CIA Director Leon Panetta sent this message to CIA employees today. It directly rebuts claims from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the CIA provided misleading information to Congress:
There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I’m gone. But the political debates about interrogation reached a new decibel level yesterday when the CIA was accused of misleading Congress.
Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.” Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.
My advice—indeed, my direction—to you is straightforward: ignore the noise and stay focused on your mission. We have too much work to do to be distracted from our job of protecting this country.
We are an Agency of high integrity, professionalism, and dedication. Our task is to tell it like it is—even if that’s not what people always want to hear. Keep it up. Our national security depends on it.
Sounds like the Speaker's claims of being "misled" are getting a dim reception at the CIA. And the Speaker's claims don't make any sense at all, as shown by this clever dissection by Tom Smith over at The Right Coast.
That was one of the worst political performances ever. Between a lifetime of politics and a faceful of Botox, it's incredible how much "deer-in-the-headlights" got through.
No one cares what/when/where Pelosi knew. We care what/when/where/whether Americans committed the crime of torture.
There should be a full and open investigation just as Pelosi has supported.
Does the CIA mislead - of course. If you don't think that, look at the torture memo by Bybee and the alleged "facts" in it. Also, remember the destruction of the torture tapes of Al Qahtani - CIA were asked for all kinds of things but because the "magic word" tape was not used kept these under wraps. Hamilton and Kane (head of the 9/11 Commission) went ballistic over that bit of deception.
So Panetta is trying to rally his troops which is understandable, but that does not mean that what he says is true either. That's why we need people in a criminal prosecution and under oath on this stuff.
If we insist they will prosecute.
Best,
Ben
She seems smart enough, but she's never quite learned that Speakers need to shut up and fade into the woodwork, and do their legbreaking outside camera range. Gingrich was the same way.
Except, of course, for her absolute demagoguery on the subject. Of course, she is a poltician and expected to dissemble, so maybe in your mind that fact makes this a non-story.
Poor Nan-Nan, it's lonely at the top."
This is the kind of educated and adult commentary, focusing right on the the facts, that makes this blog worthwhile.
Panetta still will not write a simple declarative sentence that says, “The CIA told Nancy Pelosi in the September 2002 briefing that waterboarding had been used on Zubaydah.” He cannot or will not, at least not now. Nor does he say whatever he might or might not have been told by the staff who briefed almost seven years ago. Has he interviewed them? Do they still work at the agency?
So everyone continues to parse words, including the incumbent CIA director caught in the middle, who merely states what the CIA records mysteriously and ambiguously say.
Meanwhile, Sen. Bob Graham makes a statement similar to Pelosi, directly contradicting what the CIA chart purportedly shows. In an interview with NPR, Graham says:
Yet the CIA chart has precisely the same entry about Graham's briefing that is says about Pelosi's: The entire entry reads: “Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed.”
So Graham, too, contradicts an identically mysterious CIA record entry that has been released about Pelosi.
The CIA’s story smells. It is time to put everyone under oath — not just before a truth commission, and not just about the briefings, but about the underlying torture allegations and evidence from the former FBI agent (Soufan)contradicting what the CIA told OLC to get the legal permission.
Increasingly, it looks like it will be time for a special counsel and a grand jury on the whole mess.
There were several persons in the room for the 2002 briefings. At a truth commission hearing, they all can be questioned under oath. They include Pelosi, Graham, Porter Goss, Richard Shelby, their staff members and the CIA briefers.
But meanwhile, let's make sure to investigate the underlying crime of torture, too.
I wasn't aware that Bybee and Yoo wrote the memo while working for the CIA. Who knew?"
What was Bybee's source for the "facts" upon which his and Yoo's memoranda relied? Did you read them?
Yeah, right, Pelosi supports an investigation... and if you pull on this leg it plays jingle bells.
She's the Speaker of the House of the United States Congress. She can begin an investigation 15 minutes from now, and shut down the Congress to do it. She won't, because she doesn't want an investigation.
Unfortunately, she's being hung on all her past blather about this. Poor Nan-Nan.
If only he were head of the CIA when W was trying to drum up a Saddam/Qaeda link.
I love it, personally. We're getting farther and farther into, "Yeah, we tortured people, but Nancy Pelosi knew about it!"
That'll be the justification defense of a lifetime. Can't wait.
Care to mention a specific "fact" in either the Bybee memo or the Yoo memos that was supplied by the CIA? Any old one will do. In the memo signed by Bybee, the CIA is sourced exactly once (on page 33, describing the CIA Director's testimony to Congress).
No, it's the "Democrats-Are-Self-Righteous-Hypocrites" defense.
Even better. I'm sure that'll be a persuasive justification defense for, you know, breaking the law.
B-b-b-b-ut, your honor, the Democrats are self-righteous hypocrites! That makes it ok to torture people! Really! Dave N said so!
There won't be prosecutions. I know this is a leftist wet-dream. But trust me on this one.
As for the memos, how about page 1 of the 1 Aug. 2002 memo:
"Our advice is based upon the following facts, which you have provided to us."
If you bother to read the memos, you'll see that they're based entirely on what CIA told OLC.
Keep talking, Dick.
But, a full Congressional investigation would be far less encumbered, far more informative and far more festive!.
I don't even see the words you are quoting. And since the memo was directed at Alberto Gonzalez, then Counsel to the President, your argument would mean that the CIA was lying to the President of the United States.
I fail to see how that headline is supported by the text of Panetta's statement.
Here is the ACLU website hosting the 4 most recently released memos. The above link is to the 1 Aug. 2002 memo. Read page 1.
Hardy-har-HAR-har-har.
Those frickin guys will probably turn up with video of her waterboarding somebody, before it's all over.
I may or may not have lol'd. :P
Would I be sad that she was involved? Sure. I'd be very disappointed in her. Does it make me reconsider what course the nation should take? Not at all. It might even make me want an airing out even more.
The most sensible comment in this thread.
Nancy Pelosi was told that the US Gov was committing illegal acts of torture - so:
If she was told? What? How does this change the equation?
If she was told then the torture wasn't illegal?
The torture becomes legal torture because a Democrat knew about it?
You Americans are doing no end of damage to your international rep with this debate.
PS
Now, going by experience, I expect an American respondent to say "Well you (Australians) did such and such and so there! Obviously you are just an American bashing furener." As if this justifies torture.
Dave N:
As for the memos, how about page 1 of the 1 Aug. 2002 memo:
"Our advice is based upon the following facts, which you have provided to us."
If you bother to read the memos, you'll see that they're based entirely on what CIA told OLC."
Thank you.
A debate about whether the CIA told Pelosi about the illegal, pre-invasion-justifying, Saddam-AQ connection rationalizing, Cheney-ordered, counterproductive, and completely information-less torture of previously cooperating and information-disclosing detainees before the CYA memoranda were written or after is just fine with me. The debate is now whether or not Pelosi was told of the crimes, not whether they were committed.
And until this week I have discounted the "Pelosi knew" issue as a political sidewhow orchestrated to change the subject from the underlying scandal of torture and lawless behavior within the executive branch. It still is that.
But there is more going on here.
We now have two senior members of Congress -- Pelosi and former Sen. Graham -- saying that the CIA failed to notify them in September 2002 that waterboarding had been used. We know from the OLC memos that Zubaydah had been waterboarded 83 times in August.
And the CIA still will not issue an unequivocal denial of what Pelosi and Graham are saying.
It is time to put people under oath. All of them.
I have some idea of the internal political dynamics involved but my worry is that they are entirely obscure to most citizens of the globe who are watching.
All that my fellow Australians see and hear is a debate about who knew about the torture and their reaction is - Who cares?
As one of our political commentators said last night on our national broadcaster (after a discussion of the American reaction to revelations of Japanese torture following WW2). "Apparently there are two types of torture in this world. The American type of torture which is a wonderful tool protecting the integrity of the Land of the Brave - and the torture used by everyone else in the world - which is a degrading and dehumanising practice that is likely to prompt an American court to execute you."
Or the CIA confabulates.
If Pelosi keeps backtracking and making Congress look even more like fools, predict she will be out within 60 days, and replaced by someone with 1/2 brain instead of a quarter. The Dems are looking very foolish lately, running around in so many directions making foolish expenditures and decisions anyhow. They better register lots of non-English speaking immigrants, so they can get votes from people who have no idea what Congress and the President are doing, except by filtered translations.
Oh wait, these new voters/citizens are supposed to be the large tax base to pay off the deficit, and contribute more than they take out. So call in ACORN now!
So once again we have an American deciding that torture is a party political issue instead of a human rights concern
Do Americans ever pull their heads out of their backsides for long enough to notice that everyone else on the globe is standing around laughing at the guy with his head stuck up his....
If the CIA has too much influence, the flaw belongs to Congress, not to the CIA.
It is a pretty consistent feature of human societies that we construct outgroups about whom we imagine the worst and act accordingly, perhaps to deflect attention from the shortcomings of the society in question, or to promote a sense of unity in that society.
You own country was populated in its early days by such an outgroup constructed by Georgian England, and you noted on a previous thread the present-day results of similar past behavior and its present vestiges in American society.
The United States has been chosen to be your current outgroup. Will you go along?
"Suppose that a politician lies about what they were told in a briefing; the information in the briefing is no longer classified. Should the CIA let the lie go unanswered?"
Not under oath.
Another very sensible comment. Two things should be very clear:
1. Assuming that Nancy Pelosi knew of the torture, that doesn't make it legal.
2. If Pelosi did know, then she should pay whatever legal or political price is warranted by the facts.
This whole debate, to which Judge Cassell so shamefully contributed, is nothing but an attempted distraction from the principle issue that torture is a crime and needs to be punished.
Shouldn't we waterboard them? Isn't that how you get the "real" truth?
Oh, and televise it.
"If the CIA has too much influence, the flaw belongs to Congress, not to the CIA."
The two are not mutually exclusive.
"Out West said "The Dems are looking very foolish lately"
So once again we have an American deciding that torture is a party political issue instead of a human rights concern."
The Speaker of the House used to be a respected position, not one that inspires ridicule. Pelosi may have lied or has poor recall, or the CIA is lying.
If it is the Speaker, then she should resign and be replaced by someone with integrity and memory.
A little more focus on the terrorists who beheaded Daniel Pearl would also be welcome. Where's their handwringing? I guess if the US stops waterboarding, then the terrorists will stop killing Americans. Where's that treaty being drafted? By David Axelrod?
No.
I am as much at odds with illegal or corupt behaviour displayed by those within my 'ingroup'.
I am one of those sad dinosaurs who still dream of a world where discussion about things like torture might happen sans debate about any 'ingroup' or 'outgroup'.
Torture should be an 'inspecies' debate.
.
I've held from the start that the issue you aim to exercise should not be cast as one over "torture." That word cuts in opposite directions as a legal term of art vs. a term that conjures emotional outrage. Everybody agrees that torture is a crime and needs to be punished. You will not find a conflict there.
"We don't do it."
"It's not really torture"
"The OLC said it was legal."
"It works. Really!"
"Maybe we can blame it on the democrats?"
An ever shifting set of excuses, obfuscations and lies... pathetic. Just pathetic.
"A little more focus on the terrorists who beheaded Daniel Pearl would also be welcome. Where's their handwringing?"
This is a patently silly way to approach the issue. Try that defence in a courtroom and see where you will end up.
"But, your Honor, the nasty people also torture so we should be allowed to torture too. After all, they have no conscience so why should we?"
Further: intimating that those who are politically opposed to your positions are somehow less empathetic than you are is simply grotesque.
-- The two are not mutually exclusive. --
.
Agreed. But Congress can't be absolved for the actions of a critter of its own creation. My point was that Congress is the master, not the servant.
You summarized the point I was trying to make in a far more exlicit and coherent way than I managed.
Thank you
As to wanting to be a bit more universal than self-blame, it is clear to me, at least, that Obama, et al are so busy blaming the US for everything bad in the world during this century, they are forgetting to look outward.
Whether waterboarding was correct or not, there is far worse torture going on in the world, and at least a little attention to that by Axelrod and the White House is warranted. But their playing politics by denigrating past administrations is just too irresistible. I am hoping they will look at the USS Cole incident and Clinton's response, in their journeys back in time.
"Torture should be an 'inspecies' debate."
On the contrary, I was of the impression that that debate was closed among our species. I just hope that you extend your admirable curiosity to those from whom you are getting your information who are so sure that what happened here qualifies as torture.
That's because you're not a dumbass.
As Josh Marshall pointed out: who's calling for a full investigation into who knew/did what when? Pelosi.
Who wants to perpetuate a coverup? The GOP. And Obama.
I was attempting to make the point that the debate is closed.
Let me be unequivocal.
Torture is unacceptable.
Waterboarding is torture (source - the US Justice Department and a great many people who have been executed.)
Those who engage in torture should be locked up in a small cell for a very long time.
Are you truly trying to intimate that there is any doubt that Waterboarding is torture?
Are you trying to tell me that the poor detainees had dirty faces and so the nice CIA operatives were simply washing them clean?
Because for those of us who actually keep up with this stuff, more partisan ignoramus dumbassery is not really helpful, though I'm sure the fellow partisan ignoramus dumbasses find it inspirational.
Additionally, the Justice Department usually contains the views of the current administration. Want to post to wayback or whomever and provide a link that that was DOJ policy prior to (pickomg a day semi at random) January 20, 2009.
I also recommend browsing Greg Sargent's The Plum Line blog over the past week or so. He is straightforwardly a Democratic advocate, but has developed significant facts and analysis on this matter.
Perhaps you should have quit the debate after making the preposterous claim that the Bybee/Yoo memos were not based on CIA input, whereas in fact they say "as you have informed us" where the "you" refers to the CIA. That would be a little more polite than doubling down with more anti-factual snark.
"Are you truly trying to intimate that there is any doubt that Waterboarding is torture?"
I'm not intimating anything. I think there is some doubt, as there is about the claim that it clearly isn't. I give the benefit for the doubt to the representatives my fellow citizens and I have chosen to make those decisions, and do not withdraw that benefit lightly.
Why does your doubt of what the American administration has told you not extend to what your own sources are telling you now?
As I said in another thread, it is no more an open-and-shut case that the EIT were torture than it is that TARP is socialism, however many of the appropriate boxes critics in good faith and otherwise may be able to tick off.
And, yes, I am aware that this places me beyond the pale of a good 90% of readers one way or the other. So be it.
So I should ignore people who agree with you who say inane things?
BTW, you are right in the sense I was looking at the initial memo directed at Alberto Gonzales and not the August 1, 2002 one referenced.
Thanks, Anderson!
It's just that I was not born yesterday. I lived through Watergate.
Panetta's statement is a classic non-denial denial.
He certainly is not vouching personally for the CIA institutional narrative, nor for what the ambiguous CIA records purport to imply. (After all, he just arrived on the job a few month's ago.)
In fact, Panetta repeated his caveat that he doesn't vouch for what the facts really are, and expressly invites a congressional inquiry:
I once had a part-time job as a copy editor, and proofreading now feels too much like a busman's holiday, but I guess I'll just need to bite the bullet and do it.
Jesse Ventura (was waterboarded)
several US Courts
Supreme Court of Mississippi, even when used against a black man in the Jim Crow era.
Tokyo war crimes tribunal
Cambodia torture museum
US govt when used in Philippine Insurrection
Look, if we had put detainees to the rack, the same crew of apologists would be calling it stretchboarding and denying that it's torture. No one has ever found a tribunal that said waterboarding was not torture, and I have listed several that did. The contrary claim is a dead-end assertion devoid of any claimed precedent made by people who, if waterboarding is torture, are war criminals.
But I thought this article spoke less to the methods and more to Pelosi's possible lapses in memory. Does anyone else here think she may be out soon, and who could replace her?
Any capable Dems? Or just your typical tax and spend liberals? They really look like OCD shopaholics as to how they came in and overspent our tax money, and that of the Chinese!
The mood of the country, the opinions of the politicans and CIA, and the evaluation of threat severity all appear to have vanished from the minds of the Bushie bashers."
Certain things are wrong all the time, no matter what "mood" you are in, what "opinion" the "politicians" have, and what the [highly inflated, if not manufactured WMD] "threat severity" may be. At my high school the Holy Cross Brothers called your approach "situation ethics".
Torture is having your finger-nails pulled off, you flesh burned, your body permanently injured, your eyes gouged out with spoons (Al Qaeda manual).
It is not waterboarding, except among those who are too civilized to defend themselves.
I suppose John Moore can have his own definition of torture, it's a free country, but the one used by the legal community is more restrictive and includes waterboarding.
You know, the torture advocates tacitly admit to what they are doing. Have you noticed the new claim that announcing we are going to stop torturing will help AQ recruiting? Now, let's ignore for a moment that our military has said the opposite is true, that Abu Ghraib and Gitmo were terrorist recruiting bonanzas. Try to figure out what is the line of reasoning behind this claim. It would seem that they are saying that our techniques are so horribly unpleasant—mind you, this isn't a question of being able to get away with AQ membership more easily; this is all what happens after you are captured—so terrifying if you will, that potential AQ recruits will chicken out. I'd say that shows they really know these brutal techniques are meant to intimidate the victims, not to extract information or any other potentially lawful purpose. This argument doesn't seem to work in reverse: no one has suggested that barbaric AQ practices will inhibit USA military recruiting. It's a mark of the cowards and bullies behind torture, like many-time deferred Cheney, that they project their own lack of courage onto the enemy.
There are a bunch of different OLC torture memos, so it's easy to get confused. The person to whom you are responding was not talking about the same OLC torture memo that you're talking about.
The OLC torture memo you're talking about is Bybee's 8/1/02 memo to Gonzales (pdf, text). The person to whom you are responding was talking about Bybee's memo to Rizzo of the same date. The former memo was leaked in 6/04. More details here. The latter memo was released by DOJ on 4/16/09, as part of a batch of four. A good place to find those four memos is here.
You said this:
As dmv said: "If you bother to read the memos, you'll see that they're based entirely on what CIA told OLC." This is especially clear in Bybee's 8/1/02 memo to Rizzo. Bybee repeatedly makes statements that sound like this: 'you told us X, so X must be true, and I don't need to do any thinking of my own, even if X makes no sense.'
As dmv pointed out, the very first sentence (aside from a preamble paragraph) is this: "Our advice is based upon the following facts, which you have provided to us." So Bybee was effectively working for the CIA, and doing essentially nothing to display any independence from his client.
The one who said "inane things" is you. Can you point out where someone else said "inane things?"
Indeed. Tom Maguire does a nice job of expressing this:
============
JaO:
Almost no one seems to be noticing that Goss's own words support Pelosi's narrative. Let's cite Maguire again, because he does a nice job of explaining this:
Too bad Maguire doesn't mention that Marcy Wheeler figured this out three weeks ago.
============
cboldt:
It's hard to tell what you're claiming. That we didn't torture?
Then presumably you agree with Pelosi that the National Security Act of 1947 should be strengthened, to give Congress greater power to oversee the CIA. And presumably you are upset that CIA apparently violated the existing provisions of that Act.
============
desid:
Given the kind of people who have finally admitted that waterboarding is torture, it's hard to take seriously anyone who still claims we didn't torture. Likewise for anyone who claims that shackling someone in a standing position for 180 hours isn't torture.
I wonder if you would care to explain why you see doubt whereas the people I just cited do not.
In particular, if a future enemy waterboarded an American 183 times, or shackled him in a standing position for 180 hours, would you claim "there is some doubt" about whether or not that American was tortured?
============
out west:
When the Japanese did waterboarding the way we did it, we called it torture and we prosecuted them.
A guide to a bunch of prior torture threads, containing about 3,000 comments, can be found here. If prior to posting you make an effort to bring yourself up to speed, then we won't have to perpetually deal with stale talking points like the one you raised. Then again, you might prefer that we do nothing other than perpetually deal with stale talking points like the one you raised.
============
moore:
Why do you approve waterboarding, but not sodomy or electric shock? You've been ducking this question for weeks, but maybe you've finally come up with a an answer.
Why should we think we might never need to use sodomy or electric shock to defend ourselves, and why are you "too civilized" to permit us to do that?
Thanks for the helpful link. Yes, we are getting closer to the truth. The story is already explosive, but it's going to get even more explosive once people realize that the torture seems to have been for the purpose of generating false confessions for the purpose of selling the war. And it worked, as Cato Institute observed:
And notice what General Irvine said:
If false confessions are the goal, then it makes perfect sense to use torture techniques we imported from China and North Korea.
And there is mounting evidence that our goal was indeed false confessions for the purpose of selling the war. A good review of the current evidence is here.
It's interesting to notice when we stopped waterboarding: 3/03. Anyone remember something else that happened that month? We invaded Iraq. Funny how we had no need for it anymore, once the war started. This tends to create the impression that the purpose was to generate false confessions for the purpose of selling the war.
============
DNI McConnell said waterboarding was used only "three times." That looks like an outright lie. If he's willing to lie to the public, on the record, why would anyone think the CIA wouldn't lie to a member of Congress in a secret briefing, where there are no tape recorders or cameras, and where the person they're briefing is sworn to not talk about the briefing to anyone?
Ah, the ad hominem's come out. Amazingly, military service (or lack thereof) becomes important depending on the issue.
2008--Obama lack of military service irrelevant; so was McCain's Navy career.
2004--Kerry's military experience made him uniquely qualified to be President; Bush shirked with the National Guard.
2000--Gore's military experience was profound; Bush shirked with the National Guard.
1996--Clinton's lack of military experince irrelevant; Dole's crippling injuries from his World War II were irrelevant.
1992--Clinton's lack of military experience irrelevant; Bush's heroism in World War II irrelevant.
Need I go on?
Well you, for one, fail to recognize that I self-corrected before your snark. Or did you just ignore that to make your own jibe? (Which you had to have done because it was second paragraph of the VERY post you snarked about)
So either you sneered to make your partisan point or you are being dishonest.
No, it's not that I "fail to recognize that [you] self-corrected." It's that we have a different idea of what it means to post a 'correction.' What you said earlier was this:
What you're calling a 'correction' is this:
But he's not right in only that "sense." He's right in another more important "sense," that Bybee was getting facts from the CIA, contrary to what you implied in your inane question. Where have you acknowledged that? Nowhere. And where have you acknowledged that you asked an inane question, rooted in your own ignorant failure to be familiar with the Bybee memo that was recently released? Nowhere.
Remember, at an earlier point in his career, Dick Cheney was in the cabinet as Secretary of Defense. As Secretary of Defense, the Bush Administration stopped the complete anhilation of Saddam Hussein when they had every opportunity to do so. Do you have any evidence that Secretary Cheney opposed President Bush on this?
Earlier in his career, he was White House Chief of Staff under Gerald Ford, and superintended, along with Donald Rumsfeld, the largest military drawdown since World War II. Do you have any actual evidence that Chief of Staff Cheney was trying to undermine President Ford?
I agree that Cheney's deferments are relevant, and I think it's interesting to notice the method he apparently used to dodge the draft.
People with actual military experience have pointed out that it is to our advantage for future enemies to believe that we will treat them humanely after they surrender. And they have also pointed out that our torture policy has already cost American lives.
===================
dave n:
Maybe this has something to do with the fact that only a few years prior, Reagan and Rumsfeld were treating Saddam like a friend.
It's interesting to recall how this was explained:
Also here (audio):
(Emphasis added.) Whole lot of quagmire talk going on back then. His evident knowledge of the situation tends to create the impression that the mess he subsequently helped create was created intentionally. After all, certain people did make a killing (link, link, link, link).
Your deceit through misinformation is amazing.
In 1991, Iraq was certainly not our friend (as the very article you linked says). We had just kicked Iraq out of Kuwait. This fact finds no reference in your post even though most honest people would find that fact rather significant.
The Bush41 Administration could have finished the job had it wanted. It chose to obey the UN mandate and stupidly allowed Saddam to fly his helicopters rather than declare all of Iraq a "no-fly zone."
So please, I made a simple request to Andrew Lazarus and you respond with a talking point.
And yes, I will acknowledge we cross-posted. But your post that quoted Dick Cheney does nothing to provide evidence in support of Andrew Lazarus' contention about Cheney and how his lack of military experience was somehow relevant. I was writing my response to your 2:23 post when you posted at 2:44.
The elusive consensus, at last!
OK, getting serious, isn't likening waterboarding as torture to TARP as socialism a false equivalence? Sure, there are people pro and con on each, but you could say the same about pretty much every controversy in existence, no? TARP was originally Bush's plan. I think you have to go pretty fringe right to find the constituency for Bush as a socialist. Waterboarding as torture, on the other hand, is, if not exactly a consensus view, certainly a broadly held view across the political spectrum, as well as the view of most legal analysts, and last but not least, the law itself.
I share your aversion to criminalizing policy disputes, but I think you'd likewise agree that criminals should be prosecuted. The question is, which are we dealing with in this torture/torture memos debate? Taking just the Yoo/Bybee question, if they honestly believed the legal analysis they put their signatures to, I wouldn't want them prosecuted. I wouldn't trust them as lawyers, much less law professors or judges, but I wouldn't want them in jail. But if the evidence revealed a whole lot of winking and nodding went on to fashion a legal tissue for what they knew was criminal, I hope we'd agree that crisis or not, we can't have our government work that way.
If a crisis requires something illegal, then ask Congress to legalize it urgently. There's no reason they can't do that as quickly as Yoo and Bybee wrote their memos. Consider how long it took to ram TARP through. And if Congress can't be convinced to change the law that fast, it means they're unconvinced of either the emergency or the means requested to address it. And that's, after all, their call, not the President's.
What's amazing is that you make a claim about misinformation without showing that I posted misinformation.
This is what I actually said: "only a few years prior, Reagan and Rumsfeld were treating Saddam like a friend." I didn't say Saddam was our friend in 1991. I said he was our friend "a few years prior" to that. Why are you making things up? Or is it just that you have a severe problem with reading comprehension? Presumably you will now apologize for making a false accusation.
By the way, here's some more evidence regarding our history of treating Saddam like a friend. It seems that as late as 1990 we were sending him messages in "the spirit of friendship." Here's the word we normally use to describe the recipient of such a message: 'friend.'
That fact needed no reference in my post, because it's obvious, well-known and non-controversial.
My post "that quoted Dick Cheney" was not intended to make a point about "how his lack of military experience was somehow relevant." It was intended to make a different point. Maybe this is another issue with reading comprehension.
What's the hypothetical source for your relevance assessment of those candidates' military service? Because if it's Democrats or liberals or "the Left," I have to call BS. Please show some evidence that a meaningful segment of any of those groups didn't recognize the heroism and relevance of Bush Sr.'s, Dole's and McCain's service. In fact, military service was featured in all three's campaigns, as well as John Kerry's. And only one of those four was met with a shameful, orchestrated attempt to discredit his heroism. Guess which one.
I do agree that Clinton's and Obama's lack of military experience is irrelevant and that George W. Bush probably shirked his National Guard duty. As for Al Gore, until you reminded me I wouldn't have remembered he served. Wasn't he the food critic for Stars and Stripes or something?
Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical (Alinsky 1972: 35-6).
Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules...You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. Alinsky 1972: 128) (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)
Keep the pressure on. Never let up. (Alinsky 1972: 128) Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. (Alinsky 1972: 130) Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
The Republicans are equally unimaginative, but at least they do value national security. What did Obama accomplish at his summit with dictators and human rights violators in South America? Where is the outrage about war crimes in Latin America and Africa, which are happening as we speak? Did Obama eek out any agreement with them linking trade to past or present war crime prosecution, the only possible power this country still has?
No, he instead decided to put this country, or specifically you posters in a tizzy about past acts, 'cause he had you from hello. Great accomplishment, while the rest of the world laughs, and tortures whenever and whomever they want. Many of you fed right into it, huh?
As to Cheney's brain and past history of heart problems, mentioned above:
The biggest medical omission of the campaign was not releasing an investigation into Biden's brain after his aneurysm repairs. So much was made of Palin's pregnancy and its effect (and pregnancy is a natural positive health event).
But I never saw a cognitive evaluation of Biden which considering his neurological history prior history could possibly have predicted the erratic behavior and speech patterns during his VP term. But then comes Pelosi in succession after him, and the government get VERY frightening, especially if she is proven to have severe memory loss.
John Moore has had the Torture Act quoted to him before, but he doesn't care, because the facts are trivial interferences with his support for torture.
Therefore, he continues to make false statements about what is and isn't torture. Anyone inclined to accept anything Mr. Moore says on faith, should be made aware of his inclination to false statements in support of his position.
Gore enlisted and served honorably in Vietnam (details here and here). And he served his country in another way: he chose to not spend the first few months of 2001 criticizing the new president.
And it's not just that McCain's service was recognized. It's that the so-called liberal media declined, almost universally, to ask some serious questions about his service. Most of the press gave him a free pass regarding his remarkable record of avoidable plane crashes. Like knocking down power lines in what he admitted was "daredevil clowning." And this would have been a relevant matter to discuss even in the absence of lots of other indications that McCain has a problem with impulse control.
And there is no question that McCain heavily promoted his record of service (which is another reason it would have been legitimate to raise questions about it). His official campaign biography was mostly (68% by word count, and 60% by photo count) about his military service, even though he left the Navy 27 years before he ran for president.
And even though his bio focused on his military service, it pointedly omitted any mention whatsoever of his 13 months of service as an executive, even though that's the only executive experience in his entire career. That part of his career was almost never discussed by the press, even though there's some reason to believe that he gained that position via "favoritism."
If McCain had signed SF-180, it would have been easier to investigate these questions. But he never did. And good luck finding even a single instance of a so-called liberal reporter suggesting that McCain should have done so.
Maybe dave n shouldn't have mentioned McCain, because the facts show the opposite of what he was trying to suggest.
===============
anderson:
moore's record of making shamelessly false claims is quite distinct. But it's not surprising that those who have no moral problem with torture also have no moral problem with making false claims.
I think the father of our country would unequivocally agree:
"Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause... for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country."
Another important example of Cheney lying to us is documented here and here.
Wilkerson makes an interesting point about this:
I'm concerned about criminals everywhere, but I have a special duty to speak up when I notice criminals on my own payroll.
"Blindly partisan" is a good way to describe someone who makes a bogus claim and then fails to take responsibility for doing so, even after being pointed to proof that the claim is bogus.
You wrote:No, isn't that the connotation of what you did say. As if the the fact that we sided with Iraq pointed to no good reason for us to be mad at Iraq several years later. This would be like saying, "Only a few years prior, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant were friends" and not noting the context that in the interim there had been this thing called the Civil War. So you were being disingenuous.
Heck, a few years earlier Lincoln tried to persuade Lee to lead the Army of the Potomac. A few years later, Lee's home was turned into a National Cemetary to make it unliveable as a residence.
Oh, and one other thing, and I don't say it lightly: but you are an arrogant ass.
How about your for being a condescending, supercilious bully. You are pathetic in your own unique way.
The idea that the torture was primarily for the purpose of selling the war (or keeping it sold, in this particular instance) is just starting to emerge, and it's going to drive plenty of outrage.
Most people probably don't yet realize that the torture was happening at exactly the same time that Bush et al were making bogus claims about WMD. Torture was just another element designed to serve the marketing campaign for the war.
And the GOP making a big fuss about Pelosi is a strategic error. It's a classic he said/she said, but one side welcomes further investigation, and one side doesn't. This is a big hint as to which side is lying, and even people who are barely paying attention will readily grasp that.
So it's self-destructive for the GOP to put this issue front and center. But that's exactly what they're doing. The people with a long track record of coming up with self-destructive strategies have decided to extend that track record:
The more this issue is "front and center," the more obvious it's going to be that the GOP's opposition to further investigation is highly suspicious. If the record shows that no crimes were committed, then why not take a close look at the record? Since the issue is already "front and center," and it won't go away until some serious questions get some serious answers.
And if Democrats were complicit in those crimes, then those Democrats should also get a fair trial, along with Cheney et al. And if the GOP thinks the record will show Democrats in a poor light, when why is the GOP resisting a close look at the record?
"OK, getting serious, isn't likening waterboarding as torture to TARP as socialism a false equivalence?"
As are all non-mathematical ones. Dammit, Leo, I'm a poet, not a mathematician! Oh wait.
I'm using TARP as shorthand for the full panoply of actions taken in response to the financial crisis, many of which fit various definitions of socialism, if you're interested in making that case. My interests run elsewhere - say, to, you know, averting the crisis.
Of course such a case can also implicate Bush, as the EIT case can also implicate Clinton on issues such as rendition, but there is very little short-term, internecine political hay to by made there, as those after Bush are rarely the same ones who are much concerned about socialism, imagined or real. That fact happens to be one of my own petty interests, but I'm willing to set it aside for some more immediate ones that concern our country.
And I couldn't care two whits for the chimerical consensus, just a recognition that the Persians (pick your Persian - present financial crisis, long-term insolvency, actual Persians with nukes, whatever) in their hundreds of thousands are pouring across the Hellespont and now is no time for petty rivalry.
Yeah, right, "outrage". That's a good one, box!
We certainly shouldn't make the mistake of underestimating what all this "outrage" is gonna bring.
If you want to make a claim about my "connotation," then feel free to do so. But that's not what you did. You accused me of posting "misinformation," and then pointed out that "in 1991, Iraq was certainly not our friend," even though I posted no misinformation, and even though I didn't claim what you suggested I claimed.
And if you're interested in making a fuss about disingenuous connotations, you should explain your "connotation" that McCain's military record was not recognized and respected. I demonstrated that reality is the opposite of the "connotation" you offered.
And this is not the first time you've demonstrated your willingness to promote a disingenuous connotation.
If we were allegedly so "mad at Iraq" then you should explain why April Glaspie sent Saddam a message of "friendship" shortly before he invaded Kuwait.
My point is that the GOP's Iraq strategy has been screamingly incoherent for decades. Saddam was our enemy except for when he wasn't.
Those are all good words to describe the kind of person who would write something like this:
When the answer to "who knew" is 'anyone familiar with the facts.' They indeed treated the CIA as a powerful client who was calling all the shots.
Does that word ("socialism") have a legal definition, as articulated in multiple statutes, and as embodied in multiple court rulings? It doesn't. But the word "torture" does. That's why the comparison you're drawing isn't particularly helpful. And is the adoption of allegedly 'socialist' policies a violation of any statutes or treaties? No, it's not. That's another reason why the comparison you're drawing isn't particularly helpful.
I'm still hoping that you or someone else can explain how what we did doesn't meet the legal definition of torture. This is a question you and many other people seem inclined to avoid. Even though we've reached the point where certain prominent GOP partisans have finally been forced to admit that waterboarding is torture. And the discussion about waterboarding obscures the other forms of torture that we used, like shackling someone in a standing position for 180 hours. And this wasn't the act of "a few bad apples." It was an official policy, officially approved by the war criminals at OLC.
That's like saying 'I shouldn't get a speeding ticket because that other guy was speeding too and he didn't get a ticket.' Let us know the last time that excuse worked for you. It's also like saying 'let's not consider prosecuting any new speeders until we make sure to prosecute all past speeders.' "Issues such as rendition" go back at least as far as Reagan. Also, there's a fundamental difference between a handful of cases where torture is done by another government, as compared with a sweeping torture policy, approved at the highest levels, that leads to many instances of torture of captives in American hands. Including many cases of captives being tortured to death.
Let us know if you "care two whits" for enforcing laws that prohibit torture. The answer, seemingly, is no. Even though "torture is antithetical to our values, the rule of law and our national security interests." And even though "reliance on [torture] has resulted in strategic mistakes and has made the nation less safe."
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rosetta:
Obama is making some mistakes, and liberals aren't shy about criticizing those mistakes.
"We certainly shouldn't make the mistake" of thinking that this is going to end up being an excuse for crimes committed by Cheney et al. What you have done is "make the mistake" of projecting your own opportunistic partisan attitudes. The people who are outraged about war crimes are not going to stop being outraged simply because the GOP might manage to show that some Ds (e.g., Pelosi and/or Obama) are complicit in past, present or future war crimes. I understand Cheney's impulse to try to hide behind Pelosi, but it's a strategy that reeks of desperation. And the desperation is appropriate, because the crime is great and the evidence is strong.
Those who call torture by the genteel Orwellian euphemism "enhanced interrogation techniques" should pay some attention to the origin of that term.
And it makes perfect sense, in a way, since we borrowed the techniques themselves from China and North Korea. Their needs were the same as ours: produce false confessions to be used for political purposes. Like the false confessions that McCain produced under torture.
I would also like to know if those who use the term "enhanced interrogation techniques" would refrain from accusing a future enemy of torture if they waterboard an American 183 times. Why shouldn't that enemy claim they used only "enhanced interrogation techniques," as approved and practiced by the US government? I think the answer is this: IOKIYAR.
"The people who are outraged about war crimes are not going to stop being outraged simply because the GOP might manage to show that some Ds (e.g., Pelosi and/or Obama) are complicit in past, present or future war crimes. I understand Cheney's impulse to try to hide behind Pelosi, but it's a strategy that reeks of desperation. And the desperation is appropriate, because the crime is great and the evidence is strong."
This really is the crux of the matter, along with what to do about it. And I think this puts President Obama in a tough spot. He has an agenda that he wants to advance - and the attention about what Speaker Pelosi was briefed on/was not briefed on regarding EITs is getting more and more media exposure. And now with Pelosi in effect throwing down the gauntlet versus the CIA, and DCI Panetta responding to that challenge, the perception is rightly or wrongly, some Dems have some one thing in private and another in public - something that many Dems and Repubs like to do on a regular basis.
Agreed that what Pelosi and other Dems saw/expressed/heard regarding EIT is not the relevant point regarding if laws were broken by others. But it would certainly seem to affect the high ground that Speaker Pelosi have taken in regards to torture.
Yeah, right, "criticize". That's another good one, box!
Why do I get the feeling that you're gonna support and vote for any stooge with a little "D" after their name, no matter what they do or say?
It's amusing, the wingnuts screeching about all this, just like they screeched in 2004 over Iraq, then walked out and voted for little D's who'd voted for Iraq, including Kerry, who ran saying he'd vote for everything we'd done to that point, all over again.
Principles matter, unless you're a wingnut, then it's all about little letters following names.
This Pelosi thing is a real good lesson for them. Let's see if they learn it.
The question is not about whether waterboarding is torture, as you apparently believe, but rather, hypocrisy. Cheney isn't changing his story, but Pelosi sure is, on at least a daily basis. Cheney was ok with what was done then, and is ok with it now. Pelosi was ok with it then, but now that the political winds have changed, so has her position. If only the CIA had told her that waterboarding would be unpopular with the left six years later, she would have opposed it back then, when she learned about it, instead of apparently approving of it.
My personal opinion is that he knows exactly what he's doing. I think he wants investigations, and he knows there will be investigations. He just has political reasons for not wanting to be seen as leading that process. And he knows the process is inevitable even without his overt leadership.
For example, I think he knows the court will order the photos to be released. But now he is free of blame for the release. And there is another very important future release that almost no one is talking about (aside from a few people like Greg Sargent).
The recently released OLC torture memos reveal a lot about the 2004 CIA IG report. Enough is revealed to understand that the IG report is explosive. Releasing the recent OLC memos put the torture issue front and center, and releasing the IG report is going to do the same thing, only even more so.
The IG report is extremely detailed ("based on more than 100 interviews, a review of the videotapes and 38,000 pages of documents"). Whereas the OLC memos consist mostly of elegant euphemistic legalese describing what the CIA was willing to admit that it intended to do, the IG report consists of clinical descriptions of what the CIA actually did. The number 183 (in the OLC torture memos) was enough to take public perceptions to a whole new level, and I think that's nothing compared with the other details in the IG report. And of course that number came from the IG report.
And when is Obama going to release the IG report? At exactly the moment that he thinks will serve him best. Drip, drip, drip (ha). This issue is not going away. And Obama is guiding the process, but in a subtle manner.
If and when all the facts come out, I think we will discover that any members of Congress who were briefed on waterboarding were briefed by people who were promoting the same lies that Bush et al used to snow the public for all these years. A few of those key lies are as follows:
- we only did to our prisoners the same things we do to SERE trainees
- the waterboard was used only three times
- the waterboard was used only after other methods were unsuccessful
- our interrogators were following rules established by OLC
- OLC established rules based on sound legal reasoning
All those claims are false.
===========
rosetta:
Because you're exactly the kind of person who is inclined to get all sorts of 'feelings' that are disconnected from reality. As I've mentioned here multiple times (link, link), I've never voted for anyone named Clinton or Gore. I've also made many statements here critical of the Democratic party.
But I hope you're enjoying the little fantasy land that you inhabit.
Everyone is entitled to a few mistakes. The important thing is what happens after the person becomes aware of the mistake.
By the way, it's worth recalling that most Ds in the House voted against the war.
===========
hayden:
Then maybe the public should change the law. Law and public opinion are two different things. We are supposed to enforce the law based on the law, not based on public opinion. The public gets involved in the law when it votes, and when it sits on a jury. Law enforcement is not supposed to be a referendum. You are promoting "a very dangerous idea."
Since you seem to be admitting that waterboarding is torture, then you should explain why the crime shouldn't be prosecuted.
Prove it. I see claims that she has done so, but those claims come from people who like inventing their own facts.
Define "it." Are you claiming that she was told in 9/02 that Zubaydah had been waterboarded 83 times in the prior month?
Above I cited five lies we've been told for the last few years. Please let us know if you have any reason to think that Pelosi et al weren't told the same lies.
By the way, current polls are very much influenced by the fact that people have been listening to those lies and haven't yet realized that they're lies.
Please explain how she was supposed to show that she "opposed it." By making a speech in Congress disclosing classified information? By discussing classified information with her staff, or with her colleagues? What latitude did she have to act, outside of the protest embodied in Harman's letter?
And aside from vague unsubstantiated claims made by torturers and torture apologists, where is there any evidence that she did anything "approving of it?"
The idea that 'what we did must be legal because Nancy (allegedly) didn't complain much' is a truly pathetic defense, and it proves how desperate Cheney is. The best argument he has left is no argument at all.
How about the president (very much on "your payroll") sucking up to some of the most despised dictators and criminals in the world, without a peep about their torturing and murdering thousands (millions?) of people in their own countries.
Please tell your employees such as Obama to have some character and integrity. If the US still has any clout at all in the world (which is debatable), perhaps your highly paid, highly compensated CEO of the US could use that influence with his buds in SA and Africa, Russia and the Middle East.
And Darfur?? What's prez doing there?
He's far too concerned with W and his party politics than with what is happening today in the world. He is very eager to spend money blindly, make decisions impulsively, and loan us to the Chinese. But if you are talking about human rights, he's totally incompetent.
Obama is a propped-up political hack, not a great leader.
Thank you for following up on and confirming my my 4:27 post. Let's see what the rest have to say.
What is (as with so many of the torture facts) no longer disputable is that the CIA has had to change its story, when Sen. Graham, the obsessive diarist, showed that the dates on which the Agency claimed to have briefed him were totally impossible. The Agency retracted. That shows, I would say, that any further statements from the CIA need special scrutiny.
As to whether the American people support the torture regimen, let's poll after (a) we start using the proper word instead of Gestapo-coined euphemisms and (b) Obama "reluctantly" complies with the court order to show children being sodomized in front of their mothers with the Cheney S(qu)eal of Approval.
That's not a mistake, box. That's being an unprincipled, hypocritical, shrieking wingnut.
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By the way, box, my structural buddy agrees with me that the Brooklyn Bridge is functionally 2 (two) discrete suspension spans, each span supported by 2 (two) suspension cables, the cutting of any 1 (one) of which would initiate a catastrophic failure in that 1 (one) span. So, you'll have to find something else to fantasize about, I guess.
I forgot to ask him whether he thinks you're a bandwidth gobbling shrieker, so I'll have to get back with you on that.
"And when is Obama going to release the IG report? At exactly the moment that he thinks will serve him best. Drip, drip, drip (ha). This issue is not going away. And Obama is guiding the process, but in a subtle manner"
We shall see. The current events may also help him to consolidate his influence in Congress as Pelosi (intentional or not) continues to be the focus of an increased amount of media attention in regards to EIT briefings.
She may be wrong, and if wrong in some directions she should be held accountable for facilitating torture, but the carefully crafted statement of Mr. Panetta -- who had nothing to do with the CIA when the relevant briefings occurred, under the political control of people who specialized in concealment and misleading statements -- does nothing to establish that her account is inaccurate.
I am tempted to suggest that torture's defenders await revelations before taking positions they might regret, but their surrender of credibility could come in handy on other fronts, so by all means proceed rashly!
I think it has something to do with the modern GOP's embrace of authoritarianism.
I'm sure you know the old saying. "If the facts are on your side, bang on the facts. If the law is on your side, bang on the law. If neither the facts nor the law is on your side, bang on the table."
==============
out west:
Thanks for this nice example of banging on the table.
"How about" taking responsibility for the bogus claim you made earlier.
Your "structural buddy" has roughly as much credibility as you do.
By the way, you should tell your "structural buddy" that the daily traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge is 144,000 vehicles and about 3000 bikes and pedestrians. Do the math and figure out how many that is per second. And it goes on all night. Ever hear about the city that never sleeps? It's true.
And then figure out how many thousands of apartment dwellers in Brooklyn and Manhattan can look out of their window and see the bridge. Don't forget to include the cars going by on the FDR drive. They also get a great look at the bridge. Likewise for the cars going by on the BQE. Likewise for the cars crossing the Manhattan Bridge. They get a really nice view of the Brooklyn Bridge, too. And don't forget about all the boats and ferries floating down the river. And there's also lots of aircraft flying over the bridge all day long, like the various choppers that use the Downtown Manhattan Heliport, which is on the river about half a mile away.
Then figure out how many nanoseconds are likely to elapse before a few hundred people with cell phones are calling the cops to describe your genius who is trying to dismantle the bridge with a torch.
I suppose there's somewhat less traffic at night, but that torch will be visible from quite a distance, won't it. Darn. Didn't think of that.
And this is without talking about what you have to do to breach various security barriers before you even get your hands near a cable. Those barriers couldn't possibly be protected by electronic alarms, and video cameras, right? Oops, forgot about that.
And do you have any idea where you're going to park your truck? Try stopping your truck on the bridge, or on any approach to the bridge, and see how many seconds elapse before a few cops are asking you what the hell you're doing.
See if you can manage to not wet your bed tonight. And you should think about visiting NYC someday. I have a feeling you've never left your bunker in Idaho.
A beautiful hires photo of the bridge is here.
The relevant passage is this:
In my opinion, a message that's sent "in the spirit of friendship" is, by definition, a message of friendship sent to a friend. If you have a different opinion, good for you.
And I already cited the exact phrase here, with the link. So you have no excuse for pretending that I'm trying to mislead anyone.
You should clean up your prior false accusations before you make new ones.
Nice try. I defined torture as it is generally perceived, which is not necessarily the same as what congress wrote. I wasn't lying (thanks for the ad hom, turkey) and you know it.
Take my definition and yours to any non-European part of the world and try them out - you'll probably experience intense laughter for the torture act def.
Apples and oranges are fruits, therefore bananas are not fruits.
If you haven't been lying, then there must be some other explanation for the false claims you've been making in many places (example).
"My definition and yours" aren't relevant. Likewise for whether or not a "non-European" may or may not exhibit "intense laughter" in response to "my definition and yours." What matters is how torture has been defined in US statutes and courts. And that history shows, among other things, that waterboarding is a form of torture.
If you can't refute an argument, mischaracterize it.
Your "argument" has been refuted, and it was not mischaracterized. You made reference to extreme forms of torture, as if this demonstrates that lesser forms of torture aren't torture. That's like saying Al Capone isn't a thief because he didn't steal as much as Bernie Madoff.
It doesn't matter that you have an opinion about how torture is "generally perceived." Your opinion is worthless. What matters is the US legal history of torture. Which you persistently ignore, because you think your opinion is important and the law isn't.
But even further, I really can't understand why you think any majority of anything (except the dregs of the Republican Party) prefers your definition, The operative ICAT definition is the distillation of an international process. Isn't that a prima facie case that it's the definition of legal institutions worldwide?
The hidden point, I suspect, is that non-Europeans are more likely to suffer under brutal governments that commit torture and near-torture, and may have lower standards. I doubt that, but even if it were true, why would we wish to adopt the standards of Egypt and Zimbabwe over those inherited from George Washington and shared by our allies?
Written like a lawyer. My definition is quite relevant and widely held within the United States. It is simply not the legal definition at the moment.
The idea that the legal definition is the only relevant one is absurd - look at the abortion controversy, or perhaps the legal status of blacks before the civil rights movement.
The international process for creating such things makes the sausage factory called the US Congress look positively marvelous. That process poorly captures the will and views of the people of the world. For example, examine the actual policies and practices of the signatories of ICAT.
That's an enormous leap, from waterboarding to the practices those countries carry out. So my answer is simple: we neither need nor wish to adopt those standards. It's a red herring.
The legal definition is the only definition that's relevant to the question of whether or not the law was broken. If you think it doesn't matter whether or not laws were broken, that's a helpful thing to know about you.
To the extent that "the practices those countries carry out" include such things as electric shock and rape, it is not "an enormous leap, from waterboarding." Because the same legal and analytical framework that Bybee et al used to justify waterboarding also provides implicit justification for such things as electric shock and rape.
You've been ducking this issue for weeks. Keep up the good work.
In WSJ, Victoria Toensing says this:
Huh? "No signs of willingness?" "A process that had not worked?" Soufan was there, and he says the opposite. And there is proof that Soufan is correct. Notice what Luban noticed:
If the process "had not worked," then how did we catch Padilla? Yet another instance of time travel.
Toensing also said this:
It's nonsense to say that "Congress removed that provision." The Senate statement of "reservations, understandings and declarations" is here, and it says nothing about removing that provision. Yes, that exact text from CAT ("No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.") is not part of the Torture Act. But about 93% of CAT (by word count) is not part of the Act. That's because the Act does not replace the treaty. It's simply an enactment of the treaty. And to the extent that we don't state a reservation in the statement of reservations, that means we're accepting the treaty. Otherwise, the statement of reservations would be unnecessary.
And this is consistent with what Reagan said when he ratified the treaty:
The "provision" that Toensing says "Congress removed" is definitely not mentioned in those "reservations, understandings, and declarations." And it would have been if Congress had the intention of rejecting that portion of CAT.
Toensing also said this:
Another bogus talking point that the GOP has been promoting for years. This is a reference to something called the Kennedy amendment. If this event (the rejection of the Kennedy amendment, by a GOP Congress) made waterboarding legal, then it also legalized burning and electric shock. Details here.
Toensing also said this:
We hear this claim a lot, that we only did to our prisoners the same things we do to SERE trainees. Trouble is, this claim is false.
Toensing also said this:
Not exactly. She is pretending to not notice that Congress inserted a word when taking the language (regarding "prolonged mental harm") from CAT. That word is discussed here.
Toensing also said this:
Another misleading claim. It's true, narrowly, but it obscures the fact that prior to 1994 there was a history of US courts treating waterboarding as a form of torture. She doesn't mention that, and the memos don't mention that, even though it's a highly relevant fact.
We hear this claim over and over again, that we only did to our prisoners the same things we do to SERE trainees. And we keep hearing the claim even though it's false.
He also said this:
Follow that? When the Japanese do it, it's torture, because they're sadists. But when we do it, it's not torture, because we're doing it "to collect life-saving information." How convenient.
So what about when the Vietnamese tortured McCain? Weren't they doing it "to collect life-saving information?"
McCarthy is essentially saying that torture is OK as long as the motive isn't evil. As if there is such a thing as a torturer who couldn't dream up a non-evil motive. And even though CAT says explicitly that there is no allowance for "exceptional circumstances." Too bad McCarthy doesn't mention that.
Yes, the statute was relatively new (1994). But Parker is hiding what the memos hid: that prior to the statute, there was already a long history of US courts treating waterboarding as a form of torture.
Parker also said this:
Here we have an outright falsehood. That language does not appear in "the law." (The law is here.) That text is from one of the Bybee memos.
Nice trick! Make up your own definition, that doesn't appear in the law, and then get WP to run a column claiming that your definition appears in the law. No wonder newspapers are going out of business.
Parker also said this:
Her "correction" needs a correction. Because Yoo said this:
There's no meaningful difference between what Yoo concluded and what Parker said "the memos did not conclude." Yoo adds three layers of lawyerly abstractions ("rise to … the level;" "would ordinarily be associated with;" "sufficiently serious that it would result") that in practice have no meaning whatsoever.
If there is truly a difference in meaning, I'd like to see someone present an example which illustrates the difference.
What does it mean to impose the level of pain "ordinarily" associated with "death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions," unless one is actually causing "death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions?" If one is not causing "death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions," then how is it possible to know that one is nevertheless causing the same level of pain that "would ordinarily be associated with" those things?
Parker also said this:
Another false claim that keeps popping up.
And the business about "no more than 20 to 40 seconds" is baloney. That interval was mentioned in the 2002 Bybee memo, but is was not described as a strict limit. And then the 2005 memos indicate that the Bybee guidelines were exceeded.
Another falsehood, as I've shown. And one of many facts Parker fails to mention is that at SERE, 20 seconds is the maximum duration.
How could a "good faith" legal analysis of waterboarding fail to mention that there is a history of US courts treating waterboarding as a form of torture? And how could a "good faith" column on the subject fail to mention this?
That is a good photo, box, and it shows the 2 (two) clear spans, very distinctly.
Now, if you observe the nearest suspension cable, you'll see it disappearing into the abutment structure, from there continuing on to the anchoratge structure (not pictured), which is easily accessible at ground level, and located under the bridge deck, away from observation.
The same terrorist crew would probably cut the 2 (two) middle cables, and fail both spans.
On 9/12/01, these anchorage structures at the Ambassador Bridge here in Detroit were easily accessible and vulnerable to terrorist attack. One cable cut, one failed bridge.
This is but one area of vulnerability we had then. There were many, many others. This is the environment in which your terrorist buddies were being interrogated. You seem to forget that, if you ever knew.
Obama seems to understand all this, now.
I want to emphasize one small point. Taking Yoo's definition of "severe" pain constituting torture it is very clear that an action such as shoving bamboo shoots under the fingernails, or alternatively, pulling the fingernails from the fingers with pliers, could by no means be considered torture.
There is no hint in such a scenario of "organ failure" or threat of "death" or even serious impairment of body functions. Let's be clear on what Yoo did not proscribe.
JBG raises an interesting point. After 9/11 no one was going to sit still while some idiot pulled off his shoe and tried to light it.
In other words. Forget it.
It's all a longwinded way of obscuring the obvious: if "we" did it, it can't be torture, even if it was torture when everyone else did it.
You are implying that "the 2 (two) clear spans" are structurally separate (as if there is a "clear" space between them). Trouble is, they're not (photo, photo). There are girders that join together what you are calling two separate spans. Want to see those girders more clearly? Courtesy of google streetview, you can stand right under the bridge, and simply look up (link).
But it's really adorable the way you write your numbers 2 (two) different ways.
You are claiming that the cables join "the anchoratge structure" in a position that's "easily accessible at ground level," and "away from observation." Really? Are you sure? Final answer? Sure you don't want to use any of your lifelines?
The position you're describing is so far "away from observation" that you can see it clearly all the way from your little bunker in Idaho. Do you have a computer? Do you have an internet connection? I sort of think you do. Through the miracle of google streetview, you can actually take a very close look at some things that you claim are "away from observation." See the google streetview link I already provided, above, and you can also see some more, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Those are various angles, on both the Brooklyn side and the Manhattan side. It turns out that "the anchorage structure" is just beyond the lower edge of the photo I originally cited. At the bottom edge of that photo, you can clearly see the security barriers that protect the (roughly) last 20 feet of the cables. And if you look at the other photos I've cited (via google streetview), those barriers are not "easily accessible at ground level," and they are not "away from observation." They are easily seen from the streets under and near the bridge, and they are elevated about 50 feet above the street. So to get at them, you would have to crawl, Spiderman style, up the face of the masonry anchorage structure. With a torch on your back. And then before you can even touch the cable, you have to figure out how to breach the security barrier. Which may or may not be protected by electronic measures and/or video surveillance. And of course you have to do all this while you're in a position that's easily visible from the local streets and highways that surround the anchorage structures. Keep in mind that those streets and highways are busy, on a 24/7 basis. But all that represents no problem for the genius with the torch, right?
google streetview doesn't let us get much closer than this, so it's hard to tell. But a fair assumption is that your credibility regarding Detroit is roughly comparable to your credibility regarding Brooklyn.
The Brooklyn Bridge is quite safe, but it's not because Major Codpiece and his sidekick Captain Waterboard arrested a nut who "suffered from psychological problems" (he said "he saw demons when he was awake") and who apparently had Spiderman fantasies similar to yours (although even he was able to finally figure out what you still haven't been able to figure out). The Brooklyn Bridge is safe because it's fundamentally difficult to dismantle a bridge with a blowtorch, especially when it's located in the middle of a busy city that has a lot of people staring at you. Duh. Because contrary to your screamingly phony claim, there is no place where the cables are "away from observation."
Anyway, it's quite ironic to notice that places like NYC that have direct experience with terrorism vote overwhelmingly D. Meanwhile, the bedwetting torture promoters tend to live in places like Texas, which is probably not very high on any list of terror targets. Interesting how that works.
But if I bump into my 'terrorist buddy' OBL, I promise I won't tell him that you're cowering in your little bunker. So you're safe there. The only wounds you need to worry about are purely self-inflicted, and they are with regard to your credibility.
The idea definitely wasn't mine. I think both you and Anderson raised that issue in a thread here (I'm not sure who was first). I like the idea, so I have indeed mentioned it repeatedly (and I suppose I should have been giving credit to one or both of you). I guess I'm hanging on to the silly idea that one day moore will stop running and actually answer the question.
Extract from November 2, 2007 letter from Major General John L. Fugh, USA (Ret.), Rear Admiral Don Guter, USN (Ret.), Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, USN (Ret.) and Brigadier General David M. Brahms, USMC (Ret.) to Senator Patrick Leahy:
(Italics in original.)
Repeating for emphasis “Waterboarding is inhumane, it is torture, and it is illegal.”
The responses by Major General Scott Black, U.S. Army Judge Advocate General, Major General Jack Rives, U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General, Rear Admiral Bruce MacDonald, U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General, and Brigadier Gen. Kevin Sandkuhler, Staff Judge Advocate to the Commandant of the U.S. Marie Corps can be found in the record of the August 2, 2006 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
You seem to believe that a specific criteria is always required to prohibit a particular act. Why is that?
So in that sense, here's a criterion: sexual violation is torture.
In other words, all lawyers.
I clearly separated the legal vs the ordinary definition of torture wrt waterboarding.
The CIA never said one way or the other. Ergo, we don't even know if a crime was ever committed by Libby or anyone else. Li
dmv,
Congress has oversight. Yeah, its not a bad justification. It certainly makes it hard for the Dem's to point fingers. We do expect to get something for all the money we pay these bozo's or is that too much to ask?
They were not imprisoned for waterboarding. That is a lie. Waterboarding would have been quite nice compared to what they did do to people with water. Prisoners frequently did not survive, unlike those who are waterboarded, like 1000's of US soldiers.
Moore: So, "sexual violation is torture". On your say-so ex cathedra? Why am I not allowed to type in "waterboarding is torture" and expect the same deference? Someone appointed you the World's Only Official Torture Discerner?
Enumerating prohibited methods has never been a good approach because someone could slightly alter a method (say, liquid-boarding with milk instead of water) and claim it wasn't on a specific prohibited list. Instead, we have, as Juke, Anderson, myself, and others point out, a generic legally-binding definition of torture derived from the ICAT. On this definition, sexual violation and waterboarding are both torture.
There is also a competing generic definition provided by the Bybee/Yoo memos, involving serious pain associated with organ failure and death. What makes your argument untenable is that sexual violation, and as pointed out above, the fingernail-extraction you, yourself, admit is torture, simply do not meet the very high bar set by these memos. That is, even your own idiosyncratic and arbitrary determination of what is and is not torture would prohibit more techniques than the ex post facto rationalizations confected by Bybee and Yoo and which the CIA then (or, to be truthful, had long since) implemented.
Mac: Your idea that the Other must have been more brutal than we are is just wishful thinking. It isn't supported by the historical record (which explains the lack of citations in your post). The waterboarding apparatus used by the Khmer Rouge and the accompanying illustration and exhibit are identical to our own. At least 100 detainees have died during our own interrogations. I guess the fact our detainees frequently do not survive hasn't registered with you yet. And, finally, while the Japanese sometimes used different methods of water torture—the claim they were worse as opposed to merely different is more special pleading you do not and can not justify—they also used our methods and went to jail for them. Here is testimony of one of our pilots captured by the Japanese:What exactly is the big difference compared to our methods. Do we use Perrier or something?
The Daily Beast is not a reliable source. Please. It is an "estimate" with no reliable source for the estimate and the site is a rabid partisan blog.
As for no source of my own, we have company coming for dinner and a dog with diarrhea. I have not the time, at the moment to find it. I will later, when I have time. Now, back to the Spot Bot, which I don't recommend purchasing, by the way.
Hoekstra -- who has read the the CIA's classified internal records on the briefings -- said in an interview this afternoon with Chris Wallace on Fox that from those documents it is "not crystal clear" whether the CIA briefers actually told Pelosi in 2002 that waterboarding had occurred.
The only other on-the-record account of that briefing comes from Porter Goss, and his account also does not say the two were briefed on that rather significant fact. And former Sen. Graham says clearly that his own briefing the same month did not mention waterboardidng at all -- not to mention that the CIA briefing logs listed three briefings of himself that simply did not occur.
It increasingly sounds like the CIA did not brief Congress about the first known use of waterboarding -- 83 waterboarding events of Zubaydah the prior month -- for at least five months after the event. Further, it sounds like the CIA briefing logs that have been disseminated to the press recently are misleading at best.
Someone at CIA has a lot to answer for. Who are they? Are they still at the agency?
It is time to put everyone under oath and get at the truth.
W
Now, back to the (marginally useful) Spot Bot.
Just an Observer:
Just an Observer:It is time to put everyone under oath and get at the truth.
Maybe it is. But, we need to guard whatever secrets we have left while we are doing it, assuming we have any left, that is.
Look like Obama found out about Washington from Newt Gingrich., who essentially agrees with Obama, by the way.
The important point is that Yoo was not writing a book on the law of torture, but responding to the specific techniques asked about. Hence he did not need to say whether, say, sodomy was torture. Likewise, I am not writing a book or a law, so pointing out that I didn't cover all the bases is, like the criticism that Yoo's memo could justify sodomy, simply irrelevant.
My mention that sodomy was torture was in response to a (rather silly) challenge.
Which is beside the point. I have seen no refutation that Pelosi knew waterboarding was one of the allowed techniques. For her to now complain that she wasn't told it had already been used is pathetic. Pelosi is double-faced, as are many on this issue, but she has been caught out at it.
It may be beside your only point, which is Get Pelosi. (I and most other torture critics commenting here have always said she should be held accountable.)
But there is another very important point: The CIA had a legal respsonsibility under the National Security Act to brief fully. And if anyone does lie of mislead Congress in an official proceeding, that can be a crime.
It is time to put eveyone under oath.
p.s. Unfortunately, that seems to be Judge Cassell's only point, too.
The Pew Center poll uses the word "torture," not "enhanced interrogation techniques." Result: only 25-32% of Americans believe that torture is never justified. (Strangely, support for the "never justified" view fell to its lowest level during the past 5 years--25%--in its most recent poll in April 2009.)
The Left's current talking point about Reagan and torture is amusing given their repeated charges during his actual presidency that Reagan consciously aided and abetted torture, murder, etc. with his support of the Contras, the government of El Salvador, Pinochet's Chile, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, etc.
Pelosi's hypocrisy is indeed what I am referring to. I don't know the law about whether the CIA's alleged withholding of that information was legal or not. I may very well depend on the context of the briefing and the questions asked, but, as I say, that's beside the point. It is an additional issue.
No, as previously explained to our boy, box, cutting through a <36" suspension cable would be run of the mill demolition work. I'd say, with the proper equipment, I get through that cable in 2 hours or less, total duration, from site arrival to splashdown. Plasma cutting used, of course, as opposed to the acetylene torch you're describing. Or mechanical cutting, using other common demolition equipment. Only requirement is access, and on 9/12/01 and for several weeks afterwards, the Ambassador Bridge was readily accessible. I inspected it, and walked right up to the anchorage, marveling at the graffiti.
3 men. 1 truck with the right equipment. splash.
... or drill through the <36" cable, pack it, and plug the ends, no coffer required. Again, likely less than 2 hours, with the proper equipment and access.
Down comes the bridge. If 1 (one) of the 2 (two) suspension cables in a suspension bridge fails, then that entire span catastrophically fails, no matter box's meager attempts at structural engineering analysis.
Suspension cables are attached to the anchorage at a point above grade, and actually, the cables are commonly separated here and attached to the anchorage in separate bundles, making this a particularly time consuming method of demolition, if box's terrorist buddies attempted to carefully remove fasteners, as opposed to a straight demolition, which would be a far swifter operation.
It's amusing that you're defending the ramparts on this one issue, and meanwhile, I can think of this and a dozen other ways to kill thousands of people in minutes, most involving infrastructure, all easily executed. This was the environment on 9/12/01.
Fortunately, Obama has been briefed on all this, and appears to recognize the dangers that you laymen ignore, or are plain ignorant of, then and now, which is likely the reason he's continuing with Bush 43's terrorist programs, for the most part, including coercive interrogations of box's terrorist buddies.
Again, note again that the op-ed of Porter Goss -- who was in the room and who later as CIA director presumably had access to these CIA logs (and possibly influence their content) -- also does not say the briefers disclosed the fact that waterboarding had occurred.
It time to put everyone under oath. The performance of CIA officials here smells very bad.
I got no dog in this fight, other than throwing rotten fruit at any politician within range, but if you're talking about that senile Graham character from Florida, he was one of the imbeciles asleep at the switch while Osama was plotting killing Americans.
Supposedly one of the "adults" in Congress, this guy was a blithering idiot all through the 90's. Then, the moron had the nerve to (deservedly) criticize the Patriot Act, when in fact he helped WRITE the frickin thing.
He's the last person I believe here. I'd believe Pelosi before this clown.
You need to get your talking points updated. The current GOP party line, articulated by Mitch McConnell, is that this matter should be investigated and contained by the Intelligence committees. (He did not mention under oath.)
AFAIK, Pelosi has not been asked about her willingness to testify under oath in a truth commission or other setting, although Democratic congressmen have said they thought she would.
She (and Hoekstra) have called for the briefing documents to be released. But beyond the documents, competent counsel needs to examine the people who were in the room.
The people who need to be questioned are, at a minimum, Pelosi, Goss, Graham and Shelby, as well as their staffs and the so-far anonymous CIA briefers.
As of today, the only persons even willing to state on the record whether the CIA briefed about the fact of Zubaydah's waterboarding are Pelosi and Graham. The account of Goss in his op-ed, which was a tough anti-Pelosi screed, notably did not say he and Pelosi were told that Zubaydah had been waterboarded.
So it sounds like the preponderance of evidence as of today is that the CIA did not disclose the waterboarding of Zubaydah. The only indication to the contrary is the CIA documnts, which according to Hoekstra are ambiguous at best.
Of course, another potential venue for sworn testimony is a grand jury.
If we are going to have laws that prohibit certain acts (and I assume you agree that it's a good idea that we have such laws), then those laws are meaningless unless they apply only when certain "specific criteria" are met (although, as andrew explained, there are problems when a law tries to be too specific). This simple idea is fundamental to the concept of law, but you nevertheless seem to have a problem grasping it. Why is that?
It's nice of you to share your opinion about the proper way to define torture, but something else you have trouble grasping is that your opinion has no particular value or meaning. What has value and meaning is the legal definition of torture, as it appears in various statutes, and as it has been expressed in various court rulings.
Something else that has value and meaning (in the sense of being relevant to this discussion) is the definition of torture offered by Bybee et al. Because our government (for a while) embraced that definition. And a very important thing about that definition, which you fail to grasp, is that it does not define sexual violation as torture. The same legal and analytical framework that Bybee et al used to justify waterboarding also provides implicit justification for the use of "sexual violation" as a method of interrogation.
And this is an important fact, regardless of whether or not you can manage to grasp it.
43 retired generals and admirals signed the following statement:
Are they lawyers? I don't think so. And is Petraeus a lawyer? I don't think he is, either. But he said this (pdf):
But you know better than Petraeus and all those generals, right?
You are claiming that the things we did didn't meet "the ordinary definition of torture" (whatever that is). So let me remind you of one of the many questions you've been too cowardly to address. If a future enemy waterboarded an American 183 times, or shackled him in a standing position for 180 hours, would you refrain from accusing that enemy of torture? Would you claim that the enemy's acts had failed to meet "the ordinary definition of torture?" Would you defend that enemy's right to claim that they had only used "enhanced interrogation techniques," as defined and approved by the good old USA?
The important point is that you're continuing your normal practice of responding to a straw man argument that was never presented by anyone but you, while continuing to duck the questions that have actually been asked.
No one has suggested that Yoo needed "to say whether … sodomy was torture." The point that has been made is that Yoo constructed a definition of torture that permits sodomy. If you can't grasp this, or if you can't understand why this is a significant fact, that's your problem.
It is not irrelevant to point out "that Yoo's memo could justify sodomy," unless you think that sodomy is a legitimate "enhanced interrogation technique."
And the problem with your position is not that you "didn't cover all the bases." The problem with your position is that you're presenting yourself as "the World's Only Official Torture Discerner" (to borrow andrew's memorable formulation). Your pronouncements about the proper definition of torture are worthless unless you can explain what their basis is. And that's something you have pointedly neglected to do. It's hard to tell if you don't grasp this issue, or if you're just pretending to not grasp this issue. Maybe some of both.
Except that if she was told about waterboarding, she was probably told the same lies that Bush et al told the rest of us. And you're familiar with those lies, because you've been working hard at promoting them.
But if she actually did collude in the war crimes committed by Bybee et al, then she deserves a fair trial just like them.
When you can actually show some proof of hypocrisy, let us know. And is there a statute outlawing hypocrisy? I don't think so. But there's a statute that outlaws torture. So I think we need to deal with the criminals before we deal with the hypocrites. Unless you think the rule of law doesn't mean anything.
We're quite familiar with your standard position, that enforcing the law is "beside the point." Here's a clue: some of us actually believe in democracy, and feel differently than you do.
And it's not a matter of "the context of the briefing and the questions asked." The key fact is that the people who were supposed to be briefed were not briefed.
The following statement from DCI Hayden was presented at the Plame hearing (pdf):
Feel free to continue living in your little fantasy land where facts don't matter.
Perjury is a crime, and a court found that Libby committed that crime, and his perjury is a crime regardless of whether or not Plame's employment status was covert. But it was.
Except that Congress cannot exercise oversight if the CIA is violating the National Security Act of 1947 (which requires it to inform Congress in a particular manner). Trouble is, that's what the CIA did (violate the National Security Act of 1947).
The liar is you. When the Japanese did waterboarding the way we did it, we called it torture and we prosecuted them. And you should realize that one of the people you're calling a liar is John McCain. But you know more about torture than he does, right?
I love it when people who typically make claims backed by no source at all complain about someone else's source, and completely on an ad hominem basis, and even when the source is presenting claims that are well-documented and easy to verify.
If you still have trouble understanding that we tortured many people to death, lots of proof can be found via here.
By the way, can you show any evidence at all to support your claim, that "the Daily Beast is not a reliable source?" Because I have shown evidence to support this claim: you are not a reliable source.
The National Review is not a reliable source (proof). See how it works? When you make a claim, it's a good idea to provide proof.
Aside from that, there are many problems with the article you cited (without providing a link). A few days later, Hemingway backpedaled and admitted that he was making various false assumptions. The main claim that he retained is that we didn't necessarily execute Japanese only for waterboarding. So what? We still treated it as a serious crime, even if there is not clear proof that we considered it a sufficient basis for execution. Tom Maguire does a nice job of expressing this:
The bottom line is that when the Japanese did waterboarding the way we did it, we called it torture and we prosecuted them.
The link you offered doesn't establish that "Obama found out about Washington from Newt Gingrich." Washington's position on the treatment of captives is not a secret. Except maybe to people like you.
I know. I didn't mean to suggest that you were (although now I realize it might have sounded like that). But I get lots of important ideas from certain people here, and that group includes you. And I like to try to give credit, when I think of it.
==================
JaO:
This is an important point, and much overlooked. Some details about this are here.
The survey needs to ask if Americans think torture is justified when the purpose is to generate false confessions that are needed to sell an unnecessary war.
Yes, Reagan spoke up emphatically against torture, and ratified CAT, while also abetting torture. In other words, Reagan was a hypocrite. Sorry to break it to you. You seem surprised. And if you think his hypocrisy is "amusing," I'm happy for you.
==================
rosetta:
I notice you're no longer making statements about the Brooklyn Bridge. I wonder why that is. Does it have anything to do with the fact that I proved your claims were pure, unadulterated, 100% bullshit? When are you going to explain why you said the cables are "easily accessible at ground level," and "away from observation?" What a shame that our lying eyes can see photographs which prove that you've simply been making shit up.
You are the classic example of a random guy on the internet who shamelessly spews pure crap and then comes back and shamelessly spews more pure crap even after it's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that your pure crap is pure crap.
JAO, months ago, you were squealing about nothingness, and I instructed you as to how this would all proceed, much as it has, and that you needed to push for investigations then, right then, while the issue was ripe, before time slipped past.
It's slipped. You missed your chance. Pelosi and Obama basically are defecating on you right now. Hope you enjoy the view.
Not that I'm some genius, it's just obvious how things work with these people. That never changes, it seems.
I'm sorry, but I simply don't believe you. Your obnoxious trolling consistently repeats partisan Republican talking points and is designed to blow smoke and disturb threads exposing torture and lawbreaking by the Bush administration.
Cui Bono.
And watch out, 'cause next, they may be cui boning you.
For the record, I do not discount the possibility that Pelosi may decide the political downside of the hypocrisy charge -- which I have always said may be well deserved -- is too great to pursue her accusation against the CIA.
I have always called for a complete investigation to let the chips fall where they may. And I continue to do so. That is a statement of what should happen, not a prediction of what will happen.
But unlike you, GOP troll, I am not abetting the cover-up.
But in your partisan frothfulness, you ignored the timetable, which has passed it seems.
Of course Pelosi won't do this now, for obvious reasons, to we who observe such things, and suspected her complicity all along. Heck, she let us know of that immediately after becoming speaker, when she refused any investigations, years ago. It was obvious.
You're just now figuring all this out, septically speaking.
Asano is not the only Japanese waterboarding case, nor the one referenced in the quote I gave above. (A non-pdf version of same source) That quote comes from the trial of General Sawada, and whether he committed other crimes is irrelevant to the point for which I presented the evidence: namely, that at times Japanese water torture techniques were identical to CIA water torture techniques. You will recall your claim that this is a "lie" and that Japanese water torture was more brutal. It is not a lie. It is the sworn testimony of American pilots and other prisoners of the Empire of Japan. Gen. Sawada was convicted on the relevant charge with respect to the waterboarding.
The same source gives another case, also not Asano.Sounds a lot like the CIA techniques to me. Now, this particular case did include sitting on the distended stomach to cause the detainee to vomit up the water. Nevertheless, the detainee also testifiedEven though the victim stated that the waterboarding was not "painful", there was also a conviction for torture in this case. In determining that this interrogation technique was torture despite not causing pain arising to the level of organ failure, this verdict conflicts with the subsequent Bybee/Yoo memo on the criteria for brutal treatment to rise to the level of torture. The failure of Bybee and Yoo to research this precedent is a strong indication that the entire memo process was intended to sanctify techniques already implemented.
Is there any USA case where waterboarding has not been found to be torture in the verdict? The National Review has not found one. Instead they quibble that the lengthy sentence for water torture should really be divided between water torture and other crimes. BFD.
I was quite surprised by Gingrich on this issue and appreciate the link.
Since you didn't like the Daily Beast, back in 2005 the AP reported 26 detainee deaths that appeared to be unjustifiable homicide and another 22 that were alleged to be accidents.
Moore: You wroteNeither of us are lawyers, but let me ask: HOW could Yoo go about deciding if particular techniques were torture? One way would be to examine the history of a particular technique. With respect to waterboarding, that would result in the a priori unacceptable result that it is torture. (The same source above also has on-point verdicts from Mississippi, Texas, and the Philippine Insurrection.) Another way would be to refer to the definition of torture in the International Convention Against Torture and its codification in US law. Yoo also failed to do that, probably for the same reason. Yet a third way would be to adopt your method of oracular revelation that waterboarding and other already-implemented techniques were not torture. As a legal argument, however, "Because John Moore says so" is a pitifully weak argument, one even Yoo was too embarrassed to put forth.
Hence, Yoo turned to another way of determining what was and wasn't torture. He made up his own definition of torture. According to Yoo, only "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death" constitute torture punishable by law. The good news, for Cheney and the CIA, is that waterboarding does not qualify as torture under this definition. The bad news is that sodomy does not qualify under this definition, either. You say (and I agree) that raping prisoners is a form of torture. We are then left with a reductio ad absurdum that shows Yoo's definition of torture is incorrect.
Perseus: You shouldn't take logic lessons from John Moore. I continue to maintain that, sub rosa, Reagan abetted torturers and murderers in Latin America. Roberto D'Aubisson, for example, was a psychopath. Reagan, however, at least paid lip service to opposing torture, and in some cases carried through on it. (The Texas water torture case comes from the Reagan DOJ.) So we leftists are willing to refer to Reagan as evidence that torture is at least in theory not an acceptable conservative value. Reagan seemed like a disaster to us at the time, but even he was many steps above Limbaugh's conservative movement wandering around looking for superficial and illogical gotchas. Clear now?
Cui bono.
Sorry, you simply have no credibility left. You are outed as a partisan troll. Perhaps you should resurface with a different persona and try again.
Have a nice evening.
.
Implicit justification with the explicit flaw of bumping into a proscription that stands separate from the torture proscription.
.
-- It is not irrelevant to point out "that Yoo's memo could justify sodomy," --
.
That depends on how one defines "irrelevant."
.
-- The following statement from DCI Hayden was presented at the Plame hearing [Ms. Wilson's CIA employment status was covert. This was classified information.] --
.
From which those amenable to suggestion conclude that Libby's disclosing that Ms. Wilson worked at the CIA constituted a violation of the IIPA.
So did President Bush. He is likewise accused of being a liar.
I also assume from your silence that you have no evidence to contradict the Pew polls on the subject that indicate that less than a third of Americans believe that torture is never justified.
I might also point out that it's not, IMO, an accident that the American people have been fed a steady diet of torture-works television. It's as factual as Spiderman but it's marketed as realistic. The Germans used movies to soften up the civilian population before their resettlement of the Jews in the east.
To get to your main point, our connection with torture now is much closer than under Reagan. We're actively participating. You know that, too.
Oh, and I think you'll find very few people outside the Cheney orbit believe torture is justified to obtain false confessions of a Saddam-Osama link. And, surprise, surprise, it turns out false confessions were a major part of our reasons for torture (even of legitimate POWs), just like in those nasty countries we think we're better than.
Far more likely, they would want the law changed. Furthermore, an awful lot of Americans are not enamored of what other "civilized" countries (meaning, primarily, European) think or do. We look at our history, we look at theirs, we look at their current crumbling societies, we look at ours which is not, and we make up our own minds.
The chattering classes may be highly influenced by European "thought" - the rest of us are not interested in taking lessons on ethics from countries which treat Israel as a pariah state and bend over backwards, to the extent of seriously impacting free speech, to avoid offending the Muslim immigrants who will soon rule them.
You didn't answer the question, so I'll ask it again. Why did you make shit up about a bridge that you've apparently never seen?
===================
cboldt:
Next time try English. What "proscription?" Are you talking about US domestic laws against rape? They don't have universal jurisdiction. The Torture Act does. If you don't understand the difference, look it up. It's important.
If domestic laws against things like rape and assault had universal jurisdiction, there would be no need for the Torture Act. Duh.
That depends on how one defines 'painfully ignorant.'
From which those amenable to suggestion conclude that Libby et al are great American heros because it's only been proven that they outed a covert agent, and it hasn't been proven that this outing was technically a violation of IIPA. After all, we know that outing agents is perfectly fine as long as you can manage to not get nailed for an IIPA violation. Even if you also happen to pick up a perjury conviction, in the process.
Your standards are exceptionally low, but we already knew that.
===================
perseus:
Bush is "accused of being a liar" because there's lots of evidence that he's a liar. If you're claiming that Reagan should be seen in the same light, that's fine with me. I won't stand in your way.
I refer you to what I said here about the law not being a referendum.
Also, "never" is a big word. And I can believe that torture might rarely be justified while also believing that the torturer (in that rare instance) should be expected to face a court that judges whether or not the justification was truly just. And if it is, no problem. The problem with our current batch of torturers is that they don't have the guts to face a court and tell their story. And it's because their story sucks. Among other things, it requires a belief in time travel.
I wonder how many Americans think torture is justified when the purpose is generating false confessions in order to sell an unnecessary war. The torturers are in a frenzy, because they know the truth is coming out, and they know the answer to that question is very close to zero.
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moore:
I think you are the ideal person to launch the GOP movement to legalize torture. What are you waiting for? And I think it's the perfect platform for the Palin/Wurzelbacher ticket in 2012. Or maybe it should be Cheney/Limbaugh.
Waxman said this, immediately before reading the words I cited above (pdf):
If Waxman cleared the statement with Hayden, how is it not a statement from Hayden? Novak himself said this:
If even Novak understands that Waxman was "quoting Hayden" then there's no reason to describe the statement from Hayden as something other than a statement from Hayden.
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I did not have the generally applicable (state) domestic criminal laws against "rape" in mind when I composed my comment about sweeping sexual abuse into a violation of the torture statute.
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-- ... because it's only been proven that they outed a covert agent, and it hasn't been proven that this outing was technically a violation of IIPA. --
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Outing itself depends on how one defines the term "covert agent." "Employment status was classified" is mumbo-jumbo gibberish, boob-bait for suckers.
Then what did you have in mind? And do you always like to play guessing games, or is it just a Monday thing?
And by the way, I haven't heard anyone in this discussion (until just now) use the term "sexual abuse," or suggest that every form of sexual abuse was torture. What was being discussed was sodomy, or other forms of rape. So I don't know if you're introducing new terminology for some intentional reason, or by accident. Bur maybe this is just another part of the guessing game you seem to enjoy.
You should ask Hayden how he defines the term, because that's the term he approved. And I can't imagine why anyone would think their definition of the term is superior to his, or more relevant than his. That is, anyone who wasn't driven by some kind of partisan agenda.
First of all, Hayden approved both statements: she was covert, and her employment status was classified. Is that two different ways of saying the same thing, with regard to how the CIA defines those terms? I don't know, and I don't care. It doesn't matter.
And "employment status was classified" is not "mumbo-jumbo gibberish, boob-bait for suckers." It means something simple: her employment status was classified. That means Libby, Rove, Fleischer and Armitage disclosed classified information. That's a violation of the SF-312 agreement they signed.
I realize that you think it's OK for government employees to violate that agreement, even when they're doing so for a rank partisan purpose, but not everyone agrees with you. That is, not everyone has standards as low as yours.
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It's not much of a guessing game. One can easily find the international law provisions (and their national law enabling counterparts) that lie outside of the proscription against torture.
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-- And by the way, I haven't heard anyone in this discussion (until just now) use the term "sexual abuse," or suggest that every form of sexual abuse was torture. What was being discussed was sodomy, or other forms of rape. --
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My comment applies to sodomy, or other forms of rape, and was made with exactly those forms of sexual abuse in mind.
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-- You should ask Hayden how he defines the term [covert agent], because that's the term he approved --
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He doesn't give a definition. One is left to pick one for him. If you won't pick one, then you are being evasive.
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-- And "employment status was classified" is not "mumbo-jumbo gibberish, boob-bait for suckers." It means something simple: her employment status was classified. That means Libby, Rove, Fleischer and Armitage disclosed classified information. That's a violation of the SF-312 agreement they signed. --
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My comment was a response to your "it's only been proven that they [Libby et al] outed a covert agent," not to a contention that Libby et al violated the terms of their SF-312 agreements. You cited Hayden's statements as evidence that Libby outed a covert agent, and in the context of showing that Libby outed a covert agent, "employment status was classified" is mumbo-jumbo gibberish, boob-bait for suckers.
Next time try English. That is, try making a simple, clear statement that doesn't rely on vague allusions. I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. If there's someone else who does, I'm happy for them.
I don't have to "pick one for him" because I possess a dictionary, and I know that "covert" meant "secret." And I have no reason to assume some magic meaning other than the meaning that's in the dictionary.
That's because Hayden's statements are evidence that Libby outed a covert agent.
In the context of showing that Libby outed a covert agent, I don't need to pay any attention to those other words ("employment status was classified"), because Hayden said that Plame was a covert agent. Which means that Libby outed a covert agent. Why is that OK with you?
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I'm talking about This exchange:
In other words, there are proscriptions in international law, treaty and enabling statutes, aside from torture, that pertain to sexual violations. Your contention that a legal and analytical framework that probes violation of torture also implicitly justifies the use of sexual violations will break down (that is, will not work as justification of any sort), once the implicit justification encounters international law, treaties, and national enabling statues that proscribe the use of sexual violation.
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-- That's because Hayden's statements are evidence that Libby outed a covert agent. ... Hayden said that Plame was a covert agent. Which means that Libby outed a covert agent. --
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Hayden invites the reader to leap to conclusions, and JBG obliges. Your substitution of "secret" for "covert" is not clarifying of your point, in the least. Is it your contention that at the time of Libby's disclosure, Ms. Wilson was covert according to the definition of covert in the IIPA?
I don't think Pelosi and Obama have finished evacuating yet, anyways.
You didn't answer the question, so I'll ask it again. Why did you make shit up about a bridge that you've apparently never seen? Speaking of "partisan frothing."
I'm not aware of the "proscriptions" you're thinking of, so I hope you'll finally tell us what they are. In the form of specifics, rather than in the form of vague allusions.
And aside from that, it's not just a matter of something like sodomy. Another example that has been raised (by me and others) is the use of electric shock. Just as with sodomy, Bybee's framework implicitly permits the use of electric shock. So I wonder if you're aware of "proscriptions in international law, treaty and enabling statutes, aside from torture, that pertain to" the use of electric shock.
The "leap" is all yours. Hayden used a word, and I'm applying the ordinary meaning of that word, because there's no reason to assume any meaning other than the ordinary meaning. You're twisting yourself into knots in a pathetic effort to pretend that Hayden said something other than what he said. That's because you have a partisan reason to do so.
If you're not familiar with the meaning of the word "secret," I suggest you look it up in the dictionary. You might find that "clarifying."
My "contention" is that Libby outed a covert agent, and that this is a bad thing, even in the absence of a finding by a court that Libby violated IIPA. On the other hand, your "contention" seems to be that outing a covert agent is fine, if you can manage to find a way to avoid an IIPA conviction. Did I get that right?
It's true that Fitz didn't get as far as nailing Libby for an IIPA violation. Libby's perjury made it hard for Fitz to get that far, but it also made it unnecessary for Fitz to get that far. And Fitz explained all this, if you bother to read what he actually said.
And "is it your contention that at the time of Libby's disclosure, Ms. Wilson was [not] covert according to the definition of covert in the IIPA?" Because if that's your "contention," I hope you're prepared to show proof. And by proof, I mean something other than undocumented assertions by righty bloggers who are mostly just citing undocumented assertions by other righty bloggers.
-- I'm not aware of the "proscriptions" you're thinking of --
-- That depends on how one defines 'painfully ignorant. --
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-- My "contention" is that Libby outed a covert agent ... even in the absence of a finding by a court that Libby violated IIPA. --
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That evades the question.
And it's usable to the extent that it allows me to tell you that referencing your previous spam is useless, because it's spam.
Thankfully, Obama recognizes this, even if you still don't.
Where have I evaded a question? What question? I have evaded no questions. The one who is evading questions is you.
What are the "proscriptions in international law, treaty and enabling statutes, aside from torture, that pertain to sexual violations?"
And what are the "proscriptions in international law, treaty and enabling statutes, aside from torture, that pertain to" electric shock?
And where is your proof that Plame was not "covert according to the definition of covert in the IIPA?"
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rosetta:
I realize you define "spam" as 'photos which prove that rosetta is completely full of shit.'
Just one thread over, you claimed that there's a significant difference between the words "quote" and "paraphrase." Now you pretend that Waxman paraphrasing Hayden is actually Waxman quoting Hayden.
As for your link to Novak, you have a funny habit of linking to people's opinions as though they supported your factual claims. But in any case, it's convenient, given your responses to cboldt about the "dictionary," and your apparent belief that Novak is reliable, that you fail to quote another sentence from that same Novak column:Despite your feeble attempt at mockery of cboldt, one cannot simplistically look to a "dictionary" to determine the meaning of a word in a statute; one must first look at how the statute defines the word.
Which is good, as it means they recognize the reality you zealots seem to have missed.
-- it's only been proven that they outed a covert agent --
-- where is your proof that Plame was not "covert according to the definition of covert in the IIPA?" --
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My original contention was that suggestible people jumped to the conclusion that Libby's disclosing that Ms. Wilson worked at the CIA constituted a violation of the IIPA. You've been evasive in response; and have cited parts of Hayden's statement as support for your assertion that "it's only been proven that they outed a covert agent." Taking issue with that assertion depends in part on the definition of "covert."
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You are the one asserting "it's only been proven that they outed a covert agent," so the ball is in your court to flesh out your assertion.
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-- What are the "proscriptions in international law, treaty and enabling statutes, aside from torture, that pertain to sexual violations?" --
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The international treaty and enabling statutes that invoke the proscriptions I referred to in my original post generally revolve around prohibitions on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Your "It is not irrelevant to point out 'that Yoo's memo could justify sodomy,'" overlooks the separation, under law, between torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The reality you seem to have missed is the photos I posted which prove that you're a brazen bullshitter.
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nieporent:
That's what it "clearly meant" to you. What it meant to Novak was that "Waxman was correctly quoting Hayden." If that interpretation is good enough for Novak, it's good enough for me. Because Novak of all people has no interest in defending Waxman.
According to Novak, the situation "is actually Waxman quoting Hayden." So if you have a problem with that, you should take it up with Novak. You should also explain why anyone should think that your familiarity with the details is superior to Novak's.
Who cares? How does that contradict anything I said? It doesn't. Among other things, Hayden's decision to avoid a question is not the same thing as saying the answer to the question is no.
And feel free to take up the challenge that cboldt is ducking: let's see your proof that "Plame was [not] covert under the terms of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act."
Where did I claim a statute was violated? I didn't. I think it happened, but I realize it wasn't proven. But some people (like me) have the quaint idea that outing a covert agent is wrong, even in the absence of a decision by a court that some particular statute has been violated.
That's what you say. Fitz said otherwise. And aside from making it harder, it also made it unnecessary.
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cboldt:
Yes. Although I realize this wasn't proven in a court. My "contention" also is that what Libby did is wrong, even if it wasn't a proven IIPA violation.
It is reasonable to conclude "that Libby's disclosing that Ms. Wilson worked at the CIA constituted a violation of the IIPA." Even though this wasn't proven in court. Although I realize that "suggestible people jumped to the conclusion that Libby's disclosing that Ms. Wilson worked at the CIA [did not constitute] a violation of the IIPA."
That's because Hayden's statement shows that they outed a covert agent.
I guess that must be something like the meaning of "is." If you take issue with the assertion that they outed a covert agent, then you need to explain why Hayden said she was a covert agent. Unless you contend that by "covert agent" Hayden meant something other than "covert agent."
Hayden's statement that she was a covert agent is sufficient to "flesh out" the assertion that they outed a covert agent.
By the way, here's another question you're ducking. Why is it OK with you that Libby disclosed classified information, and outed a covert agent, and committed perjury? Then again, maybe it's not OK with you. But it's hard to tell, because you're being characteristically oblique.
None of those are universal in the sense that CAT and the Torture Act are (and if you can show otherwise, you should do so). They are much narrower with regard to who they protect, and under what circumstances (and Bush went to extremes in taking advantage of this fact). Therefore they aren't relevant.
If they were as broad as CAT and the Torture Act (with regard to who they protect, and under what circumstances), then there would be no need for CAT and the Torture Act. Because every violation of CAT and the Torture Act would already be an extreme violation of those other "proscriptions." Duh.
No, I have not overlooked that separation. And that separation is a complete red herring that you're dragging in. It has nothing whatsover to do with the underlying point, which you would prefer to obscure: Bybee developed a framework that implicitly permits such things as sodomy and electric shock. In Bybee-world, those things would not be torture. They would be "enhanced interrogation techniques."
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My characteristically oblique answer is "Well, the fact that she worked for the US government was a secret ... until Agee outed her as working for the US/CIA." Once covert, always and forever covert? Heh.
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Hayden used very different phrasing, that mumbo-jumbo "employment status was classified," when referring to the timeframe of the Novak OpEd.
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-- None of those are universal in the sense that CAT and the Torture Act are (and if you can show otherwise, you should do so) ... that [torture v. cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment] separation is a complete red herring --
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ROTFL. I should produce support for a point that you ultimately find to be a complete red herring?
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And you disagree that this implicit permission will ever encounter resistance in the form of running afoul of international proscriptions (including national enabling statutes) against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
I know I shouldn't believe my lying eyes when I look at the photos which prove that you're a serial confabulator.
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cboldt:
First of all, you don't mean Agee. You mean Aldrich Ames. Second, this claim is in the realm of speculation:
Third, even if her cover was damaged, that doesn't necessarily mean that it was blown completely. Especially if the damage happened years ago, with particular people in a particular place, and there has been time to reestablish her cover in other places with other people.
Fourth, SF-312 stipulates that information is not automatically declassified just because there's a leak. Even if there's been a prior leak, you are violating SF-312 if you disclose classified information, unless the information has been officially declassified.
The bottom line is that Hayden said she was covert at the time Libby et al outed her. He didn't say 'she was covert years ago until Ames blew her cover.' So the plain meaning of what Hayden said is that whatever Ames did years ago did not completely destroy her value as a covert agent. And it's possible that Ames didn't out her at all.
Wrong. Why are you making shit up? I already cited the text (pdf):
I realize you're trying hard to find some ambiguity where there is none. Keep trying.
The point you were trying to make is both of the following: wrong, and a red herring. You should produce support only if you would like to eliminate the first problem. Because introducing a red herring that's true is not quite as bad as introducing a red herring that's fallacious. What you did is the latter.
It's not that it would never "encounter resistance in the form of running afoul of international proscriptions (including national enabling statutes) against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." The problem is that it would only encounter that resistance sometimes. It would fail to encounter that resistance in an instance when a person is being tortured and is not under the protection of those "international proscriptions (including national enabling statutes) against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." And there are many persons who are potentially outside those "international proscriptions." And that's why CAT was developed. Because it's more universal.
And that's why it's important to notice that Bybee developed a framework that implicitly permits such things as sodomy and electric shock. Because that framework could have real implications, in the real world, involving real people.
I already explained this. Did I make it simple enough this time?
And you're still ducking this question. Why is it OK with you that Libby disclosed classified information, and outed a covert agent, and committed perjury?
How you making out with those other guys here, box? You wearing 'em out yet? Your posts seem to be gettin' sorta sparse, for you. Maybe you need to double down.
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As to inserting "classified" in the phrase "Employment status was classified?" Mea culpa. That came from preparing parts of posts from memory. You'll see that I got the phrase as "employment status was covert. This was classified information." in at least one post. Either way, the phrase is boob-bait for suckers.
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The evidence that Plame had status protectable under IIPA as of 2003 is equivocal at best, and it requires leaps of faith to conclude that a 2003 disclosure that Ms. Wilson worked for the CIA could be prosecuted under the IIPA.
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-- The bottom line is that Hayden said she was covert at the time Libby et al outed her. --
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The best you have is "Her employment status was covert." Perhaps she was kept on the premium payroll associated with being in a covert billet or assignment. Your conclusion depends on a personal interpretation of gibberish, and fails to account for the elements of IIPA, even setting aside the element that pertains to the leaker's personal knowledge of covert status.
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-- And you're still ducking this question. --
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That's not a question. It's a mostly false accusation. I tend to not respond to those.
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I have no problem with Libby's perjury and false statements convictions. I think leaking that Ms. Wilson worked at the CIA was in the nature of a political dirty trick, not directly actionable at law. More particularly, I do not believe that Ms. Wilson was protectable under the IIPA.
-- I already explained this. Did I make it simple enough this time? --
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It's the first time I've seen you make the assertion. FWIW, I think you fabricated it out of thin air. See The International Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which covers more ground than "torture."
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When the only know violation is denominated "torture," then every objectionable conduct becomes "torture."
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Oh. Your line of reasoning reminded me of the joke with the punchline, "Death by bunga-bunga."
This is just a bluff, based on your unwillingness to concede that the John Yoo torture definition condones sodomizing prisoners. If there is some other law that prohibits sodomizing prisoners then you must quote and cite it so we can test if it also prohibits waterboarding. Under Yoo's arguments, sodomy and waterboarding are both not torture. If you have additional reasons grounded in treaty or long-arm statute to condemn sodomy, produce them so we can apply them in the general case. "Easily" and "obvious" (a Moore favorite) do not suffice.
The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
Article 16
1. Each State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article I, when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. In particular, the obligations contained in articles 10, 11, 12 and 13 shall apply with the substitution for references to torture of references to other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
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My contention is that using the same legal and analytical framework that Bybee et al used to justify waterboarding as a basis to justify the use of "sexual violation" as a method of interrogation has the explicit flaw of bumping into a proscription that stands separate from the torture proscription.
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IOW, the power of the "sodomy isn't torture" argument doesn't result in placing war-crime sodomy outside of the reach of legal action.
The Yoo/Bybee memo of Aug. 1 2002 to Alberto Gonzales, analyzed a different, narrower statute (the Torture Act 18 USC 2340 et seq).
Rape, etc. would be outlawed today, under the War Crimes Act -- after Hamdan v Rumsfeld, because the Supreme Court declared that CA3 applies to this confict. But in the context of Aug. 1 2009, the War Crimes Act was not deemed to apply because an earlier OLC memo had taken the position that Geneva CA3 and the War Crimes Act were not applicable,.
So in that context, reading the two OLC memos together, it is difficult to find a U.S. statute that was deemed by OLC at that time to criminalize rape of captives.
And if rape had occurred under color of law during this period, it would be difficult to prosecute now because Congress in 2006 granted an express defense to anyone relying on Justice Department legal advice.
20092002,Sorry for the typo.
That leaves us with the ICAT, to which CBolt has unnecessarily re-linked.
Do you understand, CBolt, the hole you are digging for yourself? You are saying that sodomy would not be permitted because it is cruel and degrading. Fine. Then how can waterboarding be permitted? You have changed the argument from my "Waterboarding and sodomy are both torture so Yoo's definition of torture that excluded both is garbage". You are stating that we could not inflict sodomy on prisoners because it is cruel and degrading. Therefore you are discarding the Yoo definition of what we can do. Yoo claimed we could do anything that did not cause pain tantamount to organ failure or death because only that constitutes torture (Hint: he's wrong). On your definition of what is permissible, you now have to show that waterboarding is not even cruel and degrading. That's impossible.
I wouldn't think readers of a legal blog would have so much trouble following an elementary reductio ad absurdum argument. You can't appeal to the ICAT to justify your position on sodomy without giving up on the highly restrictive Yoo/Bybee definition of permissible techniques, which by everybody's analysis is differs from the ICAT.
Now would you like to try again? What is the applicability of the ICAT to our interrogation techniques? If the ICAT controls, where does that leave the much looser definition of permissible techniques in the Yoo/Bybee memos?
ICAT, distinct from the criminal statute of the Torture Act, does outlaw cruel, inhaman and degrading treatment. But ICAT is not self-executing, and the Senate in its ratification of the treaty attached reservations.
Also, recall that in the later OLC memos, Bradbury opined that ICAT itself did not prohibit waterboarding, either.
Nor, in his opinion, did the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act (the so-called McCain Amendment) that prohibited cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as a matter of statutory law.
Under Obama's current policy, it appears to leave some of them still in use, and some of them suspended (to be resumed as necessary, later on, as his policy needs dictate).
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I objected to jukeboxgrad's hocus-pocus conclusion, "The same legal and analytical framework that Bybee et al used to justify waterboarding also provides implicit justification for the use of 'sexual violation' as a method of interrogation."
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This logic is incomplete: "The analytical framework that concludes water boarding is not torture would also conclude that sodomy is not torture. Using this analysis results in absence of objection to sodomy as an interrogation tool." I find that logic incomplete because it doesn't account for proscriptions outside of proscriptions against torture.
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How is that objection incorrect?
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Now, if I've misstated JBG and your take on the Bybee and Yoo memos, and instead of them amounting to "waterboarding does not rise to the level of torture," you interpret the memos as supporting the proposition that "we can do whatever we want to these people (e.g., pull fingernails, poke out eyes, amputate parts, dip in acid, etc.), because they are completely outside the protection of all law," then that's a different matter.
What I don't understand—or, to be less elliptical, what I believe shows the fraudulence of the memos—is how the Yoo/Bybee rules distinguish waterboarding and sodomy. Let's re-roll the tape (copied from a post above):Sodomizing a prisoner is simply not an extreme act as (mis)defined here. It doesn't cause physical pain equivalent to serious physical injury at the level of maiming and death. It probably does cause psychological harm—as does interrogation by waterboard—but we don't have to weight that further because the mental harm would not arise from the specific enumerated causes such as the use of drugs, and Yoo/Bybee says that mental harm must arise from one of these enumerated methods to be torture.
The Yoo/Bybee interpretation of the ICAT and the legislative history of its codification in American law doesn't prohibit sodomizing prisoners. Their argument is thagt prohibit acts either (1) cause very extreme pain or (2a) cause years-long psychological damage and (2b) arise out of a certain set of enumerated acts such as administration of drugs. Sodomy does not meet these criteria.
I do not believe it is lawful to sodomize prisoners. I believe the Yoo/Bybee interpretation is total B.S. One reason I believe they are B.S. is that they do not provide a rationale for prohibiting rape of detainees.
If you do believe the the Yoo/Bybee memos preclude sodomizing prisoners, can you say in more detail which of the definitions of torture Yoo/Bybee describe it meets? You can't refer to the ICAT itself in this exercise, because I believe the Yoo/Bybee memos are a willful misreading of the ICAT. You have to use the language of Yoo/Bybee.
If you believe rape of detainees was prohibited (prior to various court decisions that rejected the Bush position), you have only the Yoo/Bybee memos to work from.
What about when my lying eyes are looking at photos which prove that you're a world-class liar?
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cboldt:
Do you characterize all statements made by Bush appointees like Hayden as "boob-bait for suckers" and "gibberish," or just the statements you find politically inconvenient?
If you ever find any evidence indicating that Plame did not have "status protectable under IIPA as of 2003," I hope you'll tell us where it's hidden. The plain meaning of Hayden's statement is that she did indeed have that status.
And the best I have is more than good enough to indicate that Libby et al outed a covert agent. Because last time I checked, "covert" means this: "covert." Oddly enough.
Plame worked for the Directorate of Operations, which means there is ample reason to believe that Libby et al had "personal knowledge of [her] covert status." That term ("Directorate of Operations") is basically a euphemism for 'spies.'
You're being ambiguous. I can't tell if you're saying you have no problem with him committing the crime of perjury, or if you're saying that you think it's proper that he was convicted.
Do you think it's OK to out a covert agent as long as there's (allegedly) some technical reason that it doesn't amount to an IIPA violation?
CAT mostly focuses on torture. See article 16. The heart of CAT, articles 1-9, apply only to torture, and not to CID. And did you mention CAT for a reason? If so, I hope you'll let us in on the secret and tell us what it is.
And you're still promoting the same red herring, which you're doing for the purpose of obscuring the fact that Bybee provides a framework that implicitly allows such things as sodomy and electric shock to be considered only "enhanced interrogation techniques," and not torture.
The problem with your "contention" is that once you reclassify waterboarding, sodomy and electric shock as EIT, instead of torture, they are now all exempt from articles 1-9 of CAT (because if something is merely CID, and not torture, it is exempt from the those key articles). And that's why the "proscription" you mention didn't get in the way of us waterboarding. The core question you have failed to answer is how the "proscription" you're talking about prohibits sodomy but allows waterboarding. Because in Bybee-world, both of this things are classified together, and both of those things are permitted. Because (according to him) they don't violate articles 1-9 of CAT, and they don't violate the Torture Act. Because (according to him) they're not torture.
It does place "war-crime sodomy outside of the reach of legal action" in exactly the same way that it places war-crime waterboarding outside of the reach of legal action.
Any "proscriptions outside of proscriptions against torture" that are not able to prevent Bybee from waterboarding are also not going to prevent Bybee from raping. Given the logic that Bybee presents to allow waterboarding.
The fabrication is all yours. In particular, what you fabricated is the idea that there are "proscriptions in international law, treaty and enabling statutes, aside from torture, that pertain to" such things as electric shock, and are as universal in their coverage as CAT. There aren't. If there were, CAT would be superfluous.
And this is important, because Bybee effectively undermined CAT. You have tried to claim this doesn't matter much, because of other imaginary "proscriptions." Trouble is, they're imaginary.
As Andrew pointed out, you're bluffing.
Speaking of gibberish. Try English next time. And feel free to point out who is claiming that "every objectionable conduct" should be called torture.
Straw man. The memos don't say "we can do whatever we want to these people." But they come close to that. In particular, they say (implicitly) 'we can rape and electrify.'
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JaO:
Thanks for pointing that out. But in the context of what I'm discussing with cboldt, I think it's important to notice that CAT is more universal in jurisdiction than CA3 (even though CA3 is pretty broad, and much broader than Bush was inclined to admit).
And this is also why the electric shock example might be better than the sodomy example.
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I don't think the Yoo/Bybee memos can be extended to reach a conclusion, one way or the other, relating to the use of sodomy as an interrogation technique.
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IOW, I don't think one can interpret Yoo/Bybee as asserting ANYTHING that fails to cause the degree of physical pain is "legal because it isn't torture." IOW, it's incorrect to add an "everything 'not torture' is legal" overlay.
Why not? What basis is there to claim that the legal and analytical framework they present to justify waterboarding could not be used to justify sodomy and electric shock? Answer: there is none. And that's the whole point.
Another straw man. No one is claiming "everything 'not torture' is legal." But the problem is that "everything 'not torture' " is indeed a permissible interrogation technique, in the world that Bush created: i.e., a world where GC CA3 is rejected, with regard to certain detainees.
Bush created a world where "everything 'not torture' " was deemed to be a permissible interrogation technique, and then he created a definition of torture that excluded waterboarded. Trouble is, that same definition also implicitly excludes such things as sodomy and electric shock (i.e., it classifies them as 'not torture').
So CIA didn't use sodomy and electric shock (we hope), but the important point is that Bybee created a world where it would have been legal for them to do so.
That's the key point that you are attempting to deny.
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One has to adopt Yoo/Bybee as being a sort of "everything no proscribed in this memo is permitted" analysis, in order to agree with that contention.
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-- Straw man. --
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Bzzzzt. Try again. I offered two alternative takes of Yoo/Bybee. The one you call a strawman is the alternative that I doubted reflected an interpretation of Yoo/Bybee that was relevant in the discussion.
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-- Do you characterize all statements made by Bush appointees like Hayden as "boob-bait for suckers" and "gibberish," or just the statements you find politically inconvenient? --
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Just the statements that are boob-bait for suckers, regardless of who promulgates them. "Employment status was covert" is gibberish. As is "covert is covert."
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-- ... or if you're saying that you think it's proper that he was convicted --
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I think the indictment was well within prosecutorial discretion, and that the jury reached the correct conclusion (for the most part - I disagreed with the stated logic for not finding guilt on one particular count).
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-- Do you think it's OK to out a covert agent as long as there's (allegedly) some technical reason that it doesn't amount to an IIPA violation? --
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I don't think the gap between protectable under the IIPA and Ms. Wilson's status amounts to a technicality. She was so far out of the realm of IIPA protectable that I find the contention otherwise to be risible.
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Yes, that key point that you insist is correct, I am saying is incorrect. A "this is not torture" opinion is not a "if it's not torture, it's legal" or "if it's not torture it's a permissible interrogation technique" opinion.
Maybe you should wipe some of that nightsoil away from your eyes. Obama and Pelosi have piled onto you pretty good... and you might see better.
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An example might clarify my logic. An opinion letter probing the legal definition of first degree murder isn't useful to probe the limit for manslaughter (or burglary, or rape, etc.). This doesn't mean that the opinion letter can be fairly construed as justification for manslaughter, rape, burglary, etc. That Yoo/Bybee opinion probing torture, while literally true that is doesn't prohibit sodomizing prisoners, it also doesn't prohibit razing villages, killing innocent people for fun, etc. The memos attempt to describe their own scope. There are entire bodies of law outside of the scope of the memos.
With the GC (incorrectly, according to later court decisions) out of the picture, the ICAT was the only law relevant to our treatment of prisoners, and the Yoo/Bybee memos were the official interpretation of the ICAT. That's what the very first sentence says.So, yes, any treatment of detainees overseas (e.g. Iraq, Bagram, Gitmo under the then-prevailing theory) that is not prohibited by the Yoo/Bybee memos is indeed permitted. Their narrow definition of torture did not include waterboarding, so waterboarding was permitted. I contend, and you have not attempted to refute, that sodomy likewise is not included in the narrow definition of torture in the memos, which I adduce as evidence their narrow definition is incorrect. There is no other statute that would apply here; just as you remark with apparent amazement, everything not prohibited by the Yoo/Bybee memos, which purport to interpret 18 USC 2340, is permitted.
State what section of law other then 18 USC 2340 can apply to sodomizing prisoners. Yoo/Bybee (purport to) provide the official understanding of 2340, so for 2340 we have to go with their memos which will narrow down our disagreement. I claim there is no other long-arm statute that would cover our overseas interrogations jurisdictionally. (I must make one caveat: I believe that the sex-tourism long-arm statute might prohibit sodomizing very young terrorist detainees. Let's assume we are talking about adults.)
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That basically "if it's not torture, it's permitted." The opinion letter says it's limiting itself to the construction and application of 18 USC 2340/2340A. What does 18 USC 2340A proscribe? Torture.
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I can't keep you from adopting that approach, but taking it in the other direction, your logic also leads to the conclusion that 18 USC 2340A doesn't prohibit killing them either, provided the killing isn't accompanied by severe pain.
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I'll consider your casting my posts as "not attempted to refute" in the event that you request clarification from me on this or any other subject. You an JBG can high-five each other over your reading comprehension and analytical skills.
18 USC 2441
18 USC Chapter 109A (unlikely applicable to wartime or quasi-wartime interrogation)
We have no information that the CIA asked for an opinion on sodomy. Hence, in the context of the situation, whether the memos permit sodomy or extreme tickling is simply not relevant.
If you want to pose a hypothetical, try "what would the memo have said if the CIA asked to use sodomy as an interrogation technique." At least that would be honest and relevant.
You face some serious jurisdictional problems, as I think you will discover. It's put up or shut up time.
Maybe you can do it. I'm not omniscient. And you can get your high-fives all around from Moore, Cheney, Yoo, Bauer, and the other heroes of the torture movement.
But I doubt it.
You seem to have forgotten that the Bush Administration proclaimed that nothing in the Geneva Conventions (of which 2441 is the implementation in the US Code) applies to terrorists. The Administration even specifically argued that Common Article 3 did not apply, (The Supreme Court disagreed in Hamdan, with angry dissent from your side.) Hence, on the Administration's since-repudiated theory, treatment of detainees could not possibly be a war crime as defined in 2441(c).
Nice try though.
So you see, if Yoo/Bybee though 2441 was applicable (they didn't, see quote below), then not only super-severe torture but also mere cruel and inhuman treatment would also have been prohibited. You will recall that Yoo/Bybee reached the opposite conclusion, that cruel and inhuman but not-torture treatment was permitted.As a matter of fact, I think that murder as well as sodomy would be permitted under Yoo/Bybee. It's time for you to realize the enormity of the legal "theory" of the Bush Torture Regime.
Let me try to put this in a mathematical context. The Office of Mathematical Counsel issues a memo stating that "All odd numbers are prime. Therefore, Mr. CIA, the numbers 3 and 5 that you asked about are prime." Lazarus says, "This memo is crap. Nine is an odd number and it is not prime." Moore says, "Lazarus, 9 is irrelevant; the CIA only asked about 3 and 5."
Now, what is really going on is even more egregious, because the more accurate analogy would be the OMC stating "All odd numbers are prime, but odd means only super-odd rising to the level of severe oddness, so the numbers 6 and 8 are really odd (even though historically they were considered even) and therefore 6 and 8 are prime." But I don't even have to go to that extent to show the vapidity of your criticism.
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Lazarus holds that the Yoo/Bybee memos authorized murder of detainees. I stated my rationale for finding contrary to that, above; as did Lazarus as proponent of that conclusion. Now it's in the hands of the jury.
Beyond the sodomy hypothetical, why don't you folks argue about whether interrogation techniques which induce“low blood pressure along with low body core temperature”, are permitted under the Yoo/Bybee reading.
From the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General report, “A Review of the FBI's Involvement in and Observations of Detainee Interrogations in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq” (May 2008) on p.103 (p.146 in PDF):
Do interrogation techniques which induce “low blood pressure along with low body core temperature,” requiring admission to the base hospital for treatment, fit under the definition of torture in 18 U.S.C. § 2340?
At the time of the memos, it was the Administration position that all of 2441 was inapplicable because the detainees were transnational terrorists. In their own words.It can't be plainer than the bolded section. The Administration said that 2441 was not applicable to these detainees. Therefore, CBoldt's claim that 2441 prohibited sodomy of these detainees must be rejected.
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Probably another instance of crossposting. See fairly quick clarification, which is not really necessary as my point was avoiding a cite 18 USC 2441(d)(1)(G)/(H), not avoiding a cite to 18 USC 2441.
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That said, I take your point that Bybee concluded 18 USC 2441 is inapplicable.
What's risible is your repeating an unsubstantiated assertion, as if you don't understand the difference between assertion and evidence. Maybe you didn't notice that I asked you if you had any evidence to support this assertion. Looks like you don't.
Except that Bybee et al didn't just say 'waterboarding isn't torture.' They said 'waterboarding isn't torture because it lacks features X, Y and/or Z, and only things that possess features X, Y and/or Z can be considered torture.' Trouble is, things like sodomy and electric shock also lack features X, Y and Z. So it's possible to believe one of the following things:
A) Sodomy and electric shock are not torture.
B) Bybee's definition of torture is wrong.
Trouble is, you can't believe both. So which one is your choice?
Leo summed up the problem very well:
Bybee et al did indeed create a "definition of torture that excludes sodomy." And this is a strong clue that they did something very wrong.
The "reductio ad absurdum" is really "red herring absurditus." Yes, you could tendentiously ask that question, or you could consider the context, and ask the question given the intent of the memorandum: to define the legal limits of the methods the CIA asked about. You may be "too thick" to understand that context is very important in evaluating actions, but try to understand.
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-- That is exactly what cboldt and Moore have been arguing. --
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Actually, Lazarus, it is you and JBG who are saying that Bybee's definition excludes sodomy from the scope of activities that cosntitute torture, and hence sodomy is a permitted interrogation technique.
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My argument is that Bybee's memo isn't properly read as a green-light for sodomy for the purpose of interrogation.
Bybee's memo was written to define the limits of specific techniques. It was not written to give criteria for evaluating other techniques.
Context, intent
Except that in the process of "[defining] the legal limits of the methods the CIA asked about," Bybee created a definition of torture that excludes such things as sodomy and electric shock. This raises an obvious question: is the Bybee definition of torture correct, or is it wrong?
Your refusal to answer this question is itself a revealing answer.
You should try reading the memos. Because they did indeed "give criteria for evaluating other techniques" (even without specifically mentioning other techniques). And this is self-evident. Their whole approach to justifying waterboarding was to establish certain criteria, and then point out that waterboarding didn't fit those criteria. Trouble is, sodomy and electric shock don't fit those criteria, either.
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cboldt:
We are "saying that Bybee's definition excludes sodomy from the scope of activities that cosntitute torture" because Bybee's definition excludes sodomy from the scope of activities that constitute torture.
Once again, you treat assertion as a substitute for argument and evidence. What you have pointedly failed to do is explain why words in the memo which provide a "green-light for [waterboarding] for the purpose of interrogation" do not also provide a "green-light for sodomy for the purpose of interrogation."
The memo provides a "green-light for [waterboarding] for the purpose of interrogation" by constructing a particular definition of torture. Trouble is, sodomy does not meet that definition. Which means the memo does indeed provide a "green-light for sodomy for the purpose of interrogation."
What you have pointedly failed to do is explain how the Bybee definition of torture includes sodomy. It doesn't. According to Bybee, sodomy is not torture. Likewise for electric shock.
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I noticed. But you have the burden reversed. You said she was covert per the terms of the IIPA, and offered Waxman's "statement authorized by Hayden" as evidence.
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That evidence does not contain a claim that Ms. Wilson's identity as an employee of the CIA was classified information. It refers to he "employment status" without describing what that term means. If the CIA wanted to assert that Ms. Wilson was covert, it would have said Ms. Wilson's identity as an employee of the CIA was classified information. Easy statement to make, probably requested because such a statement would be unequivocal, and yet a piece of gibberish is stated instead.
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Even if the fact that she was an employee of the CIA was classified (impossible to maintain for a person who drove into Langley regularly), in order for her to be protectable under the IIPA, the CIA must not publicly acknowledge or reveal that she had any intelligence relationship to the United States. Same problem, she was billeted at Langley.
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I'm sure I've asserted additional support and rational that caused me to reach my conclusion, at some times in the past, but there's no point in working up a sweat in dialog with you. The pattern is predictable - I say it, you say it's wrong by some mechanism (often rank bad-faith misconstruction), repeat ad nauseum.
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Likewise for murder. Says your buddy Laz (and the plain language of the memo). With enough morphine, and the victim unable to experience pain, one could construe the Bybee memo as permitting amputations for the purpose of interrogation.
You're claiming you see a material difference between these two statements:
A) her identity as an employee of the CIA was classified information
B) her employment status with the CIA was classified information
I don't.
You're also claiming you see a material difference between these two statements:
B) she was covert
C) she was under cover; her employment status was covert
I don't.
You're splitting hairs, and you're being arbitrary. If the statements were flipped, and Hayden had made the alternate statement, you would just be reversing your complaint.
You need to prove how often she "drove into Langley," and you need to prove that 'real spies' never drive into Langley. Let us know when you run into someone who has actually collected such proof.
You need to show what you mean by "billeted at Langley," and you need to show proof that the claim is true, and you need to show proof that 'real spies' are never "billeted at Langley" (whatever that means).
If you have, it's not in this thread.
English translation: 'I'm finally admitting I can't prove the claims I've been making.'
You'll be showing proof of your claims about Plame at roughly the same time you'll be showing proof of this accusation you just made. That is, never.
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That might actually be true. But I'm not sure, because the memos refer repeatedly to the concept of lasting harm, and they repeatedly rely on the idea that the approved techniques ostensibly cause no lasting harm, either mental or physical.
So while it's very clear that Bybee permits sodomy and electric shock, I think it's not totally clear that he permits amputations (or murder, for that matter).
But let's say he does. Why do you think that helps your argument? Do you agree with a definition of torture which claims that an amputation with morphine is not a form of torture?
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Aside from the point that if the statements were flipped I'd reach the opposite conclusion; you'll find evidence of either that I'd be a hypocrite on that point, or that the statements are in fact reversed at about the same time you prove Santa Claus is a donkey.
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-- English translation: 'I'm finally admitting I can't prove the claims I've been making.' --
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No "words in the mouth" there, juke. I said what I meant, and I meant what I said. You aren't worth the effort.
How do people with education past college have so much time to leave comments? In my profession, we would find it very difficult to have so much time on our hands. Are those of you with so many long posts lawyers and if so how do you have so much time?
I am not being facetious, I just am wondering how this happens?
I don't believe you.
Except that you are obviously willing to make the effort of repeating the same unsubstantiated claims over and over again (and those claims can be found in the roughly 30 comments you've posted in this thread). You just seem to lose interest in "effort" when it comes time to show proof for your claims. Interesting how that works.
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out west:
It could be that my typing speed is a lot faster than what you think it is.
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Not quite. I produce evidence and argument that I decide is sufficient to make my point, and leave it. You, OTOH, puff up your evidentiary contributions by labeling them "proof," and then, in a conclusory fashion, assert "I win." Ciao.
I am not being facetious, I just am wondering how this happens?
Billable time, much like research or golf.
It all makes sense now. Non-evidence becomes evidence and non-argument becomes argument because you're "The Decider."
I think at this point it's worth noticing the way you abruptly shifted from one argument to another, and then finally abandoned both. First you were saying it doesn't matter if Bybee permits sodomy (in interrogation), because other laws forbid it. Then Andrew ripped that argument to shreds, by showing that Bush rejected those other laws.
Then you switched to another specious argument: "that Bybee's memo isn't properly read as a green-light for sodomy for the purpose of interrogation." But if that claim were true, why would you ever bother with the first argument? Answer: you wouldn't have. And that's why this claim is appearing only after your first argument was demolished. And of course your new claim is false, so you're not making even a pretense of defending it.
You've offered two arguments that have both collapsed. Got any more? Then again, I suppose you don't need any, since you're "The Decider."
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leo:
The boss will be very upset with me for saying this, but Soros actually has a large staff working together, all posting under the same name. We work in several secret bunkers located in special locations, like Barbra Streisand's basement, and Cindy Sheehan's house, and Ward Churchill's tepee.
Every morning we read to each other from the works of Saul Alinsky. Then we go into town and find veterans to spit on, and we burn a few flags. Then we each have a gay abortion, and pray for the imposition of Sharia law. Of course we pray facing Obama's birthplace in Kenya. And then we can finally get to work.
Don't tell him I told you.
Mine, too, Out West. But you gotta economize and use your time efficiently. If you ignore the spam, it goes much quicker.
And since box makes 90% of the posts here, all of 'em spam, why, it all just sorta falls together.
Seen those photos yet?
I have already illustrated this with the example of prime numbers. If the CIA asks Yoo/Bybee if 3 and 5 are prime and Yoo/Bybee declare that yes because all odd numbers are prime, the "context" that the CIA only asked about 3 and 5 does not redeem the Yoo/Bybee claim. The claim is false and 9 is a counterexample. It does not matter whether the CIA put 9 in context or not; the Yoo/Bybee reasoning is defective. Period.
Similarly, if we test the reasoning of the Yoo/Bybee memo with the example of sodomy and reach a contradiction (namely, that rape is permissible in the treatment of detainees), it is not that some magic context has been omitted. The error does not lie with the critics who are subjecting the memo to a logical stress test. The error lies within the reasoning of the memo. CBoldt continues to double down by pointing out more and more outrageous conduct that is permissible under Yoo/Bybee. He seems to believe this indicates we are missing something about Yoo/Bybee. (Before, he claimed what we were missing was the applicability of other statutes to detainee treatment, but to give him credit where very much due, he decently retracted this when confronted with a plain-English refutation out of Bybee's own pen.) It seems impossible for Moore and CBoldt even to envision that the problem with their hypotheticals is not that the unacceptable conclusion points to an error in JBG/Lazarus reading of the Yoo/Bybee memos, but to errors in the memos themselves.
Are you arguing that sodomy is permissible under the Yoo/Bybee memos as written in the context of waterboarding, but they would have written something else prohibiting sodomy if the CIA asked about it? Doesn't that mean that to the extent Yoo/Bybee provide generic criteria about what determines permissible techniques of interrogation, they are simply wrong? Since the version as written permits sodomy?
It's really quite amazing the lengths to which Moore and CBoldt are going to avoid the straightforward conclusion. Yoo/Bybee must be saved! Somehow!!
That's the key point, and it's a plain fact that's obvious to anyone who reads the memos. It's interesting to notice that cboldt handles this problem simply by making the contrary assertion: "Bybee's memo isn't properly read as a green-light for sodomy for the purpose of interrogation." But of course he's not attempting to defend that false claim because it's indefensible.
Anyway, claims like that shouldn't surprise anyone. We've seen this sort of thing many times before. It comes from the same attitude that's nicely summarized by this statement: "we create our own reality." And we see the same attitude in moore's pronouncements, which you have properly described as a form of "oracular revelation." Everything is easier when faith becomes a substitute for reason.
Bravo. Really well done. And the funniest (scariest?) part was a few minutes after reading it I did a double-take and realized, "Hey, Obama wasn't born in Kenya!"
That's exactly what he wants you to think. I see you've fallen for those phony documents. That wouldn't happen if you knew more about kerning.
Life's too short to know everything. On stuff like birth certificates I just take my cue from people I can trust. Like Jerome Corsi.
"The intellectual decline of conservatism" is accelerating. And as the party continues to enthusiastically expel its impure elements, it shrinks into more and more of a pure concentrated essence of its rancid self, like a dog turd baking in the sun. Soon it will be too small to see, but you'll still be able to smell it from a mile away. The rest of use just need to remember to check our shoes.
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