Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Elizabeth have canceled speeches in Toronto, Canada out of concern that they would be set upon by people who oppose torture and want Cheney arrested. While Americans appear reconciled with the torture program, citizens in other countries still demand that Bush officials be arrested according to international law.
Last September, Cheney was surrounded in the Vancouver Club and kept there for seven hours before it was deemed safe for him to leave.
The aspect of this story that I love the most is the name of the group that was arranging Cheney’s visit on April 24th: Spectre. Yes, Spectre of Ernst Stavro Blofeld fame. Number 1 in this case was Ryan Ruppert of Spectre Live Corp. who explained that “[a]fter speaking with their security advisers, they changed their mind on coming to the event [and] decided it was better for their personal safety they stay out of Canada.” It is not clear if Blofeld’s cat will make the trip instead.
Cheney could claim a curious victory in frustrating efforts to arrest him. In the words of Blofeld: “Such a pity. All that time and energy wasted, simply to provide you with one mock, heroic moment.” [Look into camera, pet cat, exit stage right]
Source: Washington Post
David Frum, the Iraq War and oil
The former Bush speechwriter confirms what has long been the most ridiculed claim about a key reason the US attacked Iraq
by Glenn Greenwald
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/18/david-frum-iraq-war-oil
Dick Cheney, Ahmed Chalabi Contemplated Value Of Iraqi Oil To U.S., David Frum Writes
Posted: 03/17/2013 5:04 pm EDT
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/17/dick-cheney-ahmed-chalabi_n_2897357.html
What a rotten evil fellow. Let’s handcuff him to his hospital bed this week…or even better..let’s water board the recent heart recipient!!!
Perhaps Canada needs to take a hint from how the United States deals with terrorists and war criminal who evade arrest and do a drone strike…
AN
thanks.
Guess all are gone, but will again review a question and proposed interpretation which may have impact here.
But first off, óne can wonder why big O. calls it illegal and does not prosecute via DoJ.
I tracked down the convention on torture, the wording of the reservations etc, and the memo sent out to CIA and other agencies on this reservations wording and re-used a key passage, saying: “torture only exists when specific intent to cause pain, etc is involved”
I interpret this to mean that as long as your conscience is clean (and who can prove otherwise) then you go free, no matter how much it violates the convention’s wording on reasonable expectation of imminent death on the part of the torturee.
Point? By declaring that this (and other?) techniques are for interrogation purposes and not declared otherwise, or defined as to actual effects which woúld qualify prima facie as to being torture, etc.,
then the CIA can hide behind such a screen. And as noted in AN’s citation , can in principle hide whatever it wishes behind it too.
Why did they come back from a session with the judge with refusal to deny or not deny—-well the judge said in chambesrs. “I will be forced to rule against you in re your first held position”—–and so they scratched their joint heads for 40 minutes. So they came back with the cited smoke and mirrors.
And was the reporter/recorder in the chambers to record what transpired? And does the ACLU have access afterwards?
My questions at this point.
Am I right about my interpretation,
1) as to importance of SPECIFIC INTENT TO CAUSE PAIN OR SUFFERING.
2) the importance of the memo as to wize up all as to the “loophole” offered?
3) if this is the first test, since I presume no one has been tried, since the reservation included a notice that we say it is sufficient with USA laws in this respect and no specific reinforcement or modifications are necessary.
Of course, to ask why the Senate approves such shit is a useless question.
Any volunteers.?
If none, I wiil dunn you on another thread. Bdaman is giving me lessons. And he’s only a descendant of Eliza.
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/cia-we-do-not-concede-or-not-concede-waterboarding-illegal
03/13/2012
CIA: We Do Not “Concede or Not Concede” that Waterboarding is Illegal
Posted by Alex Abdo, National Security Project & Mitra Ebadolahi, National Security Project at 1:45pm
On Friday, the ACLU appeared before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York to argue that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requires the CIA to release documents describing its use of waterboarding. The simple question at the heart of the hearing was this: is waterboarding an “intelligence method” that can be protected from disclosure under FOIA? We argued that the answer — of course not — is easy because even the president himself has declared that waterboarding is illegal. Exposing official misconduct to public scrutiny is the chief purpose of FOIA. But it cannot serve that purpose if even officially confirmed illegality is protectable.
The CIA disagreed and offered a truly astonishing view of what our laws on transparency were meant to protect from the public’s view. Under its theory, the agency may protect just about any type of activity — legal or illegal — as an “intelligence method,” and thus conceal such activities from the public. It does not matter that President Obama has declared waterboarding to be illegal, and it does not matter that the United States has prosecuted waterboarding as a war crime in the past. Even the most egregiously unlawful interrogation techniques could be kept secret as “intelligence methods” of the CIA.
Was the CIA really making this argument? We would soon find out that even the CIA’s lawyer seemed uncomfortable with the extraordinary breadth of the claim, resorting to smoke and mirrors to distract the court’s focus. Toward the end of the hearing, the three judges and the CIA’s lawyer recessed for a 40-minute classified session to discuss the documents we are seeking. When the public hearing resumed, the CIA’s lawyer made the mystifying claim that the CIA “does not concede or not concede” that waterboarding is illegal.
We scratched our heads trying to understand what exactly this meant. President Obama declared waterboarding to be illegal shortly after releasing the Bush administration’s torture memos in 2009. And the CIA never once disputed the unlawfulness of waterboarding in its filings in this case. The only possibility was that the government was trying to have it both ways. It wants to win this case without having to argue publicly that illegal conduct can be a protectable “intelligence method.”
At its core, the CIA’s argument is that the agency should be permitted to decide for itself which information should be released, and which should be suppressed. The agency believes that courts should simply defer to its decisions about secrecy. There is a time and place for that kind of deference, of course, but when it comes to public disclosure of the CIA’s illegal conduct, the CIA’s claim to immunity is fundamentally at odds with our system of checks and balances. Only through public scrutiny of official wrongdoing can the governed hold the government accountable. And only through robust judicial enforcement of our transparency laws will the public have access to the information necessary to do so.
Blouise,
Can’t imagine what it’d be like commenting on the same blog. Ussch. Sounds like nasty sex games to me, or some such perversion. Why am I so into those speculations. Guess cause my Kerstin shared only my interest for gardening, although none of my illusions therein.
All other interests, and I don’t imply sexual one (damn, there I am again) either, were not shared. Oh yes, art. But music, no.
id707,
Not my Tex. He was asleep at that hour.
Tex,
Are you someone here’s Tex, or your own?
And after that personal question, here follows an opinion. Good point BTW.
Were you ever around the cracker barrel before. I mean like good ol’ days,,
In fact I wasn’t interested other than hearing an address by Adlai Stevenson at age ten. Can you tell us what that golden era had for dates?
Since the era of anonymous comm, introduced by Kiljoy and practiced thereafter on BB, etc until today, why I do agree that it may have gotten worse in ways—-but the venom seems the same to me.
????????
I swear! The rhetoric employed in political discussion now a days makes it virtually impossible too have a civil discussion.
I see the same tactics being employed in here as i do in some of the right wing blogs. Hardly any concern for contrary opinions!
Seems to have always been the case since 9/11. It’s so childishly revolting! No room for common ground.
Do we really deserve what we have been given by the blood of so many? At times, i really wonder?
Let the blame game continue on…
TalkinDog is back yakin. They ought to put billboards up across the country on major highways of that photo of the Dickster with a caption under it which says: Vote The Republicans Back In!
By “they” I mean the Democratic Party. Forget television, radio, internet. Billboards with Cheneys puss.
sheafferhistorian,
Personally, I love justice. While I’d prefer that treasonous war criminal meet justice in our courts, since our justice system is unwilling to investigate let alone arrest a man who admitted and even bragged about committing war crimes, I’ll take it wherever I can get it. If that takes Cheney and/or Bush or any of their other cohorts being arrested off of American soil and tried before the Hague? So be it.
sheaffer—-are you serious. don’t you enjoy seeing a bastard hang?
Rafflaw and Pete—–maybe Netanyahu can loan an Iranian duck holder.
Quack. !
Why do American Liberals love the idea of an international court snatching US citizens abroad?
Quote Why do American Liberals love the idea of an international court snatching US citizens abroad?
Right, let’s just send a Predator Drone after Cheney, Obama seems to think that’s the way to deal with “terrorists”.
Elaine,
I love Roy Zimmerman. You got me hooked.