There is no doubt that the Bush administration developed the torture policy which spread downwards to both the CIA and military units, whose organizational charts don't connect in any other way. That both separate units tortured in the same way is clear proof that the techniques traveled downward after big bro 43 decided that the people he picked up were enemy combatants and as such were not protected by the Geneva Convention.
The article "Military Abuses At Abu Ghraib Tied To CIA Torture" at click here states "The brutal treatment of terror detainees and prisoners by members of the military followed directly from the CIA's use of harsh interrogation techniques, according to a Senate report that is likely to add fuel to the debate over the United States' use of torture.... The brutal treatment of prisoners by the military at Guantanamo Bay, Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and Afghanistan was systematic and a direct result of the CIA's early use of harsh interrogation tactics, according to a Senate report."
The article "We're Coming After These Guys' at click here details how we got this awful crimes as it states "The Bush administration's program of torture was "reverse engineered," in the words of Richard Shiffrin, the general counsel for intelligence for the Department of Defense in 2002, from communist Chinese techniques designed to elicit false confessions. In that respect, the program worked well, as tortured detainees told officials whatever they could think of and sent CIA agents chasing bogus tips around the globe, according to press reports."
It says that lawyers who forged the awful OLC memos, who big bro 43 pushed into promotions, should be kicked out and also depicts that simply saying that crimes were not committed doesn't make it so as the article continues "Simply deeming illegal acts to be legal does not, of course, make them legal. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), in arguing for Bybee's impeachment, says that the purpose of the memos was not to give an honest legal analysis, but to deem legal behavior that is clearly illegal in order to encourage that illegal activity. The charge, says Nadler, would be something along the lines of conspiracy to abet torture."
The article also states "House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) announced Tuesday he would hold a hearing looking into the role Bush administration lawyers played in justifying torture. Some lawyers, Conyers told the Huffington Post, were engaged in honest analysis of the law. Others, he said, were simple law breakers. "There are some who tried to do a get-out-of-jail-free card. Obviously, there are some that that's all they were thinking."
I respect both Rep. Conyers and Senator Leahy, who has been waiting for members of the GOP to join onto his Truth Commission idea. He might be waiting forever. With Congressional hearings the GOP is going to expend all of its energies to state that Democrats were complicit in the torture and that torture provided us with good information. Bush tortured detainees hoping that would make them say that there was a connection between Hussein and al Qaeda and some torture occurred before the first memo justifying torture was written.
The 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for April 22 2009 has Olbermann asking "So, all of this finally explains what this was about? We tortured to backfill, to get somebody to prove a link between bin Laden and Iraq that was obviously nonexistent?"
To which his expert (McClatchy's senior national security and intelligence correspondent), Jonathan Landay, agrees stating, "That seems to be one of the major goals....But, yes, absolutely. There appears to be an attempt that was going on, not just to get that kind of information, but to-as you point-backfill their contention that there was an operational link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime."
In addition, Olbermann simply looked at the timelines and found out that the war crimes were committed before the OLC excuses were formulated. In the article Olbermann asks "There's something else extraordinary about this timeline as the Levin report presents. If Abu Zubaydah was detained in March 2002 and now-Judge Bybee did not issue his first of the Justice Department memos until August 2002, we know that the FBI special agent who walked out in protest of Zubaydah's interrogation, that was in June of 2002. That's between those two times. Does that not raise another question here of whether or not some torture occurred before the first memo justifying torture was written?"
Landay agrees stating "Not just that. We know from the Levin report that the first inquiry that was made to this agency that taught these methods, that used these methods to teach American servicemen to resist giving up information, received their first phone call from a senior administration official that would have been a senior lawyer in the Pentagon, in December of 2001. And so, the question is raised: Why did they want to know about this that early?"
We all know that big bro 43 tried to stack the Justice Department with right-wing extremist lawyers. How can we trust the Justice Department in the criminal proceedings against W's war criminals? John Yoo and Jay Bybee are always referred to when the discussion is crooked lawyers who provided legal validation for W's war crimes. They aren't in spots now that have any bearing on the criminal proceedings against W's war criminals, but John Rizzo, a leading architect of the torture legal rationale is still serving as the CIA's acting general counsel. Who else is rattling around? We don't know but Obama sure took his time before he backed off his looking forward and letting the criminals skate speech. Obama was concerned about the CIA agents-maybe overly so, because of Rizzo perhaps. Take Obama and the Justice Department out of this matter--which they clearly don't want to be in, and push for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor.
Remember how in the 9/11 Commission, big bro 43 was allowed speak to them with Cheney at his side? That former Republican New Jersey Governor Tom Kean allowed that to happen tells how rigged that farce was. Conspiracy theorists also know the ultimate connect the dots reality-big bro 43 and Kean were failed oil men who allowed bin laden's family to bail them out. The Bush family ties to the bin Laden family relative to both the Carlyle Group and oil interests; and even the connection between 9-11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean and oil business partner, Khalid bin Mahfouz, Osama's brother-in-law are well documented.
The article "Turley: 'God help us' if torture only gets a '9/11 commission" at click here states:
"The recent release of Bush administration torture memos has given rise to calls for prosecution of the Justice Department lawyers who wrote those memos. However, law professor Jonathan Turley believes that this may represent a deliberate attempt to draw attention away from George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the other high Bush administration officials who ordered the torture….
"‘George Bush and Vice President Cheney, the CIA director, the attorney general ... implemented, in full knowledge that it was a war crime, the torture program," Turley emphasized. ‘The effort to define it in terms of lawyers is something of a Beltway shift. That is, it's setting us up for failure.’
"According to Turley, Attorney General Eric Holder ‘needs to appoint a special prosecutor and not limit it as to who committed the alleged war crimes.’
“‘A true war crime investigation would be given to a special prosecutor, who would follow it where it would lead him or her,’ Turley told Shuster.
“‘And that would most certainly lead him ... or her to the former president or vice president and the people like the CIA director and attorney general who pushed through this program.’
“‘God help us if the only thing we get out of this is a commission modeled on 9/11,’ Turley commented. ‘That was a commission that was really made for Washington -- a commission composed of political appointees of both parties that ran interference for those parties -- a commission that insisted at the beginning it would not impose blame on individuals. So it's the ideal Washington commission -- a commission that would investigate without any repercussions.’"
The Special Prosecutor should be Turley. We know where he stands. Obama is saying that he doesn't want this to be a long event. Turley has been vocal for the progressive sides desire to right our country's war crime stigma.
The articles "The US has to prosecute W for war crimes" at click here and "W broke international laws; Obama should prosecute" at click here are replete with Turley's views such as:
"You know, some people say, what do you need, a film? We actually had films of us torturing people. So this would be the shortest investigation in history. You have Bush officials who have said that we tortured people. We have interrogators who have said we tortured people. The Red Cross has said it. A host of international organizations have said it.
"What is President Obama waiting for? And I'm afraid the answer is, a convenient moment."
Obama has not done well in this so far, but if he just steps out of the way, this situation can reach a successful conclusion-putting big bro 43 and his crew in jail for war crimes.
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