Guantánamo torture and who pushed it forward

America’s most senior general was “hoodwinked” by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners…

Happy, happy. Joy, joy.

The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington, who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date, is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts of which appear in today’s Guardian.

In his new book, Torture Team, Philippe Sands QC, professor of law at University College London, reveals that:

· Senior Bush administration figures pushed through previously outlawed measures with the aid of inexperienced military officials at Guantánamo.

· Myers believes he was a victim of “intrigue” by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of vice-president Dick Cheney, and at Donald Rumsfeld’s defence department.

· The Guantánamo lawyers charged with devising interrogation techniques were inspired by the exploits of Jack Bauer in the American TV series 24.

· Myers wrongly believed interrogation techniques had been taken from the army’s field manual.

The lawyers, all political appointees, who pushed through the interrogation techniques were Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and William Haynes. Also involved were Doug Feith, Rumsfeld’s under-secretary for policy, and Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two assistant attorney generals.

Oh, it just keeps on getting better and better.

Larry Wilkerson, a former army officer and chief of staff to Colin Powell, US secretary of state at the time, told the Guardian: “I do know that Rumsfeld had neutralised the chairman [Myers] in many significant ways.

“The secretary did this by cutting [Myers] out of important communications, meetings, deliberations and plans.

“At the end of the day, however, Dick Myers was not a very powerful chairman in the first place, one reason Rumsfeld recommended him for the job”.

He added: “Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzalez and – at the apex – Addington, should never travel outside the US, except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They broke the law; they violated their professional ethical code. In future, some government may build the case necessary to prosecute them in a foreign court, or in an international court.”

Read the rest here: guardian.co.uk

About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

9 Replies to “Guantánamo torture and who pushed it forward”

  1. “· The Guantánamo lawyers charged with devising interrogation techniques were inspired by the exploits of Jack Bauer in the American TV series 24.”

    Fuck me to tears. It’s not even that good of a show.

  2. The problem I have read about is that so many higher level (read :Older, more experienced) generals who objected to these torture memos were forced out; into early retirement or quit and are unable to speak out. If they do, it is WELL after the fact and no one seems to care or want to do anything any longer about it.

    By removing these generals and appointing ‘green’ military personnel, Bush and Rummy et.al have made our armed forces into their own Khmer Rouge, where laws don’t apply anymore.

    We are without question going to reap what we have sown.

  3. ‘course if Al Queda started running over cyclists with SUV’s, we’d all be pretty much okay with torture, right?

  4. I’ve got some policy buddies who are pretty well hooked up in the academy. Word is they want to hang all the badness on Rummy.
    W, Condi, Alberto, are all young enough that international law could one day hold them culpable.
    And they certainly are.
    Other countries have ..truth & reconciliation committees…we aint gonna get shit.
    Myers, by the way, happens to be my name. The general happens to be my father’s cousin.
    The final story on this will not be written for years.

    Oh, and till the general got the big job, the coolest guy in the family was Chip Myers, played with the 49ers, Bengals & Coached for Minnesota.
    Was known for being a nice guy.

  5. bikepunk: are you calling me idiot because you missed the sarcasm or because you got it and didn’t like it?