Torture

I was reading the excellent post by Sully in which he describes Chris Wallace’s interview of Dick Cheney as “a teenage girl interviewing the Jonas Brothers”. While reading it I started thinking about all the Cheney interviews in the past, and believe me there wasn’t many out there.

When the going got tough, Cheney always took to the airwaves. He would jump into the lion’s den cuddly kitten factory known as Rush Limbaugh and FOX News. The man has never faced an actual interview. He hasn’t been pushed on any of his views or actions, essentially castrating the entire fourth estate.

Is it any wonder that Eric Holder is investigating torture? If Cheney would have actually defended the process instead of saying “we say its ok, so its ok”, then we might be in a different position today. Instead he exhibits the signs of a Megalomanic. Power given to such a man is a danger to any democracy, and we saw what it did to ours.

If Cheney really believes what he did was right then he wouldn’t fear facing actual interviewers. He would proudly take his defense to other interviewers like Jon Stewart or Rachael Maddow. But he can’t have his beliefs or power questioned, so instead he can only appear with friends. Dick Cheney is the biggest coward to ever serve this country, and people need to start calling him on it.

The news of Eric Holder’s mandate on the special prosecutor to go after just those that actually engaged in the torture is being met with some strong criticism from the dems. Basically they are saying that it isn’t enough. I agree, but I am also going to be optimistic.

A lot of these investigations start off with a very narrow scope. Its once you start looking through the smaller lens that the bigger picture starts coming into focus. A couple of months ago we heard there would be no prosecutor, and now we are saying that the one we have isn’t enough. Well let’s just wait and see what this guy comes up with. He could end up going to Holder and saying “hey there is a much bigger picture here and I can’t see it without going down that rabbit hole”. If that happens then we will start seeing some big names pulled in.

The President just said that he is “hands of” when it comes to prosecuting torture and has “faith” in Eric Holder. It really sounds like he is passing the buck over to Holder and keeping himself out of any political firestorm that may come from prosecutions.

Today is the day that the “holy grail” report of prisoner abuse is supposed to be released, highlighting torture techniques used at Gitmo. So far the leaked details have been very disturbing.

On the heels of this release we also find out that a Justice Department report is suggesting to open/reopen a bunch of investigations:

The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.

The recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, presented to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in recent weeks, comes as the Justice Department is about to disclose on Monday voluminous details on prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the C.I.A.’s inspector general but have never been released.

All I can say is “its about time”, and hopefully the administration and Congress will follow suit. The excuse that we “must look forward” is one of the weakest I have ever heard. Imagine the police saying that on murder investigations.

It is still torture and Mancow decided to share his waterboarding experience with Keith Olbermann last night

Of course this probably means Mancow will be banned from appearing on FOX news now. I mean how could he go into the enemy zone known as MSNBC?

Following Mancow’s waterboarding experience yesterday Keith Olbermann has now rescinded his challenge to Hannity and instead will donate $10,000 to military families in the name of Mancow.

It would be nice for people to remind Hannity of what a coward he was in this whole thing.

Either Mika Brzezinski is trying to spin right wing talking points or she is just downright stupid. Check out this exchanged from Morning Joe where Ed Schultz had to take on the entire cast. Pay particular attention around the 4:20 mark:

While Schultz is talking about the terror plot broken up by law enforcement yesterday he points out that no one had to be torture and that this was the product of good old police work. Mika responds with “well there was an informant”.

Could she really be that dense? Is being an informant somehow synonymous with waterboarding?

Police have used informants for years. All are voluntary. Some might do it as a feeling of “civic duty” and other’s might offer the information as a way to reduce their own punishment, but it is voluntary.

Mika tries to call herself a “liberal”, but she sure doesn’t show it, and if she is a liberal then she makes all liberals look bad.

This is a very interesting develop. Greg Sargent has been trying to get a clarification from Porter Goss if the CIA told him about the use of torture during that meeting with them and Nancy Pelosi, or if he wasn’t. Well Goss isn’t saying anything:

So I asked Goss’ spokesperson directly: Were he and Pelosi informed that EITs, including waterboarding, had already been used, and were they given a rough sense that Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded more than 83 times the previous month?

Her answer: “He believes that his Op-ed makes it very clear and is not engaging beyond it at this time.” She declined repeated requests to elaborate.

So here’s where we are: The Republican Congressman who was in the room during Pelosi’s briefing won’t directly vouch for the accuracy of the CIA’s claim that she had been briefed on the use of torture.

And it isn’t that Goss was just the congressman in the room with Pelosi during this briefing – its also the fact that Goss went on to head the CIA not long after this.

So we have a Republican who could be the final nail in the Pelosi coffin, but he isn’t swinging that hammer. Why is that? My only guess is that Goss doesn’t recall exactly what was said (highly unlikely), or he knows Pelosi is telling the truth so he is choosing to just be quiet and let it all play out.

If there was ever a call for a “truth commission” this is it. If the CIA didn’t inform Goss and Pelosi and then lied about it then there are serious crimes being committed. It’s time to find the truth out so this country can move on. The longer we delay that longer our focuses will remain on who was told what and when.

Not only is Jesse Ventura an ex-governor and ex-wrestler, but he is also a former Navy SEAL who went through SEAR training. Now he is one of the most outspoken opponents of torture. He has been on fire the past several days schooling numerous talking heads about waterboarding and saying that it is in fact torture.

For the past several days the media has been pushing the story that “Pelosi knew about torture and did nothing”. When people come out to defend Pelosi, such as former Senator Bob Graham, they are ignored. Instead the media has gone to bed with the Republicans in pushing their own version of what did or did not happen in 2002.

The shocker occurs today when Rasmussen, the very right leaning polling company, releases the results of this little gem:

So by a small margin the public is siding with Pelosi on the whole story. That’s pretty telling given the nonstop effort by the media and right to scapegoat Pelosi on the whole issue. 

TBogg makes a very interesting and accurate point that Nancy Pelosi has become the next Lynndie England:

Due to "process" reporting we have learned that the Torture Years were not the responsibility of the Administration who demanded them, the legal counsel who found legal justification for them, the medical personnel who stood by and watched, the media talking heads who justified torture based upon a TV show, or the actual torturers who unquestioningly did the dirty work.

Now the Village elders have decided that Nancy Pelosi is a witch who turned us into awful people and by burning her we will be made whole again.

I have had this same feeling the entire past week as I hear the media follow the Republican lead of the witch hunt against Pelosi. Perhaps this could sum up a typical media discussion on torture.

“Yes the United States was involved in what could be called torture. Oh no.”

“OMG! Nancy Pelosi knew we were involved in torture. How could she let this go one?”

Perhaps the most telling of this narrative comes from Newt Gingrich. Here’s what Gingrich told Hannity this week:

"Nancy Pelosi was the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee. She had an absolute obligation to know what was going on. She had an absolute obligation to speak up."

So back in 2002, which was at the height of terrorism paranoia, the Republicans are now saying that Pelosi should have said “we are torturing!”. And how would the Republicans, the ranking party in the House, have responded? Pelosi would have ended up being tortured herself, by both the media and the Republicans.

And what about the Republicans that “knew” of this torture? Right now they are calling for Pelosi to be punished for her lack of inaction. So wouldn’t these Republicans also be guilty of the same crime? Of course they would.

While the media and right try to pin everything involving torture on Nancy Pelosi, today it’s time to go back to the real criminals involved – the previous administration. At a time when the American press abandoned their core principals and became nothing more than an echo chamber for the Bush White House, Cheney was working to generate even more reasons to invade Iraq, particularly a link between Saddam and 9/11.

If we need to keep evidence of torture, like photographs, secret, to protect our troops, doesn't that suggest that torture isn't a great way to keep them or us safe?

- Josh Marshall

Here’s good old Joe Scarborough basically accusing the FBI agents who told Senate yesterday that torture didn’t work of lying. This is really amazing.

Yesterday Dick Cheney restated his claim that “Obama has made us less safe”. Today we have seen the right defending Cheney’s comments.

This morning while watching Morning Joe, Scarborough kept defending the comments by saying “well Clinton was out bashing Bush right after Bush took office”. As usual with Joe he is in another attempt to rewrite history. I still remember the first time Clinton publically spoke out against Bush. It was back in 2004 after the Iraq war was into the disaster stages. It was big news and everyone was going on “wow former Presidents never attack their processors”.

That may be true, but how much of an attack was their on Clinton from the Bush White House? Easy – a lot. If you would go back and listen to the Bush administration back in their early years you would be lead to believe that Bill Clinton gave the 9/11 hijackers their boarding passes and his administration was the flight crew. You would also think that Clinton left Bush with an economy that was garbage, or in other words – the kind of economy Bush left Obama.

Both parties are guilty when it comes to playing the blame game, with the only difference being the fact that Republicans cry the loudest.

But that might change.