Buck Naked Politics

The Torture Administration, Part ###: Justice Department Refused to File Charges Against CIA Officials Who Violated Anti-Torture Statute

More confirmation, as if any were needed, of the Bush administration's indifference to the Rule of Law. From a 2-page article in The Washington Post:

"The [CIA], where appropriate, took its own disciplinary action when the Department of Justice declined prosecution," CIA spokesman George Little said Saturday.

A spokesman for the agency declined to comment on details of the episodes, but current and former government officials said the use of the gun is described in a classified CIA inspector general's report, which is slated to be released in declassified form on Monday....

A federal judge in New York ordered the release of the report in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has been reviewing the document in an effort to decide whether to launch an investigation into the CIA's coercive interrogation methods....

The U.S. anti-torture statute bans acts intended to inflict severe mental or physical pain or suffering resulting from, among other things, "the threat of imminent death" or threats of being "subjected to death."  (Read article)

Not the President, but the Policy: Obama Administration Blows Gitmo Deadline

by Damozel |  So much for that promise.

The Obama administration's task force on Guantanamo detentions has requested, and been granted, a six-month extension to "flesh out" its plans for closing Gitmo.  (CNN)  The interrogation task force got a two-month extension.  Civil libertarian and attorney Jonathan Turley sums up pretty well the thoughts of this progressive.

In yet another failure to honor its promises to civil libertarians, the Obama Administration has failed to honor its own deadline for the submission of a report on its policy for the detention of terror suspects. The report was expected to give details on Obama’s promise to shutdown the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay...

Obama Considers Executive Order to Allow Detention of Detainees Without Charges?

 by Damozel |  Those who have been following the Obama administration's policies regarding Gitmo can't possibly feel surprised by this article in WaPo, though certain progressives who didn't listen closely enough to Obama during the primaries may be feeling severely disappointed.  Those of us who realized all along that the key word in many of Obama's most resounding statements is, and always has been, "but..." (sometimes unspoken) are perhaps less disillusioned through having had no illusions in the first place.

Glenn Greenwald, always a credit to progressives who put principle before the cult of personality, says:

Tales of the Torture Adm'n: Federal Judge Says a Convicted Terrorist Can Sue Bush Adm'n Lawyer for Role In Torture Memoranda

by Damozel | Saying that he was trying to  balance "a clash between war and the defense of personal freedoms," federal district Judge Jeffrey White, a Bush appointee, refused to dismiss a lawsuit by convicted terrorist Jose Padilla against Bushie John Yoo, now a law professor at UC-Berkeley.  (AP at MSNBC)  While such a lawsuit would be many times less satisfactory than action by the current administration to hold responsible members of the Bush administration accountable, at least it is a step in that direction.  

Judge White wrote:

"Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct....The issues raised by this case embody that ... tension — between the requirements of war and the defense of the very freedoms that war seeks to protect....This lawsuit poses the question addressed by our founding fathers about how to strike the proper balance of fighting a war against terror, at home and abroad, and fighting a war using tactics of terror."  (AP at MSNBC)

Fear Prevails Again in the Home of the Brave: Obama Gives Up on Resettling Cleared Guantanamo Detainees in US

by Damozel | So far, more than 50 detainees have been cleared for release based on individual review of their files.  (WaPo)  But where can they go?  Not here, it seems, even though these detainees -- confined at Gitmo for seven years -- never counted America as an enemy.  (BN Pol) 

The island of Palau has agreed to take 13 Uighurs (Chinese Muslim detainees) whom a federal judge ordered released.  Germany, where there is a large Uighur population, balked, asking -- reasonably, let it be said -- why, if the Uighurs aren't dangerous, they can't settle in the US?  The Chinese certainly wanted them back, calling them "terrorist suspects," but the Obama administration declined, fearing that they'd be tortured and executed. (WaPo) 

Four of the Chinese detainees will become guest workers in Bermuda (WaPo), though the British government ain't happy about this wanton display of independence by Bermuda. (Murdoch Times) 

Palau Will Take Chinese Muslims from Gitmo

by Maggie Temple-Smith | Palau, a "sparsley populated archipelago in the North Pacific," has agreed to accept the 17 Chinese now in prison at Guantanamo, The New York Times reports.  This is the first agreement reached since Obama took office -- so far, 100 countries have said, "No, thanks" when asked to accept Gitmo detainees.

[The agreement] gives Mr. Obama some relief on an issue that has become a political hot button among Congressional Republicans and even some Democrats, who have noisily protested against releasing what they call potentially dangerous extremists on American soil or transferring them to prisons in the United States.

The 17 Uighurs... have been in a state of limbo since fall, when a federal district court ordered that they be released in the United States and an appeals court overturned the ruling. The Bush administration said that it did not classify the men as enemy combatants.

Tales of the Torture Administration (Continued): Cheney Personally Oversaw At Least 4 Briefings on "Harsh Interrogation" (Torture)

by Damozel |  According to The Washington Post, Cheney met at least 4 times in 2005 with senior members of Congress to "maintain support" for torture, part of a "secretive and forceful" defense of the program.

Cheney's role in helping handle intelligence issues in the Bush administration -- particularly his advocacy for the use of aggressive methods and warrantless wiretapping against alleged terrorists -- has been well documented. But his hands-on role in defending the interrogation program to lawmakers has not been previously publicized.

Until now, anyway:

Gen. Taguba Hasn't Seen the 44 Abu Ghraib Torture Photos Suppressed by Obama?

by Damozel | In other words, The Telegraph got it wrong and Taguba saw only the ones already released (Salon has published 279 photos from Abu Ghraib and those are disgusting and indecent.). See: Maj. Gen. Taguba: Abu Ghraib Photographs Censored by Obama Show Rape "and Every Indecency".

Does that mean that the 44 Obama is fighting the ACLU to keep suppressed are even worse?  I don't like to imagine how that can be, and specifically so because of the apparent lack of accountability.  If they are worse, is no one going to be made to answer?   

Alternatively, does all this just mean that Obama isn't aware of what's already in the public domain?  I don't get it. 

TPMtv's "The Day in 100 Seconds" (May 22, 2009 Video): Fox News Wants You to Choose Between Nat'l Security & Civil Liberties...

photo by Deb Cupples

...but Obama will let you have both! After the jump....

TPMtv's "The Day in 100 Seconds": Obama versus Cheney (May 21, 2009 Video)

Dueling speeches: Obama versus Cheney. Also: a foiled terror plot....after the jump!

Arlen Specter Defends Nancy Pelosi, Thinks CIA Might Occasionally Palter with the Truth

by Teh Nutroots |  I mean, look, come on:  they're the CIA.  Do people really think that they are on close terms at all times with the truth as it might appear to you and me?  Don't we all pretty much assume that they lie reflexively, whenever they need to obscure a spot of excess zeal or whatever?  Don't we all reckon that they're the ultimate ends-justify-the-means agency in America?  Isn't history clear on this point?

Specter didn't go quite that far, acknowledging that it isn't official CIA policy to misrepresent the facts, but he went far enough. 

"The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to — I was about to say 'candid'; that's too mild — to honesty," Specter, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a lunch address to the American Law Institute. He cited misleading information about the agency's involvement in mining harbors in Nicaragua and the Iran-Contra affair.

Pelosi Walks It Back; Continues Painful & Embarrassing Attempts to Extricate Herself from a Controversy

by Damozel | Back and forth, back and forth. Pelosi is now trying to take back a portion of her criticism of the CIA, according to The Hill, "saying that she really meant only to criticize the Bush administration rather than career officials."  You'd think she'd have got the story straight by now, wouldn't you?  After all, as Deb and I have both pointed out, she's had a couple of years to prepare for all this to hit the fan. [See Did Congressional Democrats Condone the CIA's Secret Interrogation Program? (12-9-2007)].  

It was always going to come up at some point.   But the way she's been foundering and/or floundering you'd think it had all come straight out of right field. 

The Daily Show: "This Time Things Will be Different." Obama Blocks the Release of Detainee Abuse Photos, & Won't Intervene in the Military's Dismissal of Crucial Arabic Translator Who Has Admitted He is Gay

"In the war on terror, it was okay to waterboard a guy over 80 times to get him to talk, but God forbid that we keep the guy around who can understand what he was saying...if he has a boyfriend." After the jump.....

The Thickening Plot: Sen. Bob Graham Says the CIA Gave Him False Information

by Damozel | Amidst all the excitement over Pelosi's "extraordinary accusation that the Bush administration lied to Congress about the use of harsh interrogation techniques" that the CIA is misleading Congress about her knowledge of the Bush administration's interrogation procedures,  Sen. Bob Graham has given HuffPost an interview that seems to support Pelosi's argument.

In testimony that could bolster Speaker Nancy Pelosi's claim that the CIA misled her during briefings on detainee interrogations, former Senator Bob Graham insisted on Thursday that he too was kept in the dark about the use of waterboarding, and called the agency's records on these briefings "suspect."

In an interview with the Huffington Post, the former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman said that approximately a month ago, the CIA provided him with false information about how many times and when he was briefed on enhanced interrogations.

Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, Former Chief of Staff at State Dept: The Truth About "Sith Lord" Richard Bruce Cheney

by Damozel | Whoa.  As in "Wow."  This is from Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff of the Department of State during the term of Secretary of State Colin Powell and -- yes -- a Republican.  Who badly wants Cheney to shut up "as we try to repair the extensive damage you've done--to the country and to its Republican Party."  [Washington Note]

First, more Americans were killed by terrorists on Cheney's watch than on any other leader's watch in US history. So his constant claim that no Americans were killed in the "seven and a half years" after 9/11 of his vice presidency takes on a new texture when one considers that fact. And it is a fact.

TPMtv's "The Day in 100 Seconds" (May 14, 2009 Video)

"White hot" on Capitol Hill, as various and sundry talking heads react to Pelosi's accusations against the CIA." After the jump...

TPMtv's "The Day in 100 Seconds" (May 13, 2009 Video)

Detail from painting, The Triumph of Death, by Pieter Breugel the Elder, via  via Olga's Gallery

In which SC's  Lindsey Graham thinks every principle on which our nation was founded should give way before cowardice and fear for one's own skin.  Meanwhile, our country's moral standing is shown to be damaged and our security not enhanced by the administration's use of torture....after the jump.

FBI Agent to Testify About Amateur Torture 'Experts' Today

by Bill Kavanagh:  Look for Ali Soufan, who was the FBI’s agent in charge of debriefing Abu Zubaydah until he discovered a coffin had been brought to Zubaydah’s cell by the CIA, to testify today before Congress about the torture techniques that CIA “experts” employed with high-value Al Qaeda prisoners. 

Soufan claims that Zubaydah confided to him that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, once his “rapport building” technique had begun to pay off—and before the CIA’s own outsourced amateur consultants arrived in Thailand to take over with their torturous methods.  Der Spiegel’s article on the CIA's outsourcing of interrogation and torture to civilian psychologists is available at the link.  Many thanks to David Martin, who pulled this article from the internets.

Annnnd Former Gov. (& SEAL) Jesse Ventura Says: "Give Me a Waterboard, Dick Cheney, and One Hour and I'll Have Him Confess to the Sharon Tate Murders"

Teh Nutroots | | Heather at C&L Video Cafe says:

On Larry King Live Jesse Ventura takes on the Bush administration chickenhawks and Rush Limbaugh, and defends Colin Powell. After being waterboarded himself in the SERE program, Ventura makes no bones about it. Waterboarding is torture. I'd like to see Hannity have Ventura on his show to debate the issue.

Ventura says he'd prosecute everyone who was involved in torture, right down the line.  He also points out that if waterboarding isn't done correctly, the recipient could actually drown. 

Finally, he defends Colin Powell against chickenhawk Cheney and calls for legalization of drugs!  Are we more offended by drugs or murder?  he asks.  Awesome.

New York Times: The Story Behind the Torture Administration's Use of "Harsh Interrogation" Methods

 image adapted from photo by Sasha Aikin (xander76), pursuant to CC license

by Damozel | Back in 2003, it seems, Bush made a seemingly benevolent and quite correct statement concerning the US attitude toward torture, which sent alarm bells ringing up and down the line in the CIA.  (New York Times)  ""The United States is “committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example,” Mr. Bush proclaimed, vowing to prosecute torture and to prevent “other cruel and unusual punishment.”" 

Naturally, he didn't mention that he'd authorized CIA interrogators to use "brutal tactics" on Al Qaeda detainees.  (NYT)  The proclamation was issued in support of the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.  And, the rest, as they say, is history: