Vital Concerns for the World: The Vice President admits that he approved of torture

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

The Vice President admits that he approved of torture

Yesterday the Vice President admitted that he had supported the abuse of prisoners held by the Americans.

According to a news report by David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster Vice President Richard Cheney admited authorizing torture in an interview on ABC with Jonathan Karl. Karl asked him if he approved of interrogation tactics used against a so-called "high value prisoner" at the Guantanamo Bay prison. Mr. Cheney said, "I supported it," in reference to the practice known as "water-boarding," a form of simulated drowning. After World War II, Japanese soldiers were tried and convicted of war crimes in US courts for water-boarding. "I was aware of the program, certainly,” Cheney said. He helped “get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do," Cheney said. "And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it."

Again, our troopers have gone to jail for abusing prisoners but Cheney approved it.

Cheney added that he thought the practice was “remarkably successful”.

Not so, said the Senate report on the abuse of prisoners [see my note yesterday].

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A major source of the American debt problem

Notable Concerns

"Not one has taken responsibility for the biggest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history." Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condolezza Rica, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith.
The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. AlJazeera 10/15/11
GE, America's largest corporation, paid no taxes last year even though it made 5.1 billion dollars profit in the country [and even more outside the country] [source: same as below]
In 2009 the richest 5% held 63.5% of American wealth; the bottom 80% controlled 12.8%. [source: same as below]
Between 2000 and 2007 the richest 10% in America benefited from all of the average growth in the period. In the post WW II period the top 10% benefited from only one third of the growth, the bottom 90% benefiting from the rest of the growth. [Economic Policy Institute, cited by Bob Herbert, NYT 3/26/11]
In 2010 a "premier" investment bank paid each of its 26,000 employees an average of $370,000. [Bill Gross Pimco Investment Outlook Feb, 2011.]
In 2005, one-quarter of the corporations in America making a trillion dolars in revenue paid no taxes.
The 833% Medical Insurance Ripoff: Medicare charges 3% for service; the health insurance companies in Missouri charge 25% for services
The richest 1 percent of Americans have more net worth than the bottom 90 percent.
The richest 1 percent of Americans receive more income than the bottom 50%. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/dec/10/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-viral-speech-says-top-1$ >