Originally Posted By Mr X <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h8cQDnuyAl5pQ63PMhg5qbZk9-ngD97NS8SG1" target="_blank">http://www.google.com/hostedne...97NS8SG1</a> Guess this really does go right to the top! I wonder if anything will ever be done about it... "According to the new narrative, which compiles legal advice provided by the Bush administration to the CIA, Rice personally conveyed the administration's approval for waterboarding of Zubaydah, a so-called high-value detainee, to then-CIA Director George Tenet in July 2002." "A spokesman for Rice declined comment when reached Wednesday."
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt Isn't ironic that the true Axis of Evil turned out the be the Bush Administration.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh Oh brother. Iran stones girls to death for the "sin" of being raped, and we're evil because we made someone stand up for a long time, and thought about putting him in a box with a caterpillar.
Originally Posted By Mr X It isn't about them Douglas, it's about us. Just ask the most excellent FOX news channel, they'll tell you the same! <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYGlU07e-Vw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...lU07e-Vw</a> (warning...harsh language used by FOX news reporter in this clip...hide the kids)
Originally Posted By Mr X "WE ARE AMERICA! I don't give a rat's bleep if it helps, we do not bleeping torture!" Shep Smith..FOX news Stay tuned folks, I'm thinking Doug might just have an aneurism over this one (particularly due to his recent "it worked" angle).
Originally Posted By DVC_Pongo You know people, I agree that torture of any kind is wrong. Ok. But I hate to see this every time we change the party that is in the White house. The new administration suddenly out of nowhere grows a set of stones and armed with their new found security clearances, they begin to air all kinds of dirty laundry before the world in hopes of witch hunting out the past administration that is now in moth balls. Yay. Hooray for our side. What is that phrase? Oh yeah...I love it.. "...and the beat goes on." Yeah that's the pharse.
Originally Posted By Mr X Actually, Dick Cheney asked for even more security clearance revelations. In fact, he practically dared the White House to do it. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/us/politics/23detain.html?hp" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04....html?hp</a> Go figure.
Originally Posted By DVC_Pongo You know what I think is hilarious? The Left HATES Dick Cheney and possibly they hate even more than Bush himself, a fellow by the name of Karl Rove. I think these people know that they are within the law on this stuff. But I can understand Cheney's stance, and it is only fair. And that is: If you are going to tell the story, tell the whole damn thing, not just the parts that make the people you hate, sound as evil as possible. But then that's the way with many Deomicrats in DC like crazy lady Pelosi, "anything to take down the establishment."
Originally Posted By DVC_Pongo A moment of honesty from me here... I would like to say in light of my last post, I honestly LIKE President Obama, truly I do and am pulling for him 100% no if's and or buts. But you guys have to admit, Pelosi is sometimes, at least sometimes, off her rocker. Come on, fess up.
Originally Posted By Mr X Pelosi is a fantastic and charming woman, who is the best thing to happen to the congress since good old Tip O'Neil. How can you dare say otherwise!?
Originally Posted By piperlynne Pelosi is a little bit of a whack. She has her moments of lucidity but I would prefer someone else in the limelight and the Speaker position.
Originally Posted By piperlynne #14 said, I would also have preferred someone else in the VP position from 00-08 cos I think that fella is a bit of a whack too. But you can't always get what you want. . . . And I think all the docs should be released. I don't agree that they should not have released any. I do agree that if they're going to release them, release them all. I'm all for the people knowing what the heck is/was going on.
Originally Posted By DAR <<we're evil because we made someone stand up for a long time, and thought about putting him in a box with a caterpillar.>> Well maybe a pretty butterfly would emerge.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <But I hate to see this every time we change the party that is in the White house. The new administration suddenly out of nowhere grows a set of stones and armed with their new found security clearances, they begin to air all kinds of dirty laundry before the world in hopes of witch hunting out the past administration that is now in moth balls.> Hey, if the next administration discovers that the Obama administration condoned torture, I'd be perfectly fine with that coming out too.
Originally Posted By Mr X Interesting how the Huffington Post had this story 12 hours ago, it's just now up on CNN, and Drudge is still ignoring it. Just sayin...
Originally Posted By Mr X Almost EXACTLY 12 hours ago, actually (since that was when I first posted it)... FREAKY.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Note, too, news that has just come to light. It looks like one of the reasons some of these people were tortured was not for any "ticking time bomb" fantasy scenario. It was to try to find a Saddam-Al Qaeda connection in order to justify the invasion of Iraq. Of course, there was no such connection, so we tortured people to find information that didn't even exist. Lovely. <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090422/pl_mcclatchy/3217245/print" target="_blank">http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclat...45/print</a> "The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist. Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime. The use of abusive interrogation — widely considered torture — as part of Bush's quest for a rationale to invade Iraq came to light as the Senate issued a major report tracing the origin of the abuses and President Barack Obama opened the door to prosecuting former U.S. officials for approving them." (snip) "There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity. "The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there." (snip) "There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder," he continued. "Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies." Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said. A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney , told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba , detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq . "While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq ," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results." Excerpts from Burney's interview appeared in a full, declassified report on a two-year investigation into detainee abuse released on Tuesday by the Senate Armed Services Committee ."
