Will Someone Hit That Dog With A Rolled Up Newspaper?

Steve Benson

Was Torture Done to Justify Bush's Actions?

Torture Done of Political Purposes?
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration put relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.
Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime.
McClatchy

I find this to be the most disturbing revelation so far in this on-going investigation. If this is true, then human beings were tortured, not for any needed information they might supply, but to justify a political decision that the Bush administration made.

It is as if, we were to torture business executives to provide proof of fraud and mismanagement.

I have been skeptical of the claim that we need to prosecute Bush officials for authorizing torture. i am begnning to feel that justice demands that we do so.

Another Editorial Cartoon on Torture

by Nick Anderrson

Bush Torture and Stalag 17

from Talking Points Memo
A British professor whose research on sleep was cited in one of the just-released Bush administration torture memos has expressed outrage that his work was used to justify extreme sleep deprivation, including keeping subjects awake for up to 11 days.

In an interview with TPMmuckraker, James Horne, a leading authority in the field of sleep research, said he was "surprised and saddened" to see Bush officials "misrepresent" his research to argue that such sleep deprivation does not cause serious harm to its subjects.

In the play Stalag 17, sleep deprivation is used an "enhanced interrogation" techniques against a character named Lieutenant Dunbar, an American officer accused of sabatoging a German train (for only 3 days in the American's case). This leads to an interesting exchange between a Geneva Convention representative and the German officer in charge of the interrogation:

GENEVA MAN
I want to talk about Lieutenant Dunbar. Is this Lieutenant Dunbar?

VON SCHERBACH
It is.

GENEVA MAN
What exactly is he charged with?

VON SCHERBACH
Whatever it is, it's out of your jurisdiction. This man is not a prisoner of war. Not any more. He is a saboteur.

GENEVA MAN
He is a prisoner of war until you can prove sabotage.

DUNBAR
I didn't do it. I was in the Frankfurt station and the train was three miles away when it blew up.

VON SCHERBACH
Oh, come now! You threw a time bomb.

DUNBAR
How could I have had a time bomb? They searched me when they took me prisoner.

GENEVA MAN
And the way you search your prisoners, it does sound rather unlikely.

VON SCHERBACH
All I know is he did it. I am satisfied.

GENEVA MAN
I am not. According to the Geneva Convention --

DUNBAR
Is there anything about letting a guy sleep in the Geneva Convention? [Dunbar shuffles over to the sofa, and plunks himself down -- instantly asleep.]

VON SCHERBACH
(to the Geneva Man)
You were saying --?

GENEVA MAN
Simply this. After the hostilities are ended, there will be such a thing as a War Crimes Commission. If this man should be convicted without proper proof, you will be held responsible, Colonel von Scherbach.

VON SCHERBACH
Interesting.

GENEVA MAN
Isn't it?

As Arte Johnson used to say on Laugh-In Verrry Interesting! Indeed