Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Why am I not surprised? Our shame, continued.

Bush's top general quashed torture dissent
New evidence shows that despite warnings from across the military, former Gen. Richard Myers shut down legal scrutiny of brutal interrogation tactics.
By Mark Benjamin
Salon.com
June 30, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- The former Air Force general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, helped quash dissent from across the U.S. military as the Bush administration first set up a brutal interrogation regime for terrorism suspects, according to newly public documents and testimony from an ongoing Senate probe.

In late 2002, documents show, officials from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps all complained that harsh interrogation tactics under consideration for use at the prison in Guantánamo Bay might be against the law. Those military officials called for further legal scrutiny of the tactics.
...
Myers, however, agreed to scuttle a plan for further legal review of the tactics, in response to pressure from a top Pentagon attorney helping to set up the interrogation program for then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.


Scuttling an inquiry into the legality of proposed interrogation techniques strikes me as a policy of willful ignorance. Willful ignorance does not provide a defense.

Why would a Joint Chiefs Chair pursue such a policy? The willingness to submit to "pressure" seems to me gross negligence. How'd this guy get 4 stars?

How have we found ourselves in this situation? Willing to torture. Unwilling to challenge torture.

Stop the madness.

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