Kevin Zeese, an attorney and board member of Velvet Revolution, a Washington, D.C. based non-profit organization, describes torture as a “poison in our body politic” and that it must not be ignored (0:14).
Kevin Zeese, an attorney and board member of Velvet Revolution, a Washington, D.C. based non-profit organization, states that if President Obama does not prosecute the lawyers who defended torture in the Bush administration then he would be in violation of the law (0:25).
Bruce Fein, a prominent civil rights lawyer and former attorney under President Ronald Reagan, criticizes President Obama for ignoring torture war crimes rather than prosecuting those involved. He likens President Obama’s administration to the Soviet Union and China (0:25).
By Mariko Lamb- Talk Radio News Service
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) urged President Barack Obama to establish a commission to investigate the use of enhanced interrogation techniques during a press conference today.
NRCAT is headed by a collaboration of prominent religious leaders of various denominations. Despite differences in religious faith, all leaders and advocates of the campaign expressed the same views that if the U.S. acted in a way that could be considered torture, then it should be identified, eliminated, and prevented. Each leader or delegate found a basis of argument against torture in his or her own religious beliefs.
Speaker Rabbi Gutow said, “Torture is not a Jewish value…One should not torture someone created in the image of his or her own god.”
Reverend Dr. John Thomas also condemned torture, saying an investigation of enhanced interrogation techniques “will be difficult and challenging, but necessary.”
Additional objectives of the campaign, founded in January 2006, include monitoring the special task force’s interrogation methods, passing the Torture Victim’s Relief Act, repealing the Military Commissions Act, and ensuing access of detainees to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
By Jonathan Bronstein, Talk Radio News Service
Rushed to a secret White House bunker on September 11, 2001, former Vice President Dick Cheney watched coordinated terrorist attacks unfold before his eyes.
“I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities,” said Cheney today at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
In the days following 9-11, Congress passed a Joint Resolution that gave the President and other high ranking officials the power to act with “all necessary and appropriate force” to protect America, according to Cheney.
This meant the Bush Administration would use all tactics at their disposal to ensure the country’s safety, including the allowance of waterboarding against suspected terrorists and an offensive war to disrupt terrorist activities.
Cheney bluntly stated that the use of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques were “legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do.”
Cheney defended the 183 instances of waterboarding employed by the CIA on Kaled Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the attacks.
“American personnel were not there to commence an elaborate legal proceeding, but to extract information from him before al-Qaeda could strike again and kill more of our people,” said Cheney.
Waterboarding was not used against every enemy combatant, but “only those terrorists of the highest intelligence value,” said Cheney.
However, Cheney asserted that high-ranking members of Congress were briefed on the CIA’s use of these techniques, including the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D Calif.). He criticized those members of Congress who demanded to be briefed saying that “they support them in private, and then head for the hills at the first sign of controversy.”
In response to Pelosi’s assertion that the CIA lied to her, Cheney stated that “people who consistently distort the truth in this way are in no position to lecture anyone about ‘values.’”
Pelosi has been one of the harshest critics of the Bush Administration and a leading advocate for a ‘Truth Commission.’
“It’s hard to imagine a worse precedent, filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse, than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessors,” said Cheney in regards to such a commission.
Cheney wants the government to release all torture documents, and he mocked the Obama Administration’s choice to only partially release these documents when he said that “the public has a right to know the method of the questions, but not the content of the answers.”
“Every senior official who has been briefed on these classified matters knows of the specific attacks that were in the planning stages and were stopped by the programs we put in place,” said Cheney.
Additionally, Cheney asserted that no matter what actions the Obama Administration takes, like the closing Guantanamo Bay or disallowing the use of enhanced interrogation, the terrorists will continue to hate America.
“The terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by,” said Cheney.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney discusses how the recent release of the Torture Documents only gave Americans “less than half the truth.” He wants Obama to release all the information that was received from this type of interrogation. “The public has the right to know the method of the question, but not the content of the answers,” said Cheney. (0:43)
By Jonathan Bronstein, Talk Radio News Service
Jonathan Bronstein recounts the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) recent comments during her weekly press conference. Pelosi asserted that the CIA knowingly lied to her and mislead the American people, and she even called for the creation of a Truth Commission in order to illuminate the facts about the CIA’s use of torture.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) responded to Pelosi’s allegations by warning her and other Democrats to be careful what they wish for because the commission’s discoveries may directly implicate them in the investigation.
Furthermore, Peter Brookes, an analyst for the Heritage Foundation, criticized the idea of a Truth Commission because he felt that it may hinder the CIA and other agencies from adequately protecting the American people.
But with each passing day the frustration of the American people mounts as they finally want to know what happened during the Bush Administration. (1:58)
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) explains how he believes that the Truth Commission would be counter productive for the nation as America must “look forward and not back.” But if this committee does move forward, Boehner wants all the information to be released, specifically what Speaker Pelosi knew. (0:25)
By Jonathan Bronstein, Talk Radio News Service
The slow revelation of the use of torture by the Central Intelligence Agency can be likened to a child slowly pulling off a band-aid and crying louder and louder with each hair pulled out of the follicle.
With each removed hair, or revelation in the news, the groans of the American people are only amplified as they want the truth about the CIA’s use of waterboarding and which U.S government officials knew but remained silent.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who was briefed by the CIA on interrogation techniques during September 2002, virulently denied that she knew the CIA employed water boarding.
In fact during a press conference this afternoon, she repeatedly answered numerous questions regarding her knowledge of when the CIA employed enhanced interrogation techniques, like waterboarding. She did this after her press secretary yelled out “last question.” Pelosi even answered as she was walked out of the room.
“I am speaking from my own experience, and we were told that it (waterboarding) was not being used,” said Pelosi emphatically.
Admitting that she was briefed by the CIA in September 2002, Pelosi said that the unnamed agent did not tell her that they used waterboarding, and promised her that the CIA would notify her if waterboarding was ever employed.
Pelosi said that the briefing in 2002 was “ incomplete and inaccurate,” as the waterboarding of terrorist and Bin Laden confidant, Abu Zubaydah, had occurred a month earlier.
After trying to clear her own name, Pelosi attempted to shift the blame to the CIA because it had not been forthright with information regarding the agency’s true actions.
“They (the CIA) misrepresented every step of the way, and they don’t want that focus on them, and they have tried to shift the focus on us (Congress),” said Pelosi.
At the same time of her briefing, Pelosi stated that “The Bush Adminstration was misleading the American people about the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
As a result, Pelosi has been a leading advocate in the need for an independent “Truth Commission” that would work “to determine how intelligence was misused, and how controversial and possibly illegal activities, like torture, were authorized within the executive branch.”
However, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the “Truth Commission” a “politically motivated investigation into our intelligence agency.”
Boehner feels that such an investigation is “dangerous and wrong.
But if this investigation does occur, he wants to see all the information presented, including what Pelosi knew, when she knew it and what she did about it.
Additionally, Boehner believes that Pelois’s numerous stories have led to “more questions than answers,” and bluntly questioned if the Democrats were not being truthful themselves.
“When you look at the number of briefings that the Speaker was in and other Democratic members of the House and Senate its pretty clear that they were well aware of what these enhanced interrogation techniques were, they were well aware that they have been used,” said Boehner.
Pelosi’s statements have only stoked the flames of suspicion, and her calls for a “Truth Commission,” at least according to Boehner, may lead to some unintended and unwanted discoveries.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) states that the Democrats knew that torture was occurring and did nothing to stop it. They were complicit and thus share some of the blame for allowing torture to take hold in America. (0:17)
