Bush says "US does not torture"

Such an awful statement to have been made by the President who has declared "Mission Accomplished" I can't help but wonder if President Bush has a different set of eyes then the rest of the world, because apparently his view of what's happening in our world is very much different than the rest of us.

In case you've missed it the article can be found here. I'll give you a little preview of the Washington Post article:

"President Bush yesterday vigorously defended the government's efforts to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects, and he clashed with Democratic lawmakers over whether he has properly disclosed information about the classified program.

Bush used a brief photo opportunity in the Oval Office yesterday morning to renew his assertions that the United States "does not torture people" and sticks to U.S. law and its international obligations. The comments followed the disclosure by the New York Times of secret Justice Department memos authorizing harsh CIA interrogation techniques, such as head slapping, frigid temperatures and simulated drowning. The memos said such tactics do not violate U.S. or international law.

"The techniques that we use have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress," Bush told reporters. "The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack. And that's exactly what this government is doing, and that's exactly what we'll continue to do."

A few days earlier in the Washington Post there was an article that discussed that indeed the US had secretly endorsed "severe interrogations"; officials said the new opinion "for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures." Looks like torture, smells like torture, feels like torture, must be torture.

Interestingly enough there was a follow up article today that was gathered from some WWII veterans who found themselves in the same precarious situation as today's soldiers. Seems that they managed to get a lot of information out of the German prisoners in ways other than torture. Weird that people would want to talk if they viewed you in a friendly and humane way.

And speaking of interrogations and inhumanity, Condolezza Rice has decided that maybe we should keep an eye on the Blackwater patrols who represent the American military and people (although not officially but in the eyes and minds of the rest of the world). Thanks for figuring out what the rest of us knew all along!