PBS Makes Case For Bush Admin. War Crimes - Torturing Democracy [View All]

[Dover]

There were two amazing shows tonight on PBS. The first was a piece by Frontline which followed a family trying to rebuild their lives in New Orleans after being literally and figuratively torn apart titled, Old Man And The Storm,

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/


The second was a documentary titled, Torturing Democracy, and laid out the case for a war crimes conviction under the Geneva Conventions. It named names and provided the evidence and witnesses. Wow!! Oddly, I could not find it on the main PBS site or schedule, only on my local
station. Hmmmmmm..


Here's the show description (check your local station for a repeat and DONATE to PBS - where else are you going to find programs like this?):

From award-winning documentary producer, Sherry Jones,* comes a timely and essential documentary chronicling how U.S. detention and interrogation policies in the Administration's war on terror descended into "at a minimum, cruel and unusual treatment and, at worst, torture" in the words of the former general counsel of the United States Navy. The film is timely, powerful, and - at its heart - raises troubling questions about this country's rule of law - crucial matters for Americans to understand and consider. Bill Moyers screened a fine cut, and called the documentary "profoundly journalistic and profoundly affecting. This one will go into the record books for historians and teachers and others who look back to ask, 'What did we do?'" TORTURING DEMOCRACY features high-level State Department and Pentagon insiders - military men who opposed the increasingly harsh treatment of men in U.S. custody. One Marine Lt. Colonel, assigned to prosecute a so-called "high value" detainee, refused to do so when he concluded that the prisoner's confession was coerced through torture. Calling that interrogation "morally repugnant," this military officer told producer Jones, "If we compromise our ideals as a nation, then these guys have accomplished much more than driving airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage describes, for the first time on-camera, being waterboarded during his training before he was sent to Vietnam. When asked if he considered waterboarding to be torture, he answers, "Absolutely. No question." He adds, "I cannot believe that my nation is having a discussion on what is torture. There is no question in my mind - there's no question in any reasonable human being, that this is torture. I'm ashamed that we're even having this discussion." When he is shown a document describing coercive interrogation techniques authorized at Guantanamo, the former chief of training in the Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) program, reacted: "We have recreated our enemies' methods in Guantanamo! It will hurt us for decades to come. Our people will all be subjected to these tactics because we have authorized them for the world now. How it got to Guantanamo is a crime." For the first time on television, the former chief Judge Advocate General of the Army reveals the inside story of how the top military lawyers in a Pentagon task force set up by the Secretary of Defense in early 2003 were deceived by Rumsfeld's secret authorization of interrogation tactics they had opposed. "The commander in chief doesn't have the power to make that which is illegal under the law of war, legal," the former top JAG concludes. TORTURING DEMOCRACY details the fierce struggles waged by these military and administration insiders - whose belief in the country's traditions and values led them to the highest acts of patriotism. They were unable, in the end, to overcome formidable resistance from the most powerful figures in the Pentagon and the White House. That makes it even more important that their stories be told. A panel discussion follow-up program, produced by WNET and moderated by Aaron Brown, immediately following the documentary. Aaron Brown is also slated to provide a short introduction at the beginning of the film.




FYI - Frontline will be doing a show titled Dreams Of Obama, next week.