We know for sure that Dick Cheney and his crew were obsessed with proving some sort of link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. That was their golden key to provoking the nation into war. But there now seems to be some evidence that Cheney pushed for torture in order to prove this – and not, as he has said, to get actionable intelligence on imminent terror threats (not that that would excuse breaking the law either).
And look, I know all these roads seem to lead to Dick Cheney, but Dick Cheney was the vice president. The buck on all of this lays at the feet of George W. Bush.
Monsters.
The torture techniques that the Republican Principals authorized were, literally, ripped from the pages of Communist Chinese torture techniques used on American troops during the Korean War to FORCE FALSE CONFESSIONS.
Initially the CIA lied and said that after being torture-waterboarded ONCE they got all kinds of actionable intelligence.
Well, the “actionable intelligence” they claimed to have gotten appears to have been as reliable as the claim they only torture-waterboarded people once (one of Republican Bush’s torture victims was reportedly torture-waterboarded 183 times.
Torture-waterboarded 183 times isn’t for “actionable intelligence” it’s either for sadistic kicks or to force a false confession out of a person.
Torture-waterboarded 183 times also repudiates the fictional “ticking-time-bomb” emergency scenario.
These are war crimes that the Republicans are defending.
It’s the Republican War Crimes Party.
Republican Torture Party.
Republican Sadism Party.
And Republicans will use torture war crimes in the future if there aren’t prosecutions.
And Republicans assert the right to torture American Citizen’s without Court oversight.
It’s sick.
It’s Anti-American.
And those torture war crimes need to be prosecuted for our country to remain a Republic in the future.
http://google.com/search?q=“China+Inspired+Interrogations+at+Guantánamo.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/02detain.html
“Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From the Air Force Prisoners of War (pdf)”
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20080702_1957.pdf
http://google.com/search?q=“China+Inspired+Interrogations+at+Guantánamo.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/11/AR2008121101969.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22China+Inspired+Interrogations+at+Guant%E1namo.%22
? third attempt. sorry.
“China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo.
The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”
What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/02detain.html
The Republicans were using Communist Chinese torture methods at Guantánamo.
The war crimes committed at Abu Ghraib were only a small part of what the Republican Principals authorized.
And remember, the Abu Ghraib perpetrators were convicted.
The Army investigator for the Abu Ghraib clearly stated that Bush officials committed war crimes.
The Abu Ghraib investigator has backed, at a minimum, a torture commission, saying that “You can’t sweep unlawful activities under the table and just forget about it.”
Just this month the Army investigator of the sadism at Abu Ghraib has repeated his calls for investigation of the Bush Administration for the torture committed at Abu Ghraib, asking, “What about those soldiers punished, court-martialed, and reduced in rank?”
American troops took the hit for Republicans Bush and Cheney’s war crimes.
Republicans Bush and Cheney are NOT above the law.
Bush never lied to anyone about anything important like Bill Clinton did in that civil deposition, so it’s not like he committed a crime or anything.
And look, I know all these roads seem to lead to Dick Cheney, but Dick Cheney was the vice president. The buck on all of this lays at the feet of George W. Bush.
Exactly right. There’s a real possibility that all these Cheney appearances of late mean that Cheney, he of the bum ticker and no (we hope) further political ambitions, has appointed himself the designated spear-taker for the whole insane corp of chickenhawk torture lovers that was the Bush admin. If we let Cheney suck all the blame onto himself we’ll be letting a boatload of criminal assholes off the hook.
The buck on all of this lays at the feet of George W. Bush.
George Bush, Jr. couldn’t find his asshole with a funnel. The buck always stopped at Cheney (and occasionally Rove). Pretending otherwise is jackassery. Junior was technically Prez, so he should go down too, but he wasn’t in any real way in charge. He was playing computer golf.
“all brown people are guilty of wanting to have sex with our daughters”-repubs
has appointed himself the designated spear-taker for the whole insane corp of chickenhawk torture lovers that was the Bush admin.
Highly doubt that. That would almost be a noble act. Almost.
If we don’t push for justice and accountability, if we don’t hold those who broke the law accountable, not only are we setting a precedent for future abuses of Executive power, but we are setting ourselves up for another terrorist attack. Only this time we would deserve it.
It’s amazing how closely tyrants resemble one another–it’s like a disease: first the rash, then the fever, then the convulsions. What’s the progression in this case? Using the threat of a mortal “enemy” for the abrogation of civil rights, re-definitions to circumvent existing law, imprisonment without charges or convictions, torture to get information, then torture to get useful propoganda?
Mutatis mutandis, could be Stalin, Mao, any petty modern dictator. So much for American Exceptionalism. Our blessings are only so lasting as our vigilance.
Agreed. Bush can play the part of dimwitted commander forever, but eventually he should to jail for it. As for Pelosi, who cares? She was a Senator then yes, but Bush vetoed the ban on waterboarding, so whatever she saw on the topic is irrelavent, the Republicans own this and they know it. They should be prosecuted before the are allowed to scramble any further.
A person who can look at documented systematic waterboarding, bashing of peoples heads into walls, piling naked men on top of eachother, leaving naked men in extreme temperatures for weeks, month long sleep deprivation, anal rape with sticks, torturing people while families watch, mock execution, mock burying alive, attacking with dogs, beating, whipping, chaining to the cieling, breaking of limbs, denial of medical attention, among other horrors, and then tell me that I am unAmerican for not supporting such bullshit, is the absolute definition of unAmerican, and needs to move to some shithole like North Korea where they are alright with that sort of thing.
the Republicans own this and they know it
Hell, they’re proud of it. “It’s worked for 500 years, bitchez!” they say.
Monsters. They are monsters.
“[Torture]’s worked for 500 years…”
No one expected the Republican Communist Torture Spanish Inquisition!
But now that America has been warned of just how degenerate the Republican Torture Party is, hopefully they won’t be reelected.
Torture Bad, mmkay?
Especially because the Communist torture techniques that the Republicans employed were specifically designed to force false confessions.