When "plausible deniability" comes to mean "deniability impossible," it's gonna get ugly…

posted by Bill Arnett @ 11:53 AM Permalink

From an article at Huffington Post comes this latest example of what justice looks like under a dictator with no familiarity, or even regard. for truth or justice:

The Bush administration was under court order not to discard evidence of detainee torture and abuse months before the CIA destroyed videotapes that revealed some of its harshest interrogation tactics.[…]

The CIA destroyed the tapes in November 2005. That June, U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. had ordered the Bush administration to safeguard "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

At the time, that seemed to cover all detainees in U.S. custody. But Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the terrorism suspects whose interrogations were videotaped and then destroyed, weren't at Guantanamo Bay. They were prisoners that existed off the books _ and apparently beyond the scope of the court's order.[…]

In legal documents filed in January 2005, Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler assured Kennedy that government officials were "well aware of their obligation not to destroy evidence that may be relevant in pending litigation."

For just that reason, officials inside and outside of the CIA advised against destroying the interrogation tapes, according to a former senior intelligence official involved in the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because it is under investigation.[…]

The tapes were also destroyed at a time when attorneys for al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui were seeking interrogation videos that might help show their client wasn't a part of the 9/11 attacks.

In May 2005, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered the government to disclose whether interrogations were recorded. The government objected. In a modified order on Nov. 3, 2005, the judge asked whether the government "has video or audio tapes" of specific interrogations. Eleven days later, the government said it did not.

If there are any people out there buying into this, just the latest proven lie of the bush maladministration, then I have a small bridge in Fallujah for sale, lightly traveled, and mostly used for decorative displays.

When and where does this criminality stop? When America's reputation is so badly damaged that other countries start treating U.S. citizens as badly as we treat the citizens of their country?

And what a hoot it would be for all these evangelicals propounding biblical mores to finally realize that they are succeeding at educating the world in the bible's golden rule to treat others as you yourself would like to be treated. WATER-BOARDING FOR ALL! Woo Hoo!

Labels: Bush, conspiracy, Courts, Crime, disinformation, Gitmo, Iraq war, more Bush lies, republican party, totalitarian state, war crimes, waterboarding