For all the attention that the Bush administration torture memos have been receiving over past month, those documents pale in comparison to the revelations documented in the leaked 40-page report issued by the International Committee for the Red Cross following two rounds of private interviews it held with the 14 "high value detainees" held at Guantanamo Bay.
If you want to know what our country did to those detainees -- especially Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, and Rahim al-Nashiri (all three were waterboarded and suffered the worst treatment) -- then read the Red Cross report. It will leave you with a very sickening feeling about the depths to which President Bush and Vice President Cheney were willing to go to try to justify its disastrous war in Iraq (while the detainees were providing ample information during FBI interrogations about the 9/11 plot, the torture apparently began as they sought evidence about the non-existent al-Qaida/Iraq link) and how we morphed into the very monsters that we once condemned when it came to the actions of other nations.
Of enormous importance is the fact that it is the Red Cross which is the body designated by the Geneva Conventions to supervise treatment of prisoners of war and to judge that treatment's legality. They are the ones that are charged to make the initial finding as to whether war crimes have been committed.
Here's what the Red Cross declared in its report:
The allegations of ill-treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment.
...The totality of the circumstances in which the fourteen were held effectively amounted to an arbitrary deprivation of liberty and enforced disappearance, in contravention of international law.
So, according to the group which the U.S. has agreed would determine whether a country violated the Geneva Convention, they have found us guilty. Again, read the report if you want to be sickened over how we treated these despicable detainees.
The Red Cross report was presented to President Bush in February 2007. As you might expect, no action was ever taken by the administration.
Finally, the report ends with a summary of its interview with Khalid Sheik Mohammed that is worth remembering as former Vice President Cheney sadly continues to insist that torture worked, when it did not:
Mark Nickolas is the Managing Editor of Political Base, and this story was from his original post, "Khalid Sheik Mohammed: "I Gave A Lot Of False Information" To Make Torture Stop"
Follow Mark Nickolas on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mnickolas
The torturers, consciously or not,
Manipulate the puppet with pain and suggestions
to say whatever sounds "true".
But, I disagree that this is more important. It is immaterial whether torture "works" or not. What is more important is that it is immoral and illegal. Immoral and illegal techniques cannot be justified because they "work". Such a rationale would make any horrendous act justifiable if it "works".
Either he's the greatest terrorist of all time or he told his torturers what they wanted to hear in order to stop the torture.
Is it so hard for you torture supporters to believe that someone would lie to make the torture stop?
And is it so hard to figure out that using time and resources to chase down bogus leads is counter-productive?
Did any of you torture fans bother to read the memos where they basically admitted torture didn't work?
Bueller.....Bueller.......
He *is* the greatest terrorist of all time.
Isn't it funny how the ones who talk the toughest are always the biggest cowards?
But what makes me laugh is that these Bush backers need to justify him in any manner so will take the word of an admitted terrorist (Cheney, in this case) to prove(?) their rediculous points.
There was no connection between Sadaam and Al Queda;
There was no connection between Sadaam and 9/11;
We did not go into Iraq to topple Sadaam, we went in to steal the 2nd largest oil reserves on Earth;
We did torture people;
We did eavesdrop on US citizens, both domestically and abroad;
We hanged Japanese military officers for waterboarding our troops;
I could go on and on, but
You'd rather believe their lies than face the facts.
That's what makes you a good little "Conservative"....
Quick, Rush went on the air 15 minutes ago!
Totally unsurprising that KSM gave a lot of false information.
After May 18 when more photos outed or after the Holy grail of Torture?
1. The fact that people have beed tortured.
2. The debate on whether things previously classed as torture can now be classified as not being torture.
3. The debate on whether torture is worthwhile as long as it yields information.
So basically, the employees were the only people considered to be a threat to the security of the homeland. The legislators, assorted bigwigs, bosses and lawyers were not, as if they have proven themselves to be a trustworthy lot.....