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the media on Bush

I think they're pretty mild actually, considering my reaction is that everyone in the media and the American public should force an immediate impeachment. Anyway, the Globe had a reasonably good editorial, which is behind a paywall, but I will liberate part of it

Mr. Bush denied that torture was used in these prisons, but refused to say what other methods were employed to extract information. He thinks it is enough for Americans to know that the illegal detentions saved innocent lives in the United States and Europe. "Information from terrorists in CIA custody has played a role in the capture or questioning of nearly every senior al-Qaeda member or associate detained by the U.S. and its allies since this program began. By providing everything from initial leads to photo identifications, to precise locations of where terrorists were hiding, this program has helped us to take potential mass murderers off the street before they are able to kill."

That may well be true. But we will never know if legal methods would have produced the same result, because the administration did not bother to test them. Now, Mr. Bush wants Congress to do what the U.S. courts have refused -- to give him the authority to treat, question and try suspects the way he wants, without allowing them recourse to normal constitutional safeguards. What he wants are trials by military commissions, where hearsay evidence could be admitted and which the U.S. Supreme Court previously declared unconstitutional.

Globe and Mail - Bush's cynical decision to flout the rule of law - September 8, 2006

The Economist says Bush has Tortured logic.

All I have to say remains: FVCKING SECRET PRISONS.

You know who sets up secret prisons?

Cowards. Liars. Torturers. Dictators. Madmen.

Without the rule of law, real laws, for everyone, democracy dies.
It's already dead in the United States.

Must. Stop. Writing about this. posted by Richard at 16:32 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)