junk and crap, amen

Thanks to Crooks&Liars.com for linking to this interview at Speigel Online of Ron Suskind, former writer for the Wall Street Journal. The subject of the interview is torture and "black sites", or secret prisons.

Here's a choice little excerpt:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the average interrogator at a Black Site understands more about the mistakes made than the president?

Suskind: The president understands more about the mistakes than he lets on. He knows what the most-skilled interrogators know too. He gets briefed, and he was deeply involved in this process from the beginning. The president loves to talk to operators.

And this:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: With all your access to high-level sources, have you come across anyone who still thinks it is a good idea for the US to torture people?

Suskind: No.

And then this:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The government's tenor seems to be that...the system of Black Sites is ending.

Suskind: They were the prizes, the most significant of them. Are there others? Of course, they are in various places, in the sort of loose confederation of prisons that are housed simply within countries. The prisoners are farmed out but not beyond the purview of the United States, which is still interested in what they say. The Egyptians, Jordanians and others keep us informed. I assume there are still about 100 prisoners and that the system of Black Sites is continuing. The president has preserved his right to do that.

So...everyone thinks torture doesn't work, but Bush wants to keep doing it anyway. Why? "He was deeply involved in the process from the beginning." This is his baby.

Bush loves to talk to the 'operators', which clearly is a euphemism for torturer.

Bush "loves" to talk to the torturers.

Think about that for a millisecond. He's not talking to them about stopping. He's not talking to them about the morality of it, or he'd be talking about stopping. He's not talking about the ineffectiveness of it, or he'd talk about stopping. He's definitely not talking about puppies. Maybe they're talking about Nazis, we're not sure, but he's certainly talking to them about what they know - torturing people. Maybe getting a good belly laugh or two.

'Operator': Oh man Mr. Prez, you shoulda seen this one dude. Crapped his pants right there. Course, we'd been force feeding him through a tube 'till it started to come back up through his throat, and maybe that kick in the stomach might of had something to do with it. But geez.....

G.W.B.: Ha ha ha ha ha! Stop it! I'm gonna puke! I gotta tell this one to Alberto.......

When he drones on about staying the course, perhaps this is what he's really talking about. After all, he seems to be having fun.

Labels: Black Sites, Bush, torture, war criminal

This entry was posted on October 30, 2006 at 5:45 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.