They tortured in order to justify Iraq.....This is a WAR CRIME

[Postman]

According to several former top officials involved, the military training program called SERE had been created to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans.

(my comment - Now, those methods were being implemented by the Bush Administration to illicit false confessions about an Al-Qaeda - Iraq link to parade before the American public as vindication and proof that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were an imminent threat. A falsehood that they knew all along.)


A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq.

"While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/21/report-harsh-interrogatio_n_189817.html


Torture is used not to get information, it is used to get false confessions in order to propagandize your own public with that false information...We seen that demonstrated with the experience of John McCain. He was tortured and that false information was paraded before the Vietnamese people by the Vietnamese....

[PA Democrat]

1. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does.

This is pure evil and has Cheney's fingerprints all over it.

[lostnotforgotten]

2. They Tortured Looking For WMDs To Cover Their Butts For A Flimsy Justification To Invade

eom

[Jeep789]

3. Would have been much simpler to plant some

They have to be the most inept administration ever!

The question I want Cheney to answer is: "What went wrong when you tried to plant the evidence in Iraq?"

Follow up (on his inevitable non-deni-ability): Surely you couldn't have been stupid enough not to. Which is it? Did you fail or were you really that stupid?"

[DCKit]

8. I believe they had plans for such an operation, and they certainly telegraphed their intentions....

but I believe the "evidence" they intended to plant was uncovered elsewhere, before they had a chance to export it to Iraq - and I don't believe it was just a single instance.

Regardless, I'm unduly satisfied with the fact that it could have been so much worse - BushCo* could have been intelligent AND competent and we'd all be totally screwn.

[dorkulon]

4. Don't worry! Obama is secretly planning to prosecute these crimes by pretending to oppose it!

:silly: :crazy: :think:

[rcrush]

9. The first rule is DO NOT TALK ABOUT OBAMAS SECRET PLAN!

[bvar22]

13. Let Rahm do that.

!

[corpseratemedia]

5. Maybe *and Darth really just wanted to torture, they seem like that's what they wanted

to do all along.

They could plant information, and they tried to bribe their way to a nuclear bomb/yellowcake connection, but I think they really got their rocks off
on the prospect of torturing.

My father was a POW, and these two were frat boys too chicken and unmanly to put themselves in that position. This is how they prove that they're tough without putting themselves in any harm, and without having to challenge themselves if they had gone through deprivation/torture.

I'm so glad their true ugliness is coming out. It's stomach-churning but if these psychopaths thought this was going away, au contraire, it's going to be their scarlet A forever in history.

[Bandit]

6. Notice they said SERE was created to give a sample of TORTURE used in Korea

They did not say it was for "harsh interagation". That aptly called it Torture. They knew it was Torture and yet they used it anyway and decided to try and fool dumb Americans by calling it by other names..

[Th1onein]

7. I've said this time and time again.

They tortured to get false confessions; to get specific information to justify the war on Iraq. It's Occam's Razor. Short and sweet.

[derby378]

10. I don't think I have ever asked this before on DU...

...but if these specific charges hold up, are they prosecutable under any charges that could warrant a capital punishment sentence?

[dalaigh lllama]

12. Yes. That was in the declassified report

Wish I'd done more bookmarking, but it's before page 72 (so helpful, I know). There's a group getting filled in on these spiffy new techniques, and they get the caveat that these just might be classified as war crimes resulting in capital punishment. They're all so relieved to learn the pResident said it was OK.

[Echo In Light]

11. The REAL reasons torture was used is what the US public will never accept

...as it's something they've been conditioned to perceive as "conspiratorial," therefore it certainly cannot be factual.

[libodem]

14. I don't know if I should cry or be ill

I think we have all known this was the case since the revelations were revealed. This has to be addressed for the mental health of all Americans. We need to disavow these practices and punish the perpetrators otherwise we all feel a little bit complicit. I don't want this on my head. No one should be above the law! And what about the 7 bad apples from abu Graib? Does this change placing the blame on these underlings for torture programs sanctioned from the top. God, I wish Dick's heart valves would disintegrate and he'd suffocate. :puke: -> for inducing false confessions to justify Iraq! (shudder)

[Fire1]

15. After all these years in Iraq, I thought everyone knew Bush

was lying about WMD. So, was the contrived link that Iraq was selling weapons to AQ??

[Bluerthanblue]

16. they tortured Al-Libbi until he made up stuff- saying that Saddam

was using al que-da in Iraq, training to use biological and chemical weapons-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5511808&mesg_id=5511808

[tomp]

17. iraq is the fucking war crime!

the single-minded focus on torture is very misleading.