Rumsfeld responsible for detainee abuse: Senate report

[CptSternn]

http://tinyurl.com/5jgfk4

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top administration officials are responsible for abuse of detainees in US custody, a bipartisan Senate report said.

"Rumsfeld's authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there" and "influenced and contributed to the use of abusive techniques... in Afghanistan and Iraq," the report concluded.

It said Rumsfeld authorized harsh interrogation techniques on December 2, 2002 at the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, although he ruled them out a month later.

"The message from top officials was clear; it was acceptable to use degrading and abusive techniques against detainees," said Democratic Senator Carl Levin, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee that produced the report.

"Attempts by senior officials to pass the buck to low-ranking soldiers while avoiding any responsibility for abuses are unconscionable."

The committee focused much of its nearly two-year investigation on the Defense Department's use of controversial interrogation techniques, including stress positions, forced nudity, sleep deprivation and waterboarding, or simulated drowning.

"Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies and compromised our moral authority," said the report, most of which remained classified.

The coercive techniques first originated from a memo President George W. Bush signed on February 7, 2002, that declared the Geneva Convention's norms for humane treatment of prisoners did not apply to Al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees, according to the report.

Top administration officials, including then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, participated in meetings on the harsh interrogation techniques as early as that spring, the report said.

The Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) training techniques, designed to teach US troops how to resist enemy interrogations, were the template for detainee interrogation.

The report, approved unanimously by voice vote last month in the committee, found it "particularly troubling" for senior officials to have approved the use of techniques "modeled, in part, on tactics used by the Communist Chinese to elicit false confessions from US military personnel."

The adoption of SERE techniques was "inexcusable," said Senator John McCain of Arizona, a ranking Republican on the committee and a former prisoner of war in Vietnam.

"These policies are wrong and must never be repeated."

McCain lost the US presidential election last month to Barack Obama, who has vowed to close the Us "war on terror" prison in Guantanamo Bay.

[CptSternn]

Now the question is, what will they do with those who were involved? Personally, I think they should also prosecute interrogators who participated in the interrogations. I mean, the 'I was only following orders' defence didn't work for the nazis, why should it work for these guys?

[Albert Mond]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

Now the question is, what will they do with those who were involved? Personally, I think they should also prosecute interrogators who participated in the interrogations. I mean, the 'I was only following orders' defence didn't work for the nazis, why should it work for these guys?

Because they're Americans and are automatically exempt from War Crime charges. Just look at Bush.

[PinstripesAndPithHelmets]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

Now the question is, what will they do with those who were involved? Personally, I think they should also prosecute interrogators who participated in the interrogations. I mean, the 'I was only following orders' defence didn't work for the nazis, why should it work for these guys?

It actually did work for the majority of Nazis.

[Drake Dun]

And this after the news that the Blackwater thugs might actually get a full blown slap on the wrist or even, the horror! , time out in the corner for their little mass homicide. The hits just keep on coming.

Rumsfeld will never face the music, of course. But some day when the human race starts putting people in power - not just people who were in power until some greater power knocked them down a rung - but really people in power, on trial and sending them up for their crimes, we'll really be able to say we've emerged from the long dark nightmare of history.

Rare stories like this keep alive the hope that such a thing is at least concievable.

[PinstripesAndPithHelmets]

Originally Posted by Drake Dun

Rare stories like this keep alive the hope that such a thing is at least concievable.

I fear that that hope is all we'll get, in my lifetime at least.

[gonny]

hope a better article

[KontanKarite]

Nothing will happen. If a trial is had, it will be had, but essentially nothing will happen.

Since I've been on this site, I have seen almost countless claims by my fellow leftists that this guy did this and that guy did that...

You know what, even if you're right, pointing fingers and blaming people for bullshit isn't going to change a damned thing.

...Sternn, I like you, in a way. I see you post article after article after article. I see you blame this country's leaders for horrendous things. Yet... words fall of deaf ears. You are doing nothing. Words are only as strong as the actions that follow them. When you're dead and gone, you will know that justice wont be found because no one is dispensing it.

Okay, the Bush administration is the bane of this world's existence. We get it. Now what? What do you expect to accomplish? Who do you expect to do the actions necessary for proper justice. What does America deserve, Sternn? What do you think is just for what has happened? Yes, the USA has done some sick shit in this past decade and you know what? NO ONE is brave enough to fight back. Realize that. Because you will NOT convince truly evil men to realize their wrongs with just words.

[ThreeEyesOni]

Nothing will really come of this.

Unless you had video evidence of Rumsfeld sticking electric wires into some poor bastards balls, the guy wouldn't even do jail time. I think it's reasonable to expect that he will be barred from future political office, but even that is my slowly-dieing optomism.

And really I couldn't care less. The chances of any of these guys getting another swing through this kind of political and military power is slim to none, so it is mostly an issue of the past.

[Zavulon]

I don't know about Rumsfield I think wheelcheney was the head puppeteer when it comes to that administration

wheelcheney=emperor
rumsfield=vader
biush=tarkin

[peacebear5028]

Rumsfeld was always the kind of man, to me anyways, who appeared to have a few loose pieces rolling around in his oddly shaped skull.

This has only reinforced my theory.