4
Oh Good
I’m shocked, I tell you:
When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.
But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.
Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.
Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.
Impeach them all, and faster please.
Legalize said,
October 4, 2007 at 15:27
Congress will continue to do what it does best: fuck all.
caliph garrett said,
October 4, 2007 at 15:46
I’m sure one of Sen. Leahy’s strongly worded letters is in the offing.
Sadly, Cambridgeport said,
October 4, 2007 at 15:55
You can impeach if you like, but a new top-secret Justice Department memo will only redefine “impeach” as, “grant lifetime appointment”, and “enemy combatant” as, “member of opposing political party”.
Wally Whateley said,
October 4, 2007 at 16:17
Impeach? But that might mean the Dems would lose the 29%-ers!
steve EVfuture said,
October 4, 2007 at 16:27
They won’t impeach them, but they might have some very harsh words for them (although not all the Democrats will be willing to make such a harsh criticism of the Commander-in-Chief of the War on Terrorism). Meanwhile, they’ll be nuking Iran.
Trevor said,
October 4, 2007 at 16:27
Who’s the artist? Looks like the paintings of dudes in gorilla masks you see in Eli Cash’s apartment in Royal Tenenbaums.
Davis said,
October 4, 2007 at 16:50
Impeach them, then put them on trial. They’re criminals.
Lawnguylander said,
October 4, 2007 at 16:54
The artist is a former prisoner of the Khmer Rouge. We are in some company.
http://www.davidcorn.com/archives/2006/09/this_is_what_wa.php
over_educated said,
October 4, 2007 at 16:55
But if we don’t abandon our countries most cherishly held ideals, the terrorists win!
Robert M. said,
October 4, 2007 at 17:02
When the oft-mentioned History starts judging the Bush 43 presidency, James Comey will be one of the few people that gets any kind of acknowledgement for having a moral sense…
Impeach the bastards, already, and/or hand them over to the Hague. Even if intentional, willful, and systematic violation of FISA wasn’t enough, they’re now in direct violation of the Military Commissions Act. (Of course, in neither case was it necessary–both FISA and the MCA give the executive branch plenty of cover for as many fundamental freedoms they want to violate–but that never stopped Bush before.)
I used to joke that Bush could personally execute a terraist on national TV, and at least 51% of the electorate would just nod and smile along. I no longer feel that it’s a joke.
kingubu said,
October 4, 2007 at 17:10
I’ve been sitting here for 20 minutes trying to think of some snarky way to call out the utter mind crushing absurdity of gauging one’s ‘manliness’ on the willingness to order other people to commit war crimes . I got nuthin’ What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Legalize said,
October 4, 2007 at 17:24
It’s like Nuremberg never happened. Every post WII reform engaged BY US has been made a mockery in less than 7 years. Unreal.
Sadly, Cambridgeport said,
October 4, 2007 at 17:43
Well if Bush, et al had been around Nremberg wouldn’t have ever happened. It would have been seen as a bad precedent that could someday be used against the US (unjustly of course).
Also, the UN would have never been formed, because any international body that contains members that we don’t like is evil.
But think of all of the time and money we would have saved during the occupation! The Nazis had already built lots of secret bases and internment camps for us. If we had treated Dr Mengele more like Dr. Von Braun we wouldn’t be reinventing the wheel like this.
MzNicky said,
October 4, 2007 at 17:50
I used to joke that Bush could personally execute a terraist on national TV, and at least 51% of the electorate would just nod and smile along.
Robert M: It’d never happen, anyway. Sniveling petulant whiny cowardly little shit-for-bains overprivileged ne’er-do-well dickwads don’t “personally execute” anyone; they have people to do that sort of thing for them. Texas prisons, Gitmo, whatever.
Rufus said,
October 4, 2007 at 18:02
I’m sure they only torture Bad People. Like in that movie Brazil.
Jay Hovah said,
October 4, 2007 at 18:17
“Impeach them all, and faster please.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha(sob)hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha….
(gunshot)
thud!
(Never gonna happen, sorry guys.)
Sadly, Cambridgeport said,
October 4, 2007 at 18:53
Ya, Jay Ho, when I get on a long hysterical laughing fit I usually wind up shooting a duck too. Not sure how it always happens that way.
AkaDad said,
October 4, 2007 at 19:11
P.S. I sincerely apologize for my harsh tone
Xenos said,
October 4, 2007 at 19:39
Anybody check out the procedures for rendering war criminals to The Hague for prosecution? Does the UN have to start the process, or can a sitting president send a dossier duct-taped to a former president via Federal Express?
If a Democratic candidate would at least promise to render Kissinger up for rendition, it would be an enormous step forward.
Jay B. said,
October 4, 2007 at 20:07
Anybody check out the procedures for rendering war criminals to The Hague for prosecution?
well, evidently, we can just kidnap them and pop them in a plane. What’s good for the goose, you know.
George W. Bush said,
October 4, 2007 at 20:07
“Bush could personally execute a terraist on national TV…
There’s a man comes in to do all the executin’. That job’s been delegated. I’m the delegator. I do all the delegatin’. See, that’s what leaders do. They delegate. And I’m the leader, so that’s what I do.
Now, watch this drive.
Republicunt said,
October 4, 2007 at 20:27
I’m sure one of Sen. Leahy’s strongly worded letters is in the offing.
P.S. I sincerely apologize for my harsh tone.
Even your phony apologies are shrill! Traitor!!11!!1
piotr said,
October 4, 2007 at 21:06
Jay B — not so simple, but close. The miscrants should be blindfolded and primed for the interrogation in Hague, so once there , they will admit anything and everything. I guess that “priming” should be easy, because the suspect know the manuals they were writing, so they know exactly what to be afraid off, this saves time.
The plane should also have enough ice to conserve the body in the case of untimely demise.
chi type said,
October 4, 2007 at 21:09
“the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by…copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture”
I had to lay my head down on my desk after reading that. We have willingly become the bad guys.
chi type said,
October 4, 2007 at 21:11
Also
“Relying on a Supreme Court finding that only conduct that “shocks the conscience” was unconstitutional, the opinion found that in some circumstances not even waterboarding was necessarily cruel, inhuman or degrading…”
How naive to assume these people HAVE a conscience.
Oh, FTLOG said,
October 4, 2007 at 22:10
does anyone else feel like we’re in a freakin’ fun house? up is down…. down is up. right is wrong…..wrong is right.
{slamming head on desk}
JANE, STOP THIS CRAZY THING! JAAAAANE!
g said,
October 4, 2007 at 22:53
“Relying on a Supreme Court finding that only conduct that “shocks the conscience” was unconstitutional, the opinion found that in some circumstances not even waterboarding was necessarily cruel, inhuman or degrading…”
right-o. There’s always going to be a loophole. Dick Cheney doesn’t have a conscience.
stringonastick said,
October 5, 2007 at 0:27
Silly James Comey, he thinks these guys could actually FEEL shame.
DEMIZE! said,
October 5, 2007 at 7:02
#
chi type said,
October 4, 2007 at 21:09
“the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by…copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture”
I had to lay my head down on my desk after reading that. We have willingly become the bad guys.
Sorry this is patantly false.CIA/DIA and whatever other 3 letter combos you can think of have been using the Soviet techniques during SERE training for many years and have also incorporated those techs. into various black interrogations for along time.KUBARK was written using some of the SERE methods reverse enginered.SOA.used them in the Counter-Insurge/Counter-Narco training it offered to various South & Central American Mil.Studies.But I’m sure Henry Waxman will hold another useless hearing.God bless his soul.My head hurts.
Kilo said,
October 5, 2007 at 12:06
What complete and utter bullshit.
Prior to these techniques being approved — the head slapping that is — the CIA was sending people to Egypt to be tortured. And that’s if they wanted them to survive the torture. As you can read Bob Baer confirming in regard to his tenure, if they wanted the suspects tortured to death then they got sent to Syria. This was approved. This was standard operating proceedure.
Without ever having specifically looked for one, I know of two reference books that deal with nothing other than the historical use of torture in the US. WTF do you think the odds are that the C-Fucking-I-A operated for 60 years and this is the first time they went as far as keeping people cold for a whole day ? What are you retarded ?
The CIA. The same agency responsible for supporting death squads. Operating assassination programs in counter-insurgency campaigns where people were routinely tortured for the information that allowed those programs to even exist. The agency that was essential in facilitating numerous coups and supporting numerous regimes where those foreign regimes needing to torture their own citizens were trained on US soil in a school dedicated to providing these skills. First time ever eh ? Is that supposed to be funny ?
So apparently if this news story concerns any of you Americans the answer is to simply wait a couple of years and forget you ever learned it. It’s worked a fucking treat so far.
And 2 years from now, when a different President is in office, but the same CIA and the same Pentagon and the same US torture training school are still operating just as they have for the last half century, we can once again here the cries of “torture? oh dear, this is not America”.
Yeah it is idiots. Either quit kidding yourselves or give start giving Bush credit for his apparently incredible effeciency.
After all, you may not like what he’s done, but you apparently think he got a CIA renditions program up and running in 3mins flat after the invasion of Afghanistan. Somehow managed to get all equipment personnel and systems to intercept all US communications by the NSA up and running 48 seconds after he approved it. Somehow managed to create the military empire of the US in 7 short years.
Pretending all this shit didn’t happen under previous administrations seems to work out just fine, so why not bring that memory hole forward a year ?
Kilo said,
October 5, 2007 at 12:47
And it’s as though the conduct during the intervening 60 years never happened.
Nuremberg, you will recall, was where the Nazis were prosecuted for war crimes that they committed, but the allies did not. That was the moral standard of Nuremberg. That where both sides committed particular war crimes everyone got a pass.
The very next stop after defeating Germany in Europe you will recall was firebombing Japanese and burning them and their citizens to the ground.
http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22the+people+of+67+Japanese+cities%22
And then it was on to Korea, where the US army enforced a policy of killing any and all groups of refugees fleeing the front line as they could be communist spies.
http://www.google.com/search?q=U.S.+policy+was+to+shoot+Korean+refugees
Then on to Vietnam where carpet bombing civilians, carpet spraying them and their food chain with toxic chemicals and massacring peasants for their body count value was routine.
And so on in every decade since Nuremberg.
Yeah those last 7 years have really made a mockery of human rights and war crimes agreements from the WW2 era haven’t they ?
Never mind, in a few years time you’ll have completely forgotten them.
Folterstaat USA | Matthias Kestenholz’ Blog said,
October 5, 2007 at 21:27
[...] die Aussenpolitik USAs für die Werte ist, für welche die USA gerne einstehen möchte, so z.B. “Sadly No!”, über welchen ich überhaupt auf diesen Bericht gestossen bin. Sehr empfehlenswert ist auch der [...]