Mark Danner: Bush Lied About Torture of Prisoners

[kpete]

Source: Democracy Now

Mark Danner: Bush Lied About Torture of Prisoners
Bush-torture-speech06web

The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report two years ago that the Bush administration’s treatment of prisoners “constituted torture” in violation of the Geneva Conventions. The findings were based on interviews with prisoners once held in the CIA’s secret black sites. Author and journalist Mark Danner broke the story when he published extensive excerpts of the report in the New York Review of Books. The Red Cross said the fourteen prisoners held in the CIA prisons gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding.

...........

AMY GOODMAN: We move on to a breaking story, the International Committee of the Red Cross concluding in a secret report, yes, it was two years ago that the Bush administration’s treatment of prisoners “constituted torture” in violation of the Geneva Conventions—the findings based on interviews with prisoners once held in the CIA’s secret black sites.

But the revelation was just made this weekend when the author and journalist Mark Danner published extensive excerpts of the Red Cross report in the New York Review of Books. In the article, Danner quotes from a speech President Bush delivered from the White House on September 6th, 2006. Danner writes, the speech is “perhaps the only historic speech Bush ever gave.” In it, Bush admitted the US was using what he called “an alternative set of procedures” to interrogate terrorism suspects.

....................

MARK DANNER: So, I think anyone who looks at the report or reads the extracts in the New York Review of Books article can have no doubt, first of all, that the United States tortured prisoners and, secondly, that this activity was illegal and constituted a breach of international and domestic law.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Mark Danner, did President Bush lie?

MARK DANNER: Yes. Yeah, he did.

................

MARK DANNER: Well, I think that there are a number of things you can say about torture. The first thing is that it’s illegal, very illegal, under international and domestic law. The second thing you can say is that it’s politically damaging, enormously damaging, particularly in a war, the so-called war on terror, which is a political war. It’s essentially a worldwide counterinsurgency in which you are trying to persuade young Muslims, first of all, not to support al-Qaeda, not to join al-Qaeda, not to support a war, an insurgency, against the United States. So it’s politically damaging and illegal. These things are a matter of record. Third, it makes justice impossible. You end up with a bunch of prisoners in Guantanamo who, because they’ve been tortured, cannot be prosecuted.

VIDEO and Transcript
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/18/mark_danner_bush_lied_about_torture

Read more: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/18/mark_danner_bush_lied_about_torture

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

1. Why

am I not surprised?

[valerief]

2. Bush lied about EVERYTHING. nt

[Lint Head]

3. Of course he did. Bush is a criminal that got away with murder.

He has no conscience. His own wife ran a stop sign, killed her ex-boyfriend then the details were covered up to protect her.
Bush's cocaine use and AWOL status was covered up by daddy.

This is a family of narcissistic elitists that thinks DEATH is the answer to every issue. Katrina delayed - death. Lies to attack Iraq - death. No health care - death. The list is endless.
This criminal will not go to jail.

We live in a country where the rich and powerful do not have to obey the law unless they steal money from other rich and powerful people.

Everybody else is just screwed.

[L. Coyote]

4. Bush stole the US Presidency in Florida 2000. Reagan had the October Surprise.

Who do you suppose killed the Kennedys?

[Lint Head]

5. How long has the executive assassination squad that Cheney

used been in place? They obviously exist.
:dem:

[LynnTheDem]

6. We've known that for quite some time. Which is why the cheney Dick is out in force

now, trying to drown out the truth of torture by insisting America's torture is a good thing.

[Jefferson23]

7. I agree, I do hope he is sweating, even if it is just a little bit.

[L. Coyote]

10. They ae sweating more than we can imagine. They know what has yet to come out!!

Wait until the truth REALLY comes out!!

[bottomtheweaver]

11. Apparently Cheney got on the telly within hours to shake the terra stick:

AMY GOODMAN: Mark Danner, hours after you published excerpts of the Red Cross report, former Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on CNN. He was asked whether he believed President Obama was making Americans less safe by abandoning some of the Bush administration’s, quote, “counterterrorism techniques.”

DICK CHENEY: I think those programs were absolutely essential to the success we enjoyed of being able to collect the intelligence that let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9/11. I think that’s a great success story. It was done legally. It was done in accordance with our constitutional practices and principles. President Obama campaigned against it all across the country. And now he’s making some choices that, in my mind, will in fact raise the risk to the American people of another attack.

AMY GOODMAN: Mark Danner, your response?

MARK DANNER: Well, first of all, one should say that the Vice President has said this repeatedly. . . .

The second thing one can say is there’s a political aspect to this, which I alluded to earlier, which again is very clear, that the former Republican Vice President is laying down a kind of marker, saying, “OK, you can get rid of these techniques, fine, but if there’s another attack, we’re going to be in a position not only to claim that you are responsible for it, having gotten rid of these techniques that protected the country, that other attack will in effect prove that what we did was necessary.”
....................................

That last remark worries me. I've come to the painful conclusion that 911 was wholly an intel operation, and I hope Obama has the fortitude to (a) resist any appeal to authorize another such operation and (b) bring to swift justice any military, intel, or mercenary agency that carries one out without his explicit authorization. But that isn't going to be easy.

[loveandlight]

12. you are on the money with this one

I too think 911 was a setup, allowed to happen. And I am afraid they can do it again. As we have seen in the history of this country, anyone who poses a threat to the powers that be, and that doesn't mean elected officials, it means the likes of Cheney and his buddies who are really running things behind the scenes, well, they had better be prepared for death and worse, like 911, a direct attack on our country. I think President Obama is trying to set this country right after all the Bush years and Reagan years. He is butting up against a powerful force that has been running this country for quite some time. They have become too greedy and out of control under Bush/Cheney, and this country cannot take it any more financially. However, there is only so far they will allow him to go before he is vulnerable just as others have been to being gotten rid of, and I mean that in the worst sense, think both John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and others. I get very scared to think of that.

[bottomtheweaver]

15. Yes, I think he must be aware of that.

That he's gotten this far means he's learned to at least placate them and that's a start. Whether and when he feels he's in a position to challenge them is hard to predict, but I do feel that he's working toward at least a partial dismantling of the ridiculous death machine we've turned ourselves into.

[Judi Lynn]

17. I worry that they'll be able to keep it buried forever, one way or another.

I really hope it will be exposed. They operated as if they were actually allowed to do anything to anyone with absolutely no responsibility to act in moral, and decent ways. They acted as if they were acting as private citizens with no authority above them, ever again, as if they were completely home free, permanently.

I have never seen, nor imagined more primitive people than _Bush, Cheney, and their fanatical cabinet, employees. They have NO ethics whatsoever, and they ran our country, with no resistance. What a pity.

[gratuitous]

8. Oh big deal, Bush lied about torturing people

Did you know that Bill Clinton lied about getting a hummer from a young woman? Which is more important? John Conyers said that he almost decided to do something about Bush torturing people and then lying about it - isn't that enough for you libruls?

[Supersedeas]

13. Hummer leads to impeachment; Lying about human rights/international law leads to cozy dinners on

Treasure Island

[ConcernedCanuk]

9. LOL - - "did President Bush lie?" - only when his lips were moving

.
.
.

USAmericans should be shooting themselves and each other by the millions for letting him run(ruin) their country for 8 years

AND

The BFEE has created more enemies across the pond by killing their fathers/mothers/brothers/sisters/friends for the last two decades

OH YEAH

They will remember the USA War-Machine

and they will be back . . .

USA killed itself.

[libodem]

14. Well, go figure

I'll be damned.

[No Elephants]

16. Um, the INtern'l Red Cross concluded in a SECRET report? Is covering up the deeds of those

who torture any part of the mission of the International Red Cross?

We have a lot of info about Bush and torture, but the actions of the International Red Cross in this are news to me, and very disturbing news at that.

Will the International Red Cross be enlightening us on its reasoning about secrecy?