Roy Arpaio openly bragged about his concentration camps for immigrants. When Donald Trump pardoned him, it made a mockery not only of the pardon power, but also legal norms within and beyond the United States. By Trump’s logic, torture is okay even when the offending state is North Korea and the victim is an American…
The Central Intelligence Agency thought for months that it had mistakenly shredded a massive U.S. Senate report on its use of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” before suddenly discovering that its copy had not been lost after all, an agency official said on Tuesday.
Trump’s presidency, with its emphasis on law and order, is trying to sell us the idea that a repressive society is a free society.
If Trump signs the order, the results will be the polar opposite of his jingoistic claim to “make America safe again.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is calling on the American people to defend American values by fighting back against President Trump’s plan to bring back torture.
If testimony by some of his nominees this week is an indicator, Trump’s pledge to torture people may, thankfully, be in trouble.
“We can’t do waterboarding, it’s far too tough! We’re fighting on a different level! we have to be tough…and in some cases pretty vicious”
Ben Carson made the stunning claim that upholding international law by not torturing people is caving to political correctness.
The vote in the Republican-controlled Senate on Monday was an overwhelming bipartisan statement that the President’s 2009 executive order banning torture must be ensconced in permanent law to prevent a Republican administration’s repeat performance in the future.
Betty Bowers nails Dick Cheney by pointing out that for him, rectal feeding “is just eating through his mouth.” That explains a lot!
Instead of shame and humiliation that this government condoned and defended myriad human rights violations, one of the architects of torture, Dick Cheney and several Bush officials hit the airwaves defending torture with overwhelming support from the religious right.
The Times says this is “about ensuring that this never happens again and regaining the moral credibility to rebuke torture by other governments”
The hypocrisy of this nation co-sponsoring a resolution condemning anyone country for human rights abuses (torture) is beyond the pale. Particularly in light of the recent Senate Intelligence Report verifying what the world has known for several years; America is guilty of committing gross human rights abuses on its own citizens and “suspected terrorists” held in captivity.
Conservatives have proffered every possible scenario to justify torture, including Supreme Court Justice Scalia invoking a fictional television counter-terrorism agent, Jack Bauer, torturing alleged terror suspects to stop a fictional attack on America.
As one would expect from criminals, many Republicans, George W. Bush, and former Bush administration officials in charge of the torture program condemned the Senate’s report as a biased attempt to rewrite history.
Former Republican Congressman and current conservative radio host Joe Walsh appeared on CNN Wednesday morning to discuss his tweets and comments in the aftermath of the release of the Senate’s report on the CIA’s use of torture.
The chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee responsible for the report, Senator Dianne Feinstein, is incensed over the CIA’s fight to release the report which included revelations the CIA spied on and infiltrated the Senate committee investigating the Bush-Cheney torture program.
George W. Bush, has made his presence known with two appearances over the past week, and it is likely because the statute of limitations to convict the war criminal are set to expire in two months.
Under the pretense of defending diversity, Bush torture policy guru John Yoo came out in favor of a diversity of war criminals.
The comparison to Bush’s torture program is categorically false – not only from a legal standpoint on the use of drones vs. the use of torture, but also with respect to transparency and oversight.
During questioning by Senator Diane Feinstein at his confirmation hearing, John Brennan confirmed once again that torture did not lead us to bin Laden.
After noting that he intends to interrogate Kerry mercilessly, McCain went on to say. ‘We will bring back for the only time waterboarding to get the truth out of him.’
The torture debate is making an encore performance with the buzz around ‘Zero Dark Thirty’, a fictional account of Osama Bin Laden’s capture, based on first-hand accounts reportedly from the CIA.
Though Bush et al have escaped justice, we have prosecuted Americans who torture in the past and continue to do so – at least when the perpetrators are local officials.
The court gave John Yoo immunity, bringing an end to a lawsuit brought by Jose Padillo claiming that he was tortured while under Military detention under John Yoo’s authority.
Senate releases a statement obliterating claims by Jose Rodriguez and others that torture was a “central component” leading to success in the operation against Osama (Usama) Bin Laden.
Romney’s desire to take us back to the Bush Administration’s foreign policy is a reminder that politics plays cruel jokes on humanity.
