The 13 people who made torture possible »
Posted By FunnyBoyz 6 months, 2 weeks ago in NewsThe Bush administration's Torture 13. They authorized it, they decided how to implement it, and they crafted the legal fig leaf to justify it.
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FunnyBoyz
Never let a FOOL KISS YOU or a KISS FOOL YOU.
Give it some time and think about it..
I want to be clear upfront ...
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tanglang6 months, 2 weeks ago
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NoWayMan6 months, 2 weeks ago
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Progressive6 months, 2 weeks ago
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The GOP's torture tricks backfire:
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/200... -
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Sabretooth6 months, 2 weeks ago
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"Where was Pelosi on that list???"
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Interesting that your only concern about torture is that a democrat should held accountable, even though you would of likely called her a traitor if she had tried to interfere at all.
I would have expected a member of the American military to be much more vocal against torture but i guess not all soldiers are concerned about honour. -
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hyperbolaComment removed: Spam
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hyperbola6 months, 2 weeks ago
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Well tang, Pelosi is pretty much an israel-firster who supported all of the Bush/zioncon wars and repeated crimes against humanity by the zionists, so Obama would certainly be better off without her in the House.
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Pelosi the Israel-First Hawk
...Reports by international human rights groups and from within Israel in recent weeks have revealed the massive scale of war-crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law, committed by Israeli forces during their three-week offensive against the Gaza Strip earlier this year. Despite this, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has steadfastly stood by her insistence that the U.S.-backed Israeli government has no legal or moral responsibility for the tragic consequence of the war....
...Pelosi's siding with the Bush administration in its defense of violations of international humanitarian law by U.S. allies was nothing new. When Bush defended Israel's assaults on Lebanon's civilian infrastructure in 2006 and defied the international community by blocking UN efforts to impose a ceasefire, Pelosi voted in favor of a resolution commending him for "fully supporting Israel." This Pelosi-backed resolution claimed that Israel's actions were legitimate self-defense under the UN Charter and, despite evidence to the contrary, praised "Israel's longstanding commitment to minimizing civilian loss and welcom[ed] Israel's continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties." Directly contradicting empirical studies by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the U.S. Army War College, all of which noted the absence of any credible evidence of even a single civilian fatality resulting from such practices, she went on recording insisting that the nearly 800 civilian deaths were a result of Hezbollah using "human shields." Pelosi also echoed Bush's defense of Israel's 2002 West Bank offensive, which also was directed primarily at civilian targets. Once again contradicting findings by reputable human rights groups, she voted in favor of a resolution sponsored by right-wing Republican leader Tom DeLay claiming the massive assault was "aimed solely at the terrorist infrastructure."...
Double Standards....
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/04/30/pelosi-t... -
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hyperbola6 months, 2 weeks ago
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On the other hand Tang, you seem to be certain that the Bush administration did not lie to Congress about the torture issue. If so this would be an almost unique exception to serial lying to Congress, the American people, the UN and the world by the bushie zioncons.
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Ex-CIA Official: Agency Brass Lied to Congress About Interrogations
claims that Democrats were fully briefed on the Bush administration's torture program have been leveled as recently as last December by Vice President Dick Cheney and in books by former Bush officials such as John Yoo, the former deputy assistant attorney general at the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), who helped draft one of the four memos released last week.
But the veracity of those assertions have been called into question by former CIA official Mary O. McCarthy, who said senior agency officials lied to members of Congress during an intelligence briefing in 2005 when they said the agency did not violate treaties that bar, cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees during interrogations, according to a May 14, 2006, front-page story in The Washington Post.
"A CIA employee of two decades, McCarthy became convinced that 'CIA people had lied' in that briefing, as one of her friends said later, not only because the agency had conducted abusive interrogations but also because its policies authorized treatment that she considered cruel, inhumane or degrading," The Washington Post reported....
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/05/17/ex-cia-o... -
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Desdamona6 months, 2 weeks ago
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I remain ever confused by those who argued that the president has unlimited power and is not bound by law - I thought that was the reason for the revolution and the reason the US was not a monarchy... I thought our country was founded on the fact that its leaders should also be bound by the law (what happened to rule of law). These people worked to slowly erode the foundation of this nation and should feel shame for that - if they don't already feel it for their support of torture...
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mesodude6 months, 2 weeks ago
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Great post I remain baffled by those who didn't seem to remember where the buck stopped when Bush and the GOP were in control (hint: it was not with Barney Frank, Chris Dodd or Nancy Pelosi) who now suddenly want to implicate Democrats in all manner of Bushco criminal behavior.
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NoWayMan6 months, 2 weeks ago
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yes. you're talking about the Unitary Executive Theory pushed by the neocons, a theory which goes against everything the constitution stands for and is wholly UnAmerican since it discounts our system of checks and balances. its a treasonous idea at best and lets hope it dies along with the neocons and their ideals.
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donrp086 months, 2 weeks ago
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all the politician's since the late 1950's have done everything they could to destory this nation and it's rule of law. don't just harp on how Bush and company did all the damage, this downward spiral was started before many of you were even born into this world. your belief's are fed through false media reporting,fictional book's and movies.
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hyperbola6 months, 2 weeks ago
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I agree. And Obama is continuing with many of those same practices.
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Who Rules America? The American people be damned.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/05/15/who-rule...
A president who does a good job for the ruling interest groups is paid off with remunerative corporate directorships, outrageous speaking fees, and a lucrative book contract. If he is young when he assumes office, like Bill Clinton and Obama, it means a long life of luxurious leisure.
Fighting the special interests doesn’t pay and doesn’t succeed. On April 30 the primacy of special over public interests was demonstrated yet again. The Democrats’ bill to prevent 1.7 million mortgage foreclosures and, thus, preserve $300 billion in home equity by permitting homeowners to renegotiate their mortgages, was defeated in the Senate, despite the 60-vote majority of the Democrats. The banksters were able to defeat the bill 51 to 45.
These are the same financial gangsters whose unbridled greed and utter irresponsibility have wiped out half of Americans’ retirement savings, sent the economy into a deep hole, and threatened the US dollar’s reserve currency role. It is difficult to imagine an interest group with a more damaged reputation. Yet, a majority of “the people’s representatives” voted as the discredited banksters instructed....
...The same Congress that can’t find a dime for homeowners or health care appropriates hundreds of billions of dollars for the military/security complex. The week after the Senate foreclosed on American homeowners, the Obama “change” administration asked Congress for an additional $61 billion dollars for the neoconservatives’ war in Iraq and $65 billion more for the neoconservatives’ war in Afghanistan. Congress greeted this request with a rousing “Yes we can!”...
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beavith16 months, 2 weeks ago
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wrongorino Commodore.
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the democrats only objected when they found that objecting gave them traction with the voters.
its the worst kind of hypocrisy. the stinky, self-serving, kind.
i find myself quietly amused to see them reaching the same policy conclusions, over time, as the previous administration. to me, it proves that they really didn't have a plan, and don't have a plan yet. weirdly enough, the status quo is their comfort zone.
with hope and change, i expected more. -
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AnteUp6 months, 2 weeks ago
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Tell me WHERE or to WHOM they were to object?
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I have heard that they were under penalty of law to not reveal
ANY of the info they received in these classified briefings.
They were not even to discuss it with other members of the
committee - let alone other members of Congress or the press.
I heard Jay Rockefeller explain that when he REALLY objected
to the info received he wrote a letter to Vice President Cheney -
for which he NEVER received a reply.
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donrp086 months, 2 weeks ago
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i just want to add that i did not vote for either B.O. or McCain but it could be that if i had voted demoRat or Repug it would have been McCain. however, i did my duty as a u.s. citizen and voted for the better, John Paul, to bad you all went with the SAME OLD POLITICS AS USUAL BULL SH!+. goood luck with your new socialist leader's.
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tadair9196 months, 2 weeks ago
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jesse ventura body slams The View's hasslebeck on torture issue:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSra-McRZEc -
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Will13136 months, 2 weeks ago
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go view tadair's posted link..
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are you elizabeth hasselbeck... her husband should tell here to STFU..... she's good looking.. but there is nothing upstairs...except right wing propaganda.. much the same as you..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSra-McRZEc -
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spkguy6 months, 2 weeks ago
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"The article is very biased and does not look at what the Federal law says. According to the law since it caused no pain it is not torture. If you do not like that then push to change the law."
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Right wing extremists who are determined to overturn American laws against torture have found themselves a new talking point. They insist that, although the Constitution, federal law, and international laws to which the United States is a signatory clearly state that the inhumane treatment of prisoners is forbidden, the use of the form of torture known as waterboarding can continue because there is no case law specifically establishing waterboarding as a form of illegal torture.
An editorial published in the Washington Post, written by Evan Wallach, former military lawyer, judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade, and professor of law at New York Law School and Brooklyn Law school, demolishes this assertion. In the editorial, Judge Wallach cites the conviction in 1983 of a Texas sherrif and three deputy sheriffs who forced confessions out of criminal suspects using waterboarding as a form of torture during interrogations.
Judge Wallach also cites a civil court case in which Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos was successfully sued in an American District Court for torturing a prisoner using waterboarding techniques.
Furthermore, Judge Wallach points out that, after World War II, the United States successfully convicted Japanese soldiers who used waterboarding torture as war criminals, through the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Additional American tribunals also successfully prosecuted Japanese soldiers for the crime of waterboarding American prisoners.
Judge Wallach even goes back as far as the Spanish-American War, when American soldiers were convicted in courts martial for torturing prisoners with waterboarding.
The case law establishing waterboarding as a form of illegal torture is strong in international law, in American military law, in U.S. criminal law, and in U.S. civil law. For right wing activists to argue that such case law does not exist is not merely absurd. It is morally depraved.
http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2007/...
(Source: Washington Post, November 4, 2007)
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alakazam6 months, 2 weeks ago
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You know...I am not generally a violent person.
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This Song really expresses my feelings about what War really is.
Maybe we should bury the hatchet in Earth more often ...before it gets to this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkmlujV-TvU
Pity that some folks are already there.
I submit that we are NOT savages. -
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nowaynobama6 months, 2 weeks ago
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What about all the left wing propaganda ? All you leftist clowns ever bitch about is The RIGHT {correct }WING propaganda ! You have your beliefs and we have ours. It's not as if the 13 you talk about are the first to implement what you call torture in the first place. You softies act as if we'll have more success if we are kinder and more gentle to these mass killers. Why don't you blame Carter and Clinton for their weak ass responses to terror. If you shared the same passion to kick some ass on the right people as you do to go against the defense of your own country we'd all be safer but you soft liberal sissies are not fit mentally to defend our nation !
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madfam0046 months, 2 weeks ago
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Where is Polosi the lier on the list? Why is no one talking about the torture our soldiers had to endured before being killed by the enemy? Waterboaring, it's a joke. Our soldiers were skined alive and died a slow painful death. Why don't we hear about that?
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SandmonsterComment removed: Hard Banned3 Replies
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epiphannyy6 months, 2 weeks ago
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Great article....well documented and argued from start to finish.
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What I find incredible, however, is how the comments regarding it are largely non-responsive to the points made by the author. Everyone seems more interested in diversion tactics meant to deflect responsibility to others (some who very well may deserve to be held accountable) while never denying that these 13 people did what is alleged. We've gone from the cries of "Bush/Cheney did nothing wrong" to "Pelosi knew about the torture and did nothing".....what people seem unable to grasp is that if Pelosi knew about the torture, then those 13 named in this article are, in fact, guilty as charged.
Where I stand is that everyone involved, from those who authorized it to those who knew and did nothing to stop it, deserves prosecution. This isn't a partisan issue...it's an American issue. It's an issue that goes to the core of who we are and what we believe in as a country. And while I find it disheartening to hear this latest deflection take the place of any real acknowledgment of wrongdoing, I do take some comfort in realizing that by choosing to deflect rather than defend, there is at least SOME acknowledgment that wrongs were committed. Otherwise, there would be no need to deflect...right? -
JustTrollKingComment removed: Hard Banned
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AnteUp6 months, 2 weeks ago
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They missed Rumsfeld's special guy - Stephen Cambone.
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Remember him sitting at Taguba's elbow to make sure
not too much info was given to our committee investigating
what happened at Abu Ghraib?
And what's with waterboarding as the worst? We BEAT innocent
civilians TO DEATH at Bagram - and the facilitators were
promoted to Abu Ghraib and then on to Fort Huachuca.
To do what? To TEACH TORTURE techniques! This cannot be
over until we have identified and rooted OUT the REALLY
bad apples. -
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AnteUp6 months, 2 weeks ago
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Take a listen as John Yoo explains about our President's
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ability to "lawfully" order the crushing of a prisoner's
childs testicles to force confession:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt1-eWU2Ii0=1
Seriously!Left - Right or Centrist, is this the type
of person that we should revere? A person capable of
JUSTIFYING such acts is a danger to all humanity. -
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