Pelosi is not backing down:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today accused intelligence officials of giving her “inaccurate and incomplete information” on the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics by the Bush administration, saying that CIA officials are guilty of “misleading the Congress of the United States.”
***Pelosi expressed an openness to further congressional inquiries into what members of Congress were told about the interrogation tactics, and repeated her call for a “truth commission” to probe the matter. She also accused Republicans of playing political games over what she knew and when she knew it.
“This is a diversionary tactic, to take the spotlight off of those who conceived, developed, and implemented these policies, which all of us [Democratic leaders] opposed,” she said. “Understand — this is their policy, all of them.”
So if the Democrats want a truth commission, and the Republicans and Dick Cheney want a truth commission, why can’t we order up a double order of truth commission? Am I missing something here? Didn’t Petere Hoekstra signal interest in this last week?
Make it happen.
I still maintain that I would be flabbergasted to learn that the Democrats knew nothing. I would suspect they were told the minimum and everyone involved liked it that way, given the political climate at the time. This from the actual presser didn’t exactly inspire confidence in Pelosi’s assertion that she knew nothing:
QUESTION: You say that Mr. Sheehy did tell you, your staff did tell you.
PELOSI: He informed me that the briefing had taken place. We were not in a place where he could — that was all that he was required to do. We’re not in a setting — we weren’t in — I’m no longer the ranking member on intelligence. He just informed me and that the letter was sent. That is the proper person to send the letter, the ranking member of the — of the Intelligence Committee.
So my statement is clear, and let me read it again. Let me read it again. I’m sorry. I have to find the page.
I was informed that the Department of Justice opinions had concluded that the use of enhanced interrogations was legal. The only mention of waterboarding was that the briefing — in the briefing was that it was not being employed.
A moment later, she said the following:
QUESTION: … Sheehy did not tell you that the — he was informed that they were actually using the techniques?
PELOSI: No, he did say that. He said that the — the committee chair and ranking member and appropriate staff had been briefed that these techniques were now being used. They — that’s all I was informed, that they were being used and that a letter was sent.
And that is a complete — my responsibility — it’s different. I’m no longer the ranking member. Appropriately, the ranking member sent the letter.
At any rate, this broad salvo from Pelosi is sure to create fireworks and a heated response from Republicans, so it might have the effect of creating the political will to hold a truth commission.
We’ll see.
sparky
Yes. The words “want” and “truth commission” do not mean what you think they mean. But they do mean good news for John McCain err our permanent shadow CEO Cheney.
Zifnab
Dems: “Let’s have a truth commission.”
‘Pubs: “No!”
Dems: “Yes!”
‘Pubs: “No!”
Dems: “Yes!”
‘Pubs: “No!”
Dems: … … … “No!”
‘Pubs: “Yes!”
Dems: “Then we’re in agreement?”
‘Pubs: “You betcha, you slimy little tax cheating liar crooks. Haha! We win again!”
Original Lee
John, please fix your headline to “Misled” instead of “Mislead,” unless of course you think Pelosi means that the CIA is bamboozling her on an ongoing and regular basis, in which case, you still need to fix the headline. Thanks!
I’m not sure whether or not to believe Pelosi. On the one hand, I wouldn’t put it past the CIA to skate past what they were actually doing in a briefing to Congress. On the other hand, Pelosi could just be doing the Democratic version of CYA on the issue. On the gripping hand, Pelosi has a vested interest in covering up her spinelessness on the issue at the time and any actual information on waterboarding she may have received, so she needs to say what she said. Was she calling for a truth commission before Cheney was?
Stooleo
The real deal is not that Pelosi was mislead, but that they were torturing people before there was any legal opinion on it. This was being done to try to prove an Iraq-al-Qa’ida connection. Lawrence Wilkerson’s post up at TPM is pretty shocking.
flukebucket
I predict that the government will investigate itself and find no wrongdoing.
Tom Betz
The most annoying part of all this, and the point least often noted, is that Pelosi is being criticised for not breaking the law.
She signed one of these — she would be subject to prosecution had she made public anything she was briefed on.
And you may be certain that had she blown the whistle, Bush’s corrupt Justice Department would have been certain to press the case for every drop of political benefit.
Comrade Stuck
It is very confusing, though I did hear on MSNBC that she was talking about two separate meetings, the first was a briefing she attended, the month after Zubydea was waterboarded and was told it had not been used yet. Then shortly after that another meeting, that her aid attended and Harmon, where they were told it had been and then her aid told her.
I think this is all just painful movements by all concerned toward needing a full airing in a Commission, or something like it. Maybe it hasn’t reached critical mass yet, but is surely headed that way.
Wag
Cheeny is following the Vince Lombardi school of politics that “the best defense is a good offense.” the best way to fight him is to not be bullied by his bluster, and to force a truth commission down his throat.
Tsulagi
Don’t hold your breath. I’m thinking the end result will be dueling resolutions. The classic Sternly Worded version from the Dem side of the aisle, and from the other side seeking to unilaterally rename the Democratic party, the Seriously Stupid version. Your government at work.
Bubblegum Tate
@Zifnab:
Ha! It’s like pronoun trouble.
Bugs: It’s true, Doc; I’m a rabbit alright. Would you like to shoot me now or wait ’til you get home?
Daffy: Shoot him now! Shoot him now!
Bugs: You keep outta this! He doesn’t have to shoot you now!
Daffy: He does so have to shoot me now! [to Elmer] I demand that you shoot me now!
[Elmer looks at the camera, unsure if Daffy knows what he’s talking about. As Daffy sticks his tongue out at Bugs, he is shot. Daffy puts his beak in its place and pushes the tongue back in and walks back over to Bugs, gun smoke pouring out of his nostrils.]
Daffy: [to Bugs] Let’s run through that again.
Bugs: Okay.
Bugs: [deadpan] Would you like to shoot me now or wait till you get home.
Daffy: [similarly] Shoot him now; shoot him now.
Bugs: [as before] You keep outta this, he doesn’t have to shoot you now.
Daffy: [re-animated] Hah! That’s it! Hold it right there! [to audience] Pronoun trouble. [to Bugs] It’s not “He doesn’t have to shoot you now”; it’s “He doesn’t have to shoot me now!”
[Pause]
Daffy: [angrily] Well, I say he does have to shoot me now!! [to Elmer] So shoot me now!
[Elmer obliges and lets him have it. Daffy puts his beak back to normal and rushes to Bugs in a pose with him pointing a finger at him with his mouth open.]
Bugs: Yes?
[Daffy looks at the camera and forcibly pulls his arm back and closes his beak.]
Daffy: [shakes his head] Oh no you don’t. [shakes head again] Not again, sorry.
[Daffy walks over to Elmer.]
Daffy: This time we’ll try it from the other end. Look, you’re a hunter, right?
Elmer: Right!
Daffy: And it’s rabbit season, right?
Elmer: Right!
Bugs: [interrupting, pointing at Daffy] And if he was a rabbit what would you do?
Daffy: Yeah, if you’re so smart, if I was a rabbit what would you do?
Elmer: Well, I’d… [Points gun at Daffy]
Daffy: [Looks at the camera in horror] Not again! [gets shot]
[Daffy puts his beak back and walks over to Bugs with a deadpan expression.]
Daffy: [re-animated] Ha-ha-ha, very funny, ha-ha-ha! [resumes deadpan expression]
JGabriel
Nancy Pelosi:
John Cole:
John, of course Pelosi and whoever was the Dem chair on intelligence were informed that “enhanced” interrogation was being performed, but when they directly asked about torture and specific acts that everyone knows is torture (like waterboarding), they were lied to.
That looks to me like people who were given less than the minimum, tried to find out more, and were denied.
I’m not sure why you would think the people who ordered and carried out torture would be more truthful than Pelosi, et. al., at this point.
.
someguy
Hell of a trap the Republicans set for Pelosi here. Tell her just enough in 2002 that they can claim she knew, but not enough that she really actually did know, then when the shit hits the fan come out and say she knew everything and should have taken action, and by the way let’s have those public hearings now.
Gee, it’s almost like KKKarl was involved in this somehow. I wonder what he has to say?
Trollhattan
I won’t know what to think until Glenn Beck tells me. Oh Glenn, you make my life so much better with your logics thingie.
Aah, screw that. Commission please. Stat. I expect a resulting statement that goes something like this:
“We have determined that detainees were tortured until such time as they provided information that supported the administration’s arguments in favor of declaring war against Iraq, without consideration of whether those statements had any basis in fact.”
Iowa Housewife
I think she should come out and admit it.
“Yes I knew about it, I didn’t blow the whistle because those guys scared the crap out of me.”
Rob
In the meantime, our President is doing a townhall in New Mexico right now. He looks so happy to be the hell away from Washington. He also looks like he went to a graduation keg party last night at ASU.
Comrade Stuck
@someguy:
I agree in full and have said the same several times. I don’t believe for a minute it was all laid out in good faith to dems, or with a genuine opportunity to object in a meaningful way. It was a get out of jail free card from people who were holding all of the cards at the time, and knew they were crossing to the other side of the law.
These dems could have sacrificed themselves by self immolating on the Capital Steps, but personally, I don’t expect them to be superheroes, though there is a valid argument by some that they should be.
C Nelson Reilly
Joe Lieberman’s on MSNBC saying he’s going to keep on walking…
Perry Como
Deep thought: could someone punch Joe Lieberman in the fucking mouth?
Dennis-SGMM
Within the past few weeks we’ve been present at the spectacle of supposedly sane, responsible adults making the case that torture is justifiable, that what our interrogators did wasn’t torture, etc., etc. That the subject is still debatable for anyone at this point leads me to conclude that had Pelosi or any other Democrat blown the whistle they would have handed the Republicans a club that they would swing every day until John McCain won the election in 2008. The rhetoric coming from Cheney and others on the subject is weak tea compared to the incendiary bullshit they would have spouted on every last talk show 24/7. Yeah, it sucks and I wish America was better than that. It isn’t yet, it may never be.
Tom65
Who gives a flying fuck what Pelosi knew or when she knew it? Sure it’s disappointing if she knew, but how does that absolve the fucks who formulated the policy?
HyperIon
@Wag:
Quibble: i have never seen this quote attributed to Lombardi.
Iowa Housewife
@Tom65: Yeah, I don’t see how they can have it both ways. “We did not torture.” “She knew about it so she is just as bad as we are.”
sgwhiteinfla
John Cole
You are conflating two different situations. When Pelosi said
She was referring to the briefing she attended in 2002. When she said.
She was referring to the 2003 briefing that she didn’t attend but her aide did. And she went on to say that the aide didn’t specify which techniques were being used (he probably wasn’t even supposed to inform her at all since it was top secret) and that a letter from Harmon had already been sent. What she said today was exactly consistent to what she has said previously. Now remember she never said she knew nothing, what she said was they never briefed her on the fact that the torture techniques were already being used.
As far as being flabbergasted about Democrats being told nothing uhmmm as Pelosi pointed out this was all going down at the same time as the CIA was pushing an al qaeda/Iraq link. I don’t see how anybody can be surprised that the CIA would hold back info during that time.
Zifnab
@Tom65: Nonsense. By noting in passing to the senior house intelligence chair that certain “enhanced interrogations” were taking place and giving absolutely no recourse for dispute or further inquiry, the Bush Administration has absolved itself of all responsibility.
Think about it this way. If you just sneak out one day and rob a bank, you’re guilty of bank robbery. But if you call someone you know on the police force, tell them you’re going to visit a bank and take money out, then swear that person to secrecy on everything you’ve just said in a legally binding contract, you can no longer be held culpable for robbing said bank.
I mean, the rules don’t just magically change because the White House does it.
Comrade Stuck
@Dennis-SGMM:
This is the ugly games the Rovian GOP was, and still is trying to play. It was the same with the Iraq War resolution and a whole slew of shitty low rent laws and regulations, ie Patriot Act, Warrantless snooping etc etc. It is the shameless meme that says, if you don’t give us what we want, then if anything goes wrong it’s your fault and therefore you are weak and hate America. And when DEms cave, which they have done wholesale, and GOP initiatives turn to shit, they send out the drones to piss down our backs and tell us it’s raining.
It’s a zero sum cycle that needs to be broken, and that job should fall to a responsible press, who have shown some signs of pushback, though not nearly enough.
linda
They—that’s all I was informed, that they were being used and that a letter was sent.
that passive voice really, really disgusts me.
Perry Como
It looks like Dick wanted to waterboard an Iraqi intelligence officer.
wilfred
That’s a serious charge, one that has to be followed up on. Obama’s passivity is intended to give the CIA a pass on whatever they did. Maybe that’s right, I don’t agree but I can see the point.
Lying to Congress is a lot harder for the Administration to ignore.
Michael Scott
Why the f*ck are we/you concerned about who the war criminals told about their crimes to (under secrecy restrictions, no less)?
Isn’t this like #437 on the list of crimes committed, ranked by order of importance?
Dennis-SGMM
@Comrade Stuck:
Had Pelosi spoken out the framing would have been “Has Nancy Pelosi’s grandstanding deprived our intelligence officials of valuable techniques thus endangering millions of Americans or is she just an America-hating bitch from Queertown?”
PaminBB
It’s interesting that Wilkerson is making public statements again. Maybe Colin Powell is trying to egg Cheney on.
Maude
@Dennis-SGMM: Take heart. We elected Obama.
Ike must be spinning in his grave. He wasn’t fond of the Republican party at that time, but he’d blow his top now.
People watch tv and think it’s real. It’s easier than thinking.
My fear about a truth commission is a bunch of old hack politicos screwing it up.
OT- about Obama and photos, I was unduly harsh. Me wrong-bad me. I usually run that sort of thing through Checkpoint Charlie, but the excuse is that someone took down that wall. Ash Can was right. Thanks Mr. Can.
The more the torture group jerks yell, the more afraid they are. There is something so awfully wrong with them that they shouldn’t be around children at any time, anywhere.
Punchy
The Bush team didn’t declare “State’s Secrets, Bitches!” on about 1,593 different memos and whatnot if they thought the public should see these. There is NO CHANCE IN HELL that Repubs agree to this.
They’ll talk it up, Dems will call their bluff, then suddenly they’ll switch sides and declare that it’ll hurt “national security”. Just you watch.
WyldPirate
Joe Lieberman is such a despicable piece of whaleshit.
Just saw him on MSNBC being interviewed by Nora O’Donnel. Lieberman was sitting there repeating over and over:
“It’s in the past. We passed laws forbidding it. There is no need to go back to the past because we have too much to do now.”
I wonder if that sorry piece of s**T Lieberman would have said that about investigating the Nazi attrocities of the Holocaust?
Paul L.
Looks like David “90% of Mexican Guns come for the US” Neiwert believes her.
JasonF
@Tom65:
I agree 100%. This is like robbing a bank and when you get caught saying “You can’t prosecute me because I told one of the bank guards I might rob the bank.” Maybe that means we should also be going after the guard as an accomplice, but it doesn’t mean you get to go free.
Simply put, the people who came up with, signed off on, and implemented this torture policy deserve to go to jail. If Nancy Pelosi is one of those people, it doesn’t make George Bush, Dick Cheney, or any of the others any less guilty — it just means there’s one more person to prosecute.
Dennis-SGMM
@Punchy:
I’d expect nothing less from the party that is loudly asserting that Obama wants to release terrorists in our neighborhoods and/or put them on welfare. The end result will be a commission whose report will be subject to approval by those with the most to lose should the truth come out. In the end all will agree that “mistakes were made.”
Dennis-SGMM
@WyldPirate:
Not that they just deported an 89 year old man to Germany to face trial for crimes supposedly committed in the 1940’s. If you really want an investigation of torture during the Bush years then produce evidence that an Israeli was tortured.
Martin
Special investigator of everyone and everything that happened. If Pelosi goes down, too bad. Let the chips fall where they may. If Democrats feel that they are better stewards of government, this will only reinforce that.
bayville
I thought this was rich:
— Karl Rove, WSJ column, 5/14/09
DanSmoot'sGhost
Boehner has the high ground in this situation. He and the Republicans know that most of what is known now about the EITs was known in early 2004 and nobody said much through a presidential election cycle, and the country reelected the people who had lied their way into a war.
It’s a little late to come along now and claim that we are shocked, shocked! that such things went on. The GOP knows that this phony outrage is not gaining traction, it’s only the Dems who haven’t figured it out yet.
You can’t elect a government to act like shitheads and then come along later and complain that you got a shithead government.
cybergal619
If anybody here hasn’t read Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side, they should. It couldn’t be a more timely read to enhance the disgust and outrage brought on by the secret and horrific crap that Cheney and his War Council wreaked in the name of keeping us safe.
I just read the CIA (what a surprise) has denied Cheney’s request to declassify the memos that he claims will back up his “torture works” meme based on an Executive Order that prohibits the declassification. Ok, Mr. Obama, time to undo that Executive Order and full speed ahead on bringing all this ugliness to light and putting the torture-monger criminals in jail.
4jkb4ia
A reason for some independent investigation is exactly that this issue speaks to the moral credibility of the Democratic leadership. If the people and the base do not believe that the Democratic leaders are basically good and honest, they will have that much less capital for whatever Obama wants to pass by putting this off.
4jkb4ia
@cybergal619:
No! Those memos are part of a suit filed by the ACLU! EW was delighted at the thought of the ACLU getting them before Cheney does.
bob h
Presumably it is a violation of Federal statues for an agency like the CIA to provide false information to Congress?
DougJ
Bring on the truth commission. I don’t expect Democrats will come out smelling like a rose, either, but that’s not what this is about.
geg6
I haven’t read any of the other posts, so this may have already been postulated, but…
I think this is part of a different sort of narrative than the media thinks it is. They, the shallow idiots they are, will jump on this as a typical he said/she said story, their very favorite kind and one with which they are comfortable covering. All that equivalence is just dandy in their eyes.
But I think someone (Pelosi and Congress or the White House) is setting up another story. One that will make the story change from “torture – good or bad?” and “Pelosi – liar or chump?” to “torture – how you get false evidence to start a war against Iraq.” The last few days’ leaks and Wilkerson on Maddow last night have convinced me that this is where it is headed. And that the documentation is very likely to point to someone (most likely Cheney and his cabal) pushing for torture to make the case that Saddam and al Qaeda were linked. And this is why the torture was eventually implemented. I know we’ve all speculated this was the case and I know that I said as much almost as soon as the war drums started pounding. But I think it may all be coming together and I think the evidence just may be there. There have been way too many leaks from intelligence officials hinting as much and Wilkerson pretty much stated it as fact.
I think is headed exactly where Cheney doesn’t want it to and is too stupid to it heading. He thinks it’s just about the torture and how it was done. I think it’s about the torture and why it was done.
4jkb4ia
I think what I was trying to say is that Congress should take the time which the investigation will provide them to pass other legislation instead of being under the cloud of having to investigate themselves or have the partisan-conflict-loving press do it. And I imagine that Obama is worried that if the public perceives that they all did it, or were all complicit, how do you throw the bums out? Throwing the bums out is then a more slow and painstaking process than voting for one party label or another. It would be easy to give up on politics altogether.
cybergal619
@4jkb4ia:
The way I read this, it’s outside the ACLU lawsuit
eemom
This is the key quote from Wilkerson:
“Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002–well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion–its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.
So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney’s office that their detainee “was compliant” (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but this evidence that the torture was done to justify the warmongering, NOT in a frenzied panic to save us all from another 9/11, is what needs to be focused on. It cannot be excused by anything that ANY of the torture apologists have said. It is pure, unmitigated evil.
srv
@cybergal619:
That word y’all keep using. Inconceivable.
TenguPhule
Only if you consider a ravine high ground.
Shoot the Republicans, flog the Democrats.
eemom
….in other words, what geg6 said.
Xenos
As a certified lefty, there is no downside from this. If Pelosi is telling the truth, the CIA and the GOP are discredited. If Pelosi is lying, the GOP has admitted their guilt by going after her, and I would just love to see Pelosi get the boot if she indeed is guilty of supporting torture. It is just Win everywhere you look.
srv
Sometimes I wonder if anyone else reads anything outside the US.
AhabTRuler
Fixeteth.
Edit: For shớệs sake, John, what does it take to get a blog that works?
Fulcanelli
@bayville: Rove said “democrats”! He’s defying the RNC directive regarding referring to the Dems as the”democrat [email protected] party”! ZOMG! WTF! FTW!
Yes KKKarl “many democrats” and the rest of the sentient beings on our planet refer to “enhanced interrogation” as torture. Drop by some time. No, nix that…
Rove should dipped in flour and egg and tossed into an erupting volcano. Then shot. Or something.
srv
In print, in 2002.
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“We were not in a place where he could—that was all that he was required to do. ”
It reads like: Pelosi was briefed when she was a ranking member on the Intel committee and was told in Sept 2002 in waterboarding was not being used (which was not true), but was told the Justice Dept had ruled “enhanced interrogation” techniques were legal, without being told there was dispute in the Justice Dept (and in other Departments) on the legality of the techniques being used. There’s no information on whether details of the techniques were disclosed at the Sept 2002 briefing.
Later, when she was no longer the ranking member on the Intel Committee, she was told by a staffer that her replacement as the ranking member on the intel committee had been briefed in more detail on the methods used. Said ranking member lodged a letter of protest. She didn’t get more details from the staffer re. the techniques either because of classification issues or because they weren’t in a place they could talk about such issues.
I’ve met Pelosi once in 1998 (I was advocating more action on Kosovo), and she was very careful about not revealing what she knew regarding intel matters regarding that conflict. I’d believe that she took whatever classification strictures were placed on the Sept 2002 briefing very seriously.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@JasonF:
It’s worse than that. Now suppose you had the power to swear that bank guard to secrecy, and threaten him with trial for treason, a capital crime, if he ever reveals anything you told him to anybody. That’s what makes this whole “accomplice” argument about the congressional Democrats so fucking stupid.
david
Well this video puts everything to rest. She lied.
JenJen
@geg6: I’m exactly where you are. I’m not so sure about Congress, but I do think that President Obama is playing some rope-a-dope here… let’s not lose sight of the fact that the guy is rather politically gifted.
When Cheney first went after Colin Powell, I proclaimed to anyone who would listen “Well, Dick just made the biggest mistake of his life, because Powell knows everything, and I don’t think he’s gonna take this lying down. Unlike that chickenshit coward Dick, if Powell’s entire adult life is any indication, he’s not one to back away from a fight.”
Looks like Wilkerson was un-muzzled, and I think the drip, drip is going to turn into a full-on blown and gushing pipe. Cheney didn’t count on the debate changing from “We tortured to keep you safe” to “We tortured to build a phony link between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.”
Since it’s pretty clear that Americans turned against the Iraq War years ago, Cheney is in big trouble if the motive changes. And now you’ve got Karl Rove, of all people, saying “The Speaker was an accomplice to ‘torture.'” ‘Torture,’ Karl? Oh my, I believe you may have stepped in it again. Please, please, don’t ever shut up.
JGabriel
Fulcanelli:
I don’t know about that – Demon Francais is really a lot stringier than you would think.
Braising is probably the way to go here. All you need to do is bury Rove in bibles for 45 minutes.
Here let me show you how. (Lowers body of Rove into pit of bibles. 30 seconds later: BOOM! The smoke clears, revealing me in tattered, charcoal-blackened clothes and singed-off eyebrows)
Ok, maybe I was wrong about that.
.
Ash Can
@Maude: You don’t need to apologize for being unduly harsh on this topic. The entire issue of torture is — or at least should be — a source of sincere outrage to everyone. I’m thoroughly disgusted about it myself, but I’m also willing to be far more patient with Obama and his guys, at least at this point, than with Cheney/Bush and their guys, if only for the reasons that 1) it was the latter thugs who instituted the torture policy in the first place, 2) Barack Obama has a track record of having more human decency in his little finger than both Cheney and Bush have put together, 3) Obama is just a lousy few months into his administration, and the torture issue is only one of the numerous extra-alarm fires the Bush admin left blazing away for him. In addition — and I wasn’t even thinking about this yesterday — Obama has a trip to Egypt coming up next month, and that could have gotten way messier, not to mention more dangerous, with more (and possibly worse) torture photos floating around. I’m all for bringing everything, including the photos, into the light and forging ahead with investigations and prosecutions — yesterday, if not sooner. But when I can at least see a modicum of acceptable reasoning behind what I consider less-than-optimal behavior, it calms me down somewhat.
Oh and BTW, that’s Mrs. Can. :)
gypsy howell
It’s pretty clear the Republicans, and the Cheney cabal in particular, are strangling themselves with their own rope. Good. Let ’em. And as far as I’m concerned, dems can go down swinging in the breeze too, if they were involved.
On another topic – I’m getting a bit tired of Wilkerson’s Charlie McCarthy act for Powell. Yeah, yeah, nice he’s coming out now to talk, now that all that water’s gone over the dam. But it’s mighty irritating that Powell STILL can’t seem to summon up the courage to directly take on his masters. Not to mention, the Charlie McCarthy act all seems transparently like a ploy to absolve Powell of his very large role in all this criminality.
TenguPhule
Somewhere Obama is thinking “Checkmate in three.”
Norman Rogers
They’re playing chicken, and both sides know that the cars aren’t even on the same stretch of road. Everyone seems to be posturing so that, should something extremely unpleasant happen and kill a bunch of Americans, they can continue to say out of one side of their mouth that they’ve done all they can to keep Americans safe while saying out of the other side of their mouth that they did everything they could to stop the other side from breaking the law while failing to keep us safe. It’s not conducive to being able to support either Republicans or Democrats with any enthusiasm anymore.
It is, in fact, public policy via intellectual dishonesty.
Each side is simple switching hats for the long haul. These people don’t care about today, tomorrow, or next week. They have individual career milestones that are 5, 10, 15 years out into the future. The more they twist in the wind, the less likely it is that they will meet their personal goals, which, duh, have nothing to do with the truth or with protecting the American people. I think this also signals the end of blustery posts about “the rule of law!” and “perjury!” on blogs of both political stripes.
If someone gets serious about defending this country, give me a jingle jangle. Meanwhile, let’s pretend no one is telling the truth and enjoy watching them do backflips. This is fine, fine theater.
Ash Can
@JGabriel:
All the bibles did was to make him fart, eh?
InflatableCommenter
@TenguPhule:
Doesn’t matter about the ravine. The landscape is what it is. The REPs know that the DEMs and the public looked away from the whole issue, which wasn’t just the interrogations, it was the entire matter of how we went about going to war. The fact is, the country wanted the war, and their chosen officials gave it to them.
Now part of the country wants to say “Oh noes, we never approved of that.”
Really? What did people think would happen when they elected security-at-any-cost governments and gave them a blank check to get the job done?
As for your latter comment, the Off With Their Heads rhetoric is about one notch above the way trailer park Republicans talk. I can’t find much to admire about it.
JGabriel
Ash Can:
Demon Farts, Ash Can, Demon Farts! You make it sound like it wasn’t torture, dammit! They’re flames, fer Christ’s sake!
.
TenguPhule
Except a large part of the country didn’t approve it and didn’t vote for the SOBs that did it.
And at this point, off with their heads seems to be the only way justice will be served.
Fulcanelli
@InflatableCommenter: Isn’t the point that: People didn’t think. Everybody below a certain IQ went into “fight or flight” mode out of irrational fear.
Everybody that is except those of us that kept our eye on the ball watching the signing statements, the patriot act, the wiretapping and all the rest of it. We’ve been screaming about the dismantling of our constitutional protections and much more for 8 years. Fuck the terrorists. Who’s gonna keep us safe from a big brother government that can torture at will run by Bush and Cheney?
someguy
In fairness, I think what he meant was, “after a truth commission, and the benefits of the full due process of law, then off with their heads.”
The real problem here is there’s no accountability for the people who voted the torturers into office. That’s the nub of it. They’ll do it again too.
InflatableCommenter
@Fulcanelli:
I think the people are starting to figure that out. But like politicians, the people are not rushing to take responsibility for the clusterfucks.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are smelling blood in the water with Pelosi, and the end result will be damage to her, and not a mark on the GOP. This is what you get when you try to retroactively get “mad” about something that should have made everybody mad seven years ago.
HyperIon
@PaminBB:
I don’t think Powell is behind Wilkerson’s remarks. I’ve been following Wilkerson for years now and he is always very careful to state that he is expressing his own views, not Powell’s. But having said that, I don’t understand why Powell remains silent. IMO his silence damns him.
TenguPhule
Or as I like to put it:
A fast and fair trial, conviction, sentencing and execution.
yeah.
gwangung
Really? I don’t think those clowns could smell a skunk fart, even if they were plunked down with it in a daisy farm. But we’ll see.
TenguPhule
The fun part is this is all going to stick to the GOP, as crimes are crimes and trying to implicate one party naturally convicts the other.
Norman Rogers
Let’s be grownups. If another devastating terror attack had happened, it would have been the fault of whoever was in power OR whoever won the Presidency in 2004, and whoever opposed fully funding the war OR funding the Department of Homeland Security. The entire Bush Administration was organized principally to ensure that the Republican Party would never be held accountable for any terror attack on US soil. As the months and years progressed, it allowed a curiously silent liberal elite circa 2002 to become louder and louder (and attract more and more “like-minded” people) to a cause that was against Bush but was rooted in safely assuming we were not going to be attacked. The closer January 10, 2009 got, the smarter people seemed to get. A handful of cranks in 2002 swelled to a multi-million certitude in 2008. What happened in the interim? Oh, that’s right. No planes crashed into no buildings and nobody was incinerated, and thank the Creator for that.
If you “knew” that the war in Afghanistan was doomed, that the war in Iraq was a farce, that we would not be attacked, that our clandestine forces would seriously degrade the operational capability of al Qaeda without harming a single leaf on a single tree, and if you knew that we would lose as many men and women as we have lost and that we would see our political leadership break law after law after law from September 12, 2001 until this very moment, then where have you been, sir? We could have used a prescient fellow like you to run for President last year.
Fulcanelli
@gwangung: And with the Dem majority they enjoy in the house she should force them to hold their hearings in a freaking broom closet in the sub-basement like the Repubs did with John Conyers.
kay
I don’t think CIA agents themselves tortured.
Every credible source (so, sadly, two people) say contractors were brought in to torture.
That, to me, is a whole new level of cowardice.
John Cole
@Norman Rogers: If we’re going to be grown-ups, then we should start by stopping the false pretense that the government can stop us from every attack. The people to blame for the deaths of Americans are the people who commit the murder, not the government that failed to catch them. I know it is fun to blame Bush and Cheney for ignoring memos, but I don’t think there was any way we could have stopped 9/11 from happening.
The whole notion that the role of government is to keep us safe from everything enables a mindset that cedes more control to the national security apparatus.
kay
You can get pretty callous about law-breaking by really powerful people, but try this:
The President and the Vice President ordered prisoners tortured to elicit false information because they needed a rationale to sell a war.
Puts the mountain of other abuses in our history in perspective, doesn’t it? Wow.
TenguPhule
Including the one they let happen. Yeah.
Oh bullshit. “liberal elite” my ass. We had sane people saying Iraq made no sense, that we are a country of laws and our “liberal media” brushed them off and portrayed them as DFH. We had the fucking anthrax attacks going on and that was no fucking assumption!
Because everything counts only after 9/11/01? If you’re going to try and peddle shit sandwiches, use more onions and mustard.
Pointing out that it was kinda fucking obvious from the start provided you’re not an idiot or insane.
TenguPhule
We will never know.
But in that case, why have CIA and NSA then?
HyperIon
@John Cole:
Exactly.
Shorter Norman “If we’re going to be grownups, we have to admit that we are really just a bunch of WATBs.”
Fulcanelli
@John Cole:
Fixt it for ‘ya John.
HyperIon
@John Cole:
why not?
terry chay
I thought there was a lot of evidence that certain (Democratic) members were informed of certain things in secret briefings.
However what is not clear is
1) Who was informed
2) How much they were informed
3) How much they were lied to (waterboarding is not torture)
4) How much they were allowed to reveal.
In particular to (4), before the Iraq War, they were told a lot of things in a manner that left them powerless to do or say anything about it. It was horrible.
I have no doubt that a dragnet would catch a few Democratic members of congress, but I suspect it’d wipe out a significant chung of Republican caucus and send their most prominent members up for war crimes.
Doesn’t seem like good gamesmanship to me to bluff on the off chance that the Democratic party would want to protect a few members. That might work in the Senate under Harry Reid, but I really doubt Pelosi is going to suffer much from this—both personally, and her congressional caucus.
Which is another way of saying Cheney et. al. are being stupid. The world is not what it was in 2001 or 2004. 2006 and 2008 shows that.
kay
@John Cole:
I agree. I think the whole “Osama determined to attack” memo theme is just silly.
I’m not clear what Bush was supposed to do with that.
Jess
@Norman Rogers:
It was obvious to many of us from the very beginning that invading Iraq was a horrible mistake. I remember during the buildup to the invasion saying to a friend that we were just going to destabilize the region further, get bogged down and get a lot of people killed, and end up in an economic mess because we ultimately wouldn’t be able to afford it. And I was just a grad student then with not much interest in current events or economics, so I’m still baffled that my prediction was spot on, while all our so-called leaders were so off base. I just don’t get it.
The only explanation I can come up with is that I have read a lot of history (just not much stuff about contemporary events) and tend to focus more on the big picture than on specific details, and maybe that’s a better basis for these kinds of predictions. But I’m still amazed at the level of stoopid from both sides of the aisle.
Neo
PELOSI’s only legitimate excuse is that she is showing the onset of ALZHEIMER disease.
Tonal Crow
Congressional Democrats can’t argue their way out of a wet paper bag. What Pelosi ought to be saying is:
someguy
Woulda taken a preemptive strike from the Department of Precrime.
Granted, we now have a Department of Precrime more or less with indefinite detention and people being disappeared during the Bush era and all, but still.
geg6
@InflatableCommenter:
First and foremost, the country would seem to include me and all the others who protested most vociferously against the war. So I really think you better think before you use this kind of hyperbole. I, personally, resent any sort of implication. And I know a few thousand Pittsburghers who would feel the same.
Again, I caution you against using so many collective nouns that seem to include all here who may be reading this who were in the 51% who most definitely didn’t vote for any of this but whose votes were nullified by a corrupt SCOTUS decision.
Since most of us who are saying we never approved of this never voted for Bush and never supported attacking Iraq or using an extra-legal prison such as Gitmo and never wanted the case against al Qaeda pursued through military means instead of as criminals cases, we have every fucking right to say we never approved of it.
Now perhaps it was just bad wording on your part. But realize that you sound awfully insulting to people like me who have always been against the war, torture, and Bush/Cheney.
geg6
@InflatableCommenter:
I think you’re dreaming if you think that somehow the GOP is going to be able to make hay over the fact that Pelosi may have (and I really don’t know if she did…) known that they were fucking torturing people.
Oh, and again I must ask that you refrain from painting us all with your very wide, wide brush.
Tonal Crow
@someguy: On whether we could have stopped 9/11, why didn’t Bush increase the number of Federal Air Marshals ? And publicize the increase? This might well have partially foiled the attacks, or delayed them enough to permit other agencies to “connect the dots”. It would have been inexpensive, quick to deploy, and uninvasive of our rights.
geg6
@TenguPhule:
Have I ever told you how attractive I find it when someone says exactly what is in my head before I can say it? Especially when it is said in response to what we both obviously know is complete and utter bullshit?
Shawn in ShowMe
Maybe you’re extremely well connected and have been holding out on us but I’m gonna have take this man’s informed opinion over yours.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/eveningnews/main589137.shtml
geg6
From TPM:
Sounds like in at least one case, they have themselves a pretty good case for a war crime, if it happened. Waterboarding an Iraqi intelligence officer would definitely fall under the Geneva Conventions and no excuse about “enemy combatant” bullshit.
Shawn in ShowMe
And why did the Bush administration ignore the warnings of their top anti-terrorism adviser and demote him if they really took counterterrorism seriously?
Xenos
@geg6: You beat me on this by a few minutes. This seems to be indisputably a war crime, as well as a few other crimes, too.
What I love is how these facts came to light as a result of Cheney’s stirring the pot by demanding documents from the CIA to prove he was right all along to be waterboarding enemies of the state.
When Dick boards that airplane to Madrid I am going to throw such a party…
TenguPhule
I will at least wait until he accidently falls out in mid-flight, without a parachute.
Bird Dog
Pelosi was in the room with Porter Goss, and they were briefed on the techniques:
Porter Goss had clearly understood what was going on, so it looks like Pelosi has a bad case of amnesia, especially since her aide sat in on subsequent briefings.
georgia pig
I seriously doubt Pelosi would be accusing the CIA of misleading her if she didn’t have some evidence to back that up. She’s from an old Baltimore political family and she can’t be stupid enough to make a charge that serious without some backup. A pissing contest between the Speaker and the CIA is a solid reason for a full-blown investigation by parties outside of the agency, and Pelosi just pulled down her zipper. There were a ton of other things she could have claimed, including a simple misunderstanding or hazy memory. Instead, she upped the ante.
Obama’s withholding the photos may have something to do with this. If he released them now, there would be charges that they prejudiced the inquiry by stirring up public outrage. In addition, the outrage would have deflected away from this new issue of whether detainees were tortured to gain information about an alleged link between Saddam and al Queda. If that comes to fruition, Cheney will have really walked into a buzzsaw. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
someguy
Okay, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Bush could have easily prevented 9/11. Somehow I don’t see how a country of 9 million square kilometers and 300 million people can be so easily secured. Maybe you stop the planes on 9/11, but then you get the chemical plant blasts of 10/12 or the blown dams of 11/13 or something. I’ll have to get in the wayback machine and see how the Republican congress, circa early 2001, would have felt about authorizing an increase in the size of a secretive federal law enforcement agency, where the agents just sit on planes all day and travel around, by two orders of magnitude.
georgia pig
@Bird Dog:
You’re reading too much into that. “EITs” does not necessarily include waterboarding. Also “use of EITs on Zubaydah” doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve already been used. For example, it may mean they were considering using them on Zubaydah based on their bullshit legal opinions. You have to parse this shit like a lawyer, there are a lot of games being played.
Tonal Crow
@someguy: Well, you’re certainly correct that we cannot prevent all terrorist attacks. We couldn’t do so even if we turned the nation into a (literal) prison. And we shouldn’t pursue the will-o-the-wisp of perfect security, because it flies directly to that prison’s gate. But neither should we let incompetents (or worse) like Bush get away with their “no one could have anticipated” B.S. We can and should take reasonable, liberty-respecting steps to prevent attacks.
Brachiator
Either way, if anyone wants to prosecute former Administration officials as war criminals, they need to throw Pelosi and Reid onto the pile as well.
Pelosi was House Speaker, for cripes’ sake. She let everybody know that there was a new face at the power table. For her now to invoke Sgt Schulz from Hogan’s Heroes — “I know nuttink!” — is ridiculous. It was her job to know, and also her job to lead opposition to Bush where necessary.
And how could she and other Democrats vote to give Bush and Cheney power to wage war in Iraq if they didn’t have the guts to find out what they were voting for?
This represents liberalism or a progressive viewpoint. Moral cowardice and hiding behind technicalities of running away from information about what was done.
This whole crew disgusts me. The Republicans were eager to torture people. The Democrats, on the other hand, did not see that they had any moral responsibility to prevent anyone from being tortured. Instead, they wanted, and still want, accolades simply for thinking that torture might be a bad, bad thing.
Shawn in ShowMe
Fixer-upper.
TenguPhule
You forgot the ugly face of America 2002-2005 already?
Marnie
Maybe this will piss off Madame Chairman enough to actually do something to get an investigation started.
Wonder if she is regreting taking impeachment off the table.
They suckered you lady. They lied and lied and lied and you sat and watched and did Jack.
Norman Rogers
If we’re going to be grown-ups, then we should start by stopping the false pretense that the government can stop us from every attack. The people to blame for the deaths of Americans are the people who commit the murder, not the government that failed to catch them. I know it is fun to blame Bush and Cheney for ignoring memos, but I don’t think there was any way we could have stopped 9/11 from happening.
Amen, sir. No government, no military, no safety net can save us from suicide attackers. I agree with you completely.
What can be done is this–every single American needs to cowboy up, denounce torture, denounce the phony security state, denounce the quantifying politicians of both parties, denounce the politicization of intelligence, and return us to a mindset wherein if you attack one American at home or abroad, you attack all Americans, and the American people will put aside their partisan differences for exactly as long as it takes to politely kick your ass back into the stone age.
JGabriel
@Brachiator:
Bullshit. Get your facts straight. Pelosi was Minority Leader at the time in question. She didn’t become Speaker until 2006.
.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
I never forget moral cowardice and easy rationalizations for capitulating to Bush/Cheney.
HyperIon
@someguy:
Nobody has said he could have EASILY done it, asshole.
someguy
@ HyperIon
Wow, Hypersmartguy. Guess you got me there. When @ Tonal Crow stated
I should have immediately recognized that “inexpensive, quick… and uninvasive of our rights” doesn’t have anything to do with “easy” but actually means “hard.” Asshole.
pdxpunk
HYSTERICAL to watch “someguy” and ballonfreak bend over sideways to make normal washington politics BUSHITLERS fault…You kids are so laughable you have no idea.
Enjoy 2010