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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 12/20/14

Top 10 Torturer List Actually Includes Hundreds or More

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Reprinted from Reader Supported News

Obviously guilty: two presidents and much of two administrations

CIA torture programs and interrogation tactics implemented by Dick Cheney and the George W. Bush administration
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According to recent polling, something like half of all Americans who were asked questions weighted to support torture answered that the torture was "justified." The good news here is that something like half of all Americans, responding to push-poll type questions, still aren't willing to say the government is justified in torturing in their name.

The more serious question is why "respected" polling organizations use biased questions and why "respected" news organizations report the results uncritically. ABC News/Washington Post asks about "treatment of suspected terrorists" (no hint that innocents were tortured). Pew frames the question with "the September 11th terrorist attacks" (no hint the torture went on for years after). CBS News uses a false choice, "sometimes justified" versus "never justified," as well as calling the victims "suspected terrorists." HuffPost also uses "suspected terrorists" and adds "details about future terrorist attacks" to load the question further (no hint that no such person with such details has yet been identified).

In other words, we have dishonest polling organizations asking dishonest questions that dishonest media report as if they were not dishonest. And still something like half of the manipulated poll-takers are unwilling to endorse torture. That is a source of hope. Especially if some pollster would ask people if they think torture is legal anywhere?

Or maybe some pollster could ask people if they know how many times Bush and members of his administration have been convicted as war criminals for committing torture and other cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of people. The answer is: once. In 2012, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission tried Bush and seven others in absentia. Bush and the others refused to participate. Kuala Lumpur's attempts to arrest Bush in Canada were blocked by the Canadian government.

George Bush and Dick Cheney knew perfectly well that what they wanted others to do in their name was both torture and illegal; that's why they went to such lengths to get compliant lawyers to call it something else and say that other thing was legitimate. So the list has to begin with them. Where it ends is a long way beyond 10. Everyone on the list is almost surely a participant or accomplice in years of torture. Each, at a minimum, needs to be publicly examined under oath, subject to all relevant law, including perjury.

Top 10 Government Torturers, 2001-2014

1. George Bush. As president, he's accountable for all the acts of his administration, especially the ones he ordered and/or approved. An anonymous CIA spokesman says Bush "fully authorized torture." Karl Rove says Bush knew about and approved of torture, and participated in it, as did Rove. Dick Cheney says Bush knew and approved. In early 2008, Bush vetoed legislation designed to control the CIA, including a ban on waterboarding. Congress failed to over-ride the veto. Bush was convicted in Kuala Lumpur in 2012.

2. Dick Cheney. The vice president says he knew, he approved, and he would "do it again in a minute." He has famously promoted "the dark side." He was convicted in Kuala Lumpur in 2012.

3. Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor, knew, approved, and participated. She has pleaded bad memory to Congress, but still publicly defends torture now. Her assistant and successor, Stephen J. Hadley, was either in the loop or unbelievably feckless, as were an unknown number of staffers and members of the National Security Council.

4. Andrew Card, White House chief of staff, knew, approved, and participated, even though he's a Life Boy Scout. Why should Card, who accuses Barack Obama of misleading the American people, continue as president of Franklin Pierce University? Card's successor, Joshua Bolten, and an unknown number of other White House staffers are almost surely accomplices. The son of a CIA father, Bolten is a lawyer who teaches at Princeton despite his ties to torture as well as a contempt of Congress citation for stonewalling in another matter. Bolten is also co-chair of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, a non-profit organization that's supposedly helping a country the U.S. has tortured for the better part of two centuries.

5. Alberto Gonzales. As White House Counsel, and later as Attorney General, he not only knew, approved, and participated, he was one of the main legal apologists for the torture regime. His successors, Harriet Miers, an especially close Bush aide, and Fred Fielding, a Watergate survivor thought by some to be Deep Throat, both likely knew and remained silent about official torture. Fielding stonewalled Senate requests for documents relating to torture. Gonzales was convicted in Kuala Lumpur in 2012. Why should they not be disbarred?

6. Jay Bybee. As an Assistant Attorney General under the late (but guilty) John Ashcroft, Bybee was in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, the office that decides what's legal, subject to reversal only by the attorney general or the president. Bybee was the midwife of Bush torture policy justifications, a number of legal memoranda that allowed the Bush administration to claim that torture and other crimes were legal. These are generally known as the "Torture Memos" and illustrate the workings of a fine legal mind operating without conscience. Before some of his torture memos became public, Bybee was confirmed to a lifetime appointment as a federal judge. In 2013, Judge Bybee ruled, in an apparently gross conflict of interest, that government personnel should be immune from any liability for torture. Why should he not be disbarred? Or impeached? Bybee was convicted in Kuala Lumpur in 2012.

7. John Yoo. Working in the Office of Legal Counsel under Bybee, Yoo was the prime author of several of the torture memos, built on the philosophical premise that there are no constraints on the president's power as commander-in-chief (a legal coup d'etat effectively rendering the Constitution irrelevant and the president omnipotent, all done in secret). In 2005, Yoo publicly affirmed the authority of the president to order the crushing of an innocent child's testicles. In 2009, Barack Obama revoked Yoo's torture memos, but in 2010 a secret proceeding in the Justice Department "cleared" Yoo of wrongdoing. These days, Yoo continues to protect torturers in the White House, while shifting any blame to the CIA. He continues to teach lat at the University of California, Berkeley. Why should he not be disbarred? He was convicted in Kuala Lumpur in 2012.

8. David Addington. Legal counsel (and later chief of staff) to Dick Cheney, Addington was by many accounts among the hardest of the hardliners driving to the dark side, backed by Cheney's full authority. He knew, he approved, and he participated in U.S. torture program and their legal fig leaves. His predecessor as chief of staff, lawyer Scooter Libby, also knew, approved, and participated in torture. He was convicted of perjury about other government crimes and disbarred (temporarily). Addington is now a vice president at the Heritage Foundation. He was convicted in Kuala Lumpur in 2012. Why should he not be disbarred?

9. Donald Rumsfeld. As Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld knew, approved and participated in torture programs wherever the military went. Abu Ghraib. Bagram. Guantanamo. And other places, some unknown. Rumsfeld expresses no remorse, least of all in the documentary "The Unknown Known." Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, knew, approved, and participated in torture programs, seeking information to justify the war on Iraq. He is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. William Haynes, general counsel for the Defense Department, knew, approved, and participated in torture programs. For trying Guantanamo prisoners, Haynes designed the military commissions that were later ruled unconstitutional. In a 2002 memo, Haynes blocked further waterboarding of Guantanamo prisoners, citing the Armed Forces "tradition of restraint." Rumsfeld and Haynes were convicted in Kuala Lumpur. Why should Haynes not be disbarred?

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Vermonter living in Woodstock: elected to five terms (served 20 years) as side judge (sitting in Superior, Family, and Small Claims Courts); public radio producer, "The Panther Program" -- nationally distributed, three albums (at CD Baby), some (more...)
 
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