I cannot help but wonder about the significance of the Colin Powell's silence in all this. His testimony would be powerful, and in a perverse way, so too is his silence. An insight into his character perhaps?

Using the great words of Dick " war crimes " Cheney

" SO "

Can I have my get out of jail free card PARDON please " PRESIDENT OBAMA "

Conservative real christains need to distance them selves from the Bush/Cheney era and do the right thing, support the constitution of America and help stop warrantless surveillance, torture, and death and destruction.

WWJD is my question to them, when will they speak out.Your first amendment right is being protected by the very same troops you pray for, use it.

Bornfreemen

Victim of 24/7 warrant less torture gang stalking surviellance by right wing religious community watch lunatics for 2.6 years and running.

They have no shame, and can not apologize for fear of a massive law suit for torture damages inflicted on me.

I remember Powells speech to the UN. I was calling it a crock within hours of its presentation and the press world wide was dubious of his claims.

That is except inside the united States. The media , press and televison both were all claiming the claims solid and irrefutable.

According to the polls of the time most Americans believed him as well.

If a person out of the loop such as myself, along with all those hundreds of millions outside the USA knew the claims a crock, then so too must the INTEL agencies have known it was a crock.

So I can not conceive as to how they ever figured that by torturing someone over and over and over again, they could suddenly make the claims of links REAL.

One of two things must be true.

They were torturing people just because of a cruel and sadistic nature for no other reason other then they could.

They were absolutely and completely insane and believed that by extracting a Confession via torture they could change "reality".

This does not speak well of the "Intelligence Agencies" yet Obama refers to them as fine men and women.

Neither reason had anything to do with "Protecting America".

From 2001 to 2008 the Reublican leadership of the United States (President, Vice President, certain cabinet secretaries, Congressional leaders and certain NSA & CIA officials) would seem to be guilty of heinous crimes against humanity, the Geneva Conventions, UN regulations and the laws of the United States - war crimes!!!

Delaying investigations is embarrassing and tells those of us who are not Americans this behaviour is acceptable. I cannot for the life of understand why Americans aren't protesting in the streets against what has been done in their name - until I see poll results which show an uncomfortable number of Americans are OK with torture.

Those who have defended this great nation in the past and represented the best of what the U.S. has to offer would be so angry at this - words just fail me....

. . . but evidence is mounting that the real reason (for torture) was to invent evidence linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida.

No doubt true. But both George Wanker Bush and Cheesedick Cheney are ubercowards and sadists. They're like the group of kids at the beginning of "The Wild Bunch", penning up a bunch of ants, then dropping in a scorpion and watching the carnage, finally setting fire to all of them once they got bored with the whole thing. Obama thinks of himself as better and more civilized but he's not.

USites torture to justify everything else--why not war?

good commentary by joe conason,

"But now, al-Libi has reportedly and very conveniently "committed suicide" in a prison cell in Libya, where he was dispatched to the tender mercies of the Bush administration's newfound friends in the Qaddafi regime several years ago. So the deceased man won't be able to discuss what actually happened to him and why."

what a tragic coincidence.

when will whistle blowers in the cia and US military step forward and tell the world how many detainees have been murdered in these secret torture chambers around the world ?

as the fictional character fox mulder noted in the x files - " the truth is out there. "

...peace...

Everybody knows there was no connection. Saddam and his henchmen even expressed surprise at the Al Qaeda attacks. This is a critical piece of evidence that needs to be used against Dickhead Cheney and Dumya in their war crimes trials.

JC and most others are missing the point:

There is no reason whatsoever Cheney/Bush would have tried to torture a Saddam/Osama link out of detained alleged "evil-doers," because, seeing as how they had no problem about lying even when it wasn't necessary, all they had to do was claim a few detainees confessed the S/O link. It's not like anyone on Earth could prove otherwise, right?

No, the twisted truth is this: this small group of power-mad sadists used torture simply to announce to the world that we 'Mercans are crazy-macho-tough so do not f@#k with us.

And that's why most Americans remain passive on the issue - they just can't wrap their minds around the fact that their "leaders" - 2 pussies, one of whom went AWOL and the other with his 5 deferments - tortured other humans simply to falsely inflate their global balls.

What is the ultimate logical and self justification for the actions of the US government? The actions bring about the inevitable result of promoting torture and genocide, subjugation and drone death in every Gas and Oil energy rich corner of the world, for every strategic fortress. And this is ultimately to compete for the right to extract the most resource, for the greatest corporate profit, in the shortest time, against the competing nations in Eurasia. Once these goals and ends take precedence, the means are unquestioned, and humankind is the loser.

Never mind the questions as to how much more Oil and Gas can be burnt before biosphere-suicide from climate change is unstoppable. When it comes to human versus human war, and the expression of hate, the consequences are ignored and buried. And so the Murdoch-like functionaries of the media dutifully bury them. Obama-World may claim that Muslims are not being targetted by religious belief, but when the killing is done, hate is no less created in both the killers and those who could be the next victims. Obama-World is creating hate by actions, and doing nothing by words, and hate leads to increased depravity in all. Outreach does not work for peace while creating hate.

Like Bush-World, Obama-World requires that we become unaware of the escalation of the hate crimes of war. What great profits the corporations of Obama-World, or the competing states of Eurasia shall gain, while the earth explodes, humans scream, and the face of Gaia tells of the path towards premature extinction. The only good thing is that fighting over and butchering BaddyStan and Pipelinestan puts back by many years the time when more oil and gas flows through big pipes. But the energy price will be worth it then, right?

Even if so-called confessions extracted through torture provided the falsehood that Saddam Hussein and Al Qa'ida were associated (most importantly in the 9-11 attacks on the USA, although I'm not sure the false confession included this), then this is still not necessary to indict and convict the Bush administration for criminally curbing the extremely successful (for Iraq) UN weapons inspections in March 2003 and quickly, there-after, within days, launching a war that very clearly, obviously, at that very moment, was a war of aggression.

Again, the U.S. Congressional authorisation for recourse to war on Iraq was not contingent upon proving or disproving that Saddam and Al Qa'ida were associated, but, instead, on proving that Saddam Hussein had WMD and was therefore or thereby a threat to the USA and other western countries aligned with the USA; as well as to any of Iraq's neighbouring countries, but which wasn't a matter for the USA or Europe, or both together, to unilaterally decide over.

The burden of proof was legally and morally on the U.S. to prove, through the weapons inspections, that Saddam had WMD that could be deployed, but the way the U.S. concluded this with the criminal curbing of the successful (for) Iraq inspections and launching the war was that Saddam had to prove that he did not possess WMD, which he couldn't fully do, given we can't prove to not have something we don't have; it has to be the accuser saying we have something that needs to prove that we do. So the Bush admin. became impatient with Saddam not being able to prove, after months of weapons inspections, that he did not possess WMD and therefore criminally forced the end of the inspections, followed by launching the war.

That undeniably was irrefutable proof that this was definitely war of aggression! Yet the sheeple of the USA, the majority, were blind to this then-immediately obvious fact; and many today pretend that we have to complete investigations of the torture of Guatanamo Bay prison detainees for the purpose of deriving false confessions that could be used to supposedly justify war on Iraq, before we can commence prosecutions for wars of aggression and related crimes. NONSENSE! We can prosecute right away, could have in March 2003, for wars of aggression; and the related crimes can be added while this fore-most prosecution is conducted.

Maybe people can't "get my drift", but MILLIONS of human lives are at stake in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, so stop taking your leisurely, sweet time with this! Wake up!

Note that once the Congressional authorisation was provided (criminally so, too!) to the Bush administration, the weapons inspections were then begun and continued into March 2003, up to around a week, or less, prior to the launching of the war on Iraq; and during this period, the Bush admin. and Congress were focused on the (non-existing) WMD and, therefore, these inspections; including, a number of times, interfering with them by criminally causing Saddam to resist. They were looking for this "smoking gun" MOST OF ALL. They based the war launch more on the WMD myth than they did on the (non-existing) relationship between Saddam and Al Qa'ida.

I don't know if Scott Ritter had addressed the claim about Saddam and Al Qa'ida being supposedly associated when he publicly communicated plenty of times in 2002, but he mostly focused on the non-existing WMD that Saddam was falsely claimed to possess. He made it strongly obvious that it would be extremely [un]likely, [im]probable that the UN weapons inspections would turn up any WMD, for he had spent years as a chief weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s and said, with authority, that at least 95% and perhaps even all of them had been found and eliminated, [already]. He argued strongly plenty of times during 2002 and possibly into early 2003 about this, but the U.S. ruling elites and sheeple did not want to LISTEN(!); the U.S. elites because they had no intention of not warring on Iraq to gain control of its oil reserves.

It was already obvious prior to March 2003 that Saddam would not be a leader to participate in attacks on the west, or to have any kind of association at all with such attacks. After all, he wanted a sovereign Iraq, to maintain its natural resources nationalised, to rebuild and revive Iraq after the crushing, destructive and criminal economic sanctions that the U.S. and its European allies forced to be applied against Iraq for over a decade, and knew very well that the west would destroy Iraq if he was ever caught taking part in even only plotting attacks against the west.

And so what if he really had turned out to have had associations with Al Qa'ida; the USA, through the CIA and, apparently anyway, Pakistani ISI or members of it formed Al Qa'ida and worked with it and its leader, Usama Bin Ladin, for years.

Legally and morally, the USA had no valid grounds in fall 2002, less in 2003, and still hasn't gained any ever since. Legally and morally, there is no need to wait until all of this investigation(s) about crimes of torture for false confessions to be completed in order to indict and convict the Bush admin. for war[s] of aggression, and to sentence them to prison for the rest of their lives. With the above argument approach, we already have more than enough proof. We could have done this immediately as of when they launched the war on Iraq, in March 2003; at a time when we didn't know more than "drip" about the torture and it being used to obtain false confessions!

If Cheney had only believed the facts as presented by Scott Ritter and Hans Blix, he could've saved himself a lot of grief.

But then again, that wouldn't have made as much money for his MIC friends now would it?

You just don't seem to understand... what Pelosi knew and when she knew it is paramount to keeping the public focused on what is IMPORTANT... NOT the facts that Cheney & friends robbed and raped our nation, that Neutered Gingrich is making a comeback from having a Special Counsel decide that he had lied to a Congressional Investigation panel, being fined $300,000. and leaving Congress under a black cloud...

What IS important is that President Obama be recognized as a Socialist who wants to create jobs for millions of unemployed, rather than forcing them to enlist in the military... and that all of that has something crucial to do with tea-bags.

What IS important, is that everyone forget about the Bush Administration and the Republican-led Congress giving the banks, Wall Street and AIG $350 Billion with absolutely no strings attached or any means of tracking where it went... while the NEW Congress wants to attach strings, limitations and a means of tracking to the SECOND $350 billion... OUTRAGEOUS!

What IS important is that Pelosi, who is not the brightest bulb in the box... be shown to be at fault for ALL of that stuff, because after the public was told over and over that "we do not torture"... and then "we only tortured a few people"... and then "it turns out there were QUITE a few"... the CIA, (whose best known skill is the art of disinformation) wants the public to know that "members of Congress were TOLD we were torturing prisoners"... of course they have only IMPLIED that Pelosi was ONE of those members they told...

So thanks largely to the last administration, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh... our soldiers will return from being stressed beyond belief by repeated tours of duty, (where many of them were required to do inhumane things, largely to people who were later found to be guilty of nothing other than poverty)... to get back home to find their wives and children have left them, their jobs are gone to China and India, and their homes have been seized by banks who got billions in untracked bailouts...

But don't worry, only a few of them will go berserk and shoot up the Post Office or their local McDonalds... with whatever large calibur semi-automatic weapons the NRA allows them to own... Most will wind up living on grates and under bridges around our major cities like Tampa, St. Pete, Miami and Jacksonville.

(Be sure to save your old tea bags... the Republican Party is planning more fun and exciting events!)

"fakedemocracy May 16th, 2009 2:53 am

"I don't know if Scott Ritter had addressed the claim about Saddam and Al Qa'ida being supposedly associated" -Mike Corbeil

Scott Rittier didn't have to. It wasn't his jurisdiction. But I believe the CIA was studying up on that angle and repeatable said that Saddam/Al Queda had zero connection, which is why Cheney had to march down to Langley repeatably to make them try 'harder'."

THAT'S RIGHT, he didn't have to and for the reason you stated; and yes, the CIA did denounce the claim about Saddam and Al Qa'ida being supposedly associated, having reported that there was no evidence for such relationship and that it was extremely unlikely that there would be, for he didn't "get along", say, with Al Qa'ida, didn't want them present in Iraq, but they or some of them "hung around" the Kurdish north of Iraq, I guess unbeknownst to Saddam, else he probably would've sent his army to expell these outsiders.

fakedemocracy:

""The burden of proof was legally and morally on the U.S. to prove, through the weapons inspections, that Saddam had WMD that could be deployed, but the way the U.S. concluded this with the criminal curbing of the successful (for) Iraq inspections"- Mike Corbeil

I think Scott Ritter has refuted this. According to him the inspections were not "successful (for) Iraq"... rather the inspections had been running quiet thoroughly and successfully since 1991, and they had examined/exhausted inspecting 99% of everywhere they wanted to take a looksee."

SO AGAIN, the inspections in 2002-2003 were indeed successful for Iraq, because they didn't turn up any yet undiscovered WMD! You clearly misunderstood my words, for they did and do [not] say that the 2002-2003 inspections turned up any WMD. All I said is that they were successful for Iraq, that they were turning out favourably for Iraq and therefore unfavourably for the Bush administration, which was proven to be lying or else telling a falsehood.

For those inspections to have been succesful for Iraq in the [context] or under the conditions that these inspections were precisely being conducted, this did not require finding WMD! It required the opposite and this is what was obtained; NO WMD found anywhere! Hence, successful inspections for Iraq; not for the Bush admin.!

But as I also said, the Bush administration treated this lack of evidence as if it was proof of Saddam hiding his WMD from the weapons inspectors, so the Bush admin. just couldn't accept being "patient" any longer and had to simply and criminally conduct regime change; according to what they wanted us to foolishly believe, that is. After all, they didn't become impatient with not finding WMD, for they always were wholly determined to launch this war and conduct regime change anyway.

If the latter wasn't true, then they would have worked, without interfering, obstructing, ..., with the inspections continuing; either that, or they would have finally said, "Okay, enough is enough, we're satisfied with the inspections proving that Saddam does not have WMD and the Congressional authorisation from Oct. 2002 is therefore cancelled; there will be no recourse to war on Iraq".

The inspections demanded by the U.S. were just an act; the Bush admin. never had any intention whatsoever to not apply war (of aggression). It was definitely going to happen in terms of their plans.

fakedemocracy:

"At that point the inspections team had solid intelligence that proved that Saddam had no remaining WMD's that Rumsfeld had sold Iraq during the 1980's, and no new WMD development programs existed anywhere. BushCo simply did not like that answer and therefor proceeded with the tangled web of inquisitorial legal justification which you then describe."

Basically, you're repeating what I said, only it's in different words and with a little more detail for history. The history is valid and important, but we didn't need that in 2003 to be able to immediately or very promptly indict, convict and apply sentences against the Bush administration in March 2003. We didn't have to wait for April 2003; they were indictable, etcetera, as of the very moment they launched the machine on March 19 or 20, 2003. We certainly, undeniably had enough firm proof at that point.

They were f*cking indictable as of the moment they criminally forced the weapons inspections to end! But if they hadn't launched the war machine on March 19 or 20, 2003, then I guess we could live with the fact that they criminally forced an end to the inspections; although that's something that should still be addressed, just like when courts of law are supposed to address, firmly so, obstructiveness, f.e.

"fakedemocracy May 16th, 2009 2:22 am

If Cheney had only believed the facts as presented by Scott Ritter and Hans Blix, he could've saved himself a lot of grief.

But then again, that wouldn't have made as much money for his MIC friends now would it?"

Latter's certainly true, but Cheney didn't care about what Scott Ritter and Hans Blix, or any other nay-sayers, said; except to act in opposition to what they said without mentioning it. Note that he never explicitly or publicly addressed what they said, yet he must've surely been aware of their statements. I believe that none of the Bush admin.'s members ever publicly addressed the words of these two UN weapons inspectors; former perhaps, but still UN weapons inspectors as far as I'm concerned.

As far as Cheney was evidently or clearly concerned, nothing was going to prevent him from making sure, as much as he possibly could, that the U.S. would use the presidency for commanding war (of aggression) on Iraq, to conduct regime change and then impose U.S. control over Iraq's energy reserves, and, it seems, Iraq's whole economy.

I greatly appreciated, but nevertheless did not need the words of Scott Ritter and Hans Blix to [know] that this war on Iraq could not be possibly justifiable; it was rather obviously unjustifiable, for or to me. All I needed was the relatively little information gathered from some news reports, and seeing that the Bush administration criminally curbed the UN weapons inspections certainly "cemented" the awareness that the war could not be even remotely justifiable. And that's in addition to my own intuition and my instinctive nature against [aggression].

I knew awfully little in 1999 about Kosovo and everything related, but nonetheless immediately knew that the war there could not be justified. All I needed to know to be alarmed against this war was that the Clinton administration was threatening to commit this act. I have considerably sharp intuition and instincts in terms of aggression and related conduct; as well as for knowing that we must not trust politicians and politics [blindly], that "politics is full of hypocrisy", and so on.

This was very much my character ever since young childhood and perhaps it's somewhat inherited, one way or another, from family, my parents and relatives, both. Few of my relatives have more than a high school diploma, but most of them have good intuition and instincts when it comes to politics and wars, perhaps aggression in general, too. So I must have ... somehow inherited some of this trait, and then my own life provided more related awareness.

We need to be [receptive] to the principle to never allow ourselves to support violence, whether it be physical or psychological, only based on words of other people. Words are [not] enough for supporting wars; real proof is needed. Note that the Clinton and Bush administrations never provided any actual proof for their so-called justifications. Also note that they all committed blatant criminality towards their targets. F.e., the U.S. demanded for Saddam to allow and work with the UN weapons inspections during late 2002 and early 2003, but undeniably did criminally force these inspections to end when they just weren't providing the "smoking gun" the Bush admin. most wanted to have. With the Clinton administration, we can simply consider that former President Slobodan Milosevic accepted the initial Rambouilet Accord and as soon as he did this, the Clinton administration replied in saying that, "Ooops, sorry, but we forgot to include an essential clause" (paraphrased, of course), and this clause was one that President Milosevic, any self-respecting national or state leader for that matter, would most certainly reject, because the clause very clearly was about U.S. gangsterism, say, against his government, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, and so on.

Those criminal actions happened before the actual launchings of those wars.

Very [obvious] criminals, the whole stinking f*cking lot of them are!