Heartache at the New York Times:
When Justice Department lawyers engaged in a sharp internal debate in 2005 over brutal interrogation techniques, even some who believed that using tough tactics was a serious mistake agreed on a basic point: the methods…

/postmodernism

Is this another lie put forth by the CIA to trick La Pelosi?

SouthernGent on June 8, 2009 at 9:13 PM

Nah. Now she’ll have to say the Dept. of Justice ALSO lied to her, though.

HondaV65 on June 9, 2009 at 7:45 AM

O’Reilly hammered Juan Williams on that moral issue last night. Williams’ answer: well partial birth abortion is legal, torture isn’t… whereas O’Reilly blew a gasket.

The question was concerning moral authority – of which Williams clearly played the duck and cover liberal game: although O’Reilly had a caveat “partial birth advocates are hiding behind RvW”

Williams and other liberals make up crap as they go along, and love to conclude “torture” is everthing used – being its such a “bad” word… oops – accordiong to Rasmussen – not to the majority of Americans.

They open Pandora’s box, hedging the lives of American troops and now are doing everything in their power to run for cover aqnd hope it all just goes away. Though I believe many posters are correct – Bambi is continuing many Bush policies and now need the “legal justification” to be spelled out.

On a good note – one of my most liberal friends said on FB last night “Obama’s Peace looks like Bush’s War”…

Some of them had ‘strong reservations’ and adopted the position that just because it was legal didn’t mean it was a good idea to use them, and the meme becomes the Bush administration ‘rushed’ the justification of the techniques out the door.

But lets remember this shall we: all this was CYA manevering in 2005 after the Bush Admin. got ample proof Pelosi and Co. were planning to pretend they didn’t have a clue waterboarding was going on and were about to politicize the EIT’s in an attempt to help themselves in the 2006 mid-terms.

Johnson v. Eisentrager notwithstanding, there are other reasons why providing “trials” or guilty pleas for the Gitmo detainees is a danger to Geneva, and other treaties and agreements on the treatment of actual prisoners of war, as defined by intetnational convention, ands why holding trials for combatants not entitled to Geneva protections opens up a Pandora’s Box that will quite easily be a danger to our own servicemembers abroad and our civilians as well, should any other nation decide to tweak Geneva for their own ends.

Yes, holding the captees/detainees until cessation of hostilities is well within legal limits, as is using coercion to obtain operational information pursuant to a military campaign.

Fail to make that separation between war fighting and law enforcement and one will soon find oneself wrapped up in a Gordian Knot of enormous proportions.

The Bush Administration had it right…the present Administration is foundering in a sea of self-imposed confusion over what should be a fairly straight forward matter.

“Of several acceptable explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest is preferable””…and usually most correct.

In trying to nuance all of this to fit a political mold, a preordained conclusion [Bush/Cheney lied, terrorism is a law enforcement matter, and war fighting and law enforcement are interchangible] simply shows the vapidity of how the Obama Administration is conducting the war on jihadist terrorism.

It thus is no surprise at all that the term “war on terrorism” has been stricken from the Obama lexicon to be substituted by some other nonsensical terminology…such as “man-made overseas disasters.” Once you tweak the definitions to fit the mold, everything else become immediately relative. Objectivity is lost. And the people can be more easily swayed by this Zen approach [anything is everything] to national security.

karl_lembke on June 9, 2009 at 2:40 AM

Jihadist terrorism…an act of war…9-11 attack on American soil, captured combatants on a foreign battlefield…or a simple law enforcement matter?

If it is indictments and trials in a courtroom, right after the arraignment for the guys who knocked off the Kwiki-Mart and before the Anderson divorce, then, no, information obtained through coercion of any kind, can easily be stricken, and on a minor point, i.e., “Any court in the land would throw out evidence obtained through torture for the obvious reason that it only represents what the TORTURER wanted to hear,” the poster may have a case.

But,. obtaining essential elements of intelligent pursuant to a military campaign, or to obtain operational intelligence, then we are in a different baliwick entrely.

This is the fundamental problem with how this Administration seems to want to pursue the entirety of terrorism…law enforcement.

How does one square Obama’s insistence that certain Gitmo detainees will be allowed to enter guilty pleas? Under military law, the UCMJ and the rules surrounding the detainment of the Gitmo subjects, entering a guilty plea is not one of the options provided. Under military law, the premature entering of a guilty pleas is normally largely discourage, pursuant to the finding of facts.

Contrary to the stereotype, usually held by those who never had any dealings with Courts Martial convening authority, military law is actually geared far more to the defense of the charged than one finds in civilian courts. Appeals are automatic, and are reviewed at the highest federal levels for capital crimes than found in civilian courts.

Under which law can Obama bring any of the Gitmo detainees to a self-proclaimed guilty plea under our federal court system?

This is evidence of Obama wanting the Gitmo “problem” to go away, regardless of the rule of law, the Constitution, or even simple military law.

Should Obama be successful in getting Gitmo detainees to plead guilty en masse Obama will be guilty himself of far more than one would find for former President Bush, et al..

Once again, precedent is tossed aside by this Administration, and willful ignorance of the entire reason Guantanamo was chosen as a detention site is evident.

Johnson v. Eisentrager .
, vnr us susauiis ponm.licour store we

A close reading of the memos from Comey leads to the opposite conclusion. Comey says the lawyers were being pressured to come up with a legal rationale for torture, which we all know had already take place.
karl_lembke on June 9, 2009 at 2:40 AM

Where is the proof that these lawyers were “pressured” into making these opinions.

This is the same bogus arguments that were made by the left regarding Iraq pre-war intel.
It was and still is claimed by liberals that the CIA was “pressured” into framing the evidence around the rational for war.

Unfortunately for the impeachment crowd,all investigations showed that Bush did not lie nor was there any pressure to manipulate intel (2004 Senate Intelligence report,Butler report,9/11 commission report,2008 Senate Intelligence report(chaired by a majority of democrats)).

Now that the lefts venture into there faux “Bush war crimes” agenda has blown up in their face with democrats being shown to support the same policies they accuse Bush of
being a war criminal for enacting,here comes the “They intimidated and forced” line on these legal opinions.

Anyone of these lawyers would be considered a hero by the press for coming forward and proving this allegation.
Just like the partisan CIA agent was that revealed the NSA
wiretapping program that he admitted he had no idea what it
actually did and whether it was legal or not,he just did not like or trust Bush.

None of these lawyers have stated that they were “forced” to write these opinions which would certainly absolve them of any blame and put it where liberals and their friends in the press want it,on Bush.

But please,keep pushing this War on Bush,it is working out great so far.

Cheney’s approval ratings are getting better everyday.

Pelosi has been caught lying to the Nation repeatedly and has yet to back up her accusations or clear herself in her support of enhanced interrogation in this administration of “Hope and Change”.

Republicans would like nothing more than to get “all” the documents and truth out concerning the democrats support for taking out Saddam and the support for the policies in the War on Terror that their friends in the media have done such a good job of blaming Bush for while selectively ignoring their liberal heroes on the Hill involvement.

liberals have had the power to impeach since 2006.
They own the House,Senate,and White House which gives them unabated power to go after Bush.

Yet Obama just wants all of this to go away.
Either your liberal heroes are just as guilty as Bush or these allegations are as credible as the “Bush stole the 2000/2004 elections” and “Bush did 9/11″.

Democrats have the power,
PUT UP OR SHUT UP!!!!

A close reading of the memos from Comey leads to the opposite conclusion. Comey says the lawyers were being pressured to come up with a legal rationale for torture, which we all know had already take place.

This was CYA, since you can’t advise a client not to do what he has already done. The only thing left to do is paper it over.

The memos justifying the unthinkable do not approach the minimum standard of legal advice, since the writers, Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury, failed to include any of the many cases that contradicted their claims. Google can find that stuff in a second, but White House lawyers couldn’t.

I am a United States Army veteran, as patriotic as the day is long, and I am ashamed of the actions taken in contravention of human rights by Bush et al.

Any court in the land would throw out evidence obtained through torture for the obvious reason that it only represents what the TORTURER wanted to hear.

Glenn Greenwald does an excellent job in dissecting the memos, and Marcy Wheeler has done what the NYT reporters failed to do, she read every word.

Marcy Wheeler is an amazing resource. She reads more documents and connects more dots than anyone who gets, you know, PAID to do that.

I’ll let others point out where he may have a case, or whether he’s all wet.

All those “Arrest Bush/Cheney” T-shirts and stickers with no one to buy them.

With Koranic verses inscribed on them.

John Kerry will petition for an upgrade to sailboards…

Anyone want to start a pool on what the distraction will be?

Breaking! Panic at the WH—Teleprompter parts needed for upcoming speech found on shutdown factory line in Toledo as the GAO refuse’s COD.