ABC News: Torturers => Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet, Ashcroft

[autorank]

Why isn't this the hottest item in the news right now?

This is planning and participating in the execution of a crime from ABC News Apr 9, 2009. It's the Bush administration doing it. Cheney said Bush signed off. This is the slam dunk legal case. Verification of this should be the sole object to ensure a prosecution for torture.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft. ABC News, Apr 9, 2008

Discussed in "certifiable, insane" Zubayadah, Bush and the Bureaucracy of Terror Apr. 16, 2008

What kind of serious journalist would let this devastating evidence just sit there?

Why aren't people asking each of them - "Is this true?"

Al Capone didn't conduct his own "rub outs," he ordered them.

These people not only ordered their torture "hits," they designed how the torture would be administered.

Challenge them, investigate them, and if warranted, indict and prosecute them.

[autorank]

1. It started with a fraud - the 1st "big catch"

The "Mailman" Delivers

When Abu Zubaydah was captured in April 2002, he presented the first opportunity to show that the administration was actually doing something to protect the nation and rectify the losses of September 11, 2001.

There was just one seemingly insurmountable problem: Zubaydah was not the "mastermind" that the White House needed so desperately. After several weeks of nonviolent interrogation, the initial interrogators said he'd given up what he had. .Zubaydah was a good find but not top tier al Qaeda material -- more like a "mailman," as noted by the FBI's Dan Coleman, a highly regarded agent. Also, according to Coleman, "Zubaydah was "certifiable, insane, a split personality," hardly a credible source of information. (Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of its Enemies Since 9/11.)

None of that mattered.

Abu Zubaydah had to become what the administration needed him to be: an al Qaeda mastermind imprisoned just months after 9/11 and a font of invaluable information vital to national security. His birth reflected an act of political desperation. The administration had nothing up to that point. [link:www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0804/S00239.htm|Apr. 16, 2009)

[babylonsister]

2. Nah, instead, our insane media is giving one of the war criminals

a big fat platform to carry on his lying unencumbered by the truth.

[autorank]

7. One question: Dick, what about that ABC article that had you writing out torture scenarios

Is that true? If it is, you're a full participant in that crime,

Nah, their heads would explode if they asked anything like that.

I mean, seriously, who would want to even shake hands with any of these people, let alone be with them or have them in your home knowing they'd do it to you if they got the interrogator's request.

[EFerrari]

13. And, a follow up, can you tell us about that file you kept on your desk

with the status of the detainees under torture? Who updated you every day and where is that file now?

[autorank]

22. Dick: "It's all in the past. Can't we move forward?"

You just gave me an idea - of course Cheney is out there trashing Obama. Obama already announced that there would be
no prosecutions. From Dick's viewpoint, why not attack Obama. He's got his exemption from torture and murder from
the folks who would prosecute.

Great moments in politics.

We're allowing executives who lied us into a war where Americans died and over one million Iraqi civilians died from the civil strive Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, etc. knew would result. When death ensues from a plan where death was a known outcome and when that plan is based on lies (no need for self defense in this case), then the act of lying and the resulting deaths constitutes MURDER. But that's OK because, what was it again, it's in the past.

------------
Michael Collins: Ultimately, isn’t it the responsibility of the attorney general to determine the crimes that are investigated and what aren’t? For example, if Obama called up Holder and said, “Lay off any prosecutions against the Bush crew,” Holder may take that advice or he may not. But wouldn’t he have to ignore the request?

Vincent Bugliosi: Well, there’s no question that independent of Obama, Holder has the authority to bring criminal charges against Bush, no question about it. There’s also no question that each of the 93 U.S. attorneys around the country have the power and the authority to do so, but let’s jump from there to reality. The reality is if there’s some U.S. attorney in Chicago that wants to do it, it’s possible, but he’s not going to do it without checking with his boss. You don't take on the biggest most important murder case in American history without letting your boss know about it, you know -- that is, not if you want to remain a U.S. attorney; and likewise with Holder. He has the authority and he has the power to completely ignore Obama, but the reality is what do you do? If Obama indicated that he was opposed to it, it would take quite a man to overrule the president. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0904/S00097.htm

[stellanoir]

3. Legalized sadism is really all it fundamentally amounts to.

Those people are completely deranged, unbelievably short sighted, and thoroughly unconscious.

That's precisely why I'm appealling to the cosmic parole board on an hourly basis. It's exhausting sometimes

Patience my friend. They'll cook their own gooses over time.

As for people who refer to nice ladies from the boonies as that particular term with which hardly qualified as brown nosing, I may have resembled that remark in the ancient past, but hey. . .I've seriously cleaned up my act.

honest injun (not a racial slur)

K & R'ed anyhoo

:hi:

back to the garden with this witch

[autorank]

8. Over time

With our help!

:hi:

[glitch]

4. K & R

I think I need to take a break from politics right now, I am getting so utterly disgusted.

[Me.]

5. We Can Not Be Silent On This

I've read and heard that the Obama admin would like for all this to go away because it's interfering with getting things like health care done. But what they should be paying attention to is the fact that it hasn't and won't go away. That very fact is a message in itself.

[Wednesdays]

6. K&R

:kick:

[Echo In Light]

9. This is America, so it doesn't matter.

[autorank]

10. This is America so it's only covered for a day -- amazing control, truly n/t

[Echo In Light]

12. "Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the (U.S.) media."

~ Chomsky

[autorank]

14. So right!

It goes way back. Eisenhower sat there and played Mr. Wonderful all the while allowing the overthrow
of a Central American government for that vital national interest ... United Fruit.

The "velvet glove" typically or the sledge hammer when one of their own gets out of line.

Never mentioned by Big Brother, that would be telling.

[EFerrari]

11. The minute Barack Obama said he did not favor prosecutions,

there was no fun in speculating who would be prosecuted.

And, btw, add Cofer Black and Jose Rodriguez to that list plus the OlC lawyers and the DoD lawyer Haynes, iirc, who drummed up the torture program in the first place.

[saigon68]

32. Giving "slack" to War Criminals

Going down in history as ------ fill in the blank

[EFerrari]

34. I don't understand the mentality, at all. n/t

[DS1]

15. I wonder if the pages in that book were stuck together

:eyes:

[autorank]

24. I tink you're onto something

I've always wondered why they took pictures/videos. Interrogators never want recordings until it's confession time.

So who wanted them and for what? The "Sticky Finger" Gang strikes again.

[leftstreet]

16. K&R

[dysfunctional press]

17. you need to stop...take a breath...and look out the window-

this is today's u.s. of a.- that's not how we treat our 'leaders'(elected or otherwise) after they leave office.

and btw- 'serious journalist' ...? :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: what a quaint notion.

[autorank]

23. Ooops, you're right.

I.F. Stone is long departed, silly me;)

[gratuitous]

18. What devastating evidence?

Sure, the advisers on the Principals Committee - Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet and Ashcroft - sat in on meetings. But which ones were at what meetings? Was it all of them at each meeting, or just a few of them? If not all of them attended every minute of every meeting, they can each say they weren't there when the magic words were spoken. Their sweet, sweet deniability is firmly in place.

And surely, the people that we tortured (or their surviving friends and family) will understand completely, and none of them will ever think of retaliating against the United States. After all, Donald Rumsfeld might not have been in the room at a crucial moment of one of the meetings! See? No reason to get all upset about this.

[autorank]

20. Please read the article again

It says that they routinely met and received interrogation requests from the field. They'd take the request and then,
according to the sources, "choreograph" rough trade scenarios for interrogation, torture, or as they called it,
enhanced interrogation techniques. They'd approve that and send it back to the field interrogator as approved. Then
the torture would be committed by the people to whom they sent the approved sessions.

Think of this as a criminal conspiracy, which is what it is. If you catch a crew of bank robbers and find that one
scoped out the bank and developed the plan and the other two executed the plan robbing the bank, guess what, they're all
guilty of bank robbery.

Your questions are irrelevant to the reporting -- these high level individuals were, individually, guilty of meeting
and doing this in the White House over a period of time. It wasn't a committee deal, but it was conducted by members
of the Principal's Committee. It was the individual planning for the execution of a crime.

This should have the very highest priority on the investigation list, if we ever get one.

The idea of letting these people off the hook for this and for illegally starting a war where U.S. soldiers died (called
murder) is simply appalling.

[EFerrari]

28. We have Rumsfeld via the Pentagon lawyer Haynes. He was directed to

contact OGAs for torture programs and is the one who finally contacted the two psychos who "reverse engineered" SERE. There's a lot more out here than most of us think. :)

[Senator]

19. K&R

[autorank]

21. I knew there was at least one Senator that I really admired! n/t

[Senator]

27. Perhaps a "real" one will yet emerge...

...and at least wander out of the darkness.

--

[maryf]

25. Its the precedence thats set

by not prosecuting that sets us up for generations of more and more egregious actions (and further precedents) against the oppressed people. K&R

[ProgressIn2008]

26. Prosecute or it's complicity. No whitewash, fake "hearings" either. nt

[autorank]

29. Correct! It's a criminal act that was reported.

Get young Mr. Fitzgerald to do a heavy handed prosecution tactic of finding the sources like he did with Judith Miller
and we'll be cooking.

These people are criminals, period. Powell's act is getting real old and this proves a lot about him.

The vast majority of citizens would bolt quickly if some lune like Bush said, "OK, now write up some torture for me
and get it out the door real quick." They'd just think it was strange and disgusting. But not these characters.

[maryf]

30. kick

[wizstars]

31. What do you mean, "if warranted"???

Challenge them, investigate them, and if warranted, indict and prosecute them.

Of course it's warranted. It is a WAR CRIME to torture. Period. End of discussion.

INVESTIGATE--
INDICT--
INCARCERATE!!
:mad: :mad: :mad:

[autorank]

35. I "feel your pain" and I'm a pain in the ass;)

I said that first but took it out since, ya know, it's not a military tribunal they need to face, it's
a court where they are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Would the be found guilty. I'm confident
any jury honestly chosen anywhere would convict them with a serious prosecution but I honored the
qualifier conferred on everyone. Now if I were Dick Tater, it would be an entirely different story.

[jeremyfive]

33. Interrogation? Try Torture

Substitute "Torture" for Dick Cheney's "Interrogation" in his speeches, and the real message comes through.

Our country is suffering economically in large part from loss of respect in the world due to the torture criminality.

Prosecutions for this crime should have started long ago.

[autorank]

36. kick

:kick:

[ihavenobias]

37. Kick n/t