BBC - Ridge: We were wrong to torture

[Jackeens]

America's first homeland security secretary has accepted some criticisms of the US "war on terror" made in a recent report by legal experts.

Tom Ridge told the BBC that the report's attacks on extended detention and torture were justified.

But he also said the US had been dealing with a new kind of threat.

.....


In an interview with the BBC's World Today programme he said that regardless of what terrorism suspects had done, the US still needed "to afford them some sense of due process."

"It has taken a while for us to get to that point but we are certainly there now," he said.

He added that there was now a consensus in the US and beyond that water-boarding - a harsh interrogation technique that simulates drowning - was torture, saying there had been no allegations of its use since 2003.





http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7903516.stm

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. Why didn't he say anything before?

[Xipe Totec]

2. no allegations, but no prosecutions either

Just because we stopped doing it (for the moment) does not mean a thing.

We have demonstrated to the world that we are willing an able to torture.

And we have said, and continue to say, that it's okay to torture whenever there is "some new kind of threat"...

[midnight]

3. Damn skippy you should not of done this. Now this whole

crappy war machine needs to stop. Give us peace and prosperity. Let these poor people heal.