April 12, 2008
Bush admits to approving torture. Here's your motherfucking smoking gun, guys. Case closed. 'Bad apples' theory debunked. The President approved the violation of the Geneva convention:
"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."
[snip]
The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.
What the hell is it going to take to get some oversight on this shit? I really can't believe that Bush has just come out and admitted to this. Read the whole thing. My favorite part:
Ashcroft was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.
According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."
Ashcroft is slowly turning into the voice of moderation and sanity in the first Bush administration. And nothing terrifies me about this country more than that.
From what I gather, kind of both--it sounded like he was the most hesitant one on many of the practices, but was also very well aware that discussing it in the WH was a really, really bad idea that would come back to haunt them.
more from fdl on this. I didn't know that there was existing US case law establishing waterboarding as legally constituting toruture.
And this week's this modern world is, as it often is, completely spot on on this issue.
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Was he arguing against it happening, or against discussing that it was happening?
posted by mrflip at 05:00PM CST on April 12