Accountability...Plain & Simple

David S Broder has written a piece for the Washington Post stating that President Obama should "stick to his guns" and not prosecute those guilty of instituting and instigating torture.

Bush. Cheney. Rumsfeld. Rice. Those guilty ones.

Really? Let them off the hook when they took this country and dragged it through the mud, all the while touting our moral superiority, and saying that they are our protectors from the mighty Axis of Evil? Just say, You shouldn't have done that, George, Dick, Don and Condi, and shake an index finger at them? Really?

I wonder how those men who were tortured all day every day would feel about that? Their friends and families? Their countries? All those men that were accused of something but never charged, never tried, never convicted, but were nonetheless subjugated to waterboarding and humiliation at the hands of the Good Old US of A.

We cannot, in good conscience, walk the world with our head held high while we're treating people as less than human. Would we, as a country, stand for that, for even a nanosecond, if that same torture and degradation were being inflicted on our citizens in some prison camp on the far side of the globe? Of course we wouldn't, so we shouldn't have been doing it ourselves.

Broder makes the argument that it will be the "underlings" at the White House, CIA, and the Justice Department, that will bear the brunt of prosecution for the torture. It won't be Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, as it should be. But then he makes the most amazing statement of all. He says, and I quote, "if he is at all a man of honor, George W. Bush would feel bound to say: That was my policy. I was the president. If you want to indict anyone for it, indict me."

Yeah. That'll happen.

If Bush had been a man of honor, even a man with one iota of honor, we wouldn't have tortured one single person in the first place.

So, I disagree with Broder. I say go after those who instigated and ordered torture, not the ones who simply followed orders from their superiors, but from the so-called superiors themselves. Let's show the world, and our own country, that this kind of administration is not who we are, what we are, nor what we will be, it's is merely the remnants of one of the darkest, dirtiest ages in US history.

You can read David Broder's piece HERE

The Apple Don't Fall Far From The Bush

Waterboarding: a form of torture that consists of immobilizing the victim on his or her back with the head inclined downwards, and then pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages, forcing suffocation. The subject experiences drowning and is caused to believe they are dying.

In contrast to submerging the head face-forward in water, waterboarding precipitates a gag reflex almost immediately. It can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage or, ultimately, death.

The truth is out.
This is, was, America under the Bush Administration.

It has come to light that Condoleezza Rice, Head Footsoldier and Goosestepper to the Terrorist-in-Chief,George W Bush, verbally approved the CIA's request to subject alleged al-Qaida terrorist Abu Zubaydah to waterboarding way way back in July 2002.

The extent of her involvement and subsequent endorsement of torture were released by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and provide a detailed glimpse into how the CIA's interrogation program was conceived and approved at the highest levels in the Bush White House. This new information shows that Rice lied....yes, a lying Bush official, how odd...when she testified in writing last fall to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Of course, I imagine her spin is that the lie was necessary to keep the country safe.

According to the reports, Condoleezza Rice personally conveyed the Bush administration's approval for waterboarding of Zubaydah to then-CIA Director George Tenet. But then last fall Rice lied when she said that she only "attended" meetings where the interrogation program was discussed; she, of course, could not recall the details. But, here's the rub, Condoleezza Rice completely, utterly, totally omitted direct role in approving the program....in writing!

How you gonna spin that Condi! Can't say that your own written testimony is taken out of context or misunderstood, can you?

Days after Rice gave approval, the Justice Department began to allow the use of waterboarding. Alleged al-Qaida terrorist Abu Zubaydah underwent waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002.

There was plenty of outrage over the use of torture. There were internal legal reviews that the harsh methods, particularly waterboarding, might violate federal laws against torture and the U.S. Constitution, but the Bush administration lawyers continued to validate the program.

The CIA voluntarily dropped the use of waterboarding, which has a long history as a torture tactic, from its arsenal of techniques after 2005.

A spokesman for Rice declined comment when reached Wednesday.