Yes, they would, but as unwilling witnessees. There are Dems who knew aobut these techniques and ok’d them. They’d be on the defense witness list.

Wethal on April 21, 2009 at 2:43 PM

Dam# right they knew about these policies and ok’d them:

Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002
In Meetings, Spy Panels’ Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say
By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 9, 2007; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664_pf.html

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice thatAmong the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said. years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

These policies were not just instituted from Bush but Bill Clinton used harsh procedures also:

CIA-backed team used brutal means to break up terrorist cell in Albania

Officials call operation one of the agency’s great successes

After two days of interrogation by CIA agents and sporadic beatings by
Albanian guards, Saleh was put aboard a CIA-chartered plane and flown to
Cairo, according to the Albanian agent and a confession Egyptian police
elicited from Saleh in September 1998. “I remained blindfolded until I got
off the plane,” Saleh said in the confession, a document written in Arabic
longhand that he signed at the bottom.
There were more beatings and torture at the hands of Egyptian authorities.
And 18 months after he was grabbed outside the Garden of Games, a Tirana
children’s’ park, Saleh was hanged in an Egyptian prison yard.

U.S. military planners, alarmed by mounting strife in neighboring Kosovo
and considering American intervention, wanted Albania purged of any
extremists who could threaten U.S. forces.
In 1998, as SHIK expanded its eavesdropping with yet more American
equipment, Attiya and Naggar began making frequent calls to Ayman Zawahri,
the Egyptian Jihad leader, who by then had joined bin Laden in Afghanistan,
Attiya said in his confession. The Tirana cell received word of the merger
of the two organizations during a phone call from Jihad’s media committee
in London, Naggar said in his confession. Jihad, which had primarily
targeted the secular Egyptian government, would now join a broader assault
on Americans, Naggar recalled.

Attiya later told his lawyer, Hafez Abu-Saada, that while being questioned,
he was subjected to electrical shocks to his genitals, suspended by his
limbs, dragged on his face, and made to stand for hours in a cell, with
filthy water up to his knees. Abu-Saada, who represented all five members
of the Tirana cell, subsequently recorded their complaints in a published
report.

If we are going to go after government officials that presided over and condoned torture the best place to start is with Bill Clinton.

Baxter Greene on April 21, 2009 at 3:09 PM

link for :CIA-backed team used brutal means to break up terrorist cell in Albania

By Andrew Higgins and Christopher Cooper
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg80840.html

Baxter Greene on April 21, 2009 at 3:15 PM

Democrats & Torture
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGU0NjdkYWUxOGQ0NjI1ODA2NjRhYTlmOWUxODMzZTM=

Sen. Chuck Schumer

2004:
I think there are probably very few people in this room or in America who would say that torture should never ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake. . . . It is easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used, but when you are in the foxhole it is a very different deal. And I respect, I think we all respect the fact that the President is in the foxhole every day.

As I reported, Hillary is not the only Clinton who has argued in favor of rough stuff in dire emergencies. President Clinton has said a president should be able to order waterboarding and beyond (italics mine):

Look, if the president needed an option, there’s all sorts of things they can do. Let’s take the best case, OK. You picked up someone you know is the No. 2 aide to Osama bin Laden. And you know they have an operation planned for the United States or some European capital in the next three days. And you know this guy knows it. Right, that’s the clearest example. And you think you can only get it out of this guy by shooting him full of some drugs or water-boarding him or otherwise working him over. If they really believed that that scenario is likely to occur, let them come forward with an alternate proposal.

And of course Obama leaves the door open for advanced interrogation techniques:

Barack Obama responded by declaring that we cannot “have the president of the United States state as a matter of policy that there is a loophole or an exception where we would sanction torture.” He then shifted, in the very same breath, to state that “there are going to be all sorts of hypotheticals, an emergency situation, and I will make that judgment at that time.” In other words, he wants to preserve the very same loophole for which he lambastes President Bush.

If you believe that these policies are wrong and don’t work,why do democrats leave a back door to use them when
they see fit.This is no different than the Bush Administration.

Obama’s head of the DOJ made it clear during crunch time that he did not think enemy combatants had protections under the Geneva Conventions”

Eric Holder the Neo-con
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122731301791449521.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Eric Holder (Barack Obama’s choice for Attorney General), on the question of whether unlawful combatants captured in the war on terror are entitled to prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Convention. From an interview on CNN, January

2002:

One of the things we clearly want to do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find out what their future plans might be, where other cells are located; under the Geneva Convention that you are really limited in the amount of information that you can elicit from people.

It seems to me that given the way in which they have conducted themselves, however, that they are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not prisoners of war. If, for instance, Mohamed Atta had survived the attack on the World Trade Center, would we now be calling him a prisoner of war? I think not. Should Zacarias Moussaoui be called a prisoner of war? Again, I think not

The democrats have been successful with the help of their activists friends in the MSM of injecting selective amnesia when it comes to their statements regarding the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan and the policies that were instituted in fighting it.

Hopefully this political stunt will bring all the democratic support for the very same policies they call Bush a war criminal over right up front for everybody to see how hypocritical and corrupt they are.

Baxter Greene on April 21, 2009 at 3:59 PM

They are declassified documents now – even though releasing them has done greivous damage to our national security.

HondaV65 on April 21, 2009 at 3:45 PM

And the fact that Obama is pulling this stunt right after Cheney demands “all” of the documents be released means that their exposure to the light of day will do harm to the Obama
administration.

I want total transparency and disclosure like Obama promised.

Disclose the minutes or conversations during these meetings where democrats like Pelosi and Rockefeller were fully briefed and agreed with their implementation.

Remember,Rockefeller along with John Edwards were the elected officials that called Saddam an imminent threat,not Bush. They must have felt pretty strong about the intelligence provided to make these statements.

It is going to be a blast to see the transcripts of Pelosi
saying yes to waterboarding and the CIA rendition facilities.

The CIA already states that they stand behind their methods.
And they have already stated that they will go to war against Obama:

Comment: CIA Insiders Issue Political Threats Against Obama, Panetta
January 8, 2009 ·
http://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/02-32/

.

I further stated that the CIA, which is not known for welcoming previous Directors it perceives as outsiders, has already “shown signs of refusing to cooperate with the incoming Administration”. This is now becoming clearer, as numerous CIA sources come forward to sharply denounce Panetta’s nomination and, in some cases, even hurtle political threats at the Obama Administration and its nominee. In one such case, a “former intelligence official” speaking to The Washington Post reminded Obama and Panetta that “many of the people Panetta will be expected to lead [at the CIA] would have participated in implementing [torture-based] interrogation polic[ies]“.

Another “former senior official” warned Obama and Panetta to “think twice about pledges they make now [about the handling of terrorism detainees] because they may come back to haunt them in the future if some dire circumstances occur”.

Something else on what Obama and Gibbs said about who they would pursue and why.

Obama and Gibbs stated that they will not go after CIA officials because they were given information that validated
their actions.

Does this not parallel the fact that Bush acted on Iraq based on the information he was given.

You can’t have it both ways.

Remember,the fact that liberals whined and cried that “Bush lied” does not make it so.

The 9/11 commission stated Bush did not lie.
The 2004 Senate Intelligence report stated that Bush did not lie.
The Butler Report stated that Bush did not lie.
The 2008 Senate Intelligence report (chaired by a majority of democrats) found that Bush did not lie.

All the cut-and-paste propaganda dished out by liberals over the last 8 years has fallen flat when it was time to prove it with facts.

This witch hunt concerning interrogation methods approved by both democrats and Republicans will do the same.

Baxter Greene on April 21, 2009 at 4:24 PM

Baxter Greene on April 21, 2009 at 4:50 PM

No drone attack is successful withwithout the proper intel.

Baxter Greene on April 21, 2009 at 4:52 PM