Author: miscellany101

It was greed that killed the Beast


Fifty billion dollars to be stolen by ONE man is a lot of money.  How did he get away with that?!!?!?  It really boils down to that fact that Bernard Madoff played on the greed of his investors who forked over huge sums of money in hopes of even larger returns.  The old adage if it’s too good to be true means it usually is was ignored by many who saw visions of large dollar signs flashing before their eyes.  Madoff was a consummate con man, but his deceit didn’t fool everyone.

Hedge fund investment adviser Aksia LLC warned clients not to put their money with Bernard Madoff after learning of “red flags” at his company, including that its books were audited by a three-person accounting firm. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC used Friehling & Horowitz, an auditor operating out of a 13-by-18 foot location in an office park in New York City’s northern suburbs.

New York-based Aksia urged clients last year not to invest with Madoff’s firm after learning the identity of the New City, New York-based auditor, according to Jake Walthour, head of advisory services at Aksia. Friehling & Horowitz included one partner in his late 70s who lives in Florida, a secretary, and one active accountant, Aksia said.

“Our judgment was swift given the extensive list of red flags,” Aksia wrote Dec. 11 in a letter to clients.

Aksia’s Jim Vos said he spent several months probing Madoff’s firm on behalf of clients, only to recommend against investing in it. Vos, who had an investigator stake out the New City office, said eight “feeder funds” invested about $15 billion with Madoff. Vos declined to name the clients.

“I’m shocked by how investors turned a blind eye to returns that were too good to be true, constant steady small positive monthly returns,” Vos said. “When something is too good to be true, it probably is.”

It’s interesting that red flags were galore but only now, amidst all the other bad economic news is this getting any play in the media.  in my wildest dreams the scenario playing out in my head is the corporate media is finally getting their revenge on a Bush administration which had so easily manipulated it for every conceivable illegal and immoral purpose, and like a woman scorned has decided to get back at its former lover with all the bad news a President concerned with his legacy cannot afford.  Possibly, however, something more sinister than that is at play with the release of all of the bad news at the end of a president’s tenure, but I can’t say what it is…..yet.

Cheney admits to war crimes


So why isn’t he in jail? Perhaps it’s the mood of the country, overwhelmed by all that has gone wrong during the Bush administration finally being exposed by the main stream media.  Trillions, not billions as we were originally told, of tax payers’ money needed for a bail out of an economy that some say has been in a recession for over a year, and that’s the best thing that can be said about that, jobs eliminated or on the verge of being wiped out and fraud exposed at every level of the financial markets, people are unsure which shoe will drop next, so Cheney’s admission to something that doesn’t directly affect the everyday person most likely was met with a sigh of relief it didn’t involve them directly.

Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the investigation of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, has said “there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

Most likely the answer is they will not be held accountable because the blame for a government intent on torturing people it didn’t like should fall on the shoulders of people of all political persuasions and the people who elected them.  For the moment the ball rests in the Bush court.  Will he issue pardons to the members of his administration guilty of such crimes, or will he let them go? There will be hearings about this in both houses of Congress, but that will probably be the extent of any accountability, so it’s up to the “people” to make their voices heard on this issue.  What has muted our response before is our realization we are responsible for Bush/Cheney serving 8 years in the White House. I hope we can get past that and let these criminals know where we stand today!   I don’t think Cheney will find an sympathetic ear with them/us.  Time will tell.

Memory hole material on Islam


I was cruising through my daily reading material and found another very good link that contains hundreds of  examples where Muslims have condemned acts of terrorism in very explicit language, since 911.  Too many times the hue and cry has gone out that the Muslim community is silent and that their silence equals approval of acts of terror done in the name of Islam.  Well, the Muslim community hasn’t been silent and if Miscellany101 can find these examples of condemnation so can a media which is paid lavish sums of money to report the news.  The silence has been on the part of a corporate media in reporting the words of these organizations and individuals who had nothing to gain in making their statements against terrorism, so the next time someone says or you the reader ask where are the voices of reason in the Muslim world, take a look here and see for yourself.  They are loud and vociferous, like a tree crashing in the forest…..the problem is no one wants you to hear them.  Your question should be why is that?

Glad to be included….


In the state where 911 occurred seven years earlier a community has placed the “Islamic symbol” star and crescent in a Christmas display.  I for one, welcome the attitude behind the “inclusion”, that law abiding citizens of any and all religious faiths are welcomed in the town of Armonk, NY, but don’t think that necessarily means having your religious symbol displayed during the prominent holiday of another religion.

“We’ve decided to go in the direction of being all-inclusive,” said Reese Berman, supervisor of the town of 11,000, about 30 miles north of New York City and the site of IBM headquarters.

Armonk’s display is centered on a gazebo in a towering pine grove. One tree about 11 feet tall, strung with white lights, has been placed inside. A silver menorah is a few steps to the right of the cobblestone walk leading to the gazebo. The bright-white crescent and star are on 6-foot-high stanchions to the left.

Craig Mason, 63, a retired town resident who was walking past the display on a rainy morning last week, said he had no strong religious feelings but felt the display “says nice things about the people here, about how we welcome everyone.”

He found the star and crescent symbol “very attractive in its simplicity.”

Judy Wesley, director of the Armonk Chamber of Commerce, said she was raised Catholic and “in my opinion there’s nothing wrong with having a spirit of inclusion. Jesus Christ himself would have gathered everyone around him.”

To the good people of all faiths everywhere, I salute you for your tolerance and good citizenship.

Another day another couple of billion dollars


I read stories like this, Wealth of richest Arabs plunged in 2008

The wealth of the richest Arabs plunged in 2008, with Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the richest of all, seeing his investments shrivel nearly 20 percent, according to a list published in Dubai on Sunday.

The Saudi prince’s wealth has shrunk by four billion dollars to 17.08 billion under the impact of this year’s global financial turmoil, Arabian Business online magazine said in a survey of the richest 50 Arab people.

The combined assets of the top 50 have plummetted by 25 billion dollars or 12 percent to 199.48 billion dollars, based on data calculated on December 2, the magazine said.

Despite his losses, Prince Alwaleed remains top of the list, though his wealth sank twice as much as that of second placed Nasser al-Kharafi, a Kuwaiti businessman whose value is estimated to have dropped by two billion dollars to 9.6 billion.

In May, Prince Alwaleed ranked 19 in the Forbes list of world billionaires with 21 billion dollars. His wealth includes a five percent stake in the troubled US banking giant Citigroup and a private Airbus superjumbo A380, dubbed as the “flying palace” and valued at 330 million dollars.

and am forced to remind one and all that all of those “Arabs” losses put together don’t equal what this one guy swindled from American investors!

Bernard Madoff, a quiet force on Wall Street for decades, was arrested and charged on Thursday with allegedly running a $50 billion “Ponzi scheme” in what may rank among the biggest fraud cases ever.

The former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market is best known as the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, the closely-held market-making firm he launched in 1960. But he also ran a hedge fund that U.S. prosecutors said racked up $50 billion of fraudulent losses.

Madoff told senior employees of his firm on Wednesday that “it’s all just one big lie” and that it was “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme,” with estimated investor losses of about $50 billion, according to the U.S. Attorney’s criminal complaint against him.

No excuse now!


Guantanamo Bay can be closed, and America’s allies are willing to help in that effort.

European Union countries should offer to take in any detainees released from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo, Portugal’s foreign minister said in a letter published Thursday.

Portugal is willing to grant asylum to Guantanamo detainees who cannot return to their home countries, Foreign Minister Luis Amado said in the letter sent to his EU counterparts.

Let’s see how long it takes for impediments to get in the way of seeing this travesty of justice shut down.

Mumbai and more memory hole material


Sometimes things aren’t always what they seem.  I wonder how long it will be before the carnage carried out in Mumbai late last month will turn out that way as well?  The news story highlighted below has some interesting twists that resemble too close for comfort to this obersever what happened in Mumbai.  First off the rush to blame the usual suspects, i.e. Muslims.

India is in something of a state of shock after learning from official sources that its first Hindu terror cell may have carried out a series of deadly bombings that were initially blamed on militant Muslims. The revelation is forcing the country to consider some difficult questions.

Bomb attacks are not uncommon in India – there has been a flurry in recent months – but police usually blame them on Muslim extremists, often said to have links to militant groups based in either Pakistan or Bangladesh. As a result, the recent cracking of the alleged Hindu cell has forced India to face some difficult issues.

…senior right-wing leaders have made no secret of their wish that Hindus should form suicide squads to protect themselves against Muslim extremists. Bal Thackeray, leader of a group called the Shiv Sena, which has been responsible for communal and regional violence in Mumbai, wrote recently in the party’s magazine: “The threat of Islamic terror in India is rising. It is time to counter the same with Hindu terror. Hindu suicide squads should be readied to ensure the existence of Hindu society and to protect the nation.”

Observers say the fact that the police have arrested the alleged cell members amid considerable political pressure suggests the growing professionalism of its security forces. “It’s the first Hindu cell and it’s the first time Hindus have been shackled and taken to jail,” said Professor Dipankar Gupta, a sociologist at Delhi’s Jawarlahal Nehru University. “I’m quite pleased with the way the police have done their jobs.”

It should be pointed out one of the casualties in Mumbai was the counter terrorism police official Hemant Karkare, Maharashta Police’s Anti-Terrorism Squad chief, who was among 11 police officials who were killed.  He was investigating the bomb blast initially blamed on Muslims but as it turned out was carried out by Hindus.  His death reportedly will affect the probe into the Malegaon blast in the western state of Maharashtra in September, which left six people dead.  Karkare’s death at the hands of Muslims who his investigation had exonerated in previous terrorist acts and amid cries by Hindu terrorists to ensure the existence of Hindu society and to protect the nation through acts of violence is more than coincidental.  Doesn’t  anyone see a setup here?

Unacceptable


mary1This is unacceptable and Playboy realized that, which is why they issued an apology. The apology was made because Playboy acknowledged the cover was offensive to many Roman Catholics in Mexico.   Read about the controversy here. There hasn’t been any hue or cry about the holding hostage of a free press by those who were offended by this image; their mere objection and expression thereof was enough to warrant an appropriate apology from Playboy.

turbanbomb This is unacceptable too, but the difference is the religious community offended by this image was vilified because they took offense, and the image was used to incite anger and rage.  The followers of Muhammad should now know how media is used to provoke a certain response which is in turn highlighted to demonize Islam.  Knowing that, they should never fall into the trap of being prodded to react by images like the one above, while joining with the worldwide community in condemning any inappropriate images of religious figures anywhere in the world.  I hope that’s the lesson Muslims learn from Playboy’s foray into obscene religious images, but I doubt it.  You can expect Miscellany101 to highlight them whenever and wherever he can.  Stay tuned.

Dumb and dumber


I thought George Bush took the cake with his many dumb platitudes, but along comes former Attorney General John Ashcroft who tops even his former boss, Bush. In Ashcroft’s mind a person is guilty regardless of guilt or innocence; the mere accusation is enough to sentence someone to indefinite detention, torture and no recourse to the criminal justice system.  Countless numbers of people presently locked up in Guantanamo Bay are there because financial bounties were offered up by the US military for the capture of “al-Qaida” members, and no regard was made whether a person turned over to authorities was really a member or not.  It was accepted at face value that he was, and off he was wisked to Cuba never to be seen or heard from again.  Ashcroft thinks that’s ok and the presumption of innocence should have nothing to do with this process.  It’s a good thing he’s no longer Attorney General.  You can hear his ramblings below.

This comes on the heels of the announcement that Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other high-ranking Bush administration officials were responsible for the harsh interrogations against captured terrorist suspects that took place at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, according to a bipartisan report issued Thursday by the Senate Armed Services Committee. The report concludes:

“Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s… authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody………What followed was an erosion in standards dictating that detainees be treated humanely.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there.”

Read what a former detainee at Gitmo Bay, Moazzam Begg , said about his imprisonment here.  Look for more historical revisionism to take place in the days before the end of the Bush presidency.

The Bush legacy: A failed economy


bushiv1Having built his Administration on lies beginning with 911 and the sordid attempt to justify the invasion of Iraq because of what happened in NYC, it’s completely characteristic of Bush to obfuscate and deny the inevitable: The U.S. economy has been in a recession since December 2007

By one benchmark, a recession occurs whenever the gross domestic product, the total output of goods and services, declines for two consecutive quarters. The GDP turned negative in the July-September quarter of this year, and many economists believe it is falling in the current quarter at an even sharper rate.

*snip*

The White House commented on the news that a second downturn has officially begun on President George W. Bush’s watch without ever actually using the word “recession,” a term the president and his aides have repeatedly avoided….

*snip*

Many economists believe the current downturn will be the most severe since the 1981-82 recession. The country is being battered by the most severe financial crisis since the 1930s as banks struggle to deal with billions of dollars in loan losses.

Loss revenue and jobs are the mark of this recession.

In a worrisome sign of further weakening in the U.S. labor market, November saw the highest number of layoffs in the private sector in more than 32 years.

*snip*

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, as recently announced by the National Bureau of Economic Research (see “Congratulations, It’s A Recession”), the number of unemployed persons increased by 2.7 million, and the unemployment rate rose by 1.7 percentage points with two-thirds of these losses sustained in the last 3 months.

What started out as a $700 billion bailout has now ballooned into over $8.5 trillion dollars of US taxpayer money which can be given away in any way the chairman of the Federal Reserve sees fit, with or without the consent of ANYONE, including Congress.

“Most of the money, about $5.5 trillion, comes from the Federal Reserve, which as an independent entity does not need congressional approval to lend money to banks or, in “unusual and exigent circumstances,” to other financial institutions.

Now Bush is even faced with rebellion within his own party as the bailout for the automobile industry he was in favor of has been defeated in the Senate with the help of members of the Republican party.

Obama under the Zionist lobby’s thumb


What’s going on?  First we have Martin Indyk who as far as we know has not been picked to be in an Obama administration making a statement that ‘ Israel can no longer expect “blank cheques” ‘ from America?!  On whose authority does a regular, or in Indyk’s case a highly irregular citizen of the US make such a statement?    Did he say that hoping to be appointed to something in Obama’s government, or was he merely testing the waters for his real bosses at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy to see how  such a statement would be received in America?

The real kicker is Obama’s pledge to attack Iran with nuclear weapons should it attack Israel first, that coming on the heels of pronouncements by the deputy director of national intelligence and chairman of the National Intelligence Council’s Thomas Fingar that Iran has not diverted low-enriched uranium produced at a facility at Natanz, 160 miles south of Tehran, to weapons use, and that Iran did suspend its nuclear program back in 2003 at a time when that country was making peace overtures to the US.  So why does Obama want to pick a fight with Iran now and make the most war mongering Administration in American history seem like a peaceful one?  Perhaps politicians can’t accept the premise Iranians aren’t making nuclear weapons because its unfathomable a country could keep its promise all the while US lawmakers continue to lie about Iranian intentions?

Muslim students representin’


I was glad to see this article on Muslim students preparing themselves to enter the fields of law and journalism.  God knows, because of the last eight years of the Bush Administration, Muslims need to be concerned with the interpretation of the laws that criminal was able to push through Congress which in some ways threaten the very existence of freedom of religion and religious expression in our country.  In the polarized atmosphere of a rabid chief executive officer, our country thought it was ok to entertain the notion that rights could be curtailed in the name of safety, and the first group to start with were people of the Islamic faith…or so the theory went.  Fortunately young Muslims are seeing the need to prepare themselves for the eventuality such byzantine laws might bring.

“Our parents were focused on economic stability,” said Qureshi, a second-year law student at UNC-Chapel Hill.

“Our needs are not economic stability but social and political empowerment.”

*snip*

“We’re trying to make sure every American is entitled to civil rights guarantees in the Constitution,” said Abbas Ravjani, president of the National Muslim Law Students Association and a student at Yale Law School. The organization was formed six years ago and now has 300 students on its electronic mailing list.

I am also happy to see their interest in journalism.

Young Muslims are also studying journalism. Yasmin Amer said she was tired of seeing Muslims misrepresented in the media. On Tuesday, Amer, a third-year journalism and Arabic double major at UNC-CH, organized a panel discussion of an inflammatory DVD called “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.“

I personally can’t think of a better venue with which to start.

Disturbing video out of Palestine


I blogged some time ago about the idea of people being armed with cameras to film Israeli aggression.  I didn’t think it was a good idea, or rather that it wouldn’t stop state sponsored terrorism against Palestinians.  The following video makes that point, in my opinion.

For as long as many reading this blog have been alive, blood has been shed on the sacred ground of the three major religions of the world.  We all know that; it’s not a pretty sight, and not something we need to see in order to convince the Israelis to stop their indiscriminate killing of Palestinians who’ve said time and time again they recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli state and seek the same in return. It won’t be long before they turn their weapons on the film makers, or declare cameras illegal, weapons of mass destruction.  Once again, the Israelis have shown they are impervious to the world’s eye.

Memory hole stuff about Mumbai


There’s been so much said about what happened in Mumbai, India and it’s constantly changing so I’m putting together a few, just a very few, links here to refer to in the future when the story has changed to fit the Islamist, jihadist theories which seem to predominate the news these days.

Let me begin by saying that some of the wildest conspiracy theories are those which have become accepted as fact, like OBL planning and directing 911 from Afghanistan or the lone gunman theory in the assassination of JFK, and so too, the Mumbai terrorist operation whereby 10 men are responsible for all the carnage that took place over a wide area of that city is highly implausible, especially when you look at what is reported to have happened.  This is my attempt to highlight some things that will most likely be forgotten when the official narrative is in place.

It appears the police were not too enthusiastic about engaging the terrorists.

The gunmen were terrifyingly professional, making sure at least one of them was able to fire their rifle while the other reloaded. By the time he managed to capture the killer on camera, Mr D’Souza had already seen two gunmen calmly stroll across the station concourse shooting both civilians and policemen, many of whom, he said, were armed but did not fire back.

But what angered Mr D’Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. “There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything,” he said. “At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, ‘Shoot them, they’re sitting ducks!’ but they just didn’t shoot back.”

The identity of the terrorists, even the one alive is at best unknown.

The Faridkot link is a key element in the evidence cited by Indian officials that the attackers of Mumbai came from Pakistan.

The captured terror suspect was said to come from Faridkot. He was said to be 21 and to speak fluent English. A photograph of him shows a modern-looking young man swaggering in Western clothing, with an AK-47 in hand.

In Faridkot, no one appeared to be able to speak much English, and most could converse only in a dialect of the provincial language, Punjabi. None of the villagers recognized the face in the photograph, nor could they think of anyone mysteriously missing from the village.

They said the intelligence agents wanted to know if there was any presence of the radical Deobandi or Alhe Hadith religious movements in the village, to which the answer was a flat “no.”

*snip*

To add to the confusion, there are several other places called Faridkot in the Punjab, although this village seemed to be the most likely Faridkot, because it’s near Multan. There’s also a well-known Faridkot in India, just across the border in the Indian half of the Punjab province.

An exasperated local police chief, Kamran Khan, who sent his men twice to Faridkot (the one outside Kanewal), told McClatchy: “Whatever we’re doing to investigate, we’re doing off our own initiative. No definitive information has come to us from any official channel. We’re still not clear this is the right Faridkot.”

There have been conflicting eye witness accounts of what the gunman looked like which provide an interesting portal to conspiracy theories.

One police officer who encountered the gunmen as they entered the Jewish centre told the Guardian the attackers were “white”, although this could mean they were paler-skinned Indians from the country’s north.

“I went into the building late last night,” he said. “I got a shock because they were white. I was expecting them to look like us. They fired three shots. I fired 10 back.

Another account described two attackers thus:

Gaffar Abdul Amir, an Iraqi tourist from Baghdad, says he saw at least two men who started the firing outside the Leopold Cafe.

He was returning to his hotel from the seaside with a friend when he saw two men carrying bags and brandishing AK-47s walking in front of them, shooting.

“They did not look Indian, they looked foreign. One of them, I thought, had blonde hair. The other had a punkish hairstyle. They were neatly dressed,” says Mr Amir.

It doesn’t help that several news reports are claiming that terrorists and many hostages’ remains were unrecognizable, some due to mutilation, thereby making identification even more difficult.  How one can say that the identity of the attackers is a sure thing doesn’t seem to fit the news coming from India.

It’s clear the evil-doers want to make this a religious war, a clash of civilizations between Islam and the rest of the world.  At one point the allegation was even made that Israelis were tortured and mutilated more than other victims of this brutal act, but that was quickly denied.

The Jewish victims from the Mumbai Chabad House siege showed no indications of torture, a Mumbai doctor said.

Dr. Ganjanan Chawan saw the bodies when they arrived at JJ Hospital in Mumbai.

His statements in Wednesday’s edition of the Jerusalem Post contradicted an interview with a morgue employee of the hospital printed the previous day by the newspaper. The  morgue employee had said the Jewish victims had more injuries than the other victims in last week’s terrorist attacks on the Indian city. More than 180 people were killed.

A hospital doctor was quoted Sunday on the Rediff Indian news site as saying that the bodies of the Jewish victims bore torture marks.

There were suggestions that people were killed because of their religious persuasion, but judging by the indiscriminate firing of the terrorists most eye-witness accounts suggest they didn’t care who they were shooting, and a country with the largest Muslim population in the world is sure to have had Muslim victims of this rampage. An interesting sidebar to this aspect of the attacks is despite the claim certain faiths were singled out, it could be that the ineptness of the Indian military led to many of the fatalities.

A private rescue group from Israel has claimed that Indian commandos inadvertently killed some of the hostages in the terror attacks in Mumbai, and the claim has evidently embarrassed both governments, news reports said on Tuesday.

“Based on what I saw, (although) I can’t identify the type of bullets in the bodies (of the victims), I don’t think the terrorists killed all the hostages, to put it gently,” Mr Haim Weingarten, head of the six-member team of Zaka voluntary organisation dealing with rescue and recovery, told The Jerusalem Post.

Terrorism is used by states and groups to influence policy and the policy which some are hoping comes out of the Mumbai attacks is the expansion of the WOT into Pakistan, directly or indirectly with India as a surrogate partner.  The “evil-doers” who want this expansion are the same ones who manufactured the manufactured the 911 inspired war on terrorism and Mumbai was their last dying act before the coming to power of the Obama Administration.  It’ll be interesting to see if Obama takes the bait or calls the war party out for what it truly is.

Mumbai’s tragedy: Good news


Terrorism in all its forms is an unacceptable ideology which should be dealt with by the full force of the international community.  The Muslim community of India has gotten off to an excellent start.

Indian Muslims say they do not want the gunmen killed by the security forces during the attacks in Mumbai to be buried in Muslim graveyards.

Community leaders believe the militants cannot be called Muslims because they went against the teachings of Islam and killed innocent civilians.

One leader said the militants had “defamed” the religion.

*snip*

…they could not believe that the assailants, who they said had “killed innocent civilians unprovoked”, were true followers of Islam.

Ibrahim Tai, the president of the Indian Muslim Council, which looks after the social and religious affairs of the Muslim community in India, said that they had “defamed” his religion.

“They are not Muslims as they have not followed our religion which teaches us to live in peace.

“If the government does not respect our demands we will take up extreme steps. We do not want the bodies of people who have committed an act of terrorism to be buried in our cemeteries.

“These terrorists are a black spot on our religion, we will very sternly protest the burial of these terrorists in our cemetery,” he said.

Other Muslim groups have written to their local assembly representatives to say that if the authorities force the militants to be buried in a Muslim graveyard, they too will come out on the streets in protest.

Having thrown down the gauntlet it will be interesting to see how the Indian government responds to its Muslim citizens’ demands that terrorists not be interred in Muslim cemeteries and who among the “evil doers” will insist upon it given a clear expression by Muslims that that not be the case.

Torture and abuse are against my moral fabric


I wish it was George W. Bush saying that statement in the title above, but it isn’t.  Instead it’s a US military officer who served on an intelligence team responsible for interrogating Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaida operatives and who says quite succinctly in a Washington Post editorial that torture cost American lives in the Iraqi campaign.   Even though Bush didn’t utter those words he surely knew of the successes those teams had in Iraq where torture wasn’t employed while still achieving very good results

The methods my team used are not classified (they’re listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of “ruses and trickery”). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi.

*snip*

Our new interrogation methods led to one of the war’s biggest breakthroughs: We convinced one of Zarqawi’s associates to give up the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader’s location. On June 8, 2006, U.S. warplanes dropped two 500-pound bombs on a house where Zarqawi was meeting with other insurgent leaders.

I know the counter-argument well — that we need the rough stuff for the truly hard cases, such as battle-hardened core leaders of al-Qaeda, not just run-of-the-mill Iraqi insurgents. But that’s not always true: We turned several hard cases, including some foreign fighters, by using our new techniques. A few of them never abandoned the jihadist cause but still gave up critical information. One actually told me, “I thought you would torture me, and when you didn’t, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That’s why I decided to cooperate.”

Why didn’t Bush lead the way and instruct his military on the best way to conduct interrogation? Nothing is as it seemed with this Administration; they knew before waging the war that the reasons they gave for it were lies; likewise they knew this war wasn’t being waged to benefit the Iraqis, rather it was to cause their utter humiliation and destruction as a powerful society.  Torture became a means to that end.  Bush surely read and or heard the cries of many within his Administration that torture was not consistent with American military policy yet it continued under his watch.  Is it any wonder why there are some who think Bush should be tried for war crimes? Count me among them!