 
Associated Press, AFP and Reuters photos
"President" Bush -- representing the United States of America so fucking well during a news conference in Panama today, as these mainstream media photos clearly demonstrate -- tells perhaps the biggest presidential lie since "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."
'We do not torture' --
we just beat the holy living shit out of you!
That "President" Bush is a filthy fucking liar isn't exactly news. But rarely does the U.S. military prove that something that Bush says is a filthy fucking lie on the very same day.
Reports The Associated Press today:
President Bush [today] defended U.S. interrogation practices and called the treatment of terrorism suspects lawful. "We do not torture," Bush declared in response to reports of secret CIA prisons overseas.
Bush supported an effort spearheaded by Vice President Dick Cheney to block or modify a proposed Senate-passed ban on torture.
"We're working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible, more possible, to do our job," Bush said. "There's an enemy that lurks and plots and plans and wants to hurt America again. And so, you bet we will aggressively pursue them. But we will do so under the law."
Cheney is seeking to persuade Congress to exempt the Central Intelligence Agency from the proposed torture ban if one is passed by both chambers.
Bush spoke at a news conference with Panamanian President Martin Torrijos on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider a challenge to the administration's military tribunals for foreign terror suspects.
In a case entailing a major test of the government's wartime powers, justices will decide whether Osama bin Laden's former driver can be tried for war crimes before military officers in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, U.S. military forces have held hundreds of suspects at known installations outside the United States, including at the Guantanamo Bay naval base.
[Today] the Pentagon announced that five additional terror suspects at Guantanamo will face military trials on various charges including attacking civilians and murder. That brought to nine out of about 500 detainees at the facility who have been charged with criminal offenses.
Bush was asked about reports that the CIA was separately maintaining secret prisons in eastern Europe and Asia to interrogate al-Qaida suspects -- and demands by the International Red Cross for access to them.
Without confirming or denying the existence of such prisons, Bush said, "Our country is at war, and our government has the obligation to protect the American people."
He pointedly noted that Congress shares that responsibility with the administration.
"We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do...to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture," Bush said.
The European Union is investigating reports of the CIA prisons. The story was first reported by The Washington Post.
In Washington, Senate Democrats pressed for the creation of an independent commission to investigate detainee abuse. They hope to attach the proposal to a defense bill the Senate is considering this week.
"We need a 9/11-type commission to restore credibility to this nation," said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.
Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., called the commission unnecessary. "Responsibility and accountability have been assessed," Warner said, echoing Pentagon arguments that it had already done a dozen major investigations into prisoner-abuse allegations.
But Levin said there are areas that have not been reviewed, such as the CIA's interrogation of prisoners, the exporting of prisoners to countries that engage in torture, and the role contractors play in interrogations.
Separately, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said Bush's comments in Panama, combined with Cheney's efforts to exempt the CIA from the torture ban, "only demonstrate that the White House learned nothing from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo."
"This administration has consistently sought legal justifications for harsh techniques," Kennedy said.
The United States drew worldwide condemnation after photographs circulated showing guards at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad mistreating and humiliating prisoners.
So was "President" Monkeyboy claiming that we don't torture now -- after we got busted for what we did at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq -- or that we never did torture? Certainly we did -- and there is plenty of photographic evidence to prove it, such as these delightful images of U.S. military personnel torturing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib:
Are we to take motherfucker Bush's word for it that this Nazi-like shit never happens anymore? I sure fucking don't.
Here's another news story from today, from Reuters:
Five American soldiers in Iraq alleged to have punched and kicked Iraqi detainees and hit them with a broomstick have been charged with assault, the U.S. military said [today].
Army spokesman Paul Boyce said the five Army Rangers had been charged with assault and maltreatment of prisoners and dereliction of duty in the incident, which occurred on Sept. 7 in Baghdad.
"The detainees received injuries described as bruises and contusions caused by striking with a closed and open hand, kicking, and hitting with an object described as a broom stick," Boyce said in response to questions.
The United States faced international condemnation after photographs surfaced in April 2004 of U.S. forces abusing and sexually humiliating detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
Boyce, citing privacy concerns, declined to identify the Special Operations troops or the detainees, who he said were still being held in Iraq. He said the International Committee of the Red Cross had been given access to the detainees in question.
The five men charged in the incident have been assigned to "administrative" duties in their unit in Iraq, which Boyce declined to identify. No decision has been made, pending further investigation, on whether the men might face courts martial.
The Army announcement came hours after U.S. President George W. Bush said in Panama that the United States will do what it takes to protect itself, but "we do not torture."
The Abu Ghraib abuse scandal provoked global outrage and deepened Iraqi resentment of occupying U.S. troops. A group of low-ranking American soldiers were convicted of abuse at the prison.
U.S. forces are holding 13,885 prisoners at several detention centers in Iraq, according to figures from the military last week, including 5,074 at Abu Ghraib.
Iraqi families, human rights groups and some Iraqi government ministers, including the justice minister, complain that too many Iraqis are being wrongfully detained for too long without due process.
Asked why there was an apparent delay in announcing the September incident, Boyce said it had taken time to complete an Army investigation.
He said U.S. military officials in Iraq and Afghanistan and at the American military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had conducted more than 400 investigations of prisoner mistreatment. They also conducted dozens of inspections and inquiries in connection with detention operations.
"Thus far, allegations against over 230 military members have been addressed in courts-martial, non-judicial punishment and other adverse administrative actions," he said.
Maybe what Bush meant by "We do not torture" is that it isn't our policy to torture, and that any mistreatment of detainees by members of the U.S. military is just the actions of "a few bad apples."
More than 400 investigations of prisoner mistreatment and more than 230 U.S. military members investigated, according to a U.S. Army spokesman -- gee, that seems like a shitload of "bad apples" to me.
I blame the war criminals and traitors who comprise the Bush regime more than I blame the low-ranking members of the U.S. military -- after all, haven't they just been playing follow the leader? The Bush regime's unprovoked and imperialist invasion of Iraq was incredibly illegal, so how can we expect those under the command of these war criminals and traitors not to follow their example and to follow the law instead? As the members of the Bush regime have shown nothing but contempt for the law, how can we possibly believe that they have instilled within their underlings a respect for the law?
War criminal and traitor George W. Bush has not a subatomic particle of credibility left.
He should step down, but of course he won't, so after the Democratic Party regains control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2006, those of us real Americans who oppose the Nazi-like direction in which the Nazi-like members of the Bush regime have been dragging our nation need to pressure Congress to impeach the worthless, criminal piece of shit.
And impeachment is just the start of the punishment that George W. Bush deserves for his crimes.
P.S. These Panamanian protesters have it right:
 
Reuters and Associated Press photos
7:10:06 PM 
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