't worth diddy-squat.
Obama is probablky already lookin ahed to how to have "torture light"........
the MAGIC is to NEVER, EVER MENTION it as such! it has to be a different FANCY term skirting the REALITY --
TORTURE -- the USA TORTURES and it is POLICY , covert or openly declared.
the only difference these things make is -- whenever the us leaders EVER step foot outside of the USA...if other governmnents or institutions EVER get to the point of putting their noses UP at any US "demands" or dictates or protests at not following "law" -- and THEN catches these war criminals and puts THEM on TRIAL in international or even foreign government courts.
and -- if anyone is SMART -- SOONER OR LATER -- something like THAT is going to happen.
Finally, 1 for the good guys.
This is an example of good government. Begrudingly, credit where credit is due.
It must be followed by criminal indictments if we can make any claim to be a country of laws.
If we actually believe our nation, it's citizens, and it's elected leaders must follow the constitution and laws passed under it, then those who broke the law must be prosecuted....the high and mighty must also follow the constitution
So does anyone know what happens next? What legal weight does this report carry? Will this cause the Senate or the House to hold open hearings? Will a Special Prosecutor be appointed?
I'm not interested in cynical replies, but if anyone here has any real idea, please repond.
Mr. Rumsfeld better carry a pair of tongs when he trudges out every morning in his bathrobe and slippers to pick up the newspaper and check the mailbox.
One of these days he's going to get a REALLY hot letter suggesting that he go to his room and think about what he's done!
· Yr Obd't Servant
If a foriegn country invaded us, our fearless Lawyer Congressmen and Senators
would be the first ones to give up with their hands up in the air.
Then they could try all the Halliburtons and The Carlyle Group that seems to
have escaped exposure by the press.
Will Obama become another invader like Bush & Company?
Not only was this criminal, but incompetent as well (what's worse than a fascist, an incompetent fascist). This is ironic considering Dubya, Cheney, & Co. campaigned in 2000 as an "MBA" administration that bring into the American government the "efficiencies" of the private sector. Instead, their administration resembled what is all too common; a workplace managed by idiots who main "qualification" is their level of cronyism, not their competence. Hopefully, the new management will be competent, because the prior team has left one hell of a mess.
www.wunderman-comics.com
This is not new- Rumsfeld is a cold killer
Dr Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers
But don't you see that most Americans are equally guilty?
Looking for scapegoats is wrong. After all, Americans elected Bush and the Neocons. Twice! They went along with the belief that America was the greatest country in the history of the world, that Americans should run the world using military force, that Americans should consume more of the world's resources than anyone else, that America was a special nation that God blessed, that America was the law, etc, etc.
Let he who is without guilt cast the first stone!
www.dangerouscreation.com
I agree with everything you say here except 1.) Bush was elected at all, much less twice. HE WASN'T. his entire "administration" (read, "illegal occupation") has been a fraud from beginning to end., and 2.) that "almost all" Americans approved of this bullshit. A hefty chunk of us, myself included, have been trying to stop this madness even since well before Bush was first installed in the White House. I'm not going to be coy or shy about this.
We've suffered for it- jail, harassment, investigation, violence. I am speaking from experience here.
As far as this part: "the belief that America was the greatest country in the history of the world, that Americans should run the world using military force, that Americans should consume more of the world's resources than anyone else, that America was a special nation that God blessed, that America was the law, etc, etc."
You're absolutely right, and I'm just so sickened by the hypocrisy and catastrophic damage that's done by this that it's excruciating. but we keep going, even when we feel the cause to be hopeless. I will also tilt your way to say that to do any less is complicity.
That's all.
http://www.spinninglobe.net/condunces.htm
http://measuringup2008.highereducation.org/nation/snapshots/affordability.php
http://primal-page.com/prescott.htm
http://ttfuture.org/services/bonding/history_n_politics.htm
I never voted for Bush......
I think we are all in this world together......and I think what has been going on is dead wrong. I can say with a free conscience I am not guilty!
Hey, not all of us Americans voted for Bush, either time. But I
agree with your reasoning..If we aren't all responsible, then at
least a majority (according to election results) are. Besides,
hardly anyone is conserned about Iraq and/or torture now. The
big problem now is the economy, or didn't you hear?
DavidG:The Supreme Court selected Bush in 2000. There's a lot of law that holds the folks who designed the policy and then carried it out as responsible for their actions. I
"don't see that most Americans are equally guilty". There was opposition all along from many. You have a broad point, but not in the policy for torture, which was/is illegal.
NYCartist, there's an old saying that people get the Government they deserve! Do you agree with this statement?
And given the actions of Obama thus far, do you think he's really going to be much different to Bush?
My latest article is called: OBAMA: ARE YOU CRAZY? I invite you to read it if you have time.
www.dangerouscreation.com
DavidG.:Hello. No, I don't agree with that statement:people get the government they deserve. Too simplistic.
You ask re will Obama be same as Bush?:I make few predictions (and I'm really good, especially at baseball predictions, which my husband will vouch for). I don't want to make an Obama prediction, but I think it is safe to say that he will be different from "W", if that's the Bush you ask me about.
If, as a disability rights activist, I might put in a comment about language awareness: "crazy" is in use for politics since the Lincoln election campaign (as mentioned in David Herbert Donald's "We Are Lincoln Men:Abraham Lincoln and His Friends", 2003), which is as far back as I know of. It just adds to stereotyping of mentally ill/mentally disabled people. Question: did you write the article, sign it using your real name? Curious, as I am ambivalent on the subject of screen names.
.Picking those nits for all their worth!
One of my pet peeves concerns the lack of turnout for elections. Time and again we see less than 50% of eligible voters actually bothering to perform their civic duty and participate. In local elections the turnout is even lower. If we do not blame those who choose not to participate for the ills of our government then where do we assign blame?
There are nations that have virtually a 100% participation in elections, there are nations wherein voting is done on days when work is suspended in order to allow all to vote. There are countries that fine folks for not voting. It would seem that we are rather isolated in our "desire" to keep voting to a minimum. Could it be that our leaders understand and fear the power of the people?
The first step to obtaining better governance is recognizing ones duty to participate in the process, and , conversely, accepting responsibility for the outcome.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
ardee:there are days when I think that many of the nonvoters are expressing a "none of the above". All pet peeves are legit. (And having nits as a kid was awful.)
I read your article and I'm afraid you are right. I had hope
that Obama would be different but now I'm afraid it will be
more of the same bullshit piled higher and deeper. He got my
vote this time but unless things change in the ME, he will not
get it in 2012.
In order to stop this madness the Federal Reserve needs to be shut down along with the IRS. It is either them or us!
The entire bunch of them should be prosecuted and charged but, they never will be. They will get away with the crimes they have committed the whole lot of them! This administration is shameful, as I have stated before. What has happened with this senseless War and the travesty at Guantanemo
Bay and in other prisons in this Country and around the world is unspeakable in injustice. And injustice and torture will continue. The crimes against the poor will never stop, the crimes against humanity will never stop.
So be it. Let the wave go through. Iplacable compassion defeats the demons, if you can do it.
What makes Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, think they're any better than Milosevic, Karadzic, Pinochet, Tojo or Goering? All of these faced justice. Round up the Bushies--all of them--a fly them off to the Hague. Let the world judge these people for the vermin that they are.
Yup yup yup!
Is there any way to go after religious leaders, particularly so-called "Christians", who endorsed and voraciously advocated for all this? Boy-oh-boy, in Mormon country, where I live, there's plenty of bloodlust among the clergy, especially when it comes to anyone challenging our Jesus-endorsed American supremecist way of life.
I know this is a little late, but remember that holy man Pat Robertson openly calling for the assassination of a foreign leader? (Hugo Chavez)
What if it had been a Mullah making that call. If the Mullah was Palestinian, the Isrealis would rocket or car bomb his house, killing his family and a few neighbors, at least.
If it was in Iraq or Afghanistan, we'd either bomb the shit out of any location we even suspected harbored him, or we'd capture him, or buy him off of a proxy, parade him in front of the world as a captive, and torture him for that oh-so-reliable gibberish we love so much.
But of course, God's on our side, not theirs, so whatever we do is A-OK.
As far as our war criminals go, I agree, I don't think we deserve the word's respect if we do any less than round up the official perpetrators of these crimes and publically try them. I mean full due process, which is pretty generous given that they regard it as "quaint" when applied to others. It would be interesting to see Mr. Yoo's theories get him frog-marched to the gallows.
If they are found guilty of capital crimes, hanging should remain an option.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq is a war crime, perpetrated by the Bush lot -- when will they be charged???
So when does the trial start?
Right after Bushwacker pardons Rummy!
.The trial will start when good citizens like you and I absolutely insist upon the type of government we deserve, and not one moment sooner.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Well, duhh!
What took you bums so long to discover that? Let me guess--it was probably cross checking all the footnotes in Ron Susskind's book, "The Way of the World". So when are you going to finally figure out that both Bush and Cheney were animating all this garbage?
For what reason is this whole crew (*) not being prosecuted for war crimes? If you cannot do it, I am sure the International Court of Justice in the Hague could perform the chore.
(*) Feith, Cambone, Yoo, Addington, Wolfowitz, "Fredo" Gonzalez, Ashcroft, Gen. Jeffrey MIller, and Condoleezza Rice--anal orifrices, the whole bunch.
Poet
Poet:Hi. See my reply to GottaGetOffTheGrid re www.marjoriecohn.com or see her short postings on her blog. Law professor, Pres. of National Lawyers Guild. (Do you know how I can do an email account with only my screen name?)
I can help with that. Gmail is great,(my 12-year-old granddaughter recommended it...so what was I to say!?) and I like it more than my Hotmail account. It's free, lots of benefits (humongous space so you never have to delete an email, and a neat way of storage).
Simply go the the Google page and click on Gmail at the top, and then on the next page, click on "Sign up for Gmail" (bottom right).
When you sign up, they want you name (first and last) but you can choose your own "Desired Login Name", as long as it's available. If 'NYCartist' is not available, you can add a number (NYCartist1) or a letter (NYCartiste)...giving it a French look...??, etc.
You can also change your existing name in Hotmail in: Options (upper right-hand side), Personal (upper left-hand side), and My profile, and put in there for 1st name what you want people to see. You can test that by putting in what you want, shutting down Hotmail and launching it again (otherwise, it won't take), and then send yourself an email to check it.
Hope this helps.