Our whole goal was not to be like terrorists - but Bush and his farm of cronies mightily begs to differ with that stratagem. He went to the evil dark place by confirming that the US reserves the right to use the drowning practice in the future - during the final year of his cesspool presidency. Gitmo has many prisoners who may shed light on US techniques that the Bush humanoids would rather not discuss since many have never had the right or writ of habeas corpus to tell their side.
An admission of torture comes amidst Congress's laborious dithering and OCD hand wringing on how to manhandle the issue with a stubborn and petulant Bush White House. Hayden's civilian boss, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) or Head Spook Mike McConnell, was giving Congress his gussied up version of the National Threat Assessment. Let's see, the 3 Guests who tested out the new waterboard features are all well known Al Qaeda operatives from the same kingdom, Saudi Arabia, who Bush just pitifully begged King Abdullah for more oil to feed America's energy habit. Th UN, Human Rights groups stage protests but that is to high minded to sway the hardened. Hayden was busy for years at the NSA serving the Pentagon with all the spy techno stuff floating in Orbit that listens to our calls and logs keystrokes before heading from Fort Meade to Langley to clean up the human side of the US spyworld - cough, still wearing military garb.The practice, a staple of brutal interrogations from the Spanish Inquistion to Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime, usually consists of strapping down a captive, covering their face with a cloth, and pouring water onto the cloth.
Fratto underlined that the tactic -- which experts liken to controlled drowning -- is not currently permitted, but left the door wide open to resuming its use.
"The president will listen to the considered judgment of the professionals in the intelligence community and the judgment of the attorney general in terms of the legal consequences of employing a particular technique," he said.His comments came one day after CIA director Michael Hayden for the first time admitted publicly that the agency had used waterboarding, to question three top Al-Qaeda detainees after the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes.
California scholar and author, Mark Danner, participates in full measure in debates about torture in a terrifying mesmerizing fashion both verbally and in the written word. His book, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Gharib and the War on Terror with the arresting and defining image of torture from Iraq grabs your attention from the cover to the index.
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