GET THE FACTS BEHIND THE NEWS
In World War II thousands of German troops were kept in POW camps in several parts of the US for the duration of the war. They were given the protection of the Geneva Convention and they were not tortured. Why can’t the same thing be done with the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay from the Iraqi, Afghanistan, Pakistan middle eastern theatre?
If prison location is a problem two suggestions would be to reopen Alcatraz or put them on an isolated island in the pacific but give them the Geneva protections without torture. This location problem has been blown way out of proportion. I am sure it was never the gov’t’s intention to just turn them loose. We should also note that a high percentage of these people maybe innocent, they have NEVER had an impartial judicial hearing. Some have been held for six and seven years at Guantanamo Bay. Diogenes believes it was a tragic mistake to take prisoners captured on the battlefield and give them an “enemy combataned” status so they could be tortured. It is hard to believe that a President of the US would locate the prisoners in a location he thought would be free from the US Judicial System so that he could do things that he knew were illegal.
It is important to close Guantanamo for many good reasons as many experts and the majority of the public knows. Details another blog.
It is even more important to NOT HAVE A PREVENTIVE DETENTION PROGRAM. PREVENTIVE DETENTION IS THE PATH TO DICTATORSHIP. ONCE YOU START BY PASSING THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND THE JUSTICE SYSTEM THERE IS NO TELLING WHERE YOU WILL END. . . probably dictatorship.
No matter how well intentioned or how many groups have to okay preventive detention over a period of time preventive detention would be used to silence political enemies rather than to prevent terrorism. If Dick Cheney.
or people of similar opinion, are deciding who should be held in preventive detention it would be disastrous for democracy.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
WHY DID THE BUSH ADMIN WANT WAR?
GET THE FACTS BEHIND THE NEWS
Even before 9/11 the Bush Administration had decide to go to war with Iraq. Paul O’Neil Bush’s first Secretary of the Treasury reported in his booK “The Price of Loyalty” that the war in Iraq was planned from the first National Security Council meeting soon after the admin took office in 2001. Why this action by the Bush Admim?
The action of the Bush Admin in seeking war merits a close look. There is an important untold story that needs to be investigated and brought to public light
In 1998 a group of neo-conservatives, Chenney, Rumsfeld, Wilfowitz, etc wrote Pres Clinton a letter stating that Iraq had nuclear weapons and advising a preventive war in stead of a policy of containment. The writers did not state when and how they obtained this information. In Oct 97 the IAEA UN group reported that Iraq was clear of nuclear weapons. For the next several years till the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 this conflict remained. The Bush people despite several briefings from the CIA, State Dept, Energy Dept, Security Council and others refused to accept the other depts conclusions and insisted that Iraq had nuclear and chemical weapons and was working with alQueda. In fact the neo-cons grew so angry and frustrated with the other gov’t research depts information that contradicted the neo-cons beliefs, that Donald Rumsfeld in Sept 2001 setup his own research dept in the Pentagon. The dept was called called the “Office of Special Plans.
In August, 2002 the Downing Street secret memo(later leaked) in which the head of British intelligence informed Prime Minister Blair” that the Bush White House was so determined to go to war in Iraq that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” Patrick Lange of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Gary Thielman of the State Intelligence Group later confirmed this opinion. Interviews with current and former intelligence officials and other experts reveal that the Bush administration culled from U.S. intelligence those assessments that supported its position and omitted those that did not. The administration ignored, and even suppressed, disagreement within the intelligence agencies and pressured the CIA to reaffirm its preferred version of the Iraqi threat. Similarly,it stonewalled, and sought to discredit, international weapons inspectors reports when their findings threatened to undermine the case for war. What was the purpose behind this?
Aluminum, tubes, disclosing a CIA agent and other strange behavior next blog.
Even before 9/11 the Bush Administration had decide to go to war with Iraq. Paul O’Neil Bush’s first Secretary of the Treasury reported in his booK “The Price of Loyalty” that the war in Iraq was planned from the first National Security Council meeting soon after the admin took office in 2001. Why this action by the Bush Admim?
The action of the Bush Admin in seeking war merits a close look. There is an important untold story that needs to be investigated and brought to public light
In 1998 a group of neo-conservatives, Chenney, Rumsfeld, Wilfowitz, etc wrote Pres Clinton a letter stating that Iraq had nuclear weapons and advising a preventive war in stead of a policy of containment. The writers did not state when and how they obtained this information. In Oct 97 the IAEA UN group reported that Iraq was clear of nuclear weapons. For the next several years till the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 this conflict remained. The Bush people despite several briefings from the CIA, State Dept, Energy Dept, Security Council and others refused to accept the other depts conclusions and insisted that Iraq had nuclear and chemical weapons and was working with alQueda. In fact the neo-cons grew so angry and frustrated with the other gov’t research depts information that contradicted the neo-cons beliefs, that Donald Rumsfeld in Sept 2001 setup his own research dept in the Pentagon. The dept was called called the “Office of Special Plans.
In August, 2002 the Downing Street secret memo(later leaked) in which the head of British intelligence informed Prime Minister Blair” that the Bush White House was so determined to go to war in Iraq that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” Patrick Lange of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Gary Thielman of the State Intelligence Group later confirmed this opinion. Interviews with current and former intelligence officials and other experts reveal that the Bush administration culled from U.S. intelligence those assessments that supported its position and omitted those that did not. The administration ignored, and even suppressed, disagreement within the intelligence agencies and pressured the CIA to reaffirm its preferred version of the Iraqi threat. Similarly,it stonewalled, and sought to discredit, international weapons inspectors reports when their findings threatened to undermine the case for war. What was the purpose behind this?
Aluminum, tubes, disclosing a CIA agent and other strange behavior next blog.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
WHERE OBRAMA WENT WRONG
GET THE FACTS BEHIND THE NEWS No.2
By no later than the summer of 2004, the American people had before them the basic narrative of how the elected and appointed officials of their government decided to torture prisoners and how they went about it.” When the Obama administration said it declassified four new torture memos 10 days ago in part because their contents were already largely public, it was right.
Yet we still shrink from the hardest truths and the bigger picture: that torture was a premeditated policy approved at our government’s highest levels; that psychologists and physicians were enlisted as collaborators in inflicting pain; and that, in the assessment of reliable sources like the F.B.I. director Robert Mueller, it did not help disrupt any terrorist attacks
We now have evidence for an explanation of what motivated Bybee to write his memo
that August, thanks to the comprehensive Senate Armed Services Committee report on detainees released last week.
The report found that Maj. Paul Burney, a United States Army psychiatrist assigned to interrogations in Guantánamo Bay that summer of 2002, told Army investigators of another White House imperative: “A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful.” As higher-ups got more “frustrated” at the inability to prove this connection, the major said, “there was more and more pressure to resort to measures” that might produce that intelligence.
In other words, the ticking time bomb was not another potential Qaeda attack on America but the Bush administration’s ticking timetable for selling a war in Iraq; it wanted to pressure Congress to pass a war resolution before the 2002 midterm elections. Bybee’s memo was written the week after the then-secret (and subsequently leaked) “Downing Street memo,” in which the head of British intelligence informed Tony Blair that the Bush White House was so determined to go to war in Iraq that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” A month after Bybee’s memo, on Sept. 8, 2002, Cheney would make his infamous appearance on “Meet the Press,” hyping both Saddam’s W.M.D.s and the “number of contacts over the years” between Al Qaeda and Iraq. If only 9/11 could somehow be pinned on Iraq, the case for war would be a slamdunk.
But there were no links between 9/11 and Iraq, and the White House knew it. Torture may have been the last hope for coercing such bogus “intelligence” from detainees who would be tempted to say anything to stop the waterboarding.
By no later than the summer of 2004, the American people had before them the basic narrative of how the elected and appointed officials of their government decided to torture prisoners and how they went about it.” When the Obama administration said it declassified four new torture memos 10 days ago in part because their contents were already largely public, it was right.
Yet we still shrink from the hardest truths and the bigger picture: that torture was a premeditated policy approved at our government’s highest levels; that psychologists and physicians were enlisted as collaborators in inflicting pain; and that, in the assessment of reliable sources like the F.B.I. director Robert Mueller, it did not help disrupt any terrorist attacks
We now have evidence for an explanation of what motivated Bybee to write his memo
that August, thanks to the comprehensive Senate Armed Services Committee report on detainees released last week.
The report found that Maj. Paul Burney, a United States Army psychiatrist assigned to interrogations in Guantánamo Bay that summer of 2002, told Army investigators of another White House imperative: “A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful.” As higher-ups got more “frustrated” at the inability to prove this connection, the major said, “there was more and more pressure to resort to measures” that might produce that intelligence.
In other words, the ticking time bomb was not another potential Qaeda attack on America but the Bush administration’s ticking timetable for selling a war in Iraq; it wanted to pressure Congress to pass a war resolution before the 2002 midterm elections. Bybee’s memo was written the week after the then-secret (and subsequently leaked) “Downing Street memo,” in which the head of British intelligence informed Tony Blair that the Bush White House was so determined to go to war in Iraq that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” A month after Bybee’s memo, on Sept. 8, 2002, Cheney would make his infamous appearance on “Meet the Press,” hyping both Saddam’s W.M.D.s and the “number of contacts over the years” between Al Qaeda and Iraq. If only 9/11 could somehow be pinned on Iraq, the case for war would be a slamdunk.
But there were no links between 9/11 and Iraq, and the White House knew it. Torture may have been the last hope for coercing such bogus “intelligence” from detainees who would be tempted to say anything to stop the waterboarding.
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