U.S.: Did President Bush Order Torture?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HRW/33ca0698b10b8e22e377e0e543a552b2.htm

(New York, December 21, 2004) U.S. President George W. Bush should fully explain why an FBI document suggests he authorized unlawful interrogation methods, Human Rights Watch said today. An e-mail to senior FBI officials released yesterday under a Freedom of Information Act request repeatedly referred to an Executive Order that permitted military interrogators in Iraq to place detainees in painful stress positions, impose sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, intimidate them with military dogs and use other coercive methods. "The FBI e-mail is not proof of a presidential order to commit unlawful acts, but it strongly suggests that U.S. interrogators thought they were acting with the president's approval," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "It's no longer enough for Bush to issue a simple denial. A real explanation is needed."

The e-mail was sent to senior members of the FBI on May 22, 2004, more than a year after the Pentagon reputedly disavowed the use of such interrogation methods at Guantanamo Bay. The e-mail makes 11 references to an Executive Order "signed by President Bush" that authorized these abusive interrogation methods. Since yesterday's publication of the document, various executive agencies have denied the existence of such an Executive Order, stating that the FBI agent made a mistake.

Even if there were no formal Executive Order, Human Rights Watch is concerned that the FBI in Iraq believed that the executive branch had authorized certain abusive interrogation methods being employed by U.S. military personnel. Since the reporting of torture at Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration has yet to fully detail the instructions on interrogation and treatment of detainees it has provided to U.S. forces in the field.

Other documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) described acts of torture and other unlawful treatment of detainees by U.S. personnel in Iraq and at Guantanamo. These included strangulation, putting lit cigarettes into detainees' ears, sleep deprivation, beatings, and chaining detainees in a fetal position for 18-24 hours or more.

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[pinerow]

1. Is that a rhetorical question...?

nt

[rkc3]

2. I can't remember - was it in John or Mark where Jesus spoke openly

about torturing our enemies?

It's in there somewhere but I can never find it without reading both books completely.

[texastoast]

18. I don't recall it at all

Please try to find the cite. I would be interested to read it.

[lebkuchen]

3. Why wouldn't he have ordered the torture personally, to be a "man"

Time's photo of the year, with Bush in that phony cowboy pose, says it all, but if that's not evidence enough,

how about Bush keeping loser Rumsfeld on his staff?

or naming Alberto Geneva-Conventions-are-quaint Gonzales as head of the DoJ??

[anti-fundie]

17. I prefer Attorney General-designate al-GonezAllah

[Just Me]

21. Gonzales did as his boss asked: find a way,...

,...to let me do as I please.

Gonzales served his boss,...committed treason towards this country and its people,...and is complicit as a war criminal.

Gonzales' values: personal political success.

[0007]

4. junior is gonna have to do some explaining

"Human Rights Watch called on the Bush administration to fully explain the "Executive Order" and to release publicly all documents pertaining to the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. In addition, Human Rights Watch urged the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to hold hearings on this issue when the new Congress convenes in January.

"The released documents not only show the brutal torture of prisoners, but they also suggest a new link to the highest levels of the Bush administration," said Roth. "It's time the U.S. government threw out the 'bad apples' argument and took a serious look at the whole barrel."

It is time for criminal charges are prepared and beds at the Hagueare made nice and neat.....

[driver8]

23. shrub won't have to explain shit...

He'll get some lackey to make excuses for him -- something about "protecting the country from terraism" or some bullshit like that. The press will buy it hook, line and sinker; the American people will accept the explanation from the press and Georgie and company will continue with business as usual.

I am beginning to think that there is nothing that can bring these guys down. Not when they control the media like they do; they can spin anything and the public believes it.

Good God, they managed to convince the American people that Shrub would make a better president than Kerry!! That is some serious "spinning"!

[LynnTheDem]

27. "I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain"

"I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."

-Dictator G.W. bush who has totally forgotten he's in fact a SERVANT of the people.

[TexasChick]

30. But, by the end of the next four years, we'll be his servants, I'm afraid.

Look forward to seeing beheadings in the future if you dare speak out against smirking Chimp Bushitler or ask him a question! :(

[TexasChick]

28. Exactly! I think the same thing everyday. There's no stopping these

people now. The best that we can do (the ones that voted for Kerry) is to band together to help each other survive the next four years. Let these neoCON/PNACers bankrupt this nation into oblivion and wage their oil wars. And, IF we survive all of it, we can finally take back this nation, if there is anything to take back.

I know a lot of DUers have tried to help me out with this pessimistic view and tell me that Chimp will be impeached, but I can't help it, I just don't see how. I think maybe the Plame case will be the best bet, but they are dragging that out and who knows if we'll ever see indictments.

A lot of these Chimp supporters are going to eat this torture stuff up. They are going to believe every excuse simply because they believe these Iraqis are the terrorists and still believe that they had something to do with 9/11.

[truth2power]

33. You're right,Driver.

He's not gonna have to explain. If all the atrocities of the past 4 years haven't brought him down by now, you can just forget it.

[zann725]

35. ...some 'splainin' indeed! Just in time for Jan. 6!

Do hope those Inaugural tickets ARE refundable?

[rwork]

5. I heard on radio

this afternoon,AP reported that ACLU said bush* signed off on torture document.

[CoffeeCat]

6. So, does anyone have copies of these "executive orders"?

I think it's great that the ACLU obtained these emails, in which the FBI said that they were acting on "executive orders" signed by the President.

I just hope to God that someone has these documents, with the Chimp's paw print on them.

[Just Me]

22. Better question: what "executive orders" are kept secret from,...

,..."a people" who are supposed to be the "body of democracy" and WHY?

After all, one cannot possibly pull the "national security card" without appearing (and most likely BEING) verily guilty of mischievious or criminal actions.

Nixon must be freakin'!!!

[gottaB]

24. "presidential findings"

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/50/chapters/15/subchapters/iii/sections/section%5F413b.html

None of this could have gone forward without a Presidential finding

[Just Me]

40. Yes. So,...where is the courage, the principled, the noble,...ONES?

The right-wing attack machine is walking all over the best of humanity,...

WHY?

Actually,...I don't give a damn about the "why",...

I want to defeat those who are destroying the experiment of "democracy". I WANT TO DEFEAT THOSE POWER-MONGERING, DISEASED, MOFOS!!!!

They are a fire,...we are the fire-fighters!!! You get that?

[Dover]

7. Would a kid that tortures small critters grow up to torture big critters?

Ribbit....Bush......ribbit

[Left Brain]

10. oh yeah,

just all in good fun for the kid who got his kicks shoving fire crackers into frogs and then blowing them to bits.

What a kind, compassionate, caring human being he is...

[Sequoia]

11. ...or mocked a woman about to put to death in Texas?

[bullimiami]

8. War Criminal

Torturer, Murderer.

The Geneva Conventions ratified are also the LAW in America.

[indigo5]

15. Blogger crimes

We should go after the bloggers too...

http://www.livejournal.com/users/bambenek/#item91697

[MGKrebs]

9. OK. So who is the FBI agent.

He needs to be asked who/what made him believe there was an executive order. Presumably that will lead to a boss. Then we can ask the boss how he came to believe it, etc. In the meantime, confiscate all shredders in the Executive branch.

[rainbow4321]

12. So first we hear that former FBI people impersonated evote techs...

in order to rig the machines, now we have chimp followers impersonating FBI people in Gitmo?? You think at SOME point, someone in the FBI would get pissed off enough at shrub's antics that they would spill the beans on everything he is up to <from Iraq to Gitmo to election fraud>.

[rodeodance]

13. Has anyone heard this in the media yet? I haven't .

[rainbow4321]

16. Which part?

"The Dallas area former FBI" part was in the stuff I read online about what happened on 11/2, the current part about the Gitmo/"FBI" thing is in today's news. I'll look for a link to the first part.


Plus it has been questioned if it was a real FBI person who told that one Ohio county about a terror threat and the need to do a lock down..I had forgotten about that part..so there is a 3rd "using" of the FBI by shrub.

[thecrow]

14. Here ya go...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/politics/21abuse.html?ex=1104296400&en=b18ab4be77aa6885&ei=5043&partner=EXCITE

http://reuters.excite.com//article/20041221/2004-12-21T165837Z_01_N21284258_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-SECURITY-BUSH-INTERROGATION-DC.html

and of course check the ACLU site.

[texastoast]

19. You decide

"An FBI email from May 10 notes that FBI supervisors sent to Guantanamo were told to stay within FBI interrogation guidelines, and that the issue was raised in a meeting with Miller and Major General Michael Dunleavy, the head of intelligence at Guantanamo.

"Both agreed that the Bureau has their way of doing business and DoD has their marching orders from the SecDef," it said using acronyms for Department of Defense and secretary of defense.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=12076=12076&format=0

[Just Me]

20. Well, hell,...there have been a bzillion executive orders,...

,...sufficiently vague in language (ON PURPOSE) such as to diminish/avoid/excuse former legal precedent that a person could write a 5" paperback JUST on Bush's executive orders.

I mean, damn,...this neoCONfascist leadership has NO, NO, NO respect for the rule of law; but rather has strategically set out to violate any law which obstructs its "Plan for Profit" against the U.S.A. and the rest of the world.

[hangloose]

25. Of course he did, this is the same guy who allowed 123 executions

to take place under his governorship in Texas. One killing that stands out is the execution of a man who was mentally retarded. Keep in mind that loyalty is the mandate in the bush administration and loyalty means to me not making decisions without keeping the boss in the loop. He guilty!

[MGKrebs]

26. It sounds like the FBI was disturbed by the torture

and was trying to stop it.


"One of the memorandums released Monday was addressed to Robert S. Mueller III,... was an "Urgent Report," meaning that the sender regarded it as a priority. "

"...there had also been an effort to cover up the abuses."

"...such treatment of prisoners in Iraq was the subject of an investigation conducted by the bureau's Sacramento office."

"Include claims that some military interrogators had posed as F.B.I. officials while using harsh tactics on detainees, both in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay."

"D.O.D. interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done by 'F.B.I.' interrogators. The F.B.I. will be left holding the bag before the public."

[leftchick]

32. It sure does!

I am glad to know there are a few left in government with a conscience.

[bunny planet]

29. Does a bear sh*t in the woods? Of course * ordered the torture. I just

hope we can finally prove something like this.

Is His Fraudulency another 'Teflon Don'? Does anything stick to him, ever? Eventually something has to doesn't it? Gotti eventually wore an orange jumpsuit and did time.

[VegasWolf]

31. Did bush get the masturbation torture vids he ordered up? n/t

[truth2power]

34. Of course he ordered it.

The author of "Bush on the Couch" said he has sadistic tendencies. Not that anyone here would find that surprising, but it's interesting hearing it come from a psychiatrist.

[Pachamama]

36. And to think that the person who helped justify this on *s orders could be

our future Attorney General, the highest law enforcement official in the country....seriously folks, if Gonzales gets confirmed, what does this say about our future and quite frankly what America thinks of human rights & civil liberties?

:scared:

[lovuian]

37. The FBI Torturers thats in their job description

and why aren't they here working in America why are they in Iraq???

No Wonder Ashcroft left!!! and quickly!!!

[LynnTheDem]

38. So many memos; either he did, or he's THE most ignorant unaware idiot

who ever sat in the Oval Office.

It's NOT POSSIBLE that SO MANY memos on the subject went back & forth from the White House & the Pentagon & the FBI & the CIA, WITHOUT the president knowing.

And if they did swirl around without bush knowing, then he's FAR TOO IGNORANT and UNAWARE and INCOMPETENT to be in the White House to begin with.

bush says he:

-DIDN'T KNOWhe lied in his SOTUA when he referred to fraudulent & debunked documents (Niger yellowcake)

-DIDN'T KNOW Tenet had testified that Iraq was no threat to the USA

-DIDN'T KNOW the NIE contained dissent on every point of "Iraq WMD" from US and world's top experts

-DIDN'T KNOWthe troops in Iraq & Afghanistan were sent to war without enough armor, rifles, ammo, food, water etc.

-DIDN'T KNOWthe troops were still without up-armored humvees

-DIDN'T KNOWthe Pentagon hadn't bothered to place an order for more up-armored humvees after the scandal about the shortage broke last year

-DIDN'T KNOWabout torture at Gitmo

-DIDN'T KNOWabout tortue at Abu Ghraib and other gulags in Iraq

Sure is a lot bush DOESN'T KNOW. So why is such an ignoramous in charge of anything???

[Disturbed]

39. Original Document with GW Bush sig...

is in Rumsfailed's vaults. Why does anything think he cannot be fired?