Sen. Graham’s lies and media incompetence

(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) once again showed America, and his home state of South Carolina, the face of a corrupt politician.

GRAHAM: The reason I don’t want to go back any more than we have already done is because I know what happened. Out of fear, we overreacted. … They took a view of the law that I think was aggressive, and I would not have approached it that way. Right after 9/11, we all thought we were going to be hit again. So as we go back and try to hold people criminally liable. I think we’re doing a lot of damage to the country, because their mistakes were not criminal mistakes. They were mistakes made out of fear.

The rest, as they say, is history…  

By history, I am not talking about the Fall of Rome, I am talking about the statement Sen. Graham made in 2007.

I am urging him that he needs to come forward. … I don’t think you have to have a lot of knowledge about the law to understand this technique violates Geneva Convention common article three, the War Crimes statutes, and many other statutes that are in place. So I do hope that he will embrace that.

Sen. Graham made that statement during Mukasey’s confirmation hearing for Attorney General under George W. Bush in October 2007.  The “many other statutes” happen to include America’s Federal Law against torture.  

I have shown numerous times that Sen. Graham’s statement of, “I know what happened,” is in the literal sense — he knew what was going on under President Bush’s torture regime.

I was in the audience February 12, 2007, during the Washington, DC, screening of the new HBO documentary, “The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib.” After watching the documentary, panelists Senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) discussed prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib.

To the amazement of the audience, Graham said with a twinkle in his eye that “Americans don’t mind torture; they really don’t.” Then he smiled broadly, almost gleefully, and said that the US had used certain interrogation techniques on “Sheikh Mohammed, one of the ‘high-value’ targets” – techniques that “you really don’t want to know about, but they got really good results.”

I firmly believe that Graham’s statement acknowledged that US officials have tortured prisoners, and he, as a senator, knew what was done and agrees with the torture because “it got results.”

Sen. Graham knew about waterboarding being used by the United States, he stated that “these techniques” were in violation of the Geneva Convention, was illegal and a war crime, yet, as a military JAG lawyer, his defense for not holding these people to account was that they were “scared”.

To give you a sense of “history”, let me chronicle the history me pointing this out to The State newspaper, the primary newspaper in South Carolina.

In November 2006, I wrote The State, and in that email I give you the pertinent paragraphs:

Under Republican Congressional Control and President Bush, America began torturing suspected terrorist’s, detaining individuals (U.S. citizen or not) indefinitely without charges or evidence, and even went so far as to assert that the government can revoke U.S. citizenship to anyone they deem to be “terrorist” (a claim that the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld).  This was all done with the assurance that only terrorists would be the targets.  The Supreme Court ruled that these actions were in fact unconstitutional, yet, still to this day, these practices continue.

America can find terrorists without destroying our Constitution.  America can prosecuted terrorist’s without having to have military tribunals to do it.  America prosecute terrorists without torture, a practice that during the Nuremburg Trials we prosecuted others for performing.  American soldiers are needed to fight terrorists, not fight a failed war and invasion of the wrong country that began with lies.  America can grow as a country without hate, bigotry, prejudice, hypocrisy and repression.

In February 2007, I wrote The State and gave them this article from an interrogator who clearly details the torture tactics used by the United States.

Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

American authorities continue to insist that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident in an otherwise well-run detention system. That insistence, however, stands in sharp contrast to my own experiences as an interrogator in Iraq. I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking. Aggressive, and in many ways abusive, techniques were used daily in Iraq, all in the name of acquiring the intelligence necessary to bring an end to the insurgency. The violence raging there today is evidence that those tactics never worked. My memories are evidence that those tactics were terribly wrong.

In January 2009, I once again specifically cited Sen. Graham’s comments at the screening of “The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib” to The State in an email.

South Carolina United States Senator Lindsey Graham stated during an interview with FOX News that; “I do believe we can close Gitmo, but what to do with them? Repatriate some back to other countries makes sense, if you can do it safely. Some of them will be tried for war crimes. And a third group will be held indefinitely because the sensitive nature of the evidence may not subject them to the normal criminal process, but if you let them go, we’ll be letting go someone who wants to go back to the fight. … So we’ve got three lanes we’ve got to deal with: Repatriation, trials, and indefinite detention.”  Senator Graham is still advocating that the United States government act like a rogue dictatorship that imprisons individuals indefinitely, without trial, without even charges being put against them.  There is a reason why some of these detainee’s cannot be tried in a court; they were tortured by our government and Senator Graham knows it.      

Lt. Col (ret) Ann Wright wrote in 2007;  “I was in the audience February 12, 2007, during the Washington, DC, screening of the new HBO documentary, “The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib.” After watching the documentary, panelists Senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) discussed prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib.  

To the amazement of the audience, Graham said with a twinkle in his eye that “Americans don’t mind torture; they really don’t.” Then he smiled broadly, almost gleefully, and said that the US had used certain interrogation techniques on “Sheikh Mohammed, one of the ‘high-value’ targets” – techniques that “you really don’t want to know about, but they got really good results.”  I firmly believe that Graham’s statement acknowledged that US officials have tortured prisoners, and he, as a senator, knew what was done and agrees with the torture because “it got results.”

Senator Graham is not the only person to use the word “torture” as Susan Crawford, the Pentagon official who was in charge of the military commissions, stated; “We tortured Qahtani. His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case [for prosecution].”

You either put the individuals on trial, or, you release them.  If the individuals being detained cannot be brought to trial because they were tortured, a war crime, than President Bush, Senator Graham, and everyone involved who instituted torture, who condoned that torture, must accept that it was their decision to torture that has brought the situation to this point.  America is not a banana republic run by a dictatorship.  We do not simply lock people away in prisons without charges, without trials, without a conviction, indefinitely, or, we didn’t until President Bush.  We do not torture prisoners, or, we didn’t until President Bush.  Senator Graham knew long ago that Sheikh Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding, ie, that he was tortured, and he stated that “American’s don’t mind torture”.  Senator Graham is wrong.  Not only do American’s think torture is wrong, so does every civilized nation in the world.

It is past time that The State newspaper of South Carolina ends its practice of deferential treatment of Senator Graham.  The electorate of South Carolina deserves the truth; that Senator Graham, a military Judge Advocate General, endorses torturing prisoners, thinks that American’s don’t mind torture, and that we have the right to indefinitely detain those we tortured.

As you can see, it has been a three and a half year fight for me to get The State newspaper to actually ask Sen. Graham the “hard question” of “what did you know, when did you know it, and why don’t you wish to prosecute illegal acts?”  Still, to this day, The State newspaper reprints Sen. Graham’s rhetoric in the form of a press release without question, without fact checking it, without comment, and without rebuttal.  There is no defense of “gee, who coulda’ known he knew all that?”  I told them.  Repeatedly.  With sources to back it.

I do get one satisfaction out of my fight against Sen. Graham and The State newspaper, however.  I fought with Brad Warthan, formerly a VP at The State, over his fawning over GOP politicians and the pure idiocy he showed in his editorials.  In March 2009, Brad Warthan was “laid-off” by The State.  Normally, this would not be a notable event, but, I had told The State that the lay-off’s were coming, and, that Brad Warthan would be on that block.  I told them, and him, that as far back as October 2007.

Will I get The State to finally confront Sen. Graham?  I doubt it.  You, however, get to read great rants by me — so, enjoy the experience!