Rove 'proud' of US waterboarding terror suspects

[dirtydog]

Rove 'proud' of US waterboarding terror suspects

Karl Rove: 'Waterboarding kept world safe'

A senior adviser to former US President George W Bush has defended tough interrogation techniques, saying their use helped prevent terrorist attacks.

In a BBC interview, Karl Rove, who was known as "Bush's brain", said he "was proud we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists".

He said waterboarding, which simulates drowning, should not be considered torture.
In 2009, President Barack Obama banned waterboarding as a form of torture.

But the practice was sanctioned in written memos by Bush administration lawyers in August 2002, providing legal cover for its use.

I'm proud that we kept the world safer than it was, by the use of these techniques
Karl Rove



Profile: Karl Rove

In 2008, CIA head Michael Hayden told Congress it had only been used on three high-profile al-Qaeda detainees, and not for the past five years.

One of those was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a key suspect in the 9/11 attacks.

Mr Rove said US soldiers were subjected to waterboarding as a regular part of their training.

A less severe form of the technique was used on the three suspects interrogated at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, he added.

"I'm proud that we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists and gave us valuable information that allowed us to foil plots such as flying aeroplanes into Heathrow and into London, bringing down aircraft over the Pacific, flying an aeroplane into the tallest building in Los Angeles and other plots," Mr Rove told the BBC.

"Yes, I'm proud that we kept the world safer than it was, by the use of these techniques. They're appropriate, they're in conformity with our international requirements and with US law."

Mr Rove has just written a memoir, Courage and Consequence, in which he defends the two terms of the Bush administration as "impressive, durable and significant".

BBC News - Rove 'proud' of US waterboarding terror suspects


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[oldracer]

Leave it to the BBC to set me straight. All those years, I thought that Cheney was W's brain and that Rove was just his asshole spinmeister.

[BobR]

Obama has been a complete disappointment and a wimp, and America is nothing more than a pathetic joke until Bush and company are either jailed in the USA or preferably turned over to a UN Court for a war crimes trial. They are no better or different than the cops who beat Rodney King and there is no reason why they should be treated any differently.

[dotcom]

I'll read the book instead of letting libs tell me what it says. Cuz libs fuck it all up.
I am 100% in favor of making terrorists uncomfortable till they give up all the information they have. Like listening to Michael Jackson music.

But my personal favorite is to execute them on the battlefield. EOP.

[britmaveric]

Rove tells us how it is!!! Good lad and should be given a medal.

[elche]

Obama has been a complete disappointment and a wimp, and America is nothing more than a pathetic joke until Bush and company are either jailed in the USA or preferably turned over to a UN Court for a war crimes trial. They are no better or different than the cops who beat Rodney King and there is no reason why they should be treated any differently.

^ I concur

[HermantheGerman]

I'll read the book instead of letting libs tell me what it says. Cuz libs fuck it all up.
I am 100% in favor of making terrorists uncomfortable till they give up all the information they have. Like listening to Michael Jackson music.

But my personal favorite is to execute them on the battlefield. EOP.

I read that book too. Did the cover look like this ?




or like this

"Das Schwein Rove"

[blackgang]

You getting pretty cagey with that photoshop there Herman..

[Butterfly]

Obama has been a complete disappointment and a wimp, and America is nothing more than a pathetic joke until Bush and company are either jailed in the USA or preferably turned over to a UN Court for a war crimes trial. They are no better or different than the cops who beat Rodney King and there is no reason why they should be treated any differently.

yep, unfortunately I don't POTUS has any power left, it has all been taken "offshore" in Collateral Damage Swap

[Norton]

Indict, prosecute, convict and then execute Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice, Rumsfeld and that lying Powell too

Why single out these folks? Add members of congress and folks who voted for them. They are the ones who allowed them to get away with it. After all, it is a democracy where you get what you allow.

[kmart]

Ain't Rove the guy that leaked the CIA secret agent's identity? Sounds a really great guy, eh?

It's a bit like the Catholic church claiming that the Inquisition saved Europe.

[Belepheron]

Indict, prosecute, convict and then execute Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice, Rumsfeld and that lying Powell too, on the Winter Solstice for war crimes AND failure to uphold the US Constitution.

If you're going to execute every politician guilty of that you're going to have a very busy executioner.

[Humbert]

It's sickening to see this jerk making the talk show rounds flogging his book posing as the pithy 'elder statesman'. Testicular cancer would be too good for him.

[HermantheGerman]

You getting pretty cagey with that photoshop there Herman..

With a firstname like Karl and a face like a pig...I just couldn't resist.

[Butterfly]

It's sickening to see this jerk making the talk show rounds flogging his book posing as the pithy 'elder statesman'. Testicular cancer would be too good for him.

I disagree, it's just a good reminder what kind of garbage we were dealing with before, the more he speaks, the better

[khang]

It's sickening to see this jerk making the talk show rounds flogging his book posing as the pithy 'elder statesman'. Testicular cancer would be too good for him.

I am actually glad he is doing all this talking. It is giving everyone a clearer picture of what that arrogant, joke of an administration was.

And doesn't Rove remind you of that pompous Herman Goering (in several ways!) ?

[WhiteKnight]

I wonder what a politician's view on water-boarding would be if they were subject to the same (not such a bad idea some of us would say).

[slackula]

Karl Rove is a lying sack of shit.


"The U.S. government -- whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community -- has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it.

After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war…

As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the ‘water cure’ to question Filipino guerrillas.

More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that "the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to . . . the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee's mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation."

In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners' civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning."

[britmaveric]

Rove is a hero. Hopefully one day the yanks will give him a prestigious medal.

[AntRobertson]

That troll's about as subtle as a brick spray-painted neon pink, Brit.

[slackula]

Rove is a hero. Hopefully one day the yanks will give him a prestigious medal.

1/10. You aren't even trying any more.

[khang]

Rove is a hero. Hopefully one day the yanks will give him a prestigious medal.

Hell, why not? They gave one to Jessica Lynch for sleeping on the job.

[slackula]

Rove is spreading his BS even more:

No, no. Tom with all due respect that was not the policy of our government that we were going to go into Iraq and take their resources in order to pay for the cost of the war. …The suggestion that somehow or another the administration had as its policy, “We’re going to go in to Iraq and take their resource and pay for the war” is not accurate. ~Karl Rove now

"Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will." ~Richard Perle, 2002

“The oil revenue of that country could bring between 50 and 100 billion dollars over the course of the next two or three years. We’re dealing with a country that could really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon,” ~Paul Wolfowitz fater the invasion

“is a rather wealthy country. … And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burder for their own reconstruction.” ~Ari Fleischer one month before the war

Think Progress Rove Falsely Claims Bush Administration Never Said Iraqi Oil Revenue Would Help Pay For War