From The Guardian: “Senior [Bush] officials bypassed army chief to introduce interrogation methods.”
America’s most senior general was “hoodwinked” by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners…
The article exposes not only the administration’s torture agenda but also how the incompetence of General Richard Myers, chair of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, allowed Rumsfeld and his ilk to run circles around him, as he appeared “confused” about the implications of the decisions being made.
· Senior Bush administration figures pushed through previously outlawed measures with the aid of inexperienced military officials at Guantánamo.
· Myers believes he was a victim of “intrigue” by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of vice-president Dick Cheney, and at Donald Rumsfeld’s defence department.
· The Guantánamo lawyers charged with devising interrogation techniques were inspired by the exploits of Jack Bauer in the American TV series 24.
· Myers wrongly believed interrogation techniques had been taken from the army’s field manual.
And finally, Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, offers this telling quote: “…Dick Myers was not a very powerful chairman in the first place, one reason Rumsfeld recommended him for the job.”
UPDATE: Make sure to check out the “More on this story” links on the right of the Guardian page, especially “Stress, hooding, noise, nudity, dogs,” which details the torture techniques involved and follows the paper trail directly to top Bush administration officials.
Front page
It's called torture
I wish reporters would stop using administration-coined euphemisms like “aggressive interrogation techniques” that they stole from the Nazis. Quit carrying their water already.
Sabrina Harman in the New Yorker
Everybody should read this article in the New Yorker if they have not already.
It paints a very clear picture of the vision the Conservative
Movement has for our future. (We need to start thinking of Iraq as a test bed for Conservative theories of social control, just like Katrina.)
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Argh, fucking fucks
This is why I want a presidential candidate who can only knows three words in Republican: “Go fuck yourself.”
Unfortunately, that’s not an available choice.
All of them, from Bush on down, need to be tried and thrown in prison until they die. That’s the only way the stain they’ve put on this country can start to be remediated.
me too, cenobite--
that really is the only proper response to them—or you use them, and then ensure their spin and poison pills are pre-empted and impossible from the start.