In 2008 the Bush administration finally announced that waterboarding was used extensively during the early years following 9/11. There is a lot of controversy on the issue. Some claim waterboarding or torture should never be used. Frankly I think John McCain knows infinitely more about it than all the big mouths out there, on any side of the issue. He doesn't believe Americans should use torture. Recently Dick Cheney has made more public appearances to defend this policy on National TV than he had made National TV appearances during many years while he was Vice President. Cheney claims that torture (waterboarding) was used to save American lives. The administration briefed Congress on this in some capacity in the early years following 9/11. There is a lot of controversy on these briefings right now swirling around Nancy Pelosi. Briefings were given to Congressional leaders in some capacity...but exactly what was presented and how it was presented is unknown by us. The briefings were limited and secretive. In early 2008, Bush administration officials finally publicly admitted to using waterboarding. At the end of 2008 Cheney personnally acknowledged that he was involved in authorizing waterboarding back in 2002. While Cheney claims that waterboarding was critical to help save lives there are people high up in the Bush administration who thoroughly disagree and claim that Cheney authorized waterboarding and torture, simply to try and find a connection between Saddam Hussein, and Al Queda and Osama Bin Laden....a claim that Cheney repeatedly has made...and yet has never been proven and has widely been disavowed as untrue. Here are the comments from the former chief of Staff to Colin Powell, former Secretary of State: Now we know, with the prosecution of Scooter Libbey, that essentially Cheney got Libbey to attack Valerie Plame, the former secret CIA agent, and her husband, Joe Wilson, who revealed that a basic and underlying Bush administration "reason" for going to war against Iraq was blatently false. Now it seems to be coming out that Cheney authorized continued and extensive usage of waterboarding (torture) not to save American lives, but to try and find a connection between Hussein and bin Laden....that he kept claiming...but couldn't be proved. Could he actually have tried to use torture to prove his point....even if it was blatently false? Frankly, while the controversy is swirling around I'd like for Congress to investigate exactly how and why it was used, on whom, and what were authorities trying to find out. Were they actually trying to save American lives...or were they torturing people to try and create substantiation for Dick Cheney's claims about why we went to war against Iraq.
Very sad, I don't even need to read this to know that our government is full of corrupt tyrant criminals. People say "yeah, torture those Iraqi's! Get 'em!!" without ever realizing that this sets the precedent to not only program the population to think its normal, but to be used on US as well.. Have you seen the new DHS documents that puts 99.9999% of the population into a terrorist group?
"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." --George W. Bush, interview with CBS News' Katie Couric, Sept. 6, 2006 "He was a state sponsor of terror. In other words, the government had declared, you are a state sponsor of terror." --George W. Bush, on Saddam Hussein, Manhattan, Kan., Jan. 23, 2006 Bush to troops in Qatar: "Our actions sent along a clear message that our nation is strong and our nation is compassionate," Bush told the troops at the rally. "America sent you on a mission and that mission has been accomplished." 100,000 plus dead. Mission Accomplished? "The only way we can win is to leave before the job is done." --George W. Bush, Greeley, Colo., Nov. 4, 2006 "I will not withdraw, even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me." --George W. Bush, talking to key Republicans about Iraq, as quoted by Bob Woodward "I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is -- my point is, there's a strong will for democracy." --George W. Bush, interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Sept. 24, 2006 "See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction." —Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 3, 2003 "One of the big concerns early on was the southern oil fields. I have frequently talked about the southern oil fields or general, and at least in the south they are secure- and that is positive news for uh, for all of us." "But the risk of doing nothing, the risk of the security of this country being jeopardized at the hands of a madman with weapons of mass destruction far exceeds the risks of any action we may be forced to take." "People don't need to worry about security. This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America." --George W. Bush, on the deal to hand over U.S. port security to a company operated by the United Arab Emirates, Washington, D.C., Feb. 23, 2006
Well, I'm just glad we have someone in office now who is ending these wars, stopping the wiretaps, and closing gitmo!!
It sure looks that way. All of the puzzle pieces are coming together. I don't really understand how anyone can continue to defend Cheney at this point... the realization has to start to settle in: Cheney wasn't pro-torture to "save American lives" or any other such BS, he was pro-torture because he thought it was the best way to get "proof" that could be used to connect Iraq with 9/11. The fact is that torture is well known to produce false information that is often used for propaganda purposes. The really screwy thing is, this time it was our government trying to get that false info to be used in propaganda purposes. Torture is not a good method fir getting real information which is why the entire debate about whether we should use torture if it's necessary is such nonsense. It's like asking "should you use a gun if it's really necessary to swim across the lake?" Torture isn't productive at getting real information, it never has been thought to be by anyone who knows about it (read what the real experts have to say on the issue.) As Jesse Ventura says: "Give me Dick Cheney, one hour, and waterboarding and I'll get him to confess to the Sharon Tate murders." (paraphrasing from memory but you get the idea.) The media needs to start doing their job and that means reporting the facts not parroting disinfo spread by power hungry lunatics like Dick Cheney. There's no debate here. There's only the truth and the war criminal liars (like Cheney.)