I think it is now clear to the vast majority of Americans that over the last 7 years the CIA and the United States military, following orders coming down from the Bush Administration, have been torturing people, despite repeated statements from President Bush and his spokesmen that "we do not torture." The latest evidence is in a book, "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals," by Jane Mayer. According to an article in the New York Times which received an advance copy of the book:
Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.
Now that the International Red Cross has concluded that war crimes were committed, will top Bush Administration officials, such as Richard Armitage, Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney, live the rest of their lives in fear of being arrested and tried as war criminals, ala Pinochet? Although indicting and trying Pinochet was not politically possible in Chile that was not the case everywhere in the world. Spain indicted Pinochet for war crimes and Britain honored Spain's warrant when Pinochet came to Britain for medical treatment.
Back in 2001 a high-level government official bragged to a reporter that they in the Bush Administration were creating reality by their actions, unlike those, like the reporter, who were in the "reality-based community." We now see what the world they were creating looks like. Although the rest of the country may be able to move on after November the former Bush Administration officials will have to deal with the consequences of their actions for the rest of their lives. They have created a Hell here on earth for themselves in which they have condemned themselves to live. I wonder how that will be working out for them.
2 comments:
Fortunatly for these jokers, there is plenty of stuff for them to do in America. Cheney will always use the defense of his hero Richard Nixon. If the President says so, that makes it legal.
I just heard Jane Mayer speak about her book on "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross. The book seems to be full of strong and interesting facts and details. She tells of very high level military and administration people who risked much and failed to stop this policy of torture. These were "conservative" law and ordor type people.
I realize now that all my life I have viewed the governments of the world and classified them in my mind as good, fair, poor, and sadly very bad. But I also had an additional catagory of "evil governments" and they were defined almost exclusively as those that used and approved torture.
What have we become? Daniel
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