With the full knowledge and agreement of the Bush Administration, interrogation methods that violate the Geneva Convention (i.e. torture) were used multiple times on detainees at multiple locations.
The justification for these egregious acts was that they were necessary to prevent additional terrorist attacks on the US, after the intelligence gathering methods previously employed by the Bush Administration had failed to prevent the 9/11 attack.
Several members of congress, including Nancy Pelosi have said that the information on these activities provided by the CIA was not specific enough to alert them to the fact that torture was in fact being used, not just available for use if needed.
Porter Goss, former GOP congressman who was also present at the same briefings attended by Pelosi and others, has not denied that what his colleges have said is true. He has however taken issue with their inability to "understand" what the CIA was implicitly telling them.
This should be a no-brainer. The Bushies are criminals and should be held accountable. But that’s not the way the meme is developing. Instead, it’s all about how the Democrats are to blame. The Republicans have turned an air-tight case against Bush as a war criminal into a brouhaha the size of Montana by monopolizing the media, spewing outrage from every orifice, and demanding Pelosi’s resignation. Because in their opinion she is a liar. The fact she has accused a government agency, (whose very business is subterfuge) of not being exactly straight with her and other members of congress, is designed to transform her into the real criminal and convince the public to ignore the little man behind the curtain.
If there ever was a mountain constructed from a rodent’s den, this is it. And it is working beautifully to distract everyone from the real issue – that Bush tortured people.
I just can’t understand why the Dems are still listening to this and all the other Republican campfire stories (terrorists loose in our streets if Gitmo closes, Obama is making us less safe, the Dems are socialists, you’d better be packin’ if expect to come out of a National Park alive, etc. etc.) - and reacting to all that boogeda-boogeda like it’s something real.
I’m so disgusted with the way the democratic leadership is conducting themselves, I could puke. Ignore all that white noise already and grow a pair. Respond to all the Rethug scare tactics with some of your own (like the real facts).
Obama’s doing the best he can as the voice of reason in all this insanity, but he’s got real work to do, and he can’t be giving speeches and holding press conferences every other day to keep the message going. He could use some help, which you are not giving him.
So Democratic leadership, I’m calling you out. Stop falling for the Republican booby traps, get off your asses, and get busy moving telling the American people what is really going on. Stand up for your leader and what is right, instead of tying his hands behind his back by cutting off funding for the Guantanamo closing. Stop putting Obama in an untenable position by allowing a wacko gun amendment to be attached to a much needed credit card regulation bill. Get your act together and start doing what we elected you to do – move the Obama agenda forward!