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Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld Knew They Were Innocent
The inmates at Gitmo were routinely referred to as "the worst of the worst." Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney all knowingly pushed this lie. And it was a lie - because they all knew that the chaotic way in which these terror suspects had been captured had left such esoteric questions as innocence or guilt by the wayside.
Torture supporters Liz and Dick Cheney, at a party for torture supporter Brit Hume the pro-torture Fox News Corporation. (Photo: by Brendan Hoffman/Getty.) In a March 24 legal
declaration in the Hamdi case, a first-hand eye-witness to the
Bush-Cheney administration's contempt for due process and embrace of
torture, stated under oath what he saw on the inside. The statement - widely
covered across the world - was largely ignored by the US MSM.
But it's devastating to have a former high Bush-Cheney official state under oath that the last administration knew it had countless innocent prisoners, lied about it, and tortured many. Lawrence Wilkerson, former secretary of state Colin Powell's chief of staff, is the man putting the record straight. Money quote:
In fact, by late August 2002, I found that of the initial 742 detainees that had arrived at Guantánamo, the majority of them had never seen a U.S. soldier in the process of their initial detention and their captivity had not been subjected to any meaningful review. A separate but related problem was that often absolutely no evidence relating to the detainee was turned over, so there was no real method of knowing why the prisoner had been detained in the first place. Secretary Powell was also trying to bring pressure to bear regarding a number of specific detentions because children as young as 12 and 13 and elderly as old as 92 or 93 had been shipped to Guantánamo...
During the morning briefings, Ambassador at-Large for War Crimes, Pierre Prosper, who was a primary person working on negotiating transfers, would discuss the difficulty he encountered in dealing with the Department of Defense, and specifically Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who just refused to let detainees go.
I came to understand that there were several different reasons for the refusal to release detainees in Guantánamo, even those who were likely innocent. These reasons continued to the time of my departure from the Department of State in 2005. At least part of the problem was that it was politically impossible to release them. The concern expressed was that if they were released to another country, even an ally such as the United Kingdom, the leadership of the Defense Department would be left without any plausible explanation to the American people, whether the released detainee was subsequently found to be innocent by the receiving country, or whether the detainee was truly a terrorist and, upon release were it to then occur, would return to the war against the U.S.
Another concern was that the detention efforts at Guantánamo would be revealed as the incredibly confused operation that they were. Such results were not acceptable to the Administration and would have been severely detrimental to the leadership at DOD.
Another part of the political dilemma originated in the Office of Vice President Richard B. Cheney, whose position could be summed up as “the end justifies the means”, and who had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent, or that there was a lack of any useable evidence for the great majority of them. If hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it. That seemed to be the philosophy that ruled in the Vice President’s Office.
I discussed the issue of the Guantánamo detainees with Secretary Powell. From these discussions, I learned that it was his view that it was not just Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld, but also President Bush who was involved in all of the Guantánamo decision making. My own view is that it was easy for Vice President Cheney to run circles around President Bush bureaucratically because Cheney had the network within the government to do so. Moreover, by exploiting what Secretary Powell called the President’s “cowboy instincts,” Vice President Cheney could more often than not gain the President’s acquiescence.
Lie after lie after lie. And the illegal imprisonment and torture of individuals often completely unrelated to terrorism at all. And no accountability. This was America for almost eight years. And Obama has perpetuated the avoidance of responsibility with staggering diligence.
40 Comments so far
Show Allcheney and his stinking daughter and the lot of them are all Pscyhopaths. I'd love nothing more than to drop cheney et al into the middle of an angry mob in the middle east and let them pay their karmic debt.
Fine. And what about the last line of the article?
"And Obama has perpetuated the avoidance of responsibility with staggering diligence."
I say citizens arrest. Anyone who can, should find cheney, bush rumy and rove and anyone else of the same cloth and go forth with the arrest.If enough people go up to them and try this, time after time, it will get real annoying. Like when Code Pink did it at Rove's book signing.
This will definitely send a message. It seems like tactics like these are applied, but not kept up. Like major marches from the left. On the msn, some anchors say that they wonder where the midddle is, that there are extremes on the right and on the left.
I say that the middle is a watered down bunch of mush, in most cases. For instance, like in health care, war, use of nuclear power, climate change climate change and climate change, there is no middle ground. Clear extremely solution based action is needed, not some wimpy ass half baked half hearted measures that will get us nowhere, like the Copenhagen situation.
Jim Hightower said it best. "ain't nothing in the middle of the road except yellow lines and dead armadillos."
war criminals.
try them.
lock them away.
Vincent Bugliosi has offered to prosecute at least Bu$h, for murder. You may remember him as the DA who prosecuted the Manson Family.
now
need to change the article's title... "they" implies the perps were innocent...
and liz cheyney... there's a 2012 "primary you'd want to see"... s palin v. l cheyney... or... or... bush/cheyney redoux a la femme... elect a dope as president... have the necon vp run the show...
squidd,I was thinking the same thing,and that would be a cool primary scenario.
I'm pretty sure those 12 year old masterminds were a "grave threat",and the ninety year old men must have been "scary".
peace
Fear brings the need for S&M even in the most powerful.
Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld Knew They Themselves Were War Criminals.
Now the American public gets to wear this stigmata like a dead albatross forever.
Guess what, Barack Obama is "Covering Up", better still "Obstructing Justice"......He knew that there had been no evidence on most of the prisoners in Guantanamo and he has been forced by his advisors "The Council on Foreign Relations Members" and "The Power Elite" that put him in office to "NOT LOOK AT THE PAST" because the past is full of crimes committed by the very people sworn to abide and protect The Constitution of The United States........
So what: kidnapping, illegal detention, torture, brainwashing, murder and the man responsible says, "I do not want to look at the past." I guess he doesn't care since he is sending drones to kill human beings that he calls: militants, terrorists, insurgents, Al Qaeda, Taliban, and civilians without any proof only the words of people being bribed to turn in "THE ENEMY".
The USA patriotic song,
"Columbia the gem of the ocean"
has been revised based on recent actions.
It now goes,
"Columbia the scum of the ocean."
Thanks a bunch, Dubya, Dick, Rummy, Rove, etal.
I hope the American public is not so deluded they think that the same thing won't happen on US soil to US citizens. Obama is already taking aim at US citizens for assassination. Maybe someday being a CD reader will make us fair game.
See Waco rules of engagement.
Yeah, and under every Bush there is always dirt!
Perhaps we could rent a crop duster and spray the entire Bu$h family with Roundup.
I was going to say that this is what you get when you elect children to run your country. Then I realized how massively unfair that would be to the innocent children of the world. However, there is something of an arrested development syndrome that characterizes these grown up kids playing "Cowboys and Indians" in the real life situation of the world stage.
"Psychopaths" sounds melodramatic but it is most likely completely accurate. Psychopaths are consummate manipulators able to get people to vote for them based on an elaborate con-game that they operate to satisfy their own greed and that of their corporate masters. Murder and mayhem are incidental to their operations and the innocence or guilt of the Gitmo victims hardly even registers with them as they use these hapless people to further their own evil ends.
The enormity of the evil that the Bush administration, including Rumsfeld and Cheney, perpetrated during their years in power should never be held against the American people, not even those who were deluded into voting for them. One has to forgive the voters "for they know not what they do," but the Bush Administration gang must be brought to trial for their crimes against humanity and it behoves the American people to ensure that these criminals are brought to trial. While we don't blame the American people for what Bush et al did, they are the only ones who currently have the power to bring these criminals to justice.
The world watches.
Well, I mean, one has to forgive the voters a bit more clearly because, even when we do vote to end this madness, it still goes on - I remember pretty specifically that Obama was supposed to shut this place down, and yet it remains. We vote, but it means nothing. Only voters whose choices have an impact can really be held responsible, as voters. As people who do not rise up against our government... well, perhaps we are all guilty there.
Mea culpas are not as important as doing something about it. I understand that the USA as presently constituted has become immune to reform. You cannot use the electoral system to overthrow the corporate oligarchy for they have kidnapped what was supposed to be the institutions of democracy. You have to boycott the institutions of the ruling elite in whatever way you can. You country has been stolen from you and you are the ones who have to decide on what you have to do to get it back from the robbers who are slowly sucking the blood from your country, not to mention what that same ruling elite is using you to do to the rest of us on the planet.
I don't have pat answers but I know that not even that wonderful surge of popular support that put Obama in power was enough to wrest control of the country from the oligarchs. Change will require efforts of multiple orders of magnitude greater than what we witnessed in the Obama campaign.
Americans have to take a stand that requires massive sacrifice in just refusing point blank to co-operate any further with this ruthless regime that rules America through Democrats or Republicans, changing them as convenience dictates. It is a very sobering reality that you ignore at your own peril but also at a great cost to the rest of the world.
Nicely stated.
The only significant vote for change in America in recent history was the vote for President Obama. If Americans cannot see change and the basis for more change occuring in this world as a result of that vote, they simply don't want to see it. Instead, because we don't see our particular position in the world being affected in the instant moment, then no change is occuring. This position speaks for itself.
"'Psychopaths' sounds melodramatic but it is most likely completely accurate."
Read Joel Bakan's "The Corporation" or see the documentary of the same name. You will learn that these politicians and the corporations running them are quite literally psychopathic according to the DSM-IV criteria for psychopathy.
In short, it is absolutely and completely accurate!
The criminality continues with Obama. He's a fraud and a conspirator. Time for all of them to be prosecuted, but, being above the law does have it's advantages. F the US government. Bunch of terrorist liars.
Prisoners of any type at Guantanamo were always necessary, as part of the stage dressing to show that 911 was caused by outsiders and that there was a need for a "war on terror". This is the big lie. The big cover up. Obama can't and won't blow the cover on this now because it would totally upset everything else he's trying to do. However, this is the underlying basis of it all. Of course Bush et al knew. It was all a deliberate scam.
ALL is CONNECTED.
from the 28 miners who were killed in the mines because a corporation did not give two dams if you live or die. to the Webb 0f corruption that JP Morgan laid in a small town to finance a sewage system that was supposed to cost 250 million & became 5 billion $ wormhole that dwarfed the stench of the real sewage, to the slaughter that took place in new Baghdad (ironic name) where a dozen & half of Iraqis were slade cold bloodily including journalists and civilians children gun down while they are watching their father who took the risk to stop his van to rescue the wounded on the streets was finally him self shot and killed in front of his children , the kids sprayed with bullets.
Like the father & it could have been a mother we must stop & pick up the wounded the damaged and the doomed the homeless the unemployed and ask for accountability. Reconnect with what makes us human, remove the moral compass from the hands of JP Morgan & BLackwaters & have the courage, the audacity, the vision to say enough is enough
IT IS THE INEVITABILITY MILLIONS WILL STAND UP NO LONGER BECAUSE THEY WANT TO BUT BECAUSE THE HAVE TO.
all is connected.
In Soulidarity
'Lie after lie after lie. And the illegal imprisonment and torture of individuals often completely unrelated to terrorism at all. And no accountability. This was America for almost eight years. And Obama has perpetuated the avoidance of responsibility with staggering diligence.'
It is a mistake to think that it is solely Bush or Obama and their officers at fault here. This abusive structure of thought is grassroots stuff in the USA. The entire history of the USA is shot through with it, and shot is the apt word. Until this is acknowledged the USA has no chance but demise. In order to do this the tradition of conceit locked into the US citizen's understanding of his country has to be eradicated. Despite wonderful exceptions, the USA is one of the worst countries in the history of man. Genghis Kahn, who also assumed the God posture in terms of who was against him and accordingly attached economy to conquest, is the US's close companion because of the scale if arrogance he achieved.
Israel (another God delusion culture) comes close because of its stunning intensity of selfishness and evil intent.
Scale is accordingly not all. Although some countries and cultures are worse than others, it was likewise in the Republic South Africa, in Germany in England now and for centuries, in Spain and Italy and can be found in all peoples of the earth.
Even in terms of proportional size, there is nothing exceptional about the USA.
But now it must be fixed! US citizens must do it. If not history and death will and future US citizens will have to live with the shame. It is distinctly possible this is now inevitably the case, but if so this does not diminish the responsibility the US citizen's responsibility now.
Excellent comment.
It is as though the American Revolution against rule by a foreign aristocracy led by King George has finally been defeated by a new aristocracy of corporate power that rules over a nation of peasants deluded into thinking their vote actually gives them democratic control of their daily lives.
Perhaps your vote does not count for anything, the point is, it can. The voter (citizen) must shoulder his share of responsibility for the current state of affairs. Instead of advocacy, we should promote involvement, but that is infinitely harder and so we all look into the abyss.
"The entire history of the USA is shot through with it, and shot is the apt word."
Perhaps the internet is opening our eyes because now we can circumvent M$M.
The United States of Lies. Of course they all knew they were lying. Anthing else is treason. And Obama continues in the tradition because he . . . is one of them. There isn't a shred of truth that has issued from this political class since 9/11, not that there were many shreds before that. We are drowning in lies and we're going to go down with the ship, the ship of state, that is. Unorganized, hardly anyone knowing the difference between left and right, hardly any historical comprehension at all, barely a smidgen of literacy, we're like 300 million orphans in a halfway house waiting for the adults to deliver us to our fate. Lying leaders we just keep electing, because the lying crime families that make up our corporate class are able to keep duping us. Collectively, we're too ignorant and complacent and entertained to be worth surviving.
Dear Ephraim where ever you are don't despair help is
on the way. like droplets of water we are disconnected, water has powerful properties of attraction & its getting closer, closer and closer.
PS" In many culture water is synonymous of consciousness.
In SOulidarity.
obomber is worse because he lied to the depths of his being to get power... and much of the world sucked it up- because the world cries out for peace and saving the environment ! Well it wont happen with obummer and his fellow war criminal corporate lackeys.... but, the power of the people with Love and compassion, WILL prevail.....adelante...
tioche, Mexico
Of course they knew - there is a reason for those kangaroo/Military commissions trials..or lack of any trial. Them knowing is no suprise. Hell, they knew all about Iraq and it's lack of threat long before 'shock and awe'. The part the truly suprises me is how broken our system is. Fundamentally broken. A redistribution of funds from future generations of tax payers straight to wall-street...an election process that is guaranteed to be bought and paid for by "we elect them Inc." ...a coming decade of ZERO domestic spending growth juxtaposed to a pentagon bill that is what, 49% of our national income? (i went with the low number)...to the crime of the new century - two countries invaded, million+ killed (i know its still a young century, but our first decade will be remembered for a long time)
Im sure the former Manson prosecutor is a nice guy and noble, possibly, but his offer to prosecute is about as much justice as any of these people is going to see. When an 80 old prosecutor offers his services and that is as close as we get to justice - thats a sad day. Our own media didn't cover the revelations...broken system. What to do? I don't really have any suggestions.
Just thinking - i wonder what dems are gonna run on in the future. "Hope and Change" seems to be dead for a decade or two, but I bet Republican's run on a platform similar to it.
These comment on "just thinking' reflect very clearly the brutal restriction on thinking that is allowed in this nation. We KNOW that there are only two political parties. We KNOW that we must choose the lesser of those two evils. If we do not choose one of these two we are WASTING our vote and SPOILING the system.
That is not clear thinking. It should be painfully clear after our period of "Hope and Change" that the Democrats are just the same as the Republicans for the working people of this nation.
Under our new Democratic leadership we are much worse off that under that rotten bush. Now, our fearless leader is not locking suspected terrorists up in prison camps, No, he has his private 'hit list' and these 'suspects' are shot dead. The awful illegal and immoral wars not only continue but have been expanded into Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. All the illegal activities of the past administration are ignored so that we only look forward. There is no criminal investigation of who was behind the event of 9/11. People all over our nation are laid off and are losing their homes. What a terrible situation---and the solution put forward by this administration is to help the poor bankers. The bankers get big bonuses and more American families go homeless.
Please try to expand your thinking to the point of considering voting for other political parties or independent candidates. The Democrats and the Republicans are funded by the corporations. They work for their paymasters and don't give diddly squat for you. Isn't that clear yet? Still got hope? If so, you sure don't have intelligence.
Right on! The true wasted vote is one that goes to either of the two corporate parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. They both exist simply to give the appearance of choice--what we refer to as smoke and mirrors. One has to wonder, however if even alternate parties to these two will be able to make a difference to the jamming of democracy that current state institutions practice irrespective of who is in power. Perhaps we should look beyond the parties to the actual system as the cause of the problem.
By all means build new parties that will refuse involvement with the corporate oligarchy but you need to go further. You need perhaps to build alternate foci of power like your neighbourhood food co-operative that reaches out to the small family farm rather than the corporate agribusiness for your food source. Then build links of solidarity with indigenous farmers in South and Central America whose livelihood is threatened by corporations from your country and mine (Canada).
Build your power base in your own neighbourhood but remember that people like you all around the world are threatened by the multinationals and a global elite of the rich in every country who subvert democracy in their own countries. Build solidarity with these people as best you can. Build solidarity through respect for all of the human family and treasure the earth that is the source of our sustenance rather than on the futile national patriotism that enables corporate control of your lives even as the oligarchs don't give a damn about the well-being of the people in their own countries.
As the corporations betray you by taking your jobs off-shore, don't blame the unfortunate workers in poorer countries who are exploited in harsh conditions by your former employers, join them in solidarity to struggle against corporate rapaciousness and the military predation practiced by your government and all the other OECD countries.
The problem we face is massive and the struggle will be long-lasting. However, it is a struggle that has the potential to achieve far more for humanity than the revolution of 1776.
This story I saw this morning. It kind of stuck with me like a bad dream. The picture more than the story. Cheney, the epitome of evil, with his wanna-be- equally-ruthless progeny, "Liz." Despite the lack of one article after "Brit Hume," the caption under the picture accurately describes the Cheneys. Some would say the caption is editorializing but it is not: it is both accurate and relevant to the story. The fact that this kind of story does not trigger off widespread outrage and even riots is yet another sign of the moral rot in the United States.