Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
What Makes the United States Special
Last week the President released memos issued by the Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005 as part of an ongoing court case. The memos discussed techniques that were used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects during that period, techniques that President Obama has disavowed. Today the President visited CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia to speak to CIA employees directly. Telling them of his great faith in them, and the faith that the American people have in them, he went on to discuss precisely why he has decided to change interrogation policy for the United States:
---
Now, I have put an end to the interrogation techniques described in those OLC memos, and I want to be very clear and very blunt. I've done so for a simple reason: because I believe that our nation is stronger and more secure when we deploy the full measure of both our power and the power of our values –- including the rule of law. I know I can count on you to do exactly that.
There have been some conversations that I've had with senior folks here at Langley in which I think people have expressed understandable anxiety and concern. So I want to make a point that I just made in the smaller group. I understand that it's hard when you are asked to protect the American people against people who have no scruples and would willingly and gladly kill innocents. Al Qaeda is not constrained by a constitution. Many of our adversaries are not constrained by a belief in freedom of speech, or representation in court, or rule of law. I'm sure that sometimes it seems as if that means we're operating with one hand tied behind our back, or that those who would argue for a higher standard are naïve. I understand that. You know, I watch the cable shows once in a while. (Laughter.)
What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it's hard, not just when it's easy; even when we are afraid and under threat, not just when it's expedient to do so. That's what makes us different.
So, yes, you've got a harder job. And so do I. And that's okay, because that's why we can take such extraordinary pride in being Americans. And over the long term, that is why I believe we will defeat our enemies, because we're on the better side of history.
So don't be discouraged by what's happened in the last few weeks. Don't be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we've made some mistakes. That's how we learn. But the fact that we are willing to acknowledge them and then move forward, that is precisely why I am proud to be President of the United States, and that's why you should be proud to be members of the CIA. (Applause.)
Showing posts with label bush does torture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bush does torture. Show all posts
Apr 21, 2009
Apr 19, 2009
Sanity
Update: CIA WATERBOARDED KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED 183 TIMES IN ONE MONTH (via Huffington Post)
Two extraordinary pieces in the Sunday Times on rightwing depravity and rightwing stupidity:
From Frank Rich:
Two extraordinary pieces in the Sunday Times on rightwing depravity and rightwing stupidity:
April 19, 2009
Editorial
The Torturers’ Manifesto
To read the four newly released memos on prisoner interrogation written by George W. Bush’s Justice Department is to take a journey into depravity.
Their language is the precise bureaucratese favored by dungeon masters throughout history. They detail how to fashion a collar for slamming a prisoner against a wall, exactly how many days he can be kept without sleep (11), and what, specifically, he should be told before being locked in a box with an insect — all to stop just short of having a jury decide that these acts violate the laws against torture and abusive treatment of prisoners.
In one of the more nauseating passages, Jay Bybee, then an assistant attorney general and now a federal judge, wrote admiringly about a contraption for waterboarding that would lurch a prisoner upright if he stopped breathing while water was poured over his face. He praised the Central Intelligence Agency for having doctors ready to perform an emergency tracheotomy if necessary.
These memos are not an honest attempt to set the legal limits on interrogations, which was the authors’ statutory obligation.
They were written to provide legal immunity for acts that are clearly illegal, immoral and a violation of this country’s most basic values.
It sounds like the plot of a mob film, except the lawyers asking how much their clients can get away with are from the C.I.A. and the lawyers coaching them on how to commit the abuses are from the Justice Department. And it all played out with the blessing of the defense secretary, the attorney general, the intelligence director and,
most likely, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
The Americans Civil Liberties Union deserves credit for suing for the memos’ release. And President Obama deserves credit for overruling his own C.I.A. director and ordering that the memos be made public. It is hard to think of another case in which documents stamped “Top Secret” were released with hardly any deletions. ...
From Frank Rich:
WHAT would happen if you crossed that creepy 1960s horror classic 'The Village of the Damned' with the Broadway staple 'A Chorus Line'? You don’t need to use your imagination. It’s there waiting for you on YouTube under the title 'Gathering Storm': a 60-second ad presenting homosexuality as a national threat second only to terrorism. ...
Far from terrifying anyone, 'Gathering Storm' has become, unsurprisingly, an Internet camp classic. On YouTube the original video must compete with countless homemade parodies it has inspired since first turning up some 10 days ago. None may top Stephen Colbert’s on Thursday night, in which lightning from 'the homo storm' strikes an Arkansas teacher, turning him gay. A 'New Jersey pastor' whose church has been 'turned into an Abercrombie & Fitch' declares that he likes gay people, 'but only as hilarious best friends in TV and movies.' ...
What gives the ad its symbolic significance is not just that it’s idiotic but that its release was the only loud protest anywhere in America to the news that same-sex marriage had been legalized in Iowa and Vermont. If it advances any message, it’s mainly that homophobic activism is ever more depopulated and isolated as well as brain-dead. ...
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Colbert Coalition's Anti-Gay Marriage Ad | ||||
| ||||
Jul 14, 2008
The Outlaw Presidency
Dan Froomkin's The Outlaw Presidency, discussing Jane Meyer's The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, points to a significant fact of the American political culture.
Finally, it is now conventional wisdom that the Bush-Cheney regime is the most lawless and immoral administration in American history, though I still recommend that elitist Harper's magazine. See Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew: How a Gang of Right-wing Con men Destroyed Washington and Made a Killing.
Finally, it is now conventional wisdom that the Bush-Cheney regime is the most lawless and immoral administration in American history, though I still recommend that elitist Harper's magazine. See Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew: How a Gang of Right-wing Con men Destroyed Washington and Made a Killing.
Dec 30, 2007
NYT: Fear of Exposure to Public Drove Suppression of CIA Torture Tapes
The 2,060 piece in today's New York Times tells the American public the essential story of the truly immoral regime that is the Bush administration.
See SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI's piece that one hopes leads to denunciations across the globe.
Not only did the CIA under Bush torture human beings, but they concealed and destroyed the taped evidence of torture for fear that the American public and Muslims would object. All the time, Bush and his drones blared: "We do not torture."
This contempt for democratic accountability makes the political illegitimacy of the Bush regime plain for all to see. Its contempt for human rights makes the Bush regime war criminals who ought to face trial.
From the Times:
But interviews with two dozen current and former officials, most of whom would speak about the classified program only on the condition of anonymity, revealed new details about why the tapes were made and then eliminated. Their accounts show how political and legal considerations competed with intelligence concerns in the handling of the tapes. ...
The discussion about the tapes took place in Congressional briefings and secret deliberations among top White House lawyers, including a meeting in May 2004 just days after photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq had reminded the administration of the power of such images. The debate stretched over the tenure of two C.I.A. chiefs and became entangled in a feud between the agency’s top lawyers and its inspector general. The tapes documented a program so closely guarded that President Bush himself had agreed with the advice of intelligence officials that he not be told the locations of the secret C.I.A. prisons. Had there been no political or security considerations, videotaping every interrogation and preserving the tapes would make sense, according to several intelligence officials. ...
The investigations over the tapes frustrate some C.I.A. veterans, who say they believe that the agency is being unfairly blamed for policies of coercive interrogation approved at the top of the Bush administration and by some Congressional leaders. Intelligence officers are divided over the use of such methods as waterboarding.
###
See SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI's piece that one hopes leads to denunciations across the globe.
Not only did the CIA under Bush torture human beings, but they concealed and destroyed the taped evidence of torture for fear that the American public and Muslims would object. All the time, Bush and his drones blared: "We do not torture."
This contempt for democratic accountability makes the political illegitimacy of the Bush regime plain for all to see. Its contempt for human rights makes the Bush regime war criminals who ought to face trial.
From the Times:
But interviews with two dozen current and former officials, most of whom would speak about the classified program only on the condition of anonymity, revealed new details about why the tapes were made and then eliminated. Their accounts show how political and legal considerations competed with intelligence concerns in the handling of the tapes. ...
The discussion about the tapes took place in Congressional briefings and secret deliberations among top White House lawyers, including a meeting in May 2004 just days after photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq had reminded the administration of the power of such images. The debate stretched over the tenure of two C.I.A. chiefs and became entangled in a feud between the agency’s top lawyers and its inspector general. The tapes documented a program so closely guarded that President Bush himself had agreed with the advice of intelligence officials that he not be told the locations of the secret C.I.A. prisons. Had there been no political or security considerations, videotaping every interrogation and preserving the tapes would make sense, according to several intelligence officials. ...
The investigations over the tapes frustrate some C.I.A. veterans, who say they believe that the agency is being unfairly blamed for policies of coercive interrogation approved at the top of the Bush administration and by some Congressional leaders. Intelligence officers are divided over the use of such methods as waterboarding.
###
Dec 5, 2007
Evidence Of Innocence Rejected at Guantanamo
Update: Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States arguments (are scheduled) be heard at: C-Span 3 11.15 (eastern), 10:15 (central), and ScotusBlog will be (after-arguments)-blogging at 11:15 eastern time this a.m.
The Washington Post has a front-page story by Carol D. Leonnig detailing the plight on an innocent man, student Murat Kurnaz, held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2002.
In fact, Kurnaz was and is known by U.S. authorities to be innocent.
The "... intelligence community's consensus view that Kurnaz is innocent is detailed in newly released military and court documents that track his fate."
Excerpt from the piece:
The (U.S. military tribunal) process is "fundamentally corrupted," said Baher Azmy, a professor at Seton Hall Law School who represents Kurnaz. "All of this just reveals that they had the wrong person and they knew it."
He added: "His entire file reveals he has no connection with terrorism. None. Confronted with this uncomfortable fact, the military panel makes up evidence" to justify its claim that only real terrorists are incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay.
Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to comment on whether the military now believes that it erred in imprisoning Kurnaz, or to discuss the release of new records. He stressed that a substantial amount of information about Kurnaz remains classified. ...
###
The Washington Post has a front-page story by Carol D. Leonnig detailing the plight on an innocent man, student Murat Kurnaz, held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2002.
In fact, Kurnaz was and is known by U.S. authorities to be innocent.
The "... intelligence community's consensus view that Kurnaz is innocent is detailed in newly released military and court documents that track his fate."
Excerpt from the piece:
The (U.S. military tribunal) process is "fundamentally corrupted," said Baher Azmy, a professor at Seton Hall Law School who represents Kurnaz. "All of this just reveals that they had the wrong person and they knew it."
He added: "His entire file reveals he has no connection with terrorism. None. Confronted with this uncomfortable fact, the military panel makes up evidence" to justify its claim that only real terrorists are incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay.
Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to comment on whether the military now believes that it erred in imprisoning Kurnaz, or to discuss the release of new records. He stressed that a substantial amount of information about Kurnaz remains classified. ...
###
Center for Constitutional Rights Argues Guantánamo Due Process Case at SC Today
Update II: Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States arguments can be heard at: C-Span 3 11.15 (eastern), 10:15 (central).
Update: ScotusBlog will be (after-arguments)-blogging at 11:15 eastern time this a.m.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) argues the Bush administration's nightmare case today, Al Odah v. United States, before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A companion case, Boumediene v. Bush, is also being argued today.
In Al Odah v. United States, the CCR is attempting to restore the right of accused inmates to challenge their detention and conditions of confinement, a long-cherished legal principle known as habeas corpus.
Numerous people held at Guantánamo Bay are believed to be innocent, and several have already been freed and sent back to their native countries.
But though the Bush administration retains a harsh and hostile view of civil liberties, even those inmates later found to be guilty deserve due process and access to an impartial court, according to liberty-supporting communities the world-over.
A decision against the Bush administration could put an end to indefinite detention and mandate an opportunity to be heard before an impartial court, a result that the Bush administration attempts to block.
As CCR webpage reads:
###
Update: ScotusBlog will be (after-arguments)-blogging at 11:15 eastern time this a.m.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) argues the Bush administration's nightmare case today, Al Odah v. United States, before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A companion case, Boumediene v. Bush, is also being argued today.
In Al Odah v. United States, the CCR is attempting to restore the right of accused inmates to challenge their detention and conditions of confinement, a long-cherished legal principle known as habeas corpus.
Numerous people held at Guantánamo Bay are believed to be innocent, and several have already been freed and sent back to their native countries.
But though the Bush administration retains a harsh and hostile view of civil liberties, even those inmates later found to be guilty deserve due process and access to an impartial court, according to liberty-supporting communities the world-over.
A decision against the Bush administration could put an end to indefinite detention and mandate an opportunity to be heard before an impartial court, a result that the Bush administration attempts to block.
As CCR webpage reads:
On June 28, 2004, the Supreme Court held in Rasul v. Bush, that the nearly-600 men imprisoned by the U.S. government in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba had a right of access to the federal courts, via habeas corpus and otherwise, to challenge their detention and conditions of confinement. Subsequent to thisAl Odah v. U.S. Amicus Briefs page
decision, the habeas petitions were remanded to the district court for further proceedings.
Immediately after the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul, CCR and cooperating counsel filed 11 new habeas petitions in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of over 70 detainees.
These cases eventually became the consolidated cases of Al Odah v. United States and Boumediene v. Bush, the leading cases determining the significance of the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul, the rights of non-citizens to challenge the legality of their detention in an offshore U.S. military base, and the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.
###
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)