Torture and troubles:

Torture
and troubles:

George
W. Bush’s awful legacy

By
Max J. Castro                                                                      Read Spanish Version
majcastro@gmail.com

The
official story — the Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney version — was that the
horrific abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and
other U.S. “war on terrorism” prison camps was the result of a
few bad apples at the bottom of the barrel taking things into their
own hands and going too far.

It
has been clear for a long time, from press reports and other sources,
that this account is a lie. Now a bipartisan panel of the U.S.
Congress — the Senate Armed Forces Committee led by Michigan
Democrat Carl M. Levin (chairman) and Arizona’s John McCain
(ranking Republican) — has officially confirmed what the Bush
administration has long denied: “The fact is that senior officials
in the United States government solicited information on how to use
aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of
their legality, and authorized their use against detainees.”

None
of the twelve Republican committee members was willing to give the
administration a semblance of cover; there were no dissenters from
the report. The result of the use of such techniques “damaged our
ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives,
strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral
authority.”

The
report lays responsibility not only at the feet of former Defense
Department Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; both Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and President George W. Bush himself are implicated.
Bush signed the crucial memo that paved the way for abuse and torture
by declaring that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to al-Qaeda and
Taliban fighters. Rice attended meetings where abusive techniques
were discussed; there is no suggestion that she posed objections.

News
of the detainee abuse report could not have come at a worse time for
George W. Bush and his public relations people, who lately have been
busy trying to rewrite history in order to concoct a positive legacy
for the lamentable forty-third President of the United States. Even
before the damning report from Congress, the job of Bush’s flacks
was mission impossible. Here are a few of the reasons:

• Last
  week, a suicide bomber killed at least 57 people and wounded many
  others in Iraq, demonstrating the fragile and uncertain character of
  progress in that country.

• The
  New
  York Times recently
  reported that “an unpublished 513-page federal history of the
  American-led reconstruction of Iraq depicts an effort crippled
  before the invasion by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the
  idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then molded into a $100
  billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and
  ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and
  infrastructure.”

• At
  home, the economic news continued to get worse, including
  skyrocketing new unemployment claims.

• In
  a recent poll, an overwhelming percentage of Americans told
  pollsters that they will not be missing George W. Bush after he
  leaves 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the last time.

• The
  Republican President of the United States lacked the political
  capital and the credibility to persuade Senators from his own party
  not to torpedo a bill he backed to rescue Detroit automakers even
  after Vice President Dick Cheney went up to Capitol Hill to warn GOP
  lawmakers that, should car makers go broke now, the Republican Party
  would be blamed and suffer tremendous long term political damage.

• Bush’s
  surprise trip to Baghdad last week was marked by an incident during
  a press conference when a reporter threw his shoes at the president
  and shouted: “This is a farewell kiss” and “dog.”

The
good news is that the nightmare is almost over. Even if progressives
don’t agree with every Obama appointment or position, the reality
is that his presidency will mark a new era in U.S. politics and
society.

Take
it from one of the smartest among Washington’s right-wing pundits.
I confess I never have agreed with the opinions of Washington
Post columnist
Charles Krauthammer. At least not until I read his “The Real Obama”
published in the Post
on Dec.
12, 2008.

I
am delighted to quote, at some length, his opinions about Barack
Obama.

“Transformation
is his mission. Crisis provides the opportunity. The election
provides him the power.”

“Obama
was quite serious when he said he was going to change the world. And
now he has a national crisis, a personal mandate, a pliant Congress,
a desperate public — and at his disposal the greatest pot of money
in galactic history.”

“This
is where Obama will show himself ideologically. It is his one great
opportunity to plant the seeds for everything he cares about: a new
green economy, universal health care, a labor resurgence, government
as benevolent private sector ‘partner.’”

“Don’t
be fooled by Bob Gates staying on. Obama didn’t get elected to
manage Afghanistan. He intends to transform America. And he has the
money, the mandate and the moxie to go for it.”

AMEN!