Floyd - Criminal intent:...(Chertoff)

[realFedUp]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=19776&mode=nested&order=0
Chris Floyd: 'Criminal intent: Another day, another torture accomplice revealed'

Posted on Friday, February 04 @ 10:20:52 EST

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Before Bush elevated him to the federal bench, Chertoff headed the Justice Department's criminal division, where he was frequently consulted by the CIA and the White House on ways to weasel around the very clear U.S. laws against torture, the New York Times reports. Bush and his legal staff, then headed by Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzales, were openly concerned with "avoiding prosecution for war crimes" under some future administration that might lack the Bushists' finely nuanced view of ramming phosphorous lightsticks up a kidnapped detainee's rectum or other enlightened methods employed in the Administration's crusade to defend civilization from barbarity.

snip-

Eventually, Chertoff referred all torture questions to the authority of the "smoking gun" memo drawn up by Bush's office in August 2002. In this, the White House essentially defined "torture" out of existence; practically any interrogation method could be used, Bush said, as long as it didn't cause "organ failure or imminent death." But even here Bush left an escape hatch for atrocity, ruling that an interrogator who killed or permanently maimed a prisoner could still be shielded from prosecution - as long as he claimed he hadn't *intended* to murder or maim when he commenced the beating.


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But Chertoff's involvement in Bush's chamber of horrors goes beyond an advisory capacity, however. He was also instrumental in the earliest cover-up of Bush's torture system: the trial of John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban" captured in Afghanistan, the Nation reports. In June 2002, Lindh was due to testify about the methods used to extract his confession of terrorist collusion: days of beating, drugging, denial of medical treatment and other abuses. These were of course standard procedures used - by presidential order - from the very beginning of the "war on terror." To stop Lindh from exposing this wide-ranging criminal regimen, Chertoff, overseeing the prosecution, suddenly offered Lindh a deal: the feds would drop all the most serious charges in exchange for a lighter sentence - and a gag order preventing Lindh from telling anyone about his brutal treatment. Lindh, facing life imprisonment or execution, took the deal. Once again, Bush skirts were kept clean. And the torture system was kept safe for its expansion into Iraq, where thousands of innocent people fell into its maw.

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[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gabi Hayes]

2. name ONE single appointee that didn't stink to high Hubble

it's part of their plan to inundate with scum, foul play, lies, scams.....name your depredation

the sheer volume of their evil makes it impossible to keep up

the media, of course, makes not even the slightest attempt, so most of this occurs in a vacuum, resulting, most of the time, in fait accompis, like Ted Olson, or any number of crazy wingnut judges

[gumby]

3. You are correct.

This country is drowning in a tsunami of evil. The wave is obliterating any sunlight and soon we will all be on a devastated island; probably with a lot of nuclear fallout.