A Dick Cheney Torture Trifecta!
First we have Judy "re-connected at the roots" Miller claiming Nancy Pelosi’s in trouble because Dick Cheney tortured.
Then we got Stephen "Hagiographer" Hayes, claiming Nancy Pelosi’s in trouble because Dick Cheney tortured.
And now we’ve got Victoria Toensing, claiming we shouldn’t prosecute John Yoo and Jay Bybee because they told Dick Cheney he could torture. This article is notably bad, even for Toensing. She invokes her Reagan-era legal experience as her basis of authority–but ignores the Reagan-era case which declared waterboarding to be torture.
In the mid-1980s, when I supervised the legality of apprehending terrorists to stand trial, I relied on a decades-old Supreme Court standard:
She claims the lawyers (she conveniently mentions just Yoo and Bybee, for obvious reasons) only had to determine whether waterboarding constitued a specific intent to torture, and not whether it shocked the conscience.
Our capture and treatment could not "shock the conscience" of the court. The OLC lawyers, however, were not asked what treatment was legal to preserve a prosecution. They were asked what treatment was legal for a detainee who they were told had knowledge of future attacks on Americans.
The 1994 law was passed pursuant to an international treaty, the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment. The law’s definition of torture is circular. Torture under that law means "severe physical or mental pain or suffering," which in turn means "prolonged mental harm," which must be caused by one of four prohibited acts. The only relevant one to the CIA inquiry was threatening or inflicting "severe physical pain or suffering." What is "prolonged mental suffering"? The term appears nowhere else in the U.S. Code.
Congress required, in order for there to be a violation of the law, that an interrogator specifically intend that the detainee suffer prolonged physical or mental suffering as a result of the prohibited conduct. Just knowing a person could be injured from the interrogation method is not a violation under Supreme Court rulings interpreting "specific intent" in other criminal statutes.
Bradbury, of course, spent a good part of his May 30, 2005 memo addressing the "shock the consicence" standard, because the program had been deemed illegal by the CIA’s own IG under that standard.
Then Toensing claims Republican efforts to limit restrictions on the waterboarding that was–going back to Saint Ronnie and earlier–already illegal (neglecting to mention recent attempts thwarted by Bush’s veto) somehow made waterboarding legal.
Does he know the Senate rejected a bill in 2006 to make waterboarding illegal? That fact alone negates criminalization of the act.
The neatest, though, is where she demands the critics read just the two memos that fit her strained argument (but not the three that blow hers out of the water) and the underlying documents (which remain classified) before they be allowed to speak on the matter.
There should be a rule that all persons proposing investigation, prosecution or disbarment must read the two memos and all underlying documents and then draft a dissenting analysis.
I assume, though, she’s leaving out the FBI reports that prove Abu Zubaydah was cooperating, which undermine the first premise of the Bybee Memo.
Good to see Dick Cheney’s favorite hack lawyer hasn’t lost her touch for making thorougly disingenuous arguments that don’t even hold up to her own standards.
That said, is anyone having a Libby trial deja vu? Because I do believe Cheney has finally gotten out all the old hacks, in addition to BabyDick, to defend his torture regime.
Libby trial deja vu?
Yeah, that’s why I keep hoping for an opening for PatFitz to get back into the game, despite Mary’s caution that it ain’t gonna happen.
Thanks, EW, for your news and analysis!
Bob in HI
Yeah with Victoria on the scene (now I’ll have the Kinks playing in my head all day!) the deja vu is complete. Ugh, I can still hear her shrill voice ignoring the questions and yammering on about how important she was back in the day.
Fitz!
Thanks for watching/reading Judy, Judy, Judy, and Victoria Toe-suck, so I don’t have to.
Thanks Marcy! Your research and insight blows the Sunday Talking Heads out of the water!
Right-wing Whitewash – on full display!
Memo: Keep reading Marcy Wheeler. This is an effective antidote to the exotic behavior of the Right Wing WhiteWasher. Sometimes a second read-through may be necessary to be sure full innoculation takes effect.
This business about “knowing” that a certain person “knows” about an imminent attack. I think it leads to a recursive loop. So, how do “know” the person “knows”? Shall we torture the first source too? And once we find out how the first source “knew” – shall we then torture the source of that knowing? And so on…. It’s nonsense!!
Deja vu, indeed.
? gloria ? — and what does the Rightwing Whitewasher thrive on ?
keep going, marcy: cornered monsters dead ahead.
I think the democrats and republicans are all excited about the whitewash.
This is pretty easy to fix. No more unrecorded briefings. There is no reason not to have a concrete record other than to allow a lack of accountability.
With the Wilkerson revelations regarding al-Libi’s Waterboarding in April/May ‘02 to (falsely) establish an Iraq-al-Qaeda link – it is Virtually Certain that Bybee One and Two are Ex-Post Facto creations that ‘cover back’ at least to the ‘techniques’ used in the al-Libi Torture.
Whatever was done to al- Libi, and possibly others, was given the ‘color’ of Law by Bybee/Yoo working with Addington – After the Fact.
But that doesn’t Change the Fact – it Only Emphasizes the Fact – that Bush and Cheney Committed straight-up Statutory War Crimes – and Sought to Cover their Crimes with ‘Legal’ Memos produced by Their Own Lawyers – who were More Loyal to Bush than Faithful to their Profession and US.
So, Bush and Cheney committed War Crimes and Torture, then had their Lawyers Paper it Over (fixing the ‘facts’ – the words – to fit not just the Policy, but the Policy as Previously Criminally Acted Out.)
So, what Vicky’s Bullshit-Windmill article really says is – Ignoring the fact that Bush and Cheney Tortured – by the statutory definitions of Torture – Months before having Addington/Yoo/Bybee gin-up Bybee One and Two – Ex-Post Facto – to ‘cover’ their prior Criminal Acts – not to even mention Bush and Cheney Didn’t Inform Congress…Vicky says there is a long history of debate about the proper definitions of terms used in describing Torture…blah, blah, blah.
Like a Willful Shill, in the face of facts that Clearly Supervene Everything she’s saying in her article, she’s spewing a deceitful line of obfuscation for Bush and Cheney.
Truly, along with Judy, she’s giving Journalism a bad name.
ew,
I can add to this pattern. On another site having a torture discussion, I ran into Tom Maguire making almost reasonable sounding, but ultimately irrelevant arguments about torture. That was a blast from the past.
Since the wingnuts are able to frame this debate as involving nothing more than EIT, not torture, and waterboarding is one of many EIT’s. Let’s use the historical name I read in another blog (?) and reframe it for what it was, is, and always will be; WATER TORTURE and it is and was against the law and international treaties.
I’m so damn tired of our Congress critters and the right getting the top hand on the semantics of this crap.
digby sez: “…A consensus is forming among the villagers.
The saddest thing to me is that the Democrats are taking this position because they are afraid of Republicans on national security, despite the fact that the last two elections were a thorough repudiation of braindead right wing foreign policy. Sometimes I think they just don’t want the responsibility.”
if at one time we had richard clarke (we meaning all of us) and must still have a few like him, not to mention myriad other reasons, why should it appear that democrats fear republicans AT ALL?, or is it a time when we fear, in general, when we should be fierce, like marcy; responsible, like marcy. is it this bad now that we can’t keep focus because of tremors and aftershocks?
The wingnuts are able to get away with all this because our Democrats are so intent on supporting Obama’s desire not to have an investigation that they are not even trying to argue the other side of the issue. It’s crazy. Hell Carville couldn’t even defend Pelosi today and let Liz Cheney get away with all her crap.
Notre Dame commencement via cnn.com. Great Valedictorian speech in progress.
The Valedictorian’s name is Brennan Bollman. I have the privilege of meeting young people like her all the time … what a treasure !
Every teenager should have to listen to her speech, then write an essay on the messages it contains. I am going to get my girls to do this.
Good dad!
Kagro X/David Waldman has posted his (and Matt Yglesias’) reaction to Erica Williams’ statements while ostensibly representing CAP/CAPAF on a CNN panel with him. This was the subject of some anti-CAP comments in the last thread. Glennzilla also jumped on her appearance and comments this morning, along with posting a video clip of Tim Kaine disgracing himself on MTP.
From the person who made those anti-CAP cracks, thanks! I commented earlier at Matt Y’s post, thanking him, but also wondering why out of the legions of staff, some of whom have real expertise on torture/detention/accountability issues, they chose someone without any such expertise and who disagrees with the organization’s stance on those issues…
Of course torturing to get an Al-Qaeda connection were acts of sadism of choice. Especially when people around this time were just making shit up.
What is really deja vu is watching the Dems cave on everything. Obama’s embrace of Bush/Cheney policies is actually rehabilitating Bush and Cheney and our Dems just sit around and do nothing. It’s maddening watching them let the Republicans not only stop an investigation into war crimes but actually helping them to do it. How did we end up with such stupid, unprincipled people?
Judy Miller disgraces the name of the world’s oldest profession. What an unmitigated, disgusting whore.
Pity that Judy didn’t stick around Thailand for another month. Maybe they could have taken her down to the CIA “secure location” in the red-light districts of Pattaya where the CIA interrogators were holed up. They could have told her that al-Haideri was full of sh** (they had just completed a lie-detector interrogation on her primary source for ‘WMD’s in Iraq’).
They could have then invited her to see a real live torture session, complete with water boarding. Apparently if you want to hide the screams of people being tortured finding a noisy red-light district is the best cover.
Victoria Toensing. That lady has left more tracks in Washington than the whole Norway brown rat population. I can’t believe she has any credibility.
But what an interesting tenure, she. That she ties up to the Poppy Bush child sex ring in the late 80’s/early 90’s. That she is married to attorney Joe DiGenova (remember GW Bush investigation of Bill Clinton’s passport files in ‘92?)…
And then I found this curious article. Apparently Toensing was a mentor to the “spy to call” if you want to sue the CIA.
Pelosi is “in trouble”? I don’t think so I suspect that she took the weekend off simply to consult with friends and family about how busy she is going to be next week “reaping the whirlwind”. Nancy, I suspect, is not going to back off. It’s personal now. She’s not going to lose her position because of this. And she’s going to fight.
My suspicion is that she knows she’s right. And she’s going to have to reveal some classified information unless Obama opts to do it for her. But what with the corroborative statements of Bob Graham, Jay Rockefeller, the fact that Harman was told as if it was a first time informational for the House about waterboarding. That she specifically recalls being told by an aide to the House Committee on intelligence LATER. All of this suggests veracity on her part.
In addition, lets take a look at Richard Shelby’s formal statement that has been held up as contradicting Pelosi.
I point out that Shelby uses some rather odd glossing here about what techniques that the CIA told them about.
Now why use such waffle words? Doesn’t this indicate that the techniques WERE NOT a full account? That other techniques used at the time were later learned about? And then the techniques “purportedly” claimed to be a complete roster…were legally justified. The ones not mentioned? Of course not.
And, lets for a moment as a hypothetical, presume that waterboarding was one of those techniques listed (then what other techniques in this incomplete list were not?). If it was mentioned then Shelby states that the “Value of the information” from the technique was provided to the committee. That means that the CIA had already started using the waterboarding, before the Senate Intelligence Committee leadership was briefed. It was given as a fait accomplis.
But given that the phrasing suggests that the CIA was not fully forthcoming on all the techniques used…I’d go with them not telling the Gang of Four/Eight about waterboarding in 2002.
Yes, Pelosi does know she was not told…remember “…you don’t tell people you are going to commit a crime”..! The truth will out…
The OLC lawyers, however, were not asked what treatment was legal to preserve a prosecution.
First off the lawyers weren’t asked anything. They were ordered to write an CYA opinion for the maladminstration who had already been torturing detainees. How fucking stupid do these morons really think we are. The stenographers had better get a grip and start reading some polls because now that amercians are waking up to the stupidity and criminality of bushco they might just turn the teevee.
Toensig:Does he know the Senate rejected a bill in 2006 to make waterboarding illegal? That fact alone negates criminalization of the act. Um, not if there are, you know, other laws already on the books. And then they passed one in 2008.
Judy Miller, passer-on of Chalabi lies right onto the front page of the NYT, saying that Pelosi’s story has changed?! Wow, I’m waiting for MoDo and Frank Rich to turn Miller’s reputation inside out and filet it.
Anyone else flashing on that scene in “The Princess Bride” where Vizzini thinks that he’s sooooo smart he can outwit The Dread Pirate Roberts? So he challenges him to a duel of poisoned drinks, and they both drink iocane; but Roberts has already developed a resilience to it? Substitute “Pelosi” for Roberts.
First, if this is Libby deja vu, they’re running low on teammates.
Second, Judith Miller should stop drinking poison in public.
boy it’s getting more and more obvious that this isn’t so much about Pelosi’s place on the torture issue as much as it is about using any means possible to get rid of her and get the Apaic chosen one/Lieberman replacement, Hoyer in to replace her.(scary thought)
Check out Steels comments on mtp.If Hoyer was there he’d probably kiss him
http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..index.html
No, we’re not there. Barbara Comstock hasn’t popped up yet.
I don’t know if I have progressed beyond the intellectual norm here, or if it might be because I’m slightly off plum to begin with, but I don’t see this as deja vu
it’s more like were stuck in a Greek tragedy on an endless replay loop
I’m thinking of writing a doctoral thesis about the whole political scheme that we’re seeing played out before us. I’m planning on calling it the “Sid Barret” political strategy, based on Sid’s “Have you got it yet” incident
jes soes ya knows, Sid Barret experienced most of the mental insanity that is described in Pink Floyd’s music. Near the end of his association with the band, Sid was in the studio teaching Roger Watters and others what Sid called the “melody” of a song (you should understand that most melodies are semi-repetitious), Except that Sid was insane. What he was playing was a form of free-form-fusion-jazz, or something, It had no repetitious points, no structure, and basically no reference to where it was going, or where it would end. As Sid was playing this strange tune, he was ontinually asking Watters and others “Have You Got It Yet ???”
and the reponse was “Got What ???” this is the musical equivalent of gibberish. How could we understand or repeat it ???
the repuglicans seem to adopted a political strategy similar to Sid’s musical style
they are surprised that Democrats and Independents don’t understand what the repuglitards are doing. And better yet, they’re pissed at the Dems and Indies for not joining them
note to repuglitards
SID WAS INSANE
before he died recently, the last I heard from Sid was that “He lived with his Mum, and he likes pork chops”. Then he slammed the door in the guy’s face
I love Sid. He was a gentle, harmless soul, who was overwhelmed by his own talent. Shine On you Crazy Diamond
dick cheney is another story. He’s insane too, but he ain’t a gentle harmless guy. he’s a fucking psychopath
Dick cheney keeps looking at me, saying “have you got it yet”
Yeah dick, I get it. you sold yer soul, and you want to stay out of prision
what I don’t get is why the rest of your party followed you off this cliff
is the whole repuglitarded party insane ???
or are they just so committed to gaining power at any cost that a little insanity doesn’t matter
I apologize for bringing Sid into a discussion about dick cheney’s criminal insanity, but I needed a model, and we all know Sid, even if some of us don’t know we know Sid
so, to answer your question, no, it ain’t like deja vu
but it’s all so predictable it’s getting a little boring
I love pork chops too.
I think it’s the loss of “power” that’s the cause of their
insanity.
Obama has upset the applecart.
The Repugs are on life support, and I fear the worst…
Fleshing out your last line a little:
There is a good possibility, imho, that the repugs were mostly used here, by somebody above Dick’s position, to create this mess, to then be dumped as necessary. That unidentified somebody cares nothing about party politics, has (nearly) accomplished the goals of trashing the economy and other evil deeds, and the next steps may not need repugs in power to do anything. Obviously Obama was chosen for some purpose and it seems unlikely that the purpose would be to undo progress made to date.
Doesn’t Cheney appear now as a zombie-like character, wandering around spewing his drivel in hopes that somebody will listen? Come to think of it, many of the other repug “leaders” are emitting the same odor. That doesn’t resemble power to me at all.
Please don’t ask for details; this is an unsubstantiated premise, cobbled together from that vicious stream of psychopathic ideas, statements, moves from certain repugs, which has intensified in recent years, betraying, I’m afraid, desperation.
It often looks that way, which underscores the irony of the Plantation Caucus in continuing to be used. Why they continue to remain blind to the fact that those who used them view them as utterly expendable remains a mystery.
What is becoming chillingly clear is how incestuous the Beltway is: why is Matalin’s hubby (Carville) on “This Week” on any teevee show this week? And what on earth is he doing discussing the handling of the torture issue?! He has a vested interest in keeping his wife (Matalin’s) ass out of the slammer because she was a member of WHIG marketing the Iraq War. ABC offers up butt-covering as ‘analysis’, hoping that no one will notice.
Meanwhile, the same weekend, former NYT reporter Judith Miller shows up on teevee — to imply that Pelosi is somehow ‘changing her story’?! The very same
reporterstenographer who got Dick Cheney’s propaganda about aluminum tubes onto the front page of the NYT on 8 Sept 2002 — a mere four days after Pelosi was ‘briefed Lite’ — claims that Pelosi has a convoluted memory?!This is the same Judith Miller who couldn’t remember what “Valerie Plame” meant in a note to herself? Judith Miller who received a letter — while in jail for withholding Scooter Libby’s name from a federal judge — about ‘aspens turning at the roots’?!
Judith Miller needs to throw “sand in the eyes” of the MSM, and the public, in order to distract anyone from asking about why she was publishing Dick’s bad intel, thereby subverting the national security apparatus the very week that the CIA was screwing with Pelosi in Sept 2002.
When the media can’t seem to connect basic dots like: “Hmmmm… if I invite a guest onto my show who is probably complicit in a deliberate, premeditated criminal conspiracy, and has been or will be investigated, maybe I’ll look like a tool. And if I look like a tool, then I won’t have an audience…but while I have an audience, I’ll be a tool and schedule whoever most needs to CYA this week…”
We’re surely stuck in a Sid Barret Downward Spiral of insanity.
The two sources that I’ve seen today who connect the dots accurately are MoDo and Frank Rich. One of them built his career as a theatre critic. Go figure.
Something’s afoot with Cheney, though. It is not a familiar kind of ‘power’, and it’s a dark ‘power’ and it’s increasingly desperate
If you didn’t intend for something to cause severe mental or physical suffering, why would you be using that coercive “technique” to gather intelligence in the first place?
Nobody is being accused of ordering foot rubs; their intent was clear.
Are Dick and Victoria involved in a romantic relationship?
With regard to the notion Pelosi must be punished because Cheney ordered torture I keep thinking of transfer aggression in primates. When a primate looses an argument or conflict, the looser directly turns around and abuses a smaller or weaker member. When I see these idiots blaming a minority member of the legislative branch for the illegal actions of the bully of another branch I think of primates.
Q. what does the right wing whitewasher eat ???
A. the right wing whitewasher dines on festering bullshit … exclusively
Could it be that Vicky, and others like her, are “True Believers” in Bush’s Crusader-King Myth?
– Here are the images of the Covers to Rumsfeld’s personal briefings to Bush from Mar/Apr ‘03 (Source GQ).
– Here’s Bush speaking to Palestinian Leaders in June ‘03:
One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: “President Bush said to all of us: ‘I am driven with a mission from God’. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.”
Mr Bush went on: “And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East’. And, by God, I’m gonna do it.”
Here’s Bush talking to GOP Leaders, in Nov. ‘05, who are resisting Bush’s pressure for the Renewal of the Patriot Act:
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
And here is a WikiQuote Timeline of Bush Quotes (a Marvelous Companion Resource for EW’s Timelines):
“This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.”
~ Remarks on the south lawn of the White House (September 16, 2001)
“The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example.”
~ 26 June 2003
“I don’t know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I’d like to know it.”
~ Source: October 1, 2003, Suntimes.com (see also July 18, 2005)
“See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don’t attack each other. Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.”
~ Midwest Airlines Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 3, 2003
So, Vicky, you aren’t just shilling for a Political Party, you’re Enabling a Monster Batterer to ‘Walk On Water’ – and have his Cruel and Twisted way – while Worshipping him as a Crusader-King.
Please, wake up to what’s staring you in the face on the other side of your own fantasy…
8-0
And all the other items on your list >:-[
In 1983, Sheriff James Parker and his deputies got the idea that they could extract confession from prisoners using the methods he encountered at SERE training. In 1984, the most liberal of all the federal courts of appeals, the fifth circuit, said the following in US v. Lee, 744 F.2d 1124 (5th. 1984):
Binding precedent in the federal courts shows that waterboarding has been illegal whether you claim to be doing it under orders, or claiming that it isn’t illegal.
So, how much more proof do you need, of who owns the media? The GOP owns the “liberal media”.
David Brock, the reformed conservative noise-maker, on how the Right has sabotaged journalism, democracy, and truth.
As a young journalist in the 1990s, David Brock was a key cog the Republican noise machine. Writing for the American Spectator, a conservative magazine funded by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, Brock gained fame for his attack pieces on Anita Hill and President Bill Clinton. Then, in 2002, Brock came clean. In his memoir, Blinded by the Right, Brock admitted that his work was based on lies and distortion, and part of a coordinated smear campaign funded by wealthy right wing groups to discredit Clinton and confuse the public.
Since then, Brock has continued to expose the conservative media onslaught. In his newest book, The Republican Noise Machine, Brock documents how right-wing groups pressure the media and spread misinformation to the public. It’s easy to see how this is done.
Fringe conspiracies and stories will be kept alive by outlets like Rush Limbaugh, the Washington Times, and the Drudge Report, until they finally break into the mainstream media.
Media groups like Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center have spent 30 years convincing the public that the media is, in fact, liberal. As Brock says, it’s all a sham: “I have seen, and I know firsthand, indeed from my own pen, how the organized Right has sabotaged not only journalism but also democracy and truth.”
http://www.motherjones.com/pol…..se-machine
http://mediamatters.org/
If the media is liberal, who are the liberals who own and run it? What are their names?
5 corporations own all the media, and corporations aren’t liberal.