Bush II administration torture
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[edit] Overview
There have been persistent reports, many of them documented, of official use of torture as a part of the War on Terror during George W. Bush's administration.
The first such incident to come to light was the Abu Ghraib abuses, but there have been others (e.g. Guantánamo).
Publicly, administration officials and spokespeople deny sanctioning or approving of torture, but certain of their legislative efforts appear to contradict this stance.
[edit] Quotes
- "The United States does not torture. It's against our laws and it's against our values. I have not authorised it and I will not authorise it." -- George W. Bush [1]
[edit] Law
Apparently Senator John McCain tried to add an amendment (to the 2006 Department of Defense Appropriations Bill) which would have banned "torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners"; VP Cheney has been campaigning hard to have the amendment modified to exempt the CIA from the ban. This article apparently describes what ultimately happened.
[edit] court decisions
- Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try Guantanamo detainees "violate both the UCMJ and the four Geneva Conventions"
- Rasul v. Bush (2004) established that the U.S. court system does have the authority to decide whether foreign nationals (non-U.S. citizens) held in Guantanamo Bay were rightfully imprisoned
[edit] Links
[edit] Reference
- Wikipedia: Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen falsely detained, flown to Afghanistan, and tortured by the CIA as part of the war on terror
[edit] Filed Links
- 2008-07-02 /S/D/ China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo ”What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners. .. The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.
- 2007-12-19 /S/D/ Bush Lawyers Discussed Fate of Tapes “At least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two operatives from Al Qaeda, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials. .. The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged.”
- 2006-12-04 /S/D/ Video Is a Window Into a Terror Suspect’s Isolation “That day, Mr. Padilla, a Brooklyn-born Muslim convert whom the Bush administration had accused of plotting a dirty bomb attack and had detained without charges, got to go to the dentist.” Article describes the completely out-of-proportion treatment given to an American citizen on US soil, just because of an accusation that he is a terrorist. Commentary: digby
[edit] News & Views
- 2007-10-06 President Bush defends U.S. interrogation tactics
- 2006-10-26 Cheney confirms waterboarding: "Vice President Dick Cheney has confirmed U.S. interrogators subjected captured senior al-Qaida suspects to a controversial interrogation technique called waterboarding, which creates a sensation of drowning. .. Cheney indicated the Bush administration doesn't regard waterboarding as torture and allows the CIA to use it. "It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney said."
- 2006-10-06 Marine Swears Gitmo Guards Bragged Of Abuse (Associated Press)
- 2006-09-16 Bush's Fight with Congress over Torture Defines Our Character
- 2006-08-10 The Unending Torture of Omar Khadr by Jeff Tietz, Rolling Stone
- 2006-05-23 How Torture Became Mainstream by Alfred W. McCoy, Amnesty International
- 2006-03-05 US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq (item #7) by Dahr Jamail
- 2005-11-07 Cheney Fights for Detainee Policy by Dana Priest and Robin Wright, Washington Post Staff Writers
- 2005-11-02 CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons: "Debate Is Growing Within Agency About Legality and Morality of Overseas System Set Up After 9/11" by Dana Priest
[edit] Blog Posts
- "Body and Soul" blog:
- 2005-11-07 14:55, 15:40
- 2005-11-09
- 2005-11-11
