Start emailing this one around to the news media. Let's get as much publicity as possible for our War-Criminal-In-Chief.

Start emailing this one around to the news media. Let's get as much publicity as possible for our War-Criminal-In-Chief.

Get it to:

House Judiciary Committee (John Conyers) - http://judiciary.house.gov/

Senate Judiciary Committee (Patrick Leahy, Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden) - http://judiciary.senate.gov/

House Reform Committee (Henry Waxman) - http://democrats.reform.house.gov/

...and your own Representative and Senators.

he he he 

I send it to "le Monde" and "le Figaro" , two french major newspaper

being realistic here,  what will come of this?? the hannitys and limbaughs spent all last week dissing the ACLU.......the faux followers will disregard this story if it ever gets out to the MSM

It almost seems like they knew what was coming, doesn't it?

being realistic here,  what will come of this?? the hannitys and limbaughs spent all last week dissing the ACLU.......the faux followers will disregard this story if it ever gets out to the MSM

"Don't forget Air America Radio as well."

i live in the reddest area of a red state.....it's faux news or nothing....

you guys are my only real freinds i can learn from/ discuss stuff with....i get great "ammo" here!!

You can listen to it on the internet here. Just go to the bottom and click the link that says, "Click here to listen to AM620 KPOJ!"

Torture's Path
The paper trail is long, and it isn't pretty. But it's sure to produce some tough Senate questions for Alberto Gonzales
Bagged, tied and arrested: An Iraqi arrested around the time of an attack on U.S. soldiers in 2003

Dec. 27 / Jan. 3 issue - The CIA had a question for the top lawyers in the Bush administration: how far could the agency go in interrogating terror suspects—in particular, Abu Zubaydah, the close-mouthed Qaeda lieutenant who was resisting standard methods? So in July of 2002 the president's chief counsel, Alberto Gonzales, convened his colleagues in his cozy, wood-paneled White House office. One by one, the lawyers went over five or six pressure techniques proposed by the CIA. One such technique, a participant recalls, was "waterboarding" (making a suspect think he might drown). Another, mock burial, was nixed as too harsh. A third, the open-handed slapping of suspects, drew much discussion. The idea was "just to shock someone with the physical impact," one lawyer explained, with "little chance of bone damage or tissue damage." Gonzales and the lawyers also discussed in great detail how to legally justify such methods.

Among those at that first White House meeting was Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, who sat on a couch along the wall. And partly out of the discussions in Gonzales's office came the most notorious legal document to emerge from last spring's Abu Ghraib interrogation scandal. This was an Aug. 1, 2002, memo—drafted by Yoo, signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee and addressed to Gonzales—which provoked outrage among human-rights advocates by narrowly defining torture. The memo concluded, among other things, that only severe pain or permanent damage that was "specifically intended" constituted torture. Mere "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment did not qualify.

At the White House meeting, Gonzales was concerned about observing the law, the participant recalls. "We didn't want to go over the line," he says. But Gonzales's worry was: "Are we forward-leaning enough on this?" "That's a phrase I heard Gonzales use many times," recalls this lawyer. "Lean forward" had become a catchphrase for the administration's offensive approach to the war on terror. "And the second part of that statement was always, 'Prevent an attack, save lives.' If Gonzales had any role in this, it was to be the fair arbiter of 'Are we doing enough?'"

Such aggressiveness after 9/11 was typical for Alberto Gonzales, the soft-spoken Harvard Law graduate who has been George W. Bush's lawyer since the latter's days in the Texas governor's mansion. Gonzales's legal and ethical advice will be the focus of confirmation hearings next month on his nomination as Bush's second-term attorney general. In the first months after 9/11, Gonzales helped to craft some of the most momentous and controversial decisions of Bush's presidency. Among them: to create military commissions for the trials of terrorists, to designate U.S. citizens as "enemy combatants" and to disregard the Geneva Conventions in the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. But until now he has steered clear of the spotlight. "He's kind of an enigma," says one lawyer who worked with him. "His defining characteristic is loyalty to the president."

Yet memos reviewed by NEWSWEEK and interviews with key principals show that Gonzales's advice to the president reflected the bold views laid out in the Aug. 1 memo and other documents. Sources close to the Senate Judiciary Committee say a chief focus of the hearings will be Gonzales's role in the so-called "torture memo," as well as his legal judgment in urging Bush to sidestep the Geneva Conventions. In a Jan. 25, 2002, memo to Bush, Gonzales said the new war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners." Some State Department lawyers charge that Gonzales misrepresented so many legal considerations and facts (including hard conclusions by State's Southeast Asia bureau about the nature of the Taliban) that one lawyer considers the memo to be "an ethical breach." In response, a senior White House official says Gonzales's memo was only a "draft" and just one part of an extensive decision-making process in which all views were aired.

By several accounts, Gonzales and his team were constantly looking to push legal limits, to widen and maximize Bush's powers. Just two weeks after September 11, an earlier secret memo drafted by Yoo had landed on Gonzales's desk, arguing there were effectively "no limits" on Bush's powers to respond to the attacks. Startlingly, the memo said the president could deploy military force "pre-emptively" against terror groups or entire countries that harbored them, "whether or not they can be linked to the specific terror incidents of Sept. 11." The president's decisions "are for him alone and are unreviewable," the memo said. Never before disclosed, the Sept. 25, 2001, memo was quietly posted on an obscure government Web site late last week. The 15-page memo is the earliest known statement of Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive war.

Last June, Gonzales indicated he no longer held some of the extreme views of the president's "unlimited" powers first laid out in this memo. Amid the furor over the Abu Ghraib Prison photos that depicted Iraqis being abused and humiliated by U.S. soldiers, Gonzales insisted to reporters that the "torture" memo of Aug. 1 and other documents then making headlines were little more than "irrelevant" legal theorizing. It is not surprising why Gonzales was distancing himself: the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility recently launched an investigation into the origins of the Aug. 1 memo. The probe will look into whether the lawyers were irresponsible in pushing beyond the normal boundaries of advocacy. In a tense meeting last June, Jack Goldsmith, then head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, told Gonzales he was withdrawing the Aug. 1 memo. Goldsmith then resigned—at least partly due to his discomfort about the memo. It was only then that Gonzales decided to distance himself from it. (Goldsmith declined to comment.)

But there is no evidence that Gonzales ever rejected such reasoning before the Abu Ghraib scandal came to light. On the contrary, sources say, he and his staff relied heavily on John Yoo and his legal theories. Most observers still expect Gonzales to be confirmed by the GOP-majority Senate. Yet it's clear he'll face some tough questioning first.

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6733213/site/newsweek

I would send it my Senators....I am from TX. One may (and that is a big may) say something and the other, he would probably throw a party in his honor to celebrate his Texas roots. 

I love Tin-Tin and Snowy!

I can't believe this thread has actually sunk to the 3rd page of active topics!  Why isn't everyone all over this???

Perhaps, tht's the reason he dares not fire Rumsfeld. Perhaps, Rumsfeld knows that too and has some kind of hold on him???

George Castanza had a "shrinkage" problem, we have a "sinkage" problem.  My personal opinion is that people get obsessed with a handful of posts and do not take the time to sequentially read everthing by using "view new posts".  Glad you rescued it from the "cornfield".

Perhaps, tht's the reason he dares not fire Rumsfeld. Perhaps, Rumsfeld knows that too and has some kind of hold on him???

Anyway, I don't trust anyone who tries to use the Bible to show off how morally good they are versus others.  Always feel they have a lot of personal guilt to hide.

It's pretty frightening that news such as this doesn't make the headlines.

08:45 am
0:45 (est.) LIVE
Call-In
Inside: A Top G-Man Exposes the FBI
C-SPAN, Washington Journal
I. C. Smith , Federal Bureau of Investigation

Here is our opportunity to ask this agent about the FBI's involvement and get some exposure.

Democrats (202) 585-3881
Republicans (202) 585-3880
Others (202) 585-3882

The phone lines are always full, recommend calling  starting 5 minutes before.

Oh yeah?  How about ~300?
ACLU: President authorized interrogation
Washington Times, DC - 17 hours ago
The document is among those obtained from the government by the ACLU in a Freedom of Information Act suit in New York. A two-page ...
ACLU: President authorized interrogation Washington Times
FBI agents saw abuse of prisoners San Jose Mercury News (subscription)
Bush admits Guantanamo shattered US image Aljazeera.com
  - The Scotsman - all 289 related »

I'm out running errands and keeping appointments today, but I'm so glad this story is staying active.

Say a quick prayer, too, for the families of those killed and injured in the base at Mosul.  Friends of mine have husbands who are based out of there.  There were 22 killed, they aren't saying yet how many were American troops.

Do we still hang treasonists?  Impeachment may not be good enough for dubya.

NY Times running headline now
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/politics...artner=homepage

"Then, her boyfriend was saying that once information from higher administration came out it would help to clear him because they were acting under orders. ..."

Haven't some soldiers (enlisted) already been tried and convited and are sitting in prison cells?  Based on this new information, I hope the ACLU helps them to appeal.

"Will the Congress and Senate want to spare bush more embarrassment and instead of impeaching and removing him from office, may support the Ohio recount and let him go out less shamefully by showing that he simply lost the election?"

Interesting speculation.  An honorable man of religious convition would do that.

MSNBC has picked it up, too.  The headline isn't as clear as I'd like, but here's the link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6741220/

New F.B.I. Files Describe Abuse of Iraq Inmates
  By Neil A. Lewis and David Johnston
  The New York Times

  Tuesday 21 December 2004

  WASHINGTON - F.B.I. memorandums portray abuse of prisoners by American military personnel in Iraq that included detainees' being beaten and choked and having lit cigarettes placed in their ears, according to newly released government documents.

  The documents, released Monday in connection with a lawsuit accusing the government of being complicit in torture, also include accounts by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who said they had seen detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, being chained in uncomfortable positions for up to 24 hours and left to urinate and defecate on themselves. An agent wrote that in one case a detainee who was nearly unconscious had pulled out much of his hair during the night.

  One of the memorandums released Monday was addressed to Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, and other senior bureau officials, and it provided the account of someone "who observed serious physical abuses of civilian detainees" in Iraq. The memorandum, dated June 24 this year, was an "Urgent Report," meaning that the sender regarded it as a priority. It said the witness "described that such abuses included strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees' ear openings and unauthorized interrogations."

  The memorandum did not make clear whether the witness was an agent or an informant, and it said there had also been an effort to cover up the abuses. The writer of the memorandum said Mr. Mueller should be aware of what was occurring because "of potential significant public, media and Congressional interest which may generate calls to the director." The document does not provide further details of the abuse, but suggests that such treatment of prisoners in Iraq was the subject of an investigation conducted by the bureau's Sacramento office.

  Beyond providing new details about the nature and extent of abuses, if not the exact times or places, the newly disclosed documents are the latest to show that such activities were known to a wide circle of government officials.

  The documents, mostly memorandums written by agents to superiors in Washington over the past year, also include claims that some military interrogators had posed as F.B.I. officials while using harsh tactics on detainees, both in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay.

  In one memorandum, dated Dec. 5, 2003, an agent whose name is blanked out on the document expressed concern about military interrogators' posing as F.B.I. agents at the Guantánamo camp.

  The agent wrote that the memorandum was intended as an official record of the interrogators' behavior because, "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, D.O.D. interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done by 'F.B.I.' interrogators. The F.B.I. will be left holding the bag before the public." D.O.D. is an abbreviation for the Department of Defense.

  Asked about the possible impersonation of F.B.I. agents by military personnel, Bryan Whitman, the deputy Pentagon spokesman, said Monday that "It is difficult to determine from the secondhand description whether the technique" was permissible.

  The Pentagon did not offer any fresh reaction to the descriptions of alleged abuse. But it said in response to other recent disclosures that the Defense Department did not tolerate abusive tactics and that some of the allegations contained in such documents were under investigation.

  The documents were in the latest batch of papers to be released by the government in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups to determine the extent, if any, of American participation in the mistreatment of prisoners. The documents are the most recent in a series of disclosures that have increasingly contradicted the military's statements that harsh treatment of prisoners happened only in limited, isolated cases.

  Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the A.C.L.U., said the documents meant that "top government officials can no longer hide from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few low-ranking soldiers."

  Another message sent to F.B.I. officials including Valerie E. Caproni, the bureau's top lawyer, recounted witnessing detainees chained in interrogation rooms at Guantánamo, where about 550 prisoners are being held.

  The agent, whose name was deleted from the document, wrote on July 29, 2004: "On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18 24 hours or more."

  The agent said that on another occasion, the air-conditioning had been turned up so high that a chained detainee was shivering. The agent said the military police had explained by saying that interrogators from the previous day had ordered the treatment and "that the detainee was not to be moved."

  The agent also wrote: "On another occasion, the A/C had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room probably well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night."

  As in previously released memorandums in the case, F.B.I. officials expressed their deep concerns about seeing the use of interrogation techniques that they are prohibited from using in their own investigations.

  The Dec. 5, 2003, memorandum in which an agent frets about the F.B.I. being left "holding the bag," also asserted that the threats and abuses of one detainee did not produce any intelligence that could help thwart an attack. Further, the memorandum said other bureau officials believed that the harsh interrogation techniques would have meant that any chances of prosecuting the individual were destroyed because the evidence would have to be thrown out in court because it was coerced.

  The issue of military interrogators' impersonating F.B.I. agents was especially troubling to bureau officials, according to the memorandums, not least because they seem to have been unsuccessful in persuading the military to stop the practice.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122204Z.shtml

More Torture reports!!!!
Looks like it finally all coming out.

How are they able to recrut so much sadistic people??????? How can a soldier accept to do all this horrible things, to hurt people?????????
Look more and more like nazi Germany.....