It has now come to light that the detainee abuse in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan started when the Bush administration ordered our interrogators to use a document called: "Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance."

This was a 1957 document that showed how the Chinese Communists tortured people -- in order to get false confessions! The only thing we changed was that we dropped the title of the document. Otherwise it is exactly the same. We have been using communist torture tactics that are designed to get false confessions. Meanwhile, The Bush administration has been calling it "enhanced interrogations" and saying we got "valuable intelligence" from it.

More details on the story here:




If you want to read the story of how we came to use this document for our own interrogations, you can click here. This is deplorable. Will anyone ever suffer the consequences for ordering this illegal torture? Will the press question John McCain on why he voted to allow the CIA to continue doing this? I wouldn't bank on it.

But if we do this, and no one ever gets punished for it, can we really say that America doesn't torture anymore?

Watch the Best Web TV Show Here and Here

We just found out that the person in charge of investigating detainee treatment in the past for the Pentagon said the Bush administration is committing "war crimes." And that the four major Western oil companies have conveniently received no-bid contracts to take the oil out of Iraq.

And what has the press done with these stories? Not a damn thing. War crimes -- don't sweat it. A war that cost thousands of lives so that the oil companies can get no-bid contracts -- don't even look into it. The news editors in this country are a national embarrassment. They wouldn't know news if it slapped them across the face. They're too busy typing out the latest government press release as if it's real news.

Here is the war crimes story and what the press did about it:




Here is the Iraqi oil story and what the press did about it (can you see a pattern here):




The press is supposed to challenge power, not suck up to it. It seems they have completely forgotten this part of the job description. Television is the worst, I don't know why we call those paid actors and models reporters anymore. Other than a handful of quality journalists, the rest of them have no idea what the news is and they are matched in their incompetence and cowardice by their own news editors. God forbid someone actually wants to report on the news, that's when the editors come in to spike the story. This system is fundamentally broken and it will take a long time to repair, if ever.

Young Turks on You Tube

The Democrats going on Fox News Channel is a terrible idea for many reasons. They legitimize a propaganda outlet for the Republican Party by agreeing to the fiction that they are a real news organization. They field twisted and slanted questions that set them up for answers that will later be used against them.

Obama fell into this trap last week when he told Chris Wallace that the Rev. Wright controversy was a legitimate political issue. He is trying to be nice to a Fox News anchor, which is just stupid. He is going to use it against you! And he already has. Wallace used Obama's statements to justify several more questions he asked Howard Dean about Rev. Wright this weekend.

But the one reason I never found persuasive for not going on Fox is that the Democrats can't handle it. But there's some chance I'm wrong about that. You can't go and talk to Bill O'Reilly if you're not prepared to challenge him on the obvious bullcrap he's going to toss your way. And that's exactly what Hillary Clinton did. She went in unprepared and pretty much lost a debate on torture. Watch below:





One of our viewers, Tony Daughtrey, made a good point after watching this on our show. O'Reilly keeps calling waterboarding a dunk in the water. You know who else we used to dunk in the water to get confessions? Witches.

Does O'Reilly think we got reliable information out of those women by dunking them in the water during the Salem Witch Trials? Remember, they almost all confessed. So, I guess they must have all been witches after all.

There's a reason why we don't torture people anymore. It's barbaric and useless. They'll tell you whatever you want to hear -- I did it, Iraq is connected to Al Qaeda, I'm a witch, I'm a terrorist, etc., etc.

Finally, we invaded Iraq based on the faulty intelligence we got from one of the guys we tortured. You can read about it here. That wrong information cost the lives of countless people. Is it too much to ask Democrats that they at least learn that one fact and bring that up the next time someone attempts an asinine defense of torture?

Young Turks on You Tube

What conservatives don't understand is that America was not made in God's image. It was not born perfect. It is not and should not be immune to change. Challenging the government of America isn't un-American, it's the very definition of being American.

Through these challenges and these changes we continue to make America better and better. We are not the greatest country by birthright or accident of geography; we are the greatest because we hold ourselves to a higher standard.

So, when we do something as hideous as what I explain below, it is our duty as Americans to challenge our government and demand that they do better. We cannot allow them to do this in our name:




Here is the original 60 Minutes story on what we did to Murat Kurnaz. But his story is, unfortunately, not unique. We have done this to countless people at Bagram Air Base, Qaim, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. We are better than this. Don't let George Bush tell the rest of the world that this is what we are and what we stand for. We must defend the honor and good name of America, otherwise this is what we become.

Watch TYT Here

John McCain has sold the last piece of his soul to the right-wing extremists in this country. He just voted to allow waterboarding by the CIA, acting against everything he has ever said or backed in his life up until now. This is not the man I voted for in 2000. This is a sad, sad remnant of that man.

Here's the details of McCain's vote for torture (and find out where Obama and Clinton came out on it, you might be surprised):




At least, John McCain, Joe Lieberman and the rest of the people who voted for torture lost this one (which is shocking, given the consistent failure of the Democratic Congress to stand up to Bush; but you have to give them credit on this one).

Final note to John McCain: You already won the lunatic primary, you're supposed to be running to the center now. The conventional wisdom that you're supposed to be placating your insatiable conservative base is dead wrong and will kill your chances in the general election.

Watch More Young Turks Here

More following up of the Canadian Torture List controversy that's stirred things up around here a little. Since the US, Guantanamo and Israel are being removed from the list, Iran now calls our list biased, got that link via an editorial from Seattle.

TRN spoke with Michael Ratner and asked for some background and details in regards to the controversy.

Well, that didn't last long. America complained "forcefully" to our government. Upset for being included on the Canadian torture watch list. Because the Canadian Government has no balls, the torture manual will be re-written with America's name removed. CBS News Reports....

The listing drew a sharp response from the U.S., a key NATO ally and trading partner, which asked to be removed from the manual.

"We find it to be offensive for us to be on the same list with countries like Iran and China. Quite frankly it's absurd," U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins told The Associated Press. "For us to be on a list like that is just ridiculous." He said the U.S. does not authorize or condone torture.

"We think it should be removed and we've made that request. We have voiced our opinion very forcefully," Wilkins said...Read More on CBSNews....

So there you have it, if you want to read this news from other sources they are starting to creep in on Google News. I don't have much to add, I just felt obligated to provide this follow up from last weeks posting about America being put on the Torture Watch List, I know torture talk upsets a lot of people in America and if I hurt any feelings, I apologize. Just wanted to pop by and remind you all, waterboarding was once torture.

The video today is a Fox News clip discussing Waterboarding.

From the NewsHounds.us archive.

*Post Updated: Jan 21st

*update - Canada has removed USA from the list.

I've blogged enough about torture to give off the impression that it's something I am concerned about, and today I've learnt Canada has added America and Guantanamo Bay to the Torture Watch List. My observations conclude, Americans are stuck in a debate between "Torture" and "advanced interrogation techniques." Truth of the matter is, if America simply went back to following the rules our World War fighting (grand)fathers left us there wouldn't be a debate.

Naturally your efforts of reading my post will be rewarded with a moving picture, here is one from the Keith Olbermann Archive.

You can also read my article "How Torture Cost Lives" to see evidence of how torture cost us countless American lives, rather than saving them.

Watch More Young Turks Videos Here

Clip from the recent Republican debates hosted by CNN and YouTube, watch more responses here.

The New York Times has found previously unrevealed torture memos written in the second term of George W. Bush. The men responsible are Dick Cheney and his new chief of staff, David Addington (after the last one, Scooter Libby, was arrested). The man who slavishly put into effect these atrocities was Alberto Gonzales. This pathetic man didn't even question his overlords as they got him to agree to one heinous act upon another.

Despite warnings that these interrogation tactics would result in our troops being tortured if they were ever caught, the White House pressed on. They absolutely insisted that the Justice Department write memos that said that obvious violations of the War Crimes Act be considered legal now. And they had their perfect yes-man in Gonzales who never objected and did what he was told.

Bush - August 9th 2007: "We Don't Torture"

Back in 2006 a report was filed by Canadian Justice O'Connor about the tortured Canadian Maher Arar, there was much speculation about what the government was hiding. Turns out that Canada was trying to protect America. The documents (.pdf) have been released and what the they showed was that CSIS knew that Maher Arar was being sent to be tortured, courtesy of the CIA.

Arar documents confirm role of CIA, FBI - Canada.com

OTTAWA -- A secret portion of the Maher Arar report that was finally uncensored Thursday morning confirmed that the CIA and the FBI were the American law enforcement agencies that handled his deportation to Syria and that they likely sent him there so that he could be questioned in a "firm manner."

Here is a video of Patrick Leahy snapping on Alberto Gonazales in regards to the Maher Arar case. Like most sane citizens he is appalled that a great nation like America has turned into a humanrRights violator. This case is a black eye on both Canada and America, for a more in depth discussion on this case I recommend listening to this discussion between Avi Lewis and Amy Goodman.

We torture people. I keep repeating this because we were brought up to believe the United States of America is a force of good in the world and we would never do anything like torture. I used to believe this because it used to be true. That is until Dick Cheney came into office.

Read this article by the New York Times explaining what we do to our detainees. Here's an excerpt:

"A. B. Krongard, who was the executive director of the C.I.A., the No. 3 post at the agency, from 2001 to 2004, agreed with that assessment but acknowledged that the agency had to create an interrogation program from scratch in 2002.

He said officers quickly consulted counterparts in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries to compile a 'catalog' of techniques said to be effective against Arab and Muslim prisoners. They added other methods drawn from those that American troops were trained to withstand in case of capture."

Gee, I wonder what we learned from the Egyptians and the Saudis about how to interrogate detainees. And as the rest of the article explains, we "reverse engineered" CIA programs meant to resist Soviet torture techniques to apply those same techniques against our own detainees. So, we adopted old Soviet torture techniques as our own. Makes you proud.

This incredible post by Andrew Sullivan (conservative blogger who no longer supports the Bush administration) explains how the Germans used what they called "enhanced interrogation" in 1937. He explains how it took on a life of its own and turned into the nightmare that became Nazi Germany.

As he carefully explains in his post, this is not to say that present day America is the same as what Nazi Germany became. That would be a ridiculous statement. It is to say that we should be careful in heading down certain paths because they lead to terrible and ugly places -- and gain momentum as time goes on.

When I see people defending torture in this country under the guise of getting tough with "terrorists" ( the Germans also used the word "terrorists" to describe some of their enemies) and when I see the audience cheering in the Republican primary debates when the candidates talk about "enhanced interrogation," I get a chill down my spine (to be fair John McCain came out strongly against torture in that debate, it was Giuliani and Romney who seemed so eager to cozy up to "enhanced interrogation techniques").

In his latest post, John Hinderaker of Power Line describes my positions as "ludicrous," "silly" and "ill-informed." Touche! Gratuitous insults always make a good case much better. Well done.

I used to be a Republican until George W. Bush, so I love all assumptions about my "liberal" nature. The straw man conservatives love to prop up is a peacenik, flower throwing and wearing, hippie who thinks the world's problems can be solved by loving their cat more.

It's a funny image, but I have never had anyone throw a flower at me (not even Iraqis when we invaded them) and in my five years of doing a "progressive" show, I have only heard from one socialist (and one anarchist). It's a nonsense caricature. Real liberals are perfectly mainstream Americans who think we should only invade countries that attack us, we should try to get everyone healthcare and increase the minimum wage a little. How radical!

I was a Republican who believed in Ronald Reagan's "Peace Through Strength." I believed a 70% tax bracket was out of control. I thought George H.W. Bush's New World Order was the best foreign policy initiative in nearly forty years. I even held pro-war rallies for the first Persian Gulf War.

But here's what separates me from what I call the "Remaining Republicans" – I believe in America. That might sound harsh, but let me explain.