What's All The Fuss Over A Little Torture?

by Al Falafel

Some people I know - and who should certainly know better - still don't get it.

To this day I continue to hear the opinion that the real problem was the release of those photos from Abu Ghraib that broke the news story, exposing the American torturous treatment of Iraqi detainees. As if it would be better had no one ever found out about how we conduct our invasions of any foreign country because "they" deserve it because "they attacked us."

Do you think I do not want to scream?

That kind of attitude may have been excusable in some quarters in the first days after 9/11 and was bound to survive in those who are predisposed to blind reactionary patriotism that was stoked and exploited by the war-hungry, profiteering forces that had inhabited the Administration after the Bush coup of 2000. But after all we've learned about the rationale for going to war in Iraq - WMDs, ties to Al Queda, yellow cake uranium - all now exposed and accepted for being nothing but a pack of self-serving evil lies - how can anyone separate out the well-known acts of torture from all the other surreal and malicious lies we are still force-fed by the cynics and apologists for the deposed Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove/Rice/Ascroft/Gonzales cabal?

With the recent release of those torture memos it has come to light that this too - TORTURE of human beings - was just another part of their PR campaign engineered to establish a reason for the invasion of Iraq AFTER it became clear that all their other reasons were nothing but bold face lies.

Surprised?

Apparently, most of America is not.

Since the memos came out all the TV talk still centers on whether waterboarding is torture or whether torture "works" or not. We have become so jaded - so inured to hearing of the depths to which the Bush Administration was willing to dive in order to justify their nefarious war-mongering intentions - that we just gloss over the revelations that torture of detainees in the Iraq War were NEVER ABOUT obtaining useful information that might keep us safe or help defeat our enemies who threaten America.

It was all about justifying the Bush-led invasion of a foreign country on false pretenses and manufactured intelligence that has consistently proven to have been invented in order to rationalize and cover up their high crimes and misdemeanors.

Torture of human beings was plainly carried out by our troops and mercenaries under orders straight from the top of this country's government.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Rice and the whole criminal cabal then lied - and continue to lie - to cover up and distract from the facts that are now indisputably evident from their own official words contained in the de-classified memos. Those memos detail how our troops were used to force detainees to say what the cabal wanted to hear -- what they wanted US to hear whether it contained any truth or not.

Cutting through all the shit, this is the bottom line and perfectly explains why the Bush Administration officially authorized torture in blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions. So perfect that we are compelled to shrug it off with a great big, "duh."

Of course: after none of the other lies would hold any water for very long, torture was all they had left.

It was and is their only hope to find some salable justification of their criminal activities. Since no direct evidence could be found to substantiate their headstrong plunge into the huge Middle East catastrophe, they were "forced" to resort to sadistic torture of Iraqi detainees in order to force them to say something that would help make a case for the US having invaded their country and killed all those people including over 5,000 of our own troops!

Wasn't there once a time -- seems not so long ago -- that when the President and other Administration officials LIED about something an investigation was unquestionably warranted? No matter what the cost, how long it may take, or the eventually futile outcome of such an investigation and prosecution after such allegations were made was done almost by routine.

I seem to remember a few things called "Whitewater," "Filegate," "Travelgate" and "the Monica Lewinsky Affair" on which some $60 billion and up to eight years of hearings, house arrests, and impeachment proceedings were justified by the allegations against a SITTING President for things that never amounted to more than a squirt.

How the hell are we going to let the ex-officeholders get away with their devastating ruinous lies even while Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and their apologists are all over the TV circuit bragging about what they did and laughing in our stupid faces?

How now is there the slightest question about whether there should be an investigation and prosecution of those who authorized torture for purely partisan political reasons and, in the process, sold our entire nation out, ruined our reputation -- not to mention our economy -- and cost millions of human lives and trillions of dollars?

All the chatter about whether torture works, or whether it yielded any useful information (we would definitely know by now if it did) is utterly meaningless and wickedly distracting from this central element AND IT NEEDS TO STOP!

For humanity's sake doesn't this warrant more than a wussy "truth commission?" How can we not demand a very serious investigation of these very serious crimes followed by a serious prosecution of the criminals to the fullest extent of the law -- the International Laws against war crimes?

See the New York Times Op-ed piece.

Torture Judge Must Be Impeached!

by Al Falafel

From The Center for Constitutional Rights:

On April 19, 2009, President Obama released four formerly secret torture authorization memos written by the Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration. Among other things, these memos justified waterboarding and torture, laying out with chilling detail the methods to be used in torturing CIA prisoners. One of the principal authors of these memos was Jay Bybee, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel and today a federal judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Bybee must be impeached, as a first step in holding those responsible for torture accountable for their actions.

Bybee's memo was written to provide legal cover and attempted justification for torture approved at the highest levels of the Bush administration. It attempts to give a legal veneer to the most brutal of illegal actions, violating U.S. and international law and the U.S. Constitution [The formerly classified Memo is available here].

Along with justifications for facial "insult" slapping and the use of insects in a confinement box to torture prisoners, Bybee produced a lengthy pseudo-legal justification for the illegal practice of torture through waterboarding: "Even if one were to parse the statute more finely to treat 'suffering' as a distinct concept, the waterboard could not be said to inflict severe suffering. The waterboard is simply a controlled acute episode, lacking the connotation of a protracted period of time generally given to suffering."

It is utterly unacceptable for an individual who produced transparent attempts to justify illegality using the framework of a legal memorandum, and who abused his status as a government lawyer to conspire with other high level government officials to violate the law, to sit as a federal judge, hearing and deciding on issues of supreme constitutional import.

Jay Bybee’s actions in crafting the torture memo constitute High Crimes and Misdemeanors by any standard. Such an individual only brings disrepute to the federal bench and shows a flagrant disregard for the very Constitution he is sworn to uphold.

On Sunday, The New York Times called for Bybee’s impeachment in its staff editorial. The Judiciary Committee must urgently hold a hearing to determine if grounds for impeaching Bybee exist and begin the process of holding those responsible for torture accountable.

Now is the time! The torture memo writers must be held accountable. Jay Bybee is unfit to serve as a federal judge. Write to the House Judiciary Committee to call for hearings regarding impeaching Bybee now.

Morning Email

This morning I checked my email for possible job opportunities or ebay sales. Nothing.

There was an email from democrats.com. I have told them to stop sending me stuff, but you know the Democrats, they really don't listen.

The email linked to an articles titled "Ten Reasons to Impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney" that included a form to complete in support of impeachment.

I don't think Bush and Cheyney should be impeached. There is no thinking needed! I KNOW they should be impeached. If Clinton was impeached for lying about a blow-job, then Bush and Cheyney should be impeached for lying about the destruction of an entire nation, the death of three thousand American soldiers and over a hundred thousand Iraqis, and the procurement of billions of dollars from the US Treasury.

So, I don't think they should be impeached.

If you would like to read the list and sign the petition, go here.

The list is pretty straight-forward. Illegally wiretapping phones, which was not good for Richard Nixon, violating the Geneva Convention, election fraud, torture, etc. You know . . . stuff almost as bad as a blow-job.