Notes From Underground: Exposing the Maw of Bush's Gulag

[buzzsaw_23]

Notes From Underground: Exposing the Maw of Bush's Gulag
Friday, 30 September 2005

In one sense, Fishback's revelations – corroborated by other soldiers, now lying low to ward off the inevitable reprisals by Bush minions – are not news. For example, I've been writing in Counterpunch and elsewhere about the use of torture in Bush's global gulag since January 2002. It was no secret; at first, the Bushists even bragged about it. "The gloves are coming off" was a favorite phrase of the deskbound tough guys cracking foxy to an enthralled media.

They also boasted of "unleashing" the CIA, which set up its own "shadow army" of non-uniformed combatants operating outside the law – i.e., "terrorists," in Bush's own definition – while creating secret prisons all over the world. As one CIA op enthused to the Boston Globe: "'We are doing things I never believed we would do – and I mean killing people!" A senior Bush official proudly pointed to the ultimate authority for this deadly system: "If the commander-in-chief didn't think it was appropriate, we wouldn't be doing it."  (continued)

<snip>

What will come of the good captain's moral courage? Nothing much. A Pentagon investigation has been belatedly launched; no doubt a few more bad eggs will be fried, just as the hapless Lynndie England, poster girl for Abu Ghraib, was convicted this week for "aberrations" that, as Fishback confirms, were countenanced and encouraged throughout Iraq. Fishback himself will be certainly slimed in one of Karl Rove's patented smear campaigns. By next week, the upright, Bible-believing West Point grad – a veteran of both the Afghan and Iraqi wars – will be transformed by Fox News and the war-porn bloggers into a cowardly, anti-American terrorist sympathizer under the hypnotic control of Michael Moore.

Meanwhile, one of the Republican senators Fishback approached – Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist – has already put the kibosh on legislation setting clear legal guidelines for prisoner treatment. Frist, a goonish errand boy now under investigation for insider trading, killed the bill after hearing Fishback's evidence. His White House masters don't want any legal clarity for their dark deeds; they can only thrive in the murk of moral chaos.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=197&Itemid=1

[tompayne1]

1. Just to dispel all doubts

CIA Paramilitary is among the most frightening groups on the planet. These men and women seriously belong in videogames with some of the things they are capable of doing.

[teryang]

2. Advocacy of torture was a top down policy

It was a deliberate attempt to compromise and destroy the military, particularly the US Army, as a traditional institution dedicated to the preservation of the US Constitution and the rule of law. Those high ranking officers and Judge Advocates who have not gone along have been ignored, passed over and/or retired in the process of degrading the professionalism of the Army in particular.

The Pentagon is operated for profit of the defense contractors, the aerospace industry, and the oil industry. The well being of its personnel and the undermining of their dedication to the principles of the Constitution and the law of land warfare are a target of the fascists who run our regime. Privatization, tooth to tail, Armed Forces lite, and advocacy of torture and the repudiation of international law are all part of the corporate/fascist attack on our traditional military institutions. The corporatists seek a corrupted and fragmented military unconcerned with the rule of the law and unable to oppose unlawful policies.

[cassiepriam]

3. What is most shocking, the public doesn't care at all.

The horrific pics from Abu G. didn't seem to make a ripple.
Americans have lost their way as a people.