Torturing Logic

There is a lot of very tortured logic going on about the USA's need to have laws authorizing torture, even though of course they don't actually torture people. Bush today steps right in it:

"We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice," Mr Bush said at a news conference with Panamanian President Martin Torrijos.

"We are gathering information about where the terrorists might be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans.

"Anything we do to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law.

"We do not torture and therefore we're working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible, more possible to do our job."

"I'm confident that when people see the facts, that they'll recognise that we've got more work to do and that we must protect ourselves in a way that is lawful," Mr Bush said.

So how does authorizing torture protect you, if you do not torture people?

And what does Bush know about the law, except what he is told by sycophantic pro-torture advisors like Miers, Addington and Gonzales?

And would Rumsfeld and Cheney also be prepared to say that the USA does not torture people?

It's total B.S., of course. There are already so many documented case of US torture that the whole discussion is absurd. For example:

Manadel al-Jamadi, died during an interrogation. His head had been covered with a plastic bag, and he was shackled in a crucifixion-like pose that inhibited his ability to breathe; according to forensic pathologists who have examined the case, he asphyxiated. In a subsequent internal investigation, United States government authorities classified Jamadi’s death as a “homicide,” meaning that it resulted from unnatural causes.

Meanwhile, an Italian TV station is airing a documentary with eyewitness accounts from US Military and Iraqi citizens proving that the US used chemical weapons during the Falluja massacre:

RAI News 24 will broadcast video and photographs taken in the Iraqi city during and after the November 2004 bombardment which prove that the US military, contrary to statements in a December 9 communiqué from the US Department of State, did not use phosphorus to illuminate enemy positions (which would have been legitimate) but instend dropped white phosphorus indiscriminately and in massive quantities on the city's neighborhoods.

In the investigative story, produced by Maurizio Torrealta, dramatic footage is shown revealing the effects of the bombardment on civilians, women and children, some of whom were surprised in their sleep.

The investigation will also broadcast documentary proof of the use in Iraq of a new napalm formula called MK77. The use of the incendiary substance on civilians is forbidden by a 1980 UN treaty. The use of chemical weapons is forbidden by a treaty which the US signed in 1997.

You can view the video here.