Bush wears a smile on his face as he tries to justify waterboarding with Chris Wallace on his other home (FOX News) by saying that since they didn’t have any laws in place against waterboarding at the time—it was perfectly fine and dandy and legal to apply it. Did he just admit torture was illegal then? What’s done is done and all that. It’s Sunday after all—let bygones be bygones…It must be nice to have a Justice Department like the one that Cheney co-opted with his buddy David Addington which approved every measure BushCo. wanted. And we can’t forget those pesky signing statements Bush loves to use as a fail-safe. Frontline produced a special called ” Cheney’s Law” (see video) for more context on the OLC.
Download | Play 
Download | Play (h/t Heather)
BUSH: First of all, whatever we have done, was legal. And whatever decision I will make, will be reviewed by the Justice Department to determine whether or not the legality is is there. And the reason why…there’s a difference between what happened in the past and today is there’s new law. And um, and so to answer your question, whatever we will do will be legal. The American people have got to know that what we did in the past gained information that prevented an attack and for those who criticize what we did in the past, I ask them which attack would they rather have not permitted…stopped? Which attack on America would they have said, you know, well, maybe that wasn’t all that important? That we stopped those attacks. I’ll do what’s necessary to protect America within the law. That’s what you gotta understand. And um, [nods head]
“Torture is defined under the federal criminal code as the intentional infliction of severe mental pain or suffering,” said John Sifton, an attorney and researcher with the organization Human Rights Watch. “That would include water boarding.— Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago.
WALLACE: There seem to be some mixed signals from your administration about the interrogation of terror detainees. And I hope you clear it up for us. Your…the CIA, with your approval, confirmed this week that you…the CIA, conducted waterboarding on three al Qaeda prisoners back in 2002 and 2003. And a White House spokesman said that you can still approve that practice, depending on circumstances. On the other hand, CIA Director Hayden said this week that he’s not sure whether or not it’s legal any more to conduct waterboarding. So, to set the record straight, do you think it’s legal and are you prepared to authorize it if you believe it’s necessary to protect the nation?
BUSH: First of all, whatever we have done, was legal. And whatever decision I will make, will be reviewed by the Justice Department to determine whether or not the legality is is there. And the reason why…there’s a difference between what happened in the past and today is there’s new law. And um, and so to answer your question, whatever we will do will be legal. The American people have got to know that what we did in the past gained information that prevented an attack and for those who criticize what we did in the past, I ask them which attack would they rather have not permitted…stopped? Which attack on America would they have said, you know, well, maybe that wasn’t all that important? That we stopped those attacks. I’ll do what’s necessary to protect America within the law. That’s what you gotta understand. And um, [nods head]
WALLACE: I want to follow up on that. Whether it’s interrogation of terror prisoners, the intercepting of surveillance among al Qaeda members, are you ever puzzled by all the concern in this country about protecting the rights of the people who want to kill us?
BUSH: That’s an interesting way to put it. Uh, I wouldn’t necessarily define some of the critics of my policy that way. I would say that they want to be very careful we don’t overstep our bounds from protecting the civil liberties of Americans. And I understand that. A lot. I do think that some of the programs we put in place on the…like, listening to people calling into America, that some of the claims about what we’re doing have been exaggerated. And I don’t think we ought to extend the same protections to terrorists overseas who want to kill us that we provide our own citizens, when it comes to surveillance matters. This has been a difficult issue for me because I-I-I-I am…listen, I no more want to step..trample on the civil liberties of American people than anybody else does. On the other hand, I understand the nature of these people and I understand the complexities of trying to protect the American people and I think we found a fine balance, I truly do.
Filed Under: Fox News Sunday/Chris Wallace, George W. Bush, Torture
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cracker
This is the face of America. A shallow, empty husk of a man proud to admit he’s a torturer.
I couldn’t be more repulsed.
-GSD
Let’s send him out for an attitude adjustment. It’s legal now, after all.
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Look at the smirking war criminal. The UN has already determined that this practice is a war crime and the chief of Human Rights at the UN said on Friday that countries now have the right to prosecute these U.S. officials for these high crimes.
And impeachment is STILL off the table.
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Somebody should ask this butt-wipe to give us a list of the “attacks” he prevented.
Oh, that’s right: Nobody can prove something that never happened.
What a disgrace to humanity. Somehow, “lying sack” just doesn’t describe him well enough.
He should be impeached, tried, convicted for past war crimes. Now.
Now.
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Just where were these attacks that supposedly were prevented located, or aren’t we allowed to know that and are we supposed to believe one word out of his mouth
On Sunday, President Bush left his self-proclaimed “bubble” in the White House for a little Democrat bashing over at his Fox News safe haven. Comically daring Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to attack him during the 2008 campaign, President Bush returned to his childlike mispronunciation of their party’s name. Yes, a year after acknowledging his infantile gambit, President Bush has renewed his war against the “Democrat Party.”
For the details, see:
“Bush Renews His War on the ‘Democrat Party.’”
The “banality of evil”.
http://www.impeachthem.com/?q=node/1736
Before the Nevada primary, Dennis was visited by representatives of Nancy Pelosi and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — AIPAC. They told Dennis that if he would drop his campaigns to impeach Cheney and Bush, they would guarantee his re-election to the House of Representatives.
Kucinich threw them out of his office.
“…I understand the complexities..”. Somehow I doubt that
WALLACE: … Whether it’s interrogation of terror prisoners, the intercepting of surveillance among al Qaeda members, are you ever puzzled by all the concern in this country about protecting the rights of the people who want to kill us?
This question is more disturbing than any of Bush’s lame-brained answers. Actually makes Bush seem like the voice of reason by comparison. Thanks, Fascist News.
It’s hard to know what to say anymore, it’s just depressing.
What’s with the slow zoom in on Bush in that last shot of him? It’s the sort of zoom-in propagandists use to give the looming speaker more authority.
This is a very telling quote:
Of course it will. Because Congress will cave and make it legal.
IMPEACH!
Typical evangelical think … I’ll just confess this sin later on and I’m cool with the god guy.
Concerned American @ 16:
Or WAR TRIALS !!
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OK. So what chuckle-nuts is saying is that it is OK for Al Qaeda — or any other country for that matter — to waterboard Americans.
Got that, folks?
Your sons and daughters are now fair game for torture.
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What the hell is he grinning about!!?
Favorite sentence: “And I understand that…a lot.”
can’t wait until this smirky little jerk is GONE! His arrogant f**k you attitude….”y’all don’t like it?” “too bad”…I’ll do what I want….clarification “I’ll do what Cheney tells me to do”
What is wrong with your so-called News Media?? That is NOT the concern that people have!!!
The matter has NOTHING to do with protecting the rights of “people who want to kill us“. It has to do with the PRESUMPTION that everyone they wiretap are people who want to kill us!!
GOD! Why can’t FOX get it right??
What attacks is he talking about?
It’s almost magical the way you can use an ultra-secret program, which nobody has any knowledge of, and thwart all sorts of attacks nobody will ever know about and never be able to confirm. Brilliant! He can just make it up as he goes along.
So I guess I can tell my son-in-law in Iraq that if he gets captured (God forbid), he should just take his waterboarding and like it. I never thought I’d see the day where this country was run by some POS war criminal…and we would sit back and let it happen. How pathetic.
which attack would we like to stop???
anyone have the list of the faux attacks the president released a while ago?
i know of the library tower in los angeles and the brooklyn bridge
the man still cannot admit that we waterboarded prisoners
and his justice dept was and is corrupt…who cares what they deem as legal
Bush thinks that Fox runs a documentary every week called “24“
Canuknotusa @ 21:
Because they would go out of business.
Using that logic; since there were no major attacks during the Clinton administration;
Clinton prevented 7689 attacks. Bullshit bush; you can’t prove you prevented anything, but you can believe it.
uncle joe mccarthy @ 24:
google “False flags”
“And um, and so to answer your question, whatever we will do will be legal.” - bush
there it is… he is saying anything he does is legal, so get off my f#%^en back.
uncle joe mccarthy @ 24:
a terrorist tried to blow up my house but bush swooped down from the sky and stopped him. but it didn’t make the liberal media news.
Gee; it would have been nice if GooFy had protected us
from 911.
Just arrest him, already!
“they didn’t have any laws in place against waterboarding at the time—”(from article)
Wrong. I recall a japanese soldier being tried for war crimes for the ‘water cure’ among other things. Nuremburg anyone?
Look, we all know bush is ignorant of history and a liar, but how much more blatant does it have to get? Thank God this corporate shilling moron dry drunk is almost done soiling the office of president. Uh, with all respect , Mr. president.
Would anyone here believe me when I say I didn’t not understand a single thing he said? And that’s with the transcript acting as subtitles.
It has come to the point that you have got to be a special kind of idiot to agree with Bush on anything. He literally is making shit up as he goes along. And by shit I mean laws that allow him to get away with all the crimes that have been performed on his watch.
mo_dem @ 30:
I once had an Al Quaida terrorist in my backyard…Cheney shot him in the face.
I’m pretty sure all his “advisors” were saying “Awww shit,there he goes again”.
Tomorrow the expanation will be spewed.
And tomorrow he won’t remember what he said today.
his next words will be……………Huh?
Someone was asking for “False Flag Operations? Here’s a list of some. Good stuff.
The greatest false-flag operations conducted in the history of man !!!!
(this was copied from the LibertyForum website, and the HTML is kinda screwy.)
In case you weren’t paying attention…
(some of these are dead links)
# Vinnell bombing leader Khaled Jehani, fought for the CIA in Afghanistan, Bosnia & Chechnya
# Members of the Moroccan terror group Salafi Jihadi fought for the CIA in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Bosnia and Kosovo
# USS Cole Bomber Jamal al-Badawi fought for the CIA in Bosnia
# Zacarias Moussaoui fought for the CIA in Chechnya
# Khalid Sheikh Mohammed fought for the CIA in Afghanistan
# Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman fought for the CIA in Afghanistan
# Head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad Ayman al Zawahiri, fought for the CIA in Bosnia
# His brother Ayman al-Zawahiri fought for the CIA in Kosovo (GOOD LINK)
# Abdullah Azzam, “one of the ideological founders of Hamas” fought for the CIA in Afghanistan
# When Osama Bin Ladin Was Tim Osman (GOOD LINK)
# Bin-Ladin and KLA have a ‘joint’ cash box in the United States (GOOD LINK)
# Wolfowitz Meets “in Private” with NLA Terrorist Ali Ahmeti (GOOD LINK)
# Zbigniew Brzezinski: “Your cause is right, God is on your side.” (GOOD LINK)
# CIA reins in loose cannons, and keeps their Al Qaeda creation alive and well
# CIA “Arranged” for Passports for Al Qaeda Terrorists & Brought Them to the USA to Recruit for Jihads
# Will the CIA Leave Their Saudi Partners in Crime Holding the Bag? (GOOD LINK)
# “New Al-Qaeda” like New Coke, only harder to buy
# “The Farce Goes On - The Hunt for Ayman Zawahiri, Mohammad Omar, & Osama
# “Moussaoui, Khadr, & Ressam Are “Graduates” of CIA’s Khalden Camp for Afghanistan & Balkans “Jihads”
# Bin Laden Puppetmasters Smoked Out In Balkans (GOOD LINK)
# The CIA arranged for HUM guerrillas to fight in Bosnia & Kosovo (GOOD LINK)
# The CIA & Bin Laden worked hand-in-glove in KLA operations (GOOD LINK)
# U.S. Protects Al-Qaeda Terrorists in Kosovo (GOOD LINK)
alexandrite @ 33:
He’s not done yet. Iran is next.
why aren’t they wearing ties? oh,, its just so casual..
alexandrite @ 33:
He will be soiling the office of the president until he is convicted as a war-criminal.
Or at the very least — impeached.
That’s what Americans don’t get.
The legacy of this presidency will stain the U.S. reputation for generations unless some sort of accountability results.
It does not matter if a democrat is elected in 2008 in this regard.
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Chris Wallace:
What’s your definition of “smug?”
George Bush:
Read my face!
The thing about bush is when he smiles, its like the light of god shining right on me, and I know all is right with the world. And if this good man has to use alternative interrogation techniques on some poor unenlightened heathen bastards to make me feel better about my soulless fat american consumer lifestyle, then GOD BLESS HIM!!
Impeach.
Hang.
Burn.
Bury.
P.S. Thank you ATT for making sure that this comment gets to Dick’s office for criminal prosecution.
meanwhile.. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23096440 another car bomb kills 23 in Balad.
nickpoppagorgiofromyuma @ 35:
rofl….didnt expect my post to garner so many snappy responses