The Torture Sessions

[kentuck]

But there will be no justice??
===============================

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/opinion/20sun1.html?ref=opinion

<snip>
These officials did not have the time or the foresight to plan for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq or the tenacity to complete the hunt for Osama bin Laden. But they managed to squeeze in dozens of meetings in the White House Situation Room to organize and give legal cover to prisoner abuse, including brutal methods that civilized nations consider to be torture.

Mr. Bush told ABC News this month that he knew of these meetings and approved of the result.

Those who have followed the story of the administration’s policies on prisoners may not be shocked. We have read the memos from the Justice Department redefining torture, claiming that Mr. Bush did not have to follow the law, and offering a blueprint for avoiding criminal liability for abusing prisoners.

<snip>
Mr. Bush has sidestepped or quashed every attempt to uncover the breadth and depth of his sordid actions. Congress is likely to endorse a cover-up of the extent of the illegal wiretapping he authorized after 9/11, and we are still waiting, with diminishing hopes, for a long-promised report on what the Bush team really knew before the Iraq invasion about those absent weapons of mass destruction — as opposed to what it proclaimed.

<snip>
Some will call this a backward-looking distraction, but only by fully understanding what Mr. Bush has done over eight years to distort the rule of law and violate civil liberties and human rights can Americans ever hope to repair the damage and ensure it does not happen again.

[SpiralHawk]

1. "...the breadth and depth of his (Bush and republicon cabal's) sordid actions..."

So ugly, George Bush. So ugly, amoral, anti-American, and evil.

You and your cabal are disgraced in the eyes of all humanity. Resign now.

The k and the r.

What Would Christ do?

[KoKo]

2. It's interesting is that neither CNN nor MSNBC has given any coverage to the

YOO Memo's or these latest revelations. It's as if by not reporting it...it will signify that "no one cares." Yet it's out there all over the Liberal Blogs and they love to use us "liberals" when it suits them.

AND...why are our DEMOCRATS in Congress not using THEIR POWER of C-Span and the rest to push this? Is it because they also want it all to go away? :shrug:

[SpiralHawk]

3. The people have a right to know.

What the government is doing in their name.

Especially when it is wrong. And against the will of the people.

[magellan]

4. If the CM started reporting everything they should have covered long ago

...then we'd need a new station: the "Everything we should have told you but didn't" news channel.

Same with the Dems. They and the CM have no acceptable excuse for remaining silent on so many things.

[lonestarnot]

5. They would have an audience that would never leave the TV unless

they went out into the street to join the revolution. Yeah I know, just dreaming.

[magellan]

6. Well, everything I've warned my family was going to happen

...since 2004 (by virtue of educating myself here) HAS happened. Depression and revolution are the next two to sign off on. I really really hope they can point to those one day as paranoid ramblings.

Then again, increasingly I've come to the conclusion that the only way to get our country back is revolution. If my personal favorite dream of BushCo and a large portion of Congress being frog-marched to the Hague doesn't come true, revolution becomes more likely. We cannot continue down the road we're on without that fire eventually being lit.

[Disturbed]

8. Congess does not want the Bushoini Regime to be

prosecuted for their many crimes. Why?

[magellan]

9. There's no acceptable excuse

...for that or their silence. That's why I'd like to see the lot of them answering questions before a tribunal.

[kentuck]

11. Why indeed?

Because they were up to their eyeballs in the crimes themselves. Period.

[leveymg]

7. Why did they spend so much time on this? Look at who they tortured, how they tortured them, and

what those who were tortured knew. See,

leveymg's Journal - THE CIA OFFICER WHO OVERSAW TORTURE: Cofer Blackleveymg's Journal. THE CIA OFFICER WHO OVERSAW TORTURE: Cofer Black ..... CIA Used Banned Cold War “Brainwashing” Techniques on Detainees ...
http://www.journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/337 - 58k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

leveymg's Journal - CIA Used Banned Cold War “Brainwashing ...The use of torture based on banned Cold War "brainwashing" techniques effectively ..... leveymg's Journal - CIA Detainee Torture, Memory Loss, and the . ...
http://www.journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/336 - 49k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
More results from journals.democraticunderground.com »

Daily Kos: Torture Tapes Weren't The Only Thing Erased by The ...leveymg's diary :: ::. While initial media accounts reported Miers advised against destroying several hundred hours of torture videotape records, ...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/12/125250/15/926/421147 - 47k -

[Contrary1]

10. Torture those with the most knowledge, until they are raving lunatics...

who are no longer credible. Think about that for a second.

Makes sense why that would have been the order, doesn't it? Seriously.

[leveymg]

23. Then, execute them before they can talk publicly. eom.

[KoKo]

12. ...

[babylonsister]

13. How 'nice' of the NYT to finally bring this up. Now bury it. nt

[truth2power]

14. Read Chap. 1 of "The Shock Doctrine"..

"The Torture Lab: Ewen Cameron, the CIA and the Maniacal Quest to Erase and Remake the Human Mind".

MKUltra in the 50s, the KUBARK method, electric shock, it's all laid out there.

It's hideous beyond belief; worse than we imagine. And we have a bunch of real perverts implementing the program this time around. You can't do better than to find people who enjoy their work. :evilfrown:

[leftofthedial]

15. is nancy pelosi an accomplice to war crimes and crimes against humanity

by tacitly approving this kind of criminal behavior and taking accountability for it off the table?

I think she is.

[Junkdrawer]

16. Nancy knew what would have come out during an Impeachment...

She didn't want that...

[KoKo]

17. From all I've seen of her she reminds me of Hillary....a Mom who covers up the worst about her

child that's "errant" and always hopes that her efforts will pull the kid through if she covers up all the dirt...or sweeps it under the rug. But, the "other children" suffer with that kind of Mom...because they know that "one kid" got all the love and advantage and every mis-deed was covered up or had an excuse made up about it.

That's Nancy and Hillary about what's gone on in America under Bush and "Stolen Election 2000." It's what our Dems do....and we need to hold them accountable...because they won't do it for the Repugs..and at every turn..they diss their Dem Faithful "activist base." :-(

[Junkdrawer]

18. Kind like a Pol that says "I'm a friend of the Working Man"...

and then votes for every union-busting law and votes down every minimum wage hike.

You watch what they do, not what they say....

[KoKo]

20. That's where I am these days: "Watch what they DO and not What they Say."

A good caution..

[warren pease]

19. Exactly. She was briefed by the CIA on waterboarding in 2002, basically signed off on it and...

...in the process became an accomplice to BushCo's war crimes.

Remember this December 2007 Washington Post story about Pelosi getting a "virtual tour" back in 2002 of some of the CIA's offshore black sites, at which time CIA briefers revealed the use of waterboarding as a standard interrogation method?

At that point, the Bushies owned her ass for as long as they wanted it. Virtually speaking, of course.

By not immediately going public and condemning the CIA's routine use of torture, and specifically waterboarding, she tacitly agreed to ignore gross violations of the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. This made her an accessory after the fact to BushCo's war crimes.

By her silence, Pelosi's also remains complicit in BushCo's daily violations of worldwide bans on torture, another violation of the Eighth Amendment and a breach of Article VI of the Constitution that requires the US to comply with international treaties it's a party to. Chalk up another series of war crimes for Madam Squeaker.

All the above puts her right in the administration's deepest pocket and completely eliminates her as a political threat.

Of course she doesn't want a Congressional investigation into torture. Of course she doesn't want impeachment.

Hearings on those subjects, and many more, would inevitably lead to the old "what did she know and when did she know it" line of questioning. And so she'll continue to kill any and all efforts to nail the Bushies for anything that might lead to her own criminal complicity.

And she's still the House leader because...? She should have been gone at least 15 months ago. The fact that she can't deliver any votes for legislation that might help promote a democratic agenda -- assuming there is one except running and hiding -- is bad enough.

The fact that she won't pursue the thieves and mass murderers who stole two elections and are indictable on so many counts that they won't fit on a single page -- that's well beyond incompetence. That's enabling, conniving, aiding and abetting. And that ought to at least earn her a federal prison cell, if not a place in the dock before an international war crimes tribunal.

I just hope the courageous, honest and forthright Ms. Golub kicks Pelosi's Vichy ass from the Cow Palace to the Golden Gate. And I hope it hurts a lot.


wp

[Junkdrawer]

21. Yep. after 9/11, the Bushies made as many Dems as they could accomplices...

Say what you want, *someone* there is very cagey.

[spanone]

22. Y E S....KICK & NOMINATE