GEORGE W. BUSH: “THE UNITED STATES DOES NOT USE TORTURE!”
I HEARD IT WITH MY OWN EARS!
BUT I SAW THE PICTURES FROM ABU GHRAIB AND SO HAVE MANY OF YOU! BUSH LIES!
TO SEE THE ACTUAL PHOTOS FROM ABU GHRAIB PRISON:
360yahoo.com/jasltd1@sbcglobal.net
www.antiwar.com
It is a sad day in the life of this country when the president of the United States lies before the world about its violations of international law, the Geneva Conventions and our behavior in foreign affairs.
How can we believe anything that Bush says, or perhaps, the better question is “Why should we believe anything that Bush (and his White House cronies say?” We did become one of the most hated and distrusted nations in the world in seven short years because we acted as though we were really a light on the hill, the beacon to the world of freedom and liberty, the guiding light to all mankind for the principles that Christianity instills in everything we do as a country. It is for that reason that we print on our currency the words, “In God We Trust!”
This nation’ administration no longer trusts in God, the Bush Cheney administration trusts only in money and in war! And war and money have become the American Way under the leadership of George Bush and Dick Cheney.
Documents came out this week clearly demonstrating that this administration gave its permission for the CIA and the National Intelligence Agency to use interrogation measures that belie the Geneva Convention Bush so condescendingly and cavalierly dismissed when the war in Iraq was initially launched.
This was not a war between two or more nations, he argued passionately, this was a war against a group of extra-national terrorists. Therefore, the Geneva Conventions are irrelevant. Cheney concurred and so did Attorney General Gonzales.
But there were others in the Justice Department who disagreed. And there were many in Congress who thought the Bush strategy was a tragic
mistake for which our soldiers in combat would pay the price when they were taken prisoners of these foreign enemies.
Torture does not work, i.e. does not yet valid intelligence, because prisoners who are in great pain will say anything to get their captors to stop inflicting the suffering. We are told by several valid sources that it was because of intelligence acquired as a result of torture that we got into the war in Iraq in the first place. In other words, all of the faulty intelligence bandied about by Bush, Cheney, Powell and the entire new-conservative cadre came from a source or sources who were brutally tortured by agencies of the U. S. Government. Base upon that thoroughly false intelligence, we commitment several hundred thousand troops to a preemptive war against a sovereign nation that had nothing to do with 9/11, was not a danger to the safety and security of the U. S., and was about has perilous to the Middle East region as the infamous little person, General Tom Thumb.
If Bush and his friends did not learn anything else from the disasterous experience in Iraq they should have learned that torture does not work as a tool of interrogation.
Not only do we know that torture does not work, we also fear that our enemies on the battlefield will use torture on our own troops. Without one iota of concern for our own soldiers’ welfare, Bush and his cadres proceeded employing torture and we saw the results in Abu Ghraib.
Senator John McCain, himself a prisoner of war for five years and brutally tortured beyond belief, urged the president to reconsider what he considered to be a blunder. Other veterans who had seen the revulsion of war and the repugnance of torture argued vehemently against the policy Bush was attempting to sell to the country.
In time, as we all know, the courts, the Congress and most of the American people rejected torture as a tool of interrogation.
Only a few heartless, mindless fools, most from the far right continue to believe that torture is a legitimate instrument for gaining intelligence vital to our war efforts and information relative to our elusive enemy such as the one we face in al Qaeda. To believe in torture you must be some sort of sadist that emerges when the brain begins to produce chemicals that excite us sexually.
The ultra-hawkish among us, and especially those who have never been in a war or had a son or daughterr fight in a war, are the big promoters of this immoral form of intelligence gathering.
I have always found it intriguing that the biggest fans of war are those who have never fought in a war, or served in any capacity in the military services. Bush was in the National Guard, but never served out his time as Dan Rather so openly demonstrated. Rather’s new book will prove beyond a shadow that Bush was more of a “draft dodger” than a National Guard Reservist. Cheney, like his boss, has never served in the military fought in a war even though he receive five student deferments and was eligible to serve in combat. I believe Rumsfeld was the only cabinet member who actually put time in the armed services.
Those who are members of what we refer to today as the neo-conservatives such as Libby, Addington, Kristol, Barnes, Wolfowitz, and a dozen or so more who pushed Bush so hard for the war in Iraq do not know out of which end of the barrel the bullet comes.
This much I know: Bush can flaunt his religious conversion he wants, (probably very close to the time he was about to be called to active duty.) but the facts remain, the depth of one religious faith exhibits itself in what one does and what one says. Torture is incompatible with Christianity. About that there is no question and never will be. A Christian cannot believe in the ethnicity of torture of another human—friend or enemy.
But for the president to deny that some of our service people have engaged in some very heavy duty torture is simply a lie and there are pictures to prove it. [see the photos from Abu Ghraib on your computer]
Why not just come clean. Admit that some of our more aggressive guards did, indeed, torture some of the more recalcitrant and belligerent prisoners, but now that it has been come to light, both the DOD and the CIA have been informed to abide by the rules of Geneva Conventions.
Why does the president refuse to tell the truth? He will not tell the truth because he does not believe the Geneva Conventions are applicable in this war against terrorism. Nor does Cheney and nor do many in the CIA or the DOD. Which leads many to believe it is still going on here or in some foreign prison in a country that encourages torture.
If this Congress wishes to issue a “sense of the senate resolution, this if far more appropriate time than the resolution passed on Iran.
The Congress must speak out, loud and clear, on this matter and tell the world that the legislative branch of government wishes to make the U. S. government’s policy direct and clear.
Further, they should hold extensive hearings on what forms of torture is being employed today and whether or not it falls with the Geneva Convention.
In his recent speech on torture, he itemized the number of terrorist attacks that have been squelched through forms of torture. What he did not tell us is that it was the lies forced out of the mouth of a prisoner who would say anything to get relief from the suffering that gave Bush the ammunition he needed to promote his preemptive strike against Iraq.
I am sorry to say it, but the U. S. did torture and undoubtedly still does torture to attempt to glean information our interrogators and their superiors deem vital to our national defense.
11:09:35 PM 
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