EVIL

Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.
“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”

The Neo-con plan was simple, (even "W" could understand it): Use the 9/11 act of terrorism to terrify Americans and rally support for the invasion of Iraq. Build a case for the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, mention Sadam and 9/11 in the same sentence, and the power of suggestion will do the rest. Even after co-opting Collin Powell and staging a media extravaganza of propaganda most members of Nato weren't buying what they were selling. The American media however, lined up in droves to jump on this march to war band wagon. Embedded journalist chomping at the bit to be on sight when WMD were discovered. Only one problem with this simple plan . . .there were no WMD's. What now?

Back to square one. The Bush administration must establish a connection between Sadam and Al Qaeda. Get captured terrorists to sign statements stating that Saddam and Al-Qaeda were buddy buddy and that Saddam knew and helped perpetrate 9/11. After repeated conventional interrogation of enemy combatants, not one would cooberated that assumption. So, the vice decider and his henchmen ordered the torture of those combatants. t the legal authority from the attorney General's office and the justice department to beat a confession out of the prisoners. Former POW and current Sen. John McCain knows a lot about that kind of thing. Torture may not give you reliable information that will help you prevent a terrorist attack but, it damn sure will get a prisoner to confess to whatever you want. In order to cover their collective asses, the Bush /Cheney administration sought to redefine the word torture. One of the Attorney General's top assistant lawyers John C. Yoo began writing memos doing just that. Not only calling torture "enhanced interrogation methods" but, unequivocally making it clear that extreme measures were well within the authority of the president. Much like the Nixon philosophy,: . . .if a president does it . . .then it is not illegal. By raising the "torture" bar, this nation could torture a person without actually breaking the law. In 2005 debated the legality and merits of torture with Norte Dame's prof. Hassel. Here's an excerpt:

Hassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty.

Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

I'm sorry, even in the "24" fantasy world of Jack Bower, I can see no justification, legal or otherwise to crush the testicles of a person's son. Maybe I'm just too much of a softee because I have two sons. Now, crushing a person's testicles in order to get them to tell you where the ticking time bomb is located is another matter. It is not right but that could be justified in order to save lives but we're talking about torture in order to illicit a false confession to justify an impetuous man child's ego and his sycophants greed. Not to mention the lies told to get our country into an unprovoked illegal War that killed thousands of Americans and Iraqis.

Now, the shit hits the fan and the country is in an uproar. The EVIL Emperor Dick Cheney is on as many news outlets as he can possibly get on. He's spouting off about how Obama is making our country less safe and how torture saved American lives. Neither of which is true. In fact the direct opposite is true. Information gathered from a tortured terrorist actually led to an ambush where American soldiers were killed. At first I thought that Cheney's statements were just sour grapes but, upon further review it seems to me that these appearances are his pre-emptive strike on the truth coming out as to the extent of the torture. An Australian news source has printed the pictures that Obama refuses to release. They are gory and graphic examples of brutal torture that turns the stomach. The pictures show prisoners with sliced skin pulled back with forceps, cigar burns on their bodies, and blood streaming from the mouths.

Today we learn that Libyan Islamist whose fabricated testimony about al Qaeda was used by the United States to justify its 2003 invasion of Iraq has killed himself in his Libyan jail cell, a Libyan newspaper reported on Monday."
They go on to say that al-Libi, also known as Ali Mohammed Abdelaziz al Fakhiri: ...later made up a story about links between al Qaeda and Iraq to avoid torture while in the custody of a third country, according to a 2006 U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report.
U.S. media have reported that Fakhiri provided the account to interrogators in Egypt, where he was sent by the United States in January 2002.
Egyptian officials were not immediately available for comment.

Fakhiri was later returned to U.S. custody and withdrew his accusations about ties between Iraq and al Qaeda in January 2004, the U.S. committee report said.


He initially told his interrogators that he 'knew nothing' about ties between Baghdad and Osama bin Laden and he 'had difficulty even coming up with a story' about a relationship between the two." The Newsweek report explained that "his answers displeased his interrogators - who then apparently subjected him to the mock burial. As al-Libi recounted, he was stuffed into a box less than 20 inches high. When the box was opened 17 hours later, al-Libi said he was given one final opportunity to 'tell the truth.' He was knocked to the floor and 'punched for 15 minutes.' It was only then that, al-Libi said, he made up the story about Iraqi weapons training."
The committee found that in the run-up to the Iraq war the U.S. intelligence community based assessments about possible Iraqi training of al Qaeda largely on evidence from Fakhiri.

The paper [Libya's Oed] said former friends of Fakhiri cast doubt on his reported suicide, arguing that the former mosque preacher from the coastal Ajdabiya town knew suicide is prohibited by Islam.

Al-Libi recanted the story in January 2004, although George Tenet, the former director of the CIA, wrote later: "The fact is, we don't know which story is true, and since we don't know, we can assume nothing."

Clive Stafford Smith from Reprieve, said: "We are told that al Libi committed suicide in his Libyan prison. If this is true it would be because of his torture and abuse, if false, it may reflect a desire to silence one of the greatest embarrassments of the Bush Administration.
"Reprieve has been exploring tentative contacts with al Libi, and his death may have been a result of the pressure to allow him to speak openly about his torture."

Thanks to the former administration's draconian methods of interrogation. This administration cannot bring the those accused of being terrorists to trial in the U.S. (Torture is a civil rights violation) Even if the suspect is guilty, he or she would have to be let go. So, yesterday Obama reveals that the military tribunals that were ceased when he took office will be hearing cases again. One could look at this as a flip flop but, I choose to call this playing the cards he was dealt. Prisoners should have a trial in order to separate the guilty from the innocent. Yes there are a lot of innocent prisoners that were turned into the American military by disgruntled townsfolk. The old guy down the street whose goats kept eating your shrubs was called a terrorists and turned over to the authorities for the reward offered. Then this old guy who was only guilty of not keeping close enough tabs on his goats, gets tortured. This happened to a cab driver who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, was disappeared tortured and died while in our custody.

I just wish that Obama would flip flop on his stance of investigating the obvious criminal activities of the Bush/Cheney regime. It isn't like he hasn't already changed his mind about other things: the realease detainee photos, the tribunals, and even the over sight of the billions going to wall street. To do the right thing, all he need do is, mention that the Justice Department should look into it. That's it! Let the chips fall where they may. He can even say that in order to move forward we must begin by wiping the slate clean. Aftre WWII the newly formed German government took an active part in bringing to light the evil that was the Holocaust. Otherwise no other world power would take them seriously. I can only surmise that the CIA, NSA, the pentagon or whoever has gotten to him and explained just exactly how the cow ate the cabbage. I'm sure that he has been reminded of past politicians who flew in the face of the War machine, and did not die of old age. With each passing day it is more and more difficult for American fathers and mothers to instill any kind of American pride in their children.

DaG Out