Tag: CIA Torture
Stewart Grateful G.W. Bush Did Not Die in Office
I’m going to end on a note of gratitude — something I never thought that I would say. George W. Bush, thank you for not dying while you were in office.
— Jon Stewart, on former Vice President Dick Cheney’s defense of torture during the Bush administration.
Obviously, Cheney Can’t Get Enough of that Torture Stuff
I’d do it again in a minute.
— Former Vice President Dick Cheney, quoted by Politico, on the CIA’s interrogation program.
Fox News Host Says Obama Administration Is Anti-Awesome
The United States of America is awesome, we are awesome. We’ve closed the book on torture, and we’ve stopped doing it. And the reason they want to have this discussion is not to show how awesome we are. This administration wants to have this discussion to show us how we’re not awesome.
— Fox News co-host Andrea Tantaros, quoted by Gawker.
Bush Administration Paid Torture Trainers $81 Million
$81 million
Amount the Bush administration paid the CIA contractors who helped develop and operate the “enhanced interrogation techniques” the agency used on terror suspects, including waterboarding, NBC News reports. “The contract was for more than $180 million, but the contractors had only received $81 million when their contract was terminated in 2009.”
This Is an Example of One of the ‘Known Unknowns’
The presentation also noted that the President of the United States had directed that he not be informed of the locations of the CIA detention facilities to ensure that he would not accidentally disclose the information.
— From the Senate’s report on torture pertaining to President George W. Bush.
Washington Post: ISIS Used Bush-Approved Torture Technique on Journalist James Foley And Other American Hostages
In late 2002 and early 2003, a group of top Bush administration officials approved a set of torture techniques for use on prisoners captured during the so-called War on Terror. Known as the Principals Committee, the officials who signed off on the torture manual included Vice Pres. Cheney, former National Security Adviser (and later Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft. Ultimately, however, the decision to turn America into a torture state was made by Pres. Bush.
Pres. Reagan signed an international anti-torture treaty that enjoined member nations to invade a country where torture was known to be occurring, arrest its leaders and bring them justice before a Nuremberg-style tribunal.
Among the torture techniques approved by Bush’s Principals Committee was waterboarding, a practice that the United States had deemed a war crime for which the penalty was death by hanging during World War II.
The Bush administration’s torture manual was also prima facie violation of the international anti-torture treaty passed by Congress and signed by Ronald Reagan in 1984 — a treaty that required member nations to invade a country where torture was known to be occurring, arrest its leaders and bring them justice before an Nuremberg-style tribunal.
Bush’s decision to torture prisoners not only reduced the United States to the same base level as its worst enemies, it guaranteed that terrorists would deploy the same techniques against American hostages some day. According to the Washington Post, that day has arrived.
