More Horrifying Than Imagined
Josh Harding
March 05, 2009
Is George W. Bush the worst president in American history? Many historians seem to think so. In a survey done by the History News Network, 61% of the historians polled came to that conclusion.
Anyone who reads my blog knows I opposed a majority of Bush's domestic and foreign policies and would be inclined to agree with this assessment. But I've always felt, especially in light of the far-reaching implications of various Bush policies, not to mention the secrecy his administration clouded itself in, that you will need a good 20-year perspective before we know the true extent of President Bush's legacy. Because of the Bush administration's cloak-and-dagger approach, we just don't know what these guys did to allegedly make this country safer.
But we're starting to find out. We've seen a recent spat of declassified documents, from the Justice Department and the Defense Department. So far these documents reveal the Bush administration's War on Terror policies are even more horrifying than even the harshest Bush critics imagined.
The Justice Department memos lay out a shocking legal doctrine. According to these memos, the military had the authority to fight terrorism IN THIS COUNTRY and could disregard the legal requirements for search warrants that are enshrined in the Fourth Amendment. Also, these memos provided cover for the administration to violate congressional statutes that prevented us from sending detainees to countries that practiced torture.
And should anyone dare report what methods our government used to allegedly make us secure? Rationale was provided for the government to impose censorship.
Military combat in place of police action on our soil. Disregarding laws. Censorship. Not exactly American principles we're talking about here.
The Defense Department documents may be even more disturbing. We already know torture took place. But these memos reveal that torture wasn't just some worst-case technique to be used on the most hardened suspects. Torture became Bush administration dogma, the foundation on how they conducted the War on Terror, as many of these interrogation methods received authorization from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. One document reveals that two detainees died in December 2002 as a result of our "enhanced" techniques, which included handcuffing them to fixed objects in order to deprive sleep, beatings, and 'compliance blows' to the legs. Another document reveals how one prisoner had his jumpsuit filled with ice, was hosed down, had to stand in front of an air conditioner, was induced to vomit by having water forced down him, and had his head smashed against a hot steel plate, among other things. Another detainee was killed via asphyxiation when he was bound in a sleeping bag.
George Washington famously declared during the Revolution that any soldier engaged in torture brings "shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country." That was the attitude of former interrogator Matthew Alexander (a pseudonym, not his real name), who has written extensively on how torture does not make us safer, and how he used brainpower to obtain important information. None of that mattered to an administration too enamored with its own power.
Too bad they didn't embrace the Bill of Rights with such zeal.
No doubt we've only tipped the iceberg, and more information on the previous administration's conduct will come out. Unfortunately, President Obama is not interested in pursuing overdue justice over these actions. "We have not made final decisions, but my instinct is for us to focus on how to we make sure we're moving forward, we are doing the right thing," said Obama in a statement that would make Mark McGwire proud.
The only way to move forward in a positive way is to ensure that when laws are broken, the accused perpetrators are brought to justice and given the kind of fair trial that was denied their victims. Covering up past criminal behavior not only gives sanction to those who broke the law, it provides cover for crimes to take place in the future.
Is this the kind of forward-thinking President Obama was elected to do?
Sources:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101389729&ft=1&f=1001
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4372.shtml
http://hnn.us/articles/48916.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802242.html?referrer=emailarticle
Anyone who reads my blog knows I opposed a majority of Bush's domestic and foreign policies and would be inclined to agree with this assessment. But I've always felt, especially in light of the far-reaching implications of various Bush policies, not to mention the secrecy his administration clouded itself in, that you will need a good 20-year perspective before we know the true extent of President Bush's legacy. Because of the Bush administration's cloak-and-dagger approach, we just don't know what these guys did to allegedly make this country safer.
But we're starting to find out. We've seen a recent spat of declassified documents, from the Justice Department and the Defense Department. So far these documents reveal the Bush administration's War on Terror policies are even more horrifying than even the harshest Bush critics imagined.
The Justice Department memos lay out a shocking legal doctrine. According to these memos, the military had the authority to fight terrorism IN THIS COUNTRY and could disregard the legal requirements for search warrants that are enshrined in the Fourth Amendment. Also, these memos provided cover for the administration to violate congressional statutes that prevented us from sending detainees to countries that practiced torture.
And should anyone dare report what methods our government used to allegedly make us secure? Rationale was provided for the government to impose censorship.
Military combat in place of police action on our soil. Disregarding laws. Censorship. Not exactly American principles we're talking about here.
The Defense Department documents may be even more disturbing. We already know torture took place. But these memos reveal that torture wasn't just some worst-case technique to be used on the most hardened suspects. Torture became Bush administration dogma, the foundation on how they conducted the War on Terror, as many of these interrogation methods received authorization from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. One document reveals that two detainees died in December 2002 as a result of our "enhanced" techniques, which included handcuffing them to fixed objects in order to deprive sleep, beatings, and 'compliance blows' to the legs. Another document reveals how one prisoner had his jumpsuit filled with ice, was hosed down, had to stand in front of an air conditioner, was induced to vomit by having water forced down him, and had his head smashed against a hot steel plate, among other things. Another detainee was killed via asphyxiation when he was bound in a sleeping bag.
George Washington famously declared during the Revolution that any soldier engaged in torture brings "shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country." That was the attitude of former interrogator Matthew Alexander (a pseudonym, not his real name), who has written extensively on how torture does not make us safer, and how he used brainpower to obtain important information. None of that mattered to an administration too enamored with its own power.
Too bad they didn't embrace the Bill of Rights with such zeal.
No doubt we've only tipped the iceberg, and more information on the previous administration's conduct will come out. Unfortunately, President Obama is not interested in pursuing overdue justice over these actions. "We have not made final decisions, but my instinct is for us to focus on how to we make sure we're moving forward, we are doing the right thing," said Obama in a statement that would make Mark McGwire proud.
The only way to move forward in a positive way is to ensure that when laws are broken, the accused perpetrators are brought to justice and given the kind of fair trial that was denied their victims. Covering up past criminal behavior not only gives sanction to those who broke the law, it provides cover for crimes to take place in the future.
Is this the kind of forward-thinking President Obama was elected to do?
Sources:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101389729&ft=1&f=1001
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4372.shtml
http://hnn.us/articles/48916.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802242.html?referrer=emailarticle