Real Cost of War

What war does to people and nations. 'Cost' is much more than a monetary valuation. War really costs most of us our Humanity!

Saturday, October 08, 2005
On this day:

Bush FURIOUS over incipient Torture Prohibitions

Ah! Don't you just FEEL for poor, poor Georgie?

A Senate vote just passed a bill by a whopping majority, including most of the Republicans, which would specifically prohibit torture of prisoners held by any branch of the DOD. So what was Georgie's response? He threatens to VETO the bill if it comes before him containing any such 'language'! Poor guy. How DARE anyone tell him he can NOT rend, tear, beat, sodomize, isolate, crush, dismember or do any sort of violence to PERSONS held by US forces!

Here is an article about it from Signs of the Times incljuding their commentary:

Bush will veto anti-torture law after Senate revolt
By Francis Harris in Washington (Filed: 07/10/2005)

The Bush administration pledged yesterday to veto legislation banning the torture of prisoners by US troops after an overwhelming and almost unprecedented revolt by loyalist congressmen.

The mutiny was the latest setback for an administration facing an increasingly independent and bloody-minded legislature. But it also marked a key moment in Congress's campaign to curtail the huge powers it has granted the White House since 2001 in its war against terrorism.

The late-night Senate vote saw the measure forbidding torture passed by 90 to nine, with most Republicans backing the measure. Most senators said the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal and similar allegations at the Guantanamo Bay prison rendered the result a foregone conclusion.

The administration's extraordinary isolation was underlined when the Senate Republican majority leader, Bill Frist, supported the amendment.

The man behind the legislation, Republican Senator John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner in Vietnam, said the move was backed by American soldiers. His amendment would prohibit the "cruel, inhumane or degrading" treatment of prisoners in the custody of America's defence department.

The vote was one of the largest and best supported congressional revolts during President George W Bush's five years in office and shocked the White House.

"We have put out a Statement of Administration Policy saying that his advisers would recommend that he vetoes it if it contains such language," White House spokesman Scott McClellan warned yesterday.

The administration said Congress was attempting to tie its hands in the war against terrorism.

The veto would be Mr Bush's first use of his most extreme legislative option. But senators pointed out that a presidential veto can be overturned by a two-thirds majority in both houses.

For now the amendment's fate depends on negotiations between the Senate and the lower chamber, the House of Representatives, which is more loyal to the administration.

But senators said they were confident that most of the language would survive and that the issue could pose an extremely awkward dilemma for the president.

The amendment was attached to the $440 billion (£247 billion) defence spending bill and if Mr Bush vetoes the amendment, he would have to veto the entire bill.

That would leave America's armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan short of cash as early as the middle of next month.

Comment: A veto of this bill would be an admission that the torture of prisoners in US-controlled prisons around the world is Bush administration policy, a policy that is readily apparent in the facts, but that has been carefully hidden by the policy of plausible deniability. Because Bush's signature is not on any document clearly stating "use torture on terrorists", he is able to deny that it is his government's official policy. The torture and humiliation of prisoners in Iraq, publicised with the release of photos in April of 2004, has been blamed on the grunts on the spot, including soldiers such as Lynndie England, who it appears did not have the wherewith all to be able to make a critical assessment of the situation in Abu Ghraib. The psychopaths who sent them there and who gave the orders have been whitewashed.

We have seen only a carefully screened collection of photos from places like Abu Ghraib. There are more photos that are still being withheld from the public, not to mention the secret detention centres on places like Diego Garcia where enemies of the Bush Reich are taken and left to rot outside the eyes of any international organisation, such as the Red Cross. Americans are programmed to distrust international organisations, groups that would somehow impinge on the US's desire to do what it wants, where it wants, when it wants. It ignores the World Court and forces the new Iraqi government to consider US and British troops as immune from prosecution for the acts of terror they are carrying out in the name of freedom but that really done in the name of their own self-righteousness. They believe that no one can judge Americans except for God himself, for Americans are on a mission from God. They consider themselves the Chosen People of the covenant of the New Testament.

The report that Bush told Palestinians he talks to God has been circulating for a long time. We have reported it before on this page. A new BBS documentary has brought the topic of Bush's direct communications with God into the news. ANd faithful chief propagandist and spin doctor, presidential press secretary Scott McClellan, has denied that his boss receives his marching orders from the big man upstairs.