Bush's Willing Torturers (legal Opinions Were Merely Retroactive Cover)

Guardian ^ | Thursday 23 April 2009 | Ken Gude

[nickcarraway]

We now know that legal opinions were merely retroactive cover. The Bush administration's first instinct was towards abuse

The more we learn about the Bush administration torture regime the worse it gets. The Senate intelligence committee report released Wednesday outlines specific torture techniques that were in place long before lawyers in the justice department had given the programme its legal imprimatur. The Bush administration layered one faulty assumption on top of another to reach a staggering level of incompetence. But stupidity alone cannot sufficiently explain how the United States became a torturing nation. Rather, an enthusiasm for brutality led the US to emulate Mao and Pol Pot. We became our enemies.

We already knew the Bush administration borrowed techniques from the military training programme called SERE, for "survival, evasion, resistance and escape", first designed to give American pilots and special forces troops a sample of the torture methods used by Chinese and North Korean communists during the Korean war. What we didn't know was just how quickly the Americans turned to the Chinese communists for help devising their torture regime.

As soon as US forces began capturing al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan the Bush administration began developing plans to torture them. By January 2002, before George Bush declared the Geneva Conventions would not apply and before the justice department had declared the programme legal, Pentagon officials had crafted a plan to hide detainees from the Red Cross in secret facilities and torture them through waterboarding, sleep deprivation, physical violence and psychological pressure.

The SERE trainers, according to the Senate report, warned the Bush administration of "several major downfalls" of torture, including that it was not as effective as other means of interrogation, that it produced information that was less reliable,

[ChicagahAl]

"The Bush administration layered one faulty assumption on top of another to reach a staggering level of incompetence"

Well, sure. As long as your definition of incompetence, includes "keeping the nation safe".

[Wolfhound777]

“Well, sure. As long as your definition of incompetence, includes keeping the nation safe.”

Lol..Britain in comparison is over run and should be fully sharia compliant in five years.

[Cindy]

And now, for a real insight:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2230980/posts

[ScreamingFist]

Ken Gude doesn’t have the slightest clue.......he has just discovered a new acronym....SERE.....and is spewing BS that is fed to him. How predictable....

[Big_Monkey]

"Well, sure. As long as your definition of incompetence, includes "keeping the nation safe".

It's The Guardian. They couldn't give a rat's a$$ about America's safety. In fact, I'm pretty confident they thought, and think that "we had it coming".

If you ever wondered if a newspaper could be a bigger crap-fest than the NYT, you need look no further than The Guardian.

[KoRn]

"Rather, an enthusiasm for brutality led the US to emulate Mao and Pol Pot"

.......

[rfp1234]

But stupidity alone cannot sufficiently explain how, while the United States became a torturing self-preserving nation , we the British New Castrati, Marxist EUnuchs and sundry Euroweenies gave up our sovereignty, hanging on in quiet desperation to our miserable feelings of moral superiority and awaiting the same fate as the disarmed sheep, slaughtered annually in our own streets on the Holy Feast of Eid-al-Fitr.

[eclecticEel]

the Bush administration borrowed techniques from the military training programme called SERE, for "survival, evasion, resistance and escape", first designed to give American pilots and special forces troops a sample ...

Does The Guardian truly believe that the U.S. military has been torturing its pilots and special service men for the last 50 years? I suppose if you forced them to answer the question, they'd have to say 'no' - you would think they weren't really that dense - although I suspect that getting a straight response would be next to impossible.

And incidentally, the new British surveillance society has very little credibility when it comes to individual rights.

[aNYCguy]

Britain in comparison is over run and should be fully sharia compliant in five years.

Now you're just hysterical.

[flowerplough]

Hysterical? “Britain capitulates to terror - Geert Wilders banned and held at Heathrow”

Geert Wilders founded the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom in 2006. Since then, he has been outspoken on the issues of immigration, Islamic extremism and freedom of speech. His provocative 2008 film about Islam in the Netherlands, Fitna, has received international attention, condemnation, and comparisons to Theo van Gogh. Due to death threats, he has been forced into guarded isolation, and has been banned from entering the United Kingdom since 12 February 2009 because of his opinions.

[Venturer]

During the Viet Nam war they took two prisoners up in a helicopter and threw one out and questioned the other.

Now, they pour some water in someones nose and it;s torture.