Vanity Fair: Senior Bush Advisers Pressured Underlings To Use Torture Tactics At Guantanamo

Vanity Fair:

The abuse, rising to the level of torture, of those captured and detained in the war on terror is a defining feature of the presidency of George W. Bush. Its military beginnings, however, lie not in Abu Ghraib, as is commonly thought, or in the "rendition" of prisoners to other countries for questioning, but in the treatment of the very first prisoners at Guantánamo. Starting in late 2002 a detainee bearing the number 063 was tortured over a period of more than seven weeks. In his story lies the answer to a crucial question: How was the decision made to let the U.S. military start using coercive interrogations at Guantánamo?

Read the whole story: Vanity Fair

Comments

[gcallaghan]

11:56 AM on 04/03/2008

There is a chance that Bush's legacy, as well as those of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Addington and others associated with this national embarassment, will be that of a war criminal after all. it'd be a shame for all the suffering they brought the world to go unrecognized.

[MAX1]

03:44 AM on 04/03/2008

.

Wow HuffPo...

Sorry to take you to the mat on this but why the non issue with having a president, vice president and an Administration filled with WAR CRIMINALS not good enough for headlines... DAILY!?

I almost believe that the people running HuffPo rather don't care that the President and Vice President along with a slew of Administration staff and appointees are WAR CRIMINALS. Because instead, all we get is the same BS that I can get from FOX NEWS... practically. All Hillary, Obama, McCain... ALL THE TIME. Makes for an excellent distraction... NO?

Heck of a job, Huffie.

.

[StillAmused]

10:41 PM on 04/02/2008

Senior Bush advisors... those being the maladjusted, chickenhawk ideologues and war profiteers who infested the White House when Junior made his foul nest there.

Next time someone asks you to support a candidate because he's the kind of guy you'd like to have a beer with...

[Gatormouth]

06:07 PM on 04/02/2008

"Senior Bush Advisers Pressured Underlings To Use Torture Tactics At Guantanamo"

Found at last! The few bad apples. What a relief - and we thought it was all the fault of the enlisted men.
Hey, by the way, are these guys still serving time?

[jnratliff]

06:50 AM on 04/03/2008

I don't give a damn who told me to torture someone I would not do it.
What is wrong with people that think just because someone managed to steal the office of the president doesn't mean anyone should obey unlawful orders! Torture is illeagel, it's is immoral, If anyone does not know that they do not deserve to live in this country.
Our president and his vice are criminals that deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
And anyone that followed their unlawful orders should be prosecuted also.
These people are no better then the nazi's going along to get along no matter who pays the cost!

[whatchamean]

05:25 PM on 04/02/2008

Torture only accomplishes one thing....it makes the person say whatever the torturer wants to hear.
Historical examples:

Spanish Inquisition: "yes, I am in league with the devil"
Salem Witch Trials: " yes, I cast a spell on goodie Proctors son"
John McCain in Vietnam "yes, I willinging bombed women and children"

If we torture people, let alone innocent people, and the public does not speak up
what does that say about us? Isn't that how the holocaust was allowed to happen?

[jnratliff]

04:56 PM on 04/02/2008

These people in the picture are evil? If you torture you will get it back a million times over.
Why do cowards always want to harm others?
As repulsive and evil as the people in the picture are for ordering the torture of people, what about the people that do the torturing? Are these the kinds of people you want living next door?
You know that anyone willing to do the presidents dirty work and torture someone just because the president says to. That in itself is a very serious problem just knowing that there are people willing to do things like this is a really sickening thought. That people are so, I cannot think of anything that fully describes what these people must be!

[maximilyun]

04:47 PM on 04/02/2008

We should not refrain from torturing because of the terrorists. We should refrain from torture because we're Americans. Do it really even need to be mentioned that we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Don't we teach that to our youth? Isn't that the Christian way? Aren't these hawk lunatics Christian? Wow. We can only hope that some day they'll get what they deserve. How can we claim to be above what happened on 9/11 if we disregard everything we hold sacred to achieve some perception of security and safety?

[jnratliff]

04:35 PM on 04/02/2008

I have never seen a group of more evil looking people!

[gcallaghan]

03:30 PM on 04/02/2008

Wow. Hopefully, Sands is but one of many to bring this administration's crimes into the light of day. In the end justice will prevail, perhaps not in an American court but at the World Court to which we are not a signatory nation but many other nations are. These criminals might walk freely among us but they better watch out where they choose to travel. Airplanes sometimes make unscheduled landings and any one of these asswipes could be onboard.

The bad news is the cells in the hague are dank and war criminals rank just beneath child molesters in the prison hierarchy. The good news is they'll be afforded better treatment than they authorized for the detainees.

[research]

02:47 PM on 04/02/2008

Torture is terrorism.

[Gabrielle]

02:57 PM on 04/02/2008

YES WE ARE THE # 1 IN THIS IN THE WORLD!

[Ouroboros]

02:41 PM on 04/02/2008

There is no legitimate reason as to why the Bush administration, in its entirety, isn't rotting in jail right now. The one and only reason why they should not all be tortured is because America is supposed to be better than that, and hopefully we will be again, once the Republican party is dissolved.

[sugarmoes]

02:36 PM on 04/02/2008

arrest.
impeach.
imprison.

[saxmaniac]

02:34 PM on 04/02/2008

Hey, Piggsy, hate to quibble, but FDR said, " ... on December 7, 1941, a DATE that will live in infamy. . ." There have been many days of infamy, including the two when George W. Bush was elected, or stole the election, your choice.

[pzdoff]

02:32 PM on 04/02/2008

What is it with chickenshits that they feel so compelled to torture?

[FrankenPC]

02:19 PM on 04/02/2008

Wow...heavily documented evidence. Do you think the 55% of Americon's who voted for Bush will change their collective minds now? I think not.

We would need to catch Bush in the act of masturbating to torture porn before the other half of this country would wake up.

[HippieChick]

02:26 PM on 04/02/2008

"catch Bush in the act of masturbating to torture porn "

Now that's an image that won't wash easily from my brain! (maybe because it's just too close to being what I believe to be possible...I'm betting he has a secret stash of snuff films - or the "lost" torture videos)