The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia. Full Story »
Posted by Chris Finnie
Just the beginning of right-wing media justification without cause. Come on: “Competent staff work could have quickly canvassed relevant history....?” Except no Bushie gave a damn about past history, Spanish Inquisition, or anything else. And they certainly didn’t give a damn about torture being ineffective. Only one objective burned in Bushies’ psych: their huge war justification problem–since WMDs and democracy didn't work. Bushies were vehement about proving a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq’s third-rate dictator.
Stick around. This is just the beginning of attempts at watered-down rationalization from the radical right-wing controlled media. Subtle and effective–for some.
An excellent report on the people, places and things the White House and CIA used to justify torture. With every news org. opening up with this story, and Cheney going around looking like a lost puppy ( ugly puppy). claiming he wants more revealed, for his book, mainly, this is not going away.
Obama gave the go ahead yesterday at the White House, sitting with the King of Jordan, to AG Holder to go after the big boys. The ones, such as Yoo and Tenet, who came up with this torture idea.
Very thorough on the more current events, it neglects to include the other historical reference where a Texas sheriff was convicted of torturing by waterboarding. Certainly a much more complete exploration than the linked AP story I read just before. Though the AP story takes a slightly different approach in asking if torture works.
Outside of Dick Cheney, I've heard few people really argue that torture does work. Most experts argue it does not. That any information obtained later turns out to be unreliable and a waste of resources. Jon Stewart rather hysterically asked whether, after it hadn't worked the first 5 times that day, they really thought the sixth was going to do the trick.
Good story with lots of facts and many sources. Could have been improved by adding reference to U.S. use of waterboarding in the Philipines.
A reasonably well sourced look back at the steps taken and not taken when the CIA was getting it's marching orders on interrogation. The newness for them all is very apparent, and how they dealt with it was an exercise of difficult pros and cons. The premise of the article seems irrelevant, in the end a sidebar to the issue.
I think looking back is very easy to do, but having been in Washington and around some of the players at the time was very tough. These people despite the hyperbole in today's news, were doing the best they could with what they knew and believed. This included Dems. and Rep., both sides of the aisle..were in it together.
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