US senator ties harsh interrogations to top Bush officials

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Harsh interrogation techniques used at US "war-on-terror" prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay were sanctioned by top US government officials well before they were put into practice, a top US senator alleged Tuesday.

In a hearing, Carl Levin, the Democratic head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, tied US interrogation policies -- which critics say have included torture -- to Donald Rumsfeld, the powerful defense secretary from 2001 to 2006, and other top officials in President George W. Bush's administration.

Counter to the Bush administration's argument that mistreatment at the prisons arose from simply a handful of out-of-control military jailers, or a "few bad apples," Levin said a high-level debate raged in the US defense and intelligence community from mid-2002 over techniques such as waterboarding and sensory deprivation. The senator cited previously secret documents.

In the internal feud, US armed services lawyers questioned if the techniques were legal or useful.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080617/pl_afp/usattackspoliticstortureguantanamo

[tularetom]

1. How come these top bush officials are still running around loose

OK that may be a bit of an overstatement, But still, where are the subpoenas to get them on the record under oath about what they did or did not order? It doesn't seem very hard to me to be able to tie Rumsfeld back to these practices, bring charges against him and put him on trial. And if bush and his boss are implicated, charge them and try them also.

Illegal, inhumane and immoral activities took place. That is not even in dispute anymore. Somebody ordered them. Whoever that is should be held responsible. Am I missing something?

[dipsydoodle]

2. The opposite of legal

is illegal and usefulness isn't covered by the Geneva Conventions.

[Agony]

3. US senator ties torture to top Bush officials

The first step is to stop using their BULLSHIT twisted propaganda language.

Call it what it is. Torture.

Contract on America

Cheers as always,
Agony

[Jefferson23]

4. I am almost at the point of yawning when I read these press releases.

They aren't going to do anything, so who are they kidding?? They aren't going to have Rove speak under oath either, I am sick of this nonsense.

[alllyingwhores]

5. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO FFFFFFFFUUUUCKING SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

and...nothing will be done about it...ever.

[whistle]

6. I'm sure Rumsfeld's name will come up in all of this

[bemildred]

7. You could just knock me over with a feather.

:sarcasm:

Although it is nice that Mr Levin thinks it's time to discuss the war crimes on public.

[2Design]

8. will the apples get out of prison and the high officials enter ??? n/t

[Supersedeas]

13. just a smidge of bad legal advice -- can't blame'em bad legal advice, result driven legal

advice though it was

[bluesmail]

9. I HOPE somebody's name, High Up

finally, is held accountable for the mess they call Iraq. Sickening, just sickening.

[libnnc]

10. WHAT DO WE DO

WITH PIECES OF SHIT LIKE THAT?

HUH?

OH, I KNOW............................

N O T H I N G

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

[Sonicmedusa]

11. I think the world needs to bring to "few really bad apples"

up on war crime charges.

[Solly Mack]

12. now tell us something we didn't already know

[TriplD]

14. First of all it was torture, not "harsh interrogations"

Secondly it wasn't a Senator that tied BushCo to torture, it was the witnesses and whistleblowers who've come forward and testified.

The Senator just pointed out what the Associated Press should have been able to figure out themselves and report the facts if they weren't so preoccupied with downplaying confirmed war crimes into some petty partisan feud, a disagreement between Democrats and Bush.

[libnnc]

15. Fucking hell -- call it what it IS

T O R T U R E


NOT IN MY NAME


Gen. Taguba: Bush Administration Committed War Crimes

The Army general who first investigated the abuse at Abu Ghraib has accused the Bush administration of committing war crimes. Retired Major General Antonio Taguba made the comment in a new report about US torture practices. Taguba wrote, “The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture.” Taguba went on to say, “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” <snip>

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/19/headlines#1





Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Great Torture Scandal

McClatchy and other reporters are abruptly pulling the curtain away from the Bush team's illegal practices in arresting people arbitrarily, declining to offer proof that they were guilty of anything, detaining them indefinitely without trial or charges, and deliberately torturing them to the extent of leaving long-term scars and disabilities. The torture practices originated not with lower-level officers but with Donald Rumsfeld and others in Bush's inner circle, who then later blamed lower-level officials for developing the ideas that Rumsfeld ordered them to develop. Nothing they have done has survived a court challenge where one has been permitted.<snip>

http://www.juancole.com/2008/06/great-torture-scandal.html





A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command, according to congressional sources briefed on the findings.<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061602779.html