The evidence that has been piling up lately about the Bush admin's search for a link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, especially having to do with the 9/11 attacks, cannot possibly be overlooked while trying to figure out what really happened and why these techniques were used.
Waterboarding was used over 180 times on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a fact that is known to many on this site.
Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded over 80 times in order to retrieve 10 pieces of intelligence, and they even tortured him before they had "permission" from the defunct Bush admin.
Looks like mcjoan beat me by a couple minutes:
This is all despicable, and to make it even more reprehensible, 5000 American soldiers have died due to the previous administrations wanton disregard for facts and the rule of law.
The facts that they needed to lead this nation into war were non-existent, so they tortured human beings into making false confessions about events and people of which they knew nothing.
The latest news coming out of the Dick Cheney world, is not news at all. In 2004 Cheney did an interview with the Rocky Mountain News(RIP), and admitted to a journalist that:
The (al Qaida-Iraq) links go back. We know for example from interrogating detainees in Guantanamo that al Qaida sent individuals to Baghdad to be trained in C.W. and B.W. technology, chemical and biological weapons technology. These are all matters that are there for anybody who wants to look at it.
Talking Points Memo, 5/18
This is straight out of the horse's mouth, yet many people refuse to understand that this was the exact reason that the torture memos came out in the first place. The Bush Admin needed a reason to go to war, so any confession, either true of false, would back up the reasoning used in the Bybee and Yoo memos.
We have known for years that the Bush Admin, along with Cheney and Rumsfeld, would go to any lengths to create that fabled link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda would not have a serious presence in Iraq until America invaded and destroyed their central infrastructure.
So what Lawrence Wilkerson recently said concerning torture comes as no surprise, and the fact that he is willing to shed light on this issue is very brave of him.
I have always been a strong supporter of the current administration, and have rushed to its defense many times both in private and public.
With that in mind, the way things are trending are very concerning to both myself and many in this community I have come to appreciate and respect. The steps taken to this point on a whole host of other issues have made me both heartened and proud of President Obama and the administration.
Torture, however, is a completely different issue. The decision on the presidents part to not release Abu Ghraib photos came as a sparking point here at Dkos. The issue is not about past abuses as President Obama says, but about the future safety of Americans.
What is lost many times in this discussion, is the future ability of American Presidents to authorize torture, and until we have a precedent set on the abuses to detainees and the illegality of torture, there will be a possibility that anyone who authorizes torture in the future will be able to get away with it, just as Bush co. did.
Demand a Special Prosecutor and justice brought to not only those who did this, but those who would torture men and lie to the American public.