After Months of Crusading and emailing weekly from our team,
the American people are finally going to hear the real story behind much of the cia involvement in this mess.

next step is to get those headmen into the docks.
Bush and Cheney, You’re UP Next.

Thanks for all the support in our crusade,

Politicus and I did it because of Our Love for The Truth and America.

RE for NeoCons on Parade

http://sites.google.com/site/neoconsonparade/


———- Forwarded message ———-
From: ABC News <abcnewsnow-editor@mail.abcnews.go.com>
Date: Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 3:21 PM
Subject: Breaking News Mon., August 24, 2009
To: ausetkmt@geocities.com

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:

Attorney General Eric Holder to Appoint Prosecutor to Investigate CIA Interrogations of Terrorists [3:13 p.m. ET]

Holder to Appoint Prosecutor to Investigate CIA Terror Interrogations

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 24, 2009 2:23 PM

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided to appoint a prosecutor to examine nearly a dozen cases in which CIA interrogators and contractors may have violated anti-torture laws and other statutes when they allegedly threatened terrorism suspects, according to two sources familiar with the move.

Holder is poised to name John Durham, a career Justice Department prosecutor from Connecticut, to lead the inquiry, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is not complete.

Durham’s mandate, the sources added, will be relatively narrow: to look at whether there is enough evidence to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of current and former CIA personnel who may have broken the law in their dealings with detainees. Many of the harshest CIA interrogation techniques have not been employed against terrorism suspects for four years or more.

The attorney general selected Durham in part because the longtime prosecutor is familiar with the CIA and its past interrogation regime. For nearly two years, Durham has been probing whether laws against obstruction or false statements were violated in connection with the 2005 destruction of CIA videotapes. The tapes allegedly depicted brutal scenes including waterboarding of some of the agency’s high value detainees. That inquiry is proceeding before a grand jury in Alexandria, although lawyers following the investigation have cast doubt on whether it will result in any criminal charges.

Word of Holder’s decision comes on the same day that the Obama administration will issue a 2004 report by the then-CIA Inspector General. Among other things, the IG questioned the effectiveness of harsh interrogation tactics that included simulated drowning and wall slamming. A federal judge in New York forced the administration to release the secret report after a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union.

A separate internal Justice Department ethics report on the professionalism of lawyers who blessed the questioning techniques continues to undergo declassification review and is not likely to be released imminently. The New York Times reported Monday that the ethics report recommended that Holder take another look at several episodes of alleged detainee abuse that previously had been declined for prosecution during the Bush years, bolstering his decision to appoint a prosecutor.

Leaders at the Justice Department and the intelligence community have clashed this year over the release of sensitive interrogation memos, military photographs of detainee abuse and how to handle the cases of more than 200 detainees at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Holder’s decision could complicate the Justice Department’s relationship with the White House, where President Obama has repeatedly expressed a desire to move forward from the national security controversies of the Bush administration. Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton told reporters Monday that the president had complete faith in Holder and that the decision whether to launch an investigation was the attorney general’s sole prerogative.

“The White House supports the attorney general making the decisions on who gets prosecuted and investigated,” Burton said.

Holder acknowledges the possible fallout from his decision, but has concluded in recent days that he has no other choice than to probe whether laws were broken in connection with the Bush administration’s interrogation program, the two sources said. Fewer than a dozen cases will be examined, most from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Any criminal investigation into the CIA conduct faces serious hurdles, according to current and former government lawyers, including such challenges as missing evidence, nonexistent or unreliable witnesses, no access to some bodies of detainees who died, and the passage of up to seven years since the questionable activity occurred far from American soil.

During the Bush years, a team of more than a half-dozen career prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia, which is renown for its expertise in probing clandestine operations, reviewed about 20 cases of alleged prisoner abuse after receiving referrals from the military and then-CIA Inspector General John Helgerson. Among the assistant U.S. attorneys involved in the review was Robert Spencer, who successfully prosecuted al-Qaeda operative Zacharias Moussaoui and who later won one of the highest awards the Justice Department bestows.

In only one of the cases did the lawyers recommend seeking a grand jury indictment. A federal appeals court earlier this month affirmed the assault conviction of David A. Passaro, a CIA contractor who wielded a metal flashlight against a detainee at a military base in Afghanistan. Passaro was not charged with murder. Abdul Wali, the detainee he questioned, died shortly after the beating but investigators could not conclusively link his death to the flashlight attack.

A former government official involved in the previous review said that, given problems with evidence, there was “no conceivable way we could have come out different” and sought criminal indictments. The official said that analysis might change if new and reliable witnesses emerged.

Current and former CIA officials from both Democratic and Republican administrations have cited the prior review by prosecutors as one of several reasons why the Obama Justice Department need not act. They fear that any criminal investigation will chill intelligence activities and alienate operatives who are responsible for protecting national security.

In a message distributed to employees Monday morning, CIA Director Leon Panetta noted that the agency repeatedly had sought legal advice from the Justice Department, receiving “multiple written assurances that its methods were lawful. The CIA has a strong record in terms of following legal guidance and informing the Department of Justice of potentially illegal conduct.”

The Justice Department investigation has roiled activists from across the political spectrum for weeks even before it became a reality Monday. The left-leaning ACLU and Alliance for Justice, as well as groups that represent torture victims, exhorted Holder to undertake a wide-ranging probe of Bush lawyers and administration officials who helped develop the interrogation policy.

But nine GOP senators who occupy prominent roles on the Judiciary Committee last week urged Holder not to act at all, arguing that further investigation was both unnecessary and unwise.

“The intelligence community will be left to wonder whether actions taken today in the interest of national security will be subject to legal recriminations when the political winds shift,” said the letter, signed by lawmakers including Sens. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), John Cornyn (Tex.), Orrin Hatch (Utah) and Charles Grassley (Iowa).

With Monday’s looming public announcement, however, the attorney general and his national security team appear to be staking out a middle ground — rejecting a broad inquiry that could result in possible prosecutions of Justice Department lawyers in the Bush years as well as cabinet officers who developed counterterrorism policy; but giving civil liberties advocates at least part of what they wanted without supporting a full, independent truth commission to examine a host of Bush national security practices.

Mr Holder Indict These Criminals NOW

Lock Em UP

WE Do Not need any more proof; These ARE War Criminals

Bush, Cheney, Condie, Laura and Karl to Write Books.

This is the eighth post in a series, posted on conjunction with Politicus.US on the subject of accountability of the Bush 43 administration and in support of Senator Patrick Leahy’s “commission of inquiry”. Links to our previous articles are at the bottom.

________________________________________________________________

If you have read our posts up to now and watched the videos, you must realize that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the rest of their administration have a whole lot of explaining to do as far as 9/11, the lies leading up to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, domestic spying, the firing of the U.S. Attorneys, the use of torture, the further deregulation of what they have the gall to call “our financial system” and a whole gamut of other issues.

It appears then that rather than having to explain their deeds in a court of law (let’s not lose hope here), the boys have decided to publish their memoirs in book form.

Bush’s book tentatively titled Decision Points, is scheduled for a 2010 release by Crown.

Instead of telling his life story, Bush will concentrate on about a dozen personal and presidential choices, from giving up drinking (that was probably a mistake, as maybe he wouldn’t have committed all of those errors, while in a drunken stupor) to picking Dick Cheney as his vice president to sending troops to Iraq. He will also write about his relationship with family members, including his father, his religious faith and his disgraceful response to Hurricane Katrina.

We know that George W. Bush has had an extensive experience with books. This photo from the morning of September 11, 2001 is a case in point.

Financial details were not disclosed, although publishers have openly expressed doubt that Bush would receive the $15 million Clinton got for his memoir, My Life.

There are even rumors, that Bush asked Dick Cheney to write the book for him. Andy Borowitz writes: “according to sources close to the former president, Mr. Cheney was his second choice to write the memoir after Mr. Bush was turned down by his first choice, author James Frey.

Known for his reluctance to acknowledge mistakes, Bush said the book would include self-criticism, “Absolutely, yes,” but cautioned that “hindsight is very easy” and that he would make sure readers could view events as he saw them.

“I want to recreate what it was like, for example, right after 9/11,” he said, “and have people understand the emotions I felt and what others around me felt at the time.”

Asked if he might write about the ouster of his first defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, or about his decision not to pardon Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, choices both openly disputed by Cheney, Bush said he didn’t know.

We suppose that if Cheney actually has anything to do with Bush’s book, those chapters may very well have the expected flavor.

Most top officials in the Bush administration, from Condie Rice to Karl Rove, have either completed their books or are in the midst of writing them. Dick Cheney has said he plans to pen a memoir and Laura Bush has a deal with Scribner.

Frankly, what could any of those books tell us that we already don’t know? Will they reveal the true events of 9/11, the “intelligence findings” about supposed WMD’s in Iraq, or how the administration has colluded with the Wall Street crooks? Those would be revelations of the first magnitude, but don’t expect to see any of them in any of these books.

Save your money and buy something actually worth reading and short of supporting Senator Patrick Leahy’s “commission of inquiry” and a much needed investigation by the Justice Department of the eight years of Bush’s and the neocons’ rule, we would much rather forget all of these distasteful characters and just wait for what history will really have to say about them.

_______________________________________________________________________

See our earlier posts on the subject:

Cheney War Crimes: Just Look at the Statute

There’s More to Dick Cheney Than Even He Realizes, Pt 1

Fun and Games With Georgie, Dick and Condie

Government-Sponsored Torture, a Stain on America’s Honor

Americans Say ‘Dig Up Those Skeletons, Leahy’

Would You Like To Help Prosecute Bush and Chaney ?

Mr Holder, do you care about the Military Rapes sanctioned by Bush Co ?

There is More to Dick Cheney Than Even He Realizes, Part 1;.

This is By Politicus.us – WE ARE Mirroring His Post Today.

This is the sixth post in a series, posted on conjunction with BadGalsRadio on the subject of accountability of the Bush 43 administration and in support of Senator Patrick Leahy’s “commission of inquiry”.  Links to our previous articles are at the bottom.
_________________________________________________________________________

It can be argued just how much power Dick Cheney had within the Bush administration. But virtually all would agree that he was the most powerful vice president in American history.

No other vice president has in effect picked himself for the position, as Cheney did being the head of George W. Bush’s vice-presidential search in the 2000 campaign. And none has ever arrived at the White House as the most experienced member of the presidential team. In January 2001 Cheney’s only rival in knowledge of arcane Washington’s ways was his closest ally in the Bush cabinet, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

In the administration’s early days, Dick Cheney was put in charge of developing energy policy, one of Mr. Bush’s top priorities. Hence the “Cheney energy task force”, whose proceedings and decisions remain secret to this day. His real dominance was established after the September 11 attacks. On that day, it was he who took charge at the White House and directed the first response.

Legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh talked about new alleged instances of domestic spying by the CIA, and about an ongoing covert military operation that he called an “executive assassination ring.”

Hersh says: “Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command – JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him…

Take a look at this video for more information:

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in turn has aired this “Unauthorized Bio of Dick Cheney.”

And here is part two of the “Unauthorized Bio of Dick Cheney”:

And now part three:

As we know, Mr. Cheney is still active on the television circuit and you can be sure that he is still very active indeed in the back channels of his political world and recently has even stated in an interview with CNN that in fact Obama’s decisions are putting the country at risk.

Here was President Obama’s response to those accusations on CBS’s 60 Minutes.

You be the judge whose words are more believable.

In any case, considering the fact that Dick Cheney has suffered four heart attacks – the first at age 37 – and that he has a pacemaker implanted in his chest, the man has proven to be a durable player in U.S. and neocon politics.

Personally we would advise the former veep to take it easy and go fishing and hunting, take care of his ailing heart and finally leave us alone.

__________________________________________________________________________

See our other posts in this series:

Fun and Games With Georgie, Dick and Condie
Government-Sponsored Torture, a Stain on America’s Honor
Americans Say ‘Dig Up Those Skeletons, Leahy’
Would You Like To Help Prosecute Bush and Chaney ?
Mr Holder, do you care about the Military Rapes sanctioned by Bush Co ?

Welcome to The Cookout..

today we are providing you with a early spring treat. fresh from the innernet tubes. how ever fresh that may be at the moment..

This is 03/26/09’s contribution to the Truth and Fairness Project; by BadGalsRadio.com and Politicus.us.

We are asking all political and human rights bloggers to join us in creating a pool of information on the 911 FRAUD.

WE Will be sending our findings regularly to Atty Gen. Eric Holder; asking for a Special Prosecutor – for Bush Co. Please Won’t You Join Us in Revealing The Truth to Mr Holder, so that the tragedy is documented properly; by those who’ve suffered the most, the survivors.

See our earlier posts on the subject:

• Americans Say ‘Dig Up Those Skeletons, Leahy’
• Would You Like To Help Prosecute Bush and Chaney ?
• Mr Holder, do you care about the Military Rapes sanctioned by Bush Co ?

today’s buffet style so you just grab what you like

lets start it out with a lil Salad Tossin, why don’t we..

you can also have it supersized if you like, it’s all good today

###
Iraq War Cost

and then we get to the sides – you can have it with or without sauce. it’s all up to you.

This is with Ketsup..

this is from solarpowerrocks.com

this is info from the National Council for Science and the Environment. Take a look here. Though the war in Iraq now costs about $120B a year, two authors (one a Nobel prize winner) estimates the total cost of this war exceeds 2 Trillion Dollars. “Accrued liabilities for U.S. federal employees’ and veterans’ benefits now total $4.5 trillion. Indeed, our debt for veterans’ health and disability payments has risen by $228 billion in the past year alone… The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the interest payments on the money borrowed to finance the Iraq war will total $264 billion to $308 billion.” That $2,000,000,000,000? Well, that amount of money could’ve built solar thermal plants here that would have provided energy for 2/3rds of our nation’s energy demand.

This is with Mustard..

oooooo that gitmo sized bottle looks like a dealbreaker for the former first lady on the side.

Colin Powell’s former chief of staff: Cheney is ‘evil,’ his fearmongering is ‘assisting’ al Qaeda.

A portion of this was clipped from “Think Progress” Thursday, March 19, 2009 Weeks after President Obama was inaugurated, Dick Cheney gave an interview to Politico slamming Obama’s detainee policies and warning that he was making America less safe (charges he repeated again last Sunday). Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff who left the Bush administration in protest, wrote an essay on the Washington Note last evening slamming Cheney’s fearmongering. Wilkerson calls Cheney “evil” and says his detainee policies were only “assisting” terrorists:

Cheney went on to say in his McLean interview that “Protecting the country’s security is a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business. These are evil people and we are not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.” I have to agree but the other way around.

Cheney and his like are the evil people and we certainly are not going to prevail in the struggle with radical religion if we listen to people as he. […] take your pick of these juicy items, remember take as much as you’d like it’s all for youuuu..

this is a short clipping from 911 sharethetruth.com

A Call To All True Patriots to Investigate September 11 We have actively studied the questionable nature of the official version of what happened to our nation on September 11, 2001. Throughout the first year after 9-11 we ignored and did not believe those who asked us to question the official story. Like millions of Americans we believed America had been attacked by terrorists from abroad. Sadly, we are now convinced that rogue elements within our government committed a vicious criminal act against its own citizens for the larger purpose of swaying us to support both domestic and foreign policies mapped out in the late 1990’s. 9-11 was Hitler’s Reichstag fire of 1933 and Roosevelt’s Pearl Harbor masterfully coordinated to achieve the desired ends of an imperialistic role for America in the world, patriotic upport at home and the erosion of our constitutional rights. In a nutshell, the war on terrorism is a cruel hoax by a misguided, out-of-democratic control small group of individuals sabotaging the best of American values. We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis combined with severe domination from an Orwellian corporate media knowingly or unknowingly being of service to the true powerbrokers behind the curtain.

okay lets get down to the Meat and Potatoes,

Unplug the War Machine By Facing the Disturbing Truth Behind the Events of September 11, 2001

They lied about Iraq and Afghanistan and just about everything else. Why are we willing to accept their version of 9/11 that made it all possible?

Initially, most of us fell for their version of the events. But then came the slip-ups. The leaseholder of the World Trade Center admitted on PBS in ‘Rebuilding America’ that WTC-7 was ‘pulled‘ on 9/11 (See video here in Windows Media Format), which is the standard slang for controlled demolition. (911 sharethetruth.com)

How Bout a Lil Fish..

this fishing expedition caused us to loose control of our internal politics; and our economy. all over a Ruse. Damn fish stories.. always turn out to be lies. We should have known better.

Studies: Iraq a $12 billion-a-month war

(msnbc)

We’ve started this series knowing that it would be bloody and hard to write. that’s partially why we decided to just do it. so many of us political and human rights bloggers are talking about the problem of the Special Prosecutor – that well, we just decided somebody has to “bring a BIG LOOK AT The Pain” to Mr Holder to get his attention.

so why not us

Good Americans Stand Up For THEIRS, and We Are GOOD AMERICANS Who Want Right and Truth, The Real American Way.

Mr Holder – Read This,

On Tuesday Politicus wrote this :

Government-Sponsored Torture, a Stain on America’s Honor

We have all seen the disgusting photos of American soldiers playing with and abusing prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. The photos of the terrified, terrorized men and as it turns out women as well have circled the globe and have in fact become something of a symbol of George W. Bush’s and the neocons’ “war on terror”.

When those photos surfaced, the entire focus on the previous 9/11 issues, Iraq’s supposed stocks of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein, along with Osama bin-Laden and al-Qaida, paled. The world’s media has switched their investigative focus to reports of prisoner abuse, CIA’s “extraordinary renditions”, and the violations of the Geneva Conventions in many ways and forms.

The Abu Ghraib abuse orgies were committed by personnel of the 372nd Military Police Company of the United States Army together with additional US governmental agencies. These additional agencies have been referred to as the OGA (Other Government Agencies), which is an often-used euphemism for the Central Intelligence Agency.

As it turns out, these were only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Information about CIA’s so-called black prisons and interrogation centers has begun to surface.

Allegations and reports about unmarked planes transporting prisoners through a number of countries, on the way to prisons, interrogation/torture centers in countries with either a “friendly” disposition towards the U.S. “war on terror”, or ones who wanted to punish, or extract information from their own citizens, who might have been perceived as enemies of the ruling regime, or simply those, who did it for the money that the CIA was paying for such “services”.
Journalist Mark Danner in his book Torture and TruthAmerica, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror has published the latest revelations.
Here’s a video interview with Mark Danner:

The author and the reviewers at the New York Review of Books ask the question: “Did they [the Abu Ghraib abuse] depict the rogue behavior of ‘a few bad apples’? Or did they in fact reveal that the US government had decided to use brutal tactics in the “war on terror?”

The documents in the book include secret government memos, some never before published, that portray a fierce argument within the Bush administration over whether al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were protected by the Geneva Conventions and how far the U.S. could go in interrogating them. There are also official reports on abuses at Abu Ghraib by the International Committee of the Red Cross, by U.S. Army investigators, and by an independent panel chaired by former defense secretary James R. Schlesinger. In sifting this evidence, Danner traces the path by which harsh methods of interrogation approved for suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Guantánamo “migrated” to Iraq as resistance to the U.S. occupation grew and US casualties mounted.

According to the confidential (up to the point of getting leaked into the hands of Danner) International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report:” The detainee would be photographed, both clothed and naked prior to and again after transfer. A body cavity check (rectal examination) would be carried out and some detainees alleged that a suppository (the type and the effect of such suppositories was unknown by the detainees), was also administered at that moment.

The detainee would be made to wear a diaper and dressed in a tracksuit. Earphones would be placed over his ears, through which music would sometimes be played. He would be blindfolded with at least a cloth tied around the head and black goggles. In addition, some detainees alleged that cotton wool was also taped over their eyes prior to the blindfold and goggles being applied….

The detainee would be shackled by [the] hands and feet and transported to the airport by road and loaded onto a plane. He would usually be transported in a reclined sitting position with his hands shackled in front. The journey times…ranged from one hour to over 24 to 30 hours. The detainee was not allowed to go to the toilet and if necessary was obliged to urinate and defecate into the diaper.”

Abu Zubaydah, a senior member of Al Qaeda was captured in a raid in Pakistan in March 2002.
After being treated for his wounds – he had been shot in the stomach, leg and groin during his capture – Abu Zubaydah was brought to one of the black sites, probably in Thailand, and placed in the white room described below.

“I woke up, naked, strapped to a bed, in a very white room. The room measured approximately 4 meters by 4 meters. The room had three solid walls, with the fourth wall consisting of metal bars separating it from a larger room. I am not sure how long I remained in the bed. After some time, I think it was several days, but can’t remember exactly, I was transferred to a chair where I was kept, shackled by hands and feet for what I think was the next two to three weeks. During this time I developed blisters on the underside of my legs due to the constant sitting. I was only allowed to get up from the chair to go [to] the toilet, which consisted of a bucket.

“I was given no solid food during the first two or three weeks, while sitting on the chair. I was only given Ensure and water to drink. At first the Ensure made me vomit, but this became less with time.

“The cell and room were air-conditioned and were very cold. Very loud, shouting-type music was constantly playing. It kept repeating about every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day. Sometimes the music stopped and was replaced by a loud hissing or crackling noise.

“The guards were American, but wore masks to conceal their faces. My interrogators did not wear masks.”
It is important to note that Abu Zubaydah was not alone with his interrogators and that everyone in that white room – guards, interrogators, doctor – was in fact linked directly, and almost constantly, to senior intelligence officials on the other side of the world. “It wasn’t up to individual interrogators to decide, ‘Well, I’m going to slap him. Or I’m going to shake him,’” said John Kiriakou, a CIA officer who helped capture Abu Zubaydah, in an interview with ABC News.

Every one of the steps taken with regard to Abu Zubaydah “had to have the approval of the deputy director for operations. So before you laid a hand on him, you had to send in the cable saying, ‘He’s uncooperative. Request permission to do X.’”

He went on: “The cable traffic back and forth was extremely specific…. No one wanted to get in trouble by going overboard.”

Shortly after Abu Zubaydah was captured, CIA officers briefed the National Security Council’s principals committee, including Vice President Dick Cheney, the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and Attorney General John Ashcroft, in detail on the interrogation plans for the prisoner. As the interrogations proceeded, so did the briefings, with George Tenet, the CIA director, bringing to senior officials almost daily reports of the techniques applied.

At the time, the spring and summer of 2002, Justice Department officials, led by John Yoo, were working on a memorandum, now known informally as “the torture memo,” which claimed that for an “alternative procedure” to be considered torture, and thus illegal, it would have to cause pain of the sort “that would be associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure, or permanent damage resulting in a loss of significant body function will likely result.” The memo was approved in August 2002, thus serving as a legal “green light” for interrogators to apply the most aggressive techniques to Abu Zubaydah:

“I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck; they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room.”

The prisoner was then put in a coffin-like black box, about 4 feet by 3 feet and 6 feet high, “for what I think was about one and a half to two hours.” He added: The box was totally black on the inside as well as the outside…. They put a cloth or cover over the outside of the box to cut out the light and restrict my air supply. It was difficult to breathe. When I was let out of the box I saw that one of the walls of the room had been covered with plywood sheeting. From now on it was against this wall that I was then smashed with the towel around my neck. I think that the plywood was put there to provide some absorption of the impact of my body. The interrogators realized that smashing me against the hard wall would probably quickly result in physical injury.”

After this beating, Abu Zubaydah was placed in a small box approximately three feet tall. “They placed a cloth or cover over the box to cut out all light and restrict my air supply. As it was not high enough even to sit upright, I had to crouch down. It was very difficult because of my wounds. The stress on my legs held in this position meant my wounds both in the leg and stomach became very painful. I think this occurred about three months after my last operation. It was always cold in the room, but when the cover was placed over the box it made it hot and sweaty inside. The wound on my leg began to open and started to bleed. I don’t know how long I remained in the small box; I think I may have slept or maybe fainted.

“I was then dragged from the small box, unable to walk properly, and put on what looked like a hospital bed, and strapped down very tightly with belts. A black cloth was then placed over my face and the interrogators used a mineral water bottle to pour water on the cloth so that I could not breathe. After a few minutes the cloth was removed and the bed was rotated into an upright position. The pressure of the straps on my wounds was very painful. I vomited.

“The bed was then again lowered to horizontal position and the same torture carried out again with the black cloth over my face and water poured on from a bottle. On this occasion my head was in a more backward, downwards position and the water was poured on for a longer time. I struggled against the straps, trying to breathe, but it was hopeless.”

After being placed again in the tall box, Abu Zubaydah “was then taken out and again a towel was wrapped around my neck and I was smashed into the wall with the plywood covering and repeatedly slapped in the face by the same two interrogators as before.

“I was then made to sit on the floor with a black hood over my head until the next session of torture began. The room was always kept very cold.

This went on for approximately one week.”

There are other, similar horror stories in Mark Danner’s book. And remember that most of these facts and accounts are based on the ICRC report. It is hard to imagine that the ICRC – which didn’t release the report, because it wanted to remain neutral and retain access to such prisoners – would document events in a biased way.

This is not to say that we support Abu Zubaydah’s actions, affiliations, or loyalties. Nothing could be further from the truth. His experience simply illustrates the inner workings of the Bush administration during their “war on terror”. And what basically interests us and should interest both the U.S. Government and the American people is the fact that these methods have violated our principles, the Geneva Conventions and the military Uniform Code of Military Justice. These policies, even when used against the most distasteful of “enemy combatants” are definitely contrary to what the United States of America has always stood for. Let’s not forget that the members of our armed forces could just as easily be designated as “enemy combatants” by practically any country and entity, which might consider us to be their enemy. That’s just one of the reasons why we should scrupulously abide by the Geneva Conventions.

In short: this is definitely another serious issue which should be investigated by Senator Patrick Leahy’s “commission of inquiry”. It is to be hoped that the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the rest of President Barack Obama’s administration will be supportive in this endeavor.

See our earlier posts on the subject:

Americans Say ‘Dig Up Those Skeletons, Leahy’

Would You Like To Help Prosecute Bush and Chaney ?

Mr Holder, do you care about the Military Rapes sanctioned by Bush Co ?

How Bout a lil game of Truth or Dare ?

for the next week, we will focus on the Truth and how we may be forced to get it, from Dick and Dumber.  we’ve thrown our support behind the movement for a special prosecutor and it’s our humble opinion that we need to act now.

In Essence,  to wait will be a national mistake. the crimes are still fresh, and in the minds of the people who were the victims, globally. the blood and reputation of America was spilled in the name of game; so why not see if Game Recognizes Game on the battlefield; of a Truth Commission.

Sen. Patrick Leahy has come up with an agenda and hopes to get the much needed support of the us citizens; in forming this court and investigating commission.  it is the right of the american people to have the truth about why these two liars could walk away; from such a huge mess.

President Obama must put his support behind Atty Gen Eric Holder’s formation of such a commission; in order to give it the credibility that it will need to remove the years of lies blockading the facts.

The Iraq War was not an american conflict - yet we are still paying for it as we live and breathe this moment. President Obama says that his goal is to bring the troops out of Iraq in 16 months.but why should he then move them into Afghanistan ?  when will there be enough of this sectarian violence for oil ?

enjoy this opening preview of our week of  “Truth and Revelation”, starring amongst others Dick Chaney, Bush 43, Cuntilicious, Scooter, Karl Rowe and many others.

This is a part of a piece from Salon,

Pardon the Bush miscreants

By Joe Conason

Feb. 13, 2009 | More than 60 percent of Americans believe that alleged abuses and atrocities ordered by the Bush administration should be investigated either by an independent commission or by federal prosecutors. In a poll released yesterday by the Gallup Organization, 38 percent favors criminal sanctions against officials who authorized torture or other outrages in the “war on terror,” while another 24 percent favors an investigation without criminal charges. At the same time, 34 percent prefers that the Obama administration simply leave its wayward predecessors be.

While that survey shows strong public support for holding the miscreants of the Bush era accountable, it also suggests the powerful constraints that are likely to block such measures. Considering the institutional reluctance in Washington to punish political offenders (especially when they happen to be Republicans), the president’s bipartisan approach to governing, and the very real sense that America faces more urgent issues in the economic emergency, there would seem to be little chance of real action.

Nevertheless, Sen. Patrick Leahy is now urging that Congress and the American people consider the need to probe the dark side of the Bush years, using a process modeled partly on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of post-apartheid South Africa. Speaking at Georgetown University on Feb. 9, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee proposed a broad, independent inquiry that would probe not only the use of torture and other violations of the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, but might also delve into partisan abuses in the Justice Department and the misuse of intelligence to promote the invasion of Iraq.

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Leahy: Truth commission may be only way to get truth

This is clipped from a piece on Time Mag’s Site -

Ankle cuffs are used to restrain prisoners at the detention facility at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty

As Leahy envisions it, the Truth Commission’s priorities would be to investigate the politicization of prosecution in the Justice Department under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; the wiretapping of U.S. Citizens; the flawed intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq; and the use of torture at Guantanamo and so-called black sites abroad.

Leahy’s commission is to be modeled after one that investigated the apartheid regime in South Africa. The panel would have subpoena power but would not bring criminal charges. The South African commission also allowed those testifying to seek immunity from prosecution.

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