Well, the evidence is not just trickling in…the new article in Newsweek (the upcoming May 24th issue) details the origins of our prisoner abuse policy, and guess how far up the chain of command it goes?
Wow… What an article. I have to comment on particular parts of it.
It is a bitter pill to swallow when confronted with your own evil spawn. Its like finding out that your son is a rapist.
[QUOTE] The White House was undeterred. By Jan. 25, 2002, according to a memo obtained by NEWSWEEK, it was clear that Bush had already decided that the Geneva Conventions did not apply at all, either to the Taliban or Al Qaeda. In the memo, which was written to Bush by Gonzales, the White House legal counsel told the president that Powell had “requested that you reconsider that decision.” Gonzales then laid out startlingly broad arguments that anticipated any objections to the conduct of U.S. soldiers or CIA interrogators in the future. “As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war,” Gonzales wrote to Bush. “The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians.” Gonzales concluded in stark terms: “In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.”
Gonzales also argued that dropping Geneva would allow the president to “preserve his flexibility” in the war on terror. His reasoning? That U.S. officials might otherwise be subject to war-crimes prosecutions under the Geneva Conventions. Gonzales said he feared “prosecutors and independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges” based on a 1996 U.S. law that bars “war crimes,” which were defined to include “any grave breach” of the Geneva Conventions. As to arguments that U.S. soldiers might suffer abuses themselves if Washington did not observe the conventions, Gonzales argued wishfully to Bush that “your policy of providing humane treatment to enemy detainees gives us the credibility to insist on like treatment for our soldiers.”[/QUOTE]
It can’t be… You mean the president himself was not only aware of such treatment, but personally approved of it before it even happened? Impossible. He said that he didn’t know about it until recently, and was shocked that Americans could do things like that. Obviously this article is a farce written as part of a giant leftist conspiracy.
Good to see that SOMEONE has some sense! Too bad that he had no power. I know that he has some strong loyalty issues, but it is time to quit defending and protecting the president. Being the only combat veteran in the entire lot he is also obviously the only one who understood what would happen if we allowed soldiers to torture prisoners. He needs to go public with everything.
Just reading this paragraph leaves me speechless. I have typed 4 different paragraghs and deleted them. I feel a mixture of shame and outrage. This should be the end of the Bush regime. Secret orders violating international laws? Our president is a WAR CRIMINAL! It is undeniable and incontravertable… There has been a white elephant in the center of the room that some of us have spoken about, and some have denied. My question to those that denied it is this… Can you read these documents and continue to lie to yourself? Is all this worth a tax break?
With a conspiracy of this scale, did they really expect to keep this under wraps? I guess that they made some severe miscalculations. Perhaps if Iraq had embraced us as Bush fantasized, we would be pulled out by now, and no one would want to question the practices we used to gather intel because he would still be protected by that nice cozy little veil of “national security” that he fully took advantage of after 9/11.
It is this though… Toward the end of 2002, orders came down the political chain at DOD that the Geneva Conventions were to be reinterpreted to allow tougher methods of interrogation. … I once caught some flack by suggesting that the path would lead straight up to the Commander-In-Chief. Is there still any doubt?
Does anyone recall the Senate hearings? I watched them with great interest, and now what I believed at the time to be true is confirmed right here in black and white… Rumsfeld was lying through his teeth. That is perjury is it not? I guess these memos and signed orders are going to be his “blue dress”, eh?
Only problem for Bush is that when we do get to the bottom of it he will be impeached, or worse, brought up on charges as a war criminal.
