Posted by Tina
The Intelligence report released today is a political hammer begun during the Bush administration. The release is supported only by Democrats on Feinstein’s committee and the hapless two-headed snake, John McCain. The practice of Extraordinary Rendition, where we transport terrorists to other countries to be dealt with for information did not originate or become expanded under President Bush. A 2005 issue of The New Yorker hits the Bush administration hard in the first few paragraphs. Deeper into the article the Clinton administration is exposed as well and the hypocrisy of the Democrat position revealed:
…criminal prosecution of terrorist suspects has not been a priority for the Bush Administration, which has focussed, rather, on preventing additional attacks. But some people who have been fighting terrorism for many years are concerned about unintended consequences of the Administration’s radical legal measures. Among these critics is Michael Scheuer, a former C.I.A. counter-terrorism expert who helped establish the practice of rendition. Scheuer left the agency in 2004, and has written two acerbic critiques of the government’s fight against Islamic terrorism under the pseudonym Anonymous, the most recent of which, “Imperial Hubris,” was a best-seller.
Not long ago, Scheuer, who lives in northern Virginia, spoke openly for the first time about how he and several other top C.I.A. officials set up the program, in the mid-nineties. “It was begun in desperation, ” he told me. At the time, he was the head of the C.I.A.’s Islamic-militant unit, whose job was to “detect, disrupt, and dismantle” terrorist operations. His unit spent much of 1996 studying how Al Qaeda operated; by the next year, Scheuer said, its mission was to try to capture bin Laden and his associates. He recalled, “We went to the White House”—which was then occupied by the Clinton Administration—“and they said, ‘Do it.’ ” He added that Richard Clarke, who was in charge of counter-terrorism for the National Security Council, offered no advice. “He told me, ‘Figure it out by yourselves,’ ” Scheuer said. (Clarke did not respond to a request for comment.)
Scheuer sought the counsel of Mary Jo White, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who, along with a small group of F.B.I. agents, was pursuing the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case. In 1998, White’s team obtained an indictment against bin Laden, authorizing U.S. agents to bring him and his associates to the United States to stand trial. From the start, though, the C.I.A. was wary of granting terrorism suspects the due process afforded by American law. The agency did not want to divulge secrets about its intelligence sources and methods, and American courts demand transparency. Even establishing the chain of custody of key evidence—such as a laptop computer—could easily pose a significant problem: foreign governments might refuse to testify in U.S. courts about how they had obtained the evidence, for fear of having their secret coöperation exposed. (Foreign governments often worried about retaliation from their own Muslim populations.) The C.I.A. also felt that other agencies sometimes stood in its way. In 1996, for example, the State Department stymied a joint effort by the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. to question one of bin Laden’s cousins in America, because he had a diplomatic passport, which protects the holder from U.S. law enforcement. Describing the C.I.A.’s frustration, Scheuer said, “We were turning into voyeurs. We knew where these people were, but we couldn’t capture them because we had nowhere to take them.” The agency realized that “we had to come up with a third party.”
The obvious choice, Scheuer said, was Egypt. The largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid after Israel, Egypt was a key strategic ally, and its secret police force, the Mukhabarat, had a reputation for brutality. Egypt had been frequently cited by the State Department for torture of prisoners. According to a 2002 report, detainees were “stripped and blindfolded; suspended from a ceiling or doorframe with feet just touching the floor; beaten with fists, whips, metal rods, or other objects; subjected to electrical shocks; and doused with cold water [and] sexually assaulted.” Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s leader, who came to office in 1981, after President Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Islamist extremists, was determined to crack down on terrorism. His prime political enemies were radical Islamists, hundreds of whom had fled the country and joined Al Qaeda. Among these was Ayman al-Zawahiri, a physician from Cairo, who went to Afghanistan and eventually became bin Laden’s deputy.
In 1995, Scheuer said, American agents proposed the rendition program to Egypt, making clear that it had the resources to track, capture, and transport terrorist suspects globally—including access to a small fleet of aircraft. Egypt embraced the idea. “What was clever was that some of the senior people in Al Qaeda were Egyptian,” Scheuer said. “It served American purposes to get these people arrested, and Egyptian purposes to get these people back, where they could be interrogated.” Technically, U.S. law requires the C.I.A. to seek “assurances” from foreign governments that rendered suspects won’t be tortured. Scheuer told me that this was done, but he was “not sure” if any documents confirming the arrangement were signed.
A series of spectacular covert operations followed from this secret pact. On September 13, 1995, U.S. agents helped kidnap Talaat Fouad Qassem, one of Egypt’s most wanted terrorists, in Croatia. Qassem had fled to Europe after being linked by Egypt to the assassination of Sadat; he had been sentenced to death in absentia. Croatian police seized Qassem in Zagreb and handed him over to U.S. agents, who interrogated him aboard a ship cruising the Adriatic Sea and then took him back to Egypt. Once there, Qassem disappeared. There is no record that he was put on trial. Hossam el-Hamalawy, an Egyptian journalist who covers human-rights issues, said, “We believe he was executed.”
A more elaborate operation was staged in Tirana, Albania, in the summer of 1998. According to the Wall Street Journal, the C.I.A. provided the Albanian intelligence service with equipment to wiretap the phones of suspected Muslim militants. Tapes of the conversations were translated into English, and U.S. agents discovered that they contained lengthy discussions with Zawahiri, bin Laden’s deputy. The U.S. pressured Egypt for assistance; in June, Egypt issued an arrest warrant for Shawki Salama Attiya, one of the militants. Over the next few months, according to the Journal, Albanian security forces, working with U.S. agents, killed one suspect and captured Attiya and four others. These men were bound, blindfolded, and taken to an abandoned airbase, then flown by jet to Cairo for interrogation. Attiya later alleged that he suffered electrical shocks to his genitals, was hung from his limbs, and was kept in a cell in filthy water up to his knees. Two other suspects, who had been sentenced to death in absentia, were hanged. (continues)
Senator Feinstein’s approach in doing this investigation was described by an ex-CIA agent this morning. She began her investigation with a determination, America under Bush used torture. She then sought information that would justify her determination. This is not how an investigation is done; it is how a witch hunt is conducted.
We have argued the definition of torture here on Post Scripts many times before. In defense of the Bush administration I have only two things to say: 1. Unlike his predecessor Bush sought legal council as well as Congressional agreement before pursuing the course of action taken to fight terrorism following 911, 2. Feinstein and others agreed Bush should do “whatever it takes” to deal with those who flew planes into buildings in New York and the nations capitol, the same approach taken by the Clinton administration.
There is disagreement from both sides of the political aisle about the possible consequences of releasing this report. Judge Napalitano pointed out this morning there is no compelling legal reason to release the report now so her purpose lacks a legitimate legal requirement. Real concerns include greater danger to Americans charged with doing the dirty work in the fight against terrorists. Feinstein’s need to expose America’s harsh techniques from the safety of her congressional seat pales in comparison to Americans serving in the trenches and allied supporters who put themselves in danger to help in our work.
Feinstein’s purpose seems to be to paint America as an evil force on par with the terrorists of the world, the moral equivalency argument John Kerry is following as the administration pursues a “lets make friends” approach to fighting terrorism. This mirrors too the approach Hillary is taking as she declared, “We should empathize with our enemies…”. Is her release of the report also intended to help Hillary in her bid for President?
What’s done is done. America is one of a few forces in the world that has been willing to stand and do the difficult and dirty work of pushing back to destroy butchers and tyrants seeking to murder and enslave the citizens of earth. The outrage over selective incidents of harsh techniques used to make success possible, when compared to the lack of outrage over terrorist intent and practices, can only be described as childish, naive, ignorant and politically driven. The Democrat Party always, always, puts politics first even when it means endangering lives, giving the US and her allies black eyes, and propping up the enemies of the world.
The deliberately one-sided “blame Bush” Intelligence(?) Committee report will soon be on the NYT Fiction list.
DiFi and the Demwits have just put lives at risk for the sake of a political “gotcha.” SHAME!!!!!
Feinstein was playing dirty, she knew republicans would not release this report, so she used her remaining time as a committee chair to make this report public to do as much damage in the next election as possible. It didn’t matter to Feinstein that it will hurt our allies, that it will hurt the credibility of the USA to work with future foreign intelligence agencies, that operatives lives will be placed at risk. It’s all about politics. So, Feinstein is helping our enemies for the sake of some political points. But, by releasing this information our enemies will make the most of it, to motivate their killers and recruiting new killers.
This was an act of treason in my thinking, but she’ll never be charged. At the very least Feinstein should retire immediately – just go away, she’s not up to being a Senator.
So…I notice no one has any comment on the actual contents of the report. Have any of you read it? It’s not for the faint of stomach.
Some highlights of the worst abuses:
“At least five CIA detainees were subjected to “rectal rehydration” or rectal feeding without documented medical necessity. …Majid Khan’s “lunch tray” consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins was “pureed” and rectally infused.” [Page 4]
“Of the 119 known detainees that were in CIA custody during the life of the program, at least 26 were wrongfully held. Detainees often remained in custody for months after the CIA determined they should not have been detained….Other KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] fabrications led the CIA to capture and detain suspected terrorists who were later found to be innocent.” [Page 485]
”
“In the spring of 2004, after two detainees were transferred to CIA custody, CIA interrogators proposed, and CIA Headquarters approved, using the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques on one of the two detainees because it might cause the detainee to provide information that could identify inconsistencies in the other detainee’s story. After both detainees had spent approximately 24 hours shackled in the standing sleep deprivation position, CIA Headquarters confirmed that the detainees were former CIA sources. The two detainees had tried to contact the CIA on multiple occasions prior to their detention to inform the CIA of their activities and provide intelligence.” [Page 133]
“[A]n “intellectually challenged” man whose CIA detention was used solely as leverage to get a family member to provide information, two individuals who were intelligence sources for foreign liaison services and were former CIA sources, and two individuals whom the CIA assessed to be connected to al-Qa’ida based solely on information fabricated by a CIA detainee subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.” [Page 12]
“CIA officers also threatened at least three detainees with harm to their families—to include threats to harm the children of a detainee, threats to sexually abuse the mother of a detainee, and a threat to “cut [a detainee’s] mother’s throat.” [Page 4]
“The Committee identified a number of personnel whose backgrounds include notable derogatory information calling into question their eligibility for employment, their access to classified information, and their participation in CIA interrogation activities. In nearly all cases, the derogatory information was known to the CIA prior to the assignment of the CIA officers to the Detention and Interrogation Program. This group of officers included individuals who, among other issues, had engaged in inappropriate detainee interrogations, had workplace anger management issues, and had reportedly admitted to sexual assault.” [Page 59]
“Conditions at CIA detention sites were poor, and were especially bleak early in the program. CIA detainees at the COBALT detention facility were kept in complete darkness and constantly shackled in isolated cells with loud noise or music and only a bucket to use for human waste. Lack of heat at the facility likely contributed to the death of a detainee. The chief of interrogations described COBALT as a “dungeon.” Another seniorCIA officer stated that COBALT was itself an enhanced interrogation technique.” [Page 4]
This is torture, and it’s ridiculous to pretend otherwise.
It’s also ridiculous to pretend that anyone here is more qualified to define torture better than John McCain, a man who has actually withstood torture.
Furthermore, this torture didn’t even work:
“The most accurate information on Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti — facilitator whose identification and tracking led to the identification of UBL’s compound and the operation that resulted in UBL’s death — “obtained from a CIA detainee was provided by a CIA detainee who had not yet been subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques; and CIA detainees who were subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques withheld and fabricated information about Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti.” [Page 379]
“KSM’s reporting during his first day in CIA custody included an accurate description of a Pakistani/British operative, which was dismissed as having been provided during the initial “‘throwaway’ stage” of information collection when the CIA believed detainees provided false or worthless information.’” [Page 82]
To call this report “treason” is despicable. The truest form of patriotism is loyalty to our nation’s ideals. Those ideals were violated by those who authorized these crimes.
Should a nation not be judged by how it treats its enemies?
I have not had time to read it but what possible good is there in reading a flawed, redacted, skewed political report? The report is biased, designed to do political harm or enact some kind of twisted revenge. It may contain some truth but it certainly doesn’t reflect the whole truth nor does it properly put into context the difficult job of those who work in the CIA to protect Americans or the allies who agreed with the US and put themselves in greater danger to help us. The report also does nothing to explain the initial confusion that followed 911 or how we had to play catch up to protect Americans and our allies…it doesn’t include corrections that were made when mistakes were discovered and acknowledged. Its a hit piece; it was designed to be a hit piece. The investigation was made without interviewing the principles; the report was written without republican input or support. It follows the same path as other Democrat ventures.
Chris your utopian expectation of what America should be is like a story reserved for little children. It doesn’t acknowledge the enemy in all of it’s evil depth or the extreme measures needed and taken to eradicate him. A child is too young to recognize that you cannot make friends with a ferocious, determined enemy and you cannot destroy him with games of patty cake.
Funny, the same persons who imagine this utopian ideal have no trouble at all painting the warriors who do the dirty work to protect us and make the world safe again as the evil parties. That’s really messed up!
One of our former CIA agents explained very well the political story behind this report. As soon as the political winds allowed, Democrat Party leaders came out to establish the narrative that torture is anything that isn’t talking. Once established in the minds of the people, extreme interrogation, even if it did no lasting physical or mental harm, was torture. The rest was simply a matter of repeating the word and pointing fingers.
Anyone interested in the other side of the story; interested in the opinions of people who actually work in this area and make difficult decisions every day, people who sit face to face with some very vile creatures filled with hate and bent on murdering Americans, should read the following:
“Contradicting Dianne Feinstein’s Sham Report on CIA Interrogations”:
“An Interrogator Breaks His Silence”
“Bush and C.I.A. Ex-Officials Rebut Torture Report”
“Ex-CIA Directors: Interrogations Saved Lives”
Should a nation not be judged first and foremost by how it comes to the defense of the helpless and oppressed, how it stands for freedom and equal rights against forces that would wipe out both, how it does what it can to limit collateral damage, assist the innocent in the midst of the chaos, and how humanely it treats those captured and interned?
Why should we be asked to judge America based on a skewed report unsupported by the facts and based on the biases of party politics?
This is yet another hit piece in the fundamental transformation process. I couldn’t be more disgusted and offended.
We are engaged in war; WAR is messy.
How about the policies that ensured half of Iraq would be lost to terrorists, cause nearby nations to devolve into chaos, and expanded the reach and strength of the terrorists? A lot of people have been brutally, savagely murdered, including Americans getting their heads chopped off, because of weak policy. Is that not just as vile an outcome in terms of what America stands for or what defines America? Has it not given America a very black eye?
If you ask me our allies would be more interested in a nation that fights terrorists effectively. I know our enemies would respect us more. We have become a joke.
Tina, do you see how “I haven’t read the report; here are all the ways it is flawed” is not a convincing argument? How can you possibly know if the report actually contains those flaws unless you read it?
“As soon as the political winds allowed, Democrat Party leaders came out to establish the narrative that torture is anything that isn’t talking.”
No, that’s just not true, This is yet another false strawman argument that has no connection to what the other side has actually said. All it proves is that you are not interested in or capable of engaging your ideological opponents honestly. You can’t counter our actual arguments, so you make up arguments you can strike down.
“Once established in the minds of the people, extreme interrogation, even if it did no lasting physical or mental harm, was torture.”
Which methods are you referring to that “did no lasting physical or mental harm?” The methods I have cited have been proven to cause such harm. So has water boarding, which you have defended vigorously. Can you cite the psychologists who have concluded that these methods do not cause lasting harm?
“Should a nation not be judged first and foremost by how it comes to the defense of the helpless and oppressed,”
This line of argument assumes that the torture actually worked and helped protect people. Since it did not, the question is irrelevant.
What will Obama and this administration do in ten years when a report comes out saying their actions were cruel, caused innocent lives and was against international laws?
There will be articles like this written by a George Soros’ think tank called “Human Rights Watch” to use to build a case against them.
The year of living more dangerously: Obama’s drone speech was a sham:
“Targeted killings have been a hallmark of this administration’s counterterrorism strategy. Obama sharply increased the use of armed drones (begun under George W Bush), which have conducted lethal strikes against alleged terrorists in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The strikes have killed hundreds of people, including civilians, and some have clearly violated international law. Yet the US government has long refused to disclose basic information about the program, from its full legal basis to how it identifies targets.
In his NDU speech, Obama noted that he had just declassified information about three strikes in Yemen and Pakistan that killed four US citizens “to facilitate transparency and debate on this issue and to dismiss some of the more outlandish claims that have been made.” But the legal memos detailing alleged authority for those strikes remain secret. Only when pressed politically this month – key senators threatened to delay the vote on his appeals court nominee, David Barron, until they received copies of secret drone memos Barron wrote – did the Justice Department make two of a reported 11 memos available to senators (but not to members of the House of Representatives or the public). As soon as procedural hurdles for Barron’s nomination were lifted, the Justice Department took back the memos, showing – and not for the first time – that the administration will increase transparency only under threat.
There has been some progress – this week the Justice Department announced it would comply with a court order to release to the public a redacted version of one memo in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. But the document may take months to produce, and it’s not clear if what remains after all those deletions will actually leave the public any better informed about how the administration justifies its actions.
In a similar vein, a White House fact sheet released the day of Obama’s speech outlined policies to reduce the risk of civilian casualties from drone strikes, and emphasizing a preference for capture over lethal force. But the document said only that some unspecified policies had already been implemented, and others would be in the future. To this day, the administration refuses to say even if they are actually in effect – and not all members of Congress (and certainly not the public) have access to the full, classified policy guidance.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/23/obama-drone-speech-one-year-later
How will they justify the killing of suspected terrorist and innocents is more humane than enhanced interrogation?
Side note. Anyone else notice this report came out the same day that Jonathan Gruber met with the congressional committee? And hardly a word is being said about it on the news. Coincidence? Nothing this administration does is a coincidence. Not when the chair of the committee and the president are in agreement.
Here is one of only a handful of articles available. I did watch the hearing on CSPAN and found it interesting to see both parties in agreement on several issues and for Gruber to apologize for being stupid while at the same time exposing the lies told repeatedly by Obama.
Why we haven’t seen the last of Jonathan Gruber:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/09/why-we-havent-seen-the-last-of-jonathan-gruber/
Re #5 Chris : “Tina, do you see how “I haven’t read the report; here are all the ways it is flawed” is not a convincing argument? How can you possibly know if the report actually contains those flaws unless you read it?”
What a stark, hypocritical pants load from the mean little kid. People often rely on the analysis of experts. Even judges or juries in criminal trials, dimwit. Even Congress. Even the President of the United States. Just like you rely on the word of so called Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming experts without knowing a damn thing about the science and methods.
Jerk.
Thanks Pie!
More information, for those who are interested in the hypocrisy and political angles:
Once again PJ Media has the inside track and nails it!
Sure there are some people who only care about torture and other abuses such as civilian casualties from drone strikes so they can use them as a political battering ram. You cannot count me among them. I have consistently said that if Post Scripts really wants to make its case that Obama is abusing his power, you should focus more on his extension of Bush policies, such as his legalization of indefinite detention, assassinations of American citizens, drone warfare, and war on whistleblowers such as Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. There have been a few times I’ve seen these issues brought up here, but it’s mostly been used to say “See! Obama is just as bad if not worse!” rather than genuine objections. It’s a cycle of hypocrisy and accusations of hypocrisy.
I oppose torture. Period. I oppose indefinite detention, because it leads to innocent people being imprisoned without trial, as happened to at least 26 individuals according to this report. Period. I oppose unnecessary civilian casualties and prosecution of whistleblowers. Period. The person currently in the White House has no bearing on my positions here.
Pie: “People often rely on the analysis of experts.”
Sure, but you have to know who the experts are first. In the global warming debate, the vast majority of climate scientists, as well as every governmental scientific body in the world, agree that anthropogenic climate change is happening. It makes more sense to trust their word than the slim minority of climate scientists who say otherwise, especially when nearly everyone in that slim minority is paid by the same disreputable, oil funded organization with a history of misleading on public health issues to increase their donor’s profits.
In the torture debate, it makes no sense to listen to the so-called “experts” who supported torture from the beginning (while also insisting it wasn’t torture as some kind of semantic moral word game). These guys don’t WANT anybody to read he report, precisely because the info within is so damning to their reputations and legacies.
Unless you can make the case for why Karl Rove and Sean Hannity are better experts on torture than John McCain, your equivalence fails.
(Speaking of, has Hannity lived up to his promise to undergo water boarding yet? I mean, he says it isn’t torture, so what is he afraid of?)
Re #9 Chris:
Nice fail from the mean little kid. I was addressing your asinine and specious statement that Tina must read the report. As to your dismissal of Karl Rove and Sean Hannity and preference for John McCain, that is completely beside the point and I could not care less about your **it-head opinions regarding these people.
Moreover, you speak for NO ONE you obnoxious, condescending, silly, and arrogant little turd. YOU cannot possibly know what is in the minds of anyone and whether they wish people to read the report or not. (WOW!)
Poor Chris just keeps getting more ridiculous every day.
Pie: “mean little kid”
“asinine and specious”
“**it-head”
“obnoxious, condescending, silly, and arrogant little turd”
I’m curious: does your cognitice dissonance ever physically hurt your brain, or was it numbed from permanent damage years ago?
So let me see if I have this right:
When an individual black man tortures a person to death, we as citizens should protest the entire black community.
But when the U.S. government tortures a person to death, we should just shut up, pretend it never happened and thank the torturers for our freedoms.
What a curious worldview you people have.
And now this nonsense from the Obama government —
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ce2a878ea7a941fb93fe718ee6d46e9e/us-co-opted-cubas-hip-hop-scene-spark-change
Tom Coburn’s profound and touching farewell speech today on the Senate floor needs to be viewed by everyone.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4518831/senator-tom-coburn-farewell-address
Re #13:Again Chris in his usual boorish pattern constructs a specious straw man and attacks it. Sheesh what an insufferable jerk. Is it nature or nurture? I am guessing nature.
“The Democrats on the committee have used one-half assed, unwarranted comment in one email to justify the story that you have now bought hook, line and sinker that we use this to abuse other human beings.”
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/226883-ex-cia-director-defends-rectal-rehydration
Re #12: I am curious, are you the product of the DNA of a long line of jerks or did you learn to be a jerk?
I am really sick of being accused of making strawman arguments without any attempt to back that accusation up. If you can explain how I am getting the argument wrong, do so. If you cannot explain it, it’s because I described the argument completely accurately.
I repeat, this is the exact set of arguments that has been presented by the conservatives here:
When an individual black man tortures a person to death, we as citizens should protest the entire black community.
But when the U.S. government tortures a person to death, we should just shut up, pretend it never happened and thank the torturers for our freedoms.
This is not a strawman argument. This is what you have said. If it sounds stupid, it is not because I have misrepresented your arguments; it is because your arguments are stupid.
And Pie, did you not read the entire article you cited?
“But the Senate Intelligence Committee report says that it was done “without medical necessity.” And in the report’s description of one of Mohammed’s interrogation sessions, it says that the interrogator wanted to demonstrate “total control over the detainee.””
I’ll add that no one here has commented on the fact that at least 26 people *that we know of* were tortured despite being cleared as innocent afterwards. It’s one thing to justify torturing terrorists, it’s quite another to justify torturing innocent people.
Gee, it’s almost like detaining and torturing people without trial is a bad idea, and that requiring due process first helps protect innocent people! If only there was some kind of binding 200 year old document our country could have followed to avoid this…
When we don’t feel secure we support acts to make us more secure. WWI and WWII killed tens of thousands and POWs being interrogated was acceptable. Dropping two atomic bombs to end the WWII was debated and approved as justified because it would save more lives than it took.
It was only after the above threat to our security was over did the question come up as to what was done being the correct action.
We are once again feeling a little more secure after the 911 attack and following the pattern of once again criticizing the previous approved steps to bring us to our current state of security.
When history repeats itself Obama too will be charged for his approval to use drones to kill instead of capturing suspected terrorist causing the death of innocent men, women and children.
Re #19: Evidently the mean little kid thinks that if it is in the Senate Intelligence Committee report it is the gospel truth.
Gee, it is almost as if Chris trusts everything the government says and does. Like Obamacare promises.
This dips**t hasn’t a clue what logical fallacies actually are and how they are defined. I suppose that is to be expected, coming from the ENGLISH MAJOR, the easiest path to graduation and the booby prize degree bestowed by Chico State.
Peggy, I agree with what you wrote completely.
Where I would go further is in arguing that in times of insecurity we often go overboard, act on emotion and end up taking steps that ultimately hurt out security. Torture did not help us avert any terrorist attacks, but likely created more terrorists. It would be nice if the next time we deal with another WWII or 9/11 level crisis, we can reflect back on history and make more sober choices. But since no one will be held accountable for what happened here (except of course the person who leaked torture details), I find it likely that emotionalism and jingosim will once again rule the day.
“Gee, it is almost as if Chris trusts everything the government says and does.”
Said the guy who trusts the government to arrest, detain, and torture people without trial.
You, and every other conservative defending this blight on our country, have got to be the dumbest hypocrites in existence. You claim to not trust the government to run a cash for clunkers program, but then you say that you trust the government to arrest, detain, and torture people without trial, in direct defiance of our constitution. Not only that, you accuse everyone who doesn’t place that kind of trust in our government of being traitors, weak, and sympathizing with terrorists. You also trust enforcers of government power to always use the appropriate amount of force when dealing with citizens suspected of a crime, and you never question when that force is applied excessively.
And you’re too stupid to even see the glaring contradiction.
The GOP wants a government small enough to fit in a pillowcase with which to then beat people to death with.
Re #23 Chris : “Said the guy who trusts the government to arrest, detain, and torture people without trial…etc.”
Said the jerk with his head up his *ss.
Where the hell do you get off saying that crap about me you ridiculous little creep? I am not on a mission to defend the CIA here, I have not been on a mission to defend the CIA, and I have not written anything AT ALL to indicate such or to argue such. I merely pointed to an article that contained some additional information and what a past director had to say about some of the report.
Chris, you need to get over yourself, you idiotic, self-righteous little turd tosser. Your comment about the GOP, like everything else in #23 and elsewhere is totally without merit. Please be so kind as to drop dead at your earliest possible convenience. Go **** yourself.
By the way, #23 is a perfect example of the straw man fallacy that Chris is so famous for. Frankly, I do not appreciate being victimized by this ridiculous idiot.
Yes, let’s all pause for a moment to honor the real victims here: not the 26 innocent people who were tortured, but Pie Guevara and all the other defenders of torture who have been criticized on the Internet.
Pie, no rational person could read your comments and conclude that you are doing anything but defending the perpetrators of this CIA program while running a character assassination against those who exposed it. Your mealy-mouthed attempt to backpedal and claim that you were “merely” presenting additional information, when what you have really been doing is baselessly attacking the torture report and its authors in an attempt to destroy their credibility (while providing no compelling evidence that the info is inaccurate) is quite pathetic, and wouldn’t pass the smell test of my most gullible eighth graders.
The “rational” idiot attacks again with more straw man drivel. What a total **ckwit. I am running a character assignation campaign? I am baselessly attacking the torture report? ROTFLMAO. I would say Chris has gone over the deep edge, but this wannabe negro burner jackass did that long ago. A bitter, delusional, and toxic lunatic pretty much sums him up.
I found this Ramirez political cartoon poignant.
http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?id=730413
Krauthammer on Democratic Party hypocrisy —
http://video.foxnews.com/v/3939719031001/charles-krauthammer-on-reasons-behind-release-of-cia-report/?playlist_id=trending#sp=show-clips
CIA Director John Brennan on Feinstein Report —
http://www.c-span.org/video/?323254-1/cia-director-john-brennan-interrogation-report
(No doubt the lunatic will attack me again for having the gall to post this.)
The word torture is defined by the left as anything that isn’t talking, a definition supplied by an ex-CIA agent and with which I agree.
The use of this word was and is a political tactic to control the narrative in media and conversation about the war under Bush.
“Torture”…its such an emotion yielding word. It brings up all kinds of mental images of people being burned with cigarettes and electricity for hours on end, people hung by their feet for days and deprived of food and sleep, eyes gouged out, arms and legs broken, the head from the corpse of the tortured being used as a soccer ball.
Chris you are one sick, pathetic SOB to compare what we do to the depraved and truly inhumane things our enemies do.
Read about the Bataan Death March if you what to understand the word torture. Think about being one of Dr. Megele’s experiments if you want to understand the word torture.
Torture is a word you don’t toss around like a Frisbee to describe what we do…UNLESS your purpose is to undermine and destroy those in our government charged with fighting this horrific murderous enemy.
The casual use of this word is confounding our language and making even discussion about how to handle this enemy nearly impossible. People who engage in this practice make me ill.
America needs dedicated adults running this war. We need to be able to rely on people who take care in defining terms and want and expect the language to be clear. We need to be able to rely on professionally trained people to carry out the difficult and ugly aspects of war for us. Attacking and undermining them with this tortured use of the language, no pun intended, is tantamount to treason, at the very least it is the most despicable form of backstabbing. I have no use for people who do this. They do NOT care about truth regardless their practiced posture or they wouldn’t play politics with the language the way they do.
Preaching about character assassination from our resident Alinsky boy is truly remarkable; the tool will not notice his own hypocrisy.
If we continue with this bunch of liars and deceivers we will be involved in a war of long relentless slow death and destruction forever.
Tina: “The word torture is defined by the left as anything that isn’t talking, a definition supplied by an ex-CIA agent and with which I agree.”
Are you even aware of the fact that there is a specific legal definition of torture?
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2340
Care to explain how the tactics revealed in the report don’t qualify under that definition? Or are you ready to admit that your veneration of “the rule of law” doesn’t apply here?
“”Torture”…its such an emotion yielding word. It brings up all kinds of mental images of people being burned with cigarettes and electricity for hours on end, people hung by their feet for days and deprived of food and sleep, eyes gouged out, arms and legs broken, the head from the corpse of the tortured being used as a soccer ball…”
Had you even bothered to read a few excerpts from the report you would know we actually DID some of the things on your list. The fact that you have still don’t know this absolutely disqualifies you from having an informed opinion on this subject. You are arguing from a position of zero knowledge and blind partisan loyalty.
“Chris you are one sick, pathetic SOB to compare what we do to the depraved and truly inhumane things our enemies do.”
Except for the fact that some of the tactics WERE used by America’s enemies. We prosecuted Nazis for the use of waterboarding:
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2007/05/-versch-auml-rfte-vernehmung/228158/
Is John McCain a “sick pathetic SOB” too?
What the hell makes you think you are more qualified to determine what torture is than he is?
“People who engage in this practice make me ill.”
And yet people who engage in the practice of torture (as legally defined) give you lady-wood. You are morally FUBAR. But then, censoring a few F bombs while continuously allowing Pie’s much more vicious racist slur “negro burner” to stand unchallenged could have shown anyone that.
Meanwhile, you still have not addressed the facts that these disgusting methods you support were used on innocent people, that detaining people and subjecting to them to these methods is in clear violation of both the constitution and the rule of law which you claim to hold so dear, that it DID NOT EVEN WORK and actually produced false testimony, or literally any other point from the report at all for that matter. All you have done is attacked the messenger while revealing complete and total ignorance about he contents of the reports.
You make me sick.
Pie: “I am baselessly attacking the torture report?”
Yes, obviously. You have not offered one factual rebuttal to any of the points raised in the report; you have simply accused the report’s authors of lying with zero evidence.
But I don’t expect someone who constantly tosses racist slurs against his opponents here, with the tacit approval of the blog owners, to understand anything about accountability. Why wouldn’t you deny exactly what you said? Everyone else here does it, and there are absolutely no social consequences for such behavior within your in-group.
You are not a man.
I find this particularly disturbing from the lunatic, “… wouldn’t pass the smell test of my most gullible eighth graders.”
That this delusional, rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth, radical nut-case is entrusted to instruct our youth is an outrage. One can only hope that, like his equally demented mentor, the late Quentin Colgan, he will be found out and stripped of his teaching credentials by the state of California.
Re #33 Chris: I toss no racist slurs you lying pile of excrement. THAT IS YOUR PURVIEW.
It was you who said that you would be first in line to hold Obama’s feet to the fire if he crossed your sensibilities. You really showed your true self on that one, negro burner.
I have denied nothing you insane little creep. I have made no statements either for or against the Feinstein report. In fact, I have not made up my mind on the matter.
Pie: “I have made no statements either for or against the Feinstein report”
You have raised plausible deniability to an art form.
Chris: “Are you even aware of the fact that there is a specific legal definition of torture?”
Just as aware as I am that the Bush administration and legal advisers looked at the legal definition and constructed methods that would fall short of torture.
The bunch of radical leftists that started this ugly hit piece on the Bush administration didn’t give a rip about the legal definition. They cared about two things, 1) That chumps like you would draw back in horror at the mere mention of the word, and, 2) That the Bush administration could be taken out, or at least give a big black eye, by it.
What damage was done to the 26 you claim were tortured, Chris? You don’t get to just repeat the word over and over again. You have to back it up with evidence of real lasting harm. Show me the bodies with broken arms, teeth, jaws…show me the burns!
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was fat and out of shape when he was captured. He lost weight, was better fed and much healthier after being captured. Explain how the man most subjected to “torture” with harsh interrogation techniques can come through it looking and feeling better?
Harsh interrogation that doesn’t do permanent damage should NEVER be called torture! Unless you can think of a better word that conjures up images of the broken, burned, starved, medically and chemically harmed human beings that have actually been subjected to what I would call torture you should refrain from its use.
Feinstein’s vindictive report is a partisan hit piece. They didn’t bother to interview any of the people involved and they sure as hell didn’t bother to consider the lives they have put in danger, the lives of allies that they compromised and put in danger, or the way that this would damage our ability to fight the enemy.
We’re loosing the language and our ability to fight an evil, brutal enemy because of radical left political jerks who don’t give a damn about anything but their extremist agenda and/or their puffed up pompous ego’s.
There are other words that could be exploited in this ugly and shameful decision to release the report: traitorous, un-American, disloyal, aiding and abetting the enemy…Benedict Arnold.
Show me the burned damaged bodies you pathetic excuse for an American! How easily you accept that fellow Americans, working to save your sorry a$$ from human beings that would chop your head off without the slightest hesitation, would go to the same lengths as Mengele to extract information.
Harsh? YES! Extremely harsh? YES! Torture? Absolutely not…you have no sense of proportion. You conflate the mangled bodies of children with a guy whose been a stressed and pressured, deprived of sleep, subjected to hours of Metallica, and psychologically made to believe he was drowning (when he was not).
absolutely pathetic!
Re #36: Again, I deny nothing and have nothing to deny. This has gone beyond being merely ridiculous and into the realm of the insane. The only liar here is Chris. Why he chooses to continue to lie about my statements here is anyone’s guess.
This rabid lunatic may be able to bully his 8th grade students, but that demented crap does not fly in this forum.
Parents should be warned about this vile person. Children deserve an education, not indoctrination and intimidation from a delusional radical liar who has gone off the deep end.
When the hammer comes down, Chris’ life as an “educator” will be over and it will be of his own doing.
Tina: “Just as aware as I am that the Bush administration and legal advisers looked at the legal definition and constructed methods that would fall short of torture.”
Nice to know you are willing to simply accept what the government’s lawyers tell you when it fits what you already want to believe. You’ve still not offered any explanation for how the tactics revealed don’t fit under the legal definition of torture as:
“1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control”
Any lawyer who would argue that what we did somehow doesn’t qualify as “severe physical or mental pain or suffering” is a goddamn liar, and no rational person would take their arguments seriously.
“What damage was done to the 26 you claim were tortured, Chris? You don’t get to just repeat the word over and over again. You have to back it up with evidence of real lasting harm. Show me the bodies with broken arms, teeth, jaws…show me the burns!”
From the New York Times:
“For eight years since Mr. Bashmilah, 46, was released from C.I.A. custody, Ms. Satterthwaite and other advocates had been trying without success to get the United States government to acknowledge that it had held him in secret prisons for 19 months and to explain why. In the phone call on Wednesday, she told him that the Senate report listed him as one of 26 prisoners who, based on C.I.A. documents, had been “wrongfully detained.”
Mr. Bashmilah has told them of being tortured in Jordan before he was handed over to the C.I.A., which at times kept him shackled alone in freezing-cold cells in Afghanistan, subjected to loud music 24 hours a day. He attempted suicide at least three times, once by saving pills and swallowing them all at once; once by slashing his wrists; and once by trying to hang himself. Another time he cut himself and used his own blood to write “this is unjust” on the wall…
Among those that the report found to have been wrongfully imprisoned were some whose cases had already drawn public attention. Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen, was mistaken for someone with the same name, grabbed in Macedonia and flown to Afghanistan, where he spent four months in the C.I.A. jail known as the Salt Pit. Laid Saidi, an Algerian, identified in the Senate report as Abu Hudhaifa, was held in Afghanistan for 16 months, and his case became the subject of a New York Times article in 2006 after Mr. Masri called it to public attention.
The Senate report says that Mr. Saidi “was subjected to ice water baths and 66 hours of standing sleep deprivation before being released because the C.I.A. discovered he was not the person he was believed to be.”
Among the others mistakenly held for periods of months or years, according to the report, were an “intellectually challenged” man held by the C.I.A. solely to pressure a family member to provide information; two people who were former C.I.A. informants; and two brothers who were falsely linked to Al Qaeda by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 9/11 planner, who “fabricated” the information after being waterboarded 183 times…
There was no cash in Mr. Bashmilah’s case. Originally from Aden, Yemen, he had a small import-export business in Indonesia in 2003, when he traveled to Jordan with his wife to meet his mother and give her the money for heart surgery. But in Amman, he was arrested by the Jordanian authorities, who were suspicious about the new passport he held and his admission that he had once traveled to Afghanistan.
The Jordanians hung him upside down and beat him in three weeks of imprisonment before turning him over in the middle of the night to C.I.A. officers. There followed 19 months of solitary confinement in two secret prisons in Afghanistan, which he told Salon in 2007 was worse than physical torture.
“Whenever I saw a fly in my cell, I was filled with joy,” he said. “Although I would wish for it to slip from under the door so it would not be imprisoned itself.”
Then he was returned to Yemen and held there, reportedly at the Americans’ request. After nine more months, he was convicted of forgery based on an allegedly fake travel document that was not presented in court and sentenced to time served, according to an Amnesty International report.
Ms. Satterthwaite was not able to answer Mr. Bashmilah’s question about an apology or reparation. No apology was forthcoming from the C.I.A., which declined to comment on specific cases. A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Mr. Bashmilah and others flown to prisons on C.I.A. aircraft against an agency contractor, Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., was dismissed on the grounds that it might expose state secrets. Whether the Senate report’s release will change such legal calculations is uncertain.””
I don’t understand why you are so skeptical of the idea that the government may have subjected innocent people to the methods you support. You know that there was no due process here. Why on earth would you trust the government to arrest and subject people to “enhanced interrogation techniques” (a term coined, by the way, by the Nazis) without due process? Especially when you are so skeptical of the government’s ability to do things even within our normal constitutional process?
“Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was fat and out of shape when he was captured. He lost weight, was better fed and much healthier after being captured. Explain how the man most subjected to “torture” with harsh interrogation techniques can come through it looking and feeling better?”
This is a completely insane thing to say.