During an interview today with Fox News, CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus said the US government had been “rightly” criticized for violating the Geneva Convention in recent years. The general added that he thought going forward it was important for the US to live up to the agreements it made internationally.
Petraeus defended the ban on “enhanced interrogation techniques,” saying it had taken away a tool used as a moral argument against the US on the international scene. He insisted that while “there might be an exception” he felt that the Army Field Manual was “generally sufficient” for interrogations.
During the Bush Administration, officials repeatedly insisted that the protections of the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the detainees held by the US. Colonel Janis Karpinski admitted that the US had violated the conventions at Abu Ghraib, including by keeping “ghost detainees” hidden from the Red Cross.
The Geneva Conventions cover the treatment of prisoners of war. The US had previously argued that since the detainees were not members of formal armies of other nations, they were not technically prisoners of war, but were “enemy combatants” not subject to the same rights.
Through this admission and through the sanctioned conduct by the US Military and Government, in one fell swoop, Bush, Cheney and the administration not only eroded US moral standing the world, they destroyed it. Utterly destroyed it. It's hard to believe that former US Vice President had actually roaming death squads under his command and no one is prosecuting him for war crimes violations. Either the US is a nation of laws or not. Pure and simple.
And I think we have to keep in mind a very important element of this whole stink over the Bush Administration's descent into torture: Their primary motivation at the outset was to find their "smoking gun" connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, their fabricated pretext to invade Iraq. This element makes the torture "debate" that much more cynical and laughable, since their argument has been about "saving lives," when we now know that what they really wanted to do was waterboard and wall slam prisoners into telling their inquistioners something politically useful for Bush-Cheney. It is outrageous. I believe COL Larry Wilkerson, Powell's former staff chief, is the latest on record to make this charge.
All one needs to do is watch the "buried 60 Minutes interview" with Paul O'Neil…………
Bush & chainey wanted war with Iraq from day one…..and probably before…..
They were pimping Iraq's oil BEFORE 911 or the war….making deals from day one of bush/chainey..
"War was topic A from day ONE" & bush was saying….find a way find a way find a way…& they DID!
It's here
Colin561 got it right I think, torture is to become the ventriloquist….The dummy says.what you NEED
to link Osama to Sadam and keep investigators away from certain facts……. Just think…one of the BIGGEST crimes in American HISTORY…and the b/c adm. DESTROYS evidence relevant to understanding what and WHO was involved….they destroyed the interrogation videos…of those persons that THEY THEMSELVES told US were the perpetrators…and HID them from 911 comm.
With torture, your prisoners say their lines like in drama class…..the FIX is in…it's done….OVER!!