How the current Bybee memo scandal in MSM relates to 9/11 truth in five video parts:
I've made this collection of videos because there's been much debate lately about the issue of torture due to the release of the infamous Jay Bybee "torture memos" that I feel relates to the issue of 9/11. Please watch these recent clips I've gathered mostly from earth2obama.org and see if you agree, I'd love to see some discussion around this.
In this video, author Ron Suskind and MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell discuss torture being used to create a link between 9/11 and the case for war in Iraq, 8 months before the methods were "approved" by the Justice Department.
Here Brigadier General Janice Karpinski, who ran the prisons in Iraq post-invasion and was demoted following the Abu Gharib scandal speaks of the torture that occurred under the direct supervision of contractors under orders of Donald Rumsfeld.
Recent "O'Reilley Factor" episode featuring 9/11 family members Debra Burlingame and Hamilton Peterson opposing the release of the torture memos as unpatriotic and dangerous:
Finally here's MSNBC's Rachel Maddow interviewing former 9/11 commission executive director Philip Zelikow about his role in being Condoleezza Rice's agent of opposition to the practice of torture,
part 1:
part 2:
Any thoughts on Mr. Zelikow's claim here?
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the facts, m'am
Interesting how Mitchell talks about the effort to link al Qaeda to 911 at about 2:30 then abruptly gets back on message. Then Maddow gives Zelikow a forum to perfume himself.
Emptywheel now on the case
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/25/zelikow-the-911-commission-...
and maybe she could use some solid, well-informed help.
The question is WHY did the BushCabal NEED to Torture?
We all know the best way to get your patsies to confess to a crime they didn't commit is to TORTURE it out of them. Of course the people directly involved in the torture need NOT know this; all they need to believe is that the suspect in hand is guilty and the "truth" needs to be tortured out of them.
It is very interesting that the Torture issue is arising just now. What does it mean? Is there a real effort on the part of the Obama administration to put some kind of "lock down" on the NEOCON/BushCheney Cabal? Isn't it interesting that on one hand all they have to "justify" their use of torture is the 9/11 "attack" itself. This and trying to get people to believe that torture was necessary in order to prevent another attack. This puts them in the unfortunate position of having to bring the whole subject of 9/11 back into public consciousness. On the other hand, by focusing on Torture, this keeps the attention away from 9/11 itself. For the Deep State it is a very tricky politic.
There are several very interesting threads on DemocraticUnderground that everyone should look at and reed if they want to fill out the connection between torture and 9/11:
Six Dimensions of Scandal:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&add...
Torture and the Bush-Cheny DReam of a Totalitarian State:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&add...
The 9/11 commissioners violated the Convention Against Torture:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&add...
We used torture to obtain FALSE CONFESSIONS;
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&add...
It looks like there is a move afoot to keep the Torture question contained, the fall back position being that the reasons for torture were to get confessions of a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq/Sadam. We must keep pushing that envelope -- what deeper reasons might their have been for torture?
We need to understand that the two primary reasons a regime uses torture is 1) to instill fear in those who might go up against the regime and 2) to get "confessions" that they can use for propaganda purposes. This really is about all torture is good for and those "in the business" know this quite well. Keep in mind that the likely first victim of torture was the US citizen, John Walker Lindh:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&add...
And that fairly early on torture was used on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
The 9/11 Truth movement has created a breach in the overriding mythology about WHO was responsible for 9/11, WHO the real terrorists are. The government and its agencies and the complicit media have been working overtime to fill in that breach, cover it over, and point away from it (nothing to see here, folks, move along). The Torture issue, however, is now bringing 9/11 questions back into public discourse and we must use this opportunity to widen the breach already created, pushing through the myth to the deeper question: WHY torture at all?
Good Question
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The CONSTITUTION is NOT going to "collapse" into pulverized dust no matter how much thermate/explosives or planes they throw at it
PS as for Zelikow
Yes, I think it is very interesting that Zelikow appears to be back-peddling away from the NEOCON/BushCheney Cabal in relation to the Torture issue. Again, I always look at these things as "messages" -- who is sending what message to whom? What does this mean. It is reported as simply a "fact" and, indeed, it might just be so if it weren't for the fact that Zelikow was the executive director of the 9/11 Commission report -- in the perfect position to steer the commission. All the Commission had access to was "intelligence reports based on communications received from the locations where the actual interrogations take place". This is very important and Zelikow controlled that access.
So, what is the game being played here? Who are the players? What is the objective? Is there any real possibility that the NEOCON/BushCheney Cabal can be held legally accountable for ANYTHING? Is Torture the "safe" issue to pin them on because, so long as investigation is limited, it doesn't lead to the deeper questions of WHY torture was necessary? They already have their answer for that and no one is challenging that answer.
That, folks, is where we come in.
Well put, Painter
Others new to all this -- such as emptywheel and Maddow -- would be well served to receive such facts and analysis. Z needs to be made to answer why, when he objected so much to torture, he used its fruits as the basis of the report he controlled. Is he only now understanding the implications of that or is his umbrage just another sham?
wtf guys??
this piece of s*ite zelikow is lying his arse off! he "opposed" torture? that piece of s*ite
did everything he was told to. and to watch him saying how he "opposed" and to see
people taking this piece of s*ite seriously is really making me sick. i mean, for christ's
sake, just look at that face!
"wtf i hate all cops"
Issues Not Obvious
The torture issue is receiving a lot of play since the release of the new article on nano-thermite, so it is a distraction. If Obama has to investigate the torture lawyers and Bush and Cheney, he'll certainly pardon them no matter what. If Obama is forced to declare martial law or even subtly take away more freedoms as he's doing now, and it's my belief he was allowed to be elected because it's more palatable coming from a Democrat who's popular than from a Republican, then the constant play of torture in the media help make his case for controlling people.
Zelikow is just a cold functionary who may have written a memo opposing torture but who doesn't care if they go ahead and do it. His icicle treatment of Rodriguez and denial of those who wanted to testify for the 9/11 commission was further proof of his real interest, in protecting the administration and the actual perpetrators of 9/11.
...
Painter wrote:
"We need to understand that the two primary reasons a regime uses torture is 1) to instill fear in those who might go up against the regime and 2) to get "confessions" that they can use for propaganda purposes."
Absolutely.
Everyone should go out and read Sylvia Federici's masterpiece "Caliban and the Witch: Women, the body and Primitive Accumulation" to develop a deeper understanding of the historical function of torture. Extracting intelligence is a crude justification. The immediate goal is to establish dominance by forcing a confession (witch, communist, Al-Qaeda etc.); while the broader goal is to terrorize a given population. Torture DOES work -- if not in acquiring reliable intelligence, then as an effective tool of state terrorism.
Yes, my thoughts as well.
From the P2oG wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proactive,_Preemptive_Operations_Group
P2OG stands for Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group, a U.S. intelligence agency that would employ "black world" (black operations) tactics.
The Defense Science Board (DSB) conducted a 2002 "DSB Summer Study on Special Operations and Joint Forces in Support of Countering Terrorism."[1] Excerpts from that study, dated August 16, 2002, recommend the creation of a super-Intelligence Support Activity, an organization it dubs the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG), to bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence and cover and deception.[2] For example, the Pentagon and CIA would work together to increase human intelligence (HUMINT), forward/operational presence and to deploy new clandestine technical capabilities.[3] Concerning the tactics P2OG would use,
Among other things, this body would launch secret operations aimed at "stimulating reactions" among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction—that is, for instance, prodding terrorist cells into action and exposing themselves to "quick-response" attacks by U.S. forces.
Such tactics would hold "states/sub-state actors accountable" and "signal to harboring states that their sovereignty will be at risk", the briefing paper declares.[2]
But if Zelikow opposes torture..
as he says he had did so with this memo. Then he must of known this going on with Zubayda, (83 times) of which he based a good portion of his final report on. So he used testimony obtained by torture, which he opposes, but had no problem using tortured confession in the report. Its all double talk... he's gone full circle so u can't believe a word that comes out of his head..
Peace all
DTG