Janis Karpinski to Dick Cheney: Where Were You Five Years Ago?
By Heather Thursday Apr 23, 2009 8:00am
I was saying that Chris Matthews should have read Janis Karpinski's book when he was trying to rebut Michael Smerconish the other day. Well it looks like someone else at MSNBC has. Keith Olbermann talks to former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski about how the torture at Abu Ghraib was a direct result of policies which were crafted by the higher ups in the Bush administration.
Olbermann: What does the Levin tell us about this prison and what happened there.
Karpinski: It basically says there's a direct line from these memorandum, the policies and the permissions and the directives included in those memorandum through Gen. Miller at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, migrated directly with Gen. Miller and his Tiger Team of about twenty four people who came to advise the military intelligence interrogators of these harsher interrogation techniques. Straight line.
She has a few words for Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush administration that let the soldiers take the fall for their decisions.
Karpinski: This is one of the most shameful aspects of these memos and the knowledge that people at the highest levels of our government had about these memos, actually sat together and wrote them and rewrote them and crafted them to meet the requirements of these techniques they wanted to use.
They were well aware, these people, Rumsfeld, Sanchez, all of them and were well aware of these policies and these memorandums while these soldiers were being accused....five years ago. And if it was okay Mr. Former Vice President, if you're saying that this was necessary today and that it produced good intelligence..where were you five years ago stepping up to the plate and saying hold on, we can't discuss this because this is classified information, but these soldiers did not design these techniques? Where were all of those heros then to step up to the plate and defend these soldiers and to defend me? These were soldiers that were serving in a combat zone that were good Americans and remain good Americans and that were so unfairly blamed. Five years this month to get these memos released, declassified and released and people still trying to say that what happened at Abu Ghraib was different than what these memorandums were directing. No! It is not!
The Republicans have been desperate to put distance between what happened at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo and are barking that all over the airways the last few days. Janis Karpinski is the best spokesperson to blow a hole in that argument since she was right in the middle of it and I was glad to see Keith have her on.
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As do the other "bad apples" who paid for Bush administration cowardice.
she was a psychopath who enjoyed her work. Just like this sociopath of a general deserves to get the book thrown at her.
Just because Cheney et al are also a band of roving sociopaths does not excuse any of these sorry excuses of human beings. It takes two to tango: a supreme set of assholes like Bush and Cheney giving the illegal orders, and vermin like Gen Karpinski to follow and make sure the orders were carried out.
F*ck the lot of them, I have ZERO sympathy for this b*tch. Nüremberg established the precedent that "following orders" was not an excuse, furthermore any General in the US Armed Forces that has little issue breaking almost every article of the Geneva Convention deserves to be court martialed.
Cry me a f*cking river. This idiot is lucky she just got demoted, she should be serving hard time along her pals in the former administration. Although I find it delicious to see the rats turning on each other. That still doesn't undo all the damage these vermin visited upon our world.
Just maybe you need to read a bit more of Karpinski's story before you go off on her.
Going off on people generally isn't a good idea to begin with, but with no evidence to back up your rage (and plenty to refute it) you only make yourself look foolish.
you accuse me of not presenting any evidence by.... not providing any yourself.
What were you saying about looking foolish?
you are a bit shrill here Ty!
Bottom line your right, arrest them all. She knows she is just as guilty as Rummy and Dick.
than any colorful language I may have used to refer to these torturing pieces of shit.
;-)
It's your ignorance of the facts.
So generals in the United States Army are in charge, unless the shit hits the fan?
I didn't get the memo I guess, you obviously must know so much. Please share your wisdom with us mere mortals living in the realm of reality.
This all came out several years ago.
If you weren't paying attention then, do the smart thing and do some research now.
does not mean, what you think it means....
is torture is torture. There is NEVER any justification for it. Why? Because it is and always has been illegal. No matter who ordered it or actually did the dirty work. "I was just following orders" stopped flying years ago. I have no sympathy for England and I definitely have no sympathy for the Bush administration because they lied to everyone's faces (shocker) and hid behind the troops (shocker no. 2)
Bastards all of them. Karma will not be kind to any of them.
I made no effort to present evidence .. I simply stated that you need to be better informed before you criticise others, particularly in such harsh terms.
And you obviously didn't go to the trouble to better inform yourself before you responded to my post.
Karpinski was ordered to stop making inspections of the prison where the extreme torture was occuring, despite remaining nominally in charge of the prison. Then she was set up as the scapegoat for what happened. Sanchez and Miller are the ones who actually ran the prison.
That's the fact that you obviousy don't know or have conveniently decided to ignore.
It's all in the public record.
just pointin out...we're all all the same side here ain't we?
Let's not get pissed over this shit.
Eyes on the prize folks...
was in charge of that outfit.
Please, do not make assumptions about what I know or I don't know about this case, OK? If you are not angry, it is most likely because you are not paying attention.
When are we going to hear the truth about what happened to Nick Berg? And the truth about al-Zarqawi, as well? Since so much is coming out, it ALL needs to come out.
Try Google ..
You have a computer.
Do you know how to use Google?
Goto http://www.google.com and enter Karpinski.
Then add Sanchez and Miller to the search.
Then read.
I will expand upon your advice, and I would direct you not to just read, but actually comprehend.
For example:
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?enti...
For an actual timeline. Gen. Karpinski an innocent bystander is not. Now you can huff and puff all you want.
I have no clue whatsoever why you insist on shilling for this lady. Are you related to her, have some sort of crush or infatuation? It makes little sense, honestly.
YOU are ignoring the FACT that she was ORDERED NOT to go into the prison after Sanchez and Miller took over.
Do you even know who Sanchez and Miller are?
that a lot of the torture happened under her watch.
No need to yell.
..to Janis Karpinski's interview last night. She's doing the right thing now and probably took some heat at some point for her views. However, if she was aware of torture and didn't stand up then, she's guilty. I'd like to read her book for more insight. I may not be willing to generously give her a PASS because of her speaking up now but I'd be willing to hear how she was treated and how this was introduced to her. This may be an attempt at redemption. She didn't seem to me to have woken up one morning and said, "Go Torture!" I don't think we'd be hearing from her otherwise.
We has met the enemy and he is US!
I understand your frustrations, and even empathize with them. However, it should be noted that this woman has done a great deal to bring the truth of these tortures to light. Is it self serving? Oh you betcha, but I'm okay with it. Let her blather on and on, because the more she talks the more likely justice will be served.
!
alas this is a nation of laws, not men.
Just because she is doing the right thing now, I am not willing to forget that this shit happened under her watch.
I am not willing to run the risk that this ends up where it always does: the general gets to clear her name, and nobody in the upper echelons get to pay any price. Send this POS to jail, and she is free to cut any pleas by incriminating her superiors. I am no longer willing to cut any slack to any of these vermin. Else they always manage to find a way to slip through the cracks and come back later to bite all of us in our collective derrieres.
Before you jump to conclusions.
you obviously need it more than I do.
The extensive interviews that came out immediately after the Abu Ghraib pictures became public.
I am sure the justice system would be redundant.
This lady, telling us her side of the story, still does not change the fact that she was in charge of that outfit. And the fact that she initially only acted just to reprimand the leakage of the pictures, not the acts committed in the pictures themselves.
She swore to uphold the constitution, and the laws of the United Sates. The military code of conduct is very clear regarding the legality (or lack of in this case) of the practices that were sanctioned under her watch.
I commend her for coming forward, that however does not exonerate her from her responsibilities in the matter.
for those who betray their oaths.
When I served in the fire service, I was forced by my conscience to alert the citizens of my city that they were not getting the EMS for which they were paying.
For this, I am still paying.But I left the city with a state of the art paramedic program.
For my trouble, the city administration helped insurance companies to reject my injury claims after I was disabled in the line of duty.
They torpedoed my Workmans Comp claims and tried to prevent me from getting my pension.
So, I'm disabled for life, could not collect on my insurance and no WC.
But I did the right thing by my oath (and I'm a frappin' atheist)
and the lives of many people were saved as a result of my intervention.
Nobody can EVER take THAT away from me!
(andfuckemall)
For doing the right thing. Hope your disability doesn't prevent you from having a productive life.
Yet another reason, as if we need more, for single payer universal health care.
and that is the most important thing.
I know that does not pay the bills, and I wish I were rich to send you some money your way. Alas all I can afford right now is to give you my unmitigated respect. You did the right thing, and eventually the world has a way of rewarding those who do.
" I, _____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
Okay. If you consider this oath and the fact that the United States was a signatory to The Geneva Conventions etc. prior to 9/11/01, and that the Constitution says that "all treaties signed by the United States become the highest law of the land", then it seems crystal clear to me that any soldier who took an order to knowingly torture any prisoner or "enemy combatant" KNEW they were breaking the law. Or SHOULD have known.
One should not take an oath (and this includes Barack Obama and Eric Holder and every member of Congress), if they do not understand the Constitution.
Every single person from the POTUS on down to the soldier inflicting ANY torture on a POW is guilty of committing a crime.
We already have the evidence. The House and Senate Intelligence Committee know the evidence. They even know the CIA has admitted destroying video tapes of the evidence. The whole world knows the evidence.
We don't need a cover-up "truth" commission that will drag on for years. We need career criminal prosecutors like Vincent Bugliosi, to proceed with a criminal investigation and issue indictments with grand juries etc.
I agree with Shepard Smith as he dropped the "F-Bomb" on Fox regarding the torture discussion:
http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2009/04...
As a soldier all you have to do is say, "this is an illegal order, I will not follow it, I want to talk to the IG (Inspector General!"
From the Nat'l Guard Spec-4 to this so called General...they are all to blame. ALL!!!!
Gj Abby!!
it doesn't excuse her actions.
..the torture during the W years.
it needs to be remembered that many liberal democrats will be caught up in this mess. I am not a Rethug, but rather I do believe in justice irregardless of party affiliation.
Let the chips fall where they may. If a Dem was on board with this crap, he or she needs to pay. Period.
But it is clear that both parties are watching their collective backs, because sure as f*ck they are not interested in the slightest on watching ours.
As a life long democrat,I don't care who was involved with the torturing of "enemy combatants" whether dem or rep! I just want ALL involved to be prosecuted and if guilty , sent to PRISON for a l-o-o-ng time!
The Contractors somehow found some very enthusiastic sadists to help perform this sick shit. That fat bitch England actually got off light.
England would wipe that smile off of her face if she was subjected to the same treatment. She totally got off light.
They deserve more than that. They spent time in jail, the others were demoted. I'd be looking for more than an apology.
because of rank. A torturer is a torturer is a torturer.
That idiot should be rotting in jail, with the rest of her superiors, that is as much of an apology I am willing to extend to her.
The vast majority of the torture photos taken at Abu Ghraib have still not been released, including a number of dead prisoners, according to CID investigations. The previously released photos, which so upset the civilized world, were only the tip of the iceberg. We'll continue to hear how releasing them all will foster hatred of the US abroad, but maybe that's the only way we'll learn not to flush our values down the toilet.
As I recall there were several court orders to release those pictures .. and finally the "compromise" was to allow select Senators and Representatives watch a slide show with the agreement that none of them would take photos not discuss what they saw except in the broadest terms.
Those pictures need to be released.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Shep_Smith_We_d...
But the sooner we deal with it, and prosecute those responsible.
The better.
Start at the top this time.
Top to bottom house cleanin!
I emailed Peggy Noonan this morning and busted some balls over her comments that we need to "just keep walking" and not prosecute the war criminals.
This was the killer line "so, heaven forbid you or a member of your family is abducted, raped and tortured. You would have to just 'walk past' that incident and ignore it."
goes the dynamite.
Nice!
... that it is not a crime when it involves brown people. So there is nothing to see.
If god meant for us to care about them, he would have made them Iraqis white... like her family, and not brown. Duh....
Dick was hiding in his undisclosed location where he always goes when he's too chicken shit to do the responsible thing. I'm starting to wish there was a hell and he could be the first occupant.
I think cheney is the most paranoid man to ever walk the halls of the white house. First he was paranoid the terrorists were going to get him and now he's afraid the truth is going to get him. It just might.
Exactly. Where were you? Typical neo-con let others do your dirty work and then let them take the fall. Cheney you POS.
Why does General Janis Karpinski hate America?
That God we have combat dodging chickenhawks like Bush, Cheney, Rove, Wolfowitz, Hannity and Rush to protect us from the front line military personnel who hate America!
It was quite amusing to see the video on HuffPo; the liberal served in the miltary! The chicken$hit conservative did not! (He said his father did. Big deal. So did mine.) Hannity also said he would volunteer to be waterboarded, perhaps forgetting that conservative Christopher Hitchens did and admitted it was torture, after all.
As for former general Karpinski, good on her. Sounds as if she would be a prime witness for whatever investigation takes place. Or maybe Keith could just send the tape. He does a pretty good job getting to the bottom of things.
Didn't Rumsfeld ban all cameras after the pics came out from abu Ghraib? They knew sure as hell what was going on but those pics blew their cover. So rather than change course, they simple locked away the underlings.
... if you can't refute the facts, discredit the source. Trot out the semantics and the word games and the literal truths.
They did it with everything else their bloody paws are on, why not this?
Lesson learned - don't allow grunts to take photos of the results of the illegal orders they've carried out.
...following the illegal acts...it gives the impression that they enjoy carrying out immoral orders.
an apology to those pieces of shit, who not only tortured people, but did so while giving the thumbs up with big smiles on their faces.
Have we devolved so much as a society, that we think these torturers are the victims because got the book thrown at them for inflicting a world of pain on brown people?
How can anyone with any sort of human dignity, be bold enough to say publicly with a straight face that Lynndie England deserves an "apology." WTF?
England appeared to get off torturing innocent Iraqis.
those pics were just the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the reels were supposed to be so vile, that if released would pose a risk to our national security, as they would revolt large numbers of people all over the world.
I have ZERO sympathy for an inbreed piece of shit who thinks it is appropriate to picture herself right next to a cadaver, with a big thumbs up and a colgate smile of pleasure.
see it.
It was appalling...AND graphic.
The original Abu Ghraib photos are a very small and sanitized view of what went on.
Watch it and be horrified.
Prosecute Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rove, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz!
...revving up the smear machine to sic on BGen Karpinski. They simply won't tolerate any truthiness from retired flag rank officers.
This whole stinking heap of shit is bigger and nastier than any of us could have imagined. The blowback from the damage that BushCo and it's enablers have done to the USA is going to be felt for years to come. These criminals need to be prosecuted as a matter of utmost urgency. Failure to allow justice to prevail will sow the seeds of even worse deeds, by even more corrupt and criminally-minded politicians in the future. As a UK citizen and long time admirer of the USA, I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that I am deeply saddened by what has become of your once-proud nation under the criminal mismanagement of the Bush administration. For pity's sake, DO SOMETHING TO RESTORE YOUR LOST DIGNITY. PROSECUTE THESE LAWBREAKERS. THEY ARE TRAITORS TO THE CONSTITUTION & THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA!
I work with criminals everyday and I swear, all of them have more honor than Cheney. This man must be put on trial. Anyone who truly loves this Nation should hate what these criminals have done in our name.
...but it's fantasy to believe he will ever see the inside of a prison cell. It simply isn't allowed in our unofficial, two-tier justice system.
there is another "prison" waiting for him when his time is up on Earth. Don't you just love karma?
Wasn't it Lyndsey Graham who said the photos and videos from Abu Ghraib presented evidence of rape and murder?
Judge Kennedy whatever happened to your demand that the Pentagon release them?
Remember this gem from bushit?
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/arch...
That's all we hear from them. Yet they let the "troops" take the fall for the administration. One soldier gets 7 years and Cheney gets a gold watch and Rummy gets a job. If conservatives really supported our troops, after hearing all this they'd be calling those two traitors. The only thing they support is an administration that'll make them rich and outlaw gay marriage. They don't give two shits about our troops.
...of convictions on this, will involve also going after ANY congress critter who was aware of the program and didn't bring it into the light of day. Are you listening, Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi?
Doing that would at least ensure the repugs can't accuse DoJ of a political witch hunt, which they are absolutely certain to do.
The repugs are gonna be screaming witch hunt anyway...I agree though...I think all involved should be investigated, regardless of party or position.
I wish I could believe Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, et. al. would see justice for their crimes, but I don't think they ever will. Now if we could just prove they were blowing each other in the Oval Office.
I am so glad KO had her on.
Everyone, please contact your Senators and your Representative and tell them how you feel. Contact them by email by going to VoteSmart.Org and put in your zip in the upper left.
Fear is all they have to sell. Lie to go to war. Torture to get false confessions. Free bonus, more "enemies". Bush told us they hate us for our freedoms. Who is the "they" of which he spoke since HE took us back to the time before the Magna Carta? They raised the drumbeat and charge against any who questioned them as traitors while they knew they mislead us. Why, they asked many, do you hate America? Seems to me that any who wished this great country ill could have had no better effects than those given to us by this crowd.
The price of these fear based untruths is too high in lives, treasure and rights. Contact Holder: BY E-MAIL: E-mails to the Department of Justice, including the Attorney General, may be sent to AskDOJ@usdoj.gov. Department of Justice Main Switchboard - 202-514-2000 Office of the Attorney General -202-353-1555 http://www.usdoj.gov/contact-us.html
Thanks for the reminder....
as has been noted ad nauseum, torture is only effective in getting someone to tell you what you want to hear, no accurate intel. and the revelation that these people were tortured in order to provide "authenticity" to the lie that OBL as in cahoots with saddam shouldn't have surprised me...
not only were these humans tortured, they were used as simple pieces of meat to be beaten into providing cover for the imperial oil adventure in iraq--not protecting america nor finding OBL (not that that makes it ok... it just makes it slightly less cartoon-evil).
that is a level of evilness that is hard to wrap the noodle around
Why did Olbermann thank this woman at the end of the interview?
She was in charge of Abu Ghraib when hundreds of documented incidents of torture occurred. Innocent people were killed in that hellhole while she ran the place.
Janis Karpinski is no hero.
Same as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Sanchez,...
im curious
as it was her superiours that gave the orders...and its hard enough for a woman in our military
if this was all coming down from rummy....what would you have her do?
On everyone.
Officers and soldiers have the right to refuse to carry out immoral orders. This sort of thing can be a career-ending move, but it's a well-established precedent. You can't be ordered to torture, maim and kill prisoners. You just can't. If such an order is given and you carry it out, you're culpable. You can't make any excuse that you have no responsibility because your superior gave the order.
I haven't read Karpinski's book, but I do recall that Abu Ghraib was out of control. The jailers ran amuck and did whatever they wanted. There was no military discipline - which contributed to the abuses and killing of prisoners.
Karpinski ran Abu Ghraib. She was and is responsible for the breakdown of order there. You can't blame the condition of the prison on Rummy and Cheney.
not to watch the back of the president or the secretary of defense.
It is mighty hypocritical for the country that established the precedent that "following orders" was not an excuse for other armies, to conveniently ignore that when it comes to our own misdeeds. It reeks of exceptionalism, and severely undermines everything we work so hard to achieve as a country.
We didn't subsume most of our core values and we were able to kick all sorts of fascist ass during WWII. I think it is pathetic if we end up doing just that in order to deal with a two bit dictator. We're much much better than that, and we need to request a minimum set of standards. Period. The people who made the ultimate sacrifice in previous wars, deserve at least that.
Remeber what happened to Captain Hugh Thompson Jr.?
after youve put 30+ in you will have a better grasp to know what a hero is or is not. Heh , but untill then theres always comforts of a keyboard, right?
You mean 30+ years? I hit that particular milestone quite a while ago.
I assume you used a keyboard to type your brilliant words. I'd ask what your point is, but I don't care.
i too think that grainer and england and the other torturers deserve some quiet time in a cell. not as much time as the bush 6, and the bush honchos that created this program, but still some time behind bars. they did, afterall torture people. sick sick sick
yet... playing devil's advocate, one might want to consider the Milgram Experiment....
"A new study to be published in the January issue of American Psychologist confirmed these results in an experiment that mimics many of Milgram's original conditions. This and other studies have corroborated the startling conclusion that the majority of people, when placed in certain kinds of situations, will follow orders, even if those orders entail harming another person."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/12/19/milgram....
I can not believe that the Republicans can put together the balls to impeach a President for a Blowjob, but we can not fight the guts to prosecute these ... scumbags even after they have left office.
What the hell is wrong with this country?! When did our moral compass gets so seriously fucked up that we allowed Bush/Cheney to get away with this?
9/11 put the nut jobs firmly in power. Anyone scared what the next terrorist act will bring?
It will be the end of any semblance of America as you have known it through your life, and before.
The perpetrators of 9/11 have you exactly where they want you. (Notice I'm not saying who they are.) Whoever they are, they want to see America-as-it-is over, for good. That part is scary. The mind reels at the uproar it will create in every community, and at every level.
Joe crashes into the apartment of Frito Pendejo, a typical idiot-citizen of the U.S., with an apartment full of junk food and a prominent, giant television that is covered with bobble heads.
Electrolytes!
.
.
Sex AND money!?!?!
.
Ow my Balls!
I love that movie.
Brought to you by Carls Jr.
Wassat?
"Brought to you by Carls Jr."
Oh well, yet another reason to watch it again.
Yeah definitely!
Seriously, I'd love meet some o' you crazy bastages!
Have a big ol' C&L debauchery party.
PoP ain't that far away from me...not as the crow flies anyway.
When you are not at sea.
a bike, or a PoS truck.
This is Errol Morris' brilliant documentary on the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Essentially, it shows the Abu Ghraib scandels and trials for what they were - a whitewash cover up of the real crimes that occurred at that prison.
Morris examines the cases and trials of each of the so-called "bad apples", and the circumstances of their crimes, which mostly consisted of having their picture taken.
Toward the end, Morris discusses the final crime at Abu Ghraib, which was a massive coverup and destruction of evidence done on the orders of military higher-ups.
Kapinski is an outstanding voice of reason. As expected from a former Brig. General, she is well spoken, knowledgeable and emminently credible. Her service to the country is unquestioned.
Yet, she remains only a single example of the hypocritical misuse of the military that the NeoCon/Bush administration. From the Joint Chief Generals down to grunt privates, the administration saw the military only as a blunt instrument to use with total disregard for consequences.
The policy has bankrupt the Treasury and broken the military, leaving the nation with dire consequences.
Having said that, we can not excuse Kapinski's participation in illegal activity just because "I was following orders". As she notes, at least one NCO did his duty and refused to participate in illegal activity.
This is part of the standard military code. No soldier is required to obey orders that require illegal actions. Torture is ILLEGAL.
All the discussion about Congression hearings, non-partisan investigations, etc. is beside the point. These acts are criminal violations of the law.
Investigation should be in the form of judicial trials where evidence can be collected and presented for a judge and jury to decide. In our form of government, this is EXACTLY why we have 3 branches with Judicial independence. This assures non-partisan justice.
Let the trials begin!!
no one with a brain really thinks that they came up with the techniques used on their own
they were thrown under the bus
proving that repugs see our troops as cannon fodder
why do bush, cheney, rummey and rice hate our troops and america?
Pardon Lyndie England and Charles Graner?
No way. That's ridiculous.
To be "fair" the grunts, who were under military discipline, should be treated better than the CIA civilians who performed comparable acts. Obama needs to either pardon these lowlife, or bring the civilian war criminals up on charges.
...the CIA operatives who tortured. They're all still guilty, whether they were following orders or not.
Where are those guys, anyway? I would think most of them speak Arabic? Are they living in the USA? It really bothers me to think they may have been given citizenship because of their capability to commit war crimes.
was certainly no hero. He, along with Bush, was a sniveling coward.
it was apparent for all to see the crimes of the bush administration , that nancy palosi ,ried , and the obama administration were trying to surpress any from the bush gang being brought to justice is plain to see , they includeing obama are traitors to the constitution and the laws of the united states of america! ignoreing these crimes is dispicable , and any of you who still support this mob of complisit thugs are to say the least the new warmongering and supressors of justice , whats the difference in allowing the criminals to get off scott free then being just another criminal yourself?
I say go after booshco and then work our way down.
We're doing it backwards from the common soldiery, to the brass, to the planners.
With classified briefings, need to know status, being drilled in boot camp on following orders, and then being essentially dropped into a bloodbath there is some extenuating circumstances for the boots on the grounds.
But the planners with their martinis, cigars, comfortable air-conditioned offices coming up with these plans remains far far worse, especially since they knew their hands will never get bloody.
Kind of reminds me of a Michael Praed episode of Robin Hood. The Sheriff of Nottingham owes this Jewish lender money. To escape his debt he arranges an uprising against the Jewish community with Sir Guy of Gisbourne. After they grab all the valuables left behind the sheriff tells Sir Guy, better hang a few of the rioters to show our disapproval, and I will write a letter to the king filled with suitable outrage.
so I won't presume to judge what Karpinsky should or should not have done in her situation. I wasn't there. In general I think we should leave the military offenders to military justice. As a career civilian I am more interested in pursuing the non military architects of this (these) programs.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/23/c...
And here we have an article regarding Lieberman, McCain and Lindsey Graham asking Obama not to prosecute Bush Co. officials regarding torture:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66727.html
Guess that's a very clear sign of where we'd be as a country right now had McCain/Palin/Lieberman won the election.
And finally, according to the U.N., it is ILLEGAL under international law for Obama to not prosecute CIA officials involved in torture:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8006597.stm
That last bit, about an international commission to investigate, almost sounds like she's making case to put this before the International Criminal Court.
I actually called Spector's office this morning and mentioned that....hard to say if his staffer even mentioned that to him, tho.
Surely the wingnuts couldn't claim 'witch-hunt' or 'partisan' then, could they? Well....you know what I mean.
I doubt it'll ever happen but it will be one of the bigger tragedies and injustices if Cheney is never prosecuted and never pays . This guy is a real freak and ranks right up there with the worst of the worst . I don't believe this country can ever redeem itself fully or that it will ever again be the same if Cheney goes unpunished . This guy should be at the Hague and then he should be made to pay the ultimate price .
I saw part of it, but couldn't watch the end... the General was awesome in answering Cheney and his spin...
Indeed. Nixon got a pass. We got Iran-Contra. THEY got a pass....we ended up with the last eight years....if this isn't thoroughly disinfected....I can hardly wait to see what we end up with next.
Torture is wrong no matter how you look at it and we all know it- do the right thing America and prosecute everyone involved
We cannot move forward as a nation until we do.
We're going to be seeing more of this stuff on a fairly regular basis -- and the government will try and hide it but we all know the truth……
Pandora's Box is already opened and there is no going back……
If we are a nation of laws, they clearly violated the Geneva Convention.
We must continue to be honest about the past.
The truth is sometimes painful..
We cannot be silenced on this important issue.
After all, those who violate the laws of the land must pay a price for their crimes.
I would like to see Bush/Cheney behind bars to pay for what they have done-in a court of law, I would also like to see justice equally distributed among those who participated.
I am amused by much of this thread attacking her bit part and that of Lyndie England.
Obama says he wants to focus on the future, not the past.
I live in the present moment. At this moment, the former Vice President of the United States, who served a President who repeatedly lied and said the US did not torture, is going around defending the torture his administration engaged in and telling people it worked and kept them safe.
At this moment documents are being released which indicate the purpose of the torture was not to keep us safe but to create false confessions linking Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda to justify a preemptive war the administration had decided to wage before 9/11 even happened.
At this moment there are criminals being allowed to lie us into future wars.
But I guess not everybody gets my jokes.
History will hold us all complicit if we let their crimes surpass justice.
We should teach our soldiers that they do not have to follow unlawful acts (i.e. The Oath Keepers). I think anyone who tortured should be held accountable but to a minimal degree to the people who ordered it.
It is unconscionable to have those people in prison while Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are on cable news. All the neo-cons/marxists should be shunned in public and all facing grand jury indictments for their treasonous acts against the United States of America.
The point of Obama's campaign was community organizing. We were building a coalition of active communities who believed in what Senator Obama was saying.
Several staffers said that the campaign was about being able to hold Barack Obama accountable to what he was promising (e.g. recall the FISA outrage). And, accountable to the people who had the right to voice their ideas and a right to be heard.
We must hold George Bush, Dick Cheney and the rest accountable for their crimes and if the Senate, the House and Obama's Administration doesn't push for an independent legal investigation, then we must hold them accountable.
The 2nd Wave is a LIE. How Karl Rove can to this day talk about a fictitious plot regarding a non-existence Liberty Tower in Los Angeles and use that as a justification to torture should be a crime.
Please help get these criminals off FOX News and into a federal prison.
those soldiers who were charged were the scapegoats. The real criminals are still at large.
Cheney and the rest of them wanted these underlings charged or demoted, thinking that it all would then disappear. Well, now we can show them just how F-ing wrong they were.
I totally agree with Shep Smith. And to anyone out there who thinks violating torture laws is OK because it "might" protect American lives, you seem to forget why our country was formed in the first place. We are NOT a nation of lawless thugs. And if we are, we are no better than people we are supposedly at war with.
Go chew on that one.
I would agree that the solders involved should have refused to follow illegal orders, but frankly, that sort of ethical and intellectual independence is not something that comes naturally, especially when we're talking about a young, basically uneducated reservist in the middle of a hot zone that in itself was a propaganda minefield as much as a literal one.
Graner I believe actually is a sadist, and enjoyed the tasks given to him, and also had the previous experience in prisons to know that these were not kosher activities. But Lynndie England was not much more than an ignorant hick completely out of her depth, who got the brunt of the punishment simply because she was in the photographs.
The greater share of blame goes to the far more well-educated corporate contractor mercs, and CIA operatives who were ordering these techniques in the field, and General Miller who brought the policy over from GITMO, and ultimately the greatest portion of responsibility lies with those in D.C. who AUTHORED the policy in the first place, and approved it for use throughout the command.
Karpinski had never managed a prison system before, there were over 60 prisons in her far reaching area, she was only on the job briefly before this incident broke, and she'd never even been to Abu Ghraib prior to this blowing up.
However, she makes the perfect sacrificial lamb in high command especially since she is a woman who managed to crack the command ceiling. Misogynistic dorks like Miller and Rumsfeld no doubt took great pleasure in throwing her to the wolves, even though she neither authored nor implemented the policy.
Moreover Brig. Gen. Karpinski is quite correct in saying that it was pure cowardice on the part of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to advance the notion that this was just some "rogue element" committing these acts, when THEY KNEW DAMN WELL THEY GAVE THE ORDERS THAT MADE THIS HAPPEN.
I'm sorry, but some Spec. Nothing E-1 grunt does not pull 60 year old North Korean torture techniques out of their butt and throw it down in Iraq without being TOLD TO DO IT.
Hell, at that rank, you don't even poop unless ordered to.
It is obscene to have them pay the only price for this policy, when others SHOULD be jailed for far longer for inventing it.
But there IS a way to rectify that little imbalance, and I see matching orange jump suits and a trip to Leavenworth in Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld's future, not to mention hard time for John Yoo-Hoo, David "Cheney's Cheney" Addington, Torquemada Gonzales, Timmy Flanigan (who's already in dutch for his Abramoff connections), and impeachment, disbarment, and incarceration for "Judge" Jay Bybee.
Not only Matthews should only say thing you like to hear, but he should also read your books. That's freaky.
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