Bush should have executed Gitmo detainees, says former CIA officer

[kpete]

Source: Raw Story


Bush should have executed Gitmo detainees, says former CIA officer
David Edwards and Rachel Oswald
Published: Friday February 27, 2009

A former CIA officer has said its ridiculous that the Bush administration didn't execute numerous prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, regardless of whether they have had a trial, when it had the chance.

"Many of those individuals that are there are enemy combatants and that's based on the Geneva Conventions and should be executed," said Gary Berntsen, who spent 20 years with the CIA, to Fox's Gretchen Carlson on the show, Fox & Friends. "It's ridiculous that the Bush administration, after seven years, didn't deal with many of those that we know are enemy combatants."

Berntsen, who commanded a team of CIA and special forces in Afghanistan in 2001, is the author of The Attack on bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander. A Bush supporter, he sued the federal government to win the right to release his book, which detailed his experiences hunting for Osama bin Laden in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan. In 2008, Berntsen also actively campaigned for John McCain.

Carlson seemed to agree with Berntsen assertion saying of the detainees, "I'm thinking to myself, they've been, many of them, there since 2002. What was the wait?"

Read more: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Fox_guest_Bush_should_have_executed_0227.html

[villager]

1. hell, why not just gas a bunch of 'em at once? More efficient...

And anyway, since we're clearly morally superior, who cares about methods?

[ixion]

2. These people (Berntsen, etc) should be exiled to Afghanistan

IMO.

[damntexdem]

23. Now why would you wish that upon Afghanistan?

Just send them to the World Court.

[malletgirl02]

39. You are Right

Afghanistan has enough problems, the last thing they need is that psychopath former CIA agent running around. The Hague is the best course of action.

[PSPS]

3. Because dead people (and children) tell no tales

This is certainly delightful, isn't it? I can't imagine what ritualistic sadism this piece of work Gary Berntsen was involved in. And, true to form, the Senate Intelligence Committee's proposed "investigation of the CIA's detention and interrogation programs under President George W. Bush" is planned to be a whitewash from the beginning with it's statement that "the inquiry was not designed to determine whether CIA officials broke laws."

Fox's desire to start this idea going is understandable as I'm sure they were all set to make a reality series around it.

[thecrow]

20. That's why the need to get Saddam done & over with

Couldn't have him chatting it up with any investigations, could we?

I am sure I will get flamed foor saying this, and here is my disclaimer that I am not a Saddam supporter in any way. I'm just saying that he should have been imprisoned until after the war, not tried and hanged in the heat of the moment.

[truth2power]

28. You'll get no flame from me...

We supported Saadam back in the day, and we were even instrumental in putting him in power in the first place.

We wanted him dead because he could have started running his mouth about our complicity in various operations we wanted to keep hidden.

When he was hanged, I didn't feel sorry for him. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was a tyrant and a thug. I figured he was just too stupid to live on account of ever having put his trust in the American government. Whatta moron!

[newspeak]

44. No, no flame here

I thought of that when they executed him--then I thought about Noriega. There must be a lot of skeletons in someone's closet.

[jaysunb]

4. Yes, and Nixon should have burned the tapes

Seems we've been down this path before. :evilfrown:

[dipsydoodle]

5. Charming

x(

[Demeter]

6. And This Is Why JFK Wanted to Shut Down Poppy's CIA

Is Blackwater the backup, in the event somebody actually can clean out that nest of vipers?

[Swede]

7. Guilty until proven innocent doesn't work if you execute the guy.

It's bad enough they suspended habeas corpus.

[Jefferson23]

8. Well at least this makes it clear to anyone who had any doubts that

some working for the CIA support breaking the law. Hell, he thinks the law is ridiculous, as long as we are doing it of course. John Yoo and David Addington step aside, Obama, you have just met your new poster boy for why there needs to be a special prosecutor to confront the abuse of power by the Bush administration.

[Lorien]

9. Um, one of my mother's friends was a Gitmo detainee

he WORKED FOR A CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY GROUP but was hauled down to Gitmo because of his Muslim name and the fact that he was born in the Sudan. He spent six months there before the missionary group could convince them that he wasn't a Muslim extremist. Now if an administrator with International Friendships Christian Missions can end up at Gitmo, can't pretty much ANYONE with a Muslim name?

[14thColony]

10. This type of lawless, immoral thinking has become so entrenched

I am not sure if we can step back from the abyss anymore. 10 years ago this would have been a shocking statement. Now it passes with little notice.

I hope there is an afterlife, and I hope Thomas Jefferson beats Gary Bernsten's ass with an iron bar for all eternity.

[Politicalboi]

11. Kill more innocent people

I'm surprised they didn't kill them all too.

[Mari333]

12. hateful, mean, self loathing man

so so many of them seem to be part of the bush team. I cannot even begin to fathom these people's minds.

[stillcool]

13. Maybe there were too many

human rights on-lookers for them to get away with it? Otherwise, I would think tidying up those loose ends would have been a major priority.

[Vickers]

14. "commanded a team of CIA and special forces in Afghanistan in 2001"

Fail.

[gratuitous]

15. Yeah, that whole due process thing is pretty overrated

Just ask Mr. Berntsen. He can tell if someone's bad just by looking at them. Just walk folks past him for a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Far more efficient and far less "ridiculous," to use Mr. Berntsen's own word.

[nbcouch]

16. History is replete

with cases of "known criminals" who were summarily executed and then exonerated posthumously. Some of these cases have even played out in modern times, as opposed to the Dark Ages, but if it's the Dark Ages the CIA wants to return to, by all means, let them. Just don't drag us there with ya, okay boys?

I would like to know if any of Berntsen's "known enemy combatants" are juveniles, since we know there are juveniles who have been held at Guantanamo Bay. Were any of the hundreds who were held there and then released without charges, much less a trial, previously "known" to be "enemy combatants"?

Moreover, why does Berntsen want us to behave like the barbarians we are supposed to be fighting? If this is the way we should be defending America, then America is not worth defending.

[LynnTheDem]

25. If this is the way we should be defending America, then America is not worth defending.

AMEN to that, my friend.

NOT in MY name.

[jtrockville]

17. Didn't we, in fact, do this? (torture some people TO DEATH)?

[primavera]

18. Thank gawd he's a "FORMER CIA officer"

Although I suppose what that really means is that he's now gone to work for Blackwater where he can torture and murder with impunity and get paid more through no-bid government contracts than he was making as a humble civil servant.

[bvar22]

19. The American Taliban speaks !

GITMO is a Concentraion Camp for TERRORISTS.
They are in GITMO, so they must be TERRORISTS!!
Off with their heads!

Simple logic for the Simple Minded.
This will really resonate with the Conservative Base.

[MisterP]

21. hmm, in Honduras, during Gen. Gustavo Alvarez's 1980-84 reign of terror,

he had his own butchers butchered, to close any loose ends (Donald Schulz, The United States, Honduras, and the Crisis in Central America)

[damntexdem]

22. Yeah, don't try to determine whether or not they're guilty of anything, just execute them.

Why create tensions with China, just execute the Uyghurs that were guilty only of opposing Chinese rule over their people.

If you kill the innocent along with the guilty, you'll also get the guilty. And if you do it without the least due process, you'll totally erase the distinction, anyway. After all, then you will be among the guilty, among the terrorists. And since the world will know what you've done, many more terrorists will arise in revulsion against you. So you will have simplified the job of identifying terrorists -- everyone will be a terrorist. That will greatly simplify things: just terminate the entire population of the world.

Wow, those CIA folks sure can play with logic, huh?

[LynnTheDem]

24. Please God don't let this article get out to the rest of the world.

Too late.

Oh well, the world already thinks we're about the lowest of hypocritical scum after the past 8 years.

We should have EXECUTED POWs REGARDLESS whether they'd had any kind of trial whatsofucking ever???

So should we have GASSED them???

Holy fuck.

[nbcouch]

26. Berntsen belongs

to the same class who would lecture us on the "original intent" of the Founders, and the framers of the Constitution and the Republic itself, and then twist the words of those noble citizens beyond all recognition. That is to say, he is a standard issue Neoconservative fascist, or nihilist, if you prefer. We as a nation rejected totalitarian rule over 200 years ago, but this crowd loves it. Bush, with his not so Freudian slip all those years ago, said it all: "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

[acmavm]

27. Somebody should point out that the same could be said about

quite a few CIA jackals. Especially those who operating in Central and South America. I mean, weren't they down there enabling terrorism?

[newspeak]

45. and that's the crux of our foreign turmoil

does the CIA aid and protect the US or are they a protection racket for major international corporations?

[ronnie624]

47. I just happen to be reading this essay:

Steve Kangas: The Origins of the Overclass

<http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/06/steve-kangas-origins-of-overclass.html>

[Downtown Hound]

29. CIA-the most undemocratic institution in the U.S.

Far from helping us, most of the time they are the ones that create the very enemies that we end up sending kids to fight and die years later. The agency either needs to be dissolved or put under the control of an independent review boards.

[Jeep789]

30. If Bush were smart he would have not only executed the

detainees but also the guards and CIA officers to eliminate all the evidence. Luckily, for the officer's sake, Bush isn't.

[formercia]

31. As a former CIA Officer and former member of that unit (SAD).

I recommend you watch this video to see what happened to those who didn't make it to Gitmo:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4902904#4902943

[ronnie624]

42. Interesting. Thanks for the link.

Always searching for al Qaeda, but never quite finding it; only people who are caught up in circumstances created by U.S. foreign policy and many years of intervention by the CIA. Most of our 'enemies' in Afghanistan are guilty of little more than living in a region of the world that is central to the struggle for access to and domination over hydrocarbons.

Every time I hear cable 'news' people like the four buffoons featured in the OP, discussing any aspect of the "war on terror" as if it was real, I feel as though I'm trapped in a bizarre world where logic and reason no longer exist. I wonder if these people are truly unaware of the obvious chain of historical events that have led to the current situation in Afghanistan.

[formercia]

43. Logic and reason never did exist.

People read the book '1984' and wondered if it could ever happen, when in fact, they were part of the real-life version.

[lumberjack_jeff]

32. So which chapter of the Geneva conventions says that captured enemy combatants should be executed?

[No Elephants]

36. Not only that, but I'd love to know Berntsen's definition of "enemy combatant."

[mmonk]

33. One might call that murder given 55% of the people at one time

there had engaged in no combat at all against the US.

[riverdeep]

34. And here we get a glimpse of how the mindset that let the CIA

assassinate and torture with impunity is still alive and well. Not to mention drug running and too much else to mention.

Why does it not surprise me he's a Bush supporter? Pure evil.

[No Elephants]

35. Wild guess: Berntsen and Carlson are both Republicans who actually believe they are

pro law and order.

[Thickasabrick]

37. Good lord, what a monster. Imagine all the heinous acts he committed

when he was with the CIA. Someone needs to weed these types of monsters out of the system.

[malletgirl02]

38. Berntsen

Berntsen is a nutcase.

[Sivafae]

40. I guess that would have been one "solution." eom

[GinaMaria]

41. How, how did someone even think for a second that this was

an okay thing to say out loud let alone to the press? This says he thinks there is nothing wrong with this statement. And that is the frightening part of this. Do you have to be like this before joining the CIA or does the CIA create agents who think like this?

[davekriss]

46. Since when is it OK to execute prisoners of war at whim?

Berntsen used the term "enemy combatants", not the Bushonian "unlawful combatants", so by his own words the prisoners at Guantanamo are subject to the protections found in the Geneva Convention. You don't get to simply take a prisoner outside and shoot them just because we are at war with the nation they are from. That would be a clear war crime. Berntsen is advocating war crimes.

[librechik]

48. If only Bush had done the right thing, declared himself Dictator and

declared the Constitution null and void, then none of this ugly discussion would even be happening now.