Try As He May, Obama Cannot Simply Bury Torture Authorized By The Bush Administration
Bill Lindner
May 23, 2009
Regardless of how hard President Obama tries to turn the page on the torture authorized and utilized by the Bush administration, he won't be able to -- until there is true transparency and accountability, revelations, as noted by the New York Times, of the unresolved eight year nightmare will continue raining down drip by drip, disrupting Obama's high ambitions.
Obama's reversal of himself and declaration that the U.S. government will not release more photos of the torture being practiced on captives held by the U.S. military and the CIA is foolish. The pictures will eventually be released anyway. Some of them have already been leaked.
Using the excuse that groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic world will be angered is nothing but a cop out. The only reason everyone is angered is because the Obama administration is refusing to hold the people who authorized and utilized the torture accountable for their crimes. Holding those responsible for the torture accountable would show the world that the U.S. takes crimes against humanity seriously and that the U.S. is a nation of laws. Talking the talk without walking the walk sends the opposite message. Unfortunately for Obama, the list of broken promises continues growing and emulating many of his predecessor's actions is beginning to upset a growing number of his supporters.
To connect all the dots, including the torture, one needs to closely examine the past eight disastrous years this country has had the displeasure of living through under the Bush Administration -- from Bush's appointment by the Supreme Court, illegal wiretapping that began before the 9/11 attacks and the actual attacks of 9/11 that conveniently occurred due to the Bush administration's complicity to the illegal invasion of two countries and the torture that was utilized by the Bush administration as an attempt to justify invading Iraq. Using torture to try and establish a link to Iraq is more evidence that the official story of 9/11 is a fairy tale. The more we learn about Bush's torture, the more the official story of 9/11 unravels.
According to the New York Times, new details are emerging regarding how Donald Rumsfeld's corrupt and incompetent Defense Department cost American lives and compromised national security, drawn on interviews with more than a dozen high-level Bush loyalists. It seems Rumsfeld's monomaniacal determination to protect the Pentagon undermined U.S. soldiers while hobbling and antagonizing America's most willing allies in Iraq, Britain and Australia. It seems Rumsfeld also enjoyed presenting color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations in classified briefings for President Bush.
The Pentagon is used to major scandals and purposely spreading false propaganda. From the made up story of rescuing Private Lynch to one of the most recent revelations regarding Bush's Pentagon using a clandestine network of retired military officers and defense officials to spread administration talking points (read propaganda) on television, radio and in print while posing as 'military analysts.' Many of the propagandists worked for military contractors who had billions of dollars at stake in Pentagon procurements.
FOX news -- though it's not yet known how much FOX has been paid to shill Bush's war crimes -- CNN and a few other 'news' networks continue using these propagandists proudly and willingly in order to deceive the public. Originally, the Bush administration's Pentagon Inspector General found no wrongdoing by the Pentagon, but amazingly enough, the Pentagon reversed that finding earlier this month. It's not surprising that Bush's Inspector General from the Pentagon, who exonerated the use of "military analysts," left to become an executive at Blackwater, the Pentagon's favorite mercenary contractor responsible for untold numbers of dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon's investigation of itself -- like Congressional committees that investigate government -- as history has repeatedly proven, especially these past eight years, is usually used to whitewash information and keep it hidden. The 9/11 commission is one sterling example of that. Much information was either covered up or ignored intentionally, making one wonder what else the Government is covering up.
Tortured Logic Produced Tortured Results
Despite mountains of evidence proving that torture did nothing but kill innocent people and extract false confessions, much of the U.S. media, as noted by Consortium News, continues insisting that there must be a debate about the efficacy of torture, whether or not torture saved American lives. The problem is that torture didn't save any lives. It endangered them.
Every day that former Vice President Dick Cheney continues bloviating his self-incriminating hogwash about torture saving lives, ends up producing even more evidence of Bush administration guilt regarding treasonous war crimes and torture.
We already know that the Bush administration authorized torture long before the politicized Bush Justice Department rendered any double-speak -- allegedly in the form of 'legal opinions' -- and that the premise for authorizing the torture was not at keeping America safe from another 'terrorist' attack on the U.S., but instead was actually aimed at finding justification for invading Iraq, despite the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11. Bush's brutality had nothing to do with national security.
We have confirmation from a Senate Armed Services Committee report revealing that top Bush administration officials were 'driven' to install this torture program. Claiming that Americans went along with Bush administration decisions about torture is nothing more than one major fallacy.
Torture worked in producing terroristic propaganda used by the Bush administration to justify illegal wars and scare the American public. Torture worked for al-Qaida. It helped them produce an untold number of recruits and made a mockery of U.S. claims about moral leadership and being a nation of laws. Torture worked. It helped place U.S. soldiers and civilians overseas in grave danger. Bush's torture program failed. The Bush administration failed. Congress failed. The Judiciary failed. Too many lives have been destroyed and taken because the vast majority of the U.S. Federal Government is corrupted. Torture worked in destroying American values, rights and liberties. Torture worked in revealing just how low the depths of corruption go in the Federal Government.
A partial timeline of Bush administration's torture is available from The Daily Kos. Some very intimate details of 'high-value' detainee abuse is available from the New York Book Review. Contrary to Dick Cheney's bloviations, torture did not make us safer. Then again, most of Cheney's actions have made this country a lot less safe.
Not everyone in the Bush administration backed the use of torture. 3 high ranking officials in the State Department and the Pentagon fought the use of torture but lost. Those opposing Bush's use of torture were often retaliated against. Memos opposing the torture were disavowed by the Bush administration. Information on those memos can be found from Mother Jones.
Republicans Trying To Pin Bush's Torture On Pelosi
Cheney's problem is that he spent so many years lying and spreading false propaganda that he can't keep all the lies straight and now he's fighting to keep himself out of detention while trying to revise history. The 'ticking time bomb' that Bush and Cheney so ludicrously referred to defending their torture policies was nonexistent, not to mention part of their Jack Bauer 24 fantasy. The torture, just like the illegal eavesdropping program was purely for political purposes -- although the illegal eavesdropping was used for blackmail -- to aid in building support for their illegal invasion of Iraq. Cheney appears to have trained his daughter well since she's just as delusional and pathological as he is.
The Repubican party continues making a big deal out of the fact that House Speaker Pelosi was briefed on the interrogation techniques in 2002, conveniently omitting the fact that this is old news and has been known for years. Pelosi is just one of many -- both Republican and Democrat -- who never did anything to stop the abuse of detainees and presidential power. Pelosi says the CIA lied. The CIA says Pelosi lied. The truth is, they both have a bad history of lying and covering up the truth. In this case the CIA probably has more to lose and they're more prone to spreading lies in order to save their butts since they were intimately involved in the illegal torture. Wasting all this time playing the blame someone else game is ridiculous. Republicans are only pushing the Pelosi-torture story for political gain, stupidly believing that it will actually work. The only way to get to the truth is by conducting an investigation.
In continuing their dedication to aiding in Bush administration crimes, FOX 'News' printed a story regarding CIA Director Leon Panetta urging Congress to keep its eye on threats and not get caught up in 'alleged' missteps of the past administration -- trying to scare everyone into believing that this country's security could be endangered by focusing too much on the past -- trying to score political points. The CIA screwed up. Big time. Panetta knows it. He's lying about the country's security in order to save agents involved in the CIA's torture party. Not facing the 'alleged' missteps by the Bush administration would be a terrible mistake, and would leave the door open for future presidents to get away with the same crimes. It's time for a close look at the treasonous actions of the CIA too.
The Washington Post continues giving the CIA free reign to write what they want, again proving that the CIA owns or is involved with it. The CIA would rather we forget all about the torture and leave them alone to screw up the world without any outside interference. The attempt at dislodging Pelosi is backfiring since the cries for an investigation keep gaining momentum. America has a huge problem with a corrupted media system which is just as guilty as the perpetrators of all these treasonous crimes.
The CIA is worried, and they should be. War crimes are serious offenses. Iraq is one big international war crime. For decades the CIA has operated illegally, not only in America, but in many other countries as well, creating military dictatorships, sabotaging civil authority and the rule of law while conducting torture and mass murder. It's time to blow the lid off all the illegal activities carried out by the CIA in this country and every other country, all in the name of America. It's time for it to stop.
Republican leadership -- aided by the Washington Posts' ever-enabling complicity in the Bush administration's propaganda parade -- never stops revealing just how moronic they really are. Having a former Speaker of the House who was forced to resign because he was so corrupted trying to add fuel to the fire doesn't help. The Republican moronism is growing by leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, Congress has been corrupted for decades and doesn't appear to be getting any better, especially when a Republican Senator praises the Spanish Inquisition as proof that torture works. While it is entertaining, it's also kind of pathetic watching the Republican Party implode.
Washington Still Trying To Protect Their Own
Our government -- as well as many corporately owned media outlets -- has a history of keeping unpleasant truths from the American people under the guise of doing "what's good for the country." The reality is, it's not good at all. It has allowed the subversion of the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution. The only thing hiding unpleasant truths has done is allow key members of the U.S. government to get away with murder and treason. The "what's good for the country" arguments seem to be more prevalent when wrongdoing was attributable to Republicans. It's time for that to change. Knowing "what's good for the country" has led to the treason bestowed upon us by the Bush administration courtesy of a corrupted U.S. Supreme Court responsible for the disaster known as the Bush presidency.
The ongoing cover-up of Bush's crimes continues costing more people their lives. The latest victim, a prisoner who was mercilessly tortured into admitting that al-Qaida was linked to Saddam Hussein allegedly killed himself. He was the latest smoking gun that could prove Bush's torture regime had nothing to do with 'national security' and that much of the information we're fed about Al Qaida, which was created by the CIA, is bogus. There are quite a number of potential witnesses who have 'committed suicide' or suspiciously ended up dead, making one wonder just how active Cheney's death squad has been over the past eight plus years, not to mention how active it still is. The government doesn't want an investigation because it will open a can of worms they've been trying to keep hidden since long before September 11, 2001. It was only a matter of time before the fallacy known as the 'official' story of 9/11 fell apart.
It's amazing how many 'mistakes' were made during the Bush administration that will come back to haunt President Obama because he isn't willing to do anything about it. Unfortunately for Obama, these mistakes weren't mistakes at all. They were premeditated. One of the biggest 'mistakes' was allowing a corrupted U.S. Supreme Court to appoint an idiot to the presidency. In the words of Naomi Klein from The Shock Doctrine, "when the same mistakes are repeated over and over again, it's time to consider the possibility that they are not mistakes at all."
Obama continues devolving from the person he was when he was running for president. He has lied about taking the air out of golden parachutes in the fraudulent financial industry, holding those responsible for the torture accountable for their crimes and ending the illegal NSA wiretapping. Those are just a few of examples of the lies he based his campaign on. Of course, having former Clinton and Bush officials on your cabinet probably has a lot to do with it too. He's beginning to look like your typical corrupted Washington politician, catering to the 'elite' while screwing the citizens who voted him into office. Be that as it may, the torture issue won't be going away any time soon, despite the best efforts at distorting public opinion on investigating the torture and Obama's Bush-era nightmare won't end until we know the truth and the treasonous leadership from the Bush administration is held responsible for their crimes.
Obama's reversal of himself and declaration that the U.S. government will not release more photos of the torture being practiced on captives held by the U.S. military and the CIA is foolish. The pictures will eventually be released anyway. Some of them have already been leaked.
Using the excuse that groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic world will be angered is nothing but a cop out. The only reason everyone is angered is because the Obama administration is refusing to hold the people who authorized and utilized the torture accountable for their crimes. Holding those responsible for the torture accountable would show the world that the U.S. takes crimes against humanity seriously and that the U.S. is a nation of laws. Talking the talk without walking the walk sends the opposite message. Unfortunately for Obama, the list of broken promises continues growing and emulating many of his predecessor's actions is beginning to upset a growing number of his supporters.
To connect all the dots, including the torture, one needs to closely examine the past eight disastrous years this country has had the displeasure of living through under the Bush Administration -- from Bush's appointment by the Supreme Court, illegal wiretapping that began before the 9/11 attacks and the actual attacks of 9/11 that conveniently occurred due to the Bush administration's complicity to the illegal invasion of two countries and the torture that was utilized by the Bush administration as an attempt to justify invading Iraq. Using torture to try and establish a link to Iraq is more evidence that the official story of 9/11 is a fairy tale. The more we learn about Bush's torture, the more the official story of 9/11 unravels.
According to the New York Times, new details are emerging regarding how Donald Rumsfeld's corrupt and incompetent Defense Department cost American lives and compromised national security, drawn on interviews with more than a dozen high-level Bush loyalists. It seems Rumsfeld's monomaniacal determination to protect the Pentagon undermined U.S. soldiers while hobbling and antagonizing America's most willing allies in Iraq, Britain and Australia. It seems Rumsfeld also enjoyed presenting color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations in classified briefings for President Bush.
The Pentagon is used to major scandals and purposely spreading false propaganda. From the made up story of rescuing Private Lynch to one of the most recent revelations regarding Bush's Pentagon using a clandestine network of retired military officers and defense officials to spread administration talking points (read propaganda) on television, radio and in print while posing as 'military analysts.' Many of the propagandists worked for military contractors who had billions of dollars at stake in Pentagon procurements.
FOX news -- though it's not yet known how much FOX has been paid to shill Bush's war crimes -- CNN and a few other 'news' networks continue using these propagandists proudly and willingly in order to deceive the public. Originally, the Bush administration's Pentagon Inspector General found no wrongdoing by the Pentagon, but amazingly enough, the Pentagon reversed that finding earlier this month. It's not surprising that Bush's Inspector General from the Pentagon, who exonerated the use of "military analysts," left to become an executive at Blackwater, the Pentagon's favorite mercenary contractor responsible for untold numbers of dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon's investigation of itself -- like Congressional committees that investigate government -- as history has repeatedly proven, especially these past eight years, is usually used to whitewash information and keep it hidden. The 9/11 commission is one sterling example of that. Much information was either covered up or ignored intentionally, making one wonder what else the Government is covering up.
Tortured Logic Produced Tortured Results
Despite mountains of evidence proving that torture did nothing but kill innocent people and extract false confessions, much of the U.S. media, as noted by Consortium News, continues insisting that there must be a debate about the efficacy of torture, whether or not torture saved American lives. The problem is that torture didn't save any lives. It endangered them.
Every day that former Vice President Dick Cheney continues bloviating his self-incriminating hogwash about torture saving lives, ends up producing even more evidence of Bush administration guilt regarding treasonous war crimes and torture.
We already know that the Bush administration authorized torture long before the politicized Bush Justice Department rendered any double-speak -- allegedly in the form of 'legal opinions' -- and that the premise for authorizing the torture was not at keeping America safe from another 'terrorist' attack on the U.S., but instead was actually aimed at finding justification for invading Iraq, despite the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11. Bush's brutality had nothing to do with national security.
We have confirmation from a Senate Armed Services Committee report revealing that top Bush administration officials were 'driven' to install this torture program. Claiming that Americans went along with Bush administration decisions about torture is nothing more than one major fallacy.
Torture worked in producing terroristic propaganda used by the Bush administration to justify illegal wars and scare the American public. Torture worked for al-Qaida. It helped them produce an untold number of recruits and made a mockery of U.S. claims about moral leadership and being a nation of laws. Torture worked. It helped place U.S. soldiers and civilians overseas in grave danger. Bush's torture program failed. The Bush administration failed. Congress failed. The Judiciary failed. Too many lives have been destroyed and taken because the vast majority of the U.S. Federal Government is corrupted. Torture worked in destroying American values, rights and liberties. Torture worked in revealing just how low the depths of corruption go in the Federal Government.
A partial timeline of Bush administration's torture is available from The Daily Kos. Some very intimate details of 'high-value' detainee abuse is available from the New York Book Review. Contrary to Dick Cheney's bloviations, torture did not make us safer. Then again, most of Cheney's actions have made this country a lot less safe.
Not everyone in the Bush administration backed the use of torture. 3 high ranking officials in the State Department and the Pentagon fought the use of torture but lost. Those opposing Bush's use of torture were often retaliated against. Memos opposing the torture were disavowed by the Bush administration. Information on those memos can be found from Mother Jones.
Republicans Trying To Pin Bush's Torture On Pelosi
Cheney's problem is that he spent so many years lying and spreading false propaganda that he can't keep all the lies straight and now he's fighting to keep himself out of detention while trying to revise history. The 'ticking time bomb' that Bush and Cheney so ludicrously referred to defending their torture policies was nonexistent, not to mention part of their Jack Bauer 24 fantasy. The torture, just like the illegal eavesdropping program was purely for political purposes -- although the illegal eavesdropping was used for blackmail -- to aid in building support for their illegal invasion of Iraq. Cheney appears to have trained his daughter well since she's just as delusional and pathological as he is.
The Repubican party continues making a big deal out of the fact that House Speaker Pelosi was briefed on the interrogation techniques in 2002, conveniently omitting the fact that this is old news and has been known for years. Pelosi is just one of many -- both Republican and Democrat -- who never did anything to stop the abuse of detainees and presidential power. Pelosi says the CIA lied. The CIA says Pelosi lied. The truth is, they both have a bad history of lying and covering up the truth. In this case the CIA probably has more to lose and they're more prone to spreading lies in order to save their butts since they were intimately involved in the illegal torture. Wasting all this time playing the blame someone else game is ridiculous. Republicans are only pushing the Pelosi-torture story for political gain, stupidly believing that it will actually work. The only way to get to the truth is by conducting an investigation.
In continuing their dedication to aiding in Bush administration crimes, FOX 'News' printed a story regarding CIA Director Leon Panetta urging Congress to keep its eye on threats and not get caught up in 'alleged' missteps of the past administration -- trying to scare everyone into believing that this country's security could be endangered by focusing too much on the past -- trying to score political points. The CIA screwed up. Big time. Panetta knows it. He's lying about the country's security in order to save agents involved in the CIA's torture party. Not facing the 'alleged' missteps by the Bush administration would be a terrible mistake, and would leave the door open for future presidents to get away with the same crimes. It's time for a close look at the treasonous actions of the CIA too.
The Washington Post continues giving the CIA free reign to write what they want, again proving that the CIA owns or is involved with it. The CIA would rather we forget all about the torture and leave them alone to screw up the world without any outside interference. The attempt at dislodging Pelosi is backfiring since the cries for an investigation keep gaining momentum. America has a huge problem with a corrupted media system which is just as guilty as the perpetrators of all these treasonous crimes.
The CIA is worried, and they should be. War crimes are serious offenses. Iraq is one big international war crime. For decades the CIA has operated illegally, not only in America, but in many other countries as well, creating military dictatorships, sabotaging civil authority and the rule of law while conducting torture and mass murder. It's time to blow the lid off all the illegal activities carried out by the CIA in this country and every other country, all in the name of America. It's time for it to stop.
Republican leadership -- aided by the Washington Posts' ever-enabling complicity in the Bush administration's propaganda parade -- never stops revealing just how moronic they really are. Having a former Speaker of the House who was forced to resign because he was so corrupted trying to add fuel to the fire doesn't help. The Republican moronism is growing by leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, Congress has been corrupted for decades and doesn't appear to be getting any better, especially when a Republican Senator praises the Spanish Inquisition as proof that torture works. While it is entertaining, it's also kind of pathetic watching the Republican Party implode.
Washington Still Trying To Protect Their Own
Our government -- as well as many corporately owned media outlets -- has a history of keeping unpleasant truths from the American people under the guise of doing "what's good for the country." The reality is, it's not good at all. It has allowed the subversion of the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution. The only thing hiding unpleasant truths has done is allow key members of the U.S. government to get away with murder and treason. The "what's good for the country" arguments seem to be more prevalent when wrongdoing was attributable to Republicans. It's time for that to change. Knowing "what's good for the country" has led to the treason bestowed upon us by the Bush administration courtesy of a corrupted U.S. Supreme Court responsible for the disaster known as the Bush presidency.
The ongoing cover-up of Bush's crimes continues costing more people their lives. The latest victim, a prisoner who was mercilessly tortured into admitting that al-Qaida was linked to Saddam Hussein allegedly killed himself. He was the latest smoking gun that could prove Bush's torture regime had nothing to do with 'national security' and that much of the information we're fed about Al Qaida, which was created by the CIA, is bogus. There are quite a number of potential witnesses who have 'committed suicide' or suspiciously ended up dead, making one wonder just how active Cheney's death squad has been over the past eight plus years, not to mention how active it still is. The government doesn't want an investigation because it will open a can of worms they've been trying to keep hidden since long before September 11, 2001. It was only a matter of time before the fallacy known as the 'official' story of 9/11 fell apart.
It's amazing how many 'mistakes' were made during the Bush administration that will come back to haunt President Obama because he isn't willing to do anything about it. Unfortunately for Obama, these mistakes weren't mistakes at all. They were premeditated. One of the biggest 'mistakes' was allowing a corrupted U.S. Supreme Court to appoint an idiot to the presidency. In the words of Naomi Klein from The Shock Doctrine, "when the same mistakes are repeated over and over again, it's time to consider the possibility that they are not mistakes at all."
Obama continues devolving from the person he was when he was running for president. He has lied about taking the air out of golden parachutes in the fraudulent financial industry, holding those responsible for the torture accountable for their crimes and ending the illegal NSA wiretapping. Those are just a few of examples of the lies he based his campaign on. Of course, having former Clinton and Bush officials on your cabinet probably has a lot to do with it too. He's beginning to look like your typical corrupted Washington politician, catering to the 'elite' while screwing the citizens who voted him into office. Be that as it may, the torture issue won't be going away any time soon, despite the best efforts at distorting public opinion on investigating the torture and Obama's Bush-era nightmare won't end until we know the truth and the treasonous leadership from the Bush administration is held responsible for their crimes.