There is an ample trail of evidence that leads one to the conclusion that “Electrode Al” Gonzales likes the idea of abusing people just for the hell of it.

We know that while he was the Secretary of State in Texas, the Texas Juvenile Detention system was transformed into a series of concentration camps, where beatings, rapes, and tasers were as much a part of the juvenile inmate’s day as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is clear from his history that Electrode Al is a sadist in the Himmler mold-he gets his jollies by directing others to do the torturing that he might find distasteful were he to have to do it personally. He shares this personality trait with his Texas buddy Chimpy, as well as Cheney, Wolfie, Rummy, Feith, and the rest of the rotten scum that would have felt right at home in Nazi Germany.

It is no surprise at all that Electrode Al would have been anxious to take his Texas torture regimen and apply it as many places as he could. And indeed, that appears to be just what he did.

Are you surprised? Of course you aren’t.

Months before the first “torture memo” was issued by Bush administration lawyers in 2002, Alberto Gonzales – then White House counsel – personally approved “borderline torture” techniques used on Abu Zubaydah, according to a new report.

An anonymous source told NPR that in April and May of 2002 CIA contractor James Mitchell sought approval on a daily basis for so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” via top-secret cables to the CIA’s counterterrorism center. The CIA forwarded those cables to the White House, according to National Public Radio, and Gonzales would approve the technique, thus granting a legal basis for Mitchell’s actions – in theory at least.

Yesterday, the CIA sent the ACLU a document that corroborates the source’s account. The document shows that during the spring and summer of 2002 many top-secret cables went from Zubaydah’s black site prison to CIA headquarters every day.

Zubaydah was taken into CIA custody on March 28, 2002. The first “torture memo” was issued by the Office of Legal Counsel on August 1 of that year.

Last week, former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan told Congress that CIA contractors “had to keep requesting authorization to use harsher and harsher methods.” Zubaydah, Soufan said, was subjected to nudity, sleep deprivation, loud noise and extreme temperatures during Mitchell’s interrogations. Soufan called the methods “borderline torture.”

Soufan has said that “no actionable intelligence” was gained from Zubaydah using “enhanced interrogation techniques” that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics.

Soufan doesn’t seem to get it yet. Gaining information had nothing to do with abusing these prisoners. The people at the top, cowards to a man, delighted in ordering the abuse of other people-it made THEM feel like they were all macho he-man types. Not to mention the joy that these sadistic pieces of shit got from imagining themselves as the abusers. Those attorneys that Electrode Al purged from the Justice Department better thank their stars every night that he didn’t have a chance to open up a Night of the Long Knives on them.

These are today’s “conservatives.” Is it any wonder that only 1 in 5 of us are willing to admit to an affinity for them?

Tags: bush, gonzales, rushpublicans, torture

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 10:03 pm and is filed under Chimpy's Crimes and Cronies, Jolly Roger. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.