Where’s the Outrage?

The Economist magazine recently asked if President George W. Bush might face some type of international war crimes trial after he leaves office. A retired American general is quoted as saying that the Bush administration is likely guilty of war crimes for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

You might think that lying his way into a tragic war might have already merited President Bush a charge of treason. Still, there may be an outside chance of justice with evolving standards of international law. If we can’t get justice by Bush being apprehended while abroad and placed in a cell, at least we should see the prospect of formal charges and a measure of circumspection by Bush as to where he travels after his Presidency.

On a similar note, human rights activists in France and Germany have begun to seek human rights charges against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield. The linked article explains this more specifically.

Can a person in power get away with anything at all? One hopes that after such a brutal 20th-century, this new century will bring better standards of global justice.

Please click here for a review of “The Dark Side–The Inside Story Of How The War On Terror Turned Into A War On American Ideals” by Jane Mayer. This book discusses the Bush response of torture and breaches of American civil liberties as part of the so-called “War on Terror.”

Tags: Books, Torture, War on Terror by Texas Liberal
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I have a couple of computers in my home office. One is primarily for blogging and the other is for everything else. Well, the ‘everything else’ computer had a power supply/motherboard problem. Once I fixed those, it seemed had a hard drive issue also. Reloading everything that I had on that computer is taking some time. Some programs just are not working well for me. So, I’m reloading Windows.

I’m saying all of this as an excuse for not blogging as much as usual.

I will add one bit of news. The New York Times is reporting a new poll which shows that blacks, whites and Latinos perceive American race relations differently. No duh!!!

Oh, I have to add this interrogation video. It speaks for itself. I’ll look for other versions without a commentator yacking over it.

Here’s that interrogation video. This kid was reportedly 15 or 16 years old at the time of his video. He is a Canadian citizen.

Tags: Afghanistan, Blogging issues, Iran, Torture by ecthompson
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Okay, how about this. You come to work every day, you work hard every day, but your sales just aren’t the same as everyone else’s. Maybe you have a terrible client list. It may be what you do on the job. It may be that you’re selling a terrible product. But the fact is, your sales continue to lag behind the others. My question is — would it be okay to waterboard in order to motivate yourself? Seriously.

Waterboarding as a motivational tool… Who knew? A company of Provo, Utah actually tried this on an employee. Surprisingly, the employee volunteered. As you can no doubt figure, this clearly ended up in court.

Tags: Civil Rights, Domestic Issues, Torture by ecthompson
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Murat Kurnaz is a German citizen who was vaccuumed off a bus in Pakistan. Why he was chosen isn’t clear. It was December 2001. He was tortured in Afghanistan and then in Gitmo. Five years of his life was lost. For what? For our security? Really?

 

 60 minutes - German citizen tortured: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: 9-11, Afghanistan, Torture by ecthompson
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Both Tony Blair, former prime minister and Jack Straw, former British foreign minister, spoke before the British parliament and lied or misspoke.  They stated that CIA rendition flights didn’t touch British soil.  Oops.  We learned this week that 2 flights landed on Diego Garcia.  The current foreign minister David Miliband spilled the beans.

I’m figuring that we will be learning more about what the Bush Administration asked other governments to do in the coming months.

Tags: Bush Administration, Torture by ecthompson
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Jon Stewart has another episode of our favorite show, Torture Talk. Man, Jon needs his writers. Hopefully, they will be back soon. Jon does point out some of the craziness on capital hill. When is Mukasey just going to be a man and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we all know what the answer to the question of torture is. We all know what waterboarding is. We know our history. Unfortunately, some morons in the Department of Justice and in the White House figured that they would twist the law. Therefore, in order for me to avoid incarcerating several White House officials including the President and the Vice President I have to avoid saying what we all know. We can all avoid looking stupid by avoiding the torture subject, thank you.”

Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen so we play this game.

Tags: Bush Administration, The Daily Show, Torture by ecthompson
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I haven’t spent much time discussing the CIA destroying the tapes of their interrogations of two Al Qaeda suspects. I figured that this would fit in with all the rest of the scandals. The surprising development today. First, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, cochairman of the 9/11 commission, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times today entitled Stonewalled by the CIA. Their second paragraph gets to the meat of the matter –

The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.

US Attorney General Michael Mukasey has opened a formal criminal investigation into the destruction of the tapes. Although this seemed to be a no-brainer today outside observer, the attorney general seem to resist this notion four to six weeks ago.

Many of the blogs have been all over this. Crooks and Liars have been following this story along with TPM Muckraker. TPM Muckraker has a fabulous timeline.

Update:  Jonathan Turley was on Countdown (in the video), here’s a portion of what he said, “There‘s at least six that made compelling—there‘s a compelling basis for at least six.  You‘ve got obstruction of congress, obstruction of justice, you have perjury, conspiracy, I think, a spoliation.  There‘s also a chance you might have false statements, so the list gets longer.  But the original one is torture.  You know, many people in Congress and in the White House and at the Justice Department are framing this as an obstruction investigation, as if what‘s on those tapes is an episode of Barney.  What‘s on those tapes is the original crime in the scandal.  And that‘s the crime of torturing people.  It is still, even after the last seven years, a crime to torture suspects.” (more…)

 

 Countdown - Cia tapes [5:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, Countdown, Torture by ecthompson
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Tags: Torture by ecthompson
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As usual, we only get half of the story.  Waterboarding worked.  We got information which disrupted several plots.  On the other hand, Brian Ross of ABC News didn’t really ask about false information that sent federal agents on wild goose chases.  He didn’t mention that Abu Zabayduh was mentally disturbed from a head injury that he suffered years earlier.  He also didn’t mention that James Risen reported that the FBI was getting good information out of Zabayduh without torture.

Why did this CIA operative speak out now?  Do you smell a book deal in the air?

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From ABC News:

A leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.

In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds.  (more…)

 

 ABC News interview [4:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Al Qaeda, National Intelligence, Torture by ecthompson
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Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers were briefed on harsh interrogation techniques in 2002. It appears that she had no objections. I understand being quiet at the time you are shown something new. You are trying to process the information. But later, as you are sitting in your office and you are doing your research, a light bulb should have gone off. Something is wrong. Call some experts and pose hypothetical questions. Once you have done your homework, you must begin writing letters and asking for answers. It is unclear if any of the Democratic lawmakers who were present did this.

Why not?

Update: (From TP)

The Post reports the CIA gave about 30 private briefings between 2002-03 on its interrogation practices. Former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-FL) said “he has no memory of ever being told about waterboarding or other harsh tactics.” In Feb. 03, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) filed “an official protest about the interrogation program.”

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From WaPo:

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said. (more…)

 

 CIA destroyed tapes [1:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Congress, Torture by ecthompson
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Fran Townsend, National security adviser, resigned yesterday. People are running out of the White House faster than Marion Jones (after steroids) - Karl Rove, Tony Snow, Dan Bartlett and others. CR has more including Fran’s greatest hits.

BTW, she hand wrote her resignation letter. It was a huge load of sap.

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From AP:

Fran Townsend, the leading White House-based terrorism adviser who gave public updates on the extent of the threat to U.S. security, is stepping down after 4 1/2 years.

President Bush said in a statement Monday morning that Townsend, 45, “has ably guided the Homeland Security Council. She has played an integral role in the formation of the key strategies and policies my administration has used to combat terror and protect Americans.”

Her departure continues an exodus of key Bush aides and confidants, with his two-term presidency in the final 15 months. Top aide Karl Rove, along with press secretary Tony Snow and senior presidential adviser Dan Bartlett, left earlier this year. (more…)

 

 Townsend defending torture [5:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, Torture by ecthompson
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America is my home. We have great traditions. I love my home and my traditions. One of our quaint traditions is based on Judeo-Christian heritage. It is the tradition of trying to do the right thing. The Bush Administration has changed this to - anything that we do because we are Americans is by definition the right thing.

One of those people that hate America and our traditions is Deroy Murdock. He penned an article last week for the National Review. He begged Bush to embrace waterboarding. He states that Bush should, “reinstate waterboarding, proudly and publicly, so America can get the information we need to prevent Muslim-fanatic mass murder and win the Global War on Terror.”

Earlier in the article, Deroy uses Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9-11 mastermind, as the example that waterboarding is a great technique and one that “every American should be proud.” He lists a number of Al Qaeda operatives that KSM turned over. Mr. Murdock doesn’t reveal that we don’t know if KSM told investigators this information before or after he was waterboarded. He also leaves out the volumes of false information that KSM spewed. A NYT article questions KSM’s claims - It is not clear how many of Mr. Mohammed’s expansive claims were legitimate. In 2005, the Sept. 11 commission said that Mr. Mohammed was noted for his extravagant ambitions, and, using his initials, described his vision as “theater, a spectacle of destruction with KSM as the self-cast star, the superterrorist.”

[Read more →]

 

 Another Murdock among the world's worst [2:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Al Qaeda, Torture by ecthompson
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Even now and then, Keith Olbermann speaks with clarity. Maybe he needs a weekend off. Maybe he needs a couple of great football games. I don’t know. What I do know is that this special comment is excellent. Keith’s own words (I guess he wrote them) shine a light into these dark times.

All of it is now, after one revelation last week, transparently clear for what it is: the pathetic and desperate manipulation of the government, the refocusing of our entire nation, toward keeping this mock president and this unstable vice president and this departed wildly self-overrating attorney general, and the others, from potential prosecution for having approved or ordered the illegal torture of prisoners being held in the name of this country.

“Waterboarding is torture,” Daniel Levin was to write. Daniel Levin was no theorist and no protester. He was no troublemaking politician. He was no table-pounding commentator. Daniel Levin was an astonishingly patriotic American and a brave man.

Brave not just with words or with stances, even in a dark time when that kind of bravery can usually be scared or bought off. (more…)

 

 Special Comment - Torture [11:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, Countdown, Torture by ecthompson
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Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy has decided to stand up for the American constitution. “No American should need a classified briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vermont. Now, that’s what I’m screaming. It isn’t torture or let Americans died. We have had high value prisoners during the Cold War and during WW II. In both cases, the survival of our country and our way of life was at stake. Now, none of that is on the line. The only thing that is on the line is our ability to look ourselves in the mirror. George Bush and other neocons are changing our way of life. They are the ones who started domestic spying without warrants.

Update: Senators Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein have said that the will vote for Mukasey. Very disappointing. There are now clearly enough votes to get Mukasey to the floor of the Senate where he will be confirmed. Schumer has been hammering away at the Bush administration and Alberto Gonzales for illegal wiretapping and many other abuses. Now, that he has a chance to do something he doesn’t. Granted that he was put in a terrible position since he recommended Mukasey to the White House.

Update II: Re-posted. Video Added.  The Carpetbagger explains how a nomination went from unlikely to a piece of cake.  Glenn tells us why the Bush administration picked this guy in the first place.

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From CNN.com:

Mukasey has called waterboarding personally “repugnant,” but said he did not know enough about how it has been used to define it as torture. He also said he thought it would be irresponsible to discuss it since doing so could make interrogators and other government officials vulnerable to lawsuits.

“I am eager to restore strong leadership and independence to the Department of Justice,” said Leahy. “I like Michael Mukasey. I wish that I could support his nomination. But I cannot. America needs to be certain and confident of the bedrock principle– deeply embedded in our laws and our values — that no one, not even the president, is above the law.” (more…)

 

 Countdown - More on Torture [7:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Countdown, Domestic Spying, Torture by ecthompson
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It has been almost 2 weeks ago when Michael Mukasey was testifying in the Senate and Senator Whitehouse asked him a direct question. Is Waterboarding (simulated drowning) torture? He couldn’t or wouldn’t directly answer the question. I wrote that he should be rejected right then. There was nothing else that needed to be considered. So, we have gotten bogged down in the exact definition of waterboarding. I heard on the Diane Rehm show some legal expert split the finest of hairs. He said something like if water actually gets into the lungs then that’s torture. If it doesn’t then it isn’t. What? How could anyone possibly say that simulated drowning isn’t torture (besides mind-numbing neocons)?

Several blogs discuss waterboarding and this horrors  - here and here.   Malcolm Nance, a 20 year veteran of counter- intelligence, has written this great article on waterboarding.

I’ll link to an earlier video in which waterboarding is demonstrated.

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From WaPo:

Democratic support for attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey dwindled further yesterday over his refusal to comment on the legality of a harsh CIA interrogation technique, setting the stage for an unexpectedly close vote next week by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) announced that they will join Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) in voting against Mukasey on the Judiciary panel, after the nominee said in a four-page letter to Senate Democrats that he does not know whether a type of simulated drowning called waterboarding constitutes illegal torture under U.S. law. (more…)

 

 Mukasey in trouble [1:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Torture, War on Terror by ecthompson
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Senators Patrick Leahy and Arlen Spector join Wolf Blitzer in the Situation Room.  Will they confirm the Bush Administration’s nominee for Attorney General?  What questions will they ask him?  This is a good conversation.  Remember that although Senator Spector talks a tough game he has bent over backwards for the president on a number of occasions.

 

 TSR - Leahy and Spector [6:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, Civil Liberty, Civil Rights, Torture by ecthompson
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More and more congressman have stood up and stated that the Bush Administration didn’t really brief them. Rockefeller, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was the first who said he wasn’t adequately briefed. Nancy Pelosi was the latest to join the chorus.

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From WaPo:

How the United States became associated with torture is not just a matter of historical interest. And that’s all the more clear today, with the publication of a major New York Times story describing the Bush administration’s ongoing circumvention of national and international prohibitions against barbaric interrogation practices.

Finding out what our government has been doing in our name, and openly debating our interrogation policies, should have been high on the national agenda since the disclosure of the shockingly inhumane treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Few other issues speak so clearly to how we see ourselves as a people — and how others see us. (more…)

 

 Countdown - Who's been telling who what [4:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, Torture by ecthompson
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Funny, it seems to be in WWII the world was on the line. We had our backs against the wall. The Japanese on one side and the Germans on the other. Our way of life was on the line. Yet, we didn’t torture.

Now, none of that is on the line. Al Qaeda can blow up some planes and buildings but they can’t change our way of live unless we let them. Now, a group of WWII vets tell their story.

————

From WaPo:

“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess.

Blunt criticism of modern enemy interrogations was a common refrain at the ceremonies held beside the Potomac River near Alexandria. Across the river, President Bush defended his administration’s methods of detaining and questioning terrorism suspects during an Oval Office appearance.

Several of the veterans, all men in their 80s and 90s, denounced the controversial techniques. And when the time came for them to accept honors from the Army’s Freedom Team Salute, one veteran refused, citing his opposition to the war in Iraq and procedures that have been used at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. (more…)

Tags: Bush Administration, Torture by ecthompson
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The president today trying to get ahead of this torture story.  A press conference was called.  The President was looking very tired and was wearing a grey suit (I didn’t know that he owned anything that wasn’t blue).  He repeated what he said several years ago that America does not torture.  This is the reason that the President has not credibility left.  There is overwhelming evidence that we torture.  Black sites.  Waterboarded victims.  We torture.

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From NYT:

President Bush, reacting to a Congressional uproar over the disclosure of secret Justice Department legal opinions permitting the harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects, defended the methods on Friday, declaring, “This government does not torture people.”

The remarks, Mr. Bush’s first public comments on the memorandums, came at a hastily arranged Oval Office appearance before reporters. It was billed as a talk on the economy, but after heralding new job statistics, Mr. Bush shifted course to a subject he does not often publicly discuss: a once-secret Central Intelligence Agency program to detain and interrogate high-profile terror suspects.

“I have put this program in place for a reason, and that is to better protect the American people,” the president said, without mentioning the C.I.A. by name. “And when we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we’re going to detain them, and you bet we’re going to question them, because the American people expect us to find out information — actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That’s our job.”  (more…)

 

 Countdown - James Risen and torture [12:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, Countdown, Torture by ecthompson
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Game, set, match. The Bush administration has bent over backwards to convince the 5 remaining Americans that still listen to them, we don’t torture. Well, it appears that while the administration was saying one thing it was doing another. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved a memo that specifically authorized many techniques that are clearly torture. Any reasonable man would say it was torture but Bush and his administration argued yesterday that “We Don’t Torture.” Right? And do we have black sites?

Again, the White House argued that every country was allowed to spin the Geneva Conventions. Really? So, you have have over 150 different interpretations of the Conventions? Really? That is the lamest explanation I have heard since they tried it about 18 months ago.

So, now, the nomination of Michael Mukasey (to Attorney General) becomes critically important. Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary committee, stated “the 2005 opinions had ‘reinstated a secret regime by, in essence, reinterpreting the law in secret.’ Mr. Leahy said his panel had sought information on the opinions on interrogation for two years without success.”

There are several very important things to follow. First, are the Democrats going to uphold the constitution. Second, how many Republicans can the Democrats shame into voting with them? Finally, we need to look for leadership on this subject from Nancy Pelosi, John Conyers, Patrick Leahy and Harry Reid. (Russ Feingold will be out front but will he get the face time in front of the cameras. What will the candidates say about this? Look for Hillary to be slow out of the gates. John Edwards will waste no time jumping on this.)

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From NYT:

Associates at the Justice Department said Mr. Gonzales seldom resisted pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney and David S. Addington, Mr. Cheney’s counsel, to endorse policies that they saw as effective in safeguarding Americans, even though the practices brought the condemnation of other governments, human rights groups and Democrats in Congress. Critics say Mr. Gonzales turned his agency into an arm of the Bush White House, undermining the department’s independence.

The interrogation opinions were signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who since 2005 has headed the elite Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. He has become a frequent public defender of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program and detention policies at Congressional hearings and press briefings, a role that some legal scholars say is at odds with the office’s tradition of avoiding political advocacy. (more…)

 

 Countdown - Torture, again [6:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, Countdown, Torture by ecthompson
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