Quote Of The Day

"Monsters"
-Atrios referring to our War-Criminal Administration,

Torture Yoo

ABCNews is reporting how intimately involved The White House was with regard to the torture of detainees

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.
The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.
...
At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
...
Then-National Security Advisor Rice, sources said, was decisive. Despite growing policy concerns -- shared by Powell -- that the program was harming the image of the United States abroad, sources say she did not back down, telling the CIA: "This is your baby. Go do it."

In disbarment news, The National Lawyers Guild has asked Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley's law school to dismiss John Yoo.

"John Yoo's complicity in establishing the policy that led to the torture of prisoners constitutes a war crime under the US War Crimes Act," said National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn.

via Think Progress

If John Yoo should be tried as a war criminal, and he should, then so should Bush, Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Powel and Ashcroft.

To call what happened on September 11 a "game changer" is simply reactionary thinking. The thought processes of small minds with no knowledge of history. The United State is torturing people. For 200 years torture has been verboten. George Washington said this during the infancy of our country,

"Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause... for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country."

-- George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775

John Adams in a 1777 letter to his wife, "I know of no policy, God is my witness, but this — Piety, Humanity and Honesty are the best Policy. Blasphemy, Cruelty and Villainy have prevailed and may again. But they won't prevail against America, in this Contest, because I find the more of them are employed, the less they succeed."

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln "forbade any form of torture or cruelty" his 1863 letter was used as a model for the 1929 Geneva Convention.

Unfortunately, we have a simpleton in The White House that sees torture as a legitimate war strategy. For all the bluster of Bush, what he is doing is in our name. Bush's short-sighted, simple view of this war is not making us safer, not making us any friends. In the end, Bush's policies will harm us even more than they already have.

The Yoo Torture Memo

Ever wonder what a sociopath wrapped in legaleaze sounds like? John Yoo's torture memo is a good example. John Yoo is a man that does not believe in our system of democracy, treaties, checks and balances - our system of government. Here's a man that feels "in time of war" the President of the United States has unlimited powers to what ever he wants (one wonders if he has ever, ever read the Constitution). That philosophy goes against 200 years of Constitutional Democracy, but Yoo doesn't care, he inteprets Presidential power to fit with his deranged mind.
Sadly, there won't be any kind of news cycle on this story because it doesn't contain any juicy snipings from the Democrats during the primary.
via Washington Post

Constitution lawyer (the moral kind), Glenn Greenwald, as always, provides a clear, breakdown of what this all means

Torture(d) Logic

John McCain, he of the tortured past, has decided torture ain't such a bad thing...now that he needs the far-right vote, that is. He voted against the anti-torture bill.

The anti-torture bill passed, barely.
51 yes
45 No

Bush? He says he will veto. He's a stand-up born again christion, isn't he?

via TPM

from 2005:

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After months of opposition, the White House agreed Thursday to Republican Sen. John McCain's call to ban torture by U.S. personnel."

Color me confused.

via CNN

In Case You Missed It...

We do waterboard.

Makes me feel proud to use the same tactics as the terrorists.

the Dark Side, indeed

The Cowards That Torture

I don't know if you have been reading the New York Times, but the paper has published a story showing how the BushCo Crooks, again, have ignored the Congress and continue to torture people so we may live in a "safe" country.

Once again, the Bush Administration has shown how truly moral and law abiding they are by ignoring the Congress and the Courts by sending sending secret memos authorizing the torture of human beings.

My cynical side tells me no one will care about this. That no one cares about deep moral issues torturing a human being brings up. I wish people would care about this, but I have read little about anyone even caring. It is the lack of concern about what BushCo does in the name of The United States of America that makes me almost laugh out loud when people claim to Christians and moral. It saddens me how we can ignore the brutality that of the BushCo Criminals use all the while claiming some moral high ground. Do people know what this means? Do people understand what is being done in the name of the United States? In the name of you?

The United State of America is not the President of the United States, it is you and me. The founding of the United States happened because concerned people were tired of not being listened to, of not having a say in how government is run. It seems we have forgotten that it takes vigilence and awareness and thoughtfullness to be a democracy. When we let a small group of people take control and run things how they see fit, with little to no regard to what is right, to what is lawful, we have lost one of the most precious ideas of a democracy. To give such control to people like Bush and Cheney, we lose what our founding fathers fought so hard to gain. Every time someone is tortured in the name of protecing us, we lose a little more of what is supposed to make The United State of America the free society we need and should want to be. We lose a part of what if means to be human, to be responsible citizens. Let's not allow our fears stop us from making sure our government does what is right.

Senate
Representative


Read the article here