George W Bush: British government outlines opposition to waterboarding

[sabra]

Source: UK telegraph

The British Government has outlined its opposition to waterboarding, after George W Bush, the former US president, insisted that the technique helped save British lives by stopping Islamist attacks on Heathrow and Canary Wharf.

In an interview publicising his new book “Decision Points”, Mr Bush vigorously defended waterboarding, a kind of simulated drowning that was known as an “enhanced interrogation technique” by the Bush administration but regarded as “torture” by many opponents, some allies and a few internal dissenters.

“Three people were waterboarded and I believe that decision saved lives,” said Mr Bush, who denied that the practice amounted to torture. When asked if he authorised waterboarding to gain information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the captured al-Qaeda leader, he responded: “Damn right!”

In his book, Mr Bush writes: “Their interrogations helped break up plots to attack American diplomatic facilities abroad, Heathrow airport and Canary Wharf in London, and multiple targets in the United States.”

He writes that although the procedure was "tough", it was legal.

Kim Howells, the former Labour chairman of the Commons intelligence and security committee, told the BBC that although he did not doubt the existence of plots, he questioned whether waterboarding provided key information.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/us-politics/8120385/George-W-Bush-British-government-outlines-opposition-to-waterboarding.html

[Blue Owl]

1. But did they consult "the lawyer?"

whomever the fuck that was?

[GSLevel9]

2. anything can be LEGAL when YOU write the law, lol... nt

[lobodons]

3. Bush's lack of foreign travel

Bush will live out his war criminal life exiled in the United States.

[Solly Mack]

4. k/r

[Supersedeas]

5. Bush may be wrong on the morality of torture, BUT if he is ALSO wrong on the facts

that the torture lead directly to saving lives -- will the Corporate RW controlled press dare to call him on that.

John Yoo's legal argument - Corporate Media regurgitated.

Bush's moral argument - Corporate media regurgitated.

Bush's lies about the facts - Mutt Lauer to the rescue.

[on point]

6. "But my co-conspirator lawyers said it was OK, 'cause I told them to"

All are guilty of crimes against humanity. The law is clear already and was designed to avoid just this kind of corruption of the legal system to justify their crimes. That his lawyer wrote the opinion he was asked to write doesn't make it legal, it makes the lawyer a co-conspirator.