NewsTrust - Bush Administration - Most Trusted Stories: Opinion

Fear was no excuse to condone torture

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miami Herald - By Charles C. Krulak, Joseph P. Hoar - Sep. 15 (Opinion) - In the fear that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Americans were told that defeating Al Qaeda would require us to ``take off the gloves.'' As a former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps and a retired commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, we knew that was a recipe for disaster. But we never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a vice president of the United States, a man who has served our country for many years. In light of the irresponsible statements recently made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, however, we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas -- and his scare tactics.

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The incident of the flying shoes

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Aljazeera - By Brad Blakeman, a former senior White House aide to Bush, Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi - Jan. 01 (Interview) - The Iraqi journalist behind the incident has become a hero to many in the Middle East who blame Bush for the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths that followed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. To others he is an embarrassment to a society that prides itself on being hospitable to guests, even hated ones. The act may have been unusual, but what does it tell us about the average Iraqis view on Bush's legacy in the country? Is it emblematic of a deep reservoir of anti-Americanism? What can we learn in the weeks ahead of Iraq's judiciary as Muntazer al-Zaidi is prosecuted for attacking a foreign head of state.

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Can You Trust the Republicans?

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Consortium News - By Robert Parry - Feb. 28 (Opinion) - One of the most telling responses to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll was what people said in answering Question 44: “Do you think [Republicans] opposed [the stimulus bill] mostly because they thought it would be bad for the economy or mostly for political reasons?” Sixty-three percent of respondents cited “political reasons” and only 29 percent believed the “not good for the economy” explanation from the Republicans. This two-to-one margin suggests that the Republicans are suffering from a serious credibility gap.

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Obama Can’t Turn the Page on Bush

Sun, 17 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Frank Rich - May. 17 (Opinion) - To paraphrase Al Pacino in “Godfather III,” just when we thought we were out, the Bush mob keeps pulling us back in. And will keep doing so. No matter how hard President Obama tries to turn the page on the previous administration, he can’t. Until there is true transparency and true accountability, revelations of that unresolved eight-year nightmare will keep raining down drip by drip, disrupting the new administration’s high ambitions. That’s why the president’s flip-flop on the release of detainee abuse photos — whatever his motivation — is a fool’s errand. The pictures will eventually emerge anyway, either because of leaks (if they haven’t started already) or because the federal appeals court decision upholding their release remains in force. And here’s a bet: These images will not prove the most shocking evidence of Bush administration sins still to come.

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US Interrogator in Iraq Says Torture Policy Has Led to Deaths of Thousands of American Soldiers

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Matthew Alexander(pseudonym), Amy Goodman - Dec. 03 (Interview) - “My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I’m still alarmed about that today,” he writes.

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Do we still pretend that we abide by treaties?

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Feb. 16 (Opinion) - The U.S. really has bound itself to a treaty called the Convention Against Torture, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1988 and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1994. When there are credible allegations that government officials have participated or been complicit in torture, that Convention really does compel all signatories -- in language as clear as can be devised -- to "submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution" (Art. 7(1)). And the treaty explicitly bars the standard excuses that America's political class is currently offering for refusing to investigate and prosecute:

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Mr. Cheney, You Did Not Keep Us Safe

Thu, 14 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - May. 14 (Opinion) - If 3,000 Americans had been killed on your watch, in an attack that could have been prevented, perhaps you'd be a little hesitant to accuse anyone else of endangering America. And if you had advocated torture, and the torture produced false information that you used to mislead America into an unwise, unjust and unwarranted war, you might be a tad sheepish about defending the use of torture.

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Foreshadowing the Bush Legacy on Coal

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Writing Corner - By Beth Wellington - Jan. 08 (Opinion) - To assess what has been handed down from his [George W. Bush] eight years in office is doable. To write about what will last long- term is harder. One exception, though, comes to mind: here in Appalachian, we face a permanent hole in our vistas (and our lives) in the wake of so-called mountaintop removal mining (MTR). So-called because I prefer to call it Mountain Range Destruction. This type of mining pulverizes whole mountains for their underlying coal and dumps the resulting toxin-laden rubble in headwater streams.

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The Greatest Greatness of George W. Bush

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

TruthOut - By William Rivers Pitt - Jan. 07 (Opinion) - We the people are going to save you from ignominious oblivion. We will remember. You could be the president who doomed America, the worst president of all time, but we must not, will not let that happen. You will be remembered differently, because we will hold the memory of you high, and behold you, and say, "Never, never, never again." We have tasted the soot and smelled the blood on the wind; we have seen how fragile our way of government is when placed in the hands of low men such as you, and because of that, you will be remembered for all time.

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The 13 people who made torture possible

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Marcy Wheeler - May. 18 (Opinion) - 13 key people in the Bush administration cannot claim they relied on the memos from the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel. Some of the 13 manipulated the federal bureaucracy and the legal process to "preauthorize" torture in the days after 9/11. Others helped implement torture, and still others helped write the memos that provided the Bush administration with a legal fig leaf after torture had already begun.

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Bush plan beat obstacle to Gaza assault

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Asia Times - By Gareth Porter - Jan. 06 (Opinion) - ... the Bush administration and the Europeans cut off all financing for the Palestinian government, while Israel refused to hand over to the Palestinian authorities the value-added tax and customs duties it collected on behalf of the Palestinians under the Paris Protocol signed with the Palestinian Liberation Organization as part of the Oslo Accords.

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My Tortured Decision

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Ali Soufan - Apr. 23 (Opinion) - FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned. One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.

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How we betrayed the rule of law for the fool's gold of security

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miami Herald - By Leonard Pitts Jr. - Apr. 03 (Opinion) - People came out of the McCarthy era marveling at how easily fear and paranoia had stampeded us into surrendering principles that are supposed to define us. Mark my words: We will look back on this era the same way.

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Big News Orgs Help Bush Whitewash History Of Iraq War

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Talking Points Memo - By Greg Sargent - Dec. 02 (Opinion) - For Bush to blame the failure of intel for his decision to invade is not a concession at all, and it is not an admission of failure on his part. Rather, it is the opposite of these things. It is an evasion of responsibility for what happened.

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Philippe Sands Considers A Legacy Of 'Torture'

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Fresh Air - By Terry Gross, Philippe Sands - Jan. 07 (Interview) - Although the Bush administration has stated that the interrogations techniques used at Guantanamo Bay came from the bottom up, British lawyer Philippe Sands disagrees. In his 2008 book, Torture Team, Sands argues that the harsh interrogation policy that emerged after Sept. 11 came from high-ranking government officials and top military figures. Sands warned in a June 2008 Fresh Air interview that the impact of the Bush administration's conduct would be felt internationally: "The terrible tragedy of these memos and that dark period is that they have migrated into the hands of people who now say, 'Well, Americans do it. We're going to do it also.'" But Sands believes that President-elect Barack Obama can begin to restore the U.S.'s global reputation. In a Dec. 4 article in The Guardian, he recommended that the next administration conduct a comprehensive, independent investigation of alleged abuses committed against detainees since Sept. 11, 2001.

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How will Roberts Rule on Clean Water?

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Writing Corner - By Beth Wellington - Jan. 12 (Opinion) - In the mining case being argued today, the Army Corps of Engineers granted a permit for a gold mine north of Juneau, Alaska, to Coeur Alaska which allows the company to deposit mine tailings into Lower Slate Lake after raising the level of the lake by building a long earthen dam. Turner writes, All agree that the tailings, fill or otherwise, would kill nearly all life in the lake. Coeur and the Corps insist that once the ore has been exhausted they’ll restore the lake to its former glory and where have we heard that before. According to Martin's post today, when a mining company attorney told the court that an Alaskan lake would be better off in the long run Justice David Souter described that logic as "Orwellian."

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At last, giving Bush the boot

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Globe - By H.D.S. Greenway - Dec. 23 (Opinion) - The image of shoes being thrown at George W. Bush during his tarnished legacy tour of Iraq has already entered legend. That a Saudi offered to pay $10 million for just one of the shoes attests to the power of symbolism. The Turkish cobbler who made the shoes is being inundated with new orders from around the world.

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When Will Dick Cheney's Tower of Lies Finally Come Tumbling Down on Him?

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Arianna Huffington - Jun. 03 (Opinion) - So, he gets all the media value and spin by originally making the claim that the intel documents would prove the value of torture - if only Obama would let the truth come out. Then he backs away from the claim, using weasel-words to give him sufficient wiggle room to say that what he really meant was that the overall interrogation program provided useful information -- not that waterboarding or other enhanced interrogation techniques did.

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Bush is responsible for the lawbreaking in Iraq

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Salt Lake Tribune - By Chuck Tripp - Jan. 04 (Opinion) - Iraq is a caldron of broken laws. Recent noise surrounding the indictment of Blackwater guards for war crimes they allegedly committed in Iraq during September 2007 serves as a reminder that the Bush administration's entire misadventure in that country has involved lawbreaking on a scale that may be unparalleled by any other U.S. presidency in recent memory, perhaps even exceeding that of Richard Nixon's reign. The decision by President George W. Bush to invade Iraq during March 2003 no matter how much the United Nations or most other countries around the world opposed his actions opened up a cesspool of lawbreaking that has expanded continuously. Bush's invasion of Iraq violated provisions in Security Council Resolution 1441 placing the Iraqi government on notice "that the resolutions of the (Security) Council (as an authoritative body) constitute the governing standard of Iraqi compliance" with U.N. efforts to find out more about its weapons systems.

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Major defeat for Bush/Obama position on secrecy

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Apr. 28 (Opinion) - In rejecting this radical secrecy theory, the court emphasized how the Bush/Obama doctrine, if accepted, would essentially place the President above and beyond the rule of law:

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Mumbai, the NYT's revisionism, and lessons not learned

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Nov. 29 (Opinion) - The Times' propagandistic cheer-leading for the military coup in Venezuela is an important illustrative event which should be regretted, but not erased.

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Bush's legacy will pin Obama from the start

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

BuzzFlash - By P. M. Carpenter - Jan. 12 (Opinion) - After Israel's ghastly disproportionate actions in Gaza, it was hardly shocking to read yesterday in the New York Times that our incorrigible ally was ready, willing and eager to preemptively blast Iran last year. That almost inconceivably nitwitted act appears to have been imminent, for as the Times reported, Israel -- "out of its disbelief and anger at an American intelligence assessment completed in late 2007 that concluded that Iran had effectively suspended its development of nuclear weapons four years earlier" -- was randy to drop a few of our "bunker-bunking bombs ... on Iran's main nuclear complex." So the Israeli Dr. Strangeloves asked to borrow some. Oh, and by the way, they added, you wouldn't mind if we sort of flew over Iraq to get to Iran, would you?

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Barack Obama's czarlike wielding of executive power.

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Bruce Fein - Apr. 11 (Opinion) - President Barack Obama's claim to czarlike powers in a perpetual global war against international terrorism has been blunted by a judicial appointee of former President George W. Bush. Last week, in the case Fadi al Maqaleh, United States District Judge John D. Bates denied that President Obama could make suspected "enemy combatants" disappear into the Bagram Theater Internment Facility at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan without an opportunity for exoneration.

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Cheney's Legacy of Deception

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

TruthDig - By Robert Scheer - Dec. 31 (Opinion) - But the hoary warmongering after 9/11 afforded a convenient distraction from the economic problems at home. As I asked in a column on June 26, 2002: "Has the war on terrorism become the modern equivalent of the Roman circus, drawing the people's attention away from the failures of those who rule them? Corporate America is a shambles because deregulation, the mantra of our president and his party, has proved to be a license to steal." That is the true legacy of Dick Cheney and the president he ill-served.

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The Sole of a Nation

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Dan Froomkin - Dec. 15 (Opinion) - Reality made a dramatic cameo appearance when President Bush’s legacy tour touched down in Baghdad.

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