More Democrat Grandstanding On Destroyed CIA Tapes
December 11th, 2007 at 07:21am Matt Margolis
So, we find out the other day that not only were members of Congress (including Nancy Pelosi) briefed on the interrogation techniques used against capture terrorists, but that they were supportive and some even urged interrogators to “push harder.” Yet, Despite this information, Democrats are still hot and bothered over destroyed interrogation tapes and Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Intelligence, is claiming that Democrats were not informed.
Congress summoned CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden to Capitol Hill to explain his agency’s destruction of interrogation videotapes, as multiple investigations began into who knew about and approved the decision.
Hayden is to testify in a closed session Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and on Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee.
Among the questions he’ll face is whether Congress was notified about the tapes’ destruction. The chairman of the House panel, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said Hayden’s assertion last week that lawmakers were informed “does not appear to be true.”
According to the Washington Post article “Individual lawmakers’ recollections of the early briefings varied dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support.” So, obviously, there’s not denial that a briefing occurred, it’s just the memory game… pseudo-denials by claiming they don’t recall what was discussed, or just not commenting.
I think the Democrats need to be pressed on this. Obviously at one point they were more interested in doing what was necessary to protect this country. Unfortunately now, it’s just politics.
Entry Filed under: Congress, Democrats, Kook Left, War on Terror
70 Comments
1. plainjane | December 11th, 2007 at 7:59 am
I am disappointed as well that only Democratic Rep Jane Harman objected to the water-boarding. So many times in the past when the government overstepped its bounds whether it was civil rights or war, many have stood up to show their displeasure with civil disobedience. Couldn’t the Senators and Congressman who witness this destruction of American values stood up, even at the risk of being arrested or losing their security clearance? 1-20-09
2. neocon | December 11th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Why would anyone object to the very limited and carefully considered use of an interrogation technique on AQ masterminds that successfully led us to more AQ leaders and helped thwart other attacks?
Would lefties feel more comfortable if there were more terrorist attacks and less abused terrorists?
3. SEW | December 11th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Give them the same treatment Scooter received.
4. plainjane | December 11th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Why would anyone object to the very limited… neocon | December 11th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Why do we have to reduce ourselves to the terrorist’s level? We lost 3000 innocent lives on one of the most horrendous days in American history. If given the opportunity would even a single one of these individuals state because of this loss all future generations, to protect against the potential loss of 3000 more lives, American must abandoned its ideals we have lived with and shared with the world for the last 200 years. Are we to snuff out the last beacon of hope for the world?
The America I believe in does not condone torture as defined by the Geneva Convention. If those tapes did not contain torture, then why where they destroyed, to protect the interrogators? They have editing processes for that. If water-boarding is not torture why couldn’t the new AG state unequivocally during his confirmation he saw no problem with this process. It is my understanding there are effective interrogation techniques approved by the Geneva Convention such as sleep depravation. It was used effectively on Noriega.
5. OhioOrrin | December 11th, 2007 at 11:22 am
per dershowitz:
1. ask.
2. demand including lying.
3. bribe.
4. environmental; noise, sleep, food, water, cold.
5. drugs.
6. Kahn | December 11th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
This looks like an attempt to see how many times they can get the word “torture” in print despite negative consequences to our troops and intelligence operatives.
7. sleepygene | December 11th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Kahn-
The word torture in print is not the problem for our troops and intellignece operatives it is the the US PRACTICE of torture that is the problem for our troops and intelligence operatives.
8. Kahn | December 11th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Bull - there’s no evidence (literally) that these tapes even show “torture”.
It’s an attempt to discredit the intelligence agencies, the United States, and out military. You have no facts whatsoever, only inuendo and accusations.
Who did what to who on what dates? If you can’t be specific, then you’re making it up.
9. jayhay | December 11th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Okay so I guess you’ll drop the “torture isn’t torture” theme, since the guy who actually did it says waterboarding, sleep deprivation and stress positions are torture. So now you’re on the “Democrats did it too!” theme, which if you read the left blogosphere you’ll see that there are actual principles at work here, and any Democrat that was part of this is on the hook too as far as the left is concerned.
So here we are, you’ll have to concede it’s torture (I mean, seriously, you’ll concede that, right?), but it’s “worth it”, and since the White House approved it (and lied about it - “we don’t torture…”) what do we do about our laws? Do they even matter any more? Can I break them too? Or just the President and his friends? A nation of laws? Yeah, right…
Do we use torture in other situations now too? How about on Americans? Maybe on other infractions, like adultery? Maybe stoning? I mean, where’s the line you draw? We only torture foreigners? “Terrorists”? How sure do we need to be about their guilt? A trial? An anonymous tip? A bad day at the office?
You guys are so afraid, you throw your hands up in the air and give up everything. Isn’t dying for a belief noble? What ever happened to that idea? We have laws, and they were broken. And that goes for anyone from any party.
10. Kahn | December 11th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
jahay, you guys called taking embarrassing photos as torture. Was humiliation with dog collars torture?
But - well as to these CIA / Congressional briefings - whatever they were, they must have been Ok at the time, right? I mean - no-one said anything at the time, right?
And just what EXACTLY do you say the tapes showed? EXACTLY? Go look up innuendo.
11. SteaM | December 11th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
I think the President need to be pressed on this. Obviously at one point he was more interested in doing what was necessary to protect this country. Unfortunately now, it’s just politics.
12. Ricorun | December 11th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
ABC News has a remarkable interview with the main guy that participated in the capture and interrogation Abu Zubaydah. I presume the guy (John Kiriakou) is the one jayhay is talking about. And of course, jayhay’s account is a bit, well, brief. While Kiriakou does believe that waterboarding is torture and shouldn’t be used anymore (for various reasons), he believes it worked on Zubaydah and the conditions at the time justified its use. He also mentions that the decisions to use “harsh” techniques had to have come from high up.
13. Ricorun | December 11th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
The link in my last comment is to the video of the interview. This is a link to the text story.
14. Mark Noonan | December 11th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Plane,
How does waterboarding lower us to the terrorists level? Are we randomly waterboarding people who had nothing to do with the war? Terrorists kill and maim innocent people in order to advance a political agenda - how does waterboarding even come close to that?
I’m sorry to put it this way - but your objection is foolish.
15. Mark Noonan | December 11th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
As to the substance of the thread - it is clear that Democrats were entirely on board with all of this and only switched their views in response to what they felt was a political advantage for their side. This is yet more evidence of the corruption endemic to the Democratic party - this unwillingness to be honest runs from small matters to large, and it should disqualify Democrats from holding any positions of responsibility in the United States - and this extends to all Democrats who will not make a clean break from the dishonesty (so far, only Lieberman has made such a clean break).
16. Casper | December 11th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Mark,
There were four democrats listed in the article who knew about the waterboarding, one of whom protested yet you make it sound as if the whole party agreed. Frankly I’m disappointed in those that let it pass.
To suggest the entire party shouldn’t serve is no better of an argument than members of the left saying Republicans shouldn’t serve because of Bush’s record.
You might want to take your own advice and think before you write.
17. sleepygene | December 11th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
amen Casper
18. SteaM | December 11th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
“Are we randomly waterboarding people who had nothing to do with the war?”
ding ding ding! It would appear as this is the case. However, it’s not just random. They are suspects however many of those we tortured for being suspects have been proven to be innocent. To them it did appear random. Although these cases aren’t really on the books since these folks can’t have their day in court thanks to the Bush administration.
19. Kahn | December 11th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
SteaM - you can’t prove any of that. That means you’re making unsubstantiated allegations. Just a vocabulary lesson.
20. Diana Powe | December 11th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
The title of Matt’s post may be “More Democratic Grandstanding On Destroyed CIA Tapes” but this is a real problem for the Administration. For instance, on May 9, 2003 the CIA told the trial judge in United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui that the agency was not recording the interrogation of terror suspects in any format and later, on November 14, 2005, that the “U. S. Government does not have any video or audio tapes of the interrogations of [names redacted]”. The subsequent “discovery” of a videotape of an interrogation led to the “oops” letter of October 25, 2007 in which the Department of Justice was forced to admit…
Depending on the date that the tapes were actually destroyed at the direction of Jose Rodriguez, the recently retired Deputy Director of Operations, it’s possible that the November 14, 2005 declaration was true. However, this then puts the onus on then-CIA Deputy Director of Operations Jim Pavitt who approved the use of “enhanced interrogation” (per the ABC interview of CIA case officer John Kiriakou) and then-CIA Director George Tenet for the “factual errors” of the May 9, 2003 declaration.
These are not trivial issues. When a U.S. District Judge signs an order, it is not within the scope of authority of anyone in the Executive Branch to simply disregard the order. The Administration has routinely made use of the State Secrets Privilege in terrorism-related cases, but did not choose to do so in this case. It stretches credulity to the snapping point to believe that the CIA would tell the judge that they had no recordings without the question going to the top of the Agency. As such, at some point, someone lied to someone and the tapes were potentially evidence in a criminal proceeding for the failure to obey a court order.
21. Kahn | December 11th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Jane - good points.
I was going to make a comment about Hillary’s law firm’s billing documents suddenly turning up in the White House one day. But then I decided not to.
If someone had ordered THESE tapes and it was just dismissed out of hand then they should pay.
What ya wanna bet that this brew-ha-ha means the NEXT terrorist justs get a bullet in the head? I mean, why risk jail time by questioning a prisoner?
22. Diana Powe | December 11th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
This is also a problem for the White House because of reporting that Harriet Miers, who was then deputy White House chief of staff, and Justice Department lawyers discussed the destruction of tapes in 2003 with then-CIA general counsel, Scott Muller, and they advised him that the tapes not be destroyed. In fact, this is such a problem that it prompted Republican Congressman Peter Hoekstra, who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee from 2004 to 2006, to say on Friday, “I think the intelligence committee needs to get all over this. This raises a red flag that needs to be looked at.”
23. Kahn | December 11th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
By all means we should find out why the CIA has kept any more terrorists from attacking us and why the helped us disarm Korea, Iran, and Libya - those jerks. What do they think they’re doing?
Imagine, being rough with our enemies!!!???? I’m outraged.
24. jayhay | December 11th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Kahn sez: “What ya wanna bet that this brew-ha-ha means the NEXT terrorist justs get a bullet in the head? I mean, why risk jail time by questioning a prisoner?”
Well, if you read the interview you’d know that the CIA interrogator was not personally deciding what methods were allowed, since he got authorization all the way from the top every step of the way. Of course, this White House will probably let the guy take the fall if it ever gets that far. Scooter just lobbed the end of term pardon Hail Mary…
25. SteaM | December 11th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
And it’s not my place to even try to do so. That’s why there are international Geneva convention rules and that’s why we, in this nation, have a justice system.
Let the courts decide. Which would be ideal except that the Bush administration won’t let them into court.
26. Ricorun | December 11th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
There seems to be at least two issues here that seem to be getting confused:
1. Which Dems knew about the “harsh” interrogation procedures, how much did they know, when did they know it, and how did they react. That’s not really the subject of this post (at least according to the title). But clearly it’s tying the Dems up in knots because it makes it hard to get too puffily outraged about it.
2a. Who knew the tapes were made, and;
2b. If they knew, did they also know they were destroyed?
As far as I know, no Dems even knew about the existence of the tapes. Even the interrogator interviewed by ABC didn’t know tapes were being made. And presumably even Bush didn’t know the tapes existed or were destroyed until last week (it’s kind of amazing how much stuff Bush doesn’t know about). But as Diana Powe pointed out, some people did know. And most of them advised the CIA NOT to destroy them. That’s the issue here. And as I mentioned on the first thread on the subject, I don’t know how anyone can reflexively condone that. And yes, I definitely believe there SHOULD be an investigation. And I don’t think calling for one qualifies as grandstanding.
27. Mark Noonan | December 11th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
SteaM,
Dollars to donuts you can’t name a single person who was picked up, sent to Gitmo, was waterboarded and was then released…and even if you could, it still wouldn’t be random. Random would be our just picking someone up in, say, Cairo and sending him off to Gitmo to be waterboarded because we want someone in Afghanistan to talk…do you start to see how stupid it is to compare what we do with what the terrorists do?
28. Mark Noonan | December 11th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Ricorun,
The destruction of the tapes is, indeed, the issue - but only because the Democrats want to have them leaked so they can have another Abu Ghraib (sp?) situation.
I want to know why anyone wants the tapes perserved - for what purpose?
29. neocon | December 11th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
I want to know why liberals support late term abortions but get squeemish if a terrorist is roughed up.
Square that one for me.
30. Diana Powe | December 11th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Kahn and neocon,
Yes, because after all, obeying the law is for sissies and pansies, not real he-men tuff-on-terrorists guys like 24 fictional television character, Jack Bauer. (Played by Kiefer Sutherland, currently serving a 48-day sentence in the Glendale, California city jail for - guess what? - breaking the law and driving drunk.)
Ricorun,
Well, apparently, if it is “grandstanding” then it’s not just Democratic grandstanding given Congressman Hoekstra’s statement, especially given that he’s not just some random Republican, but the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who was displaced by the Democrats taking control in last November’s election. However, at the end of the day, as I outlined in my earlier posts, the politics of this revolve around the potential that a crime was committed in destroying the tapes and not just an issue of who can made to be look bad as a result.
However, for some who want to label themselves as conservative, crimes committed by Those Whom We Are To Accept Blindly As Good and Those Whom We Are To Accept Blindly Are Here To Protect Us should automatically not be a problem. This is where the modern Republican Party has deviated most tragically and sharply from its historic roots. In Goldwater’s acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican National Convention, he had this to say:
The modern Republican catechism is to inherently trust the government in all its actions, just so long as those actions are carried out by Republicans who assure the public that the only have good intentions.
Mark,
The multiple reasons for preserving the tapes (historical record, training, legal review) are only background to the fact that the person who wanted their existence revealed was U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema whose court was trying a terrorism case and whose order to that effect was met, at minimum, with disobedience at some level of the Central Intelligence Agency and such disobedience is subject to criminal penalties making those tapes potential evidence in a criminal prosecution. Even Peter Hoekstra gets it. Is that concept really that difficult to grasp or do you want to go on record here as saying that disobeying court orders is okay?
31. neocon | December 11th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Diana,
What??????
Tell me why you condone the practice of sucking the brains out of an innocent baby and yet condemn tough interrogation techniques for mass murderers.
I really want to know how you reconcile that one.
32. Ricorun | December 11th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Mark: I want to know why anyone wants the tapes perserved - for what purpose?
1. Because they were advised by the White House, by the DoJ, and by the CIA legal counsel to retain them. That in itself is adequate reason.
2. Destroying them after advised not to makes it look like a cover-up. Your contention that Dems would have leaked them assumes both (a) they would actually do that, and (b) there actually WAS something bad on them which the Dems weren’t aware of in the first place. Only if both things are true could a case be made that it was better to destroy them. In which case, allegations of a cover-up was deemed preferable to actually knowing what’s on them. So deal with it.
3. And this is potentially the worst consequence: it could have deleterious effects on the eventual trials of those who should be put away forever. If that happens I’m sure you’ll be screaming bloody murder about activist judges and such rather than at the idiot who destroyed the tapes.
33. Diana Powe | December 11th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Neocon,
Amazing! You have the ability to not only read my mind vis-a-vis abortion (given that I’ve never commented on it one way or the other) but, you’ve managed to get your pet red herring right into a completely and totally unrelated discussion thread. That’s the desperation tactic you have to resort to when you can’t address the substance of a topic of discussion, I suppose.
I don’t know, maybe I’m mistaken. Maybe Matt entitled his post “More Democratic Grandstanding On Destroyed CIA Tapes AND Abortion” and it’s just my monitor that makes it look like the word abortion doesn’t appear anywhere in the title. So, how about it, care to deal with the substantive question here which might be stated as, “Is it okay for the CIA to disobey the order of a U. S. District judge?”
It’s okay if you think the answer is “yes” but I’d love to see you “square that one” especially, as I suspect, it will require you to bend your knee and bow your head to the modern Republican article of faith that Our Protectors Would Never Make A Mistake or Do Anything Wrong While Guarding Us From the Scary Terrorists. For you, it is a matter of blind trust in the government that allows you to believe, absent any actual evidence, that each and every person subjected to “enhanced interrogation” is, in fact, a “terrorist” and a “mass murderer.” Please, I’m truly interested in your argument for why it’s okay to disobey court orders. I’m actually quite serious.
There is nothing in the historic record of the GOP that allows for this blind loyalty and obedience to the government. It is only the notion that “9/11 changed everything” that allowed modern Republicans to repudiate their own historic political beliefs in this manner.
34. Diana Powe | December 11th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
I don’t know, neocon, why don’t you ask someone who has actual knowledge, retired CIA case officer, John Kiriakou.
Yes, folks. That presumably-traitorous retired CIA case officer who actually interrogated terrorist suspects actually criticized waterboarding by saying something really meaningless.
“BECAUSE WE’RE AMERICANS, AND WE’RE BETTER THAN THAT”
Man, what a wimp. I bet Jack Bauer would torture him in a heartbeat.
What the heck, neocon, while you’re at it, why don’t you read John Kirikou’s mind and tell us what his view is on abortion. Just for fun, while we’re waiting for you to justify the CIA disobeying a court order.
35. Ricorun | December 11th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Diana, I think it’s only fair to add that though he doesn’t condone the used of the techniques now, he thought it was appropriate at the time — because it was time-critical…
In other places he indicates that an important reason for why he is not longer in favor of the techniques is because we’ve had six years to infiltrate al Qaeda. It’s a different situation now. He also acknowledges the bigger question that may again become relevant in the future: that there’s a trade-off between the need to know and the compromise on American principles these techniques have…
In short, the guy is pretty ripped up about it. How can you be human and not be? It is, after all, a very difficult question. But he realizes that it’s not his call. It’s too important to be left up to specific individuals. This is a question that has to be considered carefully by the leaders of our country.
36. Diana Powe | December 11th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Ricorun,
Absolutely. Of course, one of the easy-to-miss aspects of the interview is that Kiriakou was not present when the waterboarding took place and his statement of its effectiveness is based on what he was told by others. It’s entirely possible that what he was told was true, but given the fact that CIA has a great deal of explaining to do over the destruction of the tapes, I think it is a healthy Goldwater-esque stance to remain skeptical on that point.
That is also precisely right because all the cheerleading for “enhanced interrogation”, including waterboarding, which Kiriakou now considers torture, completely ignores the fact that enhanced interrogation (or whatever double-speak term someone wants to use) not only effects the recipient but the person carrying it out. It’s only in the make-believe TV world of 24 that it doesn’t.
Again, you are correct. Now, if President George Bush went on national television and said in no uncertain terms, “I authorized the use of waterboarding. I take full legal responsibility and I will submit myself to the legal process when I leave office in 2009.” then we would have a completely different area of discussion but he would never do that even though the excuse of “we don’t divulge specific techniques” has long ceased to be relevant.
37. Ricorun | December 11th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Diana Powe: Now, if President George Bush went on national television and said in no uncertain terms, “I authorized the use of waterboarding. I take full legal responsibility and I will submit myself to the legal process when I leave office in 2009.” then we would have a completely different area of discussion but he would never do that even though the excuse of “we don’t divulge specific techniques” has long ceased to be relevant.
Well, I wouldn’t quite put it that way. But I do think that if Bush had come out more forcefully and said something to the effect of “I accept responsibility”, and explained his rationale, much like Kiriakou did, a lot of the present kerfuffle probably would have been avoided. But he didn’t. So I think it’s reasonable to ask why. After all, he’s The Decider. And as such, it disturbs me how much he claims he doesn’t know about all manner of things, both in extent and in content.
38. Diana Powe | December 11th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Ricorun,
The other issue is that in the last several years saying “I accept responsibility” for whatever has routinely resulted in no adverse results for that party in contrast to what is the normal state of affairs in human societies.
39. Diana Powe | December 11th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Oops, more “Democratic grandstanding”. This time, the target is our brand-new (”I still don’t know if waterboarding is torture even though I’ve now been briefed on it” Attorney General:
Won’t the Democrats leave this purely partisan political point alone? What a bunch of petty, political questions:
Geez, who signed this thing, anyway?
What? I’m confused, isn’t Senator Arlen Specter a Republican?
40. Mark Noonan | December 11th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Diana,
And you Democrats are welcome to Specter…we now fervently wish he had lost in 2004…wouldn’t change the real complexion of the Senate, and we’d be rid of one of our last, two remaining wet noodles in the GOP caucus.
41. Mark Noonan | December 11th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Ricorun,
Because some lawyers say so isn’t valid - other lawyers could say other things. Why do YOU want them preserved? What purpose would their existence serve?
42. Diana Powe | December 11th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Mark,
This isn’t “some lawyers” you’re evasively referring to, it was a U.S. District judge.
43. Diana Powe | December 11th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Also, Mark, do you want to give Congressman Peter Hoeksta to the Democrats while you’re denouncing your fellow Republicans?
44. Ricorun | December 11th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Mark: What purpose would their existence serve?
I thought we went through that. Weren’t you paying attention?
45. Diana Powe | December 11th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
So, Mark, “cowboy up” here. Are you ready yet to go on record here as saying that the failure to obey Judge Brinkema’s order was okay? As I stated to the reticent neocon, it’s okay if you approve of that action, but I’m really on tenterhooks about what the justification might be.
I’m wondering what the late Senator Barry Goldwater would have to say on the subject. Alas, he’s not here to weigh in on the deterioration of the modern Republican Party to its present authority-worshiping condition.
46. Xango Annie | December 11th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Diana…tsk, tsk, tsk,,you should not have dissed a fellow lib..K. Sutherland…and his Daddy is a Socialist…right at home in your party, that would be the Democratic Socialist Party…
47. Diana Powe | December 11th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Xango Annie,
Who’s “dissing” anyone? He did the crime and like a man he’s doing the time. However, thanks a bunch for the “substantive” contribution to the discussion. Care to address the actual issues raised here?
48. Diana Powe | December 11th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
For instance, are you ready to “cowboy up” and say it was okay for the CIA to violate Judge Brinkema’s order? No one else is. If you do, please articulate why you believe it was okay for them to do so. That should be fascinating.
49. AgentFear | December 12th, 2007 at 1:12 am
There is a god, and she sent us an angel.
(smiles)
50. Diana Powe | December 12th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Should neocon return to this venue, I’ll answer his question about Judge Brinkema’s order that he posted elsewhere.
In the Department of Justice’s letter of October 25, 2007 belatedly admitting to “factual errors”, it states the following about the first order on page 3:
and then on page 4, referring to the November 14, 2005 Declaration:
and ending with:
It is a misreading to say that Judge Brinkema ordered the CIA not to destroy any recordings. She ordered the government twice to inform the court as to whether such recordings were made and both times the answer the court was given was “no”. However, the answer in both those cases was based on someone choosing to lie to the court which is why the destroyed tapes are potentially part of a criminal contempt proceeding.
51. Diana Powe | December 12th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
This is truly, starkly, appallingly bad for any future American soldiers, sailors or aircrew that are captured in war:
This is how far into the depths we’ve sunk. A Republican senator asks a military attorney of general officer rank if waterboarding a captured American pilot in wartime by agents of the opposing power violates the Geneva Convention and he’s “not equipped to answer that question”. It’s staggering. He knows the answer or he needs to be removed from the military. Who told him not to answer this question?
52. Diana Powe | December 12th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Former Judge Advocate General attorney Evan Wallach wouldn’t have have refused to answer Senator Graham’s question in the way that Gen. Hartmann did because he remembers learning about the United States prosecuting Japanese citizens for war crimes for waterboarding one of the pilots in the Doolittle raid on Tokyo.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html
53. Mark Noonan | December 12th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Diana,
You err - as does the author of your linked piece. Ask yourself: Why did the Japanese do what they did?
Then ask yourself: Why do we do what we do?
You really have to get entirely away from the concept that President Bush is evil, or that the war is illegal, or that we are committing war crimes. Stop hating, and it will become quite clear to you.
54. Mark Noonan | December 12th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Diana,
Also, if a US soldier is captured, he’s to be treated differently under the provisions of the Geneva Convention from the treated given to an irregular combatant, such as a terrorist. Additionally, it doesn’t matter in the slightest what we do, any captured American soldier will be tortured based upon the mere whim of whatever enemy officer or official happens to be in control of him.
Once again, stop thinking of your own side as a bunch of criminals - we’re really not. The enemy - they are the crmiinals, not us. If we have done anything extreme to a captured enemy, it is because we had to - the enemy, on the other hand, does evil purely for the purpose of doing evil.
55. Diana Powe | December 12th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Mark,
You totally avoided, as did Gen. Hartmann (to his great dishonor), the question. The question to Gen. Hartmann was simple enough for a freshly sworn-in JAG officer to answer. He knows perfectly well what the answer is. Given that, he is either completely incompetent for his position (fantastically unlikely) or answering the question is going to expose someone to potential legal jeopardy that he is willing to throw his fellow service members under the bus for on the issue of the treatment of potential future American POWs. I’m actually astounded that even you are willing to tolerate that despite all the idiotic GOP propaganda you’ve been fed about “Democrats don’t support the troops.”
So, you are willing to airily wave off any idea that we be a moral example for the requirement of potential enemies we might meet in war to follow the Geneva conventions because “any captured American soldier will be tortured based upon the mere whim of whatever enemy officer or official happens to be in control of him.” Fine. Is that what you call moral clarity? Don’t worry about publicly supporting the rules because we know people will break them anyway? I’m glad you weren’t sitting on any juries when I was a police officer. Here’s a viewing suggestion for you. Go watch Sir Alec Guinness’ performance as Col. Nicholson in The Bridge On The River Kwai and imagine if the scene where his men carry him on their shoulders in triumph after he withstands the torture inflicted him by the Japanese would still work if he’d adopted your attitude. As an alternative, why don’t you give Sen. McCain a call and ask him if he agrees with you. I think we both know the answer.
So, Mark, do you explicitly disagree with retired CIA case officer John Kiriakou who says we shouldn’t be waterboarding “because we’re Americans, and we’re better than that”? Sure, sounds like it to me.
56. Diana Powe | December 12th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Mark,
Additionally, you say this:
Really. You don’t actually know, beyond bits and pieces, what acts have been done in your name but, despite that lack of actual knowledge, you know for a fact that it’s morally blameless to do them “because we had to”. Truly. We had no moral choice at all in the matter. Did the government you unquestioningly and obsequiously trust personally deliver this pre-digested morality or did you just get it from watching FoxNEWS? The late Senator Goldwater would be appalled.
57. Mark Noonan | December 12th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Diana,
We’re better than that? But we also abort millions of unborn children…some how I just don’t see how we’re supposed to be horrified at the prospect of waterboarding a captured terrorist, but pass in silence over murdered children.
The attempt to assert that we have to provide a moral example to our enemies ingores two facts:
1. We do.
2. They don’t care.
The prisoners at Gitmo gain weight. They are getting better health care than they’ve ever had in their life. They have full access to religious observances. They and their religion are treated with the gravest of respect and none of them will ever lose their life save by due process of law.
Doesn’t matter in the slightest vis a vis how our troops will be captured…promise to never waterboard again in addition to all the other things we do for the prisoners, and it won’t prevent one beheading. All you’ll have done is make it harder for us to win, with no accrual of benefit to our side.
58. Diana Powe | December 13th, 2007 at 1:26 am
Sorry, Mark. Your first premise, given the existence of the Guantanamo facility, is false. Even the Bush Administration wants to get rid of that moral lesion, but can’t quite figure out how to get it done. However, for you our moral standing really doesn’t matter, only some notion of “winning”. The Vince Lombardi school of moral philosophy. Sorry, I happen to believe in an America where we don’t have to employ the Nuremberg Defense.
By the way, while extolling the glorious wonders of being imprisoned with no guarantee of ever being released, short of in a box, in Guantanamo, did you ever have any moment of doubt as to the guilt of even one prisoner there? No, because you just wrote “waterboarding a captured terrorist”. You automatically and uncritically believe that if Republicans run the government they would never do anything like imprison or torture someone, even by mistake, or, if they did, it somehow wouldn’t matter. After all, they’re probably guilty of something. That’s the world you want to live in, where America isn’t even good enough to have genuine independent judicial process.
However, you’ll never bother about it because the government told you that what they’re doing is to protect you and that’s all they have to say to make it okay for you and those who have hammered, twisted and bent the word conservative into its present shape of the idol of authority-worship.
Sorry, Mark, I haven’t given up on America like you seem to have.
59. Faceplant | December 13th, 2007 at 3:58 am
You’ve got to be kidding me. First of all Marky, Republicans seem to have a chronic inability to recognize the difference between a convicted terrorist, and a suspected terrorist.
“The prisoners at Gitmo gain weight.”
Thanks to force feeding.
“They are getting better health care than they’ve ever had in their life.”
According to who Marky?
“They and their religion are treated with the gravest of respect”
While they get to rot in a 8 by 6 foot open walled cell intefinately and without any way to challenge their detentions. The great treatment they recieve must be the reason why there have been 350 incidents of self harm, including 120 incidents of detainees attempting to hang themselves. Four people have successfuly committed suicide. I guess they just didn’t realize how good they had it!
I mean, what does your freedom matter if you get 3 squares a day, a doctor, and a closet to live in. Trust me the waterboarding is only a minor inconvenience. I mean they even give you a bucket to poop in.
“and none of them will ever lose their life save by due process of law.”
You mean this due process of law?
“In December 2003, I was given the assignment of representing a 34-year-old Yemeni with a fourth-grade education named Salim Ahmed Hamdan for unspecified charges before a military commission. The rules for trial permitted Salim to be tried and convicted on evidence that he was unable to see, much less confront, and for that evidence to be the product of interrogations that used sleep deprivation, agonizing stress positions, physical and mental humiliation and even water-boarding to induce the sense of drowning. The commission in short bore a closer resemblance to an inquisition than it did to the military justice system that I was so very proud to be a part of.
For Salim, though, the option for even such a mockery of a trial did not exist. The prosecution’s letter requesting counsel for Salim made clear that my access to him was conditioned on the negotiation of a guilty plea. That’s right: Unless Salim agreed to plead guilty, he would not be able to continue to have access to a lawyer, much less a day in court.”
I’m not sure what America you live in Marky. It isn’t the same country I live in.
60. Faceplant | December 13th, 2007 at 4:12 am
“Additionally, it doesn’t matter in the slightest what we do, any captured American soldier will be tortured based upon the mere whim of whatever enemy officer or official happens to be in control of him.”
Really? Funny how American soldiers captured in Operation Iraqi Freedom were not tortured by their captors. Al Queda tortures people, but that’s because they are a backwards group of murderers. The US doesn’t torture people, because generally we are not a backwards group of murderers. Do you really want our slogan to be “well at least we aren’t as bad as Al Qeuda. Oh, and notice that the Iranians also did not torture British captives.
“If we have done anything extreme to a captured enemy, it is because we had to”
Like this maybe?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/21/60II/main594974.shtml
“Now, Maher Arar tells Correspondent Vicki Mabrey about what became his year in hell, which began when federal agents stopped him for questioning at JFK International Airport.
——————————————————————————–
“I cooperated with them 100 percent. And they always kept telling me, ‘We’ll let you go on the next plane,’” says Arar. “They did not.”
It would be more than a year before Arar would see his family again. In September 2002, he’d taken his wife and two children on a beach vacation in Tunisia. But he flew home alone early for his job as a software engineer…
But the justice department had a different plan. After two weeks in U.S.custody, Arar was taken from his cell by federal agents in the middle of the night.
“They read me the document. They say, ‘The INS director decided to deport you to Syria,’” recalls Arar. “And of course, the first thing I did was I started crying, because everyone knows that Syria practices torture.”
Nevertheless, deportation agents flew Arar on a specially chartered jet to Jordan, and the Jordanians drove him to Syria.
“When I arrived there, I saw the photos of the Syrian president, and that’s why I realized I was indeed in Syria,” says Arar. “I wished I had a knife in my hand to kill myself.”
The next morning, Arar says a Syrian intelligence officer arrived carrying a black electrical cable, two inches thick and about two feet long.
“He said, ‘Do you know what this is?’ I said, I was crying, you know, ‘Yes, I know what it is. It’s a cable.’ And he said, ‘Open your right hand.’ I opened my right hand … and he beat me very strongly,” says Arar. “He said, ‘Open your left hand.’ And I opened my left hand. And he beat me on my palm, on my left palm. And then he stopped, and he asked me questions. And I said to him, ‘I have nothing to hide.’”
Arar says the physical torture took place during the first two weeks, but he says he also went through psychological and mental torture: “They would take me back to a room, they call it the waiting room. And I hear people screaming. And they, I mean, people, they’re being tortured. And I felt my heart was going to go out of my chest.”
Turns out Arar did nothing wrong, and not even Syrian intelligence could find any links to Al Queda.
“- the enemy, on the other hand, does evil purely for the purpose of doing evil.”
Of course it had nothing to do with acheiving political goals. They kill for the fun of it right? I thought it was because they hated our freedoms? Hmm, these things do get confusing sometimes, don’t they Marky.
61. Faceplant | December 13th, 2007 at 4:47 am
“You err - as does the author of your linked piece. Ask yourself: Why did the Japanese do what they did?”
So the United States was wrong to prosecute a Japanese soldier for waterboarding an American citizen?
“Then ask yourself: Why do we do what we do?”
You might have a point Marky if torture was actually a useful interrogation technique. The problem of course is that the people actually doing the interrogating all say it isn’t.
“Also, if a US soldier is captured, he’s to be treated differently under the provisions of the Geneva Convention from the treated given to an irregular combatant, such as a terrorist.”
Which is completely irrelevant, since the White House has admitted that common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applies to Al Queda detainees being held in Guantanamo bay. Common article 3 was long accepted by the United Sates to be the minimum standard of treatment of ANY prisoner captured during wartime.
Among those standards?
“To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”
You can try all you want to argue that this standard doesn’t apply to Guantanamo detainees, but you will be wrong. The supreme court already ruled that common article 3 is binding law, and that it DOES apply to the detainees being held at Guantanamo, in Hamdan v Rumsfeld.
I’m pretty sure waterboarding falls under cruel, humiliating, AND degrading treatment. Good luck arguing that it doesn’t.
62. Faceplant | December 13th, 2007 at 4:53 am
“Are we randomly waterboarding people who had nothing to do with the war?”
Nobody really knows do they Marky? Because the people who are being held at Guantanamo haven’t convicted of anything.
Do you believe that simply being seized by the US military means you are automatically guilty of being a terrorist?
And if not, then what assurance do you have that all of the people currently being held, are in fact terrorists?
Because last time I saw, this nation believed in the notion of being innocent until proven guilty. You consistently show a complete distain for that belief. It doesn’t suprise me, coming from an authoritarian.
63. Faceplant | December 13th, 2007 at 4:55 am
“The destruction of the tapes is, indeed, the issue - but only because the Democrats want to have them leaked so they can have another Abu Ghraib (sp?) situation.”
I’ve never understood the way you guys operate Marky. Maybe you could help me out here. US soldiers humiliate, and degrade, and in some cases torture prisoners at Abu Ghraib. But instead of blaming the military for this, you blame the media for bringing the pictures to light?
Seems a little backwards to me.
64. Faceplant | December 13th, 2007 at 5:00 am
Kahn,
“SteaM - you can’t prove any of that. That means you’re making unsubstantiated allegations. Just a vocabulary lesson.”
Excuse me? What we can prove is that nobody being held at Guantanamo has been convicted of anything. They are… BY DEFINTION… suspected terrorists. THAT isn’t unsubstantiated.
What is complete, and utter nonsense, is this chronic inability by people like you to recognize the difference between a terrorist, and a suspected terrorist.
Essentially you assume a terrorist suspect to be guilty before proven innocent. A view that is wholly inconsistent with the founding principals of this country. But then again, I’ve learned that the modern Republican party doesn’t really believe in the founding principals of this nation.
65. SteaM | December 13th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Faceplant,
Hey, ya gotta protect American interests somehow. Those big bad OPEC nations with nationalized oil who want to trade in euros rather than dollars (reducing the value of our dollar) and don’t want to let in US and British oil companies to do business (while agreeing to do oil business with China and Russia) have to be dealt with at all costs.
The costs of which we are seeing the beginning of. The founding principals of this nation. Out the window.
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