post a random Bush administration crime

[rikki]

This is a thread for remembering all the things the Bush administration is going to get away with because Nancy Pelosi refuses to impeach Cheney, because Congress has been unwilling to check executive branch abuses, and because the Bush administration has operated under a perverse interpretation of executive privilege.

Feel free to add new crimes, but do try to include only things that are actually criminal offenses, not merely poor judgment. For example, Katrina was a disgrace but not a crime.

I'll start:

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/US/06/02/chalabi.iran/vert.sotu.jpg

Ahmed Chalabi was the source of much of bad (http://zfacts.com/p/164.html) intelligence used (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_05/003988.php) to sell (http://cjrarchives.org/issues/2004/4/mccollam-list.asp) the invasion of Iraq, and he was being groomed to rule Iraq once Saddam Hussein was removed from power. After the invasion, he told Iran that American agents were able to decrypt and intercept official communications. Iran changed their encryption, preventing us from eavesdropping. Chalabi's office in Baghdad was ransacked by MPs, and he and his INC cohorts were booted (http://ipsnews.org/interna.asp?idnews=23840) from the CIA payroll.

He said "a drunk American" shared the secret with him, but this person (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11043-2004Jun2.html) has never (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113132700203089698.html?mod=politics_primary_hs) been identified, nor is there any indication anyone was ever (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040531-641077,00.html) held responsible for lapse in security.

[Scott]

George Bush Authorized the Leak of Valerie Wilson’s Identity
By: emptywheel Thursday May 29, 2008 7:08 am

Scottie McC doesn't know it yet. But that's basically what he revealed this morning on the Today Show (h/t Rayne).

During the interview, Scottie revealed the two things that really pissed him off with the Bush Administration. First, being set up to lie by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. And second, learning that Bush had--himself--authorized the selective leaking of the NIE.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/05/29/george-bush-authorized-the-leak-of-valerie-wilsons-identity/

[jsmith]

Let's not forget that Bush used his hurricane machine to destroy New Orleans because he hates black people.

Despite the fact that we can't prove that the eeeeevil cabal of the Bush administration has conducted its nefarious operations under a perverse interpretation of executive privilege, and we also cannot prove that this despicable Bushco shadow government forced Richard Armitage to leak the Super-Secret identity of CIA desk jockey Valerie Plame, I think we'll all agree that the following Top Secret photograph cannot be disputed. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that George Bush is responsible for Hurricane Katrina. It is, in fact, photographic evidence of the control panel of Bush's hurricane machine:

http://www.tonymiller.co.za/images/food/candyfloss.jpg

(Actual picture of President Bush's weather control machine)

[rikki]

Despite the fact that we can't prove that the eeeeevil cabal of the Bush administration has conducted its nefarious operations under a perverse interpretation of executive privilege

That's easily proven (your hyperbolic flourishes aside). Bush has made (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/04/30/examples_of_the_presidents_signing_statements/) unprecedented (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_of_laws/) use of signing statements (http://www.coherentbabble.com/signingstatements/TOCindex.htm), usurping both Congress' power to write laws and the courts' power to interpret them. Several (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/opinion/01sun1.html) members of the administration have ignored court orders and Congressional subpoenas on several matters (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003788310_webtillman13.html). Wiretapping was done with no court oversight. Cheney even claimed to not (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1636435,00.html) be part of the executive branch in order to avoid turning over documents. That was just before a small fire broke out in his office.

Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers have been in contempt of Congress since February for refusing (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071902625.html) to testify regarding politicization of the U.S. Attorneys office, and the Attorney General has ignored the resolution. Rove has also refused to testify, and he was just summoned to appear before Congress again. The House is considering hiring its own attorney to enforce its subpoenas since the AG will not.

The White House had offered to have them testify under the same conditions Bush and Cheney imposed on the 9/11 Commission: private hearings with no recordings, transcripts or follow ups.

Basically, this administration has attempted (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/oct/22/bushs-legal-club-state-secrets/) to operate in total secrecy (http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20011109.html), and rational (http://www.reason.com/news/show/29226.html) conservatives (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_35_18/ai_92352717/pg_1) are increasingly concerned (http://washingtontimes.com/news/2007/oct/29/the-orwellian-bush-administration/) about what a Democrat might do with the new Presidential powers Bush has established in the shadow of Congressional abdication.

[jsmith]

According to Cindy Sheehan... uh, er, I mean "one high-level insider" close to the administration, the eeeevil George W. Bush, acting as Grand Chair of the Illuminati, has been waging a secret “nuclear war” in Iraq, one which will have “eternal” consequences.

“We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now. That country is contaminated. It will be contaminated for practically eternity now,” the insider said on condition of anonymity.

Yet one more crime in an outrageous litany from this corrupt, secretive administration. As freedom-loving, non-partisan Americans who are only interested in truthiness, we must all band together to impeach the b******s now!!!!

Oh, how much longer!! How much longer must we endure this criminal administration??!!

(Puts hand to head and faints)

[jeffx]

you are a cartoon.

[metulj]

One sentence: The rape of the dollar as a way to fake a shrinking trade deficit.

[jsmith]

you are a cartoon.
Sheesh, I'm trying to help you guys out in a very bi-partisan outreach kinda' way, and all I get is name-calling. That's very hurtful and insensitive of you when I'm just trying to build a bridge between your heart and mine.
*shrug*



Needless to say, we all know Bush was given marching orders during his candidacy in 2000 by Unocal to prepare the guidelines for what would be 9/11. Unocal's guideline was that the terrorists pegged for the attack would all be in Afghanistan, thereby allowing Unocal to resurrect an oil pipeline plan it had to drop in the 90s due to the Taliban (a Reagan-era creation) taking over.

So the eeeevil BIG OIL engineers the Bush "win" by disenfranchising every single American voter except the already brainwashed and indoctrinated members of the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. *shudders a little after fingers are done typing even the very phrase*
It acts in conjunction with Diebold to rig voting machines to count every legitimate vote for Gore as an illegitimate Bush vote instead (minorities, women, and the underprivileged were hardest hit, by the way). Unocal goes on to orchestrate 9/11 and orders Bush to call the Jews who work in the Twin Towers that they are to "call in sick" the next day. It's a known fact that Bush completed the call to the last Jew on the list at 8pm on 9/10. How do we know this? Because it's a known fact and all the experts agree.


The puppet administration thus declares "war on terror" (as everyone knows, Unocal had approximately 10 million pro-war on terror bumper stickers printed even before installing Bush in the White House).
Now, Big Oil had carte blanche in case of future oil conquests. "Mission accomplished" (a phrase which originated from Unocal's advertising agency, BBDO New York, was later given to Bush to say while on deck of an aircraft carrier.)
*Do these traitors know no bounds??!!*

And while the dust settled after the Taliban's downfall, Unocal moves in and secures an oil pipeline deal. Turns out it's the liberal Democrats who are the only group inside Afghanistan to have eyewitnesses to the pipeline's construction.

For this alone, my friends, we should, nay, we shall, be marching in the streets demanding impeachment! Who is with me??? Let us meet at West Towne Mall next Saturday!

First, we take West Knoxville...then, we take THE WORLD!!!
To the world we carry the light of truth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hi Top]

Must be one of the 20 something percent still supporting Dumbya.

[Wombat]

1380



This is NOT what I was expecting!!!!!

[rikki]

This is NOT what I was expecting!!!!!

Nope, none of that with these boys. Just this:

http://www.solutionassoc.com/truthfire/pics/bush_gannonguckert.jpg

[jsmith]

about getting together at the mall next Saturday, we're going to meet at the food court. We should be able to recognize each other from the Birkenstocks, glasses, unwashed hair, and patchy beards.

But I'm not sure what the guys will look like.

[metulj]

But I'm not sure what the guys will look like.

See photos above.

[trancendyce]

Nope, none of that with these boys. Just this:

http://www.solutionassoc.com/truthfire/pics/bush_gannonguckert.jpg

those are great!

btw, does shooting someone in the face while drunk count as criminal? cause i just don't know anymore.

[rikki]

btw, does shooting someone in the face while drunk count as criminal? cause i just don't know anymore.

I suppose that depends on whether the person who got shot dies or presses charges.

I'd exempt that act from this list since it was extracurricular. There are plenty enough on-duty crimes to list without having to delve into off-duty activities nor all the DUI convictions, sealed court records and destroyed evidence these guys brought with them.

[trancendyce]

I'd exempt that act from this list since it was extracurricular. There are plenty enough on-duty crimes to list without having to delve into off-duty activities nor all the DUI convictions, sealed court records and destroyed evidence these guys brought with them.

it's amazing isn't it? even with all the other things going on (like the war and the torture and the national disasters and the...) he still had time for extracurricular criminality. this is a man who really knows how to stop and smell the taint.

[jsmith]

We can add one more crime to this ever-growing list of ghoulish deeds perpetrated by eeevil genius George W. Bush: the murder of JFK...JR!! (GASP!!)

Far fetched you say? Oh, really?
Just where was Bush when Kennedy's plane crashed into the ocean on Friday, 10pm, July 16, 1999? Hmmm???

Bush was involved in a heated campaign, which he was losing in New Hampshire. He was constantly in public and constantly surrounded by reporters, so it’s easy to figure out where he was. Right? Wrong! According to the Omaha World Herald (7/17/99), on July 16th Bush was flipping pancakes Friday morning in Des Moines, but he boarded a bus and disappeared for the entire weekend. On Saturday, July 18th, reporters looking for a comment from Bush confronted a fumbling spokesperson who was unable to say when Bush would be available for comment. (Newsday, 7/19/99, A19) Bush finally called a press conference on Monday, to offer condolences.

Case closed, my friends. Not only do we now have enough factual evidence to impeach the president, but we also have enough to put him in prison.
So what about it, guys? Are we all in lockstep on this?

As George would say, “We got more than enough here to hang a feller in Texas.”

[jsmith]

...sealed court records and destroyed evidence these guys brought with them.

Hold on, there, my friend. We'll get to Sandy Berger in the next thread.

[Hi Top]

I think the troll on here may be in the 12-17 year old range.

[jsmith]

I think the troll on here may be in the 12-17 year old range.

I do have somewhat of a youthful appearance.
*blushes*

[DnB]

I think the troll on here may be in the 12-17 year old range.

That's an insult to all the 12-17 year olds out there.

[rikki]

Sometimes I get so hung up on the fact that Rumsfeld did this on purpose, with extensive forethought and planning, that I lose sight of just how grotesque (http://funhouserock.com/funhouse/blab/showthread.php?p=240282#poststop) the base crime is.

[trancendyce]

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u117/trancendyce/bobbywantstotorturefortheGOP.jpg

[jsmith]

http://www.tinfoilhatparty.org/images/tinfoil-hat.jpg
Sometimes I get so hung up on the fact that Rumsfeld did this on purpose, with extensive forethought and planning, that I lose sight of just how grotesque (http://funhouserock.com/funhouse/blab/showthread.php?p=240282#poststop) the base crime is.

[metulj]

http://www.tinfoilhatparty.org/images/tinfoil-hat.jpg

Problem is that: It isn't a conspiracy. Don't you have Muslims to hate or something counter-productive and Real American to do like that?

[trancendyce]

http://images.cafepress.com/product/101057673v11_240x240_Front.jpg

[rikki]

jsmith's Rules of Disengagement:

1. You are not informed enough to handle the facts; don't try.
2. You are not smart enough to tackle the principles and implications; don't try.
3. You are not alone; don't cry.

Ann Coulter really did wink at you the other night. It may just be your mind that she blows, but she wants more, you can totally tell. Sean Hannity values you as a person.

[trancendyce]

http://www.seedsofdoubt.com/images/cheney-knows-torture.jpg

[trancendyce]

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/bush_hell1.jpg

http://images.quickblogcast.com/60987-53525/George_Bush_Constitution_Killer.jpg

[rikki]

Major General Antonio Taguba, now retired, recently said, "There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

There have been more than 100 deaths in U.S. military prisons during the war on terror, and many innocent (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/259/story/38773.html) people were among the dead and abused. Thomas White, the former Enron executive appointed Secretary of the Army so he could ink a 10-year contract with KBR back when ignoring terrorism was Bush's policy, said of the Guantanamo prison, as paraphrased in the McClatchy report, "From the moment Guantanamo opened in early 2002, it was obvious that at least a third of the population didn't belong there."

In today's column, Nicholas Kristof calls for the next President to establish a Truth Commission, composed mainly of military and intelligence officers, to help America come to grips with what perverts like Donald Rumsfeld did in our name, likening it to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that helped South Africa move beyond apartheid.

I'd prefer to see Rumsfeld arrested in front of his grandchildren and shipped to the Hague to die alone in a prison cell, but since so many of us, most notably worthless Congressional Democrats, have made ourselves complicit through silence, I suppose I can settle for some sort of collective reckoning.

[jsmith]

Lest we forget, let's add to the litany of crimes of this eeeevil cabalistic shadow-government of the eeevil, torturous Bush (the very name galls me as it leaves my lips, friends) administration the fact that he has misreprensented himself. He is, in fact...a giant shape-shifting lizard of the Illuminati!!! GASP!!!!

Yes, it's true, my friends, and to heap yet more insidiousness on an already devilish scenario, BOTH PRESIDENT BUSH AND JOHN MCCAIN ARE ONE AND THE SAME!!! GASP!!! GASP!!!!

What's that, you say? Proof? Why, simply look at this irrefutable photo:

http://www.themaskedblogger.com/images/gorn.jpg

And read for yourself the absolutely true, terror-inspiring tale of the men we know as "president" and "presidential nominee." I tell you, it sends a shiver down my spine even as I type it!

President and Republican candidate are one and the same - a shape-shifting alien lizard creature, claim Washington insiders

By Dick Kennedy, UFO Correspondent

McCain Bush lizard alien President George W Bush and John McCain are one and the same - a shapeshifting lizard alien from the Zeta Reticuli star system.

The revelations come from an insider from Bush's own staff. Speaking on condition of anonymity, Mr X said he could no longer stand the horrific sights to which he was subject as the alien being shifted from one hideous form to another.

"There's a lot of credibility to these accusations, as the two 'men' are rarely seen in the same place," said one Washington insider. "And when they are, I'm told that the 'Bush' is actually one of the many doubles the President uses for less-important speaking engagements."

Others inside the Beltway have long suspected that the President might be from another planet. According to one Congressman, the Bush-McCain creature's extraterrestrial origins were betrayed in a number of ways.

"The first clue that Bush was an alien was his trouble with even simple English phrases," he said. "According to briefings I've received from the CIA and NASA, language is an alien's weak point. And McCain has similar problems. Sometimes you think he's just not going to get to the end of the sentence."

There is also Bush's bizarre empathy with 'illegal aliens' - with proposed amnesties, citizenship programs and guest worker schemes. "You and I know that 'illegal alien' means Mexican," said the Congressman, "but Bush gets easily confused."

Political experts say that Bush is just morphing his form to get around the two-term limit imposed by the 22nd Amendment. "He hasn't finished with the country yet," said Mr X. "This way, he gets to continue the same policies while convincing people he stands for something new."

The Congressman added: "It's possible that all the neocons - not just Bush-McCain - are shape-shifting lizards and that there aren't nearly so many of them as people think."

[trancendyce]

There are plenty enough on-duty crimes to list without having to delve into off-duty activities nor all the DUI convictions, sealed court records and destroyed evidence these guys brought with them.

so back to this point. where do you mark the start?
at the beginning of the political careers or are you mostly just interested in the crimes in and around the presidency? if it is the latter... do you start with the irregularities of dubyah/dick's becoming pres and vice in the first place or elsewhere?

[jsmith]

so back to this point. where do you mark the start?
It's a noble effort, no doubt, but let's keep in mind the really serious issues regarding the criminality of the eeeevil Bushco cabal, that being that Bush, the eeevil mastermind genius behind 9/11 (but still dumb and bumbling), hates the Spotted Owl!!! GASP!!!

We now have it confirmed that Bush has arranged an invasion of the Spotted Owl's Pacific-Northwestern territory by the American Barred Owl population from the southeast. It is suspected that Jeb Bush has brokered a deal with these vicious Barred Owls in Florida and arranged that they will push the Spotted Owls right out of their homes.

There is no report on what the Barred Owls will get from this deal, but it is suspected that they will get a healthy share in oil exploration rights off the California coast, or maybe a giant pile of dead mice... we aren't sure which.

Even worse, it has come to light that some of these thug Republican Barred Owls are forcing the noble Spotted Owl to mate with them, producing a hybrid bird population between the Barred Owl and the Spotted Owl. Minority and poor owls are expected to be hardest hit!!!
Positively dastardly!!

So, not only is Bush sponsoring owl home invasion, but he is fostering owl date rape. It's all so disgusting.

Oh, how long must we suffer this eeeevil owl-prejudiced regime of terror, my friends??? Is there no justice???!!!!

http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/blog/uploaded_images/WwithOwl-730878.jpg[
One of Bush's eeevil owl footsoldiers, ready to do his bidding.

[Hi Top]

Don't think anybody on here accused Bush of being the "mastermind" of anything. I'm amazed that anybody still defends him, though.
Baaaa! Baaaa!

[jsmith]

Don't think anybody on here accused Bush of being the "mastermind" of anything. I'm amazed that anybody still defends him, though.
Baaaa! Baaaa!

Obviously you don't care about the disadvantaged, poor, and minority owls, sir! Oh, how easy it must be to sit in your La-Z-Boy day after day, destroying planet Earth with your carbon-emitting respiration, your environmentally-unfriendly high definition television, and your radiation-emitting microwave, laughing at the latest 'Big Brother' episode. Sir, your lack of concern for our dear Mother Earth, and our evolutionary cousin, the Spotted Owl, leads me to conclude that you are, in fact, an owl racist.
I thought we had seen the last of your kind when the Civil War was over, but I guess not. You sicken me.
Personally, I don't know how you can sleep at night, thinking you're better than the Spotted Owl.

[Sock Puppet]

Obviously you don't care about the disadvantaged, poor, and minority owls, sir! Oh, how easy it must be to sit in your La-Z-Boy day after day, destroying planet Earth with your carbon-emitting respiration, your environmentally-unfriendly high definition television, and your radiation-emitting microwave, laughing at the latest 'Big Brother' episode. Sir, your lack of concern for our dear Mother Earth, and our evolutionary cousin, the Spotted Owl, leads me to conclude that you are, in fact, an owl racist.
I thought we had seen the last of your kind when the Civil War was over, but I guess not. You sicken me.
Personally, I don't know how you can sleep at night, thinking you're better than the Spotted Owl.

The Spotted Owl is you, Guerin.

[jmcnair]

Maybe this will help. It's color-coded by scandal to help our slower friends keep up.

http://www.slate.com/id/2195892/

[Hi Top]

Maybe this will help. It's color-coded by scandal to help our slower friends keep up.

http://www.slate.com/id/2195892/

nice.

[rikki]

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2008-08/41902699.jpg

The Bush administration's perfect record of pissing on Constitutional checks and balances while the Gutless Old Perverts sing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubjgisuitDw)(not safe for lunchtime) the praises of that ragged old parchment may be coming to an end (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-executive28-2008aug28,0,4916547.story).

[rikki]

Condoleeza Rice now admits (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092403355.html?hpid=sec-nation) that she led meetings with Cabinet officials (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/washington/25detain.html) in spring of 2002 to discuss torturing military prisoners. Ashcroft and Rumsfeld attended these meetings. Bush officials apparently based their techniques on those used by communist China and which the Army trained elite soldiers (www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808) to withstand.

This puts to rest the never credible "bad apples" explanation for the widespread torture in prisons in Cuba, Afghanistan, Iraq and several other nations, and it implies that current and former Bush officials knew the court-martialed soldiers were being scapegoated, a crime nearly as heinous as the torture itself, though not an international war crime.

The link to Army training and the presence of Rumsfeld and Ashcroft at these meetings adds credibility to reports in the New Yorker around the time this disgrace came to light claiming that those two men had recruited private contractors (http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05082004.html) to train our soldiers to torture people. No one with jurisdiction to subpoena such contractors has ever done so.

[jsmith]

I am against "torture," so I say we stop capturing Islamofascists. Now we will, per the Geneva Conventions, start conducting summary trials and executions on charges that those people are enemy soldiers out of uniform and thus spies.
Problem solved.

This says all we need to know about the American Left.
They care more about getting counseling for Islamic Nazis than protecting America.

[trancendyce]

http://www.riprense.com/images/BushRaisingMorale.jpg

[rikki]

per the Geneva Conventions, start conducting summary trials and executions on charges that those people are enemy soldiers out of uniform and thus spies.

The Geneva Conventions (and the Magna Carta, for fuck's sake) are what this has always been about, and charging detainees with crimes and putting them on trial would be a radical improvement over what Bush actually did. When they finally got around to charging people, many were simply released because even the "enemy soldiers out of uniform" charge was not applicable.

Nonetheless, I agree with your basic idea. Treating terrorists as criminals -- pirates, really, not spies -- would have been a much better approach.

How do you feel about American soldiers being scapegoated to cover for their superiors?

[CAFKIA]

I am against "torture," so I say we stop capturing Islamofascists. Now we will, per the Geneva Conventions, start conducting summary trials and executions on charges that those people are enemy soldiers out of uniform and thus spies.
Problem solved.

This says all we need to know about the American Left.
They care more about getting counseling for Islamic Nazis than protecting America.
So, clearly protecting America, in your view, does not include honoring and abiding by the guidelines laid out in the Constitution or any of our other "sacred" secular documents. You would protect America by hastening it's devolution into third world social status. It would appear that you believe strongly in an old Asian maxim, that the grave is the only safe place. You would therefore ensure our safety by accelerating our demise.

With friends (patriots) like you ...

[jsmith]

The Geneva Conventions (and the Magna Carta, for fuck's sake) are what this has always been about, and charging detainees with crimes and putting them on trial would be a radical improvement over what Bush actually did. When they finally got around to charging people, many were simply released because even the "enemy soldiers out of uniform" charge was not applicable.

I agree, but only if we’re talking about a trial by U.S. military tribunal. That is, of course, what you’re suggesting, right?

After all, the 14th Amendment defines who is a U.S. Citizen and outlines what protections they have, no matter what state they're in. It also states who else is afforded the protection's guaranteed by the Constitution when it states: "...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Since GITMO is not a State within the 50 (or 57 as Bambi said) United States, nor is it a U.S. Territory; nor is Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or any other country or territory belonging to another country, so unless the Islamic terrorists are captured on U.S. soil, and keep in mind, GITMO is NOT U.S. soil, it's Cuban soil, then they are not afforded the protections of the Constitution and Habeas Corpus is NOT a factor.
And I would suggest, before anyone debates my statements, please read the 14th Amendment...or better yet, read the whole Constitution including the Amendments.

How do you feel about American soldiers being scapegoated to cover for their superiors?

Scapegoated in what way? Here's what I read in the LA Times:
Senior Bush administration officials held a series of meetings in the White House in 2002 and 2003 to discuss allowing the CIA to use harsh interrogation methods on Al Qaeda detainees, according to a written statement Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently provided to Senate investigators.

Rice's written response to investigators on the Senate Armed Services Committee marks the first time a high-ranking White House official has formally acknowledged the White House discussions, which led to the CIA's use of waterboarding and other coercive methods


Hmm, so what do we have here? Meetings discussing harsh interrogation methods on Al Qaeda members. Gee, that's terrible.

My friend, you're operating under a false proposition that waterboarding is torture. Y'know how many people have died from waterboarding? Exactly one less than died in Ted Kennedy's car.

Want to see what torture looks like? This is a link (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0524072torture1.html) to an AQ torture manual found in a safe house in Iraq last year. I’d like to give you a link to articles about it in the Washington Post, New York Times, the LA Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Unfortunately, they were never written.

It depicts torture methods such as "blowtorch to the skin,” "eye removal,” and “power drill through various body parts.”

Um, doesn’t look like “waterboarding,” “a chilly room,” or “loud music” makes their list.

The problem here is that the Left has dumbed down the definition of torture until the word only means "any discomfort of any degree or duration experienced by a Muslim terrorist while in U.S. custody."

[rikki]

I agree, but only if we’re talking about a trial by U.S. military tribunal. That is, of course, what you’re suggesting, right?

I'm not suggesting anything. I'm talking about what actually happened. I know reality is a big challenge for you, so I understand why you are confused.

Bush held Gitmo detainees for years without even acknowledging who they were holding, much less charging them. Your profound misunderstandings aside, no one is trying to assert that these foreigners have Constitutional rights. They do have human rights. Habeas corpus rights are not defined by the U.S. Constitution; they are a much older cornerstone of law, and we are obliged as a civilized nation to grant them to everyone, even terrorists. Protests over the treatment of detainees are centered on the notion that we, the captors, must adhere to our own laws and standards.

You seem content with using al Qaeda's standards as the yardstick by which we should be judged, and that is sick. Just as sick is your assertion that no one has died from waterboarding. There have been many deaths -- I've heard estimates ranging from dozens to hundreds -- in U.S. military prisons, and the details are difficult to come by even for members of Congress. Many more prisoners suffered serious but sublethal injuries. Whether these deaths and injuries resulted from waterboarding, other forms of torture or just from routine abuse is beside the point. Lots of people died in our military prisons, and many had no connections to al Qaeda or other enemy groups, not that that would justify abusing them while in custody.

Your dubious assertion mostly proves how profoundly uninformed you are about the scope and magnitude of this issue. You have put so much effort into fortifying your bubble of ignorance that it is no surprise you can not figure out what I'm talking about regarding scapegoated soldiers.


The problem here is that the Left has dumbed down the definition of torture until the word only means "any discomfort of any degree or duration experienced by a Muslim terrorist while in U.S. custody."

No, the problem is the willful ignorance of folks like you and the pathetic glee with which you march to battle against straw men.

[Hi Top]

And I would suggest, before anyone debates my statements, please read the 14th Amendment...or better yet, read the whole Constitution including the Amendments.


What? We still have a constitution?? Well at least some of it. Wish Bush would read it.

[trancendyce]

http://punditkitchen.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/political-pictures-tattered-american-flag-george-bush.jpg

[Wombat]

test bump

[Wombat]

test over. carry on.

[trancendyce]

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[trancendyce]

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[trancendyce]

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[rikki]

The Senate Armed Services Committee has released a report (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/12/11/ST2008121101970.html) directly blaming Rumsfeld for the widespread human rights abuses in our military prisons. Too late for it to matter, the scapegoated soldiers are exonerated:



The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," the panel concludes. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees.

Morally decayed turds like jsmith often claim that torture was necessary to yield life-saving information about impending attacks. For them, the report concludes, "Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority." Interrogation experts knew long before this disgrace began that torture yields bad information and false confessions, Jack-Bauer fantasies of Supreme Dickhead Antonin Scalia notwithstanding.

Conformist Republican pindicks also like to hold our military to al Qaeda standards rather than to the standards of civilized nations. Gen. David Petraeus had this to say, "Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right," wrote Petraeus, who at the time was the top U.S. commander in Iraq. "Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy."

Rather than sending Rumsfeld to The Hague where he belongs, releasing the scapegoats who have not completed their sentences or launching an investigation into the private, crony contractors hired to oversee the torture program, the glacially slow committee opted to do nothing. Home of the brave, my ass.

[trancendyce]

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[trancendyce]

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[trancendyce]

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[jsmith]

I regret Bush only got the deficit up to a trillion.
Thank God we've now got a little Indonesian guy who knows how to spend some real cash.
http://www.moonbattery.com/timecover_obama_fdr.jpg

[Hi Top]

I regret Bush only got the deficit up to a trillion.
Thank God we've now got a little Indonesian guy who knows how to spend some real cash.
http://www.moonbattery.com/timecover_obama_fdr.jpg

Because Hoover's ideas worked.

[Apeville]

I regret Bush only got the deficit up to a trillion.
Thank God we've now got a little Indonesian guy who knows how to spend some real cash.
http://www.moonbattery.com/timecover_obama_fdr.jpg

Bukan dia orang Indonesia

[Hi Top]

Bukan dia orang Indonesia

Benar. Dia hanya tinggal di sana untuk sementara.

[trancendyce]

http://punditkitchen.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/political-picture-bush-white-house-staff-criminal-intent1.jpg

[rikki]

It's obvious to informed observers that the Bush presidency was a cruel, criminal hoax perpetrated on our country, plunging her into economic ruin, disrepute and decline. Just because W is gone, however, does not mean he should be forgotten. With alleged legal scholars who can not even accurately quote the Bill of Rights babbling about a Constitutional crisis lurking in health-care reform, it is important to recall just what an insane mess Bush made of our laws.

Thus I bring you Sibel Edmonds (http://www.amconmag.com/article/2009/nov/01/00006/), a former Turkish and Farsi translator for the State Department, fired in April 2002 for blowing the whistle on corruption within her division, silenced by the Justice Department until last month. Note that her saga extends back to the first Bush administration, through Clinton and into W, implicating not so much Baby Bush as the neocon profiteers and power players who installed him. And there are strong ties to Illinois Democrats, so this thread aint dead.

And now for the fun bits:

Marc Grossman became a person of interest early on in the investigative file while he was the U.S. ambassador to Turkey [1994-97], when he became personally involved with operatives both from the Turkish government and from suspected criminal groups...
Another individual who was working for Grossman, Air Force Major Douglas Dickerson, was also removed from Turkey and sent to Germany. After he and his Turkish wife Can returned to the U.S., he went to work for Douglas Feith and she was hired as an FBI Turkish translator. My complaints about her connection to Turkish lobbying groups led to my eventual firing...
The central figure in this scandal was Abdullah Catli. In 1989, while “most wanted” by Interpol, he came to the U.S., was granted residency, and settled in Chicago, where he continued to conduct his operations until 1996...
AIPAC would take out the information from Lantos that was relevant to Israel, and they would give the rest of it to their Turkish associates. The Turks would go through the leftovers, take what they wanted, and then try to sell the rest...
And we also had Pentagon officials doing the same thing. We were looking at Richard Perle and Douglas Feith...
Perle and Feith would provide the names of those Americans, officials in the Pentagon, to Grossman, together with highly sensitive personal information: this person is a closet gay; this person has a chronic gambling issue; this person is an alcoholic...
Some of those individuals on the list were also working for the RAND Corporation...
Grossman would brag, “We just fax to our people at the New York Times. They print it under their names.”..
Both Feith and Perle were lobbyists for Turkey and also were involved with Israel on defense contracts, including some for Northrop Grumman, which Feith represented in Israel...
The monitoring of the Turks picked up contacts with Feith, Wolfowitz, and Perle in the summer of 2001, four months before 9/11. They were discussing with the Turkish ambassador in Washington an arrangement whereby the U.S. would invade Iraq and divide the country...
I know Scowcroft came off as a hero to some for saying he was against the war, but he was very much for it until his client’s conditions were not met by the Bush administration...
Their top source was a Turkish-born professor of nuclear physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was useful because MIT would place a bunch of Ph.D. or graduate-level students in various nuclear facilities like Sandia or Los Alamos...
If for some reason they had difficulty getting a secuity clearance, Grossman would ensure that the State Department would arrange to clear them...
You’ve named people like former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, now a registered agent of the Turkish government...
But the inquiry was kept alive in Chicago because the FBI office there was pursuing its own investigation. The epicenter of a lot of the foreign espionage activity was Chicago...
So these conversations, between 1997 and 2001, had to do with a Central Asia operation that involved bin Laden. Not once did anybody use the word “al-Qaeda.” It was always “mujahideen,” always “bin Laden” and, in fact, not “bin Laden” but “bin Ladens” plural...
Turkish diplomats who would never be searched were coming with suitcases of heroin...
And the Obama administration has not only defended using the State Secrets Privilege, it has been trying to take it even further than the previous terrible administration by maintaining that the U.S. government has sovereign immunity...
When I saw that Obama’s choice of chief of staff was Rahm Emanuel, knowing his relationship with Mayor Richard Daley and with the Hastert crowd, I knew we were not going to see positive changes.

[trancendyce]

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[rikki]

As part of his treasonous disregard for the FISA court and the rights of American citizens, Bush spied (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wiretap1-2010apr01,0,5549833.story) on two attorneys.

While Teabaggers and other political degenerates prattle vacantly about some Constitutional crisis they can never specify, countless Bush officials remain uninvestigated for crimes against the Constitution, Congress, Courts and the Treasury. As in this case, it is not even disputed that the crimes occurred, merely that members of the Executive Branch can not be prosecuted or even investigated for those crimes.

The right makes noises it can not defend about Constitutional abuses and gets the nation's ear. The left lines up volumes of evidence of crimes and gets ignored. The double standard is like the difference between a belly sated by a feast and one poisoned and puking its own bile. Who poisoned America?