We keep hearing these right-wing torture apologists telling us how torture “worked and saved American lives”.

Just the opposite is true. It resulted in the senseless deaths of thousands of Americans.

We have known (thanks to reports from former Deputy Sec of State, Larry Wilkerson) for some time that key claims made by the administration about contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda were the result of the torture of one Ibn Sheikh Al Libby, who was ”rendered” to Syria and tortured during interrogation.  Eventually, they put him in a coffin-like “confinement box” for an extended period of time and then beat him senseless when he was eventually taken out. 

Suddenly, he answered “Yes” to the repeated questions about the supposed contacts. 

That information was a key argument put forth by the administration during Colin Powell’s now infamous UN speech.

Just so you know I am not pulling that info out of my posterior, here is Wilkerson in his own somewhat sanitized words:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4481092.stm

Lately, I’m growing increasingly concerned because two things have just happened here that really make me wonder.

And the one is the questioning of Sheikh al-Libby where his confessions were obtained through interrogation techniques other than those authorised by Geneva.

It led Colin Powell to say at the UN on 5 February 2003 that there were some pretty substantive contacts between al-Qaeda and Baghdad. And we now know that al-Libby’s forced confession has been recanted and we know – we’re pretty sure that it was invalid.

But more important than that, we know that there was a defence intelligence agency dissent on that testimony even before Colin Powell made his presentation. We never heard about that.

Follow that up with Curveball, and the fact that the Germans now say they told our CIA well before Colin Powell gave his presentation that Curveball – the source to the biological mobile laboratories – was lying and was not a trustworthy source. And then you begin to speculate, you begin to wonder was this intelligence spun; was it politicised; was it cherry-picked; did in fact the American people get fooled – I am beginning to have my concerns.

Got that?  Tortured false confessions led us into a brutal and illegal war in Iraq. 

So, rather than saving American lives, it is clear that it has actually cost us thouands of American lives (and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis theirs).

False confessions tortured out of people have resulted in more U.S. deaths than 9-11! 

What’s more:

Wilkerson has recently given several recent interviews where he says that as part of his State Department job, he became aware of roughly 200 detainees that have died in our hands.  That number grew steadily over time as he tracked it.  His early testimony before Congress started with about 100. 

You do not hear people talking about the folks we killed in custody. But, you watch, that will come out in more detail as this is investigated by the media and hopefully a Federal prosecutor. 

We were not only inflicting “severe physical and mental pain” on our detainees. We were literally torturing folks to DEATH.

Folks like this guy (in pics taken so they could be used to threaten other detainees with a similar fate):

And that my friends is why the sick freaks that planned, authorized AND carried out this torture program must be prosecuted.  Every last one of them.  Just as the Geneva Conventions REQUIRES.

Do it to prevent this from ever happening again. Do it to get justice for our victims. Do it for the senseless victims (on both sides) of a war we launched based on tortured confessions.

Do it because AMERICA IS A COUNTRY OF LAWS.

DA