CALL IT ENHANCED INTERROGATION - IT'S STILL TORTURE!

I considered placing an image of water boarding in this blog entry but I think we all know by now what the CIA has been up to over the last few years. Far and away the most recently discussed abhorrent technique employed by our intelligence services during the post-9/11 period has been water boarding. The actual journey into this new and uncharted territory coincided with the verbal go-ahead given in July 2002 by then-acting Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice. Ms. Rice afterwards lapsed into amnesia and could not recall ever making such a decision, either verbally or in writing. My, what a web we weave when we first deceive.

The two poster boys used for the justification of water boarding by the Bush Administration are: Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the mastermind behind 9/11 - by his own admission and Abu Zubaydah, a small-time operative in Al-Qaeda. Both were water boarded numerous times. In fact, KSM, as Mohammad is commonly referred to, was water boarded 183 times in one month. Zubaydah had the dubious distinction of undergoing that torture process a mere 83 times.

Where has this left the United States. In moral shambles, that's where. To the proponents of torture who say it elicited valuable intelligence (like our former Vice-President Dick Cheney) - I have just one word. Poppycock! To date there is absolutely no evidence that either of these men gave any intelligence remotely useful to the CIA regarding Al-Qaeda or its secrets. Virtually all experts skilled in the art of interrogation have said that the information extracted from torture is unreliable since it is given merely to appease the torturers and as such cannot be considered reliable in any sense of the word.

My advice to the powers-that-be is simply this: Appoint an independent prosecutor immediately! Don't wait until later on this year as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggests pending the completion by the Senate Intelligence Committee of its own investigation into this heinous chapter in our nation's history.

Justice must be swift but fair. What is undeniable at this juncture after the release of the 4 torture memos and the report by the Senate Armed Services Committee is that the orders and the origin behind this torture program emanated from the White House, specifically the Office of the Vice President and the President. It was in turn set in motion by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld under the false legal premises provided by the torture memo authors, John Yoo and Jay Bybee. William Haynes, acting General Counsel to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld served as the liaison between the White House/Justice Department and the Pentagon in his capacity as the personal conduit for delivery to Rumsfeld of the torture memo legal opinions.

Anyway you slice it or dice it this nation is guilty in the eyes of the world, with or without a special prosecutor or independent commission.

The horse is out of the barn, the toothpaste is out of the tube.

I'm just waiting for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bybee, Yoo and Haynes to meet the same fate as was faced by the Nazi war criminals we prosecuted at the Nuremberg trial in 1946. Perhaps we should make sure they're not walking around with a potassium cyanide capsule like Goering at Nuremberg.

TORTURE-KILLERS FROM BUSH ADMINISTRATION - STILL ON THE LOOSE!

Most of you probably recognize ALL of the "first" 3 suspects here:

(1) George W. Bushwacked
(2) Dick (Just Plain The "Dick") Cheney
(3) Donald Rumpsfeld (sorry, Rumsfeld)


But alas, the "final" 3 might stump a few of you out there in blog-land!

They are: (4) John Yoo [now a professor of law at U.C. Berkeley - although he might be on leave] - one of the Justice Department attorneys who composed the infamous Torture Memos; (5) Jay Bybee [a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit] - the other Justice Department attorney who assisted Yoo in the composition of the Torture Memos; and (6) William Haynes [currently employed as an executive at the Chevron facility, Richmond, CA) - the General Counsel to then-Secretary of Defense, Donald RumTumsFeld.

Can we all get "jiggy-with-it"!

These M_____ F_____s should be hauled before a Nuremberg-style court and charged with murder and crimes of torture and crimes against humanity.

William Haynes is the "final link" in this chain of command, ultimately. As Rumsfeld's General Counsel at the Pentagon it was he who received these Torture Memos and presented them to Rumsfeld. He played a significant part in seeing to it that they were acted upon by the Defense Secretary.

Before you get on your high horse and say that's "all in the past" - in 1946 at the real Nuremberg trials they put Germany's highest jurists (judges) on trial and found all of them guilty of sanctioning war crimes and subsequently sentenced them to prison!

Acquiescence is tantamount to acceptance. That was the real crime in Nazi Germany on the part of the population at large. Let us not allow this stain upon our nation's honor to remain without rendering true justice. These men cannot be allowed to remain at large and subject to no judgment.

If we do nothing it is very possible that the matter will be taken out of our hands and instead taken up by the World Tribunal. The Spanish judge who brought Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet to justice is now in hot pursuit of these very 6 men from the Bush Administration. [Baltasar Garzón, the counter-terrorism judge whose prosecution of General Augusto Pinochet led to his arrest in Britain in 1998]

America must handle this matter herself. It would be a fall from grace for this country if it were left up to a Spanish judge and the World Court to do it for us!