Former CIA director Hayden and Former Atty General Mukasey -both Bush era toadies- published an article today lambasting the decision to release the torture memos. Their really ignorant article is premised on the idea that (1) torturing a few people is okay and (2) torture is necessary to get important information. Both are totally false propositions.
Finally, in a great harrumph, they write, "Those charged with the responsibility of gathering potentially lifesaving information from unwilling captives are now told essentially that any legal opinion they get as to the lawfulness of their activity is only as durable as political fashion permits. Even with a seemingly binding opinion in hand, which future CIA operations personnel would take the risk? There would be no wink, no nod, no handshake that would convince them that legal guidance is durable. Any president who wants to apply such techniques without such a binding and durable legal opinion had better be prepared to apply them himself."
And of course, that was the point of releasing the memos. No public servant, no military man, no CIA agent, should ever look to a wink, nod, or handshake that phony legal cover for their actions will protect them. If these two are right that federal interrogators will not undertake torture because they are afraid that they will be held liable someday, no matter what slimy legal opinion the president's lackeys gin up for them, Amen to that!
I pray that Mukasey and Hayden are right. For the good of our country, and for the protection of all of us.
Friday, April 17, 2009
More about Torture
Posted by The Law Talking Guy at 9:58 AM
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8 comments:
If you can't try them in the court of law, hit htem with the court of public opinion. Obama did the right thing. Release, Let's have the unvarnished truth. All of Dick Cheney's "classified" information . . . let's see it all.
Let the American people know.
So let's review shall we... for 100 years we have laws, policies and judicial rulings saying this stuff is illegal. Not to mention a 200+ year old constitution. Then two political hacks write a few memos justifying it anyway and the guys who follow the memo think that going back to the way things were for 100 years is capricious?
We can start by impeaching that judge.
BTW: A recent article in the Washington Post pointed out that not a single piece of useful information came from torture. In fact, hundreds of agents were sent out on wild goose chases. The leads dissolved as quickly as they were created. People who had already given up all they knew without torture made stuff up under torture. That is what FBI, CIA, MI-5, and MI-6 veterans said would happen. They were not in favor of using those methods. And when agents protested the torture, they were told "No, you have to get more." from the White House, from Downing Street. Demand was outstripping production and it created a climate where anything goes . . . . that defines the entire Bush era. Housing bubbles, financial bubbles, war, torture, anything goes.
Obama has decided not to prosecute the interrogators for what they did. Mindful of the Nuremberg trials, it makes me uneasy to let torturers go free because they were "just following orders," but I accept this as a political decision.
Nevertheless, Atty. Gen. Holder or Congress should seek to prosecute the authors of these memos. This is not a matter of offering an unpopular legal opinion in a gray area. There is no gray area here, moral or legal.
These memos were flat out wrong. They were flimsy fig leaves written to authorize what everyone understood was torture. The whole point of these interrogation "techniques" is to make the subject suffer so much that they will eventually break down and talk rather than endure such treatment further. That is obviously torture!
Congress can impeach the judge without any involvement of the President.
There is news today that the CIA waterboarded Khalid Mohammed 183 times, and another suspect 83 times. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090420/ts_nm/us_usa_security_interrogations_2
That is not just sadistic, but proof positive that the method is not effective.
And once again, the bush administration is caught in a series of lies. They intimated that waterboarding was done only a handful of times, not dozens of times over a period of months on the same victims.
"That is not just sadistic, but proof positive that the method is not effective. "
As Little Big Man said to his grandfather..."Do you HATE them NOW Granfather!?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJRs2TnP9H8 (Pombat and Spotted Handfish,...if you guys haven't seen this movie, Little Big Man, go rent it sometime.)
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