The Architect Of Abu Ghraib

No longer up for debate: did he, didn't he, did he know? The Senate's bipartisan report, issued with no dissents, reiterates and adds factual context to what we already know. And there is no equivocation in the report. Bush tortured. And there is no statute of limitations for war crimes.

Via Andrew Sullivan:

Those ghastly pctures of naked, hooded prisoners? Bush approved nudity and hooding of prisoners. Hypothermia? Sleep deprivation? Bush signed a memo removing the most baseline protections for all human beings under the Geneva Conventions. Waterboarding? Bush knew full well. As did Rice and Tenet and Powell and that poseur in defense of human rights, Paul Wolfowitz. But even before the memo, before any prisoners were captured, the Bush administration was working on how to torture them:

"In December 2001, more than a month before the President signed his memorandum, the Department of Defense (DoD) General Counsel’s Office had already solicited information on detainee “exploitation” from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), an agency whose expertise was in training American personnel to withstand interrogation techniques considered illegal under the Geneva Conventions."

Let's be absolutely clear what this means: When we saw an image of Lynndie England pulling a naked prisoner around on a leash, we assumed at the time that she improvised this, or was some kind of "bad apple." This is and was a conscious lie to the Congress, and to the American people, and to the world. The person who authorized the use of nudity and leashes on prisoners was not Lynndie England or any of the other grunts thrown to the wolves.

The man who directly authorized the technique shown below, who violated international law and our Constitution, was the President of the United States. She was just doing her job:



Notice the total near silence form the Republicans?

Source: Daily Dish