Bush Blackmails the Senate
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Friday threatened to veto a $440.2 billion defense spending bill in the Senate because it wasn’t enough money for the Pentagon and also warned lawmakers not to add any amendments to regulate the treatment of detainees or set up a commission to probe abuse. (link)
I’m speechless…almost.
“A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba … listed some of the wrongdoing: ‘Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.”
–Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker
–Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” The New Yorker
“I’m not a lawyer. My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture. … I don’t know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there’s been a conviction for torture. And therefore I’m not going to address the torture word.”
–Rumsfeld, Defense Department Operational Update Briefing, May 4, 2004
–Rumsfeld, Defense Department Operational Update Briefing, May 4, 2004
There is only one question to be asked: what are they hiding?
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