Democracy Has Prevailed.

June 20, 2006

Bush's War on Terror

I picked up something interesting today. It's been bouncing around the blogosphere and so I apologise in advance if you've already seen it.

Via atrios, and then TPMCafe I found this at the Washington Post. You've probably seen these paragraphs elsewhere, but they're so important you might want to memorize them. It's a review by Barton Gellman of Ron Suskind's book titled The One Percent Doctrine.
One example out of many comes in Ron Suskind's gripping narrative of what the White House has celebrated as one of the war's major victories: the capture of Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in March 2002. Described as al-Qaeda's chief of operations even after U.S. and Pakistani forces kicked down his door in Faisalabad, the Saudi-born jihadist was the first al-Qaeda detainee to be shipped to a secret prison abroad. Suskind shatters the official story line here.

Abu Zubaydah, his captors discovered, turned out to be mentally ill and nothing like the pivotal figure they supposed him to be. CIA and FBI analysts, poring over a diary he kept for more than a decade, found entries "in the voice of three people: Hani 1, Hani 2, and Hani 3" -- a boy, a young man and a middle-aged alter ego. All three recorded in numbing detail "what people ate, or wore, or trifling things they said." Dan Coleman, then the FBI's top al-Qaeda analyst, told a senior bureau official, "This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality."
So the guy was severely mentally ill - and they (including the Bush and Cheney) all knew it. They also knew he was "al-Qaeda's go-to guy for minor logistics -- travel for wives and children" and yet according to this book, two weeks later Bush said publicly, that Zubaydah was "one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States."

Take a look at what Bush actually said. We was speaking in Greenwich, CT to the Connecticut Republican Committee on April 9, 2002:
The other day we hauled in a guy named Abu Zubaydah. He's one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States. He's not plotting and planning anymore. He's where he belongs. (Applause.)
I'm so glad the line got applause - heartwarming, really. And what was happening at that point to this "insane, certifiable, split personality" guy who did the "minor logistics" for al-Qaeda wives and children? The review continues:
They strapped Abu Zubaydah to a water-board, which reproduces the agony of drowning. They threatened him with certain death. They withheld medication. They bombarded him with deafening noise and harsh lights, depriving him of sleep.
So what do you think happened?
[H]e began to speak of plots of every variety -- against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. With each new tale, "thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each . . . target."
I wonder how many of those plots were, well, you know, like uh true? I mean considering the man's split personalities and his state of duress under such "quaint" torture. The review ends with one last quotation from Suskind:
the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered.
The important thing to note, of course, is that they knew he was mentally ill when they were doing it.

Another tidbit from the review:
"I said he was important," Bush reportedly told Tenet at one of their daily meetings. "You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?"
Lose face? Of course not! It's just completely ok for the United States of America to torture a man with multiple personalities and then waste the time and money (that could have been better spent elsewhere) tracking down all those torture-squeezed rantings just to make sure that Dubya doesn't lose face.

I'll say it again.

IMPEACH

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dayvoe = Idiot, nincompoop, moron.

Anonymous said...

Let me to translate the troll's latest response.

He wrote:Dayvoe = Idiot, nincompoop, moron.

Which of course means, "Because there is absolutely no way to defend the actions of my President, George W. Bush, I will instead revert to the childish behavior of my youth and lash out with a few personal insults.

Sean McDaniel said...

good god almighty. don't you realize that if you impeach bush, cheney takes up residence in the oval office? you guys ever play chess? you gotta think beyond the next move. cheney as interim prez would be eligilbe to sit out the remaining two years of bush's term...and then serve two full terms, if elected. seriously, is this what you want?

Maria said...

Please, Cheney is ass-deep in anything Bush has done. If articles of impeachment were ever actually drawn up, DICK would be included.

Sean McDaniel said...

maria,

one problem. impeachments work like trials. one person at a time. so would you start with cheney so he couldn't succeed bush? that means bush rides out the rest of his term.

or do you start with bush? and let cheney take over if you can actually get GWB out of office before his term expires?

or do you just want to pull a trick from the republican playbook and ignore the constitution and the u.s. judicial system.

the reason bush won both times really has nothing to do with rigging elections or homophobic reactions to gay marriage amendments...it has everything to do with the democrats offering up the most useless and ineffectual candidates during the past two elections...and it's going to happen again in 2008. hell, at this point, i think cheney could beat just about anyone the dems run....cheney vs. hillary (landslide), cheney vs. dean (historic landslide) cheney vs. kerry (landslide washed over by a tsunami), cheney vs. biden (ok, maybe cheney wins 55-45) cheney vs. ????? that's my point. there's no one in the democratic bullpen warming up. it's an utterly bankrupt and talentless party...and just so you know...it depresses me tremendously.

Maria said...

Reality Check: Cheney consistently polls at about 18% approval ratings.

With those kind of poll numbers, even the MSM and the wussy democrats would contest an election if Cheney won with DIEBOLD's help (which is the only way he could win).

Besides, nothing says you can't run two trials (W & Dick) simultaneously.

Sean McDaniel said...

do you really think the u.s. senate and house could handle the two biggest proceedings in the land at the same time? if you do, then maybe they're not the bunch of losers you think they are...and with the majority of congress being on the republican side, how far do you think impeachment would go? bush would have to be caught going down on osama bin laden, wearing a blue dress.

honestly, you can't deride congress as a bunch of morons on one hand and expect them to be smart enough to oust bush and cheney in one fell swoop.

Maria said...

do you really think the u.s. senate and house could handle the two biggest proceedings in the land at the same time?

Not really, but it's more likely than Cheney beating anyone for president.

Sean McDaniel said...

i hope cheney would take up the chores of the oval office. but i think the dems have the potential to screw up nearly anything. honest to god, i think the republicans could run hitler and stalin and still make it close.

Sean McDaniel said...

hey, i meant to say that i hope cheney WOULDN'T take up the chores of the oval office.