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We are guilty of torture in our name! Bush admits crimes.
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Keith makes the compelling case of the crimes committed by our government.
This is the people's democracy, we are the people, these are our elected officials. That they did not come to us and ask to act thusly in our names is unfortunate, indeed criminal, but it is also almost irrelevant. They work for us, they tortured people, and so, we have tortured people.Bush's own words told to Fox News:
"And I'm in the Oval Office and I am told that we have captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the professionals believe he has information necessary to secure the country."Are these tools deemed to be legal?" That quote sends a chill up my spine. How horrid these "tools" must have been for GWB to actually question their legality?"So I ask what tools are available for us to find information from him, and they give me a list of tools. And I said, are these tools deemed to be legal? And so we got legal opinions before the decision was made."
"And I think when people study the history of this particular episode they'll find out we gained good information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in order to protect our country. We believe that the information we gained helped save lives on American soil."
Keith is far more elequoent that I could ever be on this subject.
The entire transcript to the above video Special Comment can be read here for those who are video impaired.
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Good Mage, You already know that Keith O is still my hero. The only voice of cable news for years to give voice to my discontent. Now we have Rachel of course. Sleepin and TheraP and so many others wish to see something done. So do I.
We are coming up to 36 hours in office and things are moving. Eric Holder has to be approved and then we have a handle on the DOJ. We are going to get a whole slew of new DA's.
Guys like Conyers are not going to sit back in Congress and let it all go.
Oh and I do not have sound but I saw this video on cable and I do appreciate the link.
Good post. Always good to see you post
January 22, 2009 12:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you DD! I am always happy to see both your posts and your comments. We share a love of Keith O. While I admit some of his comments get a little over the top sometimes, this one was just spot on. I then had to look up where Keith was getting GWB's actual quote. That Fox News transcript was scary! All done in the name of keeping us safe?
Thank God for president Obama!!!!
Hope you are keeping warm DD :)
January 22, 2009 12:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Highly recommended Mage!
To think that bush referred to torture techniques as "tools." That's how torture happens. Turn the human being into an object. And call the torture techniques "tools." And on and on.
You wove the video and Olberman's words well into an excellent blog. The more voices who cry out for justice, the better.
Kudos!
January 22, 2009 7:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is chilling how they dehumanize their actions. Just as they tried to define Abu Graib as innocent hazing (remember that?)
Thank you so much TheraP, for your huge comment blog inspired this one. Hopefully it will inspire more since we cannot let this nonchalant view of torture define us as Americans.
January 22, 2009 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, chi migwetch for the link to print, Mage. I am one of the video impaired.
While reading Olberman's transcript this struck me as significant:
'Prosecute, Mr. President-Elect, and even if you get not one conviction, you will still have accomplished good, for generations unborn. Because merely by acting, you will deny Mr. Bush what he most wants.
Right now, without prosecutions, without this nation standing up and saying "this was wrong, we will atone"—Mr. Bush's version of what happened goes into the historical record of this nation: Torture was legal. It worked. George Bush saved the country. The End.'
What precedes the quote is also food for thought. I rec'd this post and highly recommend following the link provided.
January 22, 2009 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Edmund Burke couldn't have written KO's rant any better.
I knew he was good for more than just b@^%h-slapping Bush around :-)
January 22, 2009 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am obviously no fan of harsh interrogation methods, or many of the other policies of the Bush Administration. However, Bush's statements seemed reasonable to me.
1. We captured a dude we know is dangerous.
2. We were told we might get more information if we do X.
3. We were not sure X was legal.
4. We sought legal advice about whether X was legal.
5. Our legal advice was that while these are complicated issues, X was probably legal.
6. We did X, because we thought it was necessary for American security.
What's wrong here? Isn't this what we want the President to do (schematically, not empirically)? Maybe we on this blog have different views of what is "necessary"; but if we take the "We tortured" premise seriously (and I do), it's because our representative said to do so.
The guy we elected -specifically for the purpose of representing us and our values in these types of decisions-.
Maybe Bush didn't represent our (or many of our) values as well as we expected him to. That's his mistake, not ours.
But if the President is told he's allowed to do something by experts hired to advise him, and he thinks it is necessary to National Security, doing it shouldn't be a crime.
Even if he's wrong.
January 22, 2009 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
In number 2, WHO told them they might get more information if they do X? Answer - no one. Cheney wanted to work on the Dark Side remember? We have to become just a little bit like the terrorists?
3. Just like anything else in life, if you think you are too close to the edge, don't go any closer.
4. You are assuming they just casually went to OLC and said "Is this legal?" It has been shown over and over again by Cheney, Addington, Bush et al, that their working style is more like, "Hey OLC, we want to do this. Find a legalese way of covering our asses."
(Remember Bush/Cheney tried to push the CIA to fabricate a connection between Saddam and Bin Laden. This is not any different.)
January 22, 2009 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Further:
2. You really think they do these things for fun? There is a benefit, or at least a perceived benefit. Cheney's Dark Side reference was made because he believed it would -work- not because he thinks black clothes are cool.
3. I agree.
4. It doesn't matter. Maybe OLC felt pressured, maybe they didn't. Point is, "a legalese way of covering our asses" is also known as "A reasoned justification."
You may not agree with the reasoning, God knows I don't. But that doesn't mean the President shouldn't rely on it.
January 22, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry, but I cannot ascribe any even remotely altruistic motives to Dick Cheney.
As has been pointed out by numerous people on this board, torture is torture - period. Bush broke international law. Tim Fuller has an excellent post on this subject elsewhere in this forum that boils the issue down.
Your last paragraph, I think, reflects very badly on the Bush Administration. If you know, or even suspect, that you're considering something that is, at the very least, highly unpalatable, and at worst completely illegal, you don't touch it. Period. The problem is that Bush has all the intellectual curiosity - and integrity - of plankton.
Bushco did the OLC Two-Step in the hopes of avoiding prosecution. They may have covered their national tracks well enough. If they did, I hope both Bush and Cheney make an unscheduled trip to the Hague in the not-too-distant future.
January 22, 2009 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
1. The United States is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court. The Hague has no jurisdiction over U.S. Citizens (former heads of state or otherwise). That's why the Abu Ghraib soldiers never went there.
2. I'm not ascribing altruistic motives to Dick Cheney. I'm just suggesting that his motives might have been something other than pure sadism.
3. Torture is torture, period, you'll get no argument from me. Torture is not, however, [a clearly defined criminal act under law applicable to the President of the United States or those under his orders], period. There is a grey area here, not a black line. I think what the Administration did was wrong, but I doubt it is prosecutable absent a witch hunt mentality.
Not that we don't have a witch hunt mentality around here, but we're talking principle, so we'll talk principle.
4. The OLC two-step may be a good way to put it, and certainly under the Bush Administration OLC took very strong "litigation positions" on issues for its client, the Justice Department.
I'm not sure taking a strong position (even on something we abhor) is something we want to prosecute a President for, though. The President is supposed to be strong, and be thinking about the United States, not himself. We don't WANT the President to be worrying about criminal prosecution when the CIA comes to him and says, "hey, here's a danger to the country, what do we do about it?"
Or at least, I'd rather the President was listening to the CIA rather than his criminal defense advisors.
January 22, 2009 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your thinking is just like Bush's, and I disagree with both of you. We are signatories of the Geneva Convention. We executed Japanese for waterboarding after WWII. We have Habeas Corpus imbedded into our social contract.
Is "X" legal? Probably. Is that the best you can do?
January 22, 2009 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
We don't have habeas corpus embedded into our "social contract", whatever that means. We have it embedded into our Constitution, which is much better. And Abraham Lincoln ignored it completely during the Civil War.
No one prosecuted him.
We are signatories to the Geneva Conventions. This is true. Perhaps The United States of America shouldn't have done certain things. That doesn't make any particular American (even the Americans who did those things) a criminal. It makes teh United States in violation of an international agreement.
Once again, I am not trying to make moral points here, I think torture is wrong, and I think we did things that ought to qualify as torture.
I definitely AM trying to make the point that immoral and illegal are different words for a reason; that moral outrage is not a proper basis for a jail sentence.
January 22, 2009 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
El presidente, you are starting to sound like another lawyer we know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIFqYVAOosM&feature=related
January 22, 2009 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I -just- said that habeas corpus was a constitutional requirement. It's part of that Due Process thing you hear so much about.
Who it applies to is a different question. Only citizens? Anyone in the care of American authorities? Somewhere in between?
Still, I'm not trying to support Gonzales' reasoning, only his right to reason differently from you.
January 22, 2009 5:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gonzalez has a right to say stupid things, and a right to be wrong. But that does not remove him from resposibility for those choices. Making choices leads to accountability, [and sometimes the Medal of Freedom,] and that accountability is to reason and logic. Fine, Gonzo made a choice, but it was unreasonable and illogical and there are matters that defy reason and logic. This is one of them. He has the right, but that does not make him right or free of accoutability.
That also goes for his morally and ethically challeneged superiors. They are being judged in the court of public opinion. Maybe lawyers will keep them out of jail, but their actions should be condemned loudly and publicly. In short, they were wrong.
January 22, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
"They are being judged in the court of public opinion. Maybe lawyers will keep them out of jail, but their actions should be condemned loudly and publicly. In short, they were wrong."
-Gregorzap
I have no problem with that.
January 22, 2009 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry to hear that you would so carelessly toss away civil rights if the CIA told you they wanted to do "X".
January 22, 2009 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry, but I cannot ascribe any even remotely altruistic motives to Dick Cheney.
Boyd, I just break out laughing at this sentence. It is hilarious. I could not put this thought more succinctly. Not only that, but how could anybody anywhere ascribed altruistic motives to Genghis Khan?
January 22, 2009 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just the mere fact that he had to ask this question should have unfurled a hundred red flags. Just the fact that they felt compelled to ask it should have done the same. Sadistic professionals [with which branch of the government?] asked the new guy if it was okay. That's like a child asking it's father if it could have some chocolate after it's mother said no.
January 22, 2009 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I'm sorry to hear that you would so carelessly toss away civil rights if the CIA told you they wanted to do "X"."
I didn't say that, and the civil rights of Americans aren't at stake (in this argument, which I understand to be about torture).
More to the point, I was drawing a distinction between two specific sources of Presidential advice:
1. The national security apparatus, in this case with the exemplar "CIA".
2. The criminal defense lawyers each President would need to privately hire if we started scrutinizing these decisions with an eye to putting people in jail.
That doesn't mean the President should, or that I would expect the President to, always do what the CIA advised. He's supposed to make his own decisions, that's why we have a popularly elected President. He's, er, the Decider.
To coin a phrase.
Anyway, my point was that keeping the President free of concerns of criminal prosecution is probably a good thing for the purposes of allowing him to perform his job duties.
January 22, 2009 8:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
So the civil rights of "Americans" are all that matter? Ever heard of this:
I think it's kind of catchy, don't you?
January 23, 2009 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
We don't WANT the President to be worrying about criminal prosecution when the CIA comes to him and says, "hey, here's a danger to the country, what do we do about it?"
Here is what you said from which I made my remark about being "sorry". To me, that expression suggests all laws are off. I do not agree that they are. You WANT the President to ignore the cumbersome influence of criminal prosecution on a deceision based on the CIA's recommendation. Or am I to assume when the CIA states "hey, here's a danger to the country, what do we do about it?" The President reaches the conclusion without any suggestion from the CIA, "Hey! Let's torture the guy! And, umm, send me the video too!"
January 23, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I understand the concern, and the President should be concerned about the law. That's his job (his ONLY job). He executes the law. The Constitution tells him he's obligated to protect the country.
My point is that the President should be concerned about what the law says the COUNTRY is allowed to do, not what the law says the PRESIDENT had better do or not do, on pain of prison.
Do I think that our ex-President made mistakes about the former? Yes.
Do I think that means we should be pursuing a criminal prosecution? No.
Do I think that means we should vote him the heck out of office, and probably should have done so after all the Abu Ghraib and "extraordinary rendition" news in 2004? Yes.
I voted for Kerry. I stood in line for about two hours for the privilege, in part because of just this sort of issue. I thought the President had made bad decisions.
But he isn't Nixon. He didn't break laws about what the President can do, and try to distort democratic processes with Presidential power. He (maybe) broke American agreements about what America is allowed to do. And that's on all of us, not the ex-President. We elected him.
January 23, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
"So the civil rights of "Americans" are all that matter?"
I didn't say that. I said that the civil rights of "Americans" might be better or differently protected under American law.
What is right and wrong, or "what matters", is IRRELEVANT to a discussion of criminal prosecutions. That's what Due Process is: no witch hunts, just law enforcement.
Find a law first.
January 23, 2009 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink