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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Waterboarding 24 (where my defenders of the War on Terror at?)


Waterboarded, again and again
WASHINGTON – Make them think they're drowning and they'll sing the first time. So went the argument in defence of the controversial waterboarding interrogation tactics the CIA administered to high-value Al Qaeda suspects with the approval of George W. Bush's White House. That assumption, widely disseminated by CIA sources, collapsed yesterday amid new disclosures that waterboarding was used 266 times against two of America's most wanted terror suspects, each of whom was submerged repeatedly in month-long grillings. News of just how frequently the technique was applied – broken by bloggers over the weekend and further detailed in yesterday's New York Times – sparked new calls for President Barack Obama to order a full investigation into Bush-era torture allegations. Among the disclosures, suspected Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding 83 times in August 2002, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum.

In 24 (the neo-con Fox propaganda drama series for bloodthirsty Republicans) the torture is always so necessary and only the courageous and righteous do it for the sake of Amerika (cue the National anthem now), and while our own apologists in NZ who were so in favour of the Iraq war get quieter and quieter we now find out that two of the men America captured weren’t waterboarded once or twice to gain important info, America tortured them repeatedly, 83 times in one month alone, how the hell torturing someone repeatedly for information that is questionable and utterly immoral will win the war on terror is anyone’s guess, personally when you have stopped to such levels to ‘win’ you’ve already lost, and remember these are the people we know about, we don’t know who Dick Cheney’s private assassination squad killed or captured for interrogation in their secret European CIA torture prisons.

If ‘we’ the West behave like this, we have zero moral highground to demand better behaviour from others, this sick little episode in American history is a reminder of what happens when we allow fear and anger to cloud our reasoning, to repeatedly torture a person by drowning them is despicable and to watch Obama rule out prosecution of those who committed such perversions of justice is disgusting.

5 Comments:

At 22/4/09 9:25 am, Anonymous Gosman said...

Agee with almost all you have written there (apart from dragging the Iraq war in there which seemed a little odd).

I am pleased that the US administration have set down firm standards now and will no longer sully the Wests reputation on human rights.

 
At 22/4/09 11:45 am, Blogger Jeff said...

If ‘we’ the West behave like this, we have zero moral highground to demand better behaviour from others, this sick little episode in American history is a reminder of what happens when we allow fear and anger to cloud our reasoning, to repeatedly torture a person by drowning them is despicable and to watch Obama rule out prosecution of those who committed such perversions of justice is disgusting. Completely agree well written.

 
At 22/4/09 1:24 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

TRY THE DOM POST ONCE IN A WHILE BOMBER, PAPER PLUS SELL IT AND SO DOES NEW WORLD BOTH IN REMUERA.

..DESPITE UNITED STATES PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S PROMISE OF LEGAL IMMUNITY (TO CIA/FBI (?) the fbi exposed double agents with the russians so they may well have been involved as well, TORTURERS)
...OBAMA HAS PROMISED LEGAL IMMUNITY ONLY TO THOSE WHO OPERATED "WITHIN THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENTS GUIDELINES"...WORLD, SECTION B, CIA FEARS TORTURE PROBE, SARAH BAXTER, B1 MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2009

 
At 23/4/09 8:45 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

No mention of waterboarding, bags,over the head, sensory deprivation, chaining to the floor of a cargo plane to be dumped off who knows where, in respect to the female reporter imprisoned by Iran

 
At 23/4/09 3:54 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

That 'reporter' was in fact a spy, what else would someone who once worked for Fox News be doing in an Islamic country?

 

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