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The Guardian said:After an 18-month investigation, the Senate's armed services committee concluded that Rumsfeld's approval of aggressive interrogation methods in December 2002 was a direct cause of abuses that began in Guantánamo and spread to Afghanistan and Iraq. They culminated in the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2003, where Iraqi detainees were found to have been forced into naked pyramids, sexually humiliated and threatened by dogs.
The Bush administration insisted the abuses had been the result of a few "bad apples" and that those responsible would be held accountable. The committee found neither those statements to be true.
"The abuses at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo [Guantánamo] and elsewhere cannot be chalked up to the actions of a few bad apples," said the Democratic chair of the committee, Carl Levin. "Attempts by senior officials to portray that to be the case while shrugging off any responsibility are both unconscionable and false."
No other congressional report has pointed the finger of blame so squarely at Bush and his senior advisers.
In hearings in June and September, the committee heard testimony that allowed it to piece together the chronology of events leading up to the Abu Ghraib abuses. It focused its attentions on Sere, a training system used to prepare US soldiers for aggressive interrogations so that they might endure if captured overseas.
International Herald Tribune said:A report released Thursday by leaders of the Senate Armed Services committee said that top Bush administration officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, bear major responsibility for the abuses committed by American troops in interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other military detention centers.
The report was issued jointly by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the Democratic chairman of the panel, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the top Republican. The report represents the most thorough review by Congress to date of the origins of the abuse of prisoners in American military custody, and it explicitly rejects the Bush administration's contention that tough interrogation methods have helped keep the country and its troops safe.
The report also rejected previous claims by Rumsfeld and others that Defense Department policies played no role in the the harsh treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 and in other incidents of abuse.
WSWS.org said:The reference is to a February 2002 memorandum signed by Bush, which announced to the world that Washington would not be bound by the Third Geneva Convention in its treatment of prisoners taken in its war in Afghanistan.
Bush's unilateral and extralegal proclamation that those captured in the so-called "war on terrorism" were not covered by the Geneva Conventions was the essential preparation for a regime of torture directed from the top. The administration was signaling that it would not be bound by the terms of an international statute that stated explicitly, "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war."
The timeline provided by the report makes clear that Bush's declaration followed less than two months after Defense Secretary Rumsfeld had initiated a program to "reverse engineer" techniques used by the Pentagon's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, an outfit assigned to train military personnel to hold out against interrogation by regimes acting in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
These methods were derived largely from the experience of US POWs captured during the Korean War, whose treatment Washington at the time denounced as "torture" and "brainwashing." The Senate report comments: "It is particularly troubling that senior officials approved the use of techniques that were originally designed to simulate abusive tactics used by our enemies against our own soldiers and that were modeled, in part, on tactics used by the Communist Chinese to elicit false confessions from US military personnel.
[...]
Meanwhile, the Associated Press last month cited two unnamed senior Obama advisers as affirming that "there's littleif anychance that the incoming president's Justice Department will go after anyone involved in authorizing or carrying out interrogations that provoked worldwide outrage."
Leading Democrats have tried to explain the refusal to pursue these matters as a question of "moving forward" and not becoming enmeshed in "partisan" warfare. The reality is that Democrats in Congress are entirely complicit in the torture policies of the past seven years. Any real war crimes investigation and prosecution would inevitably ensnare Democratic leaders who were briefed on and gave their assent to the criminal methods referred to in the Senate committee's report.
Obama's recent declarationechoing those of Bush and Ricethat "America does not torture" notwithstanding, there is every reason to believe that these methods will continue under the incoming Democratic administration.
Significantly, Texas Democratic Congressman Silvestre Reyes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on Tuesday not only urged Obama to retain Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael Hayden at their posts, but also advised him to allow the CIA's "alternative interrogation program," i.e., torture, to continue.
"We don't want to be known for torturing people," said Reyes. "At the same time we don't want to limit our ability to get information that's vital and critical to our national security." This Democratic approach could be summed up as: Keep torturing, but keep it quiet."
soon the us will use the tactics of israel....holding people with no charges, no attorneys...simply being held unable to notifiy their people or any of that...odd how great democracy work isnt it?
As I said many times, the terrorists won, they have even recruited a ton of US citizens to their tactics.
Oh, and Strolling, your sig is a bit wrong, satanists celebrate christmas to, the pagans celebrate Yule to which the only difference between christmas and Yule is Yule doesn't have to leave babies in the cold.
As I said many times, the terrorists won, they have even recruited a ton of US citizens to their tactics.
Oh, and Strolling, your sig is a bit wrong, satanists celebrate christmas to, the pagans celebrate Yule to which the only difference between christmas and Yule is Yule doesn't have to leave babies in the cold.
the satanist was a hard call...could you imagine the hell i would catch for wishing the satanists a merry christmas....come on kitten you been typing here too long to expect me to do that....i had two options..merry christmas or happy yule....or merry yule...
it is their high holy days they will work themselves in a rage without any imput from pagans lol...you have seen them already...war on christmas etc.
o you will love this..man and i go shopping for christmas cards..he asks why we buy christmas cards when i am a witch..i reply...cause there arent any winter solstice cards at hallmark....(my bad for waiting so long i should order them off the net) so he goes and ask the clerk where they are...she looks at him like he is from another planet and takes us to the end of the row where all the ...no one buys this shit...cards are....still no solstice cards..then as we leave he wishes the clerk a happy winter solstice....she just smiles that ...i am really dumb but kinda hot look...and replies...happy winter solstice to you...at which...i ask her if she even knows when it is....she doesnt....so why poke them with a stick when you dont have to...okay sometimes its fun...i will give you that....but i am trying to be respectful...to all...i will admit the mormon guy is getting to me...lol...
While I do not doubt that the Bush II administration set the tenor of Abu Ghraib, and I certainly feel that the leaders in the chain of command should be called to accou ....
Torture in and of it's self is not a evil act. Just as the validation or condemnation of the act is not a black or white issue.
Umm, OK.Torture is more vile than murder. I would rather kill than torture because at least my soul and mind can rest knowing they are no longer suffering. Only terrorists use torture.
Torture in and of it's self is not a evil act. Just as the validation or condemnation of the act is not a black or white issue.
Torture in and of it's self is not a evil act. Just as the validation or condemnation of the act is not a black or white issue.
Torture in and of it's self is not a evil act. Just as the validation or condemnation of the act is not a black or white issue.
Torture in and of itself is certainly an evil act.
"As you do to the least of my brothers, so you do unto me."
Am I missing something?[/QUOTE]
several million people..
Torture in and of itself is certainly an evil act.
"As you do to the least of my brothers, so you do unto me."
Am I missing something?
Let's just make em a cup o tea whatchasay?
