"Suicide" of Al-Libbi - man who provided false confession used to justify Iraq

[Richard Wagner]

At 5 am this morning, I went and looked at the CNN breaking news webpage, and found the news that Al-Libbi, the terrorist who had provided a confession to a tie between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, had committed suicide in a prison in Libya.

The methods used to force Al-libi's confession, were, of course, enhanced interrogation techniques, involving a live burial. The CIA wrote in their notes, that al-Libi appeared to be searching for any answer that would please them and end the interrogation. (It's important here to note that the Al-Qaeda/ Iraq link was called "The Requirement" within the CIA during the Bush administration). In other words, he just made up what they wanted to hear, which was that there did exist a tie between Al-Qaeda and Iraq.

Al-libi later recanted the statement, saying he had made it all up to end the interrogation procedure. His family members had been visiting him in jail and said he showed no signs of being suicidal.

Eventually, I realized that it was a very convenient time for the man who provided a false confession (and that is undisputed) for the link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, to die - for Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice, when investigation of the interrogation techniques is being considered.

What I'm not trying to say, is that this makes it look like torture was used on detainees for the sole purpose of eliciting false confessions that provided a link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, when, in fact, there existed none. What I'm not trying to suggest is that the Iraq War had nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do oil-related purposes.

What I'm merely saying is, Al-Libbi committed suicide in a Libyan prison, and since that isn't suspicious and not really big news, none of the major news networks should report on it.

 

[txteclipse]

Huge text is huge. Anyway, I believe I found your missing article, plus a few more.

https://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/05/12/libya.al.qaeda.prisoner/index.html
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=7558672
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/11/AR2009051103412.html

 

[Richard Wagner]

Well, at least there's that. Still, you'd have to be Forrest Gump or someone if his "suicide" doesn't look fishy to you.

Also, Obama just made a gosh darn terrible decision not to release the photos of the abuse of the detainees. What a terrible, stupid, stupid mistake - it's not releasing the pictures that endangers national security, it's what has already happened in the pictures that endangered and endangers national security. I can't get over how stupid a decision that is, let alone the politically motivated decision not to investigate the interrogation.

The reason is that he's listening to his generals, which sounds like a good idea, and would be, except for that they were appointed by Bush and Cheney and were in the chain of command when the torture was authorized. Thus, releasing the pictures doesn't endanger the troops, it endangers General Patraeus and those at the top of the chain of command, since, contrary to what you hear on Fox News, the abuse was systemic - what happened to our detainees in Iraq (that includes Abu Grahib) was the same thing that happened in Afghanistan and Guantanmo.

I get that pictures like these are used as recruitment tools for terrorists. But the thing here is that, Obama is shifting the blame from where it should be (at the top of the chain of command), to a few small fries at the bottom who were following orders.

Eh, so much for transparency.

 

[Fox♠]

CIA done it in my opinion. I wouldn't put anything past them.

 

[Reina]

Wow. Maybe it was.. well, this is the captain obvious answer here, but something they didn't want everyone to know about it, so that's why they took it off? Oh well, the word's gotten out anyway..

 

[BHwolfgang]

The problem is that Obama is rushing. Plans like these need to be thought out first.

Did he hung himself? Did he forcefully stopped his breathing?

 

[Richard Wagner]

The problem is that Obama is rushing. Plans like these need to be thought out first.

Did he hung himself? Did he forcefully stopped his breathing?

Well, if you're referring to the pictures, I think the problem is that the people advising him on the issue were high in the chain of command when the abuses took place, and don't want people to find out that such abuses were orders from the top as opposed to just a few "bad eggs". Jane Karpinski, a former brigadier general, has said that the assertion that releasing the photos is a threat to national security is a ruse - besides things that already occur (terrorists using pictures to recruit people, anti-American sentiment), I really can't think of a way that they are a threat to national security.

One new development that I can't stand is how Nancy Pelosi is being made a scapegoat for someone else's crime. She may have well been in the room when torture was authorized, and if that's the case, then legally she must be prosecuted (just like Condi Rice and Dick Cheney, which despite that they did the actual authorizing, Newt Gingrich and the whole news media never put them on the spot for it like they are doing to Pelosi - it took a few students at Stanford to do that to Condoleeza Rice.

What matters, however, is the following:

Torture was used to elicit false confessions, which would then provide a "reason" for invading Iraq. That's a fact, and if you think otherwise, then you're a god-damn moron.

Since there was no real threat to America from Iraq, what was the purpose of invading it? That's the question the media never asks, and I think that's utterly despicable, and I think every news editor in every major network should be fired for it.

The fact of the matter is, the Iraq war is about oil, and Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the middle east. Dick Cheney is president of Halliburton, an oil and natural gas company with an exemplary human rights record.

If you go and read the torture thread here at PC, you'll find that many people on this site are for torture in certain situations. They're just like Nancy Pelosi. Do you put the blame on those who sincerely believed it would elicit valuable information, or do you put it on the guys who knew it was going to give bad information, and used it so they could start a war?