If you saw/heard the back-pedaling, distancing, and tone of "innocence" in Rummy's voice yesterday, one might easily conclude this torture is STILL going on.

On a related item: check out Bamford's article in latest issue of Rolling Stones http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/8798997?pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=single7&rnd=1132253345109&has-player=false

and his interview with Amy Goodman on democracynow.org

Steve, It's good that the US Govt has multiple views, but my question would be if you were a foreign power, which one should you listen too. It seems to me that the US currently feels a bit like Cold War Russia, where it was difficult to know where the real power was & who's voice you should listen too.
P.S. I have lived in the US for 2 years and I still do not understand what is the difference between the Republican party and GOP ( admitedly I have not tryed hard ), but it is plain confusing.

Indeed, Wilkerson talking to international media does at least show that ALL Americans are not mindless drones, marching lockstep with President Bush. On course, to the Bushies, that means he is giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy.

Nigel, assuming there was no "tongue-in-cheek" that I didn't get in your comment - GOP refers to "Grand Old Party", which is the nickname of the Republican Party, which has been in exsistance longer than the Democratic Party. GOP and Republican is one and the same.

How long has Wilkerson known about this?

Steve, my questions are this, what is his ulterior motive for bringing the torture aspect to the public's attention? Is Mr. Wilkerson that much of boyscout to want to tell the truth? Could this be an effort to CYA, well cover his a$$? I'm just having trouble believing that this is being done now and not a year ago after the former SoS resigned. This just sounds like something right out of a Tom Clancy novel starring Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan.

Retribution, especially misguided retribution, is a noxious poison. However, for the damage done, the lives lost, the maimed and tortured and ruined families wrought, I'd like to see Bush hang. Not in some antiseptic setting, but from the rafters of a petroleum service station, just as was done to Il Duce. He is truly a sociopathic, genocidal madman. He needs accorded the fate that befits him.

How long before the BOOK hits the stands?? Disgruntled and Outraged should be a new classification like Non Fiction. Wilson IV and Cindy Sheehan got their book deals, Al 'Gag Writer' Franken gets his. Wilkerson has got to get his so you KneeJerks can cough up.

"Retribution, especially misguided retribution, is a noxious poison. However, for the damage done, the lives lost, the maimed and tortured and ruined families wrought, I'd like to see Bush hang. Not in some antiseptic setting, but from the rafters of a petroleum service station, just as was done to Il Duce. He is truly a sociopathic, genocidal madman. He needs accorded the fate that befits him."

Posted by steve duncan

Bush is nothing. A front man, a buffoon. You doubt it, just take a look at yesterday's film of him trying to open a door. His facial expressions tell it all. I have said since before the monkey took office that his body language telegraphed the existence of a seriously screwed up human being. It is Cheney and his band of perverted megolomaniacal crazies that truly should face justice. If these people get away with the crimes they have committed, than it proves for once and for all that this nation is no longer a nation where the law serves its people on equal terms.

We are now finding bodies in Iraq where the trained representatives of our efforts in this clusterfuck DRILLED HOLES IN PEOPLE'S HEADS. Can you imagine the hue and cry that would be raised by these murderous lying sons of bitches in the Bush Administrartion if these bodies were turning up in Havana? Or in Damascus? We have become everything we used to stand AGAINST. Yes, there SHOULD be indictments, trials, hangings. But there won't be. The law, both domestically, and internationally, is now only designed to keep the masses down. The Bush Administration is ABOVE THE LAW, and you will not remove them by employing the law, nor will they face justice.

I think that it's important that Wilkerson speak to the European, Japanese, Chinese, Latin American, and Middle Eastern media -- because his doing so demonstrates …that the Bush administration is not monolithic….”

Steve,

What about Cheney’s puppeteers?

You’re right, voices like Wilkerson’s should help undo some of the havoc that the Iraq war, Abu Gharib, Guantanamo Bay, black prisons, etc., have done to the American image abroad. Cheney was indeed calling the shots in Iraq and on the so-called “war on terror.” But he’s a convert to the neocons’ empire-building philosophy (Wolfowitz baptized then defense secretary in 1992), which triggered the Iraq war and underpins the terror-war operations. If Cheney is fanatical about his mission, it’s because many converts are fanatical about their new creeds. Actually, the neocons have – or used to have -- an esoteric terms for him other converts: “gentlemen” (read suckers).

we must never, ever forget that the torture chain of accountability began with bush...

in the introductory paragraphs of a memorandum dated 25 January 2002 from then white house counsel alberto gonzales to president bush, gonzales reaffirms the department of justice legal opinion that geneva does not apply to al qaeda and acknowledges bush's decision to waive geneva... he also points out that the secretary of state, colin powell, had requested that the decision be reconsidered and that bush conclude that geneva does apply...

as we know, bush stuck by his decision which led us directly to editorials like this one today in the boston globe...

*[I]t was a grave mistake for the Bush administration to deny Geneva Convention rights to detainees at Guantanamo and other prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. That decision four years ago laid the groundwork for all the abuse of detainees, including the 31 deaths that the military has found were confirmed or suspected homicides. Now the administration has compounded the shame by denying access to prisoners by investigators from the UN Human Rights Commission. The decision will only strengthen the view of US critics that this country has placed itself above international law.*

it's not a view... plainly and simply, we have placed ourselves above international law...

Everyone did notice wilkerson changed his story big time right?

In his new America speech he seemed to be going with the “everyone was wrong” party line on the WMD story. At that time I figured he was just protecting Powell who is the only one who made detailed allegations at his UN presentation. The central theme in Wilkersons story was that a good decision process makes sure dissenting views are heard.

If there ever was an example if dissent being killed of it was in the aluminum tube/centrifuge story. Here analyst from the dept. Of energy wondered why Saddam would go for very unreliable inefficient centrifuges that required many more components that set of alarm bells world wide. Why would Saddam do that if he had designs of some of the best centrifuges right from Germany? Centrifuges that he previously had build successfully. The DOE leadership told the Oak ridge and Los alamos engineers to “shut up and sit down” when discussing this issue. Not exactly the respect you would expect for the opinion of the people who build the American centrifuges. Then Powell went to the UN where he said “other experts and the iraqi`s” said the tubes where intended for rocket motors. (http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/IraqAluminumTubes12-5-03.pdf, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34042)

Not a pretty story, but it was Wilkersons example of the intelligence community being convinced of Saddams danger in his new America talk....

I could not believe that Wilkerson hadn't noticed how hard Powell worked to weed out the obvious bullshit from the intelligence before his UN presentation. I didn't think he missed the state department dissenting opinion in the NIE. I didn't think he missed the differences between the classified NIE and the publicly released white paper. I could not believe he didn't hear the British dossier was plagiarized of some student and then (in the words of the BBC) “sexed up” by Blairs spin master. I cant believe he hadn't heard the story of David Kelly the British former weapons inspector who committed suicide after the invasion started eventhough he told the BBC the 45 minute claim was bullshit. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,891562,00.html)

I figured he couldn't have ignored all this but just decided to protect Powell. This would prevent his credibility from being attacked before he could make his detainee abuse and torture point and tell his side of the story on the decision to go to war. He really seemed to aim for institutional measures to prevent a similar rush to war in the future. He seamed to let bygones be bygones on the WMD story. It looked like smart politics at the time.

But in his CNN appearance he “reserves his opinion” in the intelligence manipulation matter. He “recently learned” (as in “read the rolling stone article” like the rest of the world) that one of the bureaucratic measures (the office of strategic bullshit... I mean office of strategic influence) for this manipulation continued after being ordered to stop was just outsourced to a private company. All of a sudden he read Bamfords book pretext for war, which leaves little doubt on the WMD story. (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/8798997)

Something convinced him the WMD claims came from collectors under political pressure and or was misrepresented by politicians. How scary would it be if he spend his days with Powell but only learned of this now? Didn`t he hear his department had a dissenting opinion in the NIE?

Why would a state department guy say the rest of the world thought Saddam had WMD programs? Is it really possible he still didn't hear curveball was handled by the Germans, the British sexed up their dossier, the French would be in a shitstorm if Niger really did sell yellowcake to Iraq?

If he only changed his mind after his new America appearance then the state department is in worse shape then he claimed. It would mean he was personally very much out of the loop.

Sidenote: The only speculation by Bamfords in body of secrets is about Vietnam. Guess what, it turns out NSA historians agree with Bamford. Now the NSA has decided not the release the story of intelligence handling in the run up to the Vietnam war because it would coincide with that other debate of intelligence manipulation. If Wilkerson cares about the decision making process surrounding wars then he should have read body of secrets. And if he did, then he would have read pretext for war as soon as it hit the shelfs. (http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2005/11/ap110105.html)

I hate to say it again, but If Mr. Wilkerson was so outraged by the abuses of this administration, where was he before it was reelected. Oh, yeah, that's right, he was at least nominally a part of it.

I have no facts to contradict his assertions, however the effectiveness of his message is seriously hampered by the fact that he could/should have spoken up when it would have made a difference.

RickRS, I'm embarrassed & now wish it had been toungue in cheek :), I had always though GOP was the funding arm of the Republican Party, certainly it's very ambiguous in Media coverage globally.

All adding to as an outsider what is now a really confusing landscape.

Why all the vicious attacks from the left on Wilkerson now? when he's "coming clean" in a very important way. In what I would assume to be Wilkerson's "circle", he's now putting his head on the chopping block. Some people don't realize what it's like to throw away a career worth of relationships and connections, simply to tell the truth. Let's face it - most ambitious people in this world play the "good soldier" in whatever sandbox they've chosen to play (either left or right-wing). Wilkerson is coming out with brand new, highly damaging stuff on a very desparate and vindictive administration. Cut him some slack!

Here's crooksandliars.com link to a video of Wilerson's CNN interview:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/20.html#a5984

Torture is as un-American as you can get.

LTJ: On the one hand, yes, I certainly commend Wilkerson for finally coming out with this inside information, and I absolutely hope that any and all means are brought to bear to to censure and, if possible, punish this "cabal."

I also hope that these revelations lead to restoration, or creation, of a more traditionally conservative party not driven by far right wing idealogues in league with far right religion.

Nonetheless, all of this was going on prior to the last election, while Colin Powell was still a member of the administration "team" and not yet completely marginalized. If these activities are wrong today, they were just as wrong then. And the damage from these policies could have been mitigated had this administration not been reelected.

Wrong is wrong, and needs to be corrected. However it's not more wrong just because the guy you work for is no longer welcome in the administration. An acknowledgement of why it took so long for these activities to become known is in order, and Wilkerson deserves to be held responsible for withholding this information as much as the cabal deserves to be held responsible for misleading Congress and the American people.

And hopefully, the '06 and '08 elections will see an awakening in the voters and a reckoning for the disaster that this administration has been.

quote: there are others with views about the world and America's place in it that are not comfortable with the concentration of power, secrecy, and suspension of American norms in war that Cheney and Rumsfeld have promulgated.

I feel this is a very smart comment. I'm from belgium, but i had to look hard to find American voices that speak with reason. I've found them on sites like 'democracy now' (which is one of the best news reports in the world to me) and on this blog. Keep up the good work, many people in the world are counting on Americans to fight this administration's awful policies. We don't get to vote in your elections, but they affect us a great deal.

Excuse me, i used the wrong quote in the post above.
This is the one i'm commenting one: "I think that it's important that Wilkerson speak to the European, Japanese, Chinese, Latin American, and Middle Eastern media"