Sunday, April 28, 2013

The Bush Legacy

As I discussed in my prior post, the right wing is pressing forward in their attempt to re-write history so that Bush is viewed favorably.  We need to remind the world of the facts so their lies don't become history.

What should always be an enduring part of his legacy is torture.  Not just water boarding, which is bad enough.  In the documentary below, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2007, we learn about an Afghan taxi driver, Dilawar, who was beaten so severely about the legs that his legs were "pulpified" according to the medical report.  This combined with chaining in in stress positions for 4 straight days led to his death.  His legs would have required amputation had he survived.  An interrogator belived him to be innocent of any wrongdoing, and soon after his death the US military likewise concluded he had nothing to do with any attacks on US military bases.

This was not a case of a few bad apples.  This played out exactly what the Bush administration had directed.  A few of the grunts served a tiny amount of time, but Bush pardoned himself and those in his administration that were actually responsible.

The documentary is graphic and pretty long (over 2 hours) but worthwhile.



Meanwhile in Guantanamo the travesty of justice continues.  Today prisoners are being force fed as they engage in a hunger strike.

5 comments:

HispanicPundit said...

What violations of their human rights...if the prisoners want to engage in a hunger strike, I say let em! :-)

Jon said...

If they are prisoners of war they have rights under the Geneva Convention. If they are not prisoners of war they have other rights. The right to have their case adjudicated and if there is no evidence that they are guilty of crimes they are to be released. People have rights to life and liberty. Human rights means you don't deprive them of those entirely and leave them locked up indefinitely without charge.

There are people here we know are innocent, and you seem to think it's funny and we should maybe smile as they starve themselves to death. Maybe they should be allowed to starve to death. Maybe that is mercy for them. But our government is grossly violating their human rights.

Saddam's torture chambers were a justification for war. Now we engage in torture and you don't seem to think it's a big deal, and neither to the rest of the necons. This kind of exposes how the pretexts were just pretexts. They don't mind torture. They wanted to invade for other reasons.

HispanicPundit said...

Yes, Jon...they are poor innocents just caught up in the evil regime. I get you...:-)

Jon said...

Yeah, many are poor innocents. People that were known to be innocent when they were sent if you watched the video here, and many others already cleared for release that are still in prison. Most that have had some adjudication are found to have no basis for being held. These are innocent people, held captive in violation of basic human rights.

Unknown said...

The recessions wasn't all his fault. But for the most part, good policy repeatedly took a back seat to Mr Bush's overweening political ambition