After refusing to release even unclassified materials as Vice President, former Vice President Dick Cheney is now calling for the release of all interrogation reports to show that torture works. This is the same Cheney who supported the denial of such evidence to courts and criminal defendants and Congress. However, now that calls for prosecution for war crimes are increasing, Cheney suddenly believes in transparency in government. In the meantime, Obama has reversed earlier statements and indicated that he will not rule out prosecutions of Bush officials. We discussed this latest development on this segment of MSNBC Countdown.
“One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn’t put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified. . . .I formally asked that they be declassified now. I haven’t announced this up until now, I haven’t talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country. . . .And I’ve now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was, as well as to see this debate over the legal opinions.”
This is part of the new strategy where torture is defended because it works. This is the same argument that I faced yesterday in a debate on NPR with Professor Robert Turner, click here. The media is being sucked into this false debate, debating how successful the torture program was in extracting information. Under domestic and international law, we are not allowed to torture people regardless of how successful it might be. In the same fashion, we are not allowed to beat and torture criminal defendants like Dirty Harry with post hoc rationalizations. International treaties and cases expressly reject such claims.
In his latest round of interviews, <a href=”click here.”>Cheney added “I don’t think we’ve got much to apologize for.” As we have previously discussed on the air, Cheney is the walking example of the dangers of Obama’s policy of blocking any investigation, click here. Not only is Cheney walking around casually discussing war crimes, he is wholly unrepentant. He and others are now trying to corrupt this country’s values even further by defining the issue of war crimes as to whether they resulted in actionable intelligence.
For the Fox News interview, click here.
Yes Scott it really is. There are plenty of cases holding water boarding is torture as are sleep deprivation, being subjected to extremes in temperature, humiliation, degradation, exposure to insects and on and on. This stuff by Cheney et crooks is nothing new. The Nazi’s themselves developed the term “enhanced interrogations” (“verschaerfte Vernehmung”)and also had doctors standing at the ready. That argument didn’t work for those sadists either. You remind me of the blind guy flailing about and touching the elephant’s tail and trying to prove to me it is a snake. You know about 1% and you opine as though you know 99%.
Read Andrew Sullivan for the history:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/the-case-of-richard-wilhelm-hermann-bruns-et-al.html
WILL PEOPLE STOP ARGUING WITH ME ABOUT “THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS” ARGUMENT, I NEVER MADE THAT POINT OR ARGUED IT. AGAIN, SOME OF YOU HAVE “PRE-EMPTIVE TALKING POINTS” Thanks.
It may be Bush Speak, but as you know, it was probably specifically carefully crafted to be in compliance with the law. As was GITMO selected because it is not clearly on American soil. The fact that they crafted these things to be in compliance with the law, although “crafty”, and something you may vehemently disagree with morally and policitally, does not per se make it illegal.
You forgot the definitions:
(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under
the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical
or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering
incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his
custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged
mental harm caused by or resulting from –
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened
administration or application, of mind-altering substances or
other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or
the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be
subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the
Not as simple as you would like it?
SCoot:
My point is that the term “enemy combatants” is a canard. They are either federal detainees or they are not. They may be POW’s but that puts them squarely under the protections of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. This enemy combatant nonsense is Bush-speak for “I want around the law that won’t let me do as I please because I am the Unitary Executive.”
Scott:
The debate is not about whether torture is effective or not. It’s illegal. It’s immoral. It’s the duty of the executive branch to enforce the laws regardless of how beneficial it may or may not be to break them.
AY,
For the record, I have a very, very small list of people who earn my actual hatred. They number less than ten. Two are personal vendettas of the old school kind. Men I wish personal and possibly grievous harm upon. The rest are people who screw things up for everyone. I’ll stipulate Cheney makes the list. He’s our very own Mussolini. Greedy as Hell but just not enough gumption to go full Hitler. Hell, Bush didn’t even make the cut. I almost feel sorry for that moron because I think he’ll go to his grave thinking he’s a good guy instead of a puppet tool for evil men and walking punchline. But you are right about neocons. They love to play the victim. I certainly don’t Scott, I do draw the line at having a drink and a smoke with him. It’d harsh my buzz. Propaganda with a dash of apologist always does.
Patty C:
Give me the over at 6. BTW do you have any interesting carrot cake recipes? I can only find the old standard one from “Joy of Baking,” and I would like to spruce it up. Any ideas? I want some apples or walnuts or something in there–maybe rum!
Anon:
“No we do hate well maybe some do, But generally we debate. As was pointed out, we at the end would probably sit down and roll a joint or drink a beer together. Without hate.”
****************
We are just simpatico tonight. Another favorite dialogue from “Casablanca”:
Peter Lorrie (Ugarte): You despise me, don’t you, Rick?
Bogart (Rick Blaine): If I cared anything about you, I probably would.
Given your cases Mespo and your narrow interpretation of them, I hope we Mirandized the detainees so we can use the information we obtained from “torture” and it is not thrown out. Your analogizing or equating detainess as having the same rights as someone who is arrested in the U.S. If this was not your point then it was not well made. Stating the U.S. citizens on U.S. soil have Bill of Protection rights is a real shocker to me.. I didn’t think that is what we were talking about, I thought we were talking about enemy combatants at Gitmo, according to you “under Cuban sovereignty.” Whats your point?
Given your cases Mespo and your narrow interpretation of them, I hope we Mirandized the detainees so we can use the information we obtained from “torture” and it is not thrown out. Your analogizing or equating detainess as having the same rights as someone who is arrested in the U.S. If this was not your point then it was not well made. Stating the U.S. citizens on U.S. soil have Bill of Protection rights is a real shocker to me.. I didn’t think that is what we were talking about, I thought we were talking about enemy combatants at Gitmo, according to you “under Cuban sovereignty.” Whats your point?
mespo,
Our ‘problem child’, Bartlebee/Wayne/CromagnonMan aka Bron 98,
is once again promoting the idea that what he does is called ‘debate’ under various, newly introduced, handles.
You want the ‘over’ or ‘under’ on the hysterical replies?
Mespo and Buddha
Thank you. But you did leave out Bringem Young and Ball State. I am sure more exist.
Mespo:
1)I meant the taliban and al queada were not signatories.
2) I was talking about formal torture for information, I know that informal “payback” was occuring.
3) I did know that there are rules of war.
Thank you for trying to keep me straight, I am sure it is an exasperating project.
BUddha:
I am guessing Oral Roberts University.
Scott:
“Do you think the Congress, which was wholly briefed on this, is culpable as well? I mean they are all lawyers, were they all fooled too by these clearly erroneous positions?”
**************
§ 2340A. Torture
(a) Offense.— Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
(b) Jurisdiction.— There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if—
(1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or
(2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender.
(c) Conspiracy.— A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.
After reviewing subsection (c), you tell me.
mespo,
I do think he’s got Regent’s writ large upon him. He honestly reminds me of Monica Goodling. Since Bob Jones doesn’t have a law school, he could be BJU poli sci/pre-law. But yeah, he’s one of their lot for certain. All moral indignation and poor skills.
anon:
“Was not there a book out that was call for whom the bells troll?”
************
You humorously invoke one of my favorite John Donne passages that was later adapted into a short poem. The whole passage bears repeating:
“PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.
The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all.
When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member.
And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.
There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest.
If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is.
The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that this occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God.
Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world? No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
–John Donne
Devotions upon
Emergent Occasions, no. 17
(Meditation)
1624 (published)
Scott Rumph
I guess my larger point . . . . They appear to be only concerned with . . .their posts. They speak of rule[s]. . . because they hate . . . .
***************************************************
Now who hates, we are having a debate. See you neocons when somebody disagrees with you you take it personally and think that everybody hates them. No we do hate well maybe some do, But generally we debate. As was pointed out, we at the end would probably sit down and roll a joint or drink a beer together. Without hate.
Mespo,
Again the posts are getting better, more like an actual discussion rather than a ranting diatribe filled with personal attacks.
Do you think the Congress, which was wholly briefed on this, is culpable as well? I mean they are all lawyers, were they all fooled too by these clearly erroneous positions?