Just Thinking

President George W Bush is vetoing a bill aimed to stop all torture by US agencies including the CIA, including specifically waterboarding, or near drowning of people. Just last year he claimed that he was against torture when similarly trying to prevent a bill against torture. Liar, liar. The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) state on their web site:

ACLU Condemns Bush Veto Of Intelligence Bill Preventing Torture (3/8/2008)

Army Field Manual would have been extended to all of federal government, including the CIA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: (202) 675-2312, media@dcaclu.org

WASHINGTON - In a brazen move signaling a callous disregard for human rights, President Bush today vetoed the 2008 Intelligence Authorization Act largely due to a provision that would have applied the Army Field Manual (AFM) on Interrogations to all government agencies, including the CIA. The AFM, which currently applies only to the Department of Defense, prohibits specific acts of torture and abuse, including waterboarding, and specifically authorizes an array of time-tested interrogation methods. During recent congressional testimony, CIA Director Michael Hayden admitted the agency has waterboarded detainees.

Bush argues like this...

We need torture to interview difficult subjects who might be terrorists. This is a measure to combat terrorism. Of course terrorism is defined by one of his bills to be anything that endangers the life of any American (others don't matter it seems). Well that makes a drunk driver a terrorist doesn't it? Also, doing evil in the cause of accomplishing good is a very weak argument. Much better to do good in the cause of achieving good, then you can achieve your goals. Anyway, the CIA admit that the torture techniques do not work for getting reliable information.

By far the dominant terrorism in the world is American threats of and actual interference in other countries. When he attacked Iraq Bush said "this will strike shock and awe into them". Isn't that terrorism?

It is not only Bush who is responsible for the sad state of international affairs in this regard. Far too few countries stand up to him or speak against his lies, for fear of reprisals. You cannot give in to bullies, you have to stop them! If you are in a government and have no courage, then get out, it is not the job for you. Your job is to serve your people and do so in a sustainable way, which means having respect for all nations and not accepting bad behaviour from other nation's leaders no matter how big they are.

Just 245 days to go.