Friday Follies

A good overview of the Steubenville rape trial.

Never forget what we did to Iraq.  Even though Donald Rumsfeld would like you to.

Transgender people speak out.

Steven Colbert about the voting rights act.

Yet another robot thing I will have to beat to death if it gets near me.

Dissolving our sea-shelled creatures.

Luke uses the force of his 9 year old self to fight off big corporations trying to take his city's water.

America's rape culture.

Bullshit

Bush: 'I Was A Dissenting Voice' On Iraq War

We knew this from the very beginning.

From the moment Bush was selected to be president, some of us bet we'd be at war with Iraq in two years. The neocons had been begging Clinton for years to take out Saddam, and now they had the power and ability to do so themselves.

The Bush administration was obviously prepping for war while theatrically pretending to be weighing the decision until the last minute. It was so very clear to us what they intended to do but the media just bizarrely ate up each declaration from Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush as the truth and asked no questions. It's what made me give up on the mainstream media in disgust and go hunting for those who actually reported the truth.

I really think the neocons felt they had all bases covered. The churches had been bought off with the 'faith-based initiatives', the allies were ready to get the oil, the military brass got a new shiny war with really big bombs, the media had been seduced with quail eggs and special interviews.... The Bush administration just didn't plan on those pesky bloggers with their damned facts and discomforting questions.

The truth refuses to die even though you thought you put out a hit, Mr. Cheney. And now the facts are slowly working back to the surface. Even though we knew what the truth was, it's nice to prove it.

Newly Declassified Documents Show Bush Administration Looked For Excuse To Start War In Iraq In Nov. 2001

If you had only been listening to us...

We could have told you that in the beginning.

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.

The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.

Colonel Wilkerson, who was General Powell’s chief of staff when he ran the State Department, was most critical of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld. He claimed that the former Vice-President and Defence Secretary knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were innocent but believed that it was “politically impossible to release them”.

General Powell, who left the Bush Administration in 2005, angry about the misinformation that he unwittingly gave the world when he made the case for the invasion of Iraq at the UN, is understood to have backed Colonel Wilkerson’s declaration.

[snip]

He also claimed that one reason Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld did not want the innocent detainees released was because “the detention efforts would be revealed as the incredibly confused operation that they were”. This was “not acceptable to the Administration and would have been severely detrimental to the leadership at DoD [Mr Rumsfeld at the Defence Department]”.

Referring to Mr Cheney, Colonel Wilkerson, who served 31 years in the US Army, asserted: “He had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent ... If hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it.”

He alleged that for Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld “innocent people languishing in Guantánamo for years was justified by the broader War on Terror and the small number of terrorists who were responsible for the September 11 attacks”.

He added: “I discussed the issue of the Guantánamo detainees with Secretary Powell. I learnt that it was his view that it was not just Vice-President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld, but also President Bush who was involved in all of the Guantánamo decision making.”

Shows how empathic Bush and his cronies were, doesn't it? How deeply concerned they were that they were torturing innocent people...





How soon they forget that they are NOT lords of the earth and sky, but elected officials who were asked to actually do something good for the people.

Pictures to remind you:



Or this one?

Lacking in empathy and feelings of concern for their fellow man doesn't even begin to describe the Bush administration.



But remember this revelation is only one of hundreds of actions the Bush administration did that harmed not only Iraq and Afghanistan, but the world.



Never forget the fact we did not need to attack Iraq.



Those innocent people did not need to end up in Gitmo.

Taking steps

To start undoing what has been done in our name:

Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), the chairman of the House intelligence committee, introduced an amendment to the 2010 intelligence authorization bill imposing a 15-year criminal sentence on any “officer or employee of the intelligence community” who tortures a detainee. (Twenty years if the torture involves an “act of medical malfeasance”; life if the detainee dies.)

And

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is concerned about possible misconduct in Afghanistan by the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater and has promised to review the issue, the Pentagon said.

So what does Blackwater do?

A Code Pink protester claimed a high-ranking Blackwater official threatened his life during a break of a Senate Armed Services hearing focused on the military contractor's actions in Afghanistan.

Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin reported that the threat was made by Johnny Walker, a program manager with one of Blackwater's subsidiaries. Walker testified at the hearing about the role his company, Paravant, played during its mercenary deployments to the Middle East.

But then this is going on:

In an interview with the Pakistani TV station Express TV, Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that the private security firms Blackwater and DynCorp are operating inside Pakistan. “They’re operating as individual companies here in Pakistan,” Gates said, according to a DoD transcript of the interview. “There are rules concerning the contracting companies. If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”

And the realization that if we didn't have mercenary groups, we'd be unable to fight the wars we're in. We don't have the troops.

Yet the court sides against Rumsfeld:

CHICAGO � A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a civil lawsuit accusing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of responsibility for the alleged torture by U.S. forces of two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm.

U.S. District Judge Wayne R. Andersen's ruling did not say the two contractors had proven their claims, including that they were tortured after reporting alleged illegal activities by their company. But it did say they had alleged enough specific mistreatment to warrant hearing evidence of exactly what happened.

Andersen said his decision "represents a recognition that federal officials may not strip citizens of well settled constitutional protections against mistreatment simply because they are located in a tumultuous foreign setting."

Andersen did throw out two of the lawsuit's three counts but gave former contractors Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel the green light to go forward with a third count alleging they were unconstitutionally tortured under procedures personally approved by Rumsfeld.

Update 3/7:UPDATE:

A Xe spokesman has told Talking Points Memo that they are unaware of any plans for the RNC to hold a fundraiser at their Moyock, N.C. facility. The spokesman said he was unsure why there was a slide in an RNC fundraising presentation that suggested otherwise. RNC Communications Doug Heye also told Politico's Ben Smith, who broke the story, that "No such Blackwater event ever existed," despite the calendar entry.

The Republican National Committee plans to hold an April fundraiser at a Moyock, N.C. compound owned by the military contracting firm formerly known as Blackwater, Politico reports.

According to an RNC fundraising document uncovered on Wednesday, RNC "Young Eagles" -- party major donors under 40 -- will meet at the facility in the spring.

And in the distance, we can still hear the shrill voices of the neocons....

Bomb Iran!

Bolton seems to believe that everything in the world can be fixed by nuking Iran .... economy, environment, jobs, acne, .....

Really, why on earth did we develop the A bomb if we weren't going to use it and show the world we're total badasses?

Because that was their intent all along... Iraq was supposed to be easy. They were going to pop out Hussein and pop in Chalabi and then be sitting pretty to start a real war with Iran.

And they're making sure the next crop of neocons gets the message:

And even some non-neocons seem to think nuking Iran would fix everything.

They're already planning to blame Obama for everything that goes wrong because he DIDN'T nuke Iran when he had the chance.

A reminder of who we had in the White House

During the Bush administration:



Glenn Greenwald:

Jonathan Schwarz notes that in 2005, Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Lithuania and visited a museum in Vilnius which once housed a KGB prison, where the Soviets tortured prisoners. That museum exhibits "solitary confinement rooms which were used to break down the prisoners and make them confess." Shockingly, "the walls are padded and soundproofed, made to absorb the cries and shouts for help," as it was the site of barbaric acts like this:

Prisoners either had to stand in ice-cold water or to balance on a small platform. Every time they got tired they fell down into the water.

After his visit, Rumsfeld released an "Open Letter to the People of Vilnius," in which he solemnly observed that "the museum was a stark reminder of the importance of preserving our liberty at all costs." Schwarz asks: "Did Rumsfeld Tour KGB Torture Museum to Pick Up Useful Tips?"

I wouldn't doubt it. Remember, they went down to Guantanamo to watch. And Rumsfeld complained that standing wasn't torture:

Forced Standing: "I stand for 8-10 hours a day," Donald Rumsfeld wrote in a 2002 interrogation memo. "Why is standing limited to four hours?" Rumsfeld would probably feel a little differently about this if he had to stand in place for 8-10 hours, which can cause ankle swelling, bruising, and excruciating pain.

I don't believe a word of it.

Donald Rumsfeld has finally said he's sorry. Sort of.

In an interview with biographer Bradley Graham, the former secretary of defense says he has regrets about the administration's controversial detainee policy.

The twist is that Rumsfeld doesn't regret the policy itself -- specifically the abandoning of the Geneva Conventions for detainees picked up in Afghanistan. Rather, he regrets how the policy was formulated.

Just like Rumsfeld was shocked over the photos from Abu Ghraib, it wasn't the torture, it was the outing of the torture. It's weirdly semantic. He and his cohorts still haven't understood exactly WHAT the world's revulsion is all about.

In comparison to this feeble reasoning, Robert McNamara's repentance appears saintlike.:

HUFFINGTON POST: In the course of producing the Fog of War what did you learn about Robert McNamara? And how did he see his place in history?

MORRIS: There are no simple answers to those questions. He is an extraordinarily complex figure and will probably remain as such... It is an amazing career and an amazingly complex career I might add. I don't share this view that McNamara is this clearly evil man. I think that he is extraordinarily complex and that may be a result as well of the extraordinarily complex history that he was part of. Nothing has a simple answer. Maybe nothing ever does. It's very easy to condemn him for these policies but harder to understand what his role was in these policies.

By the end of his life, McNamara clearly felt a sense of contrition. But did he feel as if he was responsible for what happened in Vietnam or did he think of himself as a victim of history, engulfed by the events that surrounded him?

I think that it is part of who we are, in general, that we would prefer to see ourselves as victims rather than as villains. Having said that, dealing with McNamara was dealing with a person who agonized about his past.

Update, emptywheel has more.

crossposted at SteveAudio

Memories...

Just to remind us of what we said goodbye to less than half a year ago....

Because they are rewriting history as fast as their sharpies can scribble...Bush's legacy in pictures.

The torture thirteen

They're naming names. Whether or not they can possibly be shamed is another thing entirely.

It's Holy Crap Monday!

Liz Cheney frantically rewrites history to favor her father's actions. GQ takes on Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld made sure it was a crusade for Bush, a holy war.

We do too want an investigation over torture! More pictures of Bush administration's non-torture. Obama can't ignore this. It's all about trying to force a false confession to make a link between al-Qaeda and 9/11.

The latest excuse for torture is the SERE program... which caused great suffering to one young soldier. (The mother's letter is heartbreaking.)

Wish them luck:

A coalition of liberal groups filed petitions Monday seeking disbarment of Bush administration attorneys linked to memos on harsh interrogation techniques of detainees.

The Great Game continues under Obama.

Simon Johnson for the Atlantic:

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

Just how economically stressed out is your community, how many homeowners are now underwater?

Governor Secession runs away.... from seceding.

With a great rubbing of hands in anticipation...

Those who liked the idea of torture supported Bush. Sparkle Plenty shares a story in comments:

Great post. The last eight years have been such a nightmare it's imposible to keep every scene in mind. I hope your reminder gets picked up and passed around.

I heard this retired CIA counterintel director do a sales job for torture before a susceptible Bible Belt audience (ironic isn't it?) in January 2002. The guy was clearly nuts. He could barely contain his enthusiasm for torturing any and all enemies, claiming if the CIA's hands hadn't been tied by post-Church Committee "skittishness", they would have been able to stop 9/11. And the audience of good Germans believed it, shot up their hands when he asked who would support torture as long as it didn't take place on American soil.

I still haven't gotten over it.

This was made in reaction to this post I did exactly one year ago, and which is worth reposting.

April 22, 2008

They even watched.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And Alberto Gonzales’s trip to Guantanamo, could you talk about that?

PHILIPPE SANDS: Well, I’ve spoken for the first time, or at least people I’ve spoken with have for the first time now become publicly identified as closely involved. Diane Beaver was the lawyer down at Guantanamo. Mike Dunlavey was her boss. General Hill was the commander of United States SouthCom based at Miami. I’ve spoken to all three of them, and both Diane Beaver and Mike Dunlavey, who have largely been scapegoated by the administration, described to me the visit that Mr. Gonzales made, accompanied by Mr. Addington, who’s Vice President Cheney’s lawyer, and Jim Haynes, who is Rumsfeld’s lawyer.

They came down. They talked about interrogation techniques. They apparently even watched an interrogation or two. I was told that the driving individual was Mr. Addington, who was obviously the man in control. And I was told in particular by Diane Beaver that she was quite fearful of Mr. Haynes, and she also shared with me that Alberto Gonzales was rather quiet.

I've it before and I say it now, these members of Bush's cabal were into torture. It made them feel like they could shock and awe the world with their mighty and powerful ... military and bombs.



Hard to push how mighty and powerful we are when all this war has shown is how craven and cowardly these creeps actually are.



If we can't bring ourselves to do it, let there please be one brave European country who can take our war criminals to the Hague!



Because torture is always immoral.

Even the military knows this:

The former head of interrogations at Guantánamo Bay found that records of an al-Qaida suspect tortured at the prison camp were mysteriously lost by the US military, according to a new book by one of Britain's top human rights lawyers.

Retired general Michael Dunlavey, who supervised Guantánamo for eight months in 2002, tried to locate records on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused by the US of plotting the 9/11 attacks, but found they had disappeared.

The records on al-Qahtani, who was interrogated for 48 days - "were backed up ... after I left, there was a snafu and all was lost", Dunlavey told Philippe Sands QC, who reports the conversation in his book Torture Team, previewed last week by the Guardian. Snafu stands for Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.

Saudi-born al-Qahtani was sexually taunted, forced to perform dog tricks and given enemas at Guantánamo.

The CIA admitted last year that it destroyed videotapes of al-Qaida suspects being interrogated at a secret "black site" in Thailand. No proof has so far emerged that tapes of interrogations at Guantánamo were destroyed, but Sands' report suggests the US may have also buried politically sensitive proof relating to abuse by interrogators at the prison camp.

Other new evidence has also emerged in the last month that raises questions about destroyed tapes at Guantánamo.

We need to see accountability, responsibility, justice. We need to see impeachment.



crossposted at SteveAudio

Everything is the same except the option of impeachment. But now we can talk about war crimes, the Hague and jail time....

Where do we sign up for court cases?

We know some people who need to be on it...

PARIS — More than six years after opening its doors, the International Criminal Court in The Hague began its first trial on Monday, as Thomas Lubanga, a former Congolese warlord, took his seat in the dock facing a crowded court and public gallery.

We have a little list. Won't take long, really. Just go the PNAC site and copy the names.

Laugh all you want, Georgie

I don't think you realize just how pissed off the world community is...

In remarks that aired on German television last night, Manfred Nowak, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, urged the U.S. to pursue former President George W. Bush and defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld on charges that they authorized torture and other harsh interrogation techniques:

“Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation” to bring proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld. […] He noted Washington had ratified the UN convention on torture which required “all means, particularly penal law” to be used to bring proceedings against those violating it.

“We have all these documents that are now publicly available that prove that these methods of interrogation were intentionally ordered by Rumsfeld,” against detainees at the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Nowak said.

Indeed, a bipartisan Senate report released last month found that Rumsfeld “bore major responsibility” for abuses committed at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and other military detention centers. Just last week, a Bush administration official overseeing Gitmo trials said Rumsfeld approved the torture of one particular detainee. Bush himself said last year that he was aware of his advisers’ discussions on torture and recently admitted that he personally authorized waterboarding Kalid Sheik Muhammad.

Well, if the US can't bring the Bush administration to account, then we'll have to get somebody else to drag the neocons to the Hague. I'd really like to see Bush at the dock trying to explain things without Unka Dick by his side...

We can't recall exactly what it was that he did

That was good for the country. Nothing comes to mind. We can't recall.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- under whose tenure the Justice Department often appeared to take its orders from the White House political office -- sat down with the Wall Street Journal in an effort to clear his name. But we're guessing he did himself more harm than good.

Gonzo appeared genuinely unable to grapple with why he might be unpopular. "What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?" he asked.

He doesn't recall? Let's help him remember:

Quibbling with the Constitution and the right of Habeas Corpus.

Dragging his heels about sharing info on the anthrax attacks.

Harassing Ashcroft as he was recovering in the hospital from gall bladder surgery, trying to make him sign off on warrantless wiretapping.

Perverting the judicial system and FISA, and demanding that judges do what the president wants.

Lying to Congress. As Attorney General. LYING to the nation. Lying about the firing of the US attorneys.



Caging voters.

Going down to Gitmo and WATCHING an interrogation or two.

Quibbling about the meaning of the word torture and redefining torture so it no longer means torture even though it is just because Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld liked torture. (And those lawyers and doctors who helped establish torture techniques? We want their names.) And no one has asked the question WHY?



Being a total toadie for Georgie Bush. Surrounding himself with toadie minions, zealots intent on bringing the US a theocracy, and loyal bushies.



Being thrown under the bus and thinking we should feel sorry for him.



Blaming everybody else.

Being a toadie sucks when you're facing a war crimes tribunal, doesn't it, Abu?

crossposted at American Street

Slowly working towards a war crimes tribunal

Oh please please please!

And, if you can believe it, an op-ed in the New York Times!:

Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths. All but President Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain of unprincipled decisions that led to the abuse, torture and death in prisons run by the American military and intelligence services.

Now, a bipartisan report by the Senate Armed Services Committee has made what amounts to a strong case for bringing criminal charges against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; his legal counsel, William J. Haynes; and potentially other top officials, including the former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.

The report shows how actions by these men “led directly” to what happened at Abu Ghraib, in Afghanistan, in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in secret C.I.A. prisons.

It said these top officials, charged with defending the Constitution and America’s standing in the world, methodically introduced interrogation practices based on illegal tortures devised by Chinese agents during the Korean War. Until the Bush administration, their only use in the United States was to train soldiers to resist what might be done to them if they were captured by a lawless enemy.

The officials then issued legally and morally bankrupt documents to justify their actions, starting with a presidential order saying that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to prisoners of the “war on terror” — the first time any democratic nation had unilaterally reinterpreted the conventions.

[snip]

These policies have deeply harmed America’s image as a nation of laws and may make it impossible to bring dangerous men to real justice. The report said the interrogation techniques were ineffective, despite the administration’s repeated claims to the contrary.

Alberto Mora, the former Navy general counsel who protested the abuses, told the Senate committee that “there are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq — as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat — are, respectively, the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.”

We can understand that Americans may be eager to put these dark chapters behind them, but it would be irresponsible for the nation and a new administration to ignore what has happened — and may still be happening in secret C.I.A. prisons that are not covered by the military’s current ban on activities like waterboarding.

A prosecutor should be appointed to consider criminal charges against top officials at the Pentagon and others involved in planning the abuse.

Obama has ninja skills

And they are impressive:

But in his (reported) choice of Eric Shinseki as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, there is also an extremely refined aspect of sticking in the shiv.

Whenever he talks about this selection, Obama (plus his lieutenants) can describe it completely, sufficiently, and strictly in the most bipartisan high-road terms. They have selected a wounded combat veteran; a proven military leader and manager; a model of personal dignity and nonpartisan probity: an unimpeachable choice. Symbolic elements? If people want them, they can work with Shinseki's status as (to my recollection at the moment) the first Asian-American in a military-related cabinet position, not to mention a Japanese-American honored for lifelong military service on Pearl Harbor Day.

As for the other symbolic element -- that Obama is elevating the man who was right, when Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, et al were so catastrophically wrong -- that is something that neither Obama nor anyone around him need say out loud, ever. The nomination is like a hyper-precision missile, or what is known in politics as a "dog whistle." The people for whom this is a complete slap in the face don't need to be told that. They know -- and know that others know it too. So do the people for whom it is vindication. And all without Obama descending for one second from his bring-us-together higher plane.

The artistry here is remarkable. Along with the inspired nature of this choice.

And more on the high quality of General Eric Shinseki. Link via Mark Adams of American Street.

War crimes tribunals

So we don't get a repeat of the Bush administration again. Ever.

Meteor Blades of Daily Kos:

Should George Bush and others in his administration be prosecuted for various actions is answered with a resounding yes! if you’re Vincent Bugliosi, author of The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. And, while most other critics who favor prosecution argue that lesser charges should be brought than Bugliosi would like to see, they believe it would be mistaken to let the actions of Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and crew fade into oblivion. For one thing, the main thing perhaps, allowing these leaders to escape unscathed for their actions means we can pretty much count on a repeat – only worse – a few years or decades down the road.

It's hard to imagine anybody who's watched Torturing Democracy could suggest that nothing should happen to the characters who promoted, encouraged and even set rules for torture.

But Obama advisor and Bush enabler Cass Sunstein sees things just that way. And, apparently, so does Clinton era Department of Justice official Robert Litt.

I'm sure we will want to bring these people to trial as soon as Seymour Hersh starts writing about what actually went on behind the White House walls:

'You cannot believe how many people have told me to call them on 20 January [the date of the next president's inauguration],' he says, with relish. '[They say:] "You wanna know about abuses and violations? Call me then." So that is what I'll do, so long as nothing awful happens before the inauguration.' He plans to write a book about the neocons and, though it won't change anything - 'They've got away with it, categorically; anyone who talks about prosecuting Bush and Cheney [for war crimes] is kidding themselves' - it will reveal how the White House 'set out to sabotage the system... It wasn't that they found ways to manipulate Congressional oversight; they had conversations about ending the right of Congress to intervene.'

Has anyone yet asked WHY?

Why did the concept of torture come up? Why was it even considered? Who could possibly be so cold hearted, unethical, and unconcerned about blowback that they would think it was a good idea? (Don't answer that.) Because of the recent news that Condi Rice has admitted torture was discussed at the highest levels in the White House (which we knew anyway, but it's nice to have an admission), I bring back this post:

They even watched:

JUAN GONZALEZ: And Alberto Gonzales’s trip to Guantanamo, could you talk about that?

PHILIPPE SANDS: Well, I’ve spoken for the first time, or at least people I’ve spoken with have for the first time now become publicly identified as closely involved. Diane Beaver was the lawyer down at Guantanamo. Mike Dunlavey was her boss. General Hill was the commander of United States SouthCom based at Miami. I’ve spoken to all three of them, and both Diane Beaver and Mike Dunlavey, who have largely been scapegoated by the administration, described to me the visit that Mr. Gonzales made, accompanied by Mr. Addington, who’s Vice President Cheney’s lawyer, and Jim Haynes, who is Rumsfeld’s lawyer.

They came down. They talked about interrogation techniques. They apparently even watched an interrogation or two. I was told that the driving individual was Mr. Addington, who was obviously the man in control. And I was told in particular by Diane Beaver that she was quite fearful of Mr. Haynes, and she also shared with me that Alberto Gonzales was rather quiet.

I've it before and I say it now, these members of Bush's cabal were into torture. It made them feel like they could shock and awe the world with their mighty and powerful ... military and bombs.



Hard to push how mighty and powerful we are when all this war has shown is how craven and cowardly these creeps actually are.



If we can't bring ourselves to do it, let there please be one brave European country who can take our war criminals to the Hague!



Because torture is always immoral.

Even the military knows this:

The former head of interrogations at Guantánamo Bay found that records of an al-Qaida suspect tortured at the prison camp were mysteriously lost by the US military, according to a new book by one of Britain's top human rights lawyers.

Retired general Michael Dunlavey, who supervised Guantánamo for eight months in 2002, tried to locate records on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused by the US of plotting the 9/11 attacks, but found they had disappeared.

The records on al-Qahtani, who was interrogated for 48 days - "were backed up ... after I left, there was a snafu and all was lost", Dunlavey told Philippe Sands QC, who reports the conversation in his book Torture Team, previewed last week by the Guardian. Snafu stands for Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.

Saudi-born al-Qahtani was sexually taunted, forced to perform dog tricks and given enemas at Guantánamo.

The CIA admitted last year that it destroyed videotapes of al-Qaida suspects being interrogated at a secret "black site" in Thailand. No proof has so far emerged that tapes of interrogations at Guantánamo were destroyed, but Sands' report suggests the US may have also buried politically sensitive proof relating to abuse by interrogators at the prison camp.

Other new evidence has also emerged in the last month that raises questions about destroyed tapes at Guantánamo.

We need to see accountability, responsibility, justice. We need to see impeachment.

Saddam had crumbs of yellowcake on his evil mustache

Daniel De Groot of Open Left:

I noted last night that a supply of uranium from Iraq had been successfully moved to Montreal in secrecy.

If you check into this, you'll quickly find that the uranium a) was not weapons grade and b) was well known to the UN and IAEA and was being stored legally by Saddam's government. It was legally in Iraq according to international law.

I wondered if the right wing echo chamber would use this as "proof" that the WMD claims were true after all. I got even better than I hoped, as not only do they use it that way, but they reveal how dishonest they are by the way they have done this.

De Groot then quoted from the blogs that proceeded predictably to do this very thing.

Bush was wrong. We know he was wrong. The American people know he was wrong. The world knows he was wrong. His glorious shiny 6 week war that would pop the clogs off Saddam and pop Chalabi into office went horribly horribly wrong. The wonderful war and decider commander guy president that would ensure a thousand year Republican Reich didn't happen. There were no weapons of mass destruction because the weapons of mass destruction Rumsfeld sold him had gone past their 'use by' date. Soldiers and innocents have died or been maimed in this glorious war on weapons of mass destruction program related activities. Saddam died, Georgie got his gun, but still the war grinds on.

Why did we attack and invade a sovereign country that had nothing to do with 9/11, Georgie? You'll be explaining yourself for the rest of your life, you know.

After all, it's your legacy we're talking about.