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.
The AUMF was a vaguely worded piece of crap whose vagueness could come back to haunt Bush Co. I’ve always thought that. But since the Bush Weasels decided it was carte blanc to violate the Constitution and international law when it most certainly didn’t give express permission to do either of those things? I’d have to say none of it was covered by the AUMF so any claim it was will fail.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to remind Congress that when dealing with the use of force, that being spinelessly deferential to the Necons and unspecific in their grant of power aided in Bush Co’s crime spree. So how about a little less lobbyist humping for campaign dollars and a lot more paying attention and doing your damn jobs from now on? We the People would appreciate it.
HeY Buddah:
Heres a blast from the past for you.How much of this was covered by:”AUMF”?
lol
Hey CCD! Congrats! You beat me to the punch!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30325495/
It would seem that someone at 1600 has been reading JT’s little salon and other bits of the Internet highly critical of not punishing those who ordered torture for Bush Co. No direct evidence, of course, but the timing of this story is remarkable. Let’s just wait and see if there’s any tooth and claw to this or if he’s just trying to placate. As they say, the proof is in the eating of the pudding.
D R I P
D R I P
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/21/obama-administration-bush_n_189521.html
Dredd,
Cheney’s unmentionables? Are those like magic underwear?
Jill,
Yeah, the OLC documents Obama released were de-classified, but Cheney is referring to something still classified and therefore unmentionable.
OT:
The Supreme Court today uttered the phrase that could never slip through Cheney’s lips: Warrantless searches “are per se unreasonable …”
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/04/warrantless-searches-unreasonable.html
Dredd,
You’re right! Cheney classifies and declassifies the way some men change their aftershave! Oh, it’s feeling like an, I’ll destroy my enemy kind of day, so for now, we’ll say yes. Tomorrow it may be, Oh, I’m feeling a little blue. People may find out something I don’t want them to, so, as a pick me up, I’ll say No (and so on). That man is positively whimsical!!! Adorable!!! Cuddly even! And maybe what you said could be taken up. God help us because so far Congress and the President are MIA.
Cheney may have violated the law concerning classified documents by mentioning their existence or the merits of what is in them (conclusions, etc.).
When a senator on the intelligence committee was asked about it the answer was the law does not allow us to deny or admit to such documents nor what might or might not be in them if they existed.
That goes for all classified material.
Cheney, in disclosing the contents and existence of classified documents is violating the law?
There are “operations” going on domestically that are not consistent with the rule of law or the Constitution and yet they continue. We have an extra-legal/extra-judicial process in full-swing that, for whatever reason, is being ignored, denied, and/or condoned.
What group(s) is(are) behind these operations isn’t known, but they are pretty good-sized and it’s hard to imagine that someone in a position of significant power doesn’t know something. When the scope and nature of these crimes (and they are crimes) are ultimately revealed, most Americans will be shocked and outraged.
I have to believe that these crimes will one day exposed for what they are: acts of “domestic terrorism” directed at many good, law-abiding American citizens. The motive? I can only guess. Someone else will have to supply that bit of information.
In short, individuals have been “targeted”, for lack of a better expression. The harassment techniques employed seem to be tailored to an individual’s specific fears, in conjunction with other tactics, which include frequent surveillance, a loss of 4th Amendment rights, surreptitious home entries, vandalism, thefts, and/or defamation. Those who complain, file police reports and/or express their outrage are labeled “crazy.” And that, in my opinion, is precisely why these operations work. They are perverse, Machiavellian and sadistic. They began, in force, in approximately 2001 and escalated in late 2006/early 2007. They continue to this day. Some theorize that political dissidents/activists, whistleblowers, and even the mentally ill may have been “targeted.”
I wish this were some “nutty, conspiracy theory”, but it isn’t. I wish that those who are the victims of this outrageous behavior could simply be given “meds” or “a lot of therapy” to “make it all go away.” Tragically, though, these “operations” are a fact. I trust that they will be exposed. I’m left to wonder exactly “how” and “when.” Only then will we, hopefully, understand the “why” behind something that is utterly shameful.
FFN,
I agree–we need to see all of it and if Cheney wants to go for it, I think that’s just great. Here’s an article by Mr. Sands who is involved in the war crimes trials in Spain and who wrote the book: Torture Team.
“Now, you seem keen that we should be able to see the reports you read showing all the benefits of interrogations to be made public. But why stop there? Let’s have those reports. Let’s also have the interrogation logs. Let’s have the videos and audio tapes of the actual interrogations, assuming they haven’t all been destroyed (in the meantime, you may want to take a quick peek at this, Christopher Hitchens writing in Vanity Fair, to see what waterboarding actually looks like in practice, and its effects on one of our more robust journalists. Why not call for the declassification of the waterboarding videos, so we can see for ourselves what information was gleaned in the moments and hours and days after the waterboarding was carried out?
I hope you’ll excuse me if I am a tad sceptical. I recall, for example, that when I testified before the House Judiciary Committee last summer, Congressman Trent Franks reported that waterboarding was used on only three men and that, in each case, it had lasted no more than one minute. That gave a grand total of three minutes of waterboarding. What’s all the fuss about, Congressman Franks seemed to be saying. It seems that the source on whom he relied – Michael Hayden, who happened to be the former head of the CIA – wasn’t entirely accurate. This week’s news reports that two of those men were waterboarded on no less than 266 occasions.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/21-7
Call me a cynic, but I’m still skeptical anything will be done. They might investigate, but they’ll give everyone immunity so that they will testify and “at least we will get the truth out in the open” or something to that effect. I’ve become resolved to the idea that our government can’t do anything right, especially when it comes to holding people accountable. The only accountability in Washington happens on voting day and that isn’t necessarily accountability but who won the media war.
MikeS:
you are definitely right, this will end up being like Watergate or Iran Contra, except bigger. A lot of people are going to end up going down. I can see it evolving on a daily basis. It started as a drip, then it was a trickle, it is now starting to enter the national conscienciousness ever so slowly but it is starting to enter, these things are usually exponential so I would give it another 6-10 months and then another year for trials? However Obama if he is going to do it has to keep congress for 2010, and I dont know if he is going to be able to do that. I think 2010 is going to see a good many independents in the libertarian model.
You know, if Cheney wants to declassify documents, I’m all for it. It’s too bad he didn’t adopt this attitude earlier or with more generality. Let’s see this pathetic ‘evidence’ and tear it apart in his face.
I think many of you fail to understand the true implications of this, in your rush to be disappointed. In my view this is the response to a winning strategy of creating a national outcry forcing trials and hearings. Dick Cheney, whose attitude all along has been “Go f**K yourselves” is now beginning to feel the heat and the potential for his and others downfall. We watched these orchestrated strategies from Rove, et. al. before and it is curious that Prof. Turner and others are using the same arguments as our late, unlamented Veep. This new offensive was put together because the cries for justice have been growing and even the awful MSM has joined the hunt. See the NY Times call for Bybee’s impeachment.
I truly believe we will see justice done and those responsible for these inhumane outrages brought to justice. Call me an “Old
Fart” if you want, but I’ve lived through enough of these political games to understand what seems apparent often isn’t.
Buddha,
They may have not learned from the French but they certainly have studied more Classical examples… I see no shortage of Bread and Circuses.
If President Obama and/or AG Eric Holder do not investigate and/or prosecute the people who carried out the torture –
Nuremberg Principles
Principle IV
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
UCMJ, Article 90, section (2)(a)(i): Inference of lawfulness. An order requiring the performance of a military duty or act may be inferred to be lawful and it is disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate. This inference does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime.
Or wrote the opinions justifying the torture
Or the higher ups who conceived the torture programs in violation of numerous international treaties and US law
then they should both be IMPEACHED!!
If this does not qualify as
Constitution at Art. II Sec. 4, “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. I do not know what does.
Unfortunately Judge Bybee amy not be impeachable
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-21/should-the-judge-who-wrote-the-torture-memos-be-impeached/
Rcampbell:
that was a good point, I never really thought about it from that perspective. Although we did have Tim McVeigh and the federal building. And I have read that there might be a link to Al Queda through the Phillipines but I think that is sketchy at best.
Although why hasnt an Al Queda member or members done a suicide raid on any number of soft targets here in the states? I cant figure that one out. 2 dozen highly trained men could wrek havoc on a single day with a dozen co-ordinated attacks. Are they not doing it for public relations? Or is our government really on top of it?
Although the Japanese never really attacked the west coast, a couple of ballon bombs and they did land in Dutch Harbor but no suicide attacks of civilian targets. And neither did the Germans except for the landings in Florida and New York which they might as well have not even done for all the good it did for the Reich.
War is a strange animal and truth is the first casualty.
Torture works??
“Lisa, I’d like to buy your rock”
http://www.criticalthinking.org.uk/tigerrepellantrock/
As we learned some years ago, Mr. Cheney believes that classified information should never be released unless it is necessary to discredit one’s political opponents. And, of course, he is now free to trumpet his unrepentant attitude because the Obama administration has informed the nation that violations of domestic and international law by the executive branch do not have consequences. Now that we know that no prosecutions will occur, I can only reiterate with disgust the 10 conclusions I set out on the “Obama Orders Release of Secret Memos…” thread. I believe we are looking at a one-term presidency.