Bush's Glib Waterboarding Admission Sparks Outrage
George W. Bush's casual acknowledgment Wednesday that he had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed waterboarded -- and would do it again -- has horrified some former military and intelligence officials who argue that the former president doesn't seem to understand the gravity of what he is admitting.Bush thus committed war crimes. Also strange that Bush thinks that torture saved lives. There has never been any documentation what so ever torturing any prisoner at GITMO or in Afghanistan saved lives. KLM made lots of confessions, as tortured people usually do. He made most of the stuff up and the little bit of good information he did provide was given before the torture started.
Waterboarding, a form of controlled drowning, is "unequivocably torture", said retired Brigadier General David R. Irvine, a former strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner of war interrogation and military law for 18 years.
"As a nation, we have historically prosecuted it as such, going back to the time of the Spanish-American War," Irvine said. "Moreover, it cannot be demonstrated that any use of waterboarding by U.S. personnel in recent years has saved a single American life."
Irvine told the Huffington Post that Bush doesn't appreciate how much harm his countenancing of torture has done to his country.
"Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," Bush told a Grand Rapids audience Wednesday, of the self-professed 9/11 mastermind. "I'd do it again to save lives."
But, Irvine said: "When he decided to do it the first time, he launched the nation down a disastrous road, and we will continue to pay dearly for the damage his decision has caused.
"We are seen by the rest of the world as having abandoned our commitment to international law. We have forfeited enormous amounts of moral leadership as the world's sole remaining superpower. And it puts American troops in greater danger -- and unnecessary danger."
GLENN BECK, SINCERE HUCKSTER-LUNATIC
But I don't think Beck's self-image as a businessman is at odds with his beliefs about religion and politics. He doesn't know enough about the world to understand why his grand-unified theory of a 100-year progressive plot is a laughingstock outside of his own TV and radio studios. I think he actually believes God wants him to make all this money and fight dirty for right wing causes. Does he really believe God is speaking to and through him? I don't know. But in one of his books, he describes Heaven as a place where everybody "can make as much money as they want," and he does believe that God basically wrote the Constitution in 1787.
The mistake Beck's critics often make is to say, "Okay, so if his main self-identity is as a media and entertainment mogul, then everything else is just an act." There's no need to choose just one door. On his worldview's own terms, there's no contradiction between his enormous success, his entertainment toolbox, and his bat-in-the-bell tower politics. What's shocking to me is how completely his fans swallow the "selfless patriot" act.
