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By Tom Hayden
$14.93
By Joe Torre and Tom Verducci
$17.79
$35
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inquisitr.com
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Attorney general nominee Eric H. Holder Jr. has announced a groundbreaking hypothesis on waterboarding: It’s torture. The position, which contradicts piles of Bush-era law literature defending the practice, is just one step in an avowed process to fix many of the problems riddling current Justice Department policy.
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By Eugene Robinson — In his eyes, there’s “no such thing as short-term history.” It’s true that some presidencies look different after a few decades. But it’s also true that presidential acts can have immediate consequences—and Bush’s eight years are seen as a nadir that will take years to recover from.
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By William Pfaff — George W. Bush’s war against terror has brought out of the darker places in America a lot of people who want to torture, or like the idea of it. We know it doesn’t work, so what drives Dick Cheney and his colleague to champion such moral depravity?
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Vice President Dick Cheney took a moment to reflect on his eight eventful years in office during a sit-down with ABC’s Jonathan Karl that aired earlier this week. Here’s the part where he owns his role in approving the use of what ABC called “hard-line tactics” against accused terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
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AP photo / Rick Browmer
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Read the devastating bipartisan report from the Senate Armed Services Committee that indicts high-level Bush administration officials—including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—as bearing major responsibility for the torture at Abu Gharib, Guantanamo, and other detention facilities.
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AP photo
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By Eugene Robinson — We will look back on the Bush years and find it incredible, and disgraceful, that individuals were “purchased” from tribal warlords, tortured at Abu Ghraib, abducted to secret CIA prisons, whisked to Guantanamo and held for years without charges.
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worldbiography.net
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Two recently disclosed memos from 2003 and 2004 show the Bush administration giving CIA torture techniques, most famously waterboarding, an explicit executive nod after worries arose in the intelligence community about the legality of the treatment of detainees.
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By Eugene Robinson — I still find it hard to believe that George W. Bush, to his eternal shame and our nation’s great discredit, made torture a matter of hair-splitting, legalistic debate at the highest levels of the United States government. But that’s precisely what he did.
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AP photo / Susan Walsh
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Discussing the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, former Attorney General John Ashcroft said he didn’t think waterboarding constituted torture and that the technique produced “very valuable” reports. He was testifying on the Bush administration’s interrogation rules.
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When Christopher Hitchens agreed to be waterboarded, he might have thought he’d last longer than 17 seconds, but, as the columnist put it, “everything completely goes on you when you’re breathing water.”
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Last week Rep. John Conyers tried to get a straight answer out of John Yoo, the former Bush administration lawyer who argued that the president had a legal right to order torture. The spectacle of Yoo equivocating over whether the president could have someone buried alive is something to behold.
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Shane T. McCoy / U.S. Navy
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By Robert Scheer — Ah, yes, those torture confessions have proved so useful. That, at least, was the claim of our president in justifying one of the most egregious assaults ever on this nation’s commitment to the rule of law. But now comes news that charges have been dropped against the so-called Sept. 11 attacks’ 20th hijacker, one of dozens so identified, because the “evidence” he supplied under torture and later recanted is not credible enough to go to trial.
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AP photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta
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Bush administration officials Vice President Dick Cheney, current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor, Colin Powell, and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft were among those who deliberated over, and eventually approved, the use of “harsh interrogation techniques” (which some would call torture) at meetings following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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By Amy Goodman — The American Psychological Association is in the midst of its own heated presidential campaign. The central issue is whether APA members should be banned from participating in “harsh interrogations.”
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AP photo / Charles Dharapak
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By Stanley Kutler — The president must be delighted with the Arizona senator, a candidate who is credited as a foreign policy authority despite his devotion to the long-term occupation of Iraq.
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AP photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta
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The reputation of the U.S. on the world stage might be further colored by President Bush’s veto of a bill that would have limited the CIA’s (and other intelligence agencies’) array of interrogation techniques to those in the Army field manual. In defending Saturday’s veto, Bush once again invoked 9/11.
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Former FBI interrogator Jack Cloonan spills the beans to Foreign Policy Magazine about the techniques he used on top al-Qaida operatives. Cloonan explains that the ticking-time-bomb scenario often used to rationalize torture is a myth and that waterboarding only motivates the enemy to get revenge—even if it takes a generation.
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The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating memos and opinions rendered by the department that endorsed the practice of waterboarding, which many consider to be torture. The inquiry is unrelated to the FBI’s criminal investigation of the CIA, which destroyed video recordings of the waterboarding of suspects.
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It’s unfortunately not unusual anymore to hear about the politicization of American legal and intelligence institutions under the Bush administration, but, even so, this report by The Nation’s Ross Tuttle about how the trials of six key prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have allegedly been rigged from the get-go is disturbing. Updated
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AP photo / Lauren Victoria Burke
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Sen. John McCain has established himself as an outspoken critic of torture, which makes his vote Wednesday against the Feinstein Amendment, which would set limits on the types of interrogation techniques used by American intelligence agencies, all the more puzzling—or, in the case of The Atlantic columnist Andrew Sullivan, heartbreaking.
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The House of Representatives and Senate have now both signaled their disapproval of the CIA’s use of waterboarding by voting for a ban on any techniques but the 19 officially approved by the Army, but President Bush has already, in turn, signaled his intent to veto any legislation that would rule out harsh interrogation methods.
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By Eugene Robinson — The campaign for the White House is great fun, but it can also be a distraction. While the leading contenders to replace Bush continue to duke it out, the president and his lieutenants are still trying to justify torture in the name of protecting this once great democracy.
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By Joe Conason — The revival of John McCain’s presidential candidacy, now expected to carry him through to his party’s nomination, can be interpreted as either proof of the judgment of Republican primary voters or evidence of the paucity of alternative choices.
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wikipedia.org
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CIA Director Michael Hayden told lawmakers Thursday that waterboarding is a useful technique but might not be “lawful under current statute.” Hayden said his agency used waterboarding because of “misshaped and misformed” direction from Washington.
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The confirmation, delivered by CIA Director Michael Hayden on Tuesday, that the U.S. intelligence agency did indeed use the now-infamous severe interrogation technique of waterboarding on three major 9/11 suspects was given the green light by President Bush in a rare show of (relative) transparency.
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AP photo / Gerald Herbert
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During a visit to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Attorney General Michael Mukasey irked certain senators by wiggling out of directly stating whether or not he believes that waterboarding is a form of torture, an expected but apparently exasperating dodge in the estimation of Sens. Edward Kennedy and Patrick Leahy, among others.
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By Amy Goodman — At a time when Attorney General Mukasey dodges Senate questions about waterboarding, Americans should be asking a question of their own: Can we call ourselves civilized if torture is practiced in our name?
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Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., responding to closed testimony from the CIA’s acting general counsel, John Rizzo, said it appeared that the officer who destroyed evidence of “enhanced” interrogations was acting against orders. Jose Rodriguez, the official in question, is asking for immunity before he tells his side of the story to Congress.
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CNN’s ubiquitous anchor Wolf Blitzer point-blanked Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney last weekend about what exactly constitutes torture and whether techniques like waterboarding are ever defensible, but Romney deferred to the popular national security rationale, implying that in “ticking time bomb” circumstances, a president may elect to use certain unpopular techniques.
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npr.org
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America’s intelligence czar, Mike McConnell, drops a few eyebrow-raisers in a new interview in The New Yorker. He admits he wants the ability to access all U.S. Internet traffic, and says of waterboarding: “Whether it’s torture by anybody else’s definition, for me it would be torture.”
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AP photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta
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By Robert Scheer — When the CIA destroyed those prisoner interrogation videotapes, was it also destroying the truth about 9/11? After all, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, the basic narrative of what happened on that day comes from the CIA’s account of what those prisoners told their torturers. And what about those congressional leaders, including Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi, who were briefed on the torture program as early as 2002?
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Former CIA agent John Kiriakou, who witnessed the waterboarding of top al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaida, has said that the practice is indeed torture and “a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and the Justice Department.” Kiriakou added during an interview with NBC that the destruction of video evidence of the technique was “a terrible mistake.”
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The Justice Department and the CIA inspector general have launched a joint inquiry into the agency’s destruction of video recordings of so-called harsh interrogation techniques. Color us skeptical, since Attorney General Michael Mukasey couldn’t be bothered to take a position on torture—or harsh interrogation techniques, if that’s the term you want to use—during his confirmation.
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abcnews.com
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A bipartisan group of top lawmakers, including current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was briefed on the details of waterboarding and other interrogation techniques as early as 2002. According to several U.S. officials, over the course of roughly 30 private briefings only one objection to the practice was raised.
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The CNN/YouTube Republican debate could easily have been written off as a gimmick, or at least just another in a glut of debates, but it actually delivered some interesting moments, from the YouTuber who asked what Jesus would do about the death penalty to Mitt Romney explaining torture to John McCain.
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orbitcast.com
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While speaking at the University of Colorado on Tuesday night, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft reaffirmed his belief in the Patriot Act and, when asked by an audience member if he’d submit to the controversial “interrogation” tactic of waterboarding, Ashcroft said he would.
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nytimes.com
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Michael Mukasey has been sworn in as U.S. attorney general, a day after 53 senators decided that a man who doesn’t know what torture is should have the job. But the real blame—for anyone who objects to the confirmation, that is—should be reserved for Democrats Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, who made Bush’s day when they gave Mukasey the green light.
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In another of his stirring commentaries, the “Countdown” host suggests that the story of Daniel Levin, who was fired from the Justice Department after he experienced waterboarding and called it torture, reveals that “the presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.”
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It looks as though Michael Mukasey is one step closer to becoming attorney general, having secured the support of Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Charles Schumer. Judiciary Committee Chairman (and former Truthdigger of the Week) Pat Leahy, on the other hand, plans to vote no, because “No American should need a classified briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture.”
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nytimes.com
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President Bush issued an ultimatum of sorts on Thursday over his embattled nominee for attorney general, Michael Mukasey, who refuses to say whether he considers waterboarding a form of torture. Bush said if the Democrats block the nomination, it “would guarantee that America would have no attorney general during this time of war.”
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CIA Chief Michael Hayden has issued a passionate defense of extraordinary rendition, claiming that the practice, which so often involves abduction and torture, is justified by the “irreplaceable” intelligence it produces. Meanwhile, President Bush’s preferred successor to loyal henchman Alberto Gonzales refuses to call torture by its name, though he claims to find it “repugnant.”
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Were the CIA to potentially, maybe, have a detention and interrogation program it would now have to adhere to President Bush’s new executive order prohibiting cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees. It’s still unclear whether water-boarding remains on the menu.
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The reporter voluntarily submitted to the interrogation technique to report on its effects. Watch it
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Tony Snow couldn’t convince reporters that Dick Cheney wasn’t talking about waterboarding when he confirmed the practice of “dunking” suspects in water. (See second item of Al Kamen’s column.) A CBS reporter asked, “So ‘dunk in the water’ means what? We have a pool now at Guantanamo and they go swimming?”
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The USA show “The 4400” featured this dramatized depiction of “waterboarding,” in which victims are made to feel as though they are drowning. Andrew Sullivan says it’s time to look at what our government is doing and call it by its proper name.
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Too Soon to Tell: The Case for Hope, Continued
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