Pete Williams is reporting that Republicans are threatening to expose Attorney General Eric Holder’s role in renditions during the Clinton Administration if he pursues an investigation into torture. Imagine that: raw political retaliation could finally give civil libertarians a full investigation of this country’s long-concealed abuses.
It is now clear that our mistake for the last eight years has been to call upon members to follow their conscience and principles. We should have expressed human rights in terms of a good way to embarrass your opponents.
Senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Richard Shelby of Alabama pressed Holder on the CIA’s “rendition” program under the Clinton Administration and demanded figures, which Holder promised to supply.
When is Holder going to stop this farce and allow a disinterested special prosecutor to investigate this matter? Until then, we will continue to see political ploys in both parties continue to diminish our standing in the world. At the moment, this entire controversy is being treated as a political contest by both Democrats and Republicans.
Ironically, the muscle play may backfire. Holder and Obama have already been accused for promising Bush officials before the inauguration that they would privately block any investigation or prosecution into torture. Their actions since then have only reaffirmed those statements by Senators and CIA officials. Now, if Holder does not investigate, it will be viewed as knuckling under to avoid personal embarrassment into his own actions during the Clinton administration.
For the full story, click here.
What was the end result of these programs under Clinton?
The reason I ask is,that I don’t remember any breaking news of any plots that were uncovered during his tenure.
I’m reposting a clip from mine under JT’s /2009/02/07/ article ‘leon-panetta-pledges-that-no-cia-employees-will-be-prosecuted-for-war-crimes/’
Patty C 1, February 7, 2009 at 5:34 pm
JT, great interview with KO last night. You look trim!??
I apologize in advance for the length of my post, but it is my only defense against the hand-wringing I encounter here on an almost daily basis. Please indulge me ;p
I heard another interview recently with Glenn Greenwald, I believe, who made it sound like renditions started under ‘43′, George W. That’s not true, if that’s what he was implying.
Renditions occurred at least a dozen times under Clinton, from what I’ve understood, but the distinction being made is against the ‘extraordinary’ style renditions and the torture program making the US famous.
However, if we were to start investigating renditions, we’d have to go back and look at ‘41′, George H.W. Bush, who was also a former head of the CIA.
Below is an ‘05 ABC article and a ‘07 statement before House Foreign Affairs from former CIA counterterrorism Agent, Michael Scheuer, who started the renditions program under Clinton, where he says…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1539284.htm
CIA renditions began under Clinton: agent
“The US Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) controversial “rendition” program was launched under US president Bill Clinton, a former US counter-terrorism agent has told a German newspaper.
Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who resigned from the agency in 2004, has told Die Zeit that the US administration had been looking in the mid-1990s for a way to combat the terrorist threat and circumvent the cumbersome US legal system.
“President Clinton, his national security adviser Sandy Berger and his terrorism adviser Richard Clark ordered the CIA in the autumn of 1995 to destroy Al Qaeda,” Mr Scheuer said.
“We asked the president what we should do with the people we capture. Clinton said ‘That’s up to you’.”
Mr Scheuer, who headed the CIA unit that tracked Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from 1996 to 1999, says he developed and led the “renditions” program…”
————-
foreignaffairs.house.gov
/110/sch041707.htm
The Rendition Program
The CIA’s Rendition Program began in late summer, 1995. I authored it, and then ran and managed it against al-Qaeda leaders and other Sunni Islamists from August, 1995, until June, 1999.
A.) There were only two goals for the program:
1.) Take men off the street who were planning or had been involved in attacks on U.S. or its allies.
2.) Seize hard-copy or electronic documents in their possession when arrested; Americans were never expected to read them.
3.) Interrogation was never a goal under President Clinton. Why?
–Because it would be a foreign intelligence or security service without CIA present or in control.
–Because the take from the interrogation would be filtered by the service holding the individual, and we would never know if it was complete or distorted.
–Because torture might be used and the information might be simply what an individual thought we wanted to hear
B.) The Rendition Program was initiated because President Clinton, and Messrs. Lake, Berger, and Clarke requested that the CIA begin to attack and dismantle AQ. These men made it clear that they did not want to bring those captured to the U.S. and hold them in U.S. custody…”
Is help on the way?:
http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/05/08/olc-holder-steps-up-to-the-plate-for-dawn-johnsens-nomination/#comments
You are exactly as powerless as you believe yourself to be.
Buddha,
As I’m fond of saying, the only bad pun is the one you didn’t make first.
Jill,
Statutes of limitation; yes, that to which we nonlawyers keep referring.
Keep up your squallin’ Ma’am, ’cause I is ‘bout all squalled out….
MAS,
Not if the citizens of this country don’t cave in. Our govt. wishes us to believe we have no voice in this matter. They use every tool available to convince us we are powerless. It’s a mistake to believe the propaganda.
First, we have to stop believing there will be a special prosecutor without push back from citizens. Then each and every time this govt. tries to appoint some obvious lackey or squirm out of their Constitutional duty to prosecute in the first place, we need to push back even harder.
According to the ACLU (see attached) there is a statue of limitations coming up on some of these war crimes. All the more reason to stop stalling and start squalling! We aren’t as helpless as we’re told.
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/39054res20090317.html
MAS,
That’s why Souter is perfect.
Think about his current status as well as his past actions. He has all the skill and literally no political skin in the game.
And Bigfoot said to tell you, “Arrrrooo!” Grunt. Flail ground with stick.
“disinterested special prosecutor” is a myth, like bigfoot or… well I was going to say “a compassionate conservitave”
At this point anyone who would be appointed would be wielding a political loaded gun that NOONE except those interested in Justice wants to go off. It’s not in any Politician’s best interest for Justice to be served, so she won’t be.
What I find interesting, though hardly surprising, is that there was some sort of torture being used under the Clinton administration. How naive of us to think that this notion of torture sprung full-blown from the febrile brains of Bush and Cheney. WE can date the use of torture, I think, back to those
fearful days of the Cold War. It was no doubt one of those highly Top Secret items passed from administration to administration. Always with the same ticking time bomb scenario as justification. If we ever are to deal with it, than those of us in opposition to it, need to separate mythology from reality.
As an analogy, we know that the freedoms called for in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, were actually theoretical for most Americans, slaves and indigenous peoples. Yet of necessity we must act as if these traditions have always been the American Way and argue the case for their expansion and continuance.
By the same token WWII, which was as “just” a war as can be, had us in league with Stalin, a man who killed as many as Hitler and was arguably just as crazy. While we piously produced the necessary Nuremberg Trials, we had ourselves engaged in much barbarity who punishment we escaped through winning the War. This is true when it comes to all wars, which are all exercises in barbarism, whether “just” or not.
To me, while I believe our torture to be evil, unacceptable and deserving grave punishment, the greater Bush/Cheney crime was in entangling us in a war that had no justification, thus setting up the conditions that allowed for our barbarity.
As we fight the battle to make America into the land that was imagined by our founding fathers and their intellectual heirs, we must keep these distinctions clear in our minds.
The failure to do so will lead us into dead ends, as we face the self serving justifications of the sadists/macho minds among us, that will use past actions as justifications for current excess.
Does anyone out there, knowing the history, doubt that Nixon infected his cadre to act illegally, by the justification that every President did this? He had been there, he was the
“old man” so who in his administration would doubt him or the truth of his words. Learning at his feet were Rumsfeld,
Cheney, G.H.W. Bush and a cast of hundreds. How much of a coincidence then, when these loyalists saw their hero brought low, that they implemented his beliefs when they returned to power. By the same token, Bill Clinton, obscure governor with no foreign policy interest and experience, was “broken in” by these “wise” souls and taught to behave as they said a President should.
The battle therefore is as always twofold:
1. Convince the majority of the need to have a government that lives up to its stated ethics and ideals.
2. Punish the stupid “know it all’s” who would have us falsely believe that they know how to keep the world safe.
Buddha et al.
Prof. T’s, your, and many others’ witticisms far exceed mine. That is why this blawg is both legally informative and hilariously entertaining. I lived 6 decades before I finally learned that what others always told me was factual; I was too darn serious.
When I observe the intellect of a Jonathan Turley, complemented with his self-effacing humility and wit, I realize the principal characteristics comprising an exceptionally well-rounded and grounded human being, representative of the ultimate v. the penultimate qualities of a man.
Senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Richard Shelby of Alabama pressed Holder on the CIA’s “rendition” program under the Clinton Administration and demanded figures, which Holder promised to supply.
This reminds me of when Bush first got into office,the mantra of cover then as it seems to be happening now.
“Clinton did it”
If this keeps up,I expect to hear”Iran/Contra”before the day is done.
Anony and Jill,
Yes, it was just a play on words.
Jill,
Relax a little. FFLEO was just enjoying being punny. I’d have said it myself if he hadn’t beat me to it. While there are those who feel that puns should be a matter for criminal prosecution, I say we table that until the whole “Violate the Constitution/Torture” issue is resolved.
JILL,
FFLEO was just making a play on words. That is all? Correct FFLEO?
This is the blackmail of everyone. There has to be one good person in this govt. who will step up to the plate and if they are guilty, which I’m pretty certain they are, will do the right thing even if it means jail time. In every group there is usually someone of courage. If blackmail is what it takes to light a fire under these people’s butts, that’s fine by me.
FFLEO,
I don’t see what race/ethnicity has to do with any of this. Bush and Cheney are white. It’s a full rainbow involved in this corruption. That’s why I have always thought it was a mistake to vote for anyone based on gender, ethnicity, race or sexual orientation. The Bush administration was probably the most diverse ever (even if alot of their people are in the closet), but they all share one trait–the willingness to commit evil.
FFLEO,
That was good.
Do I think a strategy is in play? Yes.
Do I think that there are a lot of people involved? Yes.
Do I think that when people want you to say something anything and you don’t they become scared? Yes.
Do I think that when people become scared they will start dribbling from the mouth and start to get scared and say some really good things? Yes.
Do I think that this is going on here? Yes.
Is it time to Castle the Queens Rook?
Castling is one of those mysterious chess moves that many people, both chess players and non-chess players, don’t understand: when to, how to and when you can’t. In an encounter between C.J.S. Purdy and Yuri Averbach, as reported in Chess World 1960, Purdy castled Queenside, whereupon Averbach pointed out that Purdy’s Rook had crossed an attacked square. It is hard to imagine the look on Purdy’s face as he tried to diplomatically tell the leading Soviet Grandmaster that that particular rule only applied to the king.
Think about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CCD,
Justice Souter is indeed the man for the job. The time is now.
How ironic. The blackmail of black males; Holder and Obama.
Forgive me for repeating myself, but that Yankee from Weare, New Hampshire will be available soon for the Special Prosecutor position.