Collins: Pentagon tactics 'inappropriate'

[MaineDem]

Source: Maine Today/Portland Press Herald

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon’s harsh interviewing tactics against detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba cribbed from the U.S. military’s resistance training programs were "inappropriate,” Republican Sen. Susan Collins said on Tuesday.

The Senate Armed Services Committee revealed at a hearing on Tuesday that top Pentagon lawyers began compiling lists of interrogation methods used by the military’s elite Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Schools in July 2002, much earlier than previously had been known.

“It seems that it was more logical for the (Pentagon) to go to the FBI for assistance than to try to figure out how the SERE techniques could be re-engineered for interrogation since that’s not at all what the purpose of the SERE techniques were,” Collins said during the hearing.

The U.S. Navy’s survival school is headquartered at the Brunswick Naval Air Station and the training takes place near Rangeley, Maine.

Read more: http://news.mainetoday.com/updates/029057.html

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Susan's in a fight for her seat.

She also said:
Asked in an interview whether Haynes misled Congress, Collins said she would have to review the timeline of events but “what is clear is that Rumsfeld approved aggressive techniques against the advice of military lawyers.”

[LynnTheDem]

1. TORTURE is always "inappropriate".

And self-defeating.

And the blow-back from the bUsh torture regime is really going to be a bitch.

[Xipe Totec]

2. Farting is inappropriate. Torture is criminal

There's a big difference.

[Supersedeas]

8. the self-righteous indignation of a Repig

[UpInArms]

3. I thought it would be referring to the propaganda - but no

Susan proves once again that she is clueless

House Votes to Ban Pentagon Propaganda: Networks Still Silent

By Josh Silver, Huffington Post. Posted May 26, 2008.

You probably didn't hear about the House voting to ban Pentagon propaganda last Thursday -- since the television networks have once again conveniently failed to cover the story.

But in a surprise move, a 2009 defense policy bill passed with an amendment, sponsored by Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.), that outlaws the Defense Department from engaging in "a concerted effort to propagandize" the American people. The measure would also force an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) into efforts to plant positive news stories about the war in U.S. media.

An April 20 front-page New York Times article first reported how the Pentagon cultivated and coached more than 75 former military officers who became regulars on Fox News, CNN, the broadcast networks, and even NPR. One week later, the Pentagon announced that it would suspend the "briefing" program pending an internal review, which is continuing. On May 13, watchdog Media Matters documented that analysts in the Pentagon's program appeared or were quoted in major outlets more than 4,500 times.

If the Senate also passes the propaganda ban, it will send a strong message to the Pentagon and other government agencies that the Congress will not allow the continued manipulation of public opinion.

But let's not forget that this is just the most recent major government propaganda revelation in recent years. In March 2005, the New York Times revealed that several federal agencies were producing fake "video news releases" that local television stations aired as if they were bona fide news reports.

Two months before that, several "payola pundits" were discovered to be receiving lucrative government PR contracts to opine in favor of Bush administration policies -- without disclosing their financial arrangement. Armstrong Williams was the poster-child, with his $240,000 contract from the Department of Education to promote the president's "No Child Left Behind Act."

...more...

that was not "inappropriate" - it was illegal

[bemildred]

4. It's criminal, and it's not the Pentagon, it's the Bushites.

We need war crimes trials. The Pentagon has much to answer for, but the Gitmo Gulag is Bush/Cheney's work.

[Doctor_J]

5. Inappropriate - is that anything like criminal?

Why does a Repuglican lie come out as "stretching the truth" and murder as "inappropriate"?

[Supersedeas]

6. SERE deserves closer examination by the Press

[yardwork]

7. Will Maine elect a Democratic senator this time?

Susan Collins is inappropriate as the state's representative. Maine deserves better than Republican-lite.