He Was For It Before He Was Against It
The BBC reports on the Obama U-turn on abuse photographs.
The only people who don’t know what those photographs are going to show are the American people. A major portion of what the Hedgemony classified was solely to hide the truth of what they were up to from the American people.
The claim that this will endanger the troops, is unadulterated bovine excrement, as the only “troops” who will be endangered by the release of these photos are those with stars on their shoulders who lied to Congress and the American people about what was going on in their name.
Let people see exactly what “enhanced interrogation techniques” means in human terms. These are crimes, and crimes need to be prosecuted. Low ranking soldiers have been convicted and sent to prison for engaging in conduct that was approved in the Justice Department and White House, so don’t try to say it wasn’t a crime. If it wasn’t crime why were charges filed against these “few bad apples”.
It is time to end the cover-up and come clean. Prosecute the people at the top who approved these crimes and let everyone see what those leaders approved.
6 comments
I have a vid on my web site where Jesse Ventura blasts Obama for not prosecuting those responsible for torture, though he saves most of his ire for Cheney and everybody responsible for Gitmo and torture. I find it interesting that everybody I’ve ever encountered who actually has been waterboarded (like Jesse was when he was training to be a Seal) practically froths at the mouth about prosecuting every person involved in ordering, perpetrating, or encouraging the practice and wants them put into jail. It’s only shithead chickenhawks like the Bigus Dickus who defend that kinda shit. (Sorry about the language, the whole notion of the U.S. running its own torture gulag does that to me).
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I saw it at my Mother’s [she watches TV when she crochets], and he’s absolutely right, that you have no guarantee that no one is going to screw-up during the training. I came out of SERE with third degree phosphorous burns on my left hand because of a munitions misfire.
The thing people miss is that there are two things going on: if you are even a tiny bit claustrophobic, the damp rag over your face will set you off; and drowning is not an upper brain function, it is brain stem.
The “diving reflex”, which is present at birth and the reason infants can swim, alters your heart rate, the blood vessels, all kinds of systems automatically. You don’t get to say “No Sweat, it’s a training exercise” because your “lizard brain” takes control. You will probably have a panic attack.
It’s torture, and by the way, if they do it too often, the restriction of blood flow to your arms and legs can create serious permanent circulatory problems.
It is a crime. It is assault and the program has lead to nearly 100 deaths that have been documented, and no one knows how many undocumented deaths.
The “contractors” who did it, aren’t trained interrogators, they are torturers. Their training was how to torture people, not how to ask questions, or judge the truth of the answers.
The torturers are the ones who should be in Gitmo.
Given the physiological reaction to the procedure and Cheney’s cardiac problems, it would probably be a death sentence to waterboard him.
As you know, I agree of course. You are both quite correct.
Given the physiological reaction to the procedure and Cheney’s cardiac problems, it would probably be a death sentence to waterboard him.
That would be giving him an easy out. I hope Spain successfully prosecutes him. They have a very long history of keeping people alive a long time to feel the pain. Maybe we could resurrect Tomás de Torquemada for this gang of perverts. THAT would be Justice!
Well… Here’s yet another nail in the whole ‘Torture Works!’ coffin of Bushco and the Bushlovers. 😉
Of course, all the wingnuts and torture lovers are already attacking Soufan as expected. They can’t dispute the message, so attack the messenger. A typical fool and liar’s tactic.
FBI Interrogator Ali Soufan, who questioned Zubaydah, testifies that torture didn’t work!
The best they can come up with is an anonymous “senior official” saying that Soufan on had experience with Zubaydah and didn’t know about all the “successes”.
If you don’t have the guts to put your name on it, it doesn’t mean anything. The last guy to claim it worked had to retract the statement after the truth about the Zubaydah interrogation came out, and ABC had to retract its story.
We know that Soufan is telling the truth because we picked up Padilla and KSM before the torture procedure was started based on what Zubaydah told Soufan.
Torture supporters can’t point to a single success. They can’t document a single case where it worked and provided actionable intel.
Cheney has always interfered with professionals and tried to tell them how to do their job. He tried to get General Schwartzkopf to change his plans for the first Gulf War based on having watched the Ken Burns mini-series The Civil War. So this time he watches the TV show, 24 and decides that he knows how to interrogate people.
The only thing Dick Cheney has ever shown any proficiency at is transferring tax dollars to corporations.
Torture is illegal, immoral, and ineffective, and the people who support its use for any purpose are cowardly sadistic bastards. Anyone who fails to understand that if torture could actually be shown to produce real results, it wouldn’t be illegal, it would be labeled for “restricted use”. Governments never willingly surrender anything that is actually effective, but they surrendered torture.
Torture is used to obtain false confessions and to punish people. It is very effective in those limited areas of use. That is why it is prohibited by the US Constitution. We knew this 200 years ago, but people have apparently forgotten about it.
I was reading the Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Yale Law School. Very interesting. 🙂
Seems to me that the Bushmoron/Darth Cheney crowd have hit the trifecta. I think the above document would certainly do as a precedent in any court in the World.
Obama is running out of time, people are running out of patience.
As Sheldon Whitehouse said about ex-Powell Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson’s statements about the previous administration’s use of torture during an interview:
War crimes, anyone?