Wednesday, May 30, 2007
One possible reason that Rumsfeld and Gonzales supported torture
Donald Rumsfeld's and Alberto Gonzales' efforts to justify torture during interrogations of prisoners in Iraq is a little bit more understandable today.
CNN reports that many interrogators don't speak the same language as their prisoners.
That's a frustrating situation. The only way you can get information in a situation like that is to suggest something, and get the prisoner to agree with it. And torture is the best way to get someone to agree with something when they have no idea whether it's true or not.
One thing we can depend on is that our interrogators are not gay. The US military has dimissed hundreds of Arabic-speakers because they failed the "don't ask, don't tell" standards. The Bush administration is very clear about its priorities when it comes to winning the war on terrorism: the war on sexual differences is more important.
If the Iraq war had been fought effectively, no one would be noticing that the Bush administration gave false reasons for going into Iraq. When the waging of war is both dishonest AND ineffective, then people start to lose confidence in their leaders.
I found the following on the Empire Burlesque blog (http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php)
The Shores of Tripoli: Torture in the Service of Arms and Oil
Written by Chris Floyd
Thursday, 31 May 2007
The new Michael Isikoff story in Newsweek about the macabre torture of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi confirms, once again, one of the underlying truths about George W. Bush's gulag: He does not have people tortured in order to extract information from them; he has them tortured in order to manufacture false information which can be used to advance his agenda of aggressive war and domestic tyranny. This has long been plain, but the Isikoff story, based on reporting he did with David Corn, drives it home most vividly:
Libi, who ran one of Al Qaeda's biggest training camps, was the principal source for former secretary of State Colin Powell's claim to the U.N. Security Council that Saddam Hussein's regime had helped train Al Qaeda in chemical and biological weapons. But as first reported by Newsweek three years ago, Libi later recanted his story about Iraqi weapons training, forcing the CIA to withdraw all its reporting based on his assertions...
CNN reports that many interrogators don't speak the same language as their prisoners.
That's a frustrating situation. The only way you can get information in a situation like that is to suggest something, and get the prisoner to agree with it. And torture is the best way to get someone to agree with something when they have no idea whether it's true or not.
One thing we can depend on is that our interrogators are not gay. The US military has dimissed hundreds of Arabic-speakers because they failed the "don't ask, don't tell" standards. The Bush administration is very clear about its priorities when it comes to winning the war on terrorism: the war on sexual differences is more important.
If the Iraq war had been fought effectively, no one would be noticing that the Bush administration gave false reasons for going into Iraq. When the waging of war is both dishonest AND ineffective, then people start to lose confidence in their leaders.
I found the following on the Empire Burlesque blog (http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php)
The Shores of Tripoli: Torture in the Service of Arms and Oil
Written by Chris Floyd
Thursday, 31 May 2007
The new Michael Isikoff story in Newsweek about the macabre torture of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi confirms, once again, one of the underlying truths about George W. Bush's gulag: He does not have people tortured in order to extract information from them; he has them tortured in order to manufacture false information which can be used to advance his agenda of aggressive war and domestic tyranny. This has long been plain, but the Isikoff story, based on reporting he did with David Corn, drives it home most vividly:
Libi, who ran one of Al Qaeda's biggest training camps, was the principal source for former secretary of State Colin Powell's claim to the U.N. Security Council that Saddam Hussein's regime had helped train Al Qaeda in chemical and biological weapons. But as first reported by Newsweek three years ago, Libi later recanted his story about Iraqi weapons training, forcing the CIA to withdraw all its reporting based on his assertions...
# posted by Maura Larkins @ 1:10 PM 
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