bush* and rumsfeld deliberately created system for abusing POWs (WP)

it was clear from the testimony yesterday, that rumsfeld and bush* CREATED the system in which such POW torture is acceptable and encouraged....bush* threw out the Geneva Conventions on POWs, and classified POWs under a lot of 'spin'...like 'detainees...

here's the Washington Post overview on the failures at the TOP....

-snips-

In testimony before Senate and House committees, the defense secretary and his deputies continued to portray the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison as isolated acts by individuals. They defended, or refused to acknowledge, the policy decisions that made the abuses more likely.

But whether or not he remains in office, the most important task before the administration and Congress should be to reform the system of prisoner detention so that it fully conforms to the Geneva Conventions and other international standards of human rights. That will require changes in procedures, the formulation of clear standards and rigorous outside oversight.

Mr. Rumsfeld's testimony yesterday offered no support for such basic change. He repeatedly defended the procedures created two years ago to extract intelligence from prisoners even though these have led to documented abuses in several overseas prison facilities. At one point he suggested that he was not aware of the decision that laid the foundation for the Abu Ghraib crimes -- a determination that military prison guards should "set the conditions" for intelligence interrogations, in violation of Army regulations -- even though that policy was developed by a major general and previously implemented at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan. Mr. Rumsfeld dodged questions about whether guards had been told by intelligence officers and civilian contractors how to treat prisoners, even though an official investigation has already determined that that is what occurred.

Mr. Rumsfeld claimed that guards at Abu Ghraib had been instructed to follow the Geneva Conventions, but the investigation by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba has documented that no such instructions were given. The Third Geneva Convention says that prisoners of war "may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind" as a way to make them answer questions. That rule has been systematically violated at U.S. detention facilities abroad -- in part because the Pentagon has designated many prisoners as illegal combatants not eligible for Geneva protections. In fact, the interrogation system developed at Mr. Rumsfeld's Pentagon cannot be legally applied to anyone considered a prisoner of war.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9688-2004May7.html

I hope that the realization that Bush himself is culpable will spread. I want to see him on trial at The Hague.

is, this time the * took the rest of us with him. This time - he doesn't have anything to "fail upward" to.

Bush has a pattern of violating international law starting with the violations of the Geneva Convention. There were also allegations of torture in Afghanistan including the report from over a year ago of two prisoners killed during interrogation. The invasion of Iraq was in violation of international law. The systematic torture and abuse of detainees in Iraq is just a continuation of a pattern of Bush believing that the law does not apply to his actions.

Nuremberg WAR CRIMES trials....

Statement by American Justice Jackson on War Trials Agreement; August 12, 1945

There are some things I would like to say, particularly to the American people, about the agreement we have just signed.

For the first time, four of the most powerful nations have agreed not only upon the principles of liability for war crimes of persecution, but also upon the principle of individual responsibility for the crime of attacking the international peace.

Repeatedly, nations have united in abstract declarations that the launching of aggressive war is illegal. They have condemned it by treaty. But now we have the concrete application of these abstractions in a way which ought to make clear to the world that those who lead their nations into aggressive war face individual accountability for such acts.

We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/jack02.htm

so is this not the fruit of their works? Incidentally, why would our people risk widespread court martial/indictment for such criminal behavior unless they believed/felt they were serving their masters' wishes to a tee and would be protected? Inquiring minds want to know.

when determining whether torture was a condoned practice. There are so many of these prisoners who have been released with no charges and many still held with no charges.

To act like we are going to apply Geneva Convention standards to prisoners held without the Pow status is more than just doublespeak, it's plain dishonesty.

Me Book

yes, this goes right to the TOP....to bush*, who demanded that those WMD-locations be tortured out of all Iraqis, no matter what it took..."we'll find the WMD !!!!" and the 'rats' are jumping off bush* sinking ship to avoid going to prison themselves...watch for many more 'official policy documents' to come flooding out of the pentagon...

-----------------------------------


Pentagon Interrogation Guidelines Eyed in Prison Scandal
U.S. Officials OK'ed Rules in 2003 for Guantanamo Bay Detainees

By Dana Priest and Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 8, 2004; 6:45 PM


In April 2003, the Defense Department approved a list of interrogation techniques for use at the Guantanamo Bay prison that permits making a detainee disrobe entirely for questioning, reversing normal sleep patterns and exposing them to heat, cold and "sensory assault," including loud music and bright lights, according to defense officials.

The more aggressive techniques require approval from senior Pentagon officials, and in some cases, the secretary of defense. Interrogators must justify that harshest treatment is "militarily necessary," according to the document, parts of which were cited by an official who possessed the document. Once approved, harsher treatment must be accompanied by "appropriate medical monitoring."

"We wanted to find a legal way to jack up the pressure," said one lawyer who helped write the guidelines. "We wanted a little more freedom than in a U.S. prison, but not torture."

The classified list of roughly 20 techniques was approved at the highest levels of the Pentagon and Justice Department and represents the first known documentation of an official policy permitting interrogators to use physically and mentally stressful methods during questioning.

But Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said the tactics outlined in the U.S. document amount to cruel and inhumane treatment. "If it's illegal here under the U.S. Constitution, it's illegal abroad," he said. "This isn't even close."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11017-2004May8.html

...sure, the Gitmo prisoners are more likely to have been real terrorists or Al Quadah types, but still, to have a 'torture" policy in writing, with levels of approval, is pretty amazing. It would be illegal in law enforcement as well as in a military POW context.

24 hours after the rummy hearings ended yesterday....and on a Saturday too....gosh...everybody is working very hard this weekend...the WP writers...the 'rats' are over at the pentagoon going through their files and paper-shredding and leaking like a sieve....

just wait until the new torture videos come out (coming soon to living rooms all across America), which include torture AUDIO and thousands more torture photos....as has been already noted, the new stuff will include murder, rape and abuse of DEAD bodies...

AND, bush* today in his radio address said that this was just a 'few bad apples'....what scum ! WE THE PEOPLE deserve better...time to boot bush* out...and elect Kerry....

http://www.JohnKerry.com