Torture Nation

This is what the Bush Administration said, publicly, at the same time that the CIA, on the orders of the Bush Administration, was torturing people:

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
June 26, 2003

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture

Today, on the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the United States declares its strong solidarity with torture victims across the world. Torture anywhere is an affront to human dignity everywhere. We are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law.

Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since 1984, forbids governments from deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering on those within their custody or control. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit. ...

Notorious human rights abusers, including, among others, Burma, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Zimbabwe, have long sought to shield their abuses from the eyes of the world by staging elaborate deceptions and denying access to international human rights monitors. ...

The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I [George W.Bush] call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment. I call on all nations to speak out against torture in all its forms and to make ending torture an essential part of their diplomacy.

We ought to take these words of former President George W. Bush to heart and carry them out. President Obama prohibited the use to torture. We now ought to follow the second and third parts of George Bush's call and investigate and prosecute those acts of torture that were carried out under the direct orders of former President Bush and former Vice President Cheney.

It seems, now, that the CIA saw the ground shifting beneath its feet and, while the forces of darkness, led by Dick Cheney, continued to argue for using torture, the CIA had stopped torturing people.

Or so they tell us. The possibility exists that various former members of the Bush Administration are doing their best "it weren't me" act to push the blame off on others. Emptywheel thinks that the story in the NYT was planted by Porter Goss.