( – promoted by buhdydharma )
So, the former president of the United States has just admitted to torture:
George Bush has defended his decision to allow the use of torture on terror suspects in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
This is unbelievable. Torture is an illegal crime and the former PRESIDENT is defending it and making tons of excuses. He says it saved lives. He says it was completely necessary.
He’s not being as forceful as Dick Cheney and he won’t use the word torture.
He mentions these unnamed confessions it produced. I do not recall reading anything about legitimate confessions produced by torture. Every single confession has been questionable. KSM confessed to the 9/11 attack as well as a lot of others that he either had no involvement with, or the plots didn’t actually exist in the first place.
The plots that did exist, like a dirty bomb plot, went completely unpunished because his confession was achieved through torture. He was never charged for that plot, and though they used the information to detain more suspects, those suspects were never charged with the dirty bomb plot attempt either.
KSM was waterboarded and deprived of sleep among many other forms of torture.
Zubaydah was tortured and gave questionable information as well.
Not only could no one ever use this stuff, but their confessions were all circular. They named each other and they named the same plots over and over again. Nothing new was ever found out and none of them faced charges. Now, even if the people who were tortured ever do get their day in court, the information we’ve received will be so suspect it will go uninvestigated. Think of all the information on various plots we could have uncovered and stopped with valid information.
Says Bush:
‘I vowed to take whatever steps that were necessary to protect you,’
That is patently untrue. They never tortured to stop any plots. They didn’t torture to stop 9/11 despite having some information beforehand. They didn’t torture to find the “smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud” despite the seriousness of the threat. They didn’t torture to find the anthrax suspects and to stop the release of biological weapons throughout the US. They didn’t torture to find out more information on terrorists training in US flight schools.
And on and on.
They tortured to find a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.
That’s it.
Mr Bush acknowledged in his speech that weapons of mass destruction were not found in Iraq, but insisted that was not his only rationale in toppling Saddam Hussein.
Well it fucking took him long enough. And of course now that wasn’t the only rationale. Despite his and Cheney’s constant fear mongering. Despite his mushroom cloud speech and Powell’s UN presentation. And his WMD “joke.”
There were apparently unnamed “other reasons.” Wouldn’t you like to know what they were?
He argues that this was all within the law. He consulted his lawyers. Interestingly enough, at about the time this torture policy started, the US “unsigned” the International Criminal Court treaty.
War crimes much?
They know what they did was illegal. He got people to come up with a legal rationale and now he’s saying he acted within the law. You can’t use pretty words to distort the meaning of the law and then argue you acted within the law.
Words mean something.
Laws mean something.
Bush was not right to torture. It is illegal. It is against US law, international law, the Geneva Conventions and UN rules.
It is illegal.
It is immoral.
Torture never saved laws and never stopped any attacks. Everyone is refuting Cheney’s claim that memos exist that prove they got actionable intelligence from torture. His proof won’t be released because it doesn’t prove what he wants.
Robert Mueller at the FBI has said torture doesn’t work.
Porter Goss at CIA has said torture doesn’t work.
Mukasey has said the same thing.
Even if it works it is illegal.
The argument is not over who did or didn’t lie. The argument is not over if torture saved lives. The argument isn’t over which tactics could or could not be considered torture. The argument isn’t over what the American people do or do not support investigations for. The argument isn’t over if torture works. The argument isn’t over what the administration thought they were doing by torturing. The argument isn’t over whether or not the legal memos created enough ambiguity. The argument isn’t over whether or not we tortured BAD PEOPLE. The argument isn’t over whether these are criminals or non-criminals. The argument isn’t over whether they are citizens or non-citizens. The argument isn’t over whether or not these people had information that could be useful.
Torture is fucking illegal. Whether or not Americans want to investigate is irrelevant. Are we going to ask Americans if we should stop investigating rapes?
It’s illegal. Against the law.
Investigate. Prosecute. Now.
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If the terrorists (a term no doubt used by the British to describe the revolting colonists) were to buy this logic, then wouldn’t they be perfectly justified in torturing any and all detained ‘merkuns, to keep their people safe?
And if their support begins to lag, they could obtain confessions to whatever it was that would most unfuriate and energize their compatriots.
Simultaneously advocating for and condemning the use of torture would further confirm this country’s abject hipocrisy for all the world to see. Well, almost the entire world — our Corporate News Media would surely censor it here.
applies to Bush as well.
The embed looks weird, so here is the link, just in case.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo…
George Bush, noted shoe dodger, is a Republican and therefore we must take special care to understand what he might have thought he was doing. If we, in fact, find out that he just liked the idea of torture or that he was merely signing off on Cheney’s project and that Cheney authorized this because he likes torture, we must instead find an alternative way to think about it that will put a good light on the policy.
If there’s a way to twist this around to make it look good, we must make the effort to do so. This is different from any kind of judicial empathy. This is more like appreciating that Bush, as a Republican, believed it was good and therefore it was/is good.
Going forward, if Obama decides to torture he should be removed from office and prosecuted. But because things change, when the next Republican gets in, torture might be a useful tool.
…turning state’s evidence and agreeing to testify in open court under oath about the entirety of their two terms in power. And of course, that would include 9/11.
Evidence now suggests (strongly) that the Bush administration used torture to force prisoners to “confess” a Saddam link to 9/11 that the administration knew did not in fact exist.
Before he invaded Iraq, bush gave speeches condemning Hussein for torturing people in his prisons. He also went on national TV telling the American people how horrible that Hussein was-that he had “rape rooms”-in order to solidify the support of US citizens and Congress for his planned invasion of Iraq.
After the invasion, bush gave speeches declaring that the Iraqi people no longer had to fear torture. Yet, he then gave his own orders to torture detainees.
What’s the difference between bush and Saddam Hussein WRT torture? Both felt that certain prisoners were a threat. Both gave orders to have people tortured and abused. Both apparently justified doing so in their own minds, or it wouldn’t have been done.