“We Do Not Torture…”
11/08/2005
Paul Munnis
G. W. Bush, in trying to defend his presidency, declares: “We Do Not Torture.”
People the world over wonder at how he can say such a thing.
The International Red Cross disagrees with him they have written letters to Mr. Bush asking that the process be ended.
The World Human Rights Organization says that America tortures captives.
Human Rights First says that America tortures captives.
There is a civil suit levied at Donald Rumsfeld saying that he supports and permits torture and abuse of captives by the U.S. Military.
Several Army and Congressional investigations have pointed at torture and abuse practices.
The ACLU alleges torture and abuse.
The Justice Department has gone to great lengths to create a legal framework to permit torture.
The Army acknowledges that it has departed from the application of the Geneva Conventions as it applies to torture and abuse.
Senator John McCain wants specific language in the Defense Appropriations Bill that prohibits torture and abuse. GOP staffers ranging from the White House to the Justice Department are all giving Senator McCain the business over it with Mr. Bush threatening to veto the Bill if the language isn’t removed from it. The language in the Bill prohibits torture and abuse of captives.
The Army is replacing the section of the Army Field Manual dealing with captives to try to walk in the middle between what Bush/Chaney want and what the Geneva Conventions demand.
The Washington Post has reported that America captures people in foreign countries and without booking them takes them off to military prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere, imprisons them, and then tortures them in order to obtain intelligence information.
The Supreme Court has demanded that prisoners and captives be properly arraigned and is about to adjudicate the status of military tribunals because they may violate human rights of captives as defined in the Geneva Convention which America has signed.
The Washington Post asserted on Monday that there are now CIA run prisons in former Soviet States where the CIA kidnaps people and they are taken to be tortured by CIA contractors. The EU is now investigating this claim.
Soldiers returning from Iraq tell tales and show photographs of captives being abused and tortured.
Soldiers have come forward at great risk to their careers to talk about tents where soldiers come to beat and punch and kick recent captives, some of those abusive soldiers work in kitchens and they have no combat duties.
The Army has accounted for 34 dead prisoners in U.S. Military Prisons in Iraq who were abused and tortured.
Dick Chaney is lobbying the Senate to permit the U.S. to be free to torture captives. A lot of photographic evidence has been produced showing soldiers torturing captives. Some has been posted on the Internet.
National ambassadors are condemning America for our practice of torture and abuse of captives.
It is said that al Qaeda uses torture and abuse by Americans as a recruiting ploy to recruit insurgents and Jihadists.
In the U.S. Senate, debates about torture and abuse are rampant such as this one reported today by the Associated Press and quoted below:
“We need a 9/11-type commission to restore credibility to this nation,” said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.
Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., called the commission unnecessary. “Responsibility and accountability have been assessed,” Warner said, echoing Pentagon arguments that it had already done a dozen major investigations into prisoner-abuse allegations.
But Levin said there are areas that have not been reviewed, such as the CIA’s interrogation of prisoners, the exporting of prisoners to countries that engage in torture, and the role contractors play in interrogations.
Separately, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said Bush’s comments in Panama, combined with Cheney’s efforts to exempt the CIA from the torture ban, “only demonstrate that the White House learned nothing from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.”
“This administration has consistently sought legal justifications for harsh techniques,” Kennedy said.
The United States drew worldwide condemnation after photographs circulated showing guards at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad mistreating and humiliating prisoners.
Yet G.W. Bush says: “We Do Not Torture.”