Russ Baker, a researcher on the Bush dynasty, believes that George W. Bush’s memoirs might be a way to declare his plans to get back into power.
RT interviewed the author of a book called "Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years" for comments on what the former president of the United States reveals in his memoirs. In particular, Bush says he personally approved the interrogation technique of "water boarding" of terror suspects and says it helped prevent terrorist attacks."This statement, like many other statements in the book, is basically self-serving,” Baker said. “Probably the majority of Americans are comfortable with that statement that if it saved lives, then it was okay. Basically the reason the book is called ‘Decision Point,’ in my mind, is that it's like a talking point. All the things are very carefully considered and constructed for a particular purpose, and I think that the long-term purpose is that the Bush apparatus is already working on its way to get back into power.”Former CIA officer Ray McGovern says no such methods can ever be justified.“Torture is one of those techniques, one of those things that is always intrinsically wrong – just like slavery, or like rape, or genocide,” he told RT. “In the entire civilized world we recognized that after World War II – that’s why we have the international agreements, the convention against torture, domestic violence and so forth.”“Waterboarding is universally recognized – everywhere but the White House – as torture,” McGovern stated.
Baker, in turn, pointed out that Bush planned the invasion of Iraq even before he became president."I actually had an opportunity to interview a man who was in direct contact with George W. Bush when he was running for president of the United States,” Baker claimed. “I describe the conversation. They were working on a book in 1999 and this man asked Bush what he intended to do in office because he needed to put something into the book, and Bush actually told him that one thing on his mind was that he hoped to invade Iraq. This was quite astonishing to this man, and so he asked why he wanted to do that. And Bush said, ‘I've become convinced that you really can't have a successful presidency unless you are seen as a commander in chief. You need a small successful war to get your ratings up and in order to pass your agenda.”
Referring to the infamous events at Guantanamo Bay, British radio host Jon Gaunt said that torturing is not an interrogation method, but one should consider what happened within historical circumstances.“We wouldn’t torture people here in the UK so is it right to use evidence that is gained under those forms of interrogation? – that’s the question we have to ask ourselves,” Gaunt told RT. “But before the bleeding hard liberal start getting really upset about this we have to remember these were extraordinary times.”
Bush’s book is just a self-justification, image-revision exercise, believes independent US filmmaker and blogger Danny Schechter.“The focus of it is less the politics and more ‘George the Man,’” he told RT, adding that the main focus of the book is “to try to humanize him, and at the same time depoliticize him.”
Former Democratic member of Congress Tom Andrews doesn’t believe in the honesty of Bush’s comments in his memoir.“It’s rather extraordinary: Former President Bush was on national television last night here in the US, and he said that his lowest moment, lowest of the low, was when rap artist Kanye West accused him of not caring about black people during the Katrina debacle and the failure of the federal government to respond to the hurricane disaster, when in fact you have a war against Iraq, a violation of international law and invasion that killed thousands of American soldiers, and over 100,000 Iraqis, all to go after weapons of mass destruction that did not exist,” Andrews said. “And to make it worse, you had American soldiers, 700 of whom lost their lives in Iraq because in this war of choice this administration did not think it’s important enough to provide them with the protective armor that if they had it they would be alive today. In this interview, based upon this book, the president said his lowest moment was when he was criticized by an American rap artist for his handling of the Katrina disaster. I don’t think anyone buys this. The Iraq war, most Americans now believe, the vast majority of American believe, was a tragic mistake. And the fact that it was done in the way it was done makes it even worse.”