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Category: Torture

If They Knew the Truth, They’d Hate Us Even More

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On May 14, 2009

In Lying, The Soul of America, Torture, War, Why they hate US

They do not hate us because we are good.  They hate us because we are a selfish and evil people consumed with our own comfort and drowning in the fetid smell of our own decay.  We are a depraved, unproductive, and brutal empire on the brink of collapse.  …if they knew the whole truth, they would hate us even more.

From: Insolent Media Center

We Americans like to think of ourselves as civilized people.  Historically, we have supported our government in war under the belief that our government and our soldiers are honorable and that we do not engage in unjust wars.  Ugly things like genocide, torture, naked aggression, raping, pillaging, and scorched earth policies are things that others do, not us.  Since we are so good and virginal in every sense, we reason that others hate us only because of our goodness and purity.  If they knew the truth about us, we think, they would love us.

Yet, if this is so, why is it that we need to hide from the world the activities of our soldiers and intelligence agents over seas?  Why cannot we, the “liberators” of Iraq, show the world the lovely photos of our soldiers at work Abu Ghraib?  Why must the CIA consider destroying the records of American conduct in the prisons at Guantanamo?  We are so pure, clean, honorable, and all, aren’t we?  What have we got to worry about?

Could it be that those baby faced soldiers we praise and pay tribute to are not as honorable as we would like to believe?  According to the latest body keeping the Oval Office seat warm, release of photos showing the activities of our soldiers, activities ordered by George Bush and Dick Cheney, would make the world hate us more than they already do and would, as a consequence, endanger the lives of our soldiers. Just how horrible are these images?

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CIA Ludicrously Claims Torture Prevented Debunked L.A. Terror Plot — KSM waterboarded six times a day for a month!

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On April 23, 2009

In Ethics, The Soul of America, Torture

From: Prison Planet

… by announcing that the torture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed led to his “confession” of being behind the non-existent L.A. attack plot, the CIA is only reaffirming the fact that the torture program was designed to elicit false confessions that could then be used as terror propaganda on the fearful and gullible American public.

As Senator Levin highlighted on the back of the release of the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinions, the techniques (known as SERE) authorized by officials to be used on detainees, “Are based on tactics used by Chinese Communists against American soldiers during the Korean War for the purpose of eliciting false confessions for propaganda purposes.”

In addition, the senior Army SERE psychologist warned in 2002 against using SERE training techniques during interrogations in an email to personnel at Guantanamo Bay, because, “It usually decreases the reliability of the information because the person will say whatever he believes will stop the pain… Bottom line: the likelihood that the use of physical pressures will increase the delivery of accurate information from a detainee is very low.”

Little wonder then that KSM confessed to everything under the sun, and only stopped short of admitting to being the real Santa Claus, assassinating JFK and creating AIDS. He even “confessed” to plotting to attack a bank that wasn’t even founded until after his arrest.

The idea that waterboarding KSM six times a day for a month, as well as torturing his children, would lead to anything other than false confessions is absurd on the face of it.

However, by regurgitating the confirmed hoax that KSM “confessed” to a plot that never even existed because of the “success” of waterboarding, the CIA has once again highlighted the fact that not only was the torture program an insult and a disgrace to everything America is supposed to stand for, but that it was also a complete waste of time and only put Americans in more danger because false confessions were taken as gospel so that they could be used not to protect the country from terrorists, but to propagandize to the American people and enlist their support for the thoroughly deceptive and insidious “war on terror”.

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Cheney admits authorizing detainee’s torture

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On December 17, 2008

In George Bush Family, Torture

From: The Raw Story

Monday, outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney made a startling statement on a nation-wide, televised broadcast.

When asked by ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl whether he approved of interrogation tactics used against a so-called “high value prisoner” at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison, Mr. Cheney, in a break from his history of being press-shy, admitted to giving official sanctioning of torture.

“I supported it,” he said regarding the practice known as “water-boarding,” a form of simulated drowning. After World War II, Japanese soldiers were tried and convicted of war crimes in US courts for water-boarding, a practice which the outgoing Bush administration attempted to enshrine in policy.

“I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn’t do,” Cheney said. “And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it.”

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US Interrogator in Iraq Says Torture Policy Has Led to Deaths of Thousands of American Soldiers

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On December 3, 2008

In Torture, War

From: Democracy Now

We speak with a former special intelligence operations officer who led an interrogations team in Iraq two years ago. His nonviolent interrogation methods led Special Forces to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq. He has written a new book, How to Break a Terrorist: The US Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq. The publication date for the book was delayed for six weeks due to the Pentagon’s vetting of it. The soldier wrote it under the pseudonym, Matthew Alexander, for security reasons. He says the US military’s use of torture is responsible for the deaths of thousands of US soldiers by inspiring foreign fighters to kill Americans.

[…]

AMY GOODMAN: Were you subjected to SERE techniques? I mean, did you go through that training?

MATTHEW ALEXANDER: I did go through SERE training. And I remember this moment I’ll never forget at the end of SERE training.

AMY GOODMAN: Where were you?

MATTHEW ALEXANDER: I was in Spokane, Washington. It was very cold. It was the first week of February, subzero temperatures. And it’s very challenging training. You know, it’s a prisoner of war environment. And at the end of the training, I remember, we stood in formation, and we were very exhausted, and they played the national anthem. And afterwards, an instructor gave a speech, and he told us about how some American prisoners of war in Korea had been tortured to death and refused to give up information. And I remember taking great pride in the fact that our country did not torture, that we did not resort to such practices. And that’s why I felt such an obligation to write this book and to get the word out that we’ve got to return to that. We’ve got to return to a place where we do not conduct torture in any organization within our government.

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Make-Believe Maverick: A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty

By

On October 15, 2008

In John McCain, Lying, Republicans… Blackmailable, Torture

From: Rolling Stone

This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.

In its broad strokes, McCain’s life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers’ powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives’ evangelical churches. …

This, of course, is not the story McCain tells about himself. Few politicians have so actively, or successfully, crafted their own myth of greatness. …

Then there’s torture — the issue most related to McCain’s own experience as a POW. In 2005, in a highly public fight, McCain battled the president to stop the torture of enemy combatants, winning a victory to require military personnel to abide by the Army Field Manual when interrogating prisoners. But barely a year later, as he prepared to launch his presidential campaign, McCain cut a deal with the White House that allows the Bush administration to imprison detainees indefinitely and to flout the Geneva Conventions’ prohibitions against torture.

What his former allies in the anti-torture fight found most troubling was that McCain would not admit to his betrayal. Shortly after cutting the deal, McCain spoke to a group of retired military brass who had been working to ban torture. According to Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former deputy, McCain feigned outrage at Bush and Cheney, as though he too had had the rug pulled out from under him. “We all knew the opposite was the truth,” recalls Wilkerson. “That’s when I began to lose a little bit of my respect for the man and his bona fides as a straight shooter.”

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White House Endorsed Waterboarding In Secret Memos

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On October 15, 2008

In George Bush Family, Torture

From: Washington Post

The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency’s use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects — documents prompted by worries among intelligence officials about a possible backlash if details of the program became public.

The classified memos, which have not been previously disclosed, were requested by then-CIA Director George J. Tenet more than a year after the start of the secret interrogations, according to four administration and intelligence officials familiar with the documents. Although Justice Department lawyers, beginning in 2002, had signed off on the agency’s interrogation methods, senior CIA officials were troubled that White House policymakers had never endorsed the program in writing.

Read the whole story here.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: “We were the MOST BELOVED nation on the face of the earth | We are now…the MOST HATED nation & FEARED nation on earth”

By

On September 9, 2008

In Ethics, George Bush Family, Real History, The Soul of America, Torture

From: Democracy Now!

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.: One of the most poignant memories I have of my father was a trip that we took to Europe when I was about thirteen years old, and we went to Czechoslovokia and Poland and Italy and Greece and France and Germany. And everywhere we went, we were met by vast crowds of people, hundreds of thousands of people, who came out because they wanted to be near an American politician. And it wasn’t just because my father’s brother had been martyred three years before. The same thing happened to Eisenhower when he went to Kabul and Tehran. A million Muslim people met him on the street waving tiny little American flags. And what I remember as a boy is these crowds of people that were just hungry for American leadership, and they—not bullying. They knew the difference. And they were starved for a moral authority. And they proudly named their streets after our presidents, Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln and Roosevelt and Kennedy.

And I remember the day after 9/11, when the headline on the biggest newspaper in France, Le Monde, was “We’re All Americans Now.” And for three weeks after 9/11, thousands of Muslim people came out spontaneously onto the streets of Tehran to make candlelight vigils to show their support, their solidarity, their love for the United States of America. We were the most beloved nation on the face of the earth and in the history of mankind.

And it took 230 years of disciplined visionary leadership by Republican and Democratic presidents to build up those vast reservoirs of public love for our country. And in seven short years, through monumental arrogance and incompetence, this White House has drained those reservoirs dry. We are now, according to virtually every poll, the most hated nation and feared nation on earth. And anybody who says that it’s good for our national security when European youth, as a recent poll showed, hold Osama bin Laden in the same regard as they hold President Bush, and anybody who believes it’s good for our national security when Hezbollah is as popular in the Mideast as America has their head in an oil well.

You know, Abraham Lincoln said America

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China flaying animals alive: Investigation reveals images so graphic, nightmares rampant among probe team

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On August 20, 2008

In Animals, China, Torture

From: WorldNetDaily

Editor’s Note: The descriptions and video of China’s fur industry in this story will be disturbing to  some readers.

The newest controversy over exports from China has caused nightmares for researchers documenting the abuse inflicted on animals bred and raised in tiny cages and then skinned alive for their fur.

WND has reported multiple times on problems with exports from China, with poison found in pajamas, consumers warned against using ginger, an alert about the dangers from China’s pickled vegetables and even the dangers from honey and fireworks.

Now comes word from an extended investigation into the fur trade that China is estimated to produce approximately 85 percent of the world’s fur products – and it has virtually no regulations or rules for the treatment of the animals.

According to Mark Rissi, a spokesman for Swiss Animal Protection, which has documented abuse of animals raised for their fur as early as 1983, the China project has been going on for several years.

The organization’s report has been made available online, with dramatic images and descriptions that researchers found more than disturbing.

“As animals are considered objects in China, there is little or no awareness for the suffering of these sentient beings,” Rissi told WND from his European base of operations via e-mail. “The cruelty found was beyond our expectations, and it was hard to document without interfering. It caused nightmares to the team, especially in the editing room, because the scenes had to be replayed and replayed to be edited from six hours down to 20 minutes.”

Read Entire Article, Watch Horrific Video

Chuck Baldwin: Bush Trip To Beijing Olympics Shameful

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On August 5, 2008

In China, Chuck Baldwin, George Bush Family, Torture

From: News with Views

According to numerous press reports, President George W. Bush plans to attend the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Beijing, China later this month. Bush said that it “would be an affront to the Chinese people” if he stayed away. Other world leaders, including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain, are choosing to not attend the opening ceremonies in the communist country.

It is hard for this writer to laud President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but in this case, even the socialist Roosevelt showed more integrity than our so-called “conservative” President, George W. Bush. When the 1936 Olympics were held in Berlin, Germany, President Roosevelt refused to attend those ceremonies for fear that his presence would give honor and prestige to the notorious Adolf Hitler. And so it would have. And, by the same token, when President Bush attends the opening ceremonies in China, he is giving honor and prestige to the bloody butchers of Beijing who have persecuted, tortured, and murdered multiplied thousands of the Chinese people since the communist regime took power in 1949.

President Bush said it would be an affront to the Chinese people if he did not attend the Olympics. Wrong. It would be an affront to the Red Chinese tyrants. And they deserve to be affronted! Instead, by attending the Olympic ceremonies, Bush is choosing to affront the hundreds of thousands of Chinese victims who have suffered brutality and barbarism at the hands of the very people Bush will be wining and dining with. Actually, by participating in the Beijing Olympics, President Bush is an affront to freedom-loving people everywhere.

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In China, They Beat Christians With Crowbars: The Olympics will focus a needed spotlight on China’s abusive treatment of believers

By

On August 5, 2008

In China, Torture

From: Fire in My Bones

Next week the world will see everything that’s good about China: Its sleek buildings, its new wealth and its talented artists and athletes. What won’t be on display during broadcasts of the Olympic Games in Beijing are any signs of religion—or of China’s brutal record of persecution aimed at Christians and other people of faith.

Some diplomatically minded evangelicals think this is not the time to rock the boat about China’s shameful record of religious repression. Franklin Graham told reporters in China earlier this year that believers should refrain from talking about their faith throughout the athletic contest. He thinks that we can best help China’s church by muting any evangelism efforts aimed at reaching athletes or the Chinese people.

But Bob Fu, who once led an underground house church in China and now leads the China Aid Association from an office in Philadelphia, has called Graham’s suggestion “offensive and inappropriate.” He told Charisma recently: “When an unjust law demands [Chinese Christians] to go against their faith and Jesus’ teaching of the Great Commission, they cannot and will not concede to a ‘faith moratorium’ in order to please an atheistic government during the Olympic Games.”

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Torture: A Battle for the Country’s Soul

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On July 18, 2008

In Ethics, The Soul of America, Torture

September 11th was a sea change. Everybody says everything changed after that. And it did, but I think one of the most important changes that the country hasn’t really thought about is America became a country that, for the first time in its history, endorsed what is torture in all but name. And since then, it changed, I think, from a war for the country’s security, the war on terror, to a battle for the country’s soul.

From: Democracy Now!

The Dark Side: Jane Mayer on the Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals

We spend the hour with New Yorker magazine investigative journalist Jane Mayer about her new book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. In the book, Mayer reveals a secret report by the International Red Cross warned the Bush administration last year that the CIA’s treatment of prisoners categorically constituted torture and could make Bush administration officials who approved the torture methods guilty of war crimes. Mayer also reveals that the Bush administration ignored warnings from the CIA six years ago that up to a third of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay may have been imprisoned by mistake.

[…]

The name of Mayer’s book comes from a comment made by Vice President Dick Cheney on Meet the Press shortly after the September 11th attacks.

    VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: We have to work the dark side, if you will. We’re going to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies.

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Skousen: US Spreading Torture Doctrines and Techniques

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On July 5, 2008

In Joel Skousen, Torture, War

World Affairs Brief, July 4, 2008. Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.

Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief

US SPREADING TORTURE DOCTRINES AND TECHNIQUES

Sadly it is no time to celebrate liberty in America, except as an important historical footnote.  Patriotic fervor is only displayed in mindless and expensive fireworks extravaganzas mixed with country and rock concerts. Predictably, they all focus on supporting the troops in Iraq.  The general public knows little about what is really happening to our nation and most are ignorant of what made this country both free and great–strict constitutional limitations on government power.  Having dismantled those restrictions over the last 200 years our government is now becoming the Evil Empire of the world as it spreads violence abroad in the name of intervention and occupation.  At home, essential civil liberties of privacy and freedom from warrantless search and seizure are under assault by those who have falsely sworn an oath to uphold these constitutional guarantees. The dark side of government is engaged in torturing prisoners and spreading their sophisticated versions of that evil to eager tyrants in other lands. This week the news broke that the Mexican public is in an uproar over videos showing Mexican police practicing torture techniques on fellow officers in preparation for use on the public—under the watchful eye of an American advisor.  Leon city Police Chief Carlos Tornero told the AP that “the English-speaking man in the videos is a contractor from a private US security firm.”July 4, 2008 Once again, we see the increasing role of US mercenaries helping our own government spread torture while maintaining “plausible deniability.”

This week the NY Times broke the story that “…military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of ‘coercive management techniques’ for possible use on prisoners, including ‘sleep deprivation,’ ‘prolonged constraint,’ and ‘exposure.’ What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners

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Poll: 44% of Americans favor torture for terrorist suspects

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On July 5, 2008

In Ethics, The Soul of America, Torture, War

From: The Raw Story

A new poll of citizens’ attitudes about torture in 19 nations finds Americans among the most accepting of the practice. Although a slight majority say torture should be universally prohibited, 44 percent think torture of terrorist suspects should be allowed, and more than one in 10 think torture should generally be allowed.

The findings of the WorldPublicOpinion.org poll put the United States alongside countries like Russia, Egypt and the Ukraine and lagging far behind allies like Great Britain, Spain and France in how its citizens view torture.

Read Entire Article with Chart

Bush Signed Executive Order Authorizing Torture—FBI Email

By

On April 18, 2008

In George Bush Family, Torture, War

From: Online Journal

President George W. Bush’s comment to ABC News — that he approved discussions that his top aides held about harsh interrogation techniques — adds credence to claims from senior FBI agents in Iraq in 2004 that Bush had signed an executive order approving the use of military dogs, sleep deprivation and other tactics to intimidate Iraqi detainees.

When the American Civil Liberties Union released the FBI e-mail in December 2004 — after obtaining it through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit — the White House emphatically denied that any such presidential executive order existed, calling the unnamed FBI official who wrote the e-mail “mistaken.”

President Bush and his representatives also have denied repeatedly that the administration condones “torture,” although senior administration officials have acknowledged subjecting “high-value” terror suspects to aggressive interrogation techniques, including the “waterboarding” — or simulated drowning — of three al-Qaeda detainees.

But the emerging public evidence suggests that Bush’s denials about “torture” amount to a semantic argument, with the administration applying a narrow definition that contradicts widely accepted standards contained in international law, including Geneva and other human rights conventions.

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Also here

’60 Minutes’: Nightmare At Guantanamo Bay (Doctor Assisted Torture)

By

On March 30, 2008

In Torture, War

From: 60 Minutes

An innocent man held as a terror detainee for years tells Scott Pelley, in his first U.S. television interview, how Americans tortured him in Afghanistan and then at Guantanamo Bay.

… He told 60 Minutes that American troops held his head underwater.

“They used to beat me when my head is underwater. They beat me into my stomach and everything,” he says.

“They were hitting you in the stomach while you’re head was underwater so that you’d have to take a breath?” Pelley asks. …

Kurnaz says the Americans used a device to shock him with electricity that made his body go numb. And he says he was hoisted up on chains suspended by his arms from the ceiling of an aircraft hangar for five days.

“Every five or six hours they came and pulled me back down. And the doctor came to watch if I can still survive to not. He looked into my eyes. He checked my heart. And when he said okay, then they pulled me back up,” Kurnaz says. …

At Guantanamo Kurnaz says he endured endless months of interrogations, beatings at the hands of soldiers in riot gear, and physical cruelty which included going without sleep for weeks and solitary confinement for up to a month in cells that were sealed without ventilation or were set up to punish him with extreme conditions.

“It’s dark inside. No lights. And they can punish you in isolation by coldness or by the heat. They have special air conditioners over there. Very strong. They can turn it very cold or very hot,” Kurnaz says.

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Soldier Brags of Torture, Rape & …

By

On February 15, 2008

In Sexual Assault, Torture, War, Why they hate US

WARNING: Profane language and horrific, but Americans need to know

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQnv2H4uv08]

Top Cop Says McCain Was Never Tortured

By

On February 8, 2008

In John McCain, Real History, Republicans… Blackmailable, Torture, War

Related:

John McCain and the POW Cover-up

(video) John McCain’s 1969 “Tokyo Rose” Propaganda Recording Released

– –

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFhhvaIXA9A]

From: Jones Report

A former Vietnam veteran with top secret clearance says he has personally spoken to numerous POW’s who dispute John McCain’s claim that he refused to provide information after he was captured and tortured in Hanoi, saying that in fact McCain’s code-name was “Songbird” because of his willingness to tell all to avoid torture.

Jack McLamb served nine years in secret operations in Cambodia and other nations before going on to become one of the most highly decorated police officer’s in Phoenix history, winning police officer of the year twice before taking a role as a hostage negotiator for the FBI.

“I know a lot of Vietnam veterans and a few POW’s and all the POW’s that I’ve talked to over the years say that John McCain is a lying skunk,” McLamb told the Alex Jones Show.

“He never was tortured – they were there in the camp with him and then when he came in….he immediately started spilling his guts about everything because he didn’t want to get tortured,” said McLamb, contradicting the official story that McCain only offered his name, rank, serial number, and date of birth.

“The Vietnamese Communists called him the Songbird, that’s his code name, Songbird McCain, because he just came into the camp singing and telling them everything they wanted to know,” said McLamb.

McLamb said the POW’s told him that McCain had sustained two broken arms and a leg injury from not pulling his arms in when he bailed out of his A-4 Skyhawk that was shot down over the Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi.

The POW’s said that McCain made 32 propaganda videos for the communist North Vietnamese in which he denounced America for what they were doing in Vietnam.

“They have these sealed now…”

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Skousen: Pulling Strings for John McCain

By

On February 2, 2008

In Joel Skousen, John McCain, Media Bias Exposed, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Republicans… Blackmailable, Ron Paul, Torture

World Affairs Brief, February 1, 2008. Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.

Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief.

PULLING STRINGS FOR SENATOR McCAIN

The US political circus is an amazing, if not agonizing, show to watch. First, we saw Rudy Giuliani, the establishment’s pre-election favorite (only because the media said so) go from front runner status to a disastrous showing in the primaries–garnering less votes than Rep. Ron Paul, who was systematically denied any meaningful media coverage at all. It appears the public is either fickle or the media polls were just plain lying–perhaps both. Then we saw John McCain with almost no support suddenly rise to front runner status after a barrage of big name newspaper and personality endorsements so unanimous that there had to have existed some guiding hand. The establishment boost for McCain is still ongoing in a big way and is intended to gain McCain a majority of delegates before the convention convenes–which would eliminate a brokered convention where deals and concession have to be made in order to gain that majority. In an up or down vote between McCain or Romney, without Huckabee to draw away votes from Romney, McCain would lose. That’s what the king makers are trying to avoid by manipulating the public during the primaries. It’s time to let America know more about the real McCain. Believe me, he is no hero.

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Romney: Iraq War a Good Idea & “We Ought to Double Guantanamo”

By

On January 28, 2008

In Mitt Romney, Torture, War

From: New York Times Florida Republican Debate Transcript

MR. RUSSERT: Governor Romney, was the war in Iraq a good idea worth the cost in blood and treasure we have spent?

MR. ROMNEY: It was the right decision to go into Iraq. I supported it at the time; I support it now.

From: CFR South Carolina Repulican Debate Transcript

MR. ROMNEY: … Some people have said, we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo. We ought to make sure that the terrorists — (applause) — and there’s no question but that in a setting like that where you have a ticking bomb that the president of the United States — not the CIA interrogator, the president of the United States — has to make the call. And enhanced interrogation techniques have to be used — not torture but enhanced interrogation techniques, yes.

The Torture President Wields His Veto

By

On January 5, 2008

In George Bush Family, Torture

… So what on earth caused Bush to veto the bill, and thus leave those in Iraq in connection with the war effort without funds in the pipeline? The answer is torture. You should have guessed it. …

The Philadelphia Inquirer sees this very clearly:

Bush knows that if Iraq can get sued for torture, so can the United States. Even now, the CIA is trying to keep secret all of the ways it pulled information from captives.

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CIA Torture Jet crashed with 4 Tons of COCAINE

By

On December 30, 2007

In CIA Drug Running/Assassinations, Freedom, Torture

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oszATUJ4IRE]

Other Western countries like Great Britain are quite honest about their history of drug trading, but we still engage in self-censorship, even amongst the Left, when it comes to acknowledging that similar activities have been carried out by the CIA in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War and Latin America during the Iran-Contra Affair. Perhaps the reason why the CIA’s well-documented role in the global drug trade is never really acknowledged is because it never really ended.

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Related: Skousen: Evidence of Government Collusion in Drug Running

Did Bush Watch the Torture Tapes?

By

On December 29, 2007

In George Bush Family, Torture

…the sequence of statements out of the White House is extremely revealing. It started with firm denials, then went silent and then pulled back rather sharply to a “President Bush has no present recollection of having seen the tapes.” This is a formulation frequently used to avoid perjury charges, a sort of way of saying “no” without really saying “no.”

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CIA man ‘can take White House down’ over torture cover-up scandal

By

On December 28, 2007

In Torture

Former head of the CIA’s clandestine service Jose Rodriguez claims he can take the White House down over a torture cover-up scandal.

Rodriguez said he may testify before the House Intelligence Committee if he is granted immunity from prosecution, The Sunday Times reported.

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Former CIA Interrogator: We Carried Out Torture Because The White House Told Us To

By

On December 17, 2007

In Torture

Lauer asked Kiriakou where the permission was given to carry out torture. “Was the White House involved in that decision?” Lauer asked. “Absolutely,” Kiriakou said, adding:

This isn’t something done willy nilly. It’s not something that an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he’s going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner. This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department.

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O’Reilly: Fox News Turned Down Pro-Constitution Ad Because It Was ‘Anti-American’

By

On December 10, 2007

In Media Bias Exposed, Torture

The Center for Constitutional Rights recently produced an ad called “Rescue the Constitution” that criticizes the Bush administration for “destroying the Constitution” through the use of tactics like renditions and torture. Fox News refused to air the ad, claiming that it needed “documentation” that the Constitution “is indeed being destroyed.”

In the ad, actor Danny Glover states, “Trials. Renditions. Torture. The Bush administration is destroying the Constitution. They can be stopped. Rescue the Constitution.”Yesterday, while discussing NBC’s recent refusal to run an ad from the White House front group Freedom’s Watch, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly explained why Fox News turns down ads:

“Yeah, but I understand why. Fox News turns down blatantly anti-American ads. We just turned one down recently. I understand that.”

Click for Story Video

“Thousands” Illegally Rendered By Bush Administration for Interrogation, Torture

By

On November 30, 2007

In Torture

From: Global Research

In violation of international and U.S. law, “thousands” of alleged terrorists have been victims of “extraordinary rendition” by the Bush Administration since 9/11, two legal scholars say. “Instead of working to bring those committing crimes against the United States to justice in U.S. courts, the Bush Administration seems intent on doing exactly the opposite—keeping such individuals away from U.S. courts, hidden in a web of secret prisons, underground interrogation cells, and in the hands of cooperative governments”….

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Tortured to Death in Red China: 40 Types of Torture Methods Used

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On November 15, 2007

In China, Torture

From Epochtimes.com:

Weifang is the most notorious region in mainland China for persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Over 40 types of torture methods have been reported to be employed in Weifang. The number of Falun Gong practitioners tortured and abused to death in Weifang is the highest among all third tier cities in China. At least 121 Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured to death in the city by end of 2006.

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Related:

Female Falun Gong Practitioner Subjected to Sexual Abuse in Shandong Province

Lady Arrested Again After Being Tortured by Police: Olympics fervor taking its human rights toll

Jilin Prison Uses ‘Death Beds’ to Torture Falun Gong Practitioners

Kasparov on “Real Time”: America no longer a hope for oppressed people

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On November 11, 2007

In Freedom, Torture

From BillMaher.com:

MAHER: …Now, one last question. I found out this week – I didn’t realize this – that the torture – and, of course, they say it’s not torture that we do, but it is, of course, torture – that our people are doing, is based on Soviet models. And, I know you grew up under the former regime that probably looked to America as a beacon of hope and freedom. When you see America wiretapping and torturing and basically doing the things the Soviets used to do, what goes through your mind?

KASPAROV: Look, I don’t think it’s about sad events that you just described, because I think that America had sad stories in the past as well. But, in seventies and eighties, America looked as a hope for oppressed people in the communist world. Well, now, America, that is applying double standards to different countries in the world, lost its credibility. And that’s bad news for all of us, because it was a stronghold for democracy. And now, it’s just a country which, according to many, is using democracy as a [geopolitical] tool to promote its own interests. Which is working against us in Russia and elsewhere. [applause]

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Olbermann: Bush tortured to get authentic sounding fiction to gut the Constitution?

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On November 6, 2007

In George Bush Family, Torture

From: MSNBC

Ultimately, Mr. Bush, the real question isn’t who approved the waterboarding of this fiend Khalid Sheik Mohammed and two others.

It is: Why were they waterboarded?

Study after study for generation after generation has confirmed that torture gets people to talk, torture gets people to plead, torture gets people to break, but torture does not get them to tell the truth.

Of course, Mr. Bush, this isn’t a problem if you don’t care if the terrorist plots they tell you about are the truth or just something to stop the tormentors from drowning them.

If, say, a president simply needed a constant supply of terrorist threats to keep a country scared.


[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arWJ358tZgU]

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