Peter T. King Quotes
If we have another 2,000 people killed, I want Nancy Pelosi and George Soros, John Conyers and Pat Leahy to go to the funeral and say, 'Your son was vaporized because we didn't want to dump some guy's head under water for 30 seconds.'
King, Peter T. Interview by Sean Hannity. Hannity & Colmes, FOX News Network, 12 Mar. 2008.
Yet we continued to give the government aid.
[During the Guatemalan Civil War, the military had often tortured, murdered disappeared and sexually enslaved female relatives of men they suspected of being rebel. The object was to humiliate and emasculate the insurrectionists so that others will not join them and they will cease their revolutionary activities to protect their women. The civil war ended in 1996, and although military war criminals had been tried earlier but never for crimes – sexual crimes against women. 20 year had elapsed since the end of the war and this famous trial. The two war criminals were sentenced to 120 and 240 years in prison respectively, but they had escaped justice for more than two decades. The United States, in the middle of the Red Scare was supporting and financing the Guatemalan government and military. In addition America trained many of the military in counter-insurgency which taught some methods that were contrary to International Law and which were illegal for American soldiers to engage in. After official documents of the era were declassified, it became clear that U. S. officials—–especially the CIA--were aware of the excesses and war crimes of the Guatemalan military, but did little to stop it. See Quotes 583698, and 583699 for more on the American involvement.
The School of the Americas has been run by the United States Army and provides training for Latin American Military Officers in Counter-Insurgency Training. The graduates of the school have included some of the worst Latin American killers and torturers (See {41061} for example) who rose to positions of power in their lands. It has also included many leaders who did not ever resort to war crimes and atrocities and also became leaders of their countries. It has been an institution of great controversy since it was discovered that the school at one point taught methods of interrogating insurgents that were tantamount to torture. Defenders of the school claim that but for the school, the military atrocities would have been worse and that it contributed to more human and democratic governments in the Americas.
He was referring to the police interrogation methods that Turkey had used in the past but was in the process of reforming.
The Senate was debating a law to make torture of foreigners and captives illegal under all circumstances. Vice President Cheney was very strongly opposed wanting an exception made for the CIA.
Bowden is speaking of Keith Hall, a CIA agent and interrogator, who was fired after the government found out that he had tortured the terrorist, Elias Nimr, to get information.
Peter Thomas King is a former American politician who represented New York in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2021. He represented a South Shore Long Island district that includes parts of Nassau County and Suffolk County and was numbered as the 3rd and later the 2nd district.
