It was legal "because the lawyer said it was"

You know, we really needed another one of these:



Thank you, George W. Bush. Thank you.

Boys Can Be Convicted of Torture

Boys aged 10 and 11. Adults, who ordered that torture become official U.S. policy, torture that in several known cases led to death, apparently can't.

Extra: Section 2340A.

"What About Torture That Saves Lives?"

If America ever needs an epitaph, it's got one.

Pedophile Invited to Several TV Shows to Decry Investigation of Pedophilia

Why is this admitted criminal being given the loudest loudspeakers in the country to continuously talk about how great his crimes are? Would they do it for a rapist? A burglar? A pedophile?

I just don't get it.

Former Navy SEAL Jesse Ventura on Torture

I will criticize President Obama on this level; it's a good thing I'm not president because I would prosecute every person that was involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it. I would prosecute the people that ordered it. Because torture is against the law.

"No exceptional circumstances whatsoever..."

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture... Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law.

The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, signed by, and championed by, President Ronald Reagan. (h/t)

Torture Memo Author "Regrets" Writing Memo

I think this is very big news:

"I've heard him express regret at the contents of the memo," said a fellow legal scholar and longtime friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity while offering remarks that might appear as "piling on." "I've heard him express regret that the memo was misused. I've heard him express regret at the lack of context -- of the enormous pressure and the enormous time pressure that he was under. And anyone would have regrets simply because of the notoriety."

And other sources, not anonymous:

Tuan Samahon, a former clerk who recalled Bybee's remarks at the reunion dinner, said in an e-mail that the judge defended the legal reasoning behind the memos but not the policy decision. Bybee was disappointed by what was done to prisoners, saying that "the spirit of liberty has left the republic," Samahon said.

"Jay would be the sort of lawyer who would say, 'Look, I'll give you the legal advice, but it's up to someone else to make the policy decision whether you implement it,' " said Randall Guynn, who roomed with Bybee at Brigham Young University and remains close.

This is no accident. Bybee's friends have been sent to get this message out, and it is very bad for Bush officials, possibly including Bybee. He "regrets" writing the memo? I thought everything was perfect and perfectly legal and hunkey-dory with all this. Bybee's telegraphing to the press that it's not. How is that not huge news?

To put this another way: Say Bush and Cheney and the lot of them are accused of murder. They and their supporters keep going on TV and defending them, or distorting the issue, or whatever. Their lawyer, who helped them commit the crime, just said "they're guilty."

This is enormous news.

Cheney Confesses To a War Crime

And what wil the Democrats do, one wonders.

One doesn't wonder, really.

Why are we Americans so afraid to punish our leaders?

Hidden Red Cross Report Documented Torture

Can someone put the bad guys in prison now?

Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.

Is the Red Cross a joke now, like our Congress?

Ex-Chief Gitmo Prosecutor Testifies AGAINST BushCo

Things that make you want to say, "God damn America":

On the witness stand was the former chief prosecutor for the tribunals, Col. Morris Davis. Called to testify by defense lawyers, he told the court what he'd told the press -- that he'd quit after becoming convinced that the political appointees overseeing the system were about politics first and justice second, that he was told "we can't have acquittals," and that he was pushed to land indictments or plea deals before the election. He also said that his superiors saw no problem with using confessions obtained through torture, including waterboarding. Everything is "fair game," he says he was told, "let the judge sort it out."

And hiding veteran suicide rates - what the hell will it ever take before people have had enough? Veteran administration officials - which means Bush administration officials - are hiding U.S. military veteran suicide rates - and they still have any supporters at all? What the hell is wrong with people? Especially so-called "pro-troops" people?

The George Bush Torture Team: Sweating

Do they wake up in the middle of the night with a knot in their guts that just won't go away?

A lump in their throats?

Report: Torture Approval Went to Top

I almost wrote, "This will be a huge story." I should know better by now.

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

[...]

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The "Principals." How ironic.

And - Colin Powell deserves a special place in Hell's Hell if he had a part in approving torture.






Torture Expose: Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair:

As the first anniversary of 9/11 approached, and a prized Guantánamo detainee wouldn’t talk, the Bush administration’s highest-ranking lawyers argued for extreme interrogation techniques, circumventing international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the army’s own Field Manual. The attorneys would even fly to Guantánamo to ratchet up the pressure—then blame abuses on the military. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail, and holds out the possibility of war-crimes charges.

Photo from TortureLaw.org






Brit Ministry of Defence Admits Torture

Damn. I bet the White House was all over this.

Iraqi detainees tortured by British troops will receive compensation after the Ministry of Defence admitted it failed to protect their human rights.

Des Browne acknowledged there had been "substantive breaches" of articles two and three – the right to life and prohibition of torture – of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The admission, coming in a written ministerial statement, follows the high court fight for compensation by the family of Basra hotel receptionist Baha Mousa.

Mr Mousa died in custody of British soldiers in 2003 after sustaining 93 injuries.

As well has effectively admitting culpability over the death of the 26-year-old, the MoD accepts UK soldiers tortured eight other Iraqi detainees.

More here.






"It's Not Like Putting Hot Coals on People's Bodies?"

Joe Lieberman shows that special kind of wisdom that makes one U.S. Senate material. On waterboarding:

It's is not like putting burning coals on people’s bodies. The person is in no real danger. The impact is psychological.

Hey Joe, so it's okay to force them to masturbate and take photos of them doing so? And it's okay to rape them?

The person is in no real danger. The impact is only psychological.

"Our Torture Was Kinder and Gentler"

Holy crap. Just when you think they've covered every possible variation of dishonesty and truth-twisting possible, they go through the wormhole to a whole new universe of What The F**k?:

The CIA's use of waterboarding was legal and not torture, a Justice Deparment official argued this morning, because it was a "procedure subject to strict limitations and safeguards" that made it substantially different from historical uses of the technique by the Japanese and the Spanish Inquisition.

Aw - ah - oh- no - please - please make it stop. The truth can only be tortured for so long before we all lose our minds. I's a different kind of procedure than the Japanese and Spanish Inquisition techniques. That's our new American standard. We're not as bad as the really bad torturers.

I wonder if they devised kinder and gentler rape techniques. And friendly fingernail extraction.

Too Chicken to Take My Comments

Far Right columnist and blogger Don Surber wrote yesterday about the Senate banning waterboarding: 



Waterboarding banned

Now if only we could get al-Qaida to quit beheading people.

Stunning logic. I left a tiny comment: "So you think of the United States as the equivalent of Al Qaeda. Brilliant."

He refused to post it. Chickenshit.

Aside from the nutjobbery of comparing the United States Congress to the murdering extremists that make up Al Qaeda - imagine Surber's argument from a more domestic direction:

Medical experiments on U.S. prisoners banned

Now if only we could get prisoners to quit breaking the law.

Surber seems to be in complete lack of ability to view and question his own or our own actions. It is impossible for him to find anything like a "wrong" coming from within - it's invisible unless someone else is doing the wrong.






Waterboarding: Not Just For the Khymer Rouge Anymore

The General reads the Warblogger' Handbook to find out when it's okay to torture:

1) Jack Bauer waterboards Wiley J. Coyote and learns of a plot Mr. Coyote hatched with the Clintons to murder a portion of the population of Mena, Arkansas by rigging at least 732 ACME anvils to fall on their heads.

Ruling: Not torture. The anvils could have killed a lot of people so waterboarding does not "shock the conscience."



2) Jack Bauer waterboards J. Wellington Wimpy and learns that he never pays anyone on Tuesdays for the hamburgers he eats today.

Ruling: Not prosecutable because the Inquisitor General isn't sure what "shocks the conscience" means.

3) Jack Bauer waterboards Bugs Bunny and learns that he often dresses like a really hot female bunny and kisses men.

Ruling: Not prosecutable because the previous Inquisitor General was OK with it.











Gitmo Squared

There's a secret prison inside Gitmo.

Support the troops (who may one day be taken prisoner).

WSJ: American WWII Vets Acted Like Nazis, Japanese

Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, in what has to be one of the most far-reaching and morally twisted arguments supporting waterboarding ever witnessed, says, just for starters, this:

The death last week of Paul Tibbets Jr., the pilot of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945, is an opportunity to revisit the debate about the strategic value and moral justification of the aerial bombardment of civilian targets in wartime. It also casts some light on the controversy surrounding Michael Mukasey's nomination to be the next attorney general of the United States.

You'll probably need time to let that sink in.

Got it? The pilot of the Hiroshima atomic bombing plane died last week, so - GO, ATTORNEY GENERALS FOR TORTURE! WE'RE IN A WORLD WAR JUST LIKE WORLD WAR TWO! GO TORTURE!

It declines in sense and decency from there. My reply, which might get posted there, who knows:

Let me see if I'm understanding Bret Stephens:

• The Allies bombed German cities in 1943

• We also bombed Japanese cities - two of them with nuclear weapons

• It is therefore right to for Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey to refuse to call waterboarding torture

Ow. Seriously - ow.

A quick something jumps out: By Stephens' argument, Mukasey should not call ANYTHING torture. Note this excerpt:

"...where opponents argue that the technique is unconscionable and inadmissible underany circumstances, even in hypothetical cases where the alternative to waterboarding is terrorist attacks resulting in mass casualties among innocent civilians."

Substitute "waterboarding" with any of the following: electrocution, stabbing in the eyes with ice picks, strangling suspect's family members, bamboo shoots up the fingernails, forced amputation, anal rape...

None of them do any damage to Mr. Stephens' "results" argument. Can he say whether this is how he feels about all these techniques? And if not, can he explain how waterboarding is different than the other techniques?

Also: Mr. Stephens might want to think twice about what he's saying about millions of American WWII veterans when he so casually asserts that they are guilty of "lowering oneself to the level of one's enemies." I'm quite sure the majority would disagree.