Redacted

After 8 years of not really knowing fact from fiction when it came to CIA and military conduct, several things have come to light in the last weeks that show just how totally fucked things were in the prime years of the now renamed GWOT (these days it's the Overseas Contingency Operation).

The first story which broke two weeks ago, and which continues to evolve is regarding Blackwater USA (now Xe), which for the uninitiated is the private army hired by the Pentagon to protect diplomats in Iraq, as well as other security operations. These are no rent a cops though -- comprised largely of ex-military, led by ex-special forces and commanding it's own air force and APC's Blackwater is in all right a full fledged army. If you'll recall they have had a very bad record of killing Iraqi civillians, and as it has now emerged during depositions, the former CEO may have actually demanded this behavior. According to former employees, the CEO and founder Erik Prince, believed he was part of a holy war against Muslims and allegedly went so far as to kill individuals in the US who opposed his doctrine.

While the track record of Blackwater as a protection agency is almost unblemished, the idea of such an idealogically motivated force operating in this, and other sovreign nations terrifies me.

The other story which continues to break this week regards the torture during the Bush years at so called "Black Sites" conducted by the CIA. A highly redacted report released by the Attorney Generals office confirms that the methods used went far beyond water boarding. High lights of detainee abuse include:

-Threats with power tools
-Threat of rape
-Threat of murdering and raping families
-Mock executions of other detainees
-Beatings
-Constriction of blood flow resulting in loss of consciouness

While these things are in themselves extreme, much of the document is not yet available and appears to be secret to prevent public and international back lash.

As the final icing on the cake, Dick Cheney who as recently as last month was asking that interrogation documents be released specifically to show that extreme measures were effective has been proven wrong. The documents he was referring to have been released, and rather than showing Jack Bauer like success resulting from torture, they show that conventional methods were in fact more effective.

It might not be until a long time from now that we know most of what happened during the Bush years, but knowing this much makes me glad that the neoCons are out of office.