Cheney Slams Obama Administration for Opening Investigation of CIA Interrogators

The British interrogators Obama lauded in his (incorrect) assertion that Churchill didn’t torture did very rough things, much like the things the CIA is accused of doing here.
Has there ever been a time of war when interrogators were so circumspect? Isn’t the “don’t be mean” method really just a theory?

Lydia-Thank goodness, the FBI and CIA in the field with years of experience are being listened to.
=====
The CIA in the field with years of experience are being *investigated*.

The Only Response for Obama and Holder is to ARREST CHENEY et al. FOR WAR CRIMES. If they are innocent they will be vindicated through the trials, if they are guilty the penalties are severe. Are they above the Law will determine if the country is still under seige by NWO Cult freaks playing with our Democracy, actually destroying it and giving our country a new world view of us as criminals and war criminals. Will our kids be proud of how we hand them the Democracy or will it have been lost on our watch to some uber greedy power freaks, who torture people and kill our US Soldiers in wars based on LIES. Everything from Bush’s election, or election fraud, to the wars, to 9.11, all LIES that benefited their buds in the War industry (Blackstone or XE or Haliburton, etc.) or their oil buds (Rockefeller, Bush Family, Saddam, Bin Laden, KBR). All to the detriment of real US Soldiers who went to die and died to protect us, when they really went to die to increase oil prices for some fat psychocats. Psychocats who went way to far with Cheney in command and violated MASS TITLE 18 CRIMES, WAR CRIMES, TREASON, etc. and now must PAY, they are caught red handed. Take their assets and all of them, Bush’s grandfathers company was siezed for trading with the enemy, if these were wag the dog wars, these guys should fry after trials.
Eliot

Feeling better now, Eliot?

Why do we care what this disaster has to say?
“his decision to remove authority for interrogation from the CIA to the White House, serves as a reminder,”
WHO HAS AUTHORITY OVER THE CIA? Oh right- the White House. The CIA is not some power unto itself, it is answerable to the civilian government of the people.

Doesn’t Barack Obama have anything better to do?

Obama is desperate to raise his poll numbers even if it endangers our troops and makes our country less safe.
So he tossed another bone to his base and they love it like good little lapdogs.
Stabbing the CIA in the back won’t help Obama with anyone else except his base. It just emphasizes even more how self-centered and incompetent he really is.

drjohn,
They’re after Cheney? Good luck to them. He’s smarter than Holder and his crew of DOJ clowns. Doubtful the CIA would throw Cheney to the wolves to keep Obama off their back. Why should they? It is a gamble of course, but the odds for Cheney are real good. Panetta won’t play either. Obama stinks like a loser and everyone can smell it. Nobody is afraid of a loser.

So I guess next week Obama will crawl over to the CIA and tell them how he has got their backs–like he did the last time he smeared them.
He’s a pitiful excuse for a Commander-in-Chief.

This is a total betrayal of those who risked their lives to keep us safe.
Obama has no regard for the CIA or our troops.

DR JOHN
Why is he slamming it? And you know to the people on the Right always screaming about the Constitution and saying the Democrats dont abide by it your all ok with the Disgusting way Bush/Cheney broke the Constituiton and broke the Laws?

“…ok with the Disgusting way Bush/Cheney broke the Constituiton and broke the Laws?”
Our consitution does not apply to the conditions of war, or to execute a war within it. It is a document for the people. In times of war, only the Laws of Armed Conflict apply, and if the enemy nation is a signatory of the Geneva Convention, then it too will apply. None of this is within the Consitution.

“Why is he slamming it?”
He’s slamming Obama’s persecution of the CIA interrogators.
This is going to go very, very badly for Obama.
94% of Americans don’t want this done.

angie in pa…people who protect us are heroes…thats what you people on the left dont get. you are going to make chenny a hero for keeping us safe. this administration is flaming out much quicker than i ever thought.

When is Cheney going to drop off the end of the earth? He is a despicable person.

Predator drones are actually killing AQ family members on a regular basis, not just making threats.

KR:”Our consitution does not apply to the conditions of war, or to execute a war within it”
Our Constitution EXPLICITLY gives the power to declare war to Congress, and Congress alone. Where was the declaration of war where the people gave up their rights to a civilian government with civilian leadership and Constitutional checks and balances?

KR:”if they lie, it’s pretty easy to tell if they are. Verifiable information is what they seek.”
There was recently a conservative uproar about a young Guantanamo detainee who was being held only on the weight of his supposed confession under torture.
Is his guilt, adequate to imprision him for life in some conservative minds, verifiable information when gained through torture? (And no, he did not provide any verifiable incriminating evidence, such as details of the attack he could not have known other than by being the perpetrator.)

DRJOHN
What is there to win in Iraq?

drjohn:”"where is the Proof the Torture worked?”
Posted at 11:34:36″
THAT is what you call verifiable proof? Talk about a cult of personality mindset.
And I can also prove that dynamite is a very effective way to kill weeds in my garden. Does that make it my only option?

What is there to win in Iraq?
I’ll ask the same of Afghanistan.

We need to find out who was at fault at the top pushing the idea of torture rather than using the successful interrogation techniques that were the rule and that worked.
From what I’ve read so far, contractors were pushing for the enhanced techniques, not the experts or our FBI or CIA guys in the field. A good rule for the future is no more contractors as prison guards or interrogators. And perhaps no more contractors providing services to the military in general, when all the double-billing, unsafe conditions with electricity for our troops, contractors sending out their men without adequate protection, etc. are taken into account. And obviously the no-bid contracts ripped us taxpayers off big-time.

‘And I can also prove that dynamite is a very effective way to kill weeds in my garden. Does that make it my only option?’
Depends what kinds of weeds you’ve got. Does talking to your weeds make them leave? Dynamite worked on the Germans and Japanese. Like I said, it saved lives. I wouldn’t use any less on the jihadis.

Yes us poor schmoes in the military have no concept of values. We just mindlessly follow orders like robots. And you have the gaul to say you support our troops while calling them stupid. Just a little hint, we are OBLIGATED NOT to follow orders that are against the law (Laws of Armed Conflict, UCMJ, etc) less we be prosecuted under the same circumstances.
Lighten up, Francis.

“That is strictly a worst case protection. Soldiers are not lawyers and they have to be trained to take what appear to be incredibly stupid orders with fatal results at times. They can not – and morally should not – be relied upon to evaluate the critical but complex rules of law that govern our nation.”
Um… what? You’re saying ever soldier needs to be a lawyer to fight a war? How silly is that? We are trained, everywhere you are deployed, in the trappings of legality. We do not however, fight our wars under US laws. We fight wars under the LOAC and GC* (if applicable). The Constitution and our US laws were not designed to fight wars, they were designed for our society.

KR, I was being sarcastic. The CIA agents (non-military) should have sacrificed their careers and stood on Geneva convention, American values, human values, morals, religious and otherwise and insisted on the vigor of other tactics of espionage and infiltration to supply the means. Like you would have. Terrorists are bad, acting like them, and becoming a state sponsor of torture was not a road that had to be followed to protect our people and the American way of life.

-The media reaction to this is puzzling. Why run a story featuring Cheney’s rebuttal, which is so obviously an attempt to draw attention away from the real story?-
Dude, this is some guy named Tapper’s blog and he gets chicks like Karen and the fetching Sunlen Miller to contribute. I’m not seeing a “story” or an attempt to obfuscate. Then again Tapper went to Dartmouth and Cheney went to Yale (albeit briefly). Maybe this is like a low-rent version of the Skull and Bones thing but with cuter babes and cheaper booze. Tapper strokes me as a Schlitz man. Cheney, probably Cutty Sark.

And by applying the GC blanketly, we show the world that there is no consequences for breaking it.

Wasn’t the CIA created to do things that soldiers and law enforcement officers couldn’t do?

“Doesn’t the GC say you can shoot those caught without a uniform?”
They can be subject to field trial (trial on the spot), and summary execution. In practice, an officer has to be present to make the decision of guilt. Today in our importance placed on gathering intel, we prefer to bring them to prison and gather intel and lose the “on the spot” evidence of breaking the GC.
Not to mention the GC only applies to nations who have signed it. I know this is not the case in Afghanistan.
Not saying I condone torture with this, I’m saying that those found in the field should be recorded as violators and subject to summary execution. Let the world know that if you fight outside accepted methods of war, there are consequences.

‘Everyone should be concerned that Holder seems to be upholding the “orders are orders” defense.’
Why should we? His boss isn’t. How dare you question Holder and Obama. That’s racist!

“Wasn’t the CIA created to do things that soldiers and law enforcement officers couldn’t do?”
Only under the pretense of espionage. Because they have a rather robust psychological area in the CIA (Human studies etc) that assist in intelligence gathering, they also have been studied in interrogation techniques since Korea. Research the US POW’s during the Korean War. The Soviets were able to completely break the US soldiers held captive in China. For the first time in history, US soldiers captured in battle refused to return to the US. This alarmed the government and the military and the CIA investigated how this occurred, the tactics, etc. It’s been there for years.

The Obama Administration doesn’t torture, it just KILLS suspects with drones.

” Not only do they apply to non-uniformed, but they explicitly apply to them. Its not a matter of interpretation.”
According to Article 4 of the Geneva Convention, 4 criteria must be satisfied for persons captured during a conflict to be considered prisoners of war:
1. They must be commanded by a person responsible for his/her subordinates.
2. They must have “a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance.”
3. They must carry their armament openly.
4. They must conduct operations “in accordance with the laws and customs of war.”

I guess we should just ask them nicely not to behead our soldiers and journalists …. thats after we give them their Miranda rights. Lets just make nicey nicey right Obama ??

KR, have you read about how many of the prisoners in Guantanamo were captured? Apparently a bounty of $3000 to $5000 was paid to warlords and other groups in charge, for captured ‘insurgents’, no evidence required. That isn’t okay with me, that someone is captured for a bounty without credible evidence and then should be tortured for information.
For the same reason, our police aren’t allowed to torture. Any innocent could be rounded up and then ‘made to talk’ if that was allowed.

American people! Set aside your political affiliations and transpose the actions of Cheney/Bush defending torture upon any other world leaders. You would demand prosecution in The Hague. Beat this drum. Stay on message. Demand equal justice or be hypocrites. For a country as advanced as the USA to approach and commit the atrocities to which a third world nation would resort is beyond reason. Cheney is beyond reason. We were better. We are better than that.
Nice work. Who do you work for the DPRK?

I am not surprised that Obama would throw the CIA under the bus just to take heat off the health care bill while he lavishes himself and the royal family in Marthas vinyard

Obamas motto: kill a baby..love a terrorist

Ok, I admit that Bush flopped in many ways but I felt much safer with Bush in the white house than I do with Barack Obama.

“You really only watch one source for news don’t you? I was in Iraq, we Won, the people now have freedom! There were WMD’s, I personaly saw the bodies of kurds killed by these, Saddam was comitting genocide!!! I witnessed it! While I was over there you were in your cozy living room watching your lib station blast those protecting you! And Obama isn’t fixing the economy,”
GET HONEST
Fabian, you have been posting here since 911…when were u in Iraq..”Fibian”

Me thinks Cheney doth protest too much. We will likely find out that the paranoid sociopath actually participated in the illegal and immoral interrogations. This issue is not about terrorists and what they did; it is about what THIS nation did. The ends DO NOT justify the means and never will. Believing that any action is permissable if it reaches some goal is a slipper slope. Hitler and the Nazis believed in “racial purity” and justified the extermination of over 6 million people. Keep in mind that the Bush administration had also created the same incarceration and interrogation strategy for American citizens, but it was never implemented. Thank god for term limits.

This administration or any other administration has no business going after the professionals at the CIA.
Posted by: Dan
what if they broke the law…..?
we’re a country of laws right….?
the investigation…… is looking into whether the guidelines of the policies Bush set out were not followed…
you want all agencies of the government to be immune from prosecution… talk about a totalitarian view point.

Only an idiot would condemn the supposed “torture” of terrorists out to murder our children. How twisted that any would think it wrong to do whatever to protect our children…which makes me think that most complaining are terrorist supporters (Including Obama’s administration and self.)

Only an idiot would condemn the supposed “torture” of terrorists out to murder our children.
Posted by: PotatoeGater22
you fit your own definition, blind faith in things you know nothing about

Cheney popping out of the woodwork to criticize a sitting president in a time of war? Not very patriotic.
I’d dare say that Cheney is putting the safety of Americans at risk by making these questionable accusations,

“Cheney popping out of the woodwork to criticize a sitting president in a time of war? Not very patriotic.”
Tastes pretty bitter, does it? You guys must really hate these shoes on the other feet.
You don’t want us to count the number of times Obama did it, do you?

“They bankrupted this country”
Obama’s answer to too much spending is four times as much spending.
Fantastic!
The economy is in trouble and Obama is going to take the hit.
It’s on his watch.

-The economy is in trouble and Obama is going to take the hit.-
No, he won’t. We will.

Put a legal pistol against the CIA’s skull, right Utopians? Remove yet another check and balance, on the road to Dictatorship.

And when you are done deciding where the line is, what does that make you?

2012 can’t get here soon enough.

Democrat pollster Pat Caddel, who worked in the Carter administration, is now openly expressing his grave concerns about the honesty and competence of this administration.

KR, have you read about how many of the prisoners in Guantanamo were captured? Apparently a bounty of $3000 to $5000 was paid to warlords and other groups in charge, for captured ‘insurgents’, no evidence required. That isn’t okay with me, that someone is captured for a bounty without credible evidence and then should be tortured for information.
For the same reason, our police aren’t allowed to torture. Any innocent could be rounded up and then ‘made to talk’ if that was allowed
————-
you are making some rather broad assumptions and lumping them together. First you assume they are all innocent then assume they are all tortured. With that, you must also assume that the military has no vetting process for those rewards, like we just hand them out for arbitrary reasons. Based on you’re broad assumptions, I think it speaks more to what you want to believe than what is reality.

This is why people go back and examine what happened during Bush’s administration. Because of blatant b.s. like this. 9/11, the Iraq War, torture and the financial disaster all happened during Bush’s watch. Now, what happens from now on, is on Obama’s watch.
================
So is August 25th the cutoff day between new a administration’s responsibility and the old administration’s responsibility?

Public support for closing Gitmo now 32%, down 6% since May.

So is August 25th the cutoff day between new a administration’s responsibility and the old administration’s responsibility?
Posted by: MayBee | Aug 25, 2009 1:47:01 PM
***
Depends on what we’re talking about, just like every time the presidency switches administrations and parties. It’s unbecoming to act like you don’t get it for partisan reasons– that’s not directed at MayBee in particular, just in general.

Forgive my intrusion, but fine as those sentiments sound, little has changed for us peasants down here on the ground. Turn a blind eye Evita..er..Obama, turn a blind eye! Instead of government, we had a stage. Instead of ideas, higher taxes we paid. Instead of help we were left to drown, he didn’t say much, but he said it loud. Barry Obama Peron.

It is only a dream Alyson.

Public support for closing Gitmo now 32%, down 6% since May.
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | Aug 25, 2009 1:51:30 PM
***
Last fall both General Petraeus and Admiral Mullen said they thought closing Gitmo was in the best interest of the troops because it serves as a symbol and recruiting tool that strengthens our enemy, those who wish to kill our troops and us. I know vast improvements have been made there and moving the detainees is a mess, but I want it closed, and I would think all of those who care about our troops would as well, no? And as a tangent, if I can’t forget the images of that place before the improvements were put into place, how can we expect the world community to?
I suspect approval of closing it is waning as people ponder having the detainees on US soil, possibly in their state, and as they worry about the economy and matters closer to their everyday lives. But I continue to support the Prez in his efforts, and the troops in theirs, while acknowledging it’s a hot mess of a situation to sort out.

It is only a dream Alyson.
Posted by: Reflect09 | Aug 25, 2009 2:07:38 PM
***
:>) I deserve that for bringing it up. Fairplay. Gotta say I wish ALL of it was only a dream.

Instead of help we were left to drown
Posted by: mojo
the residents of new orleans actually had that happen to them……thank you Bush & Cheney

congress for which Obama was a member is indeed the major reason for this mess. You do remember Obama was senator don’t you?
Just keep blaming Bush. Easier…

Gotta say I wish ALL of it was only a dream.
You’ll wake up when the economy dies.

You’ll wake up when the economy dies.
Posted by: Life Support
Republicans really want that to happen… sad

Bush was Mayor of NOLA?
Posted by: Waterbus
nah.. he was in charge of playing air guitar and sitting on his duff while Katrina happened and NOLA drowned
Posted by: TJ | Aug 25, 2009 2:30:13 PM
***
Too funny. I thought he was doing one of his little tap dances.

Bush knew about Katrina in advance and did nothing to stop it.
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | Aug 25, 2009 2:35:48 PM
Wow, something close to the truth for once. From the AP:
“In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, risk lives in New Orleans’ Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage of the briefings.
Bush didn’t ask a single question during the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck on Aug. 29 but assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: “We are fully prepared.” “

Gotta say I wish ALL of it was only a dream.
You’ll wake up when the economy dies.
Posted by: Life Support | Aug 25, 2009 2:28:32 PM
***
Actually, my biz and my husband’s both starting feeling the squeeze about five years ago, and I listened to the economists who predicted this mess, so I’m in pretty good shape. I do thank my mistrust of Cheney for waking me up to many, many things:)

“The guide, called “Your Life, Your Choices,” was suspended under the Bush administration but has been revived by veterans officials in the Obama administration.”
Fox news is still pushing this lie I see.
Here’s the Bush admin in 2007 on the guide.
“Bush February 2007 directive
Primary care practitioners are responsible for:
a. Raising the issue of advance care planning with all patients who have decision-making capacity, explaining that they do this with all their patients. These conversations may be brief, or more extensive, depending on the patient’s circumstances. For patients who request more information and/or assistance completing advance directive forms, the primary care practitioner may personally provide the information and/or assistance, or make a referral to another qualified individual (see par. 9).
b. Giving patients pertinent educational materials (e.g., Refer patients to the “Your Life, Your Choices” module in MyHealtheVet at the web site

Ever wonder why the residents of Iowa didn’t whine when their state went under water?
Ever wonder why city buses in NOLA went under water instead of out of the city filled with people?
Ever wonder why the local authorities stopped supplies from getting to the Superdome?
Ever wonder how many people were plucked off roof tops by the Coast Guard within a couple of hours after the storm passed?
Do any of you have the first idea who the first responders are supposed to be?
Any of you even know that people are told to be ready for three days on their own following a storm?
Any of you know that Ray Nagin does not live in NOLA?
Nah, didn’t think so.

Bush knew about Katrina in advance and did nothing to stop it.
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn
Wow, something close to the truth for once….
Posted by: Alyson |
Ummm, it was pardoy. I didn’t know there was someone who thought you could stop a hurricane. Wow indeed.

It’s nice to have opinions instead of facts.
Posted by: drjohn | Aug 25, 2009 2:52:15 PM
***
Right back at ya:) Facts, dr. john. Your posts have few of them, although you try to disguise a few opinions as facts.

Ummm, it was pardoy. I didn’t know there was someone who thought you could stop a hurricane. Wow indeed.
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | Aug 25, 2009 2:52:33 PM
Awwww. You don’t get it? “Katrina” is sometimes used to refer to the whole mess not just the hurricane. Hence your parody actually approximated a bit of truth.

From page 94 of the CIA torture report:
“During the course of this Review, a number of Agency officers expressed unsolicited concern about the possibility of recrimination or legal action resulting from their participation in the CTC program….One officer expressed concern that one day, Agency officers will wind up on some “wanted list” to appear before the World Court for war crimes…”

“Ever wonder why the residents of Iowa didn’t whine when their state went under water?”
Any answer to this dr john?

‘One officer expressed concern that one day, Agency officers will wind up on some “wanted list” to appear before the World Court for war crimes…”‘
Entirely reasonable. Guys like Obama and Holder create their own definitions of torture in a retrospective fashion.
Twice the Congress refused to define waterboarding as torture. Pelosi and the rest of the gang knew all about it. They ran, of course, when things got a bit hot.
This is all a canard. 94% of Americans don’t want this done.

This is all a canard. 94% of Americans don’t want this done.
Posted by: drjohn |
POTUS is on record as not wanting this done either. Who’s in charge?

“Any answer to this dr john?”
Simple.
No Blanco
No Nagin
Posted by: drjohn |
And now it’s time for rebuttal from the critical theorists.

“Who’s in charge?”
Nobody…

-And now it’s time for rebuttal from the critical theorists-
Bush’s fault!

Waterboarding worked well, and saved many American lives. The Dem intelligence committee leaders knew of it at the time and condoned it.
I am glad it was done, and so are most Americans. Those men who did it have done much more for this country than has Barack Obama, who has cost millions of Americans their jobs and in his first year has saddled the country with more debt than any previous president in any four-year term.

“A crime has been committed and a stain put upon the United States’s legacy.”
Proclaiming a crime without an investigation doesn’t mean there is a crime. Also its a bit nefarious that those charged with prosecuting such a crime are Presidential appointees.
Also, between 2002-2004, when this tactic was employed, there was no outrage within the Congress. Funny how it became an issue come election time. Suddenly, congress is outraged. Right. No bearing on politics whatsoever I’m sure.

“Two Democrats were briefed.”
That should have read 4 Democrats, not two.

“Two Democrats were briefed.
Harman issued a complaint and Pelosi said she was not fulled briefed which despite howls from the right turns out to be true.”
Not fully briefed? That’s a good excuse:
Published: Sunday, May 24, 2009
Fact Check
Pelosi’s changing story on waterboarding
By JOE MILLER
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said unequivocally in February: “I can say flat out, they never told us that these enhancement interrogations were being used.”
In April, she said “We were not told” about the program at any briefing.
But a CIA memo released May 6 flatly contradicts those claims, stating CIA personnel gave Pelosi “a description of the particular EITs (enhanced interrogation techniques) that had been employed.” That briefing was in September 2002.
Pelosi now admits that an aide told her about the interrogation techniques in 2003, but she still maintains that the CIA didn’t tell her in 2002 that waterboarding had been used.–
ABC:
“The CIA briefed me only once on enhanced interrogation techniques in September 2002 in my capacity as ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. I was informed then that the Department of Justice opinions had concluded that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques were legal. The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed,” Pelosi said today, reading from a prepared statement.
Terror suspect Abu Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding 83 times in August 2002, the month prior to when Pelosi was briefed about enhanced

“It is that Iowans by culture (rural, farming) and by experience are their own “first responders”. They take care of themselves and each other in flood just like in everything else. They live by the premises that the best govt is that is most local and which governs least, even if they don’t always vote that way.”
Indeed.

Obama: “We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards”
“Holder to Appoint Prosecutor to Investigate CIA Terror Interrogations”
It’s no wonder no one believes Obama any more.

‘ Iowans…They take care of themselves and each other in flood just like in everything else.’
no doubt this is true…..
anyone want to check how much federal money has been accepted by those charming Iowa folks?
and then redistributed around the state….
makes me think of Texas and all the carping from the Gov to the residential wing-nuts.. anti-government except when they’re accepting money from……. the government

Posted by: Ryan C | Aug 25, 2009 3:56:25 PM
Heck no. I’d love to waterboard Pelosi and Frank and Reid.
Besides, you’ve used that card all up. Time for a new one.

Didja hear that Democrats want National Service Day on September 11 so that they can wipe out the memory of 9-11?

Do we know that the alleged torturers were right-wingers? Do we know whether they thought the alleged victims were non-white?

Support for closing Gitmo now at 32%.
Hmmm

“Didja hear that Democrats want National Service Day on September 11 so that they can wipe out the memory of 9-11?”
It would be Bush and the Republicans who want to erase the memory of their huge failure to protect the country on 9/11.

“I’m skeptical about any prosecutor being non-political. And given the fact that the particular method used by interrogators was not deemed illegal at the time, made illegal only later, I have concerns about retrospective prosecution. ”
Are you serious?
Are you saying that because Bush’s lawyers said it was legal it cannot be prosecuted?

This is the correct quote:
“It was not widely known that this tactic was employed. When it become politically popular to do so, the Democrats blasted it.”

-Are you saying that because Bush’s lawyers said it was legal it cannot be prosecuted?-
Seems to be Pelosi’s argument:
“The CIA briefed me only once on enhanced interrogation techniques in September 2002 in my capacity as ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. I was informed then that the Department of Justice opinions had concluded that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques were legal. The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed,” Pelosi said today, reading from a prepared statement”

“Are you serious?
Are you saying that because Bush’s lawyers said it was legal it cannot be prosecuted?”
And Obama’s lawyers say its illegal and should be prosecuted? That knife cuts both ways. Thats why the DOJ should NOT be involved, period.

“It is that Iowans by culture (rural, farming) and by experience are their own “first responders”. They take care of themselves and each other in flood just like in everything else. They live by the premises that the best govt is that is most local and which governs least, even if they don’t always vote that way.”
Iowans are much more likely to have a rowboat and know how to use it than city folks.

Just got worse, drjohn:
ABC:
“The CIA and the Obama Administration continue to keep secret some of the most shocking allegations involving the spy agency’s interrogation program: three deaths and several other detainees whose whereabouts could not be determined, according to a former senior intelligence official who has read the full, unredacted version.
A 2004 CIA Office of the Inspector General report is missing information on three deaths and more…
A 2004 CIA Office of the Inspector General report is missing information on three deaths and more than a dozen detainees whose whereabouts could not be determined, according to a former senior intelligence official who has read the full, unredacted version.
(Handout)Of the 109 pages in the 2004 report, 36 were completely blacked out in the version made public Monday, and another 30 were substantially redacted for “national security” reasons.”

The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed,” Pelosi said today, reading from a prepared statement”
You don’t think that Nancy’s like, lying, do ya?

-You don’t think that Nancy’s like, lying, do ya?-
“The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough,” said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.”
Nothing to see here, please disperse!

Posted by: Ryan C | Aug 25, 2009 4:15:51 PM
Nice work. You showed that everything I said was correct.
Thanks!

-“A federal search warrant obtained by the Post-Dispatch connects a former Democratic campaign strategist to a Clayton bombing last year that seriously injured an attorney.” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)”
A guy who tried to kill his wife’s divorce lawyer is political terrorism?-
He did work for the Democratic campaign. He is connected to left wing politics. This bears close watching…

“Let me guess….it was a copy paste and you didn’t read the article.”
Wrong yet again. It was simply an example of a left-winger resorting to violence, as is typical.

“Are you saying that because Bush’s lawyers said it was legal it cannot be prosecuted?”
The federal machine can prosecute anyone it chooses to prosecute. The question is whether it is sound judgment to do so in this case. The answer is very clearly no, and the American people know that. It is only the extreme left that disagrees.

“Which is why I am not the special prosecutor.”
Actually, there are many, many other reasons why you are not the special prosecutor.
BJRUYYTG!

“And Obama’s lawyers say its illegal and should be prosecuted? That knife cuts both ways. Thats why the DOJ should NOT be involved, period.”
Do you think torture is legal or not?
Do you agree with Woo that the President can basically do as he wishes during war?

Do you think torture is legal or not?
I’ll say it again. Nacy Pelosi does. And so do I.

“Do you agree with Woo that the President can basically do as he wishes during war?”
Generally speaking, in war, the rules apply as long as your winning. When you think you are losing the war, the rules go out the window. But beside that fact, there were probably at least one to two hundred people involved, probably more, and none of them protested, or quit over it? Wheres the “I didn’t want to do it, the President made me!” It’s such BS. At the time, it was not seen as torture by conventional definitions. Was it an extreme tactic? Sure. Did it walk a fine line? Sure. Was it borderline? Sure. That means it came down to opinion, which would change depending on who you talked to. So depending on your opinion, there was a crime, or there wasn’t.

“Then the Democrats on that committee failed (in your view). And their outrage is manufactured if I can use that word, after the fact. Thus, allegations of illegality are also, after the fact. The Senate bill in 2006 was of course, after the fact. Retrospective is a dangerous thing in war. And thus I, if any prosecution is going to come to any one involved in interrogations, those 4 Democrats should sit in the defendent chair with them.”
Deal.
The Democrats that knew and said nothing can stand for charges of not stopping it.
Cheney can stand for starting it.
Woo & Bybee can stand for authorizing it.
And the operators who did the actual torture can stand as well because I was just followiung orders is no excuse.

‘It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department.” –Attorney General Eric Holder, April 2009

“The Democrats that knew and said nothing can stand for charges of not stopping it.
Cheney can stand for starting it.”
Equal guilt under the law. There are no degrees of guilt there. And EIT has been around since the early days of the Cold War (Just after the Korean War specifically). We might have to go dig Eisenhower up for prosecution.

Made illegal after the fact.”
No it was illegal beforehand.
Otherwise there would not have been the legal handwringing to make sure the Geneva Conventions were not applied.
“Please don’t dig up the WW2 example. Waterboarding in WW2 was far larger in scope, such as injesting 2 gallons of water through the nose, bloating the belly, then sitting on the captives stomach until he vomitted the water. There is nothing that points to GITMO injesting any water. There wasn’t even any evidence that GITMO detainees lost conciousness, which was typical and purposeful in WW2 Japan waterboarding. Lets not get into the details of this, yet again. Lets just clear this up…”
Ok no Japan. I know its embarrassing for right wingers to be presented with direct evidence of war crimes and how they relate to the actions undertaken in recent years.
Wapo:”More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that “the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to . . . the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee’s mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation.”
In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners’ civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to “subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning.”
The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison.”

Chuck U. Schumer, June 8, 2004:
“And I’d like to interject a note of balance here. There are times when we all get in high dudgeon. We ought to be reasonable about this. I think there are probably very few people in this room or in America who would say that torture should never, ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake.
“Take the hypothetical: If we knew that there was a nuclear bomb hidden in an American city and we believed that some kind of torture, fairly severe maybe, would give us a chance of finding that bomb before it went off, my guess is most Americans and most senators, maybe all, would say, Do what you have to do.
So it’s easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used. But when you’re in the foxhole, it’s a very different deal.”
Neither Obama nor Holder has ever been in any kind of foxhole. It shows.

“Equal guilt under the law. There are no degrees of guilt there.”
Fine equal guilt.
Now that 4 Democrats will stand with Cheney, do you approve?
Or do you need to move the goalposts again?

“Now that 4 Democrats will stand with Cheney, do you approve?
Or do you need to move the goalposts again?”
Never moved them, they stayed the same. You just now found them.

Cheney slams Obama for opening investigation for CIA interrogations. It was not the Obama administration that opened the terror interrogations, it was the ACLU seeking info through court orders that got the pot stirred. Obama administration can only abide by court orders. Now that the info is out there and it appears that laws were broken during these interrogations, the U.S Attorney General must now investigate these wrong doins.

-Obama administration can only abide by court orders.-
You mean like this?
“The CIA and the Obama Administration continue to keep secret some of the most shocking allegations involving the spy agency’s interrogation program: three deaths and several other detainees whose whereabouts could not be determined, according to a former senior intelligence official who has read the full, unredacted version.
A 2004 CIA Office of the Inspector General report is missing information on three deaths and more…
A 2004 CIA Office of the Inspector General report is missing information on three deaths and more than a dozen detainees whose whereabouts could not be determined, according to a former senior intelligence official who has read the full, unredacted version.
(Handout)Of the 109 pages in the 2004 report, 36 were completely blacked out in the version made public Monday, and another 30 were substantially redacted for “national security” reasons.”

“Appears to be split down party lines, which is why the whole thing should be avoided yet it create more polarization in the country.”
The leftists/Obama admin are going to drop this real quick. I can’t imagine why.

“No one believed what they were doing was illegal or we would have heard about it by now. The media and the Democrats would be heralding the guy as the only one with a concious.”
Maybe you missed the book tour last year by a CIA interrogator.
But that is quite a standard of logic you have, that because it was not reported no one had qualms.

“US Citizens and different laws.
Posted by: KR | Aug 25, 2009 4:52:37 PM”
ROFLMAO!
More goal post moving.

“Would this include Cheney? Nancy Pelosi?”
Sure.
“Guess the truth or justice is not that important.”
It is to me.
Right wingers apparently feel differently.

-Do we have a deal on prosecution?-
Now you want a deal? What about Cheney!? What’s that term you use “ROFLMAO?” Let me guess, things are different now…

heney’s reaction is not surprising. We were lead by the Bush/Cheney axis of evil for too long. The robo calls into homes durng the election which frightened children answering the phone
would fit right in with the repub attitude. No matter how Mary spins it all now for her Dad, it is what it is.

Posted by: Ryan C | Aug 25, 2009 5:11:00 PM
Why did Obama release blacked out reports? What is being hidden?
From the same article
“With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter.”
I expect that from Republicans. But righteous Democrats??

In case anyone is wondering, I will tell you right now how this will turn out:
–No one will be convicted of any crime.
–No matter what safeguards are imposed, the names of one or more undercover CIA operatives will be disclosed, even if they are entirely innocent. Their lives and the lives of their families will be endangered, and they will be substantially ruined.
–The American people will largely oppose the whole process.
–The CIA will become more dysfunctional than it already is.
–American intelligence-gathering will be materially impaired.
–Neither Valerie Plame nor the corpulent Joe Wilson will utter a word about it.

-What we must all remember is the people of the Bush-Cheney administration come under different rules-laws according to the C-Street group.-
Nothing says Bush-Cheney administration like blacked out docs!

“Let the American justice system decide the day, not the rantings of fanatics on a web blog – if there were crimes committed, so be it. Let justice be delivered.”
This will be buried by Obama. Watch…

“–Neither Valerie Plame nor the corpulent Joe Wilson will utter a word about it.”
Apparently the importance of keeping one’s undercover status undercover is if your husband dared critique false justifications for going to war.

“This will be buried by Obama. Watch…”
I have a feeling this goes all the way up to Cheney, and if so, he should go under.

“No doubt the country is split down party lines…”
Think again. Check the Independents.

“Are Americans willing to overlook the fact that laws were knowingly broken during the interrogation of these prisoners?”
Yes, they are. Take a look at Senator Schumer’s comments.
The fact is that it is a routine matter for chief executives and attorneys general to forego prosecutions in the larger interest of the nation and its security. It takes nice judgment to decide when to prcceed and when not to. (FDR and Truman declined to prosecute numerous instances of atrocity and torture.) Obama and Holder are incapable of such judgment, and the country is now becoming woefully aware of that sad fact.

Obama and Holder are incapable of such judgment, and the country is now becoming woefully aware of that sad fact.
See my comment below. They may be incapable of judgement on that but they can CYA.

Hardly surprising since there so little difference between Cheney and people that believe as he does and al-queda or other terrorists. Cheney represents the closest we have to Osama Bin Laden, both believe they are on a religious crusade and that any means justifies the end.

“That’s your opinion and a slimey one at that – if that’s the country you want you’re welcome to it.”
If it was good enough for FDR, JFK and Clinton, it’s good enough for me.

“Um no. US citizen under prisoner civil rights law, unlawful foreign combatants are not.”
You asked when it was illegal.
I gave examples.
And you can see I was going to cite the Geneva Convention next.
Does torture suddenly become legal because of how the perpetrators define those they torture?

“and Bush’s claim was of course 100% accurate and was confirmed by British intelligence.”
Ari Fleischer:”Now, we’ve long acknowledged and this is old news, we’ve said this repeatedly that the information on yellow cake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect.”
Tenet:”These 16 words should never have been included in the text written
for the President.”

“The fact is that it is a routine matter for chief executives and attorneys general to forego prosecutions in the larger interest of the nation and its security. It takes nice judgment to decide when to prcceed and when not to.”
And just so we are clear on the right wing standard of prosecution.
Its ok to tear the country apart over an affair with an intern.
It is not ok to go after those who approved a policy of torture.

Does anybody really think Obama is going to risk some grandstanding Senator standing up on the Senate floor after a national catastrophe and saying:
“What did Obama know, and when did he know it?”
I don’t.

-And just so we are clear on the right wing standard of prosecution.
Its ok to tear the country apart over an affair with an intern.
It is not ok to go after those who approved a policy of torture.-
I eagerly await Obama’s arrest of Senator Nancy Pelosi.

I cannot believe we are even having a conversation like this one. It doesn’t matter what you call them…AlQueda, Taliban, Terrorist, etc. it matters what they ARE, and THAT would be mass murderers.
I wish everyone who has decided that we need to “expose” the CIA and interrogation techniques would think back to 9/11 and remember how your stomach turned over, the lump in your throat, the crying, the fear, the panic of what could happen next. Get over your hand holding kumbaya selves and realize this is the real world. It’s evil and cold. There are people who want us DEAD…all of us in the USA DEAD. This whole “fact finding” mission the Obama administration is on makes me sick.

“The statement was true, and remains true to this day.”
Condi Rice: “What we’ve said subsequently is, knowing what we now know, that some of the Niger documents were apparently forged, we wouldn’t have put this in the President’s speech but that’s knowing what we know now.”

Bush’s statement concerned British intelligence. Bush’s statment was true. Nothing Rice says refutes that. Are you unable to understand that?

Anybody that reads the source documents in the prosecution of the Scooter Libby trial can see what an absolute farce Joe Wilson’s trip was.
Nobody cared if he went.
Nobody cared what he had to say when he got back.
He had his moment of fame, wrote spiteful things about Obama during the Democratic primary, and is now old news.

“So our national values have no place in real world.”
That infantile conclusion does not follow from anything I have said. And go amuse yourself by reading about the Dachau Massacre and its aftermath. Tell me about President Truman’s “values” (which as far as I can tell were pretty close to my own).

-So our national values have no place in real world-
Nor the US Senate or WH, it would seem. Senator Pelosi enables torture and Barack Obama hides CIA docs under black lines.

-It lists the grave violations.
Guess what the first one is?-
Waterboarding: not “grave” enough! Or “tough enough” for Pelosi! We need more blacklined docs as approved by Obama! The truth will be known!

“If his statement were true why would they say it should not have been included.”
I have already told you: because it created an enormous PR flap over something that was trivial. The uranium purchase was not mentioned anywhere in the legthy list of reasons cited by the congress in the Authorization for the Use of Military Force.
Wherever the WMD are, they are the same WMD that Kerry, both Clintons, Gore, Kennedy and Joe Wilson were talking about.

We had this same national debate during the Viet Nam war when Army Lt. Calley was investigated for murdering hundreds of innocent Vietnamese civilians (My Lai massacre)simply because they refused to divulge info regarding the whereabouts of the Viet Cong. There were many pros and cons as to why he shouldn’t have been prosecuted. After a lot of national debate, he was tried and found guilty of murder. Justice was served. In the end, we remembered that we’re a nation of laws. There has been several instances during the Iraq war where American troops have been accused of commiting crimes on the battlefield. They were tried for their crimes and occasional convicted. Should we now forget that we’re a nation of laws simply because higher ups are involved. If that is the case, then we should open the prison doors and release our lowly troops that’s been convicted for battlefield crimes. But if we are a nation of laws, then we should conduct a thorough investigation of the interrogations and uphold our values as a nation like we’ve always done in the past.

Holder stirring up this old pot…I smell a diversion…won’t be enough though…support for Obama and his policies will continue to wane.

“We had this same national debate during the Viet Nam war when Army Lt. Calley was investigated for murdering hundreds of innocent Vietnamese civilians (My Lai massacre)simply because they refused to divulge info regarding the whereabouts of the Viet Cong. There were many pros and cons as to why he shouldn’t have been prosecuted. After a lot of national debate, he was tried and found guilty of murder. Justice was served. In the end, we remembered that we’re a nation of laws. There has been several instances during the Iraq war where American troops have been accused of commiting crimes on the battlefield. They were tried for their crimes and occasional convicted. Should we now forget that we’re a nation of laws simply because higher ups are involved. If that is the case, then we should open the prison doors and release our lowly troops that’s been convicted for battlefield crimes. But if we are a nation of laws, then we should conduct a thorough investigation of the interrogations and uphold our values as a nation like we’ve always done in the past.”
Sometimes I despair reading these boards.
Posts like this give me hope that America hasn’t turned into a bunch of right wing sadist parroting what they saw on Fox News.

Bush did not use it to sell the invasion. He used the matters recited in the AUMF. Go read it.
“And the Democrats learned a very important lesson. Never ever trust the right wing.”
But it was the left wing that began selling the WMD threat under Clinton in 1998 and earlier. Tenet was appointed CIA Director by Clinton. And all of America has since learned a valuable lesson: Never ever trust Bill Clinton.

(Correction: I had retired before 9/11. A couple hundred of my good friends were in the building at the time the plot surfaced.)

-But thanks for the opportunity to show that the right wing media is lying…again-
Leftists are easy to fool.

The statute also prohibits certain conduct specifically intended to cause “severe physical suffering” distinct from “severe physical pain.”
Tough enough?

“The “torture” helped uncover a plot to fly a plane into the office building I was working in at the time.”
Really?
That is strange since that “plot” was broken up before we even tortured anyone.

“But thanks for the opportunity to show that the right wing media is lying…again.”
False, yet again, and apparently intentionally so. When you quote an opinion, give its date, unless you are intending to deceive.
That opinion was written in 2004, after the activities in question, and has no effect on the validity of McCarthy’s argument concerning the law in effect at the time of those events. And of course in a court of law the D.C. Circuit opinion will be controlling; no legal opinion can contravene it.

The loopy left is not merely indifferent to the truth, it is hostile to it:
“The plot was finally thwarted in the summer of 2003, when a man suspected to be a key member of JI, an Indonesian known as Hambali, was arrested in Thailand.”
Zubaydah was waterboarded in 2002; KSM was waterboarded in March, 2003.

My point, Johmnnyle, is precisely that in fact we haven’t “always” prosecuted alleged criminal misconduct in the prosecution of a war. See, e.g., the Dachau Massacre, which Ryan C is apparently terrified to discuss.
I was in Vietnam, and I very much wanted to see Calley prosecuted because of the enormity and stupidity of his crime, and the contribution it made to the hostility toward those of us who fought there.
The actions of these CIA people are of an entirely different kind and character. We know that these men saved many lives; there is something rather shameful about a nation that was all too willing to accept the great benefits the CIA gave them (using methods that were known to the people’s representatives at the time), and now turning on them when the danger seems to have lessened. There is nothing quite like mindless left-wing rage, particularly when it can be directed against those who defend the US.

“Bush had Clinton fooled in 1998…”
Obviously the most powerful governor in Texas history.

The US learned of the plot in 2002. It was not quashed until the Summer of 2003. And making a fool of you with such regularity satisfies my sadism most adequately.
McCarthy did not lie in the slightest, and if you were capable of being ashamed you would be ashamed of saying so.
The 2004 memo, while superseding the one from 2002, did not affect the matter McCarthy was discussing, and it did exactly what it said he did. Here is the part on which he relied:
“Although we conclude that inclusion of the words “or suffering” in “severe physical pain or suffering” establishes that physical torture is not limited to “severe physical pain,” we also conclude that Congress did not intend “severe physical pain or suffering” to include a category of “physical suffering” that would be so broad as to negate the limitations on the other categories of torture in the statute. Moreover, the “physical suffering” covered by the statute must be “severe” to be within the statutory prohibition. We conclude that under some circumstances “physical suffering” may be of sufficient intensity and duration to meet the statutory definition of torture even if it does not involve “severe physical pain.” To constitute such torture, “severe physical suffering” would have to be a condition of some extended duration or persistence as well as intensity. The need to define a category of “severe physical suffering” that is different from “severe physical pain,” and that also does not undermine the limited definition Congress provided for torture, along with the requirement that any such physical suffering be “severe,” calls for an interpretation under which “severe physical suffering” is reserved for physical distress that is “severe” considering its intensity and duration or persistence, rather than merely mild or transitory

I support the CIA no matter what.

“There is now no incentive for Hussein to comply with the inspectors or to refrain from using weapons of mass destruction to defend himself if the United States comes after him.
And he will use them; we should be under no illusion about that.
Hussein and Aziz both told me directly that Iraq reserved the right to use every weapon in its arsenal if invaded, just as it had against Iran and later the Kurds.
The fact that thousands of men, women and children had died in these attacks fazed them not one bit. In fact, Aziz could barely be bothered to stop puffing on his Cuban cigar as he made these comments, of so little importance was the use of chemicals to kill people.
It is probably too late to change Hussein’s assessment, and that will make any ensuing battle for Iraq that much more dangerous for our troops and for the Iraqis who find themselves in the battlefield. ”
=====
Joe Wilson, Feb 26 2003

Right-wing rage gets directed at Americans too…
Posted by: Skip |
Yes I know but seriously who does the American left rage against other than fellow Americans.

Direct quote from the 2004 DoJ memo:
“As the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has explained:
“‘The severity requirement is crucial to ensuring that the conduct proscribed by the [CAT] and the TVPA is sufficiently extreme and outrageous to warrant the universal condemnation that the term torture’ both connotes and invokes. The drafters of the [CAT], as well as the Reagan Administration that signed it, the Bush Administration that submitted it to Congress, and the Senate that ultimately ratified it, therefore all sought to ensure that ‘only acts of a certain gravity shall be considered to constitute torture.’
“The critical issue is the degree of pain and suffering that the alleged torturer intended to, and actually did, inflict upon the victim. The more intense, lasting, or heinous the agony, the more likely it is to be torture.”
The D.C. Circuit said exactly what McCarthy said, and the 2004 DoJ memo reaffirmed that it viewed that case as stating the law.
Will Ryan C apologize? No, he’ll just lie again and move on. Will he tell us about how Truman trashed American values by not prosecuting the Dachau Marracre soldiers? No, that case it inconvenitent to the current nutball leftism, so it will be ignored.

There’s no statute of limitations on murder. Why didn’t Clinton prosecute?
“One of the last acts of the Clinton administration in January 2001 was the admitting that its troops had carried out the massacre at No Gun Ri in 1950. Outgoing US Defense Secretary William Cohen announced plans for a mem’rial and commemorative scholarships “as a symbol of our deep regret’. It was in June 2000 that the President of South Korea, Kim Dae-jung, called on the US government to conduct an inquiry into the alleged mass killing of Korean civilian refugees by US soldiers at a railway bridge No Gun Ri, South Korea on July 26th,1950. Recent investigations by the Associated Press news agency, started by the journalist Charles HanIey in 1997, into a number of incidents, have shattered the conventional picture that all the atrocities in the Korean war were committed either by the North Koreans or their Chinese allies.”
If a crime has been committed, it has to be prosecuted–right?

It appears that another Leftist, having been exposed in yet another lie, has skulked away rather than either offering a defense or apologizing.
Skip? No, it is pork chop night at his house. Wouldn’t miss that either!

VacuousHyena
using the Bush DOJ as source for justification opinions on torture is pretty funny…..

Thomas Paine:
“An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”

Reagan would have no qualms about what was done and there’s no way on Earth Reagan would have allowed the persecution of CIA agents trying to protect the USA.

I support the CIA no matter what.
==========================================
This reminiscent of the line “I support President Bush 100%”…..Blind faith in people, political ideals, or organizations is never good…Let the facts fall where they may…Just be be sure they are indeed facts and not political vendettas..

Unlike Obama, Reagan loved his country.

Unlike Obama, Reagan loved his country.
Posted by: drjohn | Aug 26, 2009 9:59:43 AM
***
More opinion! I think they both loved and love their country, and I also think you’ll have one heck of a time providing evidence that Reagan would condone torture. But hey, we can trade opinion all day. What I posted was what he actually said and signed. Your conjecture is par for the course though, I’ll give you that.

defending your ideology and this president
***
This morning I’m actually defending Reagan and Paine. I’ll help you keep up–
Ronald Reagan, May 20, 1988, transmitting the Convention Against Torture to the Senate for ratification:
“The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.”
“The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called “universal jurisdiction.” Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.”
Convention Against Torture, signed and championed by Ronald Reagan, Article II/IV:
“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. . . Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law.”
Thomas Paine:
“An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”

GOP maintains steady 43-38 lead in generic congressional ballot.
24% think Dems should pass healthcare bill without GOP support.

And, btw, as an afterthought, if I were to choose one of the two, I’d rather be posting my facts as opinions, since facts can change, than my opinions as so-called facts.

“GOP maintains steady 43-38 lead in generic congressional ballot.
24% think Dems should pass healthcare bill without GOP support.”
Shocking results from Republimussen.
The Democrats should pass the bill on their own.
The GOP has shown they are not interested in good faith negotiation.

“Yeah remember when he stepped in and stopped the prosecution of Oliver North for his role in the CIA selling weapons to Iran in exchange for cash for right wing death squads in Nicaragua?”
Were any documents blacked out?

“If a crime has been committed, it has to be prosecuted–right?”
ROFLMAO!
This is what you are reduced to?
Citing 60 year old crimes in which the perpetrators are likely dead?
Anything to defend torture directed by the Bush admin.

-He deliberately misrepresented what the 2004 memo stated.-
Picky, picky…And Nancy Pelosi wasn’t aware of anything either…like those WMDs that Bush tricked her about…

“Were any documents blacked out?”
Sure.
The ones Ollie didn’t shred to hide his guilt.

“Posted by: Barry’s War | Aug 26, 2009 12:50:05 PM”
Belle Starr, nifty new monicker.

“Belle Starr, nifty new monicker.”
You said that yesterday…You’re slipping.

“You said that yesterday…You’re slipping.
Posted by: Barry’s War | Aug 26, 2009 12:57:15 PM”
And its as true today as it was yesterday.

Frances Townsend, on CNN last night:
“It’s very difficult to draw a cause and effect, because it’s not clear when techniques were applied vs. when that information was received. It’s implicit. It seems, when you read the report, that we got the — the — the most critical information after techniques had been applied. But the report doesn’t say that.”
In other words, Cheney hasn’t been vindicated at all in his claims that the CIA docs would settle the question of whether or not torture worked. Even a top terror adviser in his and Bush’s administration admits as much.

Alyson,
Do you think people loyal to Bush are trying to shift blame to Cheney on this?
Posted by: Ryan C | Aug 26, 2009 1:39:58 PM
***
Ahhhh. In order to protect Bush? I don’t know. Bush isn’t running around making claims and accusations, while Cheney is, and when his bluff is called, he’s not vindicated. I thought perhaps Townsend was being “honest.” Is that asking for too much? She could be. I have no idea.

It seems like Bush has fled the scene. If trouble really comes he’s just going to kind of duck and hope it all catches Cheney.

Not necessarily protect him from legal jeopardy but I was thinking of his legacy.
“I thought perhaps Townsend was being “honest.” Is that asking for too much? She could be. I have no idea.”
One can still be honest while taking political advantage.
Posted by: Ryan C | Aug 26, 2009 2:07:43 PM
***
True on the latter. Interesting theory on the former. If so, Cheney may be helping him a bit with his memoir, yes? Did you read the WaPo article about Cheney “uncloaking” his frustration with Bush? From WaPo:
“”In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him,” said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney’s reply. “He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney’s advice. He’d showed an independence that Cheney didn’t see coming. It was clear that Cheney’s doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times — never apologize, never explain — and Bush moved toward the conciliatory.”"
“The two men maintain respectful ties, speaking on the telephone now and then, though aides to both said they were never quite friends. But there is a sting in Cheney’s critique, because he views concessions to public sentiment as moral weakness. After years of praising Bush as a man of resolve, Cheney now intimates that the former president turned out to be more like an ordinary politician in the end. “

“True on the latter. Interesting theory on the former. If so, Cheney may be helping him a bit with his memoir, yes? Did you read the WaPo article about Cheney “uncloaking” his frustration with Bush? From WaPo:”
The former theory still is tricky because portraying one’s VP as off the reservation calls into question who was really “President”.

“I’ll just add that it would be kind of fun to see Bush and Cheney go at it in dueling memoirs”
Ooooo-dee-lolly!

Alyson,
Did you see this Think Progress piece of Gonzales?
Think Progress:”In an interview with Law.com, disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales attempts to walk back pro-torture arguments he made to President Bush, claiming that he was only criticizing isolated provisions such as “a requirement that you provide athletic uniforms, commissary privileges, scientific instruments, [and] a monthly allowance” to detainees. According to Gonzales, “I didn’t mean to say that the provisions of the Geneva Conventions requiring basic humane treatment were outdated. No, I didn’t say that.”
Gonzales’ attempt to whitewash his previous statement, however, does not jibe with the facts. Here’s what Gonzales actually wrote in a 2002 memo to President Bush:
The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians, and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as wantonly killing civilians. In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip (i.e., advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms, and scientific instruments.”

“OMG. This guy is unbelievable. I love how it goes on to explain that he misquotes the Geneva Convention, or just makes up stuff, in his lame defense.And this is the guy who was so upset that his rep has been tarnished? Puh-lease. I’m not surprised no law firms offered him a job.”
I think Bush called in a favor and got him a job at Texas Tech.
I am guessing that is not the reward he had in mind when he betrayed this country’s values.

Remember you don’t neccesarily get truth from extreme torture. Esspecially if you are telling the detainee what you want him to say. And that is exactly how the 9-11 confessions were obtained.

“”"”"”Remember you don’t neccesarily get truth from extreme torture. Esspecially if you are telling the detainee what you want him to say. And that is exactly how the 9-11 confessions were obtained.”"”"”
Posted by: Kent
Which confessions? Were you there? Now you say “extreme torture”? You’ve been watching too many TV shows. 1st, these are “scare tactics” to get people to give up information. They are not cutting off fingers, read the article. 2nd, Where do these media outlets find ex-officials who read the un censored report? Don’t you find this convenient? 3rd, our CIA needs to operate covertly and you need to just continue on with your life. Leave the CIA to do their job.

Resign Obama.

Yea,I have something to say.If obama is going back to investigate the CIA,then why can`t we go back and investigate the records of obama`s birth certificate? I`ll tell you why he wants so called torture stopped, because those are his people we are tortureing. Hes looking for something that might be against our laws.Well so is the american public looking for his past records which may also be against our laws.
BOY, THE NERVE OF THIS GUY!!!!!!!