Jesse Ventura, a Goldwater Conservative, speaks his mind

And I agree with every word he says!!!  Jesse was on Faux News' Sean Hannity show as well -- and was the first person I've ever seen on Hannity's show who didn't allow Hannity to overtalk him. He definitely made far more sense than Hannity (but, admittedly, that's not hard to do).  I wish he would have reminded Hannity that he (Hannity) had promised he would be waterboarded when he interviewed Charles Grodin.  When Hannity denied waterboarding is torture, Grodin asked him if he would be waterboarded and Hannity said, "Sure -- for charity."  Well, Keith Olbermann has promised $1,000 a minute to a charity of Hannity's choice (since doubled to $2,000 a minute)--for each minute that Hannity endures the "enhanced interrogation technique" that Hannity refuses to acknowledge is torture.  Hmmm...we haven't heard another word on that subject from Hannity ever since.  No waterboarding is yet scheduled for him. He is a perfect example of the "courage" shown by the chicken hawks in the Republican party. So willing to send others to do the dirty work -- but always opting out of anything dangerous for themselves. Cheney, Bush, Hannity--all cut from the same yellow bolt of cloth.

You can't say that about Ventura -- a former Navy SEAL who served in Viet Nam, was waterboarded himself and calls it torture, and who says the truth: George Bush was the worst president in our time. I'd go one further -- "in ANY time."  To see a short video of Ventura's performance on the Hannity show, go to: http://crooksandliars.com/

The Body Speaks His Mind: Obama Should Listen
By Bill Gallagher

"You give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour and he'll confess to the Sharon Tate murders."
-- Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura on CNN's Larry King Live show.

In the growing national debate over torture, most of the recent attention goes to the ghoulish "I knew everything" Dick Cheney and the disingenuous "I knew nothing" Nancy Pelosi. But a refreshing and sincere voice, without a self-serving agenda, has emerged offering experience, expertise and conviction to the discussion as others confuse, distract and waffle.

Former Minnesota Governor, and former professional wrestling performer and commentator, Jesse "The Body" Ventura is also a former Navy SEAL, who served in the elite unit during the Vietnam War. In his training, Ventura was actually waterboarded. He avoids weasel words in describing the experience.

"It is torture," Ventura told CNN's Larry King. "It is drowning." We have long passed a point in this discussion where mealy-mouthed language and euphemisms can be tolerated. Only five categories of people now continue to argue that waterboarding is not torture - those trying to cover-up their vile crimes, the uninformed, the delusional, the stupid, and the insufferable partisans. Some fit into several categories.

Ventura, a non-lawyer, went on to say, with perfect reason and legal precision, words our president has yet to utter. "I would prosecute every person who was involved in that torture," Ventura declared. "I would prosecute the people who did it; I would prosecute the people that ordered it, because torture is against the law."

Why is it that Ventura, usually known for his physical brawn, and rarely recognized for his intellectual gifts, can say with such clarity and moral conviction that which the former Harvard Law Review president and constitutional law professor, Barack Obama, refuses to say?

The issue of torture demands leadership, courage and candor, not calculation and deference to real or perceived public opinion. The issue reaches into the soul of our national identity. Are we a people committed to the rule of law or do we allow those who proclaim to be our sole saviors and personally anointed protectors to break and ignore laws of their choosing?

Should we permit a President, or, more aptly in our recent national experience a Vice President, with no public debate or legislative authority, to assert authority and declare powers not found in the constitution and never before exercised? How should we deal with the claim of executive authority that asserts no accountability to the Congress, nor to the courts nor to the faithfulness to the Constitution and ultimately embraces a betrayal of the people?

Most importantly though, embracing torture is morally repugnant and plunges our nation into barbarism and diminishes and degrades a society held up to the world as a model of democratic institutions.

How can we possibly justify people acting in the name of our government engaging in the brutality that marks totalitarian regimes and then claim the behavior is to preserve liberty? Can a nation that endorses torture continue as a beacon of hope, land of the free, and the shining city on the hill for the world to emulate?

The lovers of torture and truth deniers scored a major victory when President Obama reversed his position and announced he is ordering government lawyers to oppose the release of photographs of detainees undergoing "enhanced interrogation." Urged by military leaders and the CIA, Obama argues release of the photos and graphic images might further enflame the Islamic world and jeopardize U.S. troops in the field.

There are many problems with those arguments. First of all the horrific torture techniques photographed at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, brought there by some of the same CIA types and contractors that first employed them at Guantanamo and in secret prisons around the world, already have done immeasurable, and perhaps irreparable damage to America's image in the Islamic world.

Americans are an especially visual people. If they read about torture they often shrug. Show them the pictures and they will take notice. The video tapes of the interrogations have already been destroyed.

People in the CIA, and likely the White House, ordered that cover-up to eliminate the "best evidence" and in doing so committed numerous felonies. As many as 20, maybe more, detainees died in U.S. custody. Is it not reasonable to wonder if a prime motive for destroying the tapes was to cover-up murders?

The problem is not releasing the pictures, it's what the pictures will show - acts of barbarism reasonable people will conclude are, in fact, torture. If we only had printed accounts and narratives of what happened at Abu Ghraib instead of the incendiary and despicable photographs, the torturers - like the infamous Lynndie England - would never have been prosecuted - just like the higher ups who encouraged her behavior and walked away scot-free.

Obama is allowing himself to slip into Cheney world, spiking the torture photos and continuing the military tribunals and indefinite detentions of "enemy combatants." Obama must confront the horrible crimes of the past. His hollow words about "looking forward" weaken the nation and simply delay the inevitable confrontation with the horrors committed during the Bush-Cheney years in the name of the American people.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi must confront her own culpability in the torture legacy and stop trying to re-write history and distance herself from her own participation in briefings where waterboarding was discussed.

Pelosi's accusation that CIA briefers lied to her was reckless and her tortuous explanations and obfuscations about what she knew and when she knew it should end. She is playing right into the hands of the members of the torture wing of the Republican Party (is there any other?) who want the debate to be over peripheral issues.

Pelosi's denials, her failure to be forthright and claim that even had she objected it would not have thwarted torture, are positions that distract from the central issue. Pelosi should be saying torture is morally wrong, illegal and ineffective. She should apologize if her actions or failures to act enabled Bush and Cheney's torture agenda - end of story

Last week, former FBI agent Ali Soufan testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing and told lawmakers "enhanced interrogation techniques" were "unreliable and ineffective" and "as a result, harmful to our efforts to defeat al-Qaeda."

Soufan, who speaks fluent Arabic, began with an FBI colleague the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah and quickly developed a rapport with the al-Qaeda operative captured after being severely wounded. According to a Newsweek Magazine report, "They nursed his wounds, gained his confidence and got the terror suspect talking. They extracted crucial intelligence - including the identity of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the architect of 9/11 and the dirty-bomb plot of Jose Padilla - before CIA contractors even began their aggressive tactics."

Soutan's testimony - based on experience - not watching Fox's "24" is most valuable. He said without reservation, "The Informed Interrogation Approach outlined in the Army Field Manual is the most effective, reliable, and speedy approach we have for interrogating terrorists. It is legal and has worked time and time again."

Soufan was outraged when he saw CIA contractors abusing detainees and Newsweek reports he called one of his bosses saying "I swear to God, I'm going to arrest these guys." Shortly thereafter FBI Director Robert Mueller ordered all his agents to stop participating in CIA interrogations.

Soufan testified the Army Field Manual worked well. "It was a mistake to abandon it in favor of harsh interrogation methods that are harmful, shameful, slower, unreliable, and ineffective and play directly into the enemy's handbook," he concluded.

Soufan - with first-hand knowledge - said the CIA hired thugs who used "amateurish, Hollywood-style interrogation methods," adding "many claims made in the memos about the success of the enhanced techniques are inaccurate."

Funny how the twisted, torture lovers on Capitol Hill and the right-wing shouting mob dutifully regurgitate Dick Cheney's talking points and never quote Soufan, an experienced interrogator who has actually done the work and seen the results. Cheney and his "amen chorus" also preach the lie that waterboarding "saved lives."

The opposite is true. Bush and Cheney used the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to invade Iraq which had nothing whatsoever to do with al Qaeda terrorism. Torture was the tool used to try to establish that nonexistent link.

Writing in the Washington Note, an online political journal, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.), former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, learned why Cheney was so committed to torture. "Its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Qaeda," Wilkerson argued.

The next shoe to drop in the terror saga will be the CIA's Inspector General's report on what happened to the video tapes of the interrogations. Wilkerson told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, "I have no problem whatsoever understanding and knowing in my own mind that those tapes were destroyed either with the permission - tacit or otherwise - of the Vice President's office or by direct order of the Vice President's office."

One person who would have appeared on those tapes was Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al-Qaeda member from Libya captured in Pakistan in late 2001. The CIA interrogated him in Afghanistan and he was then sent to Egypt for torture. He "confessed" he knew of Iraq training al-Qaeda operatives in the uses of chemical and biological warfare and promised access to nuclear WMDs.

Cheney was ecstatic. Torture worked and al-Libi's tortured confession became the centerpiece of the successful propaganda campaign the mainstream media helped sell that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and was hell bent on providing them to al Qaeda.

Al-Libi was shipped off to Guantanamo where he was kept away from lawyers, journalists and Congressional investigators. He recanted his statements and in 2006, Al-Libi was returned to Libya where he was imprisoned without a trial.

Heba Morayef, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, visited al-Libi in the Abu Salim prison in Tripoli on April 27th - just last month. She told Reuters he "looked well, but was unwilling to speak," saying to her, "Where you were when I was being tortured in American prisons?"

On May 10, Andy Worthington, an independent journalist and historian reported Al-Libi was dead. A Libyan newspaper provided little detail simply noting Al-Libi "was found dead of suicide in his cell" and "without specifying the date and method of suicide."

Tom Malinkowski of the Washington Office of Human Rights Watch demanded a "full and transparent investigation" into the death. Calling Al-Libi "an embarrassment to the Bush administration." Malinowski told the Pentagon Post, "He was Exhibit A in the narrative that tortured confessions contributed to the massive intelligence failure that preceded the Iraq war."

Jesse Ventura is certainly correct in saying he could get Dick Cheney to "confess to the Sharon Tate murders." Cheney and Charlie Manson, the mastermind of the Tate murders actually have much in common. Both relied on fear and intimidation to get their loyalists to do their dirty work, while covering their own roles in percolating horrible violence, in the name of transforming the world.

There are differences too. Manson has much less blood on his hands than Cheney and the reach of his evil could never rival Big Dick's. Manson is in prison; Cheney should be but will escape responsibility and consequences for his vile deeds.

Jesse Ventura has got his number. "I don't have a lot of respect for Dick Cheney," he told Larry King. "Here's a guy who got five deferments in the Vietnam War. Clearly he's a coward. He wouldn't go when it was his time to go and now he's a chicken hawk. Now he's this big tough guy who wants this hard-core policy and he's the guy that sanctioned all this torture by calling it enhanced interrogation techniques."

Ventura's candid statements of experience-based truth are a valuable addition to the debate on torture and he understands the well spring of Cheney's sick political soul and the man who brought so much evil to the world. "George Bush is the worst president in my lifetime," he said. Well said. "The body's" mind deserves our attention.
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