Totalitarianism, Fascism, and Autocracy

General Accuses White House of War Crimes
http://www.military.com/news/article/general-accuses-wh-of-war-crimes.html?col=1186032325324

The remarks by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who's now retired, came in a new report that found that U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices.

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

This article was accessed through Military.com and sheds light on growing disillusionment within the ranks over the illegal actions of the Commander-in-Chief. The article goes on to discuss meetings and discussions among senior Administration officials on the Defense and Intelligence ends including the seeking of favorable legal opinions in the face of protest by military lawyers. It becomes obvious that the Bush Administration has actively encouraged its illegal agenda through the selection and promotion of those military, legal, and intelligence most agreeable to reprehensible policy. The pimping and pandering of legal opinion best aligned with the Administration’s end goals is reminiscent of behind-the-scenes wrangling conducted in the former Soviet and Nazi regimes. At least, the American version of obtaining favorable opinions from sycophantic underlings hasn’t included execution for those in dissent. How civilized; we won’t kill those who disagree with our criminal plans, but we will put them out to pasture.

In previous blogs, which are no longer available, I had much to say about this and how Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush were attempting to build a new American Empire built on greed and brute force as opposed to trade and democratic ideals. They still used the old terminology, but it was obvious to anyone with any ability to discern that the old terminology has been used by this administration euphemistically at best.

This Administration, more than any other in my lifetime, has sought to have the American people sign off on the promotion of criminal acts thinly disguised as a “War on Terror”. Generally speaking, intelligence gathering through physical coercion leads to greater error, as the recipient of the coercion will say whatever it takes to avoid further “discomfort”. Waterboarding and other acts of coercion are effective brain-washing and behavioral adjustment techniques, but they rarely elicit the truth. This is a large part of the reasoning, beyond the legal issues, that, until this Administration, most agencies and departments, including the military, have shunned their use. This administration of gung-ho redneck chickenhawks, who never put anything of their own on the line for their country, has decided to show their élan with the courage and blood of others while increasing the net worth of their friends and benefactors in the military-industrial-energy complex and destroying the finances and dreams of many average Americans.

Bill Clinton was impeached for lying to a Senate committee; how much more justification must this group of criminals give the nation? Or the world? Clinton’s crimes were of a personal nature and regarding a personal matter, and though this writer despised him as a man, he largely played it straight as the President.

There is no question of George W Bush’s involvement in all of the criminal activity of his administration. There is no way, with all of the media coverage, and his defense of Administration officials, that he could have been in the dark about matters of such grave importance. From an illegal and unjustified invasion of a sovereign state, diverting resources from the real “War on Terror” to Valerie Plame being outed as a CIA agent to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, George W. Bush must share accountability for his high crimes and misdemeanors. The world was looking up to the US in 2000; now, mostly due to this Administration’s incompetence, intransigence, and malfeasance, the world rightly looks to itself for answers while hoping that the US doesn’t start another war.

In 2001, al-Qaida showed the US the meaning of terror; in response, George Bush has shown the world the meaning of terror. In the process he has shown Americans the meaning of totalitarianism, fascism, and autocracy.