A Torture Report Could Spell Big Trouble For Bush Lawyers

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  • Posted By: joyfultoo @ 02/16/2009 12:49:37 AM


    Someone used McCain breaking under pressure as proof that torture works. McCain did indeed break under torture but he gave basically NONSENSICAL information. What does THAT say about the effectiveness of torture?

    Eye for an eye? An eye for an eye until the whole world is blind. Ghandi

    With the limited ability to think things through that I have seen here and in our poliiticians, I seriously fear for my country.

  • Posted By: Qidisrupt @ 02/15/2009 10:32:31 PM

    Not a fallacy...simply seeing what you really are.

  • Posted By: j.cam @ 02/15/2009 10:28:11 PM

    Qidisrupt

    LOL. That is called an ad hominem fallacy.

  • Posted By: Qidisrupt @ 02/15/2009 10:12:17 PM

    I find it insulting if the person with the education is "so smart that they are stupid."

  • Posted By: Qidisrupt @ 02/15/2009 9:23:03 PM

    Blah, blah, blah. You are a Limbaugh parrot. And your "facts" are not true...that means you are parroting what someone said...which is a lie. By the way, I never said I was a liberal, conservative or any other label that you like to attach to anyone who doesn't agree with your logical fallacies. You are just pissed off because I caught on to what you really are...some college punk who is great at parroting their opinion and not the facts.

    • Posted By: j.cam @ 02/15/2009 9:56:36 PM

      Qidisrupt
      And by the way, not everyone finds the accusation of having a college education insulting.

    • Posted By: j.cam @ 02/15/2009 9:49:58 PM

      Qidisrupt,

      LOL. Thanks for letting me know that the ACLU, the Brookings Institutions, and human rights groups around the world are in a conspiracy to lie about Bill Clinton implementing rendition during his presidency. I guess you are such an expert and such an intellect that if you don???t like facts, they aren???t true.

  • Posted By: Qidisrupt @ 02/15/2009 6:59:03 PM

    J.cam...you ARE a Limbaugh parrot...and you sound like you know what you are talking about with those fancy college English phrases....ad hominem, straw man...get off of it. This has nothing to do with political sides; it has to do with breaking laws and moral ethics. You are trying to fool people...you're a college geek that ran out of useful things to do. Clinton had nothing to do with what is happening NOW...rendition wasn't illegal...waterboarding is illegal. Can you see the difference?

    • Posted By: plschwartz @ 02/15/2009 7:35:49 PM

      J.cam:
      This is a little late but wanted to get this down. I think that much of the argument revolves around two different views of Morality. You propose a relative Morality. I and seemly some others on this board view Morality as an absolute.
      Your view seems to be that since someone else (here Clinton) condoned certain behaviors widely considered to be torture.
      Since Clinton did that the fact that Bush then did the same thing is somehow more excusable. You must judge Bush's behavior relative to what Clinton had already done.
      I believe that I and I alone am responsible for what I say and do. So if Reno/Clinton approved actions which violated laws on torture they should be so charged in a court of law. He is responsible for what he said and did.
      Clinton's behavior begins and ends with Bill Clinton.
      George Bush and his DOJ are responsible on their own for what the said and did. If they violated laws on torture they should be so charged in a court of law.
      I believe that my argument is the basis of our legal system. To take an everyday example, if I am caught speeding by a traffic cop, my argument that others were going faster then I was should not work. The cop says you were speeding s Sir and here is your ticket. I am held responsible absolutely for breaking the law.
      You would have the cop say: Sorry Sir I guess you are right. Since others were also speeding let me tear up the ticket!
      You would hold that if someone else broke the law then it is OK for you to do so. You want justice to be relative
      That may be a viable system of law. Buts the the system of law of these United States is an absolute one.....Except maybe in Chicago :)

      • Posted By: j.cam @ 02/15/2009 8:59:14 PM

        plschwartz

        Wow. This is the second time someone on this site has used this straw man on me. The last time, I said I understood why a simple-minded liberal would think I made that argument when I never made such an argument. Once again, I am arguing that many liberals on this site who claim to be against torture are lying to the public and to themselves. What they are really against is their Republican political opponents, and they don???t give a damn about torture. Is that too hard for you to understand?

        Why aren???t you attacking Clinton and Gore like you attack Bush and Cheney if torture is wrong in all cases? It seems to me you are the one using ???relative morality.??? Perhaps we can call it ???partisan morality.???
        Isn???t it strange that when Hillary was running for President and then when she was appointed to secretary of state and her whole shtick was that she had experience because she was a part of her husband???s administration, no liberals who claimed to me against torture and water boarding when Bush was President bothered asking Hillary what she knew about the torture that took place in her husband???s administration?
        The only conclusion one can draw from this is that many liberals don???t care about torture; they just care about destroying their political opponents.

        Are you able to follow this?

        And by the way, if the officer were caught singling out groups of speeders (for example African American speeders) to ticket and groups of speeders (for example White Speeders) not to ticket, that officer would be fired and disgraced, just like liberals are a disgrace.

  • Posted By: j.cam @ 02/15/2009 8:35:56 PM

    Qidisrupt

    So you don't mind torture? You just mind people breaking the law, but torture is fine? So many other liberals on the site claim to be against torture, and they are the ones my argument is clearly addressing. I wasn???t arguing with a liberal like you who supports torture. Clearly, that is my point: you liberals don???t have a problem with torture, and the ones (unlike you) who claim they do are lying. I suppose you didn't support Clinton when he broke the law and lied in court under oath in a sexual harassment case. I suppose you are not only a non-partisan supporter of torture, but you are also non-partisan when it comes to breaking the law.

    By the way, like Clinton, Bush is not president ???NOW,??? so the point you are making when you put the word "now" in all capital letters is irrational.

    I understand liberals are slow, so once again, I didn't parrot Limbaugh. I parroted the liberal ACLU and the liberal Brookings institution. That is what the quotation marks the links mean. I understand you don???t have much of an education, so I???m happy to educate you. Frankly, I don't understand why you bothered responded when you support torture and don???t even understand what quotation marks mean.

    Finally, I know your education consists of brainwashing yourself with left wing media , but water boarding has not been found to be illegal; in fact, it is part of training for the CIA and special services, and even Gore stated that rendition is illegal, but they had to do it anyway.

  • Posted By: opinioned-1 @ 02/15/2009 8:14:53 PM

    A war crimes trial is the only answer to all the Bush crimes. If Bush and some of his cronies get put in jail maybe the GOP will once again learn to respect the rule of law and our constitution. Never in my lifetime did I think I would see the nation I served placed on the same plane as Iran and Lebanon. Sad to think we are now no better than them. Thank you for eight wasted years--Bush

  • Posted By: dune @ 02/15/2009 4:11:36 PM

    The question that should be asked by the media, the Congress and the people is, "Who was the first to broach the subject of outlawed practices and who decided to ask if there was a way around it?" That is the only way that heelhounds like Yoo would even need to write an opinion. The CIA had been working under the idea that waterboarding was an outlawed practice for decades and even their own studies had shown that it was responsible for more bad intel than good. Who wanted to take that step over the line and why? That is the question that should be asked. We already know who approved of it based on personal opinion of a couple of Bush appointees in the OLC. Did the CIA request the use of tactics that we had executed people for in the past or were they told that they no longer had to suffer under the yoke of international law and that Nuremburg no longer applied based on the opinion of a couple of deputy counsels. Not scholars of international law or constitutional scholars but two obscure deputy counsels in the OLC. Did we consult with the other 100+ nations that have signed the treaties banning those practices and requiring any signee to pursue torture wherever it occurred before we opened up the entire book of recipes from the Marquis de Sade? Probably not, we had the opinions of John Yoo, famous lawgiver and George Bush, famous mumble-mouth.

  • Posted By: dune @ 02/15/2009 2:41:59 PM

    Shakespeare was right, "Kill all the lawyers".

    Lawyers found excuses for the torture of detainees so that the sadistic Bush clan could get their jollies and try to scare the Arabs and their own population. I don't think it worked against the Arabs since they used it as a recruiting tool but it sure worried any American with any sense of history. Then the Bush traitors hired more lawyers to cover the tracks of the crimes and most did their best to cover crimes against this country. Even now, lawyers on both sides and possibly even Obama are trying to find ways to keep from ripping this country's guts out by wholesale prosecution of a former president, vice-president, sec of defense and possibly a sec of state and an entire cast of traitors guilty of crimes against man and country. What lunacy gripped these idealogues into thinking that they could break any law they wanted to advance a grand global scheme dreamed up in a neo-conservative think tank is beyond reckoning but one thing is true: this country and its standing on this planet will never regain its former status with the people of this country or the world unless we go through the self-inflicted misery of prosecuting those that broke the laws of man, of this country and of the world. Obama and the Democrats won the unenviable job of standing for law or for covering for criminals ranging from perjurers to mass murderers. Some of the crimes may even point to Treason. I don't think Obama or the Dems have the guts for that so I think they will simply stall and hope it goes away. I feel the deal has already been done since the Cocaine Cowboy didn't pardon the whole group before he left.

    • Posted By: Mark Thieme @ 02/15/2009 2:51:50 PM

      Obama is going after it.

      • Posted By: dune @ 02/15/2009 3:39:47 PM

        I hope he does but everything he says is pointing to the opposite. Even Patrick Leahy is turning to jello. He stated last week that his committee is a "truth" committee as opposed to a group pursuing lawbreakers and may give immunity to anyone of the Bush staff that will come forward and tell the truth. His reasoning was that it will keep future administrations from breaking the law because of the god-awful embarrassment they would feel if found out. Why else would Bush and Cheney ADMIT to breaking a dozen laws, foreign and domestic, if they didn't already know that they were gonna get a "get out of jail free" card. They have already satisfied Leahy's rules of engagement by telling everyone that they broke the law. They didn't appear to be terribly embarrassed by it like ol' Patrick said they would be but I'm sure that is just a mionor detail.

    • Posted By: Mark Thieme @ 02/15/2009 2:56:12 PM


      Excellent piece.

      Spot on in every place, but Obama has to go for it. No choice.
      There is retribution in the air and it will not go quietly away.

      Watch and listen.

  • Posted By: gracchus2 @ 02/15/2009 2:50:41 PM

    The Obama Administration cannot move forward with this (despite the fact it should) because it would expose too many Democrats who also were aware and approved of torture - Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harman, Jay Rockefeller to name a few. The DoJ would have to prosecute them as well.

    • Posted By: dune @ 02/15/2009 3:27:09 PM

      Whoever is guilty of approving torture is guilty of a crime against this country and this planet, regardless of who they are. If Pelosi is one of them then her refusal to pursue Bush's crimes become clearer and reasons for her indictment more pressing. Feinstein, Rockefeller, Harman and the rest can plead that they were given doctored info in their briefings by the Bush family of cannibals and throw themselves on the mercy of the court. That would be the honorable thing though I doubt that honor has anything to do with it.

  • Posted By: RobertHenryEller @ 02/15/2009 4:08:20 AM

    j.cam:

    Your argument is flawed. You make the assumption that if rendition or torture occurred during the Clinton administration, then it's OK for rendition or torture to occur during the Bush administration. In simple terms, you argue that two wrongs make a right. I believe most of us were taught just the opposite, and the evidence supports that lesson.

    If evidence exists that law-breaking crimes may have been committed during the Clinton administration, then the alleged perpetrators should be tried, just as alleged perpetrators during the Bush adminiistration should be tried.

    People who support the rule of law are not against Republicans. We are against law-breakers.

    • Posted By: j.cam @ 02/15/2009 12:41:45 PM

      RobertHenryEller,

      I could understand why a simple-minded liberal would think I made that assumption, even though I made no such assumption. The only assumption I made is that many of you liberals are lying when you claim to be against torture: you're just against Republicans. Many of you liberals are lying to yourselves. I clearly stated that that was my conclusion, yet you invented a straw man to argue with because as I pointed out, liberals are not nearly as intelligent as they believe themselves to be.

      • Posted By: Mark Thieme @ 02/15/2009 3:08:47 PM

        I am.

      • Posted By: Vigilance @ 02/15/2009 2:30:38 PM

        Take your failed philosophies and retire.

  • Posted By: j.cam @ 02/14/2009 11:41:03 PM

    I notice you are not going after Bill Clinton who began and implemented the policy of rendition which is real torture, far worse than water boarding. This is how I know you liberals are lying when you claim to be upset about water boarding.. And like the Stalinists you liberals are, you will claim this political hack Jarrett's opinion is infallible.

    • Posted By: tampajunk @ 02/15/2009 8:15:05 AM

      Wahhhhaaaa! Whaaaaaa! Whhhhhaaaaaa! Whatever went wrong with the Bush administration you guys cried it's all Bill Clinton's fault. Clinton hasn't been President since Jan 2000 and you guys completed 8 years in the White House . . . but NOOOOOO . . . you can't seem to take responsibility for one thing you did wrong. All you can do is point to Bill Clinton. You are a weak bunch of whiners with no sense of responsibility or accountability. Man up will ya? The baby routine simply makes you look pathetic!

      • Posted By: Continuum @ 02/15/2009 9:32:55 AM

        The conservatives are like 3rd graders. When caught by the teacher, their only excuse is that the other guy did it , too. The Republicans have no principles. They refuse to accept responsiblity for their own actions. It's always the other guy's fault. Bush, Yoo, Cheney, Gonzales all need to be in the Hague standing before a War Crimes Tribunal.

        • Posted By: Travelerdiogenes @ 02/15/2009 2:29:41 PM

          Oh, and don't forget Addington, who bullied everyone who didn't play along. He was maybe the real henchman, and likely the one who really authored those memos - or at least made them massage them until Cheney could give everyone high fives about them. ("Hey, George!! Do we have YOUR ass covered now!")

        • Posted By: Travelerdiogenes @ 02/15/2009 2:25:25 PM

          And Rumsfeld, Gen. Jeffery Miller (Dr. "Gitmoize"), Rice - and Ashcroft.

        • Posted By: BeautifulWitch @ 02/15/2009 11:01:37 AM

          Bravo! Then we'll see what the world really thinks about the unnecessary Iraq War!

  • Posted By: Indian Ridge @ 02/15/2009 12:53:28 PM

    The necessity of cleaning up the Justice Department is of the highest priority. The way it was politicized is disgusting. I wish AG Holder the very best in his task of cleaning the stables that has been left beind by the Bush administration.

  • Posted By: Billky @ 02/15/2009 11:43:15 AM

    This is another Bush CYA. Just like the weapons of mass destruction. The buck stops there. Bush denies any knowledge or got bad info from other guilty people. He is as clean as can be. Does anyone believe this BS?

    • Posted By: Vigilance @ 02/15/2009 12:38:19 PM

      Sadly, a lot of people still do.

  • Posted By: CharlieL @ 02/15/2009 10:36:09 AM

    For as long as I've been alive, it's been a given that the CIA engaged in rendition and torture IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES in LIMITED AMOUNTS for what they honestly believed were good reasons. They always did it ON THEIR OWN and it was never discussed outside of LANGLY and it was always a "don't ask us how we found this out" kind of thing. If any spy was caught and PROVEN to have tortured or rendered anyone, the agency would have "dissavowed any knowledge" and they would have been prosecuted..

    To open a U.S. Military Prison and put hundreds of people there and OPENLY ACKLNOWLEDGE that the U.S. was torturing and rendering was the ultimate crime against our moral standing in the world.

    And know this, it was done as much to control the U.S. population ("if they can do this, what won't they do?") as it was to control the potential terrorists (wouldn't work, of course, since they are willing to die for their cause too often), as it was to (supposedly) get any actionable intelligence.

    Yoo and Bybee should be disbarred.

    • Posted By: j.cam @ 02/15/2009 12:31:00 PM

      So you are for torture worse than water boarding, just not in America? In other words, you have nothing against the morality of torture?

    • Posted By: jeffrey.king2 @ 02/15/2009 12:26:17 PM

      "And know this, it was done as much to control the U.S. population ("if they can do this, what won't they do?") as it was to control the potential terrorists "

      Excellent point - once you overtly cross the line to become a true "torture state," the threat of torture or other brutal tactics becomes a very potent weapon against domestic dissent. Coupled with a renewed COINTELPRO program of spying and disruption of domestic dissent, strong-arm police tactics of pre-emptive arrest (e.g. the 2004 party conventions) and the turning of 24-7 electronic surveillance against the entire domestic population, what emerges is a classic police state with zero tolerance for effective political opposition.

      Whatever the claimed intent, such tactics are much more effective at controlling the domestic population than preventing terrorist attacks from outside. The willingness to torture *anyone* sends a very strong message about a regime's moral standards, and clearly erases the line between legal and proper use of state force and the indiscriminate willingness to use even the most extreme forms of violence to suppress political dissent. This message is not lost on those average citizens who might otherwise be inclined to take part in political organizing or protest.

  • Posted By: Dredd @ 02/15/2009 11:18:20 AM

    Glad to see some serious consideration given to the malfunction this department has suffered these past 8 years.

  • Posted By: Dredd @ 02/15/2009 11:17:17 AM

    Glad you refreshed this ongoing look into the malfunctioning past regime.

  • Posted By: CouldCareLessAnymore @ 02/15/2009 10:52:08 AM

    An eye for an eye!!!

  • Posted By: Naples Donny @ 02/15/2009 10:37:18 AM

    Hey Isikoff, next time you discuss this you may want to mention that H Marshall Jattett was appointed by Janet Reno, arguably either the most corrupt or densest attorney general in US history. This whole thing couldn't possibly be poltically motivated, could it? Isi, you need to work a little harder at your news stories, especially after your disgraceful GITMO Koran hoax.

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