Torture Begins at the Top

[whosinpower]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7506.htm

snip - If justice has been done in a few cases, the ACLU documents show that abuses were more common - and more extreme - than the Bush administration had previously conceded. More important, however, the documents show that the impetus for abuse came from above, not below. The use of coercive and violent methods spread from Guantánamo Bay, where alleged Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners are incarcerated, to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The documents also show that officers from the CIA, the FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency lodged "heated" objections to the abusive methods of interrogation used by the military, denouncing them in previously secret memoranda as not only unethical but useless and destructive.

In the files released by the government, FBI officials with special expertise in counterterrorism and interrogation techniques recorded their ongoing debate with Army officers about the harsh, coercive techniques authorized by the Pentagon. They were as concerned about the efficacy of those methods - which they believe often produce poor intelligence - as with possible violations of law and regulations. But the commanders overseeing the military interrogations simply dismissed the sharp warnings of the law enforcement and intelligence officers.

The abuses continued, in some cases even after the initial furor over Abu Ghraib. What's more, an internal FBI memo indicates that the directive to discard traditional restraints came from the very highest civilian official in the Pentagon: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.


Well worth the read DUers....methinks Rumsfeld cannot hide behind the White House forever.

[Tsiyu]

1. "useless and destructive"

that 'splains the BFEE to me...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. The pros told it like it is:

torture is counter productive if you are after information. It only feeds the sadistic desires of the torturers. Torturing prisoners has not won us any friends. It has created countless enemies and demeaned our nation in the eyes of the world.

[Calvinist Basset]

3. Hide behind the White House?

I'd bet anything that Smirky the Chimp knew about and encouraged the torture.