Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty,(rafflaw), Guest Blogger
This entire week the torture enthusiasts have been back on all of the news channels exclaiming their happiness that their “enhanced interrogation techniques” worked. Of course, they are talking about waterboarding and other methods of torture. Why are Michael Mukasey, John Yoo and other members of the George W. Bush administration once again declaring that torture is good policy and that it was successful in helping to get Osama Bin Laden?
“Osama bin Laden was killed by Americans, based on intelligence developed by Americans. That should bring great satisfaction to our citizens and elicit praise for our intelligence community. Seized along with bin Laden’s corpse was a trove of documents and electronic devices that should yield intelligence that could help us capture or kill other terrorists and further degrade the capabilities of those who remain at large. But policies put in place by the very administration that presided over this splendid success promise fewer such successes in the future. Those policies make it unlikely that we’ll be able to get information from those whose identities are disclosed by the material seized from bin Laden. The administration also hounds our intelligence gatherers in ways that can only demoralize them. Consider how the intelligence that led to bin Laden came to hand. It began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who broke like a dam under the pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding. He loosed a torrent of information—including eventually the nickname of a trusted courier of bin Laden.” Wall Street Journal
The quote above was from an op-ed written by the former Attorney General of the United State, Michael Mukasey. It seems that Gen. Mukasey is now a big proponent of torture techniques and he even makes the unfounded claim that the name of the courier that eventually led the United States to Osama Bin Laden was obtained through the “harsh interrogation techniques”. It is amazing to me that Mukasey who was a Federal judge before being named Attorney General, would be ignorant of the illegality of waterboarding. Doesn’t Mukasey remember that the United States prosecuted Japanese soldiers after WWII for waterboarding American personnel and we also prosecuted American servicemen for waterboarding prisoners during the Vietnam War?
Gen. Mukasey even complains that President Obama did the country a disservice by eliminating the torture techniques from the government’s arsenal. He further attacks the Obama administration for investigating the CIA operatives who were involved in the torture of detainees. Gen. Mukasey just can’t get enough torture. An article in Firedoglake.com claims that Mukasey’s feigned concern for the CIA agents being investigated is a farce because the Wikileaks documents proved that the United States was using the alleged investigation into the CIA agent’s as a mechanism for convincing the Spanish authorities that their planned investigation into the torture carried out by American agents was unnecessary.
“In other words, what this cable shows is the genesis of the plan–on the day after the torture memos were released–to forestall international investigations of US torture by claiming that the US is itself conducting an investigation. It’s a claim that continues to this day. It’s not a surprise that the Obama Administration has been pointing to its own investigations–credible or not–to persuade the international community not to hold our torturers accountable. But it is useful to see how the diplomats and the lawyers first hatched that plan.” Firedoglake.com
One of the authors of the infamous Torture Memos, John Yoo, also came out in favor of the torture techniques and he also tries to assert that torture played a role in obtaining the information needed to find and kill Osama Bin Laden. “Also, buried in the stories may be yet another sign of the vindication of the Bush administration’s war on terror policies. Anonymous government sources say that the al Qaeda courier who led our intelligence people to bin Laden was a protege of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks who was captured in 2002, subjected to enhanced interrogation methods, and yielded a trove of intelligence on al Qaeda. Those same sources admit that interrogation of al Qaeda leaders, presumably by the CIA, yielded the identity of the courier. That identity was then combined into a mosaic of other information from other detainee interrogations, electronic intercepts, and sources in other countries, to eventually identify bin Laden’s hideout.” American Enterprise Institute
It seems painfully obvious to this reader that Prof. Yoo and Gen. Mukasey are trying to rewrite history, as well as rewrite our laws on interrogation. There is no evidence torture had anything to do with the finding of and killing of Osama Bin Laden. Even Senator Lindsey Graham admits to that as does Senator Barbara Feinstein. Think Progress “Not all Republicans are claiming that bin Laden’s killing vindicates torture. At a Capitol press conference Tuesday afternoon, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) stood apart from his colleagues in the GOP. “This idea we caught bin Laden because of waterboarding I think is a misstatement,” he said. “This whole concept of how we caught bin Laden is a lot of work over time by different people and putting the puzzle together. I do not believe this is a time to celebrate waterboarding, I believe this is a time to celebrate hard work.” Talking Points Memo
The Bush Administration officials seem to be attempting to rewrite history by claiming their illegal torture techniques aided in the search for Bin Laden. In former Attorney Gen. Mukasey and Prof. Yoo’s cases, they are both asserting that torture is effective and that is legal. That’s right. According to the Torture Twins, Mukasey and Yoo, they claim that waterboarding is legal. Although I agree that President Obama has done the country a disservice by not prosecuting the officials who authorized and carried out the torture during the Bush administration, by no means does that inaction make waterboarding legal. I guess if the Bush apologists keep saying it enough, they hope that Americans will believe them. Mukasey and Yoo both sold out their souls for their jobs and their President. I hope they can sleep at night.
rafflaw,
The Bush Administration proponents emerged from the slime early in the week to grab hold of the “narrative” and to pass along their talking points about the end justifying the means.
Pete,
Great comment!
anon nurse, John Yoo should GE behind bars and disbarred.
anon nurse:
Our modern day Pandoras Box.
“While President George W. Bush took the nation down the dark path to torture, Obama ensured that it remained part of our national debate by failing to investigate and hold to account those who tortured.”
From the horse’s mouth:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bush-official-john-yoo-obama-team-would-only-ask-living-bin-laden-polite-questions/
Osama bin Laden dies, torture thrives
By WILLIAM YEOMANS | 5/5/11 5:24 PM EDT
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54409.html
William Yeomans, an American University law professor, served as Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and as a Justice Department official.
———————–
“Torture thrives”…
THE OFFICIAL NOT-FOR-PROFIT BLOG OF KEITH OLBERMANN
Rumsfeld Disproves Conservatives’ Tortured Argument
Posted on May 3, 2011
The GOP spin machine, caught with its Abu Ghraib pants down, has come up with only two rickety memes with which to pull itself out of the deep end of the political pool. The first was the simplest: “Obama merely finished what Bush began.”
But the second was a little more robust: The Peter King (R-Stupidity) claim mirrored by a tweeter who asked me: “how does it feel knowing Bin Laden courier was discovered under Bush admin & info was obtained in Gitmo?”
King:
“We obtained that information through waterboarding. So for those who say that waterboarding doesn’t work, who say it should be stopped and never used again, we got vital information, which directly led us to Bin Laden.”
Two problems with that. There is the unfortunate realization that if this information truly germinated during the Bush Administration, and truly came from waterboarding, that means The Bush Administration Had A Direct Link To Bin Laden Eight Years Ago And Either Didn’t Know It Or Didn’t Bother To Figure It Out.
Oops.
Wait, it gets worse. Guess who’s out tonight denying that waterboarding, or even “harsh treatment” led to the info that led to Bin Laden?
“It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.”
That was said by Don Rumsfeld.
I’ll stop writing now so you can spend a few minutes laughing through your mouth, nose, ears, feet, and eyeballs.
http://foknewschannel.com/rumsfeld-disproves-conservatives-tortured-argument/
Some may have missed this yesterday regarding an issue AY brought up:
“Anonymously Yours
1, May 7, 2011 at 11:19 am
Buddha,
Spain to indict Gonzales, Yoo, Feith, Addington, Bybee, and Haynes?
http://www.correntewire.com/spain_indict_gonzales_yoo_feith_addington_bybee_and_haynes
I do not know where it stands now…”
“eniobob
1, May 7, 2011 at 1:07 pm
AY:
This may help, it seems to be the most recent inquiry:
http://peacenews.org/2011/02/u-s-groups-encourage-spain-to-prosecute-bush-officials-veterans-for-peace/“
Gyges,
Great site! Bookmarked. Thank you veddy much. (To be read in the voice of Latka) I also think Steven Wright when I think anti-jokes. A lot of his jokes are non-sequiters, but he also slips in the anti-joke from time to time.
Buddha,
Because I take my comedy very seriously…
An anti-joke is something that uses a departure from the tried and true comedic forms to create humor. Think Andy Kaufman.
My personal favorite:
A: Knock Knock
B: Who’s There?
A: To
B: To Who?
A: To Whom.
Alternately:
How are a grape and a squirrel the same?
They’re both purple, except for the squirrel.
http://anti-joke.com/
Well . . .
It had an exaggeration.
“but we need to lose those rights to be safe”
It had a juxtaposition.
“besides they would never torture or abuse us”
It even has a punchline.
“just ask brad manning”
On a shear technical level, you’ve built another joke.
But unlike a great many of the jokes you write pete, that post wasn’t funny at all.
That, ladies and gents, was a fine example of the anti-joke.
Bravo, pete. Well done. Sadly true and quite well done.
but we need to lose those rights to be safe
besides they would never torture or abuse us
just ask brad manning
I don’t understand where we are going as a country and I am afraid that we are headed towards more genocide and loss of intangible rights.
anon nurse,
Excellent link to Mr. Rivers. I will look at it in the morning.
Thanks to all.
Buddha,
You are probably right about Mukasey and Yoo. I think part of the reason they are trying to sell the big lie is that maybe, just maybe they are trying to convince themselves.
Happy Mothers Day to all!
raff,
My only quibble with your excellent article is this:
You’ve assumed Mukasey and Yoo had souls to begin with.
Other than that, a damn fine job, sir.
yes, torture was a big help. that’s why it took ten years to find obl. not hiding in a little hole in the mountains, but in the middle of a city. a city full of the same people we have been torturing.
not even in one of the countries we invaded.
although if we’re conducting military operations there, whether or not they have been invaded is a matter of opinion.
“I have become convinced that the terror we inflict
upon our enemies, under the sanitized names of
enhanced interrogation techniques, indefinite
preventive detention and anticipatory self-defense,
will become, faster than anyone can imagine, the
terror we inflict upon ourselves and the terror that
returns to us.” -Dennis Rivers
I stumbled on the following… I didn’t get any further than the dedication…
http://www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/RiversTheTroubleWithTorture.pdf
The Trouble With Torture…
A brief introduction to psychological and political arguments
against extreme interrogation and indefinite preventive detention
Dennis Rivers, MA
http://www.SupportGenevaConventions.info
July 2009
Dedicated to Dilawar and Habibullah,
and to the memory of Spc. Alyssa Peterson,
a US Army interrogator who committed suicide
a few days after refusing to participate in torture.
She understood things that we are only beginning to
understand now, and there was no one there to help her.
(Thanks for tackling this topic, rafflaw.)
Bravo Raff. Well thought and stated as always.
“Mukasey and Yoo both sold out their souls for their jobs and their President. I hope they can sleep at night.”
**************************************
raff, while you may be right about them selling their souls, that suggests they may have known better. What is even more frightening to me is that they may actually believe what they are trying to sell.