The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility reportedly is recommending that the department open investigations of CIA abuse and torture of terrorism suspects. President Obama already has said that he doesn’t want to focus on the past, but it will be difficult for Attorney General Eric Holder to overlook violations of U.S. law and the recommendation of the department’s ethics office, which has spent several years reviewing the cases. That said, Jeffrey Smith, a former general counsel for the CIA, makes some good arguments for why the investigations might do more harm than good, including that the techniques reportedly were authorized by President Bush and approved by the Justice Department (albeit using shoddy legal reasoning).
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47 Comments
Hard for Holder not to investigate torture, abuse
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Well, it does make for a convenient distraction.
Ant,
If it was somebody other than your favorite politicians who had done it, you’d be screaming for prosecution!
…favorite politicians….
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Jed,
Those two words do not belong next to each other in my opinion.
Try again.
Well Holder has 11 days to take the spotlight off of the healthcare debate. Obama wants to be left alone for these 11 days and someone had better come up with a diversion.
Along comes Holder to save the day.
Who is really stupid enough to not see through this ploy?
okobserver,
I have a question perhaps you could answer on the mining thread.
Thanks in advance.
DIVERSION
.DIVERSION
..DIVERSION
…DIVERSION
….DIVERSION
…..DIVERSION
……DIVERSION
…….DIVERSION
……..DIVERSION
………DIVERSION
……….DIVERSION
DIVERSION from what?
The economic mess and pointless wars Obama inherited from Bush?
Well, let’s see. . .
Why doesn’t he just ignore the whole thing like he dismissed the Black Panther pole intimidation case?
Easy! No prosecution, no explanation!
Holder plans to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate torture. Maybe justice would be royally served if he appointed Ken Starr to investigate the CIA !
I truly had to bit my tongue over this but it just started hurting too much to stay quiet.
“Who is really stupid enough to not see through this ploy?”
Perhaps the same who’s that were stupid enough to not see through the color coding warnings, OBL tapes coming out at just the right time and the Politics of fear?
All that will happen is that a bone will be thrown and some contractor will be pillared with no satisfaction coming out of it. A few went to the extremes of the extremes that was ordered. This country would not have the guts or take the blow to our ego that comes with holding the President of the United States responsible for such a un-American crime as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It all will be tamped down as they were defending the country and only doing what they thought was right. In a war against those without morals or principles then it is right and just that you do not have either.
Yep, it’s a diversion that will further damage the CIA and millions of dollars will be wasted on a useless investigation.
They ain’t got nothing.
D
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Writer I have always said if they have something then prosecute it. Why wait until you are sinking like a rock in the polls and the public is ready to run you out of town on a rail – and then up jumps the old ‘lets blame Bush, Cheney and the CIA’ krap.
If you have the dirt then spread it – if not then quit with the deversions.
As for saying there are those without morals or principles – well I guess he who is without sin should cast that first stone don’t you.
If Bush was the person the left and you think he was then why hasn’t the democrat house and senate taken action? Ask yourself that and don’t allow yourself to be duped by the hype spinnig out of DC today.
Panetta made a very good point and he certainly isn’t a right winger.
reggie,
Diversion of course. We certainly wouldn’t have made an enemy of Iran without the CIA, we most likely wouldn’t have all those wonderful photos from Abu Graib, we wouldn’t have had Curveball, WMD’s, the Shah, Pinochet, The Generals in Argentina, Somoza in Nicaragua, and don’t forget our old friend Bin Laden, etc. etc. etc. without their tender mercies. The CIA has made us more enemies than all those revolutionaries they were sent to deal with could have begun to. Maybe it’s time the spooks had their feet to the fire.
Nothing raises the CIA morale, like an oldfashioned outing by the executive office.
“Why wait until you are sinking like a rock in the polls and the public is ready to run you out of town on a rail ”
Well that was….athletic!
By your own standards, george bush should have been tarred and feathered.
Aint too late for that either.
Make it so.
The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility reportedly is recommending that the department open investigations of CIA abuse and torture of terrorism suspects.
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I am guessing we will be looking at big talk of investigations again, without actual action in 2010 as well as 2012.
So do we take the rule of law seriously or not?
Who wants to defend the position that we, as a nation, can just ignore the law when it seems convenient?
BlueJay
Posted August 24, 2009 at 3:21 pm | Permalink
“Why wait until you are sinking like a rock in the polls and the public is ready to run you out of town on a rail ”
Well that was….athletic!
By your own standards, george bush should have been tarred and feathered.
Aint too late for that either.
Make it so.
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David I take very seriously the law and national security.
BJ as to why we didn’t tar and feather Bush. He did nothing wrong. If trying to keep our country free from another attack or get info which will keep our military safer then he is guilty.
Bring on the investigations. I lay you a bet now whose face will have egg on it. Whose morale will be lowered and who will not be as safe as they were.
Start those investigations. Only 11 days to get this diversion out there and established.
Cons just can’t grasp the concept of an independent A.G. or Justice dept. This ain’t your run of the mill Ashcroft or Gonzalez repub organization taking orders from the top down.
Think Reno, referring Clinton.
Bush was just fightin’ for our freedoms, and keeping a mushroom cloud off manhattan!
Eric Holder, the insider friend for terrorists
While serving as Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder supported Clinton’s pardon of FALN terrorists.
These FALN individuals were serving long sentences for setting off about 120 bombs around the country in the cause of independence for Puerto Rico.
The idea for pardoning these terrorists was opposed by the US Attorney’s Office in New York, the FBI, the Fraternal Order of Police, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
In spite of that, Eric Holder favored the pardons, which were graciously offered by the White House in 1999 even in the absence of a formal request by the prisoners. The sentences were commuted in August 1999.
In February of 2001, Holder testified before Congress. When asked about the pardons, he invoked “Executive Privilege”.
It appears that O’BAMA, just like Klinton, has a soft spot in their hearts for terrorists and want to prosecute loyal U.S. Citizens in the CIA instead.
The Frank Church committee proved that the CIA can’t be trusted without strong oversight.
The agency will clean up its act for a while, and then the cowboys will take over and it will happen again. Like cops, it is the nature of people attracted to clandestine work that ends up causing the problems.
Dennis
okobserver
Posted August 24, 2009 at 3:16 pm | Permalink
Why wait until you are sinking like a rock in the polls
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Okie – don’t look now but your beloved Republicans are ranked even LOWER in those polls than Obama – so why don’t you go after their gold-plated butts?
okie – we all know why grannie does not say anything against her precious gold-plated boys…
she ‘knows her place’ and is a good little Republican lockstepper.
1..2..3..4….repeat
And don’t forget to get your brown shirt pressed!
The question may be “Is possible to defend our national security without breaking our own laws?”
In my opinion, it is not only possible, it is an imperative.
I understand part of this process will be to evaluate the effectiveness of techniques.
Didn’t we learn recently that bush’s paid assassins, Blackwater, played a big part in the interrogations, torture and abuse? That’s probably bush the lessers “out.”
totoinks
Posted August 24, 2009 at 4:35 pm | Permalink
okobserver
Posted August 24, 2009 at 3:16 pm | Permalink
Why wait until you are sinking like a rock in the polls
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Okie – don’t look now but your beloved Republicans are ranked even LOWER in those polls than Obama – so why don’t you go after their gold-plated butts?
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toto you dog you, you have forgotten that the dims have the house, senate and White House. Who even cares what those old republicans are doing?
Why isn’t Obama spreading that hope and change around. Where are those shovel ready jobs. Why isn’t our military out of the mid east. Why haven’t we closed GITMO yet. How about all he was going to do for gays.
What exactly has he done? Logged lots of miles. Apologized all over the globe for being an ugly American. Oh and pushing his Obamacare that no one wants. I can see why he is falling weekly.
Yep that man is a barn burner isn’t he.
“The document, released Monday by the Justice Department, says one interrogator said a colleague had told Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that if any other attacks happened in the United States, “We’re going to kill your children.”
I know I might be in the minority but I see nothing wrong with telling a man who just masterminded an attack that killed over 3,000 people that if one more of his planned attacks happened his children would be killed. I seriously doubt that children would have been killed. I of course could be wrong about this.
You have to get their attention. This man had information that might have helped saved American lifes.
I wonder if they said this before after or during his 350 water boarding treatments?
I’m not sure this particular allegation is a legal violation. But the real point is traditional interrogation techniques are thought to be more effective in obtaining actionable intelligence.
This “goin’ all medieval” on suspects was just counter-productive and bravado nonsense by the neo-cons who ran the White House back then.
DavidB
Posted August 24, 2009 at 5:53 pm | Permalink
I wonder if they said this before after or during his 350 water boarding treatments?
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You know this happened because you saw it documented where? What law exactly are you ranting about being broken? It seems the dems are pawing at the ground and nothing has even been alledged yet.
Diversion.
Granny,
“You know this happened because you saw it documented where? What law exactly are you ranting about being broken?”
Find your glasses and watch the news. It’s been all over the media and debated to no end for a couple years now. Even Cheney says they did it!
Jed no where have you or I saw where there were 350 waterboardings. Get out your own glasses and show me where this has been printed anywhere but on demosunderground.
You have so much knowledge that you can manufacture your own medical equipment, breakdown cost to mfg a pill, etc… But you don’t get to make your own facts jeddy.
Exclusive: Only Three Have Been Waterboarded by CIA
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Share November 02, 2007 1:25 PM
For all the debate over waterboarding, it has been used on only three al Qaeda figures, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials.
As ABC News first reported in September, waterboarding has not been used since 2003 and has been specifically prohibited since Gen. Michael Hayden took over as CIA director.
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Jeddy I deal in facts and so should you and David. The libs have a real problem with that.
That said, Jeffrey Smith, a former general counsel for the CIA, makes some good arguments for why the investigations might do more harm than good, including that the techniques reportedly were authorized by President Bush and approved by the Justice Department (albeit using shoddy legal reasoning).
That’s a good argument???
Was it a good argument when Nixon said, “when the president does it, it is not illegal?”
And–not violating Godwin’s law, the analogy is obvious–was it a good argument when the Nazi commanders declared they were “just following orders”?
The presumption of the Beltway blowhards, apparently, is that fancy lawyering by the Executive branch can make it okay to say up is down, black is white, and torture is an “enhanced interrogation technique.” But however much the Ministry of Love would like to spin it that way, the fact is that the intent of Congress and interpretations of the courts are dispositive.
If you rob a bank and pistol-whip a security guard, having a slick lawyer reinterpret the law in your favor won’t get you off the hook unless, of course, a jury buys that.
Why is it any different for the Executive branch?
Bush on down deserve exactly that–a thorough investigation, indictments supported by evidence, and if merited, fair trials.
Justice demands nothings more, and nothing less.
Leon Panetta, Obama’s CIA chief, disagrees with Brownlee and Holder. According to ABC News he lit into Holder in a profane tirade and talked of resigning. See:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=8398902
Panetta (and Obama, for that matter) seems to care more about the future of the country than about scoring cheap political points against the previous administration.
I agree that with evidence they should act, Obama really does seem to want it to all go away because it is a distraction. But the fact is that he is have more then enough trouble with health care reform. When ever plain and simply English is trumped by bald faced lies. That is a real sign you are losing the message war.
Just who would this being meant to distract? Hell the Left is more concerned with getting the public option. That would not change even if it was G.W. Bush that would be investigated. They could not care less about the small fry, little alone if it would be Bush.
They big fish is health care and resurrecting the biggest failure of the Clinton administration.
Do not get me wrong there is a desire to see the Neo-Conservatives brought to some justice for ignoring the terrorists to go after Saddam. But then its secondary to getting health care. Now it might be more a distraction to the Right, guilt by association as it is.
Though Bush and the Neo-cons are far from being Republicans in any sense of the term.
It might give a reason to stop opposing the reform or at least try to make a deal on it.
Not sure if that would do any good other then clearing off the slat on the left so they could focus on justice.
OKO torture is un-principled and amoral, no matter how appalling or not.
Water boarding is torture, the recently released listing of the other acts may pale compared to it. Only the cutting off of the blood flow to the brain comes close.
But the degree is not the point, Personally I would not object to covering those who caused 9-11 with Jet-A and striking a match. cause them to suffer the same fate as those who died in the Twin towers. It won’t happen because we are America not some third world country. We have morals and principles beyond those who cut off the heads of their captives. “A Democracy always fights with one hand tied behind its back. But always has the upper hand!”. That was said by a judge in Israel, a country that compared to our own terrorist experience our own pales.
“If Bush was the person the left and you think he was then why hasn’t the democrat house and senate taken action? Ask yourself that and don’t allow yourself to be duped by the hype spinnig out of DC today“.
Simple they put Politics above justice and the law. Failing to take a stand against the actions of Bush at the time. They aided and became co-conspirators to it, they can not escape that. They can gripe and shout about it but any real attempt to bring Bush to justice would end in such a partisan fight and their own guilt exposed. They care more about the party then they do about the country. The same as the Republicans do I must say.
Its all about partisan Politics on both sides, the Democrats would fear that forever more every time there is a Democratic President he would be investigated for leaving the seat up on the toilet. Which might be embarrassing if Hillary is elected.
The Republicans do not want a Republican President to be charged for such crimes.
Because of it would be a stain on the party for at least the next forty years.
There will be a Faustian deal made, Our country’s soul has already been blackened by the torture issue. So in for a penny in for a pound, though it will not be a well kept secret it will be ignored and glazed over.
The plan is look into the people who CLEARLY went far beyond what was approved by the Bush White House torture Czars.
President Obama made that clear today.
It will also serve to reinforce those in the agency who stood firm AGAINST using torture and other unproductive techniques.
And, to think we’ve only seen the parts that aren’t still redacted!
They’re going to follow this snake all the way up to the head this time! No more Abu Graibs.
writer, Democrats already know that republicans are not ever going to play nice again. Its honestly going to come down to either separation or civil war.
Posted August 24, 2009 at 9:17 pm | Permalink
The plan is look into the people who CLEARLY went far beyond what was approved by the Bush White House torture Czars.
Please tell me that such a shocking and indefensible WHITEWASH is not okay with you, David.
I realize Glenn Greenwald can be sometimes excessively 4nal in his approach, but I defy anyone with a functioning brain and a conscience to provide something even resembling an intelligent answer to these criticisms:
_________________________________________
Proving yet again that there is nothing more difficult than satirizing our rotted political culture, here is what I wrote about Holder’s intentions last week:
Holder’s plan, at least at the moment, is — from the start — to confine the prosecutors’ authority to investigate to CIA agents who went beyond what John Yoo and George Bush decreed could be done (”he used more water than Yoo said he could”; “he tied him up for longer than Yoo authorized”; “the room was colder and the freezing water icier than Yoo allowed”). At least if these reports are accurate (and, for several reasons, that’s unclear), anyone who “merely” did what John Yoo said was legal — meaning everyone who matters — will be shielded and immunized.
Here is what The New York Times’ David Johnston writes today about Holder’s intentions:
Mr. Holder has told associates he is weighing a narrow investigation, focusing only on C.I.A. interrogators and contract employees who clearly crossed the line and violated the Bush administration’s guidelines and engaged in flagrantly abusive acts.
But in taking that route, Mr. Holder would run two risks. One is the political fallout if only a handful of low-level agents are prosecuted for what many critics see as a pattern of excess condoned at the top of the government. . . . .
The limited inquiry, at least initially, would review more than 20 abuse cases, including some involving prisoner deaths, which were referred to federal prosecutors in Virginia but did not result in prosecutions.
In addition, an inquiry would probably examine whether the C.I.A. operatives who questioned high-level Qaeda detainees at secret prisons exceeded the Justice Department’s legal guidance. A footnote in a recently released 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum said that the C.I.A. inspector general had found in the 2004 report that interrogators used waterboarding with greater frequency and a larger volume of water than seemed to be approved by the Justice Department.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/22/colbert/index.html
Leon Panetta, Obama’s CIA chief, disagrees with Brownlee and Holder. According to ABC News he lit into Holder in a profane tirade and talked of resigning.
Funny how the same commentary by Greenwald quite logically addresses this, too:
If low-level CIA interrogators — and only them — end up as the targets of investigations because they used m0re water than John Yoo allowed, or turned the thermostat lower than the hypothermic levels which the DOJ permitted, or waterboarded with more frequency than Jay Bybee approved, I wouldn’t blame the CIA for being furious. It was the regime itself, implemented at the highest levels of our government, that was criminal. Prosecuting only low-level interrogators who followed the torturing spirit of those policies but transgressed some bureaucratic guidelines would be a travesty on par with what happened with the Abu Ghraib “investigations.”
(link above)
They’re going to follow this snake all the way up to the head this time! No more Abu Graibs.
I certainly hope so, Phantom.
Well look, Whitewater started with a S&L, and ended up with a b.j., these things just take on a life of theri own. That is one big onion the prosecutor’s going to have to peel though.
I think any investigation and movement toward prosecutions in better than nothing. I, for one would prefer to go after the architects of the interrogation plans, but that just won’t happen now.
They are still prosecuting WWII war criminals. The crimes won’t go away.
The CIA and the Obama Administration continue to keep secret some of the most shocking allegations involving the spy agency’s interrogation program: three deaths and several other detainees whose whereabouts could not be determined, according to a former senior intelligence official who has read the full, unredacted version.
A 2004 CIA Office of the Inspector General report is missing information on three deaths and more…
A 2004 CIA Office of the Inspector General report is missing information on three deaths and more than a dozen detainees whose whereabouts could not be determined, according to a former senior intelligence official who has read the full, unredacted version.
(Handout)Of the 109 pages in the 2004 report, 36 were completely blacked out in the version made public Monday, and another 30 were substantially redacted for “national security” reasons.
Watch Brian Ross’ full report tonight on “World News with Charles Gibson” at 6:30pm ET.
The blacked-out portions hide the Inspector General’s findings on the circumstances that led to the deaths of at least three of the detainees in the CIA’s program, the official said. Two of the men reportedly died in CIA in Iraq and the third died in Afghanistan.
The Inspector General’s findings about a fourth death involving a prisoner in Afghanistan were made public in the report. A CIA contract employee was convicted of assault in that case and is now in prison