By Any Means Necessary

Why did Condoleezza Rice, John D. Ashcroft and at least 10 other Bush officials review and approve in the summer of 2002 the use of torture on people kidnapped and held by the bush administration at secret prisons? To protect the homeland? To stop attacks on our troops overseas?

No.

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees to find nonexistent evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime. A former senior U.S. intelligence official said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration. Interestingly, Condi Rice gave her approval to torture two weeks before (current Federal Judge) Jay Bybee completed his memo allowing the CIA to torture Abu Zubaydah, so the notion that the Bush torture regime was doing so pursuant to legal authorization is yet another lie.

From the horse's mouth:
There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.


Many in government and the SCLM are resisting the notion of investigating the torture policies of the United States during the Bush years, arguing that no one knew any better. This “we all failed” stuff is just bullshit.


There are plenty of dirty fucking hippies who opposed the craziness every step of the way, Including the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, who pulled his men out of the field and told his people that they would not participate in these tactics, showing that some in law enforcement still respect the law; and that doing so is a prerequisite for others to do so as well.

Oh, and this guy:
"The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment. I call on all nations to speak out against torture in all its forms and to make ending torture an essential part of their diplomacy."