President Obama reversed earlier statements statements made as late as this weekend from Raum Emmanuel and others that he did not want anyone — low level or high level officials — prosecuted for torture. In a clear break from his past statements, Obama insisted that the matter had to be left to Attorney General Eric Holder. We discussed this latest development on this segment of MSNBC Countdown. In the meantime, the Administration leaked a memo from Intelligence Director Dennis Blair that said that the torture program yielded new information — part of a new emerging argument that torture works that was also recently advanced by former Vice President Dick Cheney.
President Obama’s statement was a bit a curiosity since he insisted that this is a decision that he could not make or pre-determine. Yet, for months, Obama has been stating his policy on such investigations and stating his position on “looking forward” and not acting in “retribution” through such prosecutions. The reversal may show that the White House has been unable to bury the issue and Emmanuel’s statement may have been something of a Hail Mary play to see if the Administration could get away with a no-prosecution policy. It did not work. To make matters worse, Cheney and others are showing that they are not just unrepentant but controlling the message on torture. The new message is “torture works” as former conservative academics who blindly defended the Administration are suddenly coming out against waterboarding and torture.
In a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House, Obama stated “With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more a decision for the attorney general within the parameter of various laws, and I don’t want to prejudge that.”
The statement is worrisome. In the last week or so, Administration and former Administration officers have been crafting this question as whether Bush lawyers will be prosecuted for their legal advice. This is a false construct since the obvious targets of a war crimes investigation would be the former president, vice president, the CIA Director, and Attorney General. Past war crimes investigations have focused on those who ordered the crimes, not simply those of facilitated the crimes. The lawyers like Bybee and Yoo and others may face investigation and repercussions, but they are not the primary focus of these allegations. Yet, Obama appeared to take up that new spin in his reference to “those who formulated those legal decisions.”
The concern is that the White House is now going to adopt a narrow construct of the war crimes investigation and then have Holder bar investigation based on the protection of Justice officials in rendering legal advice.
In the meantime, the Obama Administration leaked a memo from Intelligence Director Dennis Blair that seemed designed to support Cheney in his “Torture Works” campaign. Blair writes “High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.”
The very premise of this memo is disturbing. Torture is not a crime because it does not work. We are prohibited from using this means regardless of any excuse or claim of value. Could you imagine a chief of police writing a memo that the beating of a suspect did produce good intelligence on other crimes? It would be viewed as an outrage that a police official would even suggest a justification or value of such abuse.
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Patty C 1, April 22, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Your possibly peerless prognosticator has believed all along that there will be prosecutions and that all this is maneuvering leading up to it based on raised public consciousness and outcry.
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Thanks, I’m feeling a tad smug, myself…
I say let Cheney et al keep flappin’ their jaws. Let this thing unravel – publicly.
As I stated before, I’d rather have it ‘right’ than fast!
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In the last few weeks, I notice my comments here are somewhere between a week or two ahead of the pundits and/or their guests. It’s very satisfying when I listen to people like Isikoff saying the very things I’ve just said.
I am complete with my contributions to this blog AND ‘the world’, on this issue – despite the petty jealousy displayed here.
I know what I am talking about and I’m not waiting for kudos from people who echo my words while simultaneously attempting to exclude me from the conversation. It won’t work!
I’m claiming them for myself
– at the risk of ‘tooting my own horn’… Beep Beep 😉
Your possibly peerless prognosticator has believed all along that there will be prosecutions and that all this is maneuvering leading up to it based on raised public consciousness and outcry.
—
Thanks, I’m feeling a tad smug, myself…
I say let Cheney et al keep flappin’ their jaws. Let this thing unravel – publicly.
As I stated before, I’d rather have it ‘right’ than fast!
Your possibly peerless prognosticator has believed all along that there will be prosecutions and that all this is maneuvering leading up to it based on raised public consciousness and outcry. The question was how to do it, without it being easy to cast it as partisan retribution. Even those in federal jobs leaking the torture is good crap are exposing themselves for who they are. Reckoning is coming, or call me irresponsible, unreliable, but undeniably true to my optimistic nature.
mespo,
If the Prof. does go Hollywood, I’m angling for an Angelina Jolie adoption. But please! No Madonna.
To quote Clint Eastwood, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”
It really makes no difference whether Bush or Cheney were familiar with the law. That’s what counsel is for. The problem as I see it is that Bush and Cheney didn’t care about legal prohibitions or requirements. They determined a course of action and enlisted lawyers to justify their decision. I suspect that much of the opinion drafting was shepherded by David Addington, who essentially imposed his and Cheney’s will on the Office of Legal Counsel and the DOJ. That is why the lawyers are proper targets for investigation. A lawyer who simply signs off on what his client proposes to do without exercising independent judgment is corrupt.
This is some good news:
Judge Upholds Guantánamo Prisoner’s Right to Challenge Indefinite Detention
Ruling Rejects Justice Department Motion to Dismiss Mohammed Jawad’s Habeas Appeal
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/04/22-12
Mr. grashow, you didn’t ask for my opinion, but the Parker torture case is well known. My belief is that the attorneys who were preparing the legal memos for the White House were not attempting to provide good faith, unbiased legal opinions. They were charged with contriving legal cover for what the administration, largely at the insistence of people like Cheney and Addington, had already decided to do. That is precisely why the lawyers are under investigation and why many people wish to see them prosecuted for complicity in the commission of war crimes.
Mixing oil and water screws both of them up. I know, the block on my pickup cracked once.
Time for the neoCons to be benched.
Buddha:
“FFLEO brings up a good point, Professor. I’ve also noticed you becoming more comfortable with the camera. I do not, however, think this means you are going to “go Hollywood” on us. 😀 Keep up the good work.”
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I agree, JT’s got that TV thing down. Looks like JT has lost quite a bit of weight, and I am now a fan of his double part doo. Quite a change from the good old days of the white (JT calls it kahki) jacket. If he goes “Hollywood”–so be it. Maybe we’ll get tickets to a premier. 🙂
FFLEO brings up a good point, Professor. I’ve also noticed you becoming more comfortable with the camera. I do not, however, think this means you are going to “go Hollywood” on us. 😀 Keep up the good work.
Professor Turley, that was perhaps the best video interview I have seen of you and they are all very good and extremely informative.
Can you comment on this Professor Turley?
http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/854-doj-prosecuted-texas-sheriff-in-1983-for-waterboarding-prisoners.html
In 1983, the Justice Department prosecuted a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies for waterboarding prisoners to get them to confess to crimes.
The deputies were sentenced to four years in prison and Parker pleaded guilty to extortion and federal civil rights violations and received a 10-year sentence. Parker admitted that he had operated a “marijuana trap” on U.S. Highway 59, arrested suspects, and, according to court documents, subjected “prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions.
“This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning,” the complaint said, which referred to the technique as “water torture.”
Yet nowhere in the four “torture” memos released by the Justice Department last week that authorized the CIA to waterboard detainees do the attorneys who drafted the legal opinions mention the federal case U.S. v Parker et al, in which San Jacinto County Sheriff James Parker and three deputies– Carl Lee, Floyd Allen Baker and John Glover—were found guilty of torturing at least six prisoners between 1976 and 1980 in a rural part of the state 60 miles outside of Houston.