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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 04/09/2010 : 04:35:12
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Why are not Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. in jail? Or at the very least, sweating out an indictment?
Bush ‘knew Guantanamo prisoners were innocent’
By Agence France-Presse
Friday, April 9th, 2010 -- 6:48 am
Former US president George W. Bush and his top aides were accused Friday of covering up that many Guantanamo Bay detainees were innocent, amid fears releasing them could harm the 'war on terror'.
The allegations were made in a document by Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, once chief of staff to Bush's first secretary of state, Colin Powell, in a lawsuit filed by a former Guantanamo inmate and published by The Times in London.
Wilkerson alleged Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld knew that most detainees held at the US detention camp in 2002 were innocent but believed it was "politically impossible to release them".
They were also keen to avoid revealing the "incredibly confused" detention operation, Wilkerson said, claiming prisoners were often rounded up by Afghan and Pakistani forces in return for cash, with little or no evidence as to why.
He alleged Cheney "had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees were innocent... If hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it".
Story continues below... |
It seems that week by week we learn more and more of just how slimy the former administration was.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Robb
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
 Posted - 04/09/2010 : 07:51:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Why are not Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. in jail? Or at the very least, sweating out an indictment?
Bush ‘knew Guantanamo prisoners were innocent’
By Agence France-Presse
Friday, April 9th, 2010 -- 6:48 am
Former US president George W. Bush and his top aides were accused Friday of covering up that many Guantanamo Bay detainees were innocent, amid fears releasing them could harm the 'war on terror'.
The allegations were made in a document by Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, once chief of staff to Bush's first secretary of state, Colin Powell, in a lawsuit filed by a former Guantanamo inmate and published by The Times in London.
Wilkerson alleged Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld knew that most detainees held at the US detention camp in 2002 were innocent but believed it was "politically impossible to release them".
They were also keen to avoid revealing the "incredibly confused" detention operation, Wilkerson said, claiming prisoners were often rounded up by Afghan and Pakistani forces in return for cash, with little or no evidence as to why.
He alleged Cheney "had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees were innocent... If hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it".
Story continues below... |
It seems that week by week we learn more and more of just how slimy the former administration was.
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Is there any documentation to back up their claims? |
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 04/09/2010 : 08:06:21 [Permalink]
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Nothing beyond the story itself, although I'm sure there is some yet unpublished. I recall reading about similar a couple of years back; Iraqis turning in their neighbors for a reward. It now appears that Col. Wilkerson is blowing the whistle.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 04/09/2010 : 10:16:29 [Permalink]
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Here is an article from June 2003 on the Selling of the War. So these accusations have been out there for a long time and have been made by many people.
Foreign policy is always difficult in a democracy. Democracy requires openness. Yet foreign policy requires a level of secrecy that frees it from oversight and exposes it to abuse. As a result, Republicans and Democrats have long held that the intelligence agencies--the most clandestine of foreign policy institutions--should be insulated from political interference in much the same way as the higher reaches of the judiciary. As the Tower Commission, established to investigate the Iran-Contra scandal, warned in November 1987, "The democratic processes ... are subverted when intelligence is manipulated to affect decisions by elected officials and the public."
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The decision to go to war with Iraq made soon after the September 11 atacks. The effort to sell the war bagan in earnest 1 year later. With a reliance on bad intelligence, cherry-picked intelligence, or fabricated intelligence. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 04/09/2010 : 17:24:10 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
I recall reading about similar a couple of years back; Iraqis turning in their neighbors for a reward. |
It's pretty common for Iraqis to falsely turn in their political (or otherwise) rivals to the Americans, that is to be expected when fighting enemies embedded in a population. 
Keeping them in Quantanamo for years without verifying is another story of course. It's essentially state-sponsored kidnapping. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
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This is ugly....
