Vice President for Torture
Washington Post Editorial
10/26/05 "Washington Post" -- -- VICE PRESIDENT Cheney is
aggressively pursuing an initiative that may be unprecedented
for an elected official of the executive branch: He is proposing
that Congress legally authorize human rights abuses by
Americans. "Cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of prisoners
is banned by an international treaty negotiated by the Reagan
administration and ratified by the United States. The State
Department annually issues a report criticizing other
governments for violating it. Now Mr. Cheney is asking Congress
to approve legal language that would allow the CIA to commit
such abuses against foreign prisoners it is holding abroad. In
other words, this vice president has become an open advocate of
torture.
His position is not just some abstract defense of presidential
power. The CIA is holding an unknown number of prisoners in
secret detention centers abroad. In violation of the Geneva
Conventions, it has refused to register those detainees with the
International Red Cross or to allow visits by its inspectors.
Its prisoners have "disappeared," like the victims of some
dictatorships. The Justice Department and the White House are
known to have approved harsh interrogation techniques for some
of these people, including "waterboarding," or simulated
drowning; mock execution; and the deliberate withholding of pain
medication. CIA personnel have been implicated in the deaths
during interrogation of at least four Afghan and Iraqi
detainees. Official investigations have indicated that some
aberrant practices by Army personnel in Iraq originated with the
CIA. Yet no CIA personnel have been held accountable for this
record, and there has never been a public report on the agency's
performance.
It's not surprising that Mr. Cheney would be at the forefront of
an attempt to ratify and legalize this shameful record. The vice
president has been a prime mover behind the Bush
administration's decision to violate the Geneva Conventions and
the U.N. Convention Against Torture and to break with decades of
past practice by the U.S. military. These decisions at the top
have led to hundreds of documented cases of abuse, torture and
homicide in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Cheney's counsel, David S.
Addington, was reportedly one of the principal authors of a
legal memo justifying the torture of suspects. This summer Mr.
Cheney told several Republican senators that President Bush
would veto the annual defense spending bill if it contained
language prohibiting the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment by any U.S. personnel.
The senators ignored Mr. Cheney's threats, and the amendment,
sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), passed this month by a
vote of 90 to 9. So now Mr. Cheney is trying to persuade members
of a House-Senate conference committee to adopt language that
would not just nullify the McCain amendment but would formally
adopt cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as a legal
instrument of U.S. policy. The Senate's earlier vote suggests
that it will not allow such a betrayal of American values. As
for Mr. Cheney: He will be remembered as the vice president who
campaigned for torture.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
POSTED AT:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10774.htm
--------------------
Abusive Correspondence: Send any abusive rants you might have
to: president@whitehouse.gov
Col. Janis Karpinski said, "These pictures were staged there was
no electricity in Abu Ghraib. They used generators." The
articles used, PROPS, black hoods, electrodes, hoods, leashes
were provided by Iraqis and people from Guantanamo Bay where
these props were tested...........
"Lynndie England was specifically selected to pose in pictures.
It goes to the top, Rumsfeld, Bremer, Gonzales........" --Col.
Janis Karpinski, Ret.
Col. Janis Karpinski, Ret. Discusses The Lynndie England
Cast.... AMAZING CHARLES GOYETTE.....
...Listen to:
http://www.charlesgoyette.com/archive/media/2005-10-24-Charles-01.mp3
Lynndie England was a 'patsy' for Bush, Rumsfeld and Gonzales!
DO NOT GO ANY FURTHER UNTIL HAVE HAVE LISTENED TO
THE LAST FIVE MINUTES OF THE ABOVE RADIO SHOW.... SORRY!!!!
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/ENGLAND.HTM