Friday, December 12, 2008

Torture Trail Seen Starting with Bush

By Jason Leopold
December 12, 2008

A bipartisan congressional report traces the U.S. abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib to President George W. Bush’s Feb. 7, 2002, action memorandum that excluded “war on terror” suspects from Geneva Convention protections.

Read on.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's an outrage that Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice and all of them who originated torture as a modus operandi have not been held to account. It was clear from the beginning that it went straight up the chain of command, particularly with General Miller going to Iraq to "gitmoize" Abu Ghraib.

When we first heard that the "detainees" were not to be called "Prisoners of War" we got a clear signal that their treatment was going to be otherwise that what the Geneva Conventions called for. Torture, it was obvious, was in the works.

And to what end? When prisoners will say anything to stop the torture, they will tell all manner of falsehoods, leading out "investigators" to pursue wild goose chases.

Oh, the outrage. Oh, the humiliation. Oh, the stupidity. Oh, the humanity, where is it?

If all of those monsters get off free, the outrage will continue.
Bob Locke
Sacramento CA

Fri Dec 12, 12:22:00 PM 2008
Anonymous said...

So what Mukasey is saying is that there should be a free marketplace of ideas in the White House and DOJ because without the freedom of lying and of providing illegal advice, people would have "an incentive not to give an honest answer." In other words, holding people accountable would have a chilling effect.

But isn't it the whole point? Don't we want to have a chilling effect? What's the value of legal advice that's in defiance of the law, both domestic and international?

If Mukasey's logic holds any water, there's no need for the legislative and judicial branches anymore. All we need is a DOJ that keeps writing memos that claim to protect our interests. The memo writers have complete impunity because we don't want to have any chilling effects on their freedom to provide advice. The executive branch will happily enforce what's said in the memos, with impunity also because the memos make everything legal.

Fri Dec 12, 03:44:00 PM 2008

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