Ex-Interrogators Are Mad as Hell About Torture, and They're Not Gonna Take Cheney Anymore

[babylonsister]

Ex-Interrogators Are Mad as Hell About Torture, and They're Not Gonna Take Cheney Anymore

Posted by ZP Heller, MoveOn.org at 8:51 AM on May 30, 2009.

MoveOn, VoteVets, and Brave New Foundation amplify testimonies of former interrogators.


More and more former interrogators and counterinsurgency experts are using Dick Cheney’s recent ubiquity to expose his iniquity regarding the torture and abuse of detainees. Earlier this week, I wrote about Major Matthew Alexander, the former Senior Interrogator who conducted over 300 interrogations in Iraq and supervised 1,000 more. Alexander relied upon conventional means of interrogation, and his efforts led to the capture and killing of al-Qaeda leader Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi. Yet Alexander also witnessed the perilous consequences of Cheney’s torture policy.

In an exclusive interview with Brave New Foundation, Alexander said, “At the prison where I conducted interrogations, we heard day in and day out foreign fighters who had been captured state that the number one reason they had come to fight in Iraq was because of torture and abuse, what had happened at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.”

Today, MoveOn.org and VoteVets.org joined the growing movement to amplify the testimonies of former interrogators and reveal the repercussions of treating prisoners inhumanely. Their joint campaign features a video with Jay Bagwell, an Afghanistan veteran and counterintelligence agent, who reaffirmed Alexander’s assessment of Cheney’s torture policy. According to Bagwell, “Torture puts our troops in danger, torture makes our troops less safe, torture creates terrorists. It’s used so widely as a propaganda tool now in Afghanistan. All too often, detainees have pamphlets on them, depicting what happened at Guantanamo.”

Thanks to Alexander, Bagwell, and other former interrogators who have come forward, it’s now abundantly clear that the Bush administration’s highly controversial, unlawful methods of extracting information were both unsuccessful (read TIME’s recent article “After Waterboarding: How to Make Terrorists Talk?“) and counterproductive. Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib now stand as evidence of the Bush administration’s criminality and morally bankrupt behavior, and they have become recruiting tools for insurgents and terrorists to attack American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

more...

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/politics/140359/ex-interrogators_are_mad_as_hell_about_torture%2C_and_they%27re_not_gonna_take_cheney_anymore/#more

[Wapsie B]

1. Is there any hope now of seeing justice served in this case?

With many prosecutors one would think this would be a slam dunk. But this is the head of the serpent we're talking about. I wonder when he'll be left to twist in the wind if ever?

[babylonsister]

2. Hopefully. I'm glad VetVoice and MoveOn are joining the fight. nt

[Canuckistanian]

3. Drip, drip, drip.....

One day, all this WILL explode. There are too many people with integrity to let this pass without notice.

[tularetom]

4. The liberal media are doing a great job of keeping it quiet

[DCKit]

6. You really need to use one of these:

:sarcasm: if you're going to call them "the liberal media".

[Senator]

5. Amplify? Obama's just hard of hearing?

Worth a try I guess.

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