From The Dylan Ratigan Show, Cenk Uygur gave the daily rant where he gave his thoughts on George W. Bush's recent admission that he authorized waterboarding KSM.
UYGUR: That's always a wonderfully awkward moment. But apparently it really got to Bush. He said in his book, and I quote here, "I faced a lot of criticism as president. I didn't like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all-time low."
So let me get this right. We went to Iraq based on false premises. Whether he lied about it or not, there were no weapons of mass destruction. That war was just wrong. And what happened in that war? 4,427 United States troops killed, but that wasn't an all-time low. There were 66,000 civilians killed at least – Iraqi civilians – but that wasn't an all-time low. There was 1,836 people killed in Hurricane Katrina, but that wasn't an all-time low. By the way, there was 8 million jobs lost because of the recession he created, the Great Recession, but that wasn't an all-time low. By the way also, there was a little thing called 9/11 on Bush's watch, and that wasn't an all-time low.
But Kanye dissed you and that was your all-time low? Oh no, Kanye doesn't like you! Did your feelings get hurt, George? You know what George Bush said when the CIA gave him a memo while he was on vacation, as usual, in Crawford? It said "we're going to get attacked by al-Qaeda in New York. He said "All right. You've covered your ass now." And he went back on vacation. And then we lost all those people on 9/11. But that wasn't an all-time low. Kanye dissed him, that was a low.
Now that isn't even the most startling part of the book. He also admits to a war crime. He said, when they asked him, "hey, should we waterboard Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?" He admits it. In the book, he says I told them "Damn right." Go ahead and torture him basically. Now is waterboarding really a war crime?
Well, it's against the Geneva Conventions, which is international law, which we signed. And when we sign it it becomes supreme law of the land here in the United States of America. But that's not just theoretical; we've prosecuted people for waterboarding before. We'll get to that in a second. But let's see what the generals think. General – one of our top generals is going to talk to Carl Levin here while Bush was still president, mind you? Here's his testimony.
Sen. CARL LEVIN: General, do you believe that waterboarding is consistent with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions?
UNITED STATES GENERAL: No sir, I don't.
LEVIN: Do you think it's humane?
GENERAL: No sir, I think it would go beyond that bound.
UYGUR: He's not alone in thinking that, here are the prosecutions we've done for waterboarding in this country. After the Spanish-American War, US soldiers were court-martialed. After World War II, Japanese soldiers were convicted for waterboarding, a violation of our laws. In 1983, a Texas sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison for waterboarding. Now it seems to me we have a confession here of a war crime and a clear violation of international and United States law. President George W. Bush should go to jail for at least 10 years. Will that happen? Not with an administration that only wants to look forward and never backward to crimes that were actually committed.