imprisonbush.com

The Iraqi government and American government alike were full of big promises after that secret Iraqi torture prison was found, with some victims tortured so bad that their skin was peeled off.

The American government promised that people would be held accountable. The Iraqi government promised that it would launch an investigation, and have answers within two weeks.

So, two weeks later, what’s happened? Nothing.

The Iraqi government says that, in spite of its promises, the investigation into torture just isn’t ready yet, and won’t be ready for quite a long while. The Americans, in the meantime, are whistling and twiddling their fingers, saying that they don’t need to do anything because the Iraqis are doing an investigation.

As far as I can tell, this is what Bush’s so-called strategy for success looks like: When Bush’s new Iraqi government is caught committing war crimes, nobody does anything except give speeches. Then, eventually, the media forgets about the problem, and the new Iraqi regime can keep on torturing people until security is established… kind of like what Saddam Hussein did. Then, the Islamic world learns to love America for helping the Iraqi government torture its people, and Saddam Hussein renounces jihad and becomes a Mary Kay salesman.

Well, there are a couple of hitches in that strategy, Mr. President, and they don’t have to do with the difficulty in keeping eye liner moist in desert conditions.

This stupid war was supposed to be about STOPPING torture and terror – not spreading torture and terror throughout the world. Does anyone remember that? Have they forgotten?

Attention readers:

We recently became aware that, as we ate our Thanksgiving turkey and rested, the Imprison Bush web site went down for several days. Rest assured that the problem is fixed, and that we will have new material updated and online very soon. Thanks for your patience.

And here comes Porter Goss, head of the CIA, sporting an eye-catching number from our new winter line of bold new euphemisms for the word “torture.”

“We use lawful capabilities to collect vital information, and we do it in a variety of unique and innovative ways.” (Source: USA Today, 11/21/05)

Wow, “unique and innovative!” We all know what that means in the corporate world, wink wink. I’m thinking Enron here, with their unique and innovative business model. But doesn’t it look smashing on the CIA? And that “legal” business–a daring statement for an agency “detaining” people in a top-secret system of black site prisons out of the reach of the courts. But Goss pulls it all off, don’t you think?

George W. Bush came to Washington posing as a regular guy. He was a straight talking Texan who had trouble pronouncing all those big fancy words people use to stretch the truth. Or so he wanted you to think. Now, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on one thing–he may genuinely have trouble pronouncing some words. But he’s as slick as they come.

Take, for example, Bush’s response to revelations in the British press that Tony Blair talked him out of bombing Qatar-based news agency Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera has asked both the Americans and the British to promptly deny the reports if they are untrue. Both responded, but neither quite denied it.

The British are threatening anyone in the press who reveals further details about the leaked government documents with possible prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. Now, why would you threaten someone with prosecution for leaking classified information if it weren’t true? You’d threaten them with prosecution for libel or slander, right?

Bush’s spokesman Scott McClellan appeared to deny the charges. I say “appeared” because, if you parse what he said very carefully, he dismissed it without denying it. “We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response,” he said. Now, it kinda sounds like a denial. But if you read it the way you read fine print on a contract, you’ll notice that what he’s really saying is that he’s “not interested” in giving “a response.” In plain English, he’s not denying it. (Source: Reuters, 11/23/05)

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t buy a used car from someone who twists words around like that. They’re not fooling me with their phony Texas accents and their aw shucks good ol’ boy reading slippery fine print off a teleprompter routine–the Bush administration is as slippery as they come.

For three and a half years, the Department of Defense has been holding American citizen Jose Padilla without charging him with any crime. They held him months before they even allowed him to see a lawyer.

Don’t I mean the Department of Justice? No, I mean the Department of Defense, the DOD, Rumsfeld’s joint, the one that fights wars. Didn’t you hear? The U.S. military has taken upon itself the power to capture American citizens in America and hold them at will with no legal process. Now, maybe you didn’t hear about that, but did you miss Brad and Jen’s divorce? Gee, I guess the press–owned as it is by giant conglomerates that profit from war–thought Brad and Jen merited more coverage than the military’s new absolute power over you.

Over the years, the “Justice” Department has offered a continuously-evolving set of justifications for holding Padilla. First, they said, he was involved in a plot to set of a radioactive dirty bomb in an American city. Then, more than a year later, they said he was involved in a plot to leave the gas on in an apartment building, then blow it up.

Now that it comes time to charge Padilla, the accusations are notably less grandiose. “The indictment alleges that Padilla traveled overseas to train as a terrorist with the intention of fighting a violent jihad,” said Attorney General Alberto “Torture Memos” Gonzales. (Source: AP, 11/22/05–I added the “Torture Memos” bit, because he’s the guy who called the Geneva Conventions “quaint.”)

Padilla has been in custody since spring of 2002. He wasn’t charged with a crime until autumn of 2005. Now his trial is set to begin in autumn 2006. Barring any, you know, unforseen delays…

The Padilla scandal is a travesty of justice, and a dangerous precedent for the seizure of absolute power over American citizens by the Department of Defense. So, is Angelina really worried Brad will go back to Jen? I wonder.

Colonel Larry Wilkerson, who served as Chief of Staff for the State Department for the first term of the Bush Administration, confirmed that torture was taking place in American-run prisons during his time in office. Wilkerson has also revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are directly responsible for making that torture take place.

Last night, while being interviewed on CNN, Wilkerson said of torture in American-run prisons around the world, “There’s no question in my mind that we did. There’s no question in my mind that we may be still doing it.”

Of the involvement of Dick Cheney, Wilkerson said, “There’s no question in my mind where the philosophical guidance and the flexibility in order to do so originated — in the vice president of the United States’ office… His implementer in this case was Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department.” Later in the evening, Wilkerson explained that the decision in the White House to torture took outside of the normal, legal procedures, saying, “The decisions were not made in the principals’ process, in the deputies’ process, in the policy coordinating committee process. They were not made in the statutory process.”

Wilkerson says he doesn’t know if President Bush was personally involved in these decisions. That leaves us with two possibilities:

1. Bush knew about the torture, and helped organize it.
2. Bush was not in control of the government during wartime.

Either way, Bush has been exposed as thoroughly unworthy of the office of President of the United States. A huge majority of the American people now have no trust in President Bush. It is time for George W. Bush, to resign, and the rest of the Bush White House to resign with him.

Get set, America! Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is convening a new grand jury in the case arising from the leak of an undercover CIA agent’s identity by Bush Administration officials seeking to punish the secret agent’s husband for telling the American people the truth about the trumped-up evidence for an Iraqi nuclear weapons program.

A new grand jury means that Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has definitely identified additional crimes committed by Bush Administration officials. The grand jury will investigate these crimes, which may then lead to additional investigations of additional crimes. What’s coming we can’t say for sure, but what is for sure is that this story isn’t over. The trial of Lewis Libby is only going to be the start.

Remember, what this all goes back to is that the Bush Administration deceived the American people in order to start a war in Iraq. Purposeful deception in order to start a war defintiely goes into the category of high crimes and misdemeanors, the threshhold for impeachment of President Bush.

Maybe you’re a Republican and want to discount the Guardian as just a member of the liberal media. Okay, then, how about the BBC? No, too foreign for you?

Okay, then, how about the bloody Pentagon? Republicans believe what the Pentagon says, right?

Well, the Pentagon has just admitted that yes, it used white phosphorus as a weapon in the seige on Fallujah.

Read the article, which includes the quote, “It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants,” from Pentagon spokesman Lt Col Barry Venable.

Not as a device for illumination. A weapon. A chemical weapon.

George W. Bush has done what Saddam Hussein is on trial for.

Let’s put Bush on trial, let’s convict him in an open trial, then let’s put him in prison for the rest of his life, to think about his crimes while staring at the bars and trying to make friends with his fellow prisoners, who did not get a special ticket from their daddies to go to Yale.