New Yorker Magazine claims Rumsfeld OK'd torture of prisoners

[shemp]

(The following post does not necessarily reflect the opinion of JREF, The Church of Shemp[TM], or any animate or inanimate object. It is presented for informational purposes only. Please, no wagering.)

How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib. (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact)

The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld's decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America?s prospects in the war on terror.

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon's operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.

The days of Rummy the Dummy continue to count down. Shall we start a pool?

(P.S. Please also read Frank Newgent's thread to another article on the same subject.)

[American]

Do you have such confidence in the outcome of any war the US fights that we can afford to fight it with tied hands? Liberals cry for scumbag prisoners (many of whom killed some American's husband or daddy) because they got pants and beaten. There is no doubt which side liberals are on. You are not removed from the conflict when you involve yourself to the point that soldiers can't operate and do the job they need to win and stay alive. Our own soldiers are headed to jail because of the soft-headed leftist who care more for meaningless double-standard international treaties that are NEVER observed by the enemy than they care for the lives of fighting Americans.

[Orsino]

If the soldiers won't stick up for some of the principles involved in these "meaningless double-standard international treaties," I don't think they're quite as American as they should be.

While my heart goes out to fellow soldiers who are near-captives in a foreign land, with no clear mission and no support from the Executive or Legislative branches, there's no excuse for the behavior of what we hope is a few that has further tainted our alleged good motives for invading and conquering Iraq.

Once upon a time, prisoners were given something called "due process," which determined in a fairly objective way whether or not they were actually "scumbags." These days we know better, and are free to believe whatever the big glowing screen tells us to believe, and to trust in the benevolence of incredibly wealthy white men who surely have out best interests at heart. All they asked for in return was a set of enclaves that operate beyond the law and with no oversight, that you submit to search and seizure whenever they want, and that you stop being unpatriotic enough to question their motives or methods. Surely you support the troops? Surely, Comrade, you do not want Jones back? Drink the Kool-Aid. Believe.

No, I've got no use for the cult of neocon.

[NightG1]

Originally posted by American
Do you have such confidence in the outcome of any war the US fights that we can afford to fight it with tied hands? Liberals cry for scumbag prisoners (many of whom killed some American's husband or daddy) because they got pants and beaten. There is no doubt which side liberals are on. You are not removed from the conflict when you involve yourself to the point that soldiers can't operate and do the job they need to win and stay alive. Our own soldiers are headed to jail because of the soft-headed leftist who care more for meaningless double-standard international treaties that are NEVER observed by the enemy than they care for the lives of fighting Americans.
Or maybe its because Elton John Totally Copied REO Speedwagen (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32963)

[Ladewig]

Our own soldiers are headed to jail because of the soft-headed leftist who care more for meaningless double-standard international treaties that are NEVER observed by the enemy than they care for the lives of fighting Americans.

Our own soldiers are headed to jail because someone allowed National Guard PFCs to participate in an exceptionally top secret intelligence program. Surely, American, you can agree that however nobel you consider the goal of this secret program to be, it was criminally negligent for the higher-ups to allow these unbriefed, untrained privates to participate. Therefore, someone in the chain-of-command should be punished.

If a CEO of a company messed up as badly as Rumsfeld has, he'd be gone by now. I'm with Shemp; it's time to cut Rumsfeld loose.

[subgenius]

US guards 'filmed beatings' at terror camp

Senator urges action as Briton reveals Guantanamo abuse

David Rose and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday May 16, 2004
The Observer

Dozens of videotapes of American guards allegedly engaged in brutal attacks on Guantanamo Bay detainees have been stored and catalogued at the camp, an investigation by The Observer has revealed.

The disclosures, made in an interview with Tarek Dergoul, the fifth British prisoner freed last March, who has been too traumatised to speak until now, prompted demands last night by senior politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to make the videos available immediately.

They say that if the contents are as shocking as Dergoul claims, they will provide final proof that brutality against detainees has become an institutionalised feature of America's war on terror.

In the wake of the furore over the abuses photographed at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has continued to insist they were the work of a few rogue soldiers, and not a systemic problem.
....
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1217973,00.html

[Mr Manifesto]

Pig-man-pig-man-pig-man... Hmm, I'm confused.

Well, I suppose we should have expected this. Let's not forget who helped make Saddam the man he was before the war.

[LFTKBS]

Any rebuttals, Rik?