Bush & Torture, Inc.

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Thanks for that list of links.  Having read a few, these are excerpts which leaped off the page for me.  Looking forward to a time when Bush & Co. will be tried for THEIR war crimes, perhaps we can use some of these techniques they condone to get the truth from them?  Anyone with any experience in the "reality of war" will tell you that information a captured soldier might know that has ANY intelligence value must be "sought out" in the first 24 to 48 hours.  After that, whatever he knows is old news and of no value.  This reality is made even more obvious by the de-centralized structure of our latest "enemy."  Group leaders typically might know one other group leader and who the two of them take orders from and that is IT.  Members of the small groups know even less.  None of them have any knowledge of the bigger picture or long-range tactics and they are purposely DENIED that information -- for their own "protection" and to protect the mission.  You can torture a man to death but he can't tell you what he doesn't know.  Therefore, to torture and interrogate a captive beyond those first 48 hours is a senseless and cruel act -- debasing the tortured AND the torturer.  I hold every soldier PERSONALLY responsible for everything he/she does.  They have a moral obligation to resist and stand against what they know in their heart of hearts to be wrong.  Better to risk a few years in the brig with integrity and morality intact than spend the rest of your own tortured life suffering the consequences of "just following orders."
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Do we not believe that every single human who has suffered at our hand will not exact his own personal and terrifying revenge?  Will they not be motivated all the more to reek their bloody revenge against this nation which has condoned these heinous acts?  (I know those would be my thoughts, "Do whatever it takes to stay alive and make these fuckers pay nine times over for what they have done to me and my friends and family.")  We are planting the seeds of our own destruction.  What happened to "land of the free" and "home of the brave?"  There are no words to describe the depth of loathing and contempt I feel for those who support this administration and their criminal acts.  The only difference between our nation's treasonous and illegal acts and those of the playground bully is SCOPE -- the intellectual depravity and the insecurity which motivates such behavior are one and the same.  Woody speaks the truth when he says, "This government was founded by, of, and for the people but everybody feels it like a giant open sore -- they don't represent us anymore."
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sail4free -- survivor of advanced POW training at Fairchild AFB in Spokane, WA in 1972/Vietnamese Linguist for USAFSS from '71 to '75.
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The Bush administration has shamed us all, reducing us to the level of those governments that also have wonderful laws forbidding torture, but condone it anyway.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29858-2004Jun9.html
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Legal and constitutional experts have expressed astonishment at the judgments made by administration lawyers on interrogation techniques. In one memo, written in January 2002, Mr. Gonzalez told President Bush that the nature of the war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions".
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A separate memo, written by Pentagon lawyers in March 2003, stated that "the infliction of pain or suffering per se, whether it is physical or mental is insufficient to amount to torture. [The pain] must be of such a high level of intensity that it is difficult for the subject to endure".
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtmlxml=/news/2004/06/13/wguan13.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/06/13/ixworld.html
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"I accept the legal conclusion of the attorney general and the Department of Justice that I have the authority under the Constitution to suspend Geneva as between the United States and Afghanistan, but I decline to exercise that authority at this time," the president said in the memo, entitled "Humane Treatment of al-Qaida and Taliban Detainees."
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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040622/D83CC3P80.html
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sail4free
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