Connecting the Dots to Donald Rumsfeld

[babylonsister]

http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/4/22/23258/2664

Connecting the Dots to Donald Rumsfeld

by Charles Lemos, Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 02:32:58 AM EST

"What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight ... is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings. "- General David Petraeus, May 10, 2007

It runs 263 pages and it makes for chilling if mystifying reading on a hotter than hell San Francisco night. Formally its title is An Inquiry Into The Treatment of Detainees in US Custody (pdf.) and it is the result of an 18-month inquiry by Senate Armed Services Committee chaired by Carl Levin of Michigan.

The Levin Report documents how some of the techniques -- stripping detainees, placing them in "stress positions" or depriving them of sleep - used by the American military at prisons in Afghanistan, in Iraq and at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba originated in a series of high-level meetings in 2002, without a single dissent from Cabinet members or lawmakers even though several branches of the US military cited "serious concerns regarding the legality of many of the proposed techniques" and stated that "techniques described may be subject to challenge as failing to meet the requirements outlined in the military order to treat detainees humanely..."

The Levin Report shows that largely at the request of then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that the United States for the first time officially embraced the brutal methods of interrogation it had always condemned and had long felt to hold no intelligence value.

snip//

In short, the decision to torture was a political decision, not a military one. Secretary Rumsfeld approved 15 interrogation techniques. Moreover, Secretary Rumsfeld authorized the techniques without apparently providing any written guidance as to how they should be administered. "The paper trail on abuse leads to top civilian leaders, and our report connects the dots," Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said on Tuesday in a conference call with reporters. "This report, in great detail, shows a paper trail going from that authorization" by Secretary Rumsfeld "to Guantánamo to Afghanistan and to Iraq," Mr. Levin said.

Now this weekend's ruminations on Fox News with Sean Hannity by former Vice President Dick Cheney make more sense, he is in a panic to protect his old chum Donald Rumsfeld. The right-wing is crying foul suggesting that this marks a "politicization" of intelligence. I regret to inform them that already took place the moment Donald Rumsfeld chose to make torture an instrument of state policy.

[HereSince1628]

1. There is no room to get in a connecting line when the dots are 300 DPI

I can't believe the DOJ lacks the evidence they need for a special investigation into war crimes.

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. 15 methods of torture n/t

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. k

[ThirdWorldJohn]

4. Cheney Rumsfeld Rice Powell Ashcroft All Met in the White Houise To Ok Waterboarding

According to the sources, Mr Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, then Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Attorney General John Ashcroft met in the White House following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

They agreed to authorise what they call "enhanced interrogation techniques" as the Bush administration has defined "torture" only as actions which are designed to cause serious injury or death.

However, experts have said that waterboarding is so horrific that even the most hardened terrorists have not been able to stand it for more than a minute without begging to talk.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-558812/Dick-Cheney-Condoleezza-Rice-authorised-waterboarding-torture-Al-Qaeda-prisoners.html

[JohnnyLib2]

5. K & R

Top of the chain.