Bush Tortured In 9/11 Panic

[FourScore]

OND: Bush Tortured In 9/11 Panic
by Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse
Fri Mar 27, 2009 at 08:56:32 PM PDT

Top Story

Ex-Official: Bush Panicked After 9/11
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/27/politics/main4897315.shtml?tag=topHome

A former State Department lawyer tells The Associated Press that the Bush administration panicked after 9/11 and tortured prisoners.

Former President George W. Bush denied anyone was tortured. But Vijay Padmanabhan is at least the second insider to publicly describe as torture the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by the U.S.

Padmanabhan was the department's chief counsel on Guantanamo litigation. He says it was "foolish" for the Bush administration to declare that detainees were beyond the reach of U.S. and international laws and the Geneva Conventions.

War Crimes, Prosecutions & Torture News

Ashcroft: Some forms of waterboarding might be legal. (video at link)
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Ashcroft_Some_forms_of_waterboarding_might_0327.html

Speaking with former Nixon White House counsel John Dean on Thursday night, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann tried to make sense of Ashcroft's justification for signing off on waterboarding.

"There are things that you can call waterboarding that I am thoroughly convinced are not torture," said Ashcroft in a video shot by an attendee at the UT lecture. "There are things that you can call waterboarding that might be torture. And the point that ought to be understood is that throwing a term around recklessly for its emotional content doesn't really get you anywhere."

"Are there multiple forms of waterboarding that I don't know about? One that's legal and one that's illegal?" asked an incredulous Olbermann.

"Maybe this is a defense that John Yoo came up with, the memo hasn't been released yet, that says how much water you pour may make it waterboarding or not waterboarding," said Dean. "But, this is pretty silly, actually."

There are actually at least 3 different types of waterboarding where the victim is either immersed in water or water is forced into the nose and mouth:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/22/687848/-Bushs-Torture-LiteTorture

The subject is strapped to an inclined board, immobilized with his head positioned lower than his feet. In some cases, a piece of cloth or cellophane is placed over the subjects face and water is repeatedly poured over it, triggering a gag reflex and choking the subject. In other cases, the subject's head is submerged under water or his mouth is forced open and water is poured down his throat.

In 2006, Cheney stated that dunking terrorism suspects in water was a "no-brainer" method of interrogation. After a public outcry, Cheney denied that dunking was equivalent to waterboarding, but merely referenced a literal "dunk in the water." Either way, Cheney is screwed because both waterboarding and water dunking is illegal under US and international law.

British torture inquiry reveals 15 new cases of complicity.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/5063053/Torture-inquiry-reveals-15-new-cases.html

MI5 and MI6 have identified at least 15 cases of possible complicity by British officers in the torture or mistreatment of terror suspects following the case of the Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohamed.

...It raises the prospect of a series of criminal investigations into the security and intelligence services and will add to pressure from some quarters for a full inquiry into the allegations. Gordon Brown has already ordered a review of procedures.

The 15 individuals, thought to include British and foreign nationals, were all interrogated under US control by British officers keen to acquire intelligence that could reveal plans for attacks in Britain.

Washington Urged to Seek "Positive Engagement" With ICC.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46299

A bipartisan, blue-ribbon task force is urging the United States to formally announce a policy of "positive engagement" with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and send an observer to its 2010 Review Conference.

In a report released here Friday, the task force, which was sponsored by the American Society of International Law (ASIL), also called for Congress to review a controversial 2002 law and repeal or amend provisions that make cooperation with the ICC in its investigation and prosecution of cases more difficult.

After Binyam Mohamed, MI5 is now accused of role in more torture cases, including fingernail removals.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/28/mi5-binyam-mohamed-torture-case

The attorney general is to be asked to investigate two more cases of alleged MI5 complicity in torture of men detained in Pakistan. Lawyers representing Rangzieb Ahmed and Salahuddin Amin are to ask Lady Scotland to consider possible criminal wrongdoing.

Ahmed, 33, from Rochdale, and Amin, 34, from Luton, were interrogated by MI5 officers while being held unlawfully by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI).

Three fingernails had been extracted from Ahmed's left hand by the time he was deported to the UK in September 2007, after 13 months in Pakistani custody.

NY judge orders release of CIA 'torture' documents.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hFy28VNLnXKx7L-NGyg_LS217EXgD976N5600

A judge has given the CIA a month to begin releasing documents related to the destruction of videotapes of detainee interrogations.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan federal court says the CIA should start turning over the information and a list of witnesses to the American Civil Liberties Union within 30 days or explain why the agency should be exempt.

...An ongoing criminal probe is exploring why the CIA destroyed videotapes in 2005 that document new harsh questioning techniques.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/27/713933/-OND:-Bush-Tortured-In-9-11-Panic

[Bolo Boffin]

1. My goodness

When you look at them all together like that, you start to get the impression of a snowball rolling down a hill.

My goodness.

[yurbud]

2. I call bullshit on the panic theory

It sounds like an excuse to make the Bushies sound more sympathetic.

In reality, the torture seemed pretty consistent with two big goals of the Bush adminstration:

1. Make terrorism seem like a bigger, scarier, more insurmountable problem than it is. It says that some people are so dangerous they must be held outside the US and the normal rules of civilization can't appy.

2. Torture was critical in Iraq to try to intimidate the Iraqis into accepting the occupation and the theft of their oil reserves with Bushbacked Hydrocarbon Law that would have given 88% of their oil income to big oil companies, a deal other Persian Gulf countries would never accept without a gun to their heads. Torture was part of the gun.

[G_j]

9. I agree, bull...

complete crap.

why let these sadistic criminals off the moral hook?

[yurbud]

10. a simple test to tell if it was incompetence or evil intent: did they profit from it?

[BuyingThyme]

11. Yep.

[mix]

20. you got it

nt

[noise]

3. Why should we believe the overreaction theory?

The very fact that Mr. Martinez, a career narcotics analyst who did not speak the terrorists’ native languages and had no interrogation experience, would end up as a crucial player captures the ad-hoc nature of the program. Officials acknowledge that it was cobbled together under enormous pressure in 2002 by an agency nearly devoid of expertise in detention and interrogation.

“I asked, ‘What are we going to do with these guys when we get them?’ ” recalled A. B. Krongard, the No. 3 official at the C.I.A. from March 2001 until 2004. “I said, ‘We’ve never run a prison. We don’t have the languages. We don’t have the interrogators.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/washington/22ksm.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all">Inside a 9/11 Mastermind’s Interrogation

This program replaced experienced FBI interrogators with Arabic language skills and counterterrorism backgrounds. Some of the key cheerleaders for the use of torture were unable to explain why two al Qaeda operatives roamed freely around the US for 20 months.

The effectiveness of the torture program is extremely suspect to say the least:

1) Zuybaydah. FBI agent Dan Coleman has disputed Bush administration claims about the value of his information by way of torture.

2) Al-Libi. Told the interrogators what he thought they wanted to hear to get the torture to stop. Later recanted his admissions.

3) KSM. Claimed responsibility for all sorts of terrorist attacks.

Why did they use torture? Some possibilities:

1) Inflame the insurgency. Justify continued occupation. Keep the perpetual WoT meme alive.

2) Fit "tough on terror" GOP bottom of the barrel fascist propaganda. IOW, appealed to the GOP base.

3) Attain desired intel. For example al-Libi's false confessions about Iraqi weapon programs.

4) Intimidation. Designed to intimidate targets of military action and the local population.

5) Unitary executive power. Slide towards dictatorship. Dismantling the rule of law. One of the tipping points that signals a closing soceity in Naomi Wolf's book The End of America.

[L. Coyote]

19. In law you have statutes and facts. Beliefs are for preachers. The torture is fact

and the indictments are likely forthcoming at this point in time, no matter who believed what when the facts occurred.

[noise]

22. Glen Greenwald has been writing about the

double standard in regard to enforcing the law. AG Holder is still using terms like "policy disagreements."

So I would argue that the motive for the use of torture is quite important. Premeditation and overreaction are in different ballparks. Public officials who refuse to enforce the torture laws shouldn't get away with the absurd "the torture program was done in good faith" justification.

[L. Coyote]

24. And in law, inaction in the face of facts is complicity.

We'll know at the end of the day, as we wonder why day's end hasn't come already.

[bottomtheweaver]

4. Unfortunately, we know that isn't true.

The Bush-CIA torture curriculum known as SERE was reverse engineered from a military training program for the express purpose of producing false intelligence. Jane Mayer looked into the details of the program last year in a series of New Yorker articles and a book, "The Dark Side," which is pretty damning.

[EFerrari]

5. Exactly right. That wasn't an overreaction, that was a rollout

of a program.

[noise]

6. Oddly enough

Mayer appears (based on views expressed in her book and in interviews) to be an advocate of the overreaction theory. Her main objection seems to be that the overreaction period lasted too long.

It's quite a disconnect considering the strong case she makes against the use of torture.

[bottomtheweaver]

7. Yeah that part was odd but here's what I make of it:

I noticed that in her interviews and book she is careful to say that Bush and Cheney were apparently just too eager to protect America, but that conclusion really doesn't follow from her reporting at all. So I'm guessing it's kind of a polite way of putting a media figleaf on the truth.

[yurbud]

13. maybe it's a way to put a figleaf over the target she put on herself...

[bottomtheweaver]

15. Oh absolutely.

That occured to me later. But she's probably a target anyway. I suppose it's also possible she really doesn't see the big picture, but it's hard to believe after all we know now that she wouldn't. There also seem to be an awful lot of otherwise smart and informed people who have the same trouble, so I think it's more likely a matter of basic self preservation, like not mentioning to your boss what you think of his/her religious ideas.

[yurbud]

17. it's a hedge--present the right evidence with the wrong conclusion...

and hope that people think you are stupid and naive for not properly connecting the dots, but that they do connect them correctly themselves.

[yurbud]

18. the less charitable option is the ''limited hang out''

If intel agencies expect damaging or embarrassing info to leak out or has already gotten out, they will do a ''limited hang out'' exposing the same information or slightly more, but with their spin on it to blunt the damage.

Hence we would get torture as an ''over-reaction'' or Iraq War as bad intel.

[gratuitous]

8. Motive is irrelevant

I remember reading Vincent Bugliosi's book "Helter Skelter" about the Manson murders, and at one point in his narrative, he declares that motive is really irrelevant. If one person killed another person with malice aforethought, such that you can prove intentional homicide, it doesn't really matter what the motive was: Anger? Jealousy? Money? He does concede, however, that a case is a lot more persuasive when submitted to a jury with a neat little motive bow tied up on the top, and he spent a great deal of time in the Manson trial explaining and putting on testimony and evidence of the "Helter Skelter" motive. Manson honestly believed that his little murder spree was going to be the trigger for a massive race war.

The Bush administration tortured people, and there seems to be little question about that anymore. Do we have the belly for prosecuting the torturers and the people who gave them their orders? At this point, I fear the answer is no. What was their motive? I believe it was a shifting pattern of impulses, and the five ticked off by noise up-thread are probably all true. At one time or another, fear and power and just plain boredom all competed with one another as rationales and justifications for strapping some luckless schmuck down on a board and soaking his head. Or leaving him in a stress position all night long.

These crimes against humanity must be paid for. The question increasingly is whether we're going to clean up our own mess, or if someone else is going to do it for us. I hope we're not so disingenuous as to be shocked, appalled or dismayed if someone or a group of someones uses some of our own brutality against us.

[spanone]

12. it was pre-meditated...not 'panic'

it's no excuse for criminal behavior....doesn't absolve them one little bit

sounds like they are trying to pollute the jury pool

[Undercurrent]

14. No. Not panic.

This is part of the white washing, and excuse building of a war criminal.

Was Bush was in a state of panic when he was a kid blowing up frogs with firecrackers?

No. He was just a sadistic little shit.

Was Bush in a state of panic when he was laughing at Karla Faye Tucker?

No. He was just a sadistic man.

[MorningGlow]

16. Darn, I thought that subject line meant

that it was Bush who was tortured. I've taken a vow of nonviolence, but it's tempting to wish that... :evilgrin:

[L. Coyote]

21. tortured by thoughts of starting wars, of becoming like the enemy, of ....

We wish!

It appears all Bush thought was how to employ enhanced torture techniques.

[malaise]

23. I hope he panics

when he's arrested.