Bush says torture still necessary

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President George W. Bush told Fox's Brit Hume that he approved enhanced interrogation techniques for suspected terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Bush explained, "My view is the techniques were necessary and are necessary."

Many critics view waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques approved by Bush to be torture. The president disagreed with notion that such tactics amount to toture. "I firmly reject the word 'torture,'" said Bush.

Dave N:
Mebbe Bush believes that because he's Preznit, he gets to deciderer what the meaning of words is. But by every national and international law that defines torture -- including the laws by which we have convicted people of other nations and sent them to prison -- waterboarding and a number of the "enhanced interrogation" techniques are definably torture.

Moreover, Bush can give these acts whatever fancy word he wants -- it's still torture in the eyes of the world. That, and not Bush's hermetically sealed little world, is what matters in the end.

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86 comments

Is he suggesting that's the only way we'll get the truth out of him?

that's a yes and
as soon as jan.21, 2009 after his
disastrous act as president,
bush, cheney, condi and all the rest of
the whitehouse administration should
be sent to gitmo and tortured for an appropriate
amount of time. and that amount of time would
be like all enemy combatants, which the bush
administration IS, without end.

...I doubt we'd have to do that. He's such a COWARD that the mere mention of applying an electrode to a random body part or holding a water-soaked rag in front of his face while he's strapped to an incline board would likely cause him to "sing," as they say.

Maybe if BushCo is tortured we'll find the WMDs (in Israel), the missing billions (in offshore bank accounts) and we'll find out that bin-Ladin never existed (9/11 was perpetrated by Saudis).

OK

Let's see how the simian warmonger feels about torture during his trial at the Hague. He should be sure to bring his bathing suit and goggles.

I bet it would only take about 30 seconds of deliberation by a trbunal of judges to hand down a unanimous decision that these things are torture and that Bush, Cheney and the relevant players in his regime are the worst sort of war criminals.

"The US doesn't torture?"

Just yesterday?

So it must be true, if they both say it...

Mustn't it?

I am SOOOO confused...

President-elect Obama said under his administration the US will not torture.

Its amazing how almost identical words can take on completely different meanings.

practice newspeak. They just weren't quick enough to screw up this democracy the way they planned it.

)O(

I know, let's just force our political prisoners to listen too boosh's speeches on an endless loop.

We have to ask ourselves -- "Is our terr'ists talkin'?"

Then one hopes Obama will dismantle this awful system when has not elicited good information and has plunged our international reputation to the depths of infamy. Fortunately, Obama appears not to have completely ruled out investigating his predecessor for crimes. I hope his AG does a thorough investigation so we can have closure on this horrible blot in our nation's history.

The expression on his face says it all. The man wasn't fit to manage a convenience store.

what you say about these political liars people. Big Brother and the Thought Police are watching:

A Southern California man was charged Thursday with threatening a presidential candidate, for posting a racist note to a Yahoo message board in October expressing displeasure over Barack Obama's candidacy, and predicting "he will have a 50 cal in the head soon."

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/thre...

)O(

That's why this site has rules against advocating violence.

WE JUST LOOOOOVVVE AMERICA!!!

he stated that at the behest of Limpballs. Then it would have been ok!

I hope this shameful video is replayed during Bush's trial as evidence of his self-admitted guilt. He is beneath contempt.

I wish both of them george and brit get a small taste of their own medicine.
What fools!

It doesn't matter that he rejects the word "torture". This is OUR country and we KNOW it's torture and Bush needs to be punished for his crimes against humanity.

http://bisbah.blogspot.com/2007/11/quick-hist...
Maybe shrub should have check this link

)O(

http://aftermathnews.files.wordpress.com/2007...

The interesting thing is that the Inquisition never admitted to torture. They called it, "Putting the prisoner to the Question." Their own rules were that a prisoner couldn't be tortured more than once, so they allowed "suspensions" and "renewals" of the Question.

Then when the prisoner was ready to confess he/she was brought back to the court where it was said he/she "confessed without torture." They were then handed over to secular authorities to be executed, so that the Church could claim it never shed blood. On the way to the site of the execution, their tongues were either clamped with large wooden clips, cut out or slit out so that they couldn't recant their confession. If the secular authorities refused to execute the prisoners, the secular authorities would be excommunicated, and their town put under an interdiction (if I remember the term aright), which placed the entire town under excommunication.

That's exactly what interdict is.

And the 'they're taking away our religion' still sells big time, apparently.

)O(

I'm not sure what killed my short term memory: the weed whilst in the Air Force, or the alcohol since then.

Umm...wait...what thread am I on?

...that we can always count on those "representatives of God on Earth"
to work out the most devious way to punish others for their own secular gain.

why does their little icon in the bottom left corner never stop spinning?

is 666

F = 6
O = 6
X = 6

All the news that's fit to spin.

I can no longer listen to the Cretin-in-Chief. Eight years of being slimed by this madman's inchoate assumptions that have nothing to do with REALITY and I have had it.

Officer, arrest this man!

to tv cameras, like Palin. He'll never go away. His life's mission now is to spin his 8 years in office into Candyland for brain challenged republitards and conservaloons.

Do you see the cowardess looking out at you?

is that he did brief congress about the torture. Who knows how much he shared but I believe it was enough that the members of congress knew what was going on.

So much for prosecution and accountability. I think we keep forgetting this. We are not a democracy. We are a republic. Our representatives left us a long time ago.

"Our representatives left us a long time ago." so lets stop whining and elect new ones. Obama was a good start but that's all.

If torture is necessary, then he's obviously okay with the US waterboarding his ass until he confesses to all the crimes of his administration. It's a win-win!

Now lawyers can argue their clients like Madoff are above the law too or it is discrimination.

The government has set aside $500,000 to compensate victims of the Madoff fraud? I know that doesn't seem like much but why are we compensating anyone for an investment that they lost on?

I thought that was the way it was done.
Besides bush already said sometimes money trumps peace!

Prosecute, Punish:

Crimes against peace

War crimes

Crimes against humanity.

Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal, 1950.

They had to have coerced false confessions to justify their lies and invading a sovereign country.

It was necessary

Bush explained, "My view is the techniques were necessary and are necessary."

Otherwise the real perpetrators of 9-11 might have been brought to light.

Well, I guess if the president who took more vacation of any president in the history of the country and completely ignored Katrina for a week or and started a war with out reason or cause...says we need to keep the torture up, well I guess I trust him. Him and Cheney the expert advice giver.

If the politicians who ordered it,
Had to be the ones that inflicted it.

George should have done that for executions too. That way you aren't creating a nightmare for the torturer or the executioner. You yourself get to exercise your own philosophical values.

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."

Remember how much crap Conservatives gave Clinton about wanting to nail down the meaning of the word "is" to his own legal advantage? It was probably one of the stupider things he did during his presidency, and it did show a rather cavalier attitude to the rule of law and our justice system, but whether or not "is" had various definitions Clinton wasn't seeking to use it to violate individual rights and international treaties, you know?

Bush wants to redefine a rather important word that not only results in physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual damage to those it's used upon, but it also has a significant impact on how the REST OF THE FREAKING WORLD views the US. Yet Conservatives have no problem with this - in fact, many of them agree that we should be able to redefine it however we see fit, so that we can do whatever we want without question. I dunno - to me, at any rate, the definition of "torture" is a lot more important than the definition of "is."

Maybe now that the Dems will be in control, things like this will stop being "IOKIYAR" (not that I want to see much become "IOKIYAD" - I don't really think it's right either way.)

For those who think Bush is right we'll see many prisoner who were known to be innocent but tortured by the USA. Mr. Hicks from Australia was kidnapped transported to Gitmo tortured and held for 7 years. A Miltary Lawyer found Hicks to be innocent after 2 years of being held, but the US Pentagon didn't wont anyone released because it would be known we were holding innocent people. Hicks finally lied to the US court and was ordered back home to serve out his 25 years. Once in Australia found the documents they proved Hicks innocent that the former President was holding back on. Hicks was quickly examined and found drugged and tortured. He was taken into Australian custody from the US. His sentence was dropped and he is now given medical care, home and doctors will help him get his life back. Other Gitmo prisoners aren't so lucky as 7 men are now insane and some have died from torture. We even have children in Gitmo that we torture. Americans who see no problem with these crimes will see it happen in the future to American men/woman/children. The United Nations has allowed it and now even Israel is on a murder spree. Iran will now have reason to develope Nuclear Weapons with the action of the Bush Administration and Israel War Crimes being Legal.
Daddy Bush was crying about how wonder his idiot son is and how History will show him. GW will be long side Hitler, Stalin and Saddam but GW might replace Saddam as GW tried to bring down the World as he did succeed in bringing down the World Economy.

What a coincidence, as I say that bringing Bush before an International War Crimes Court is still necessary!

So do I, so do I!

It is astonishing how Fixed Noise CONTINUES to get away with putting this propaganda on the air AND there are still people that BELIEVE these lunatic LIARS are telling it the only way there is!! AMAZING..

"NEVER let the facts outside your bubble get in the way of what you want the truth to be"...this has got to be their mantra. Nothing else explains this level of delusion.

Has the populace become so numb to this idiots ramblings and the cheap thrill of a KoolAide injection that outrage has gone?? What happened to us as a country?? Has the age of oblivion come to us now?? AND, now this mumbling fool wants the TAXPAYERS to pay for some idiotic gate at his new farm???

We have lost our way......

It's their lie and they're sticking to it.

From rawstory,

During that interview, Obama told Stephanopoulos: "My instinct is for us to focus on how we make sure we're moving forward, we are doing the right thing. That doesn't mean that if somebody has blatantly broken the law that they are above the law, but my orientation is going to be moving forward."

I'm going to start selling official Obama style horse blinders. new definition to forward thinking.

I think Yoo took care of the "blatant" disqualifier.

He did say that it was up to the DOJ. I don't think I would answer the question either. The crimes have to be investigated by the proper authorities, not the president.

They'll serve at his bidding, and he's already said he won't prosecute anyone in the Bush administration for criminal activity. If he really intended to let the DOJ investigate and let the chips fall where they will, he would not have made such a declarative statement.

I don't have much hope that the Bush administration will receive justice or suffer any consequences under Obama's administration.

No

you keep saying the same thing over and over. He said the Attorney General works for the people. It is only the republican AGs that work for the WH.

.

.

Ask John Conyers about that...
Oh, I forgot. He'd prefer to burry the known facts that his Committee has already dug up in a commission to nowhere.

.

)O(

Is there such a word as blatulence?

Georgie, we're down to single digits, less than 10 daze to go but I'm still worried what damage you and the Dick can do. Yes, let's turn he and his henchmen over to International Courts and see if non-ass-suckers buy the BS he spews.

just look at it........

The evil eyes of a viper, the devil's pitchfork of a nose, the lips that spew obscene orders to kill, and the ears that hear nothing but praise.

This man is evil personified.

)O(

Sun, 01/11/2009 - 10:20 — fiver
... to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul;

That whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman."

http://whitehouser.com/img/politicians/george...

http://www.exoterictrauma.com/images/bush_sal...

You can just imagine devil's horns on top of that face. It is so easy.

..

..

Some other words he firmly rejects are accountability, law, treaty, Christian, constitution and hypocrisy

These people really are despicable. They think if they repeat their twisted world view enough, we'll all go along with...

Must...invade...Iran

)O(

Must...invade...Angelina

Jolie times all...

You all get off his back. Our president-elect thinks what President Bush did is just fine. Otherwise why would he not vow to prosecute any offenders. We all need to look to the future, not the past. What's done is done. So a few innocents got caught up. All in the name of security. Let bygones be bygones.

That's the best satire I've read here all day. Well done!

I saw a clip today of Daddy Bush all choked up and ready to cry when he talked about his son being the most tested US president after the events of 911. Yeah, Daddy and his entire family SHOULD be crying. They caused fear, anguish and emotional wreckage to innocent American civilians who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and not anyway whatsoever connected with their evil deeds, not to mention the thousands of innocent lives they took.

It seems to be a bush family trait to never take the blame for anything that goes wrong but instead blame everyone else. Bush's dad seems resentful of Obama. He seems resentful of all the bad things that have been said about his son. He just can't seem to bring himself to face reality and that his son is, if not a total criminal, something very close. What a strange family that is. Of course we won't even bring up Babs because she seems to be the person who began this family trait.

..but, mostly evil. In their view "nothing" has "gone wrong."
None of the Bushitas have ever been indicted, tried or convicted for the very many crimes they've committed over the last century - starting with Prescott.

Pappy and Babs' cold and odd behaviour following the death of their daughter shows how bereft they are of emotions. I truly believe that was the finishing touch to dubya's sick, skewed mentality. The whole family is heartless and deranged.

Pappy and Babs = a match made in hell. How fitting for them that they created their own little version of satan to amuse themselves. When it comes time for them to leave this earth, may they all be taunted by the souls of their dead victims and may they all burn in eternal hellfire.

)O(

I wouldn't go that far

Just wish them an eternity of burning crotch rot.

,,,the whole truth be known, Pappy has been guilty of just as many dastardly things - he's just done a lot of his crimes against humanity a little more covertly.

Seeing how this insufferable piss nozzle is so gung-ho in his support for torture why don't we the people who have regrettably put him in the position he holds insist that he turn himself in for the same treatment?
There'a a lot of questionable shit that he and Cheney have done in the last eight years that I'd like answers to.
Ol' W ought to jump right in that line if he has no qualms regarding the rendition process as he claims.

Don't cha' think?

To listen to this fizz wit gurgle his way through another self serving semi coherent interview.

So boosh must really love this:

http://a.abcnews.com/images/GMA/ap_condi_boot...

I'll bet she's a nasty little piece of work when she's all suited up in her S&M garb.

George Bush is a child, a child bully who looks at his victim, America, and says "what ya gonna do about it?" I hope Obama and his AG have the answer to that soon.

9 MORE DAYS!!!!!

What was a war crime in 1945 (waterboarding of captured bomber crew in Japan) is still a war crime, is still torture even if you "reject" the truth of the word Mr President. By any reasonable logic, you are a war criminal and deserve to be held accountable in this country or in the Netherlands if we Americans fail to bring you to justice. What happens with this issue will echo through eternity and will shape the future on this planet. Will Life support torture, as you favor Mr Bush, or will it support justice? For my future grand child's sake, I hope that Life will support justice.

They're setting a trap. Bush tortured. There were no additional attacks. Obama won't torture. There will probably be an attack. Therefore,it will be Obama's fault. (This is angry sarcasm)

Torture is NEVER necessary.

Can we please cut your balls off? They're ruining the dialogue.
*

Sick of the BS?

VISIT: http://thetorturer.com

• “Shocking, compelling… intense...”
Thom Hartmann, Air America Radio

• “My best character since ‘Uhura’”
Nichelle Nichols

• "By far the best film (at the AFM 2008).”
Charlie Fagin – American Film Market Projectionist

• “About time.”
An Army Wife

I wonder how many people have been tortured like that.

Watching that young man who was a guard at Gitmo testify to the abuses he saw, and was forced to participate in, sickened me. (I refer to the C&L thread from yesterday.)

He also said everything was videotaped. Hmm, I wonder where those tapes are. I'm sure they make for riveting late night private viewings at the Cheney residence.

"HEY, MAN, How come you kicked me in the arse?"
"whadya do you mean, I didn't kick you in the arse?
"Then whadya call it? YOU KICKED ME IN THE ARSE!!"
Man starts to walk away and other man hits him on the head.

"Hey, man whadya hit me on the head fer?"
"Cuz you kicked me in the arse"
"I didn't kick you in the arse"

Since Bush has been President for 8 long years, it has been a comedy, mixed with horror and fiction.

Now it is time for the drama, the real truth to come out.

People speak out and loud and clear, lets demand Bush/Cheney go on trial. I wish Bush was caught getting a BJ. DANG!!! Then the people would speak up.
As a society we care more about homosexuality and movie stars than War crimes and injustice of our own government.

Bush/Cheney are murderers for thousands of innocent deaths and for this no one seems to care but if Bush got a BJ by golly, you bet the hammer would come down.

Bush,Cheney and the other Chicken hawks think that war, torture and killing are fun because they know that they are not going to die.

Haven't the American people suffered enough?

and, can torture be used on this Administration's jackboots? Start with Scooter. Maybe, inbetween the dunking and gasps for air, as they pray for the pain to stop they'll confess. We can find out where all the money footballs in Iraq went for instance..

Better yet, find out about the T.A.R.P. money that disappeared.

"Many critics view"?

Like the American war crimes tribunal that HUNG a Japanese for it? [Ah, Good times!]

Like the American POW in Japan who wrote in his book that he was beaten to a black sack of pus and still said waterboarding was the most horrible thing they did to him?

Those "views"?

How "critical'.

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