Bush Approved The Torture!!!

[struggle4progress]

May 9, 2004
<snip>
Within days of 9/11, members of the Bush administration including Bush proposed the use of torture. They claimed because 9/11 was an act of terrorism the Geneva Convention did not apply because terrorist suspects were not prisoners of war; instead, in an unprecedented form of Texas-style verbal gerrymandering suspects were to be classified as enemy combatants. Even in the shocked post 9/11 environment this raised a few eyebrows among the liberals and those that value our constitutional rights. In fact they even went further in supporting the assassinations of suspects that could not be captured.

This is the real story behind the torture reports the media has left out. For those that still fail to remember how this administration approved torture I suggest a trip to the local library and reading the immediate post 9/11 newspapers. You will find that all the top officials Bush, Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Powell and others approved the use of torture on terrorist suspects.

This incident was by no means isolated. A quick Google search of the web will reveal reports of torture and mistreatment of prisoners as early as January 2002. In a February 2002 article appearing in the Guardian, Wayne Madsen a former U.S. navy intelligence officer told the Guardian the US was using two methods of torture. The first he referred to as "lite" torture or psychological torture. (Note this is the torture method linked to mind control and child abuse and will appear in an article of a later date.) The second method is "full-blown" torture.

In this second method it turns the prisoners over to a third country that has no limits on torture for interrogation. The interrogation proceeds oftentimes with an American overseeing the torture. Some prisoners have been summarily executed after the interrogation. The procedure of turning the prisoner over to a third country for interrogation is known as 'rendition.'
<more>
http://www.cmaq.net/fr/node.php?id=16718

[cliss]

1. A country which delves in torture is

not a democracy. The fact that the US is involved in torture means that our rights at home are at risk. It doesn't matter if the cause is "good", or whether we needed to break the rules to go after Al-Qaida. The end result is still the same. An erosion of rights in other countries (obviously) but also at home.

This is the most dangerous part about this whole torture story. We as Americans need to put a stop to it because an administration which sanctions this sees essentially no difference between domestic threats and international threats.

[indepat]

3. One is either with them or against them, domestic or foreign

[Martin Eden]

6. Oh, it's a democracy all right

The most basic definition of democracy is majority rule, and shortly after 9/11 if you asked every U.S. voter whether they approved torturing terror suspects they no doubt would have answered in the affirmative.

What our country is becoming is one that does not observe the rule of law -- especially international law, but our own Constitution is being subverted at home by an astonishingly secretive and unaccountable ruling cabal.

[tom_paine]

7. Must disagree. Busheviks and Putinviks prefer "managed democracy"

Which is the New Name for Totalitarian Tyranny this time around.

Look for yourself:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57418-2004Mar14?language=printer

You KNOW the Busheviks are made at Comrade Putin for stealing their idea and then getting to move forward with it faster than the Imperial Family even dares!

[tom_paine]

12. It wasn;t the torture that removed us from the ranks of Free Worl Nations

It was the Bloodless Coup of 2000 and the Reichstag Fire...errr....9/11 that did it.

[lumpy]

2. Bush's 'torture scene scandal' pales in comparison

to the overall picture of the destruction of Iraq and the killing and maiming of it's citizens. I would like to ask Bush if he can take responsibility and feel any remorse for the unnecessary deaths/maiming of innocent Iraqis. Revenge doesn't even meet the critera for committing military crimes against a country.

[pfitz59]

4. Wait 'til they uncover Condi's sperm-stained dress!

Boy, the shit'll really hit the fan then!

[sofa king]

5. Oh, come now. Her husb... uh, President doesn't stain.

Because Republicans swallow every last drop.

[Francine Frensky]

8. Read (anyone have video?) Bush's 2003 state of union:

can't remember if it was posted here or elsewhere, but I read that Bush actually alludes to torture, or some kind of "persuasive means of forcing cooperation with intelligence" (delivered with a wink). That would make a great commercial, with ominous dark music, with viewable prison pics and "Bush Knew" as final slide.

[crice]

9. I don't see it

I remember reading something like this too--Tom Teepen maybe--but on looking at both the 2003 and 2004 sotu transcripts at cnn, I don't see anything that looks like it could include torture.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/28/sotu.transcript/
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/sotu.transcript.1/index.html

It is a bit sickening to go back and read what now appears to be heavily ironic phrases about Saddam's torturers, or these kinds of phrases: "America is a strong nation and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers." (from 2003)

ccr

[struggle4progress]

10. Possible allusion to assassination or extrajudicial execution:

"All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies."

[crice]

11. OK

I'll buy that. When I heard this originally, I assumed it
referred to people who were killed because they would not
surrender or submit to being arrested. I suppose my 'merikun'
naivite inhibited my ability to see in this phrasing the
extrajudicial torture and killing that it undoubtedly
includes. Of course, one can't parse Bush too closely,
otherwise the illogic screams too loudly. Arrest and death
aren't mutually exclusive, as any Texas governor should know.