BUSH ADMINISTRATION SHAMES AMERICA

UPDATE I: See below.


One has to laugh (cry?) at the Republicans--no not all Republicans, only the extremists who run the country just now--who were apoplectic over Obama's pastor when it was revealed he shouted in a moment of wild emotion "God damn America!" And yet these same hypocrites remain silent over what BushCo. has perpetrated in all our names. I hope what is stated at the end of this post that is over at ThinkProgress comes true.



ABC Report: Bush’s ‘Principal’ Advisers OK’d Torture


ABC News reported tonight that President Bush’s most senior and trusted advisers met in “dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House” beginning in 2002 to approve the use of “combined” interrogation techniques (the joint use of harsh interrogation techniques). Those tactics included whether detainees “would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.”


Members of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee — Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet, and John Ashcroft — approved the use of these techniques. “Sources said that at each discussion, all the Principals present approved.” According to ABC’s report, Ashcroft indicated he was troubled by the meetings:


According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: “Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.”
Watch ABC’s report:



Bush’s former Secretary of Homeland Security — Tom Ridge — has said there is “no doubt” that waterboarding is torture.



Marc Ambinder writes, "[I]t remains one of those hidden secrets in Washington that a Democratic Justice Department is going to be very interested in figuring out whether there's a case to be made that senior Bush Administration officials were guilty of war crimes."


UPDATE:

Former Bush official: Waterboarding is torture

‘No doubt,’ says Tom Ridge, first Homeland Security secretary.

WASHINGTON - The first secretary of the Homeland Security Department says waterboarding is torture.

"There's just no doubt in my mind — under any set of rules — waterboarding is torture," Tom Ridge said Friday in an interview. Ridge had offered the same opinion earlier in the day to members of the American Bar Association at a homeland security conference.


"One of America's greatest strengths is the soft power of our value system and how we treat prisoners of war, and we don't torture," Ridge said in the interview. Ridge was secretary of the Homeland Security Department between 2003 and 2005. "And I believe, unlike others in the administration, that waterboarding was, is — and will always be — torture. That's a simple statement."

[snip]

Ridge, a lawyer, wades into the waterboarding debate with both a military and civilian background. He is also a former Pennsylvania governor and congressman. He has since started his own homeland security consulting firm.



"As a former soldier, I will tell you that we go to great pains, and a lot of men and women, who serve in the military at risk of their own lives, do everything they can to minimize civilian casualties and certainly do everything they can to respect the Geneva Convention."


Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22735168/