RSS

Tag Archives: Torture Memos

Did the United States of America Torture Prisoners?

19 May

During the Bush Administration’s “War on Terror” did United States personnel torture, or abuse, prisoners in violation of international treaties prohibiting such torture or abuse?

torture1

This prisoner had electric wires attached to his genitals, and was forced to stand like this for hours. If he dropped his arms or moved from the box, he was shocked.

torture2

Why would American soldiers take a prisoner, strip him of his clothes, and then threaten him with guard dogs?

torture3

Stripping a prisoner; forcing woman’s underwear on his head, and tying him to a metal bunk. The purpose of this interrogation technique would be?

torture4

Forcing prisoners to lie on top of each other naked. This would be necessary because?

torture6

And here we have an example of the non-torture technique known as waterboarding.

torture5

Forcing an injured prisoner to lie naked on the cement floor. This is humane treatment of the wounded?

torture7

And the purpose of tying a prisoner, naked and upside from a metal bunk would be?

The above images point out quite clearly that American personnel, under the Bush Administration, committed criminal acts in violation of international treaties regarding the humane treatment of prisoners. There is no valid reason for this. Someone ordered our country off of this cliff, and the only way to place the United States back on the moral high ground is to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible.

 
1 Comment

Posted by on May 19, 2009 in Torture

 

Tags: , , ,

Sean Hannity is a Coward?

15 May

sean_hannity_waterboard

On his Fox News Program on April 24, 2009, while talking to actor Charles Grodin, Sean “I’m a Great American” Hannity said he would consent to be waterboarded for charity, specifically to benefit families of our fallen troops.

Here’s how the discussion played out.

Grodin asked Hannity, “You’re for torture?”

Hannity replied, “I am for enhanced interrogation.”

Grodin asked again, “You don’t believe it’s torture. Have you ever been waterboarded?”

Hannity glibly replied, “No, but Ollie North has.”

Grodin then asked, “Would you consent to be waterboarded? We can waterboard you?”

Again Hannity glibly replied, “Sure.”

To which Grodin asked, “Are you busy on Sunday?”

Hannity bravely answered, with a smile upon his lips, “I’ll do it for charity. I’ll let you do it. I’ll do it for the troops’ families.”

The next evening MSNBC host Keith Olbermann offered to pay the families $1,000 for each second Hannity withstood the torture – enhanced interrogation technique – and he said he would double the payment if Hannity acknowledges he feared for his life and admits that waterboarding is torture.

As of today, Mr. Hannity has failed to locate his manhood and accept the offer.

Come on Sean, if you really believed in your heart of hearts that it’s not torture then what are you afraid of? If you really wanted to show support for our troops, and for their families, and you really wanted to shut Keith Olbermann up you’d do this.

Then again I guess great Americans like Sean Hannity don’t follow through on what they say. It’s easy to support shoving our soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors into harm’s way, but you won’t allow yourself to undergo some “enhanced interrogating techniques” for them?

You, Sean Hannity, are not a great American. You are a hypocrite, and a coward.

 
2 Comments

Posted by on May 15, 2009 in Politics

 

Tags: , , ,

Jack Ryan, Your Country Could Have Used You

23 Apr

This evening, listening as the contents of memo after memo was read, revealing how dark, sinister and twisted the Bush Administration really was when it came to authorizing and using torture, I found myself hoping there was just one hero. Just one person in either the Defense Department or the CIA who on some level said no; who on some level said, “This is wrong”; someone like Tom Clancy’s hero Jack Ryan.

But as the memos keep arriving, and as the digging goes deeper, the realization sets in that there were no Jack Ryans, or John Clarks, in the Bush Administration, just room after room and department after department of Robert Ritters and James Cutters.

I shed the first of many tears this evening, as I heard how torture was used to trump up the so-called 9-11/Iraq connection in order to justify America’s invasion of the latter. I cried for my friends, my comrades, my brothers and sisters, who have paid the last full measure of devotion in defense of their country believing in their leaders. Believing in men and women who are not worthy to lace up the boots of those they sent off to die.

I cried as I realized that unless my country prosecutes those responsible to the fullest extent of the law we will forever be stained with this abuse of power, this abuse of trust, this abuse of all that was good and sacred in our country.

I cried when I realized that unless there is a Jack Ryan out there somewhere, who stood up and said no; then my country, and all for which has stood for two hundred years is gone, and everything that is left behind is a mere shadow; an after thought of what it was before.

Jack Ryan, your country could have used you.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 23, 2009 in Torture

 

Tags: , , , , ,