Waterboarding the Jihadists !!!!

[Twisted_Dawg]

Now that is some serious shit that works real fast!!!!


CIA destroyed al-Qaida interrogation video
Tapes included waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in ’02

The CIA videotaped the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, the first major al-Qaida leader captured, but later destroyed the tapes, current and former intelligence officials tell NBC News.

The video, meant to instruct other agency personnel — as well as serve as an "internal check," included video of Zubaydah being subjected to waterboarding, the interrogation technique that simulates drowning and is the most controversial of the many techniques used on high-value al-Qaida detainees.
In a statement to agency employees released Thursday, CIA Director Mike Hayden revealed that the agency destroyed all copies of the video in 2005. While the official agency statement does not mention waterboarding, officials tell NBC News the videos included the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah, the leader in charge of al-Qaida's training camps. He was known as al-Qaida's "dean of students" and had an encyclopedic knowledge of al-Qaida operatives worldwide. He is now awaiting trial at the U.S. prison at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"The press has learned that back in 2002, during the initial stage of our terrorist detention program, CIA videotaped interrogations, and destroyed the tapes in 2005," wrote Hayden, who took over the director's job in 2006. "I understand that the Agency did so only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries — including the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.

"The decision to destroy the tapes was made within CIA itself. The leaders of our oversight committees in Congress were informed of the videos years ago and of the Agency's intention to dispose of the material. Our oversight committees also have been told that the videos were, in fact, destroyed."

In describing the rationale for the original decision to produce the videos, Hayden wrote: "The tapes were meant chiefly as an additional, internal check on the program in its early stages. At one point, it was thought the tapes could serve as a backstop to guarantee that other methods of documenting the interrogations — and the crucial information they produced — were accurate and complete. The Agency soon determined that its documentary reporting was full and exacting, removing any need for tapes. Indeed, videotaping stopped in 2002."

Zubaydah was the first of three al-Qaida detainees waterboarded by the agency. The others were Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Hambali, the masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States and the 2002 Bali, Indonesia, bombings, respectively.

[DarkReign]

I realize what I am about to say creates a grey area of abuse, but lets assume this is a perfect world for a moment.

I think torture is despicable. With that in mind....

Catching people like the 9/11 Hijackers and then interrogating them and extracting information by any means necessary is fine in my book. They are guilty of a heinous crime against the state, finding the lead from them to the top is priority, humanity regardless.

[Clandestino]

it only simulates drowning...they aren't actually drowned... why does everyone love the terrorists.

no matter what the u.s. does to terrorists we'll get it worse. we could feed them a 10 course meal every day when they are captured, provide manicures, etc... and they would still behead americans, pull their teeth out, etc...

these guys are terrorists not a true army falling under geneva convention rules.

[MaNuMaNiAc]

it only simulates drowning...they aren't actually drowned... why does everyone love the terrorists.

no matter what the u.s. does to terrorists we'll get it worse. we could feed them a 10 course meal every day when they are captured, provide manicures, etc... and they would still behead americans, pull their teeth out, etc...

these guys are terrorists not a true army falling under geneva convention rules.
hey I dislike terrorist as much as the next guy, but you're completely missing the point here. Lets check the facts:

1) You're in a war
2) You have prisoners of war
3) Torturing prisoners of war is forbidden under the Geneva Convention

I suggest you go read it before you start talking out of your ass again.

Having said that, I'm not entirely sure Geneva conventions apply when one of the sides doesn't recognize it at all. I mean, terrorists don't give a fuck about being humane... SO the dilemma here doesn't stem from weather or not its fair to treat terrorists inhumanely, but weather America as a country wants to lower themselves to the level in which this sort of practice takes place.

Personally, I think its barbaric, but I don't kid myself into thinking it doesn't work. Question is, are the results worth it? Its a dangerous conundrum. One that won't easily be solved any time soon, not with the level of paranoia going around these days. Still, don't kid yourself, the Geneva Convention has gone out the window here, no doubt about that.

[xrayzebra]

it only simulates drowning...they aren't actually drowned... why does everyone love the terrorists.

no matter what the u.s. does to terrorists we'll get it worse. we could feed them a 10 course meal every day when they are captured, provide manicures, etc... and they would still behead americans, pull their teeth out, etc...

these guys are terrorists not a true army falling under geneva convention rules.

I can only add: I agree one hundred and ten percent.

[xrayzebra]

hey I dislike terrorist as much as the next guy, but you're completely missing the point here. Lets check the facts:

1) You're in a war
2) You have prisoners of war
3) Torturing prisoners of war is forbidden under the Geneva Convention

I suggest you go read it before you start talking out of your ass again.

Having said that, I'm not entirely sure Geneva conventions apply when one of the sides doesn't recognize it at all. I mean, terrorists don't give a fuck about being humane... SO the dilemma here doesn't stem from weather or not its fair to treat terrorists inhumanely, but weather America as a country wants to lower themselves to the level in which this sort of practice takes place.

Personally, I think its barbaric, but I don't kid myself into thinking it doesn't work. Question is, are the results worth it? Its a dangerous conundrum. One that won't easily be solved any time soon, not with the level of paranoia going around these days. Still, don't kid yourself, the Geneva Convention has gone out the window here, no doubt about that.


When they abide by the Geneva Convention, then we
should. As long as they behead captives and drag
their bodies thru the streets, whatever works is fine
with me.

[clambake]

I can only add: I agree one hundred and ten percent.
McCain haters.

[Nbadan]

He can't remember torture tapes?


President Bush "has no recollection" of the CIA tapes that showed government officials interrogating terrorism suspects, a spokeswoman says.

Here's what press secretary Dana Perino said during today's briefing: I spoke to the President, and so I will have to defer on the others. But I spoke to the President this morning about this. He has no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction before yesterday. He was briefed by General Hayden yesterday morning. And as to the others, I'll have to -- I'll refer you to the Vice President's office and I'll see if I can get the others.

Link (http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/12/bush-has-no-rec.html?loc=interstitialskip)

[Extra Stout]

He can't remember torture tapes?



Link (http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/12/bush-has-no-rec.html?loc=interstitialskip)
Why would he remember that? Dick Cheney does worse to his lifelong friends.

[boutons_]

the military themselves say the info obtained by torture is mostly useless, but it's very useful for recruiting new terrorists. aka, job security for the torturers.

DR, do you torture terrorists before or after they are convicted in a legit trial?

[Nbadan]

...going to Congress for war authorization is for pussies...

[Twisted_Dawg]

Waterboarding<Beheading

[JoeChalupa]

I've gotten answers out of someone by just using a good old American headlock.

[clambake]

I've gotten answers out of someone by just using a good old American headlock.
headlock? why does every thread turn gay?

[Nbadan]

...Explosive stuff about destroyed terra tapes and 9/11....

The CIA's Destroyed Interrogation Tapes and the Saudi-Pakistani 9/11 Connection


On December 5, the CIA's director, General Michael V. Hayden, issued a statement disclosing that in 2005 at least two videotapes of interrogations with al Qaeda prisoners were destroyed. The tapes, which the CIA did not provide to either the 9/11 Commission, nor to a federal court in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, were destroyed, claimed Hayden, to protect the safety of undercover operatives.

Hayden did not disclose one of the al Qaeda suspects whose tapes were destroyed. But he did identify the other. It was Abu Zubaydah, the top ranking terror suspect when he was tracked and captured in Pakistan in 2003. In September 2006, at a press conference in which he defended American interrogation techniques, President Bush also mentioned Abu Zubaydah by name. Bush acknowledged that Zubaydah, who was wounded when captured, did not initially cooperate with his interrogators, but that eventually when he did talk, his information was, according to Bush, "quite important."

In my 2003 New York Times bestseller, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, I discussed Abu Zubaydah at length in Chapter 19, "The Interrogation." There I set forth how Zubaydah initially refused to help his American captors. Also, disclosed was how U.S. intelligence established a so-called "fake flag" operation, in which the wounded Zubaydah was transferred to Afghanistan under the ruse that he had actually been turned over to the Saudis. The Saudis had him on a wanted list, and the Americans believed that Zubaydah, fearful of torture and death at the hands of the Saudis, would start talking when confronted by U.S. agents playing the role of Saudi intelligence officers.

Instead, when confronted by his "Saudi" interrogators, Zubaydah showed no fear. Instead, according to the two U.S. intelligence sources that provided me the details, he seemed relieved. The man who had been reluctant to even confirm his identity to his U.S. captors, suddenly talked animatedly. He was happy to see them, he said, because he feared the Americans would kill him. He then asked his interrogators to call a senior member of the Saudi royal family. And Zubaydah provided a private home number and a cell phone number from memory. "He will tell you what to do," Zubaydah assured them

That man was Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, one of King Fahd's nephews, and the chairman of the largest Saudi publishing empire. Later, American investigators would determine that Prince Ahmed had been in the U.S. on 9/11.

American interrogators used painkillers to induce Zubaydah to talk -- they gave him the meds when he cooperated, and withdrew them when he was quiet. They also utilized a thiopental sodium drip (a so-called truth serum). Several hours after he first fingered Prince Ahmed, his captors challenged the information, and said that since he had disparaged the Saudi royal family, he would be executed. It was at that point that some of the secrets of 9/11 came pouring out. In a short monologue, that one investigator told me was the "Rosetta Stone" of 9/11, Zubaydah laid out details of how he and the al Qaeda hierarchy had been supported at high levels inside the Saudi and Pakistan governments.

He named two other Saudi princes, and also the chief of Pakistan's air force, as his major contacts. Moreover, he stunned his interrogators, by charging that two of the men, the King's nephew, and the Pakistani Air Force chief, knew a major terror operation was planned for America on 9/11.

It would be nice to further investigate the men named by Zubaydah, but that is not possible. All four identified by Zubaydah are now dead. As for the three Saudi princes, the King's 43-year-old nephew, Prince Ahmed, died of either a heart attack or blood clot, depending on which report you believe, after having liposuction in Riyadh's top hospital; the second, 41-year-old Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, died the following day in a one car accident, on his way to the funeral of Prince Ahmed; and one week later, the third Saudi prince named by Zubaydah, 25-year-old Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, died, according to the Saudi Royal Court, "of thirst." The head of Pakistan's Air Force, Mushaf Ali Mir, was the last to go. He died, together with his wife and fifteen of his top aides, when his plane blew up -- suspected as sabotage -- in February 2003. Pakistan's investigation of the explosion -- if one was even done -- has never been made public.

Zubaydah is the only top al Queda operative who has secretly linked two of America's closest allies in the war on terror -- Saudi Arabia and Pakistan -- to the 9/11 attacks. Why does Bush, and the CIA, continue to protect the Saudi Royal family and the Pakistani military, from the implications of Zubaydah's confessions? It is, or course, because the Bush administration desperately needs Pakistani and Saudi help, not only to keep Afghanistan from spinning completely out of control, but also as counterweights to the growing power of Iran. The Sunni governments in Riyadh and Islamabad have as much to fear from a resurgent Iran as does the Bush administration. But does this mean that leads about the origins of 9/11 should not be aggressively pursued? Of course not. But this is precisely what the Bush administration is doing. And now the cover-up is enhanced by the CIA's destruction of Zubaydah's interrogation tapes.

The American public deserves no less than the complete truth about 9/11. And those CIA officials now complicit in hiding the truth by destroying key evidence should be held responsible.

Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-posner/the-cias-destroyed-inter_b_75850.html)

[Nbadan]

Meanwhile, a new poll shows 911 conspiracy theorists are winning....


Many Americans still believe in conspiracies
By KEVIN CROWE and GUIDO H. STEMPEL III
Scripps Howard News Service
Friday, November 23, 2007


Nearly two-thirds of Americans think it is possible that some federal officials had specific warnings of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, but chose to ignore those warnings, according to a Scripps Howard News Service/Ohio University poll.

A national survey of 811 adult residents of the United States conducted by Scripps and Ohio University found that more than a third believe in a broad smorgasbord of conspiracy theories including the attacks, international plots to rig oil prices, the plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the government's knowledge of intelligent life from other worlds.

The high percentage is a manifestation, some say, of an American public that increasingly distrusts the federal government.

"You wouldn't have gotten these numbers a year or two after the attacks themselves," said University of Florida law professor Mark Fenster. "You've got an increasingly disaffected public that is unhappy with the administration."

Scripps News (http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/28533)

[ChumpDumper]

I guess they are winning.

Define victory.

[boutons_]

"Nearly two-thirds of Americans think it is possible that some federal officials had specific warnings of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, but chose to ignore those warnings"

That's a very easy theory to believe, esp since dubya and dickhead and accomplice bootlicks have totally sealed off access to all their actions prior to 9/11. They escaped ALL responsibility for 9/11, and have then totally raped the Constitution to protect themselves from being caught a second time with their NatSec pants down, from which they know they wouldn't escape.

[Yonivore]

hey I dislike terrorist as much as the next guy, but you're completely missing the point here. Lets check the facts:

1) You're in a war
2) You have prisoners of war
3) Torturing prisoners of war is forbidden under the Geneva Convention

I suggest you go read it before you start talking out of your ass again.

Having said that, I'm not entirely sure Geneva conventions apply when one of the sides doesn't recognize it at all. I mean, terrorists don't give a fuck about being humane... SO the dilemma here doesn't stem from weather or not its fair to treat terrorists inhumanely, but weather America as a country wants to lower themselves to the level in which this sort of practice takes place.

Personally, I think its barbaric, but I don't kid myself into thinking it doesn't work. Question is, are the results worth it? Its a dangerous conundrum. One that won't easily be solved any time soon, not with the level of paranoia going around these days. Still, don't kid yourself, the Geneva Convention has gone out the window here, no doubt about that.
I suggest you read the Geneva Conventions and get back to us.

[xrayzebra]

ooooppps! Now we find out that the dimm-o-craps were aware
of the waterboarding and that the tapes were going to be
destroyed. What's a person to do. Hello, Nancy Pelosi and
J. Rockefeller.

Who Knew What and When (http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/1763)

[Yonivore]

Yesterday's Washington Post article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664.html?hpid=topnews) on Congress' long knowledge of CIA "enhanced" interrogation techniques certainly casts the current "torture tape" controversy in a completely different light. And, if we're reading the tea leaves correctly, look for that so-called "scandal" to die a quick (and deserved) death.

According to the paper, members of Congress received more than 30 briefings on CIA detention facilities and interrogation methods, beginning in the fall of 2002. Post staff writers Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen based their story on interviews with "multiple officials" who had first-hand knowledge of the briefing program. As they report:


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 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.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

[snip]

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Individual lawmakers' recollections of the early briefings varied dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," said Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."

The initial briefing was followed by 29 additional presentations over the next five years, an average of one every two months. According to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the program, the briefings outlined the interrogations methods being used, along with the information collected.

Sources tell the Post that Congressional participation in the briefings was usually limited to the "Gang of Four," the top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. In some cases, a few staff members were also allowed to attend.

And, despite the frequent updates, Congressional recollections of those briefs has grown rather fuzzy:


Graham said he has no memory of ever being told about waterboarding or other harsh tactics. Graham left the Senate intelligence committee in January 2003, and was replaced by Rockefeller. "Personally, I was unaware of it, so I couldn't object," Graham said in an interview. He said he now believes the techniques constituted torture and were illegal.

Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings. But a congressional source familiar with Pelosi's position on the matter said the California lawmaker did recall discussions about enhanced interrogation. The source said Pelosi recalls that techniques described by the CIA were still in the planning stage -- they had been designed and cleared with agency lawyers but not yet put in practice -- and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time.

Harman, who replaced Pelosi as the committee's top Democrat in January 2003, disclosed Friday that she filed a classified letter to the CIA in February of that year as an official protest about the interrogation program. Harman said she had been prevented from publicly discussing the letter or the CIA's program because of strict rules of secrecy.

Roberts declined to comment on his participation in the briefings. Rockefeller also declined to talk about the briefings, but the West Virginia Democrat's public statements show him leading the push in 2005 for expanded congressional oversight and an investigation of CIA interrogation practices. "I proposed without success, both in committee and on the Senate floor, that the committee undertake an investigation of the CIA's detention and interrogation activities," Rockefeller said in a statement Friday.
In a meager attempt to support their argument, Congressional sources complained about the program's "secrecy" requirements, their inability to take notes during the briefings, or consult with legal advisers on matters presented by the CIA.

Phul-eeze. Those complaints are the Congressional equivalent of the "dog ate my homework." Congressmen and Senators know the "secrecy" rules when they sign on as a member of the intelligence committees. Ditto for note-taking; besides, after more than two dozen briefings over the course of five years, you'd think their recollections would be better (and they actually are).

Truth be told, Congress has just learned a hard lesson about the intel bureaucracy. The same establishment which has been fighting with the Bush Administration is more than capable of taking on the House and Senate leaders, past and present. When Congress began talking about an "independent counsel" to investigate destroyed interrogation tapes, the CIA trotted out some inconvenient facts and effectively, put the lawmakers in their place.

As we've now learned, key members of Congress knew about "water-boarding" long before the term entered the public lexicon, and they received routine updates on the interrogation program for five years. That's why it made eminent sense to destroy the interrogation tapes. Congress had already been briefed on the subject, to include the names of those interrogated and what they revealed. And apparently, virtually no House or Senate leader voiced objections to the program--until it became politically expedient.

There's a word for that kind of breath-taking flip-flop, that occurs with regularity inside The Beltway. It's called hypocrisy, and its foremost practitioners are members of the U.S. Congress.

In our view, the CIA deserves credit for doing the sensible thing and destroying the tapes. Left on the shelf, those videos would have inevitably leaked, potentially exposing agency personnel who conducted the interrogations. Many of those CIA employees are covert operators, the same status to which Valerie Plame aspired. However, unlike Ms. Plame, the CIA staffers in the videos didn't blow their cover through an entry in Who's Who, or through a feckless spouse who readily traded his wife's status for political and personal gain.

The staffers who interrogated Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other Al Qaida prisoners deserve to have their identities protected. Entrusting that responsibility to a hyper-partisan Congress--over the course of a drawn-out "investigation" and accompanying leaks--is nothing more than a fool's errand.

It's rather ironic (yet completely appropriate) that Congress would be more concerned about the long-blown cover of Ms. Plame, rather than protecting the identities of genuine, front-line covert operatives. Call it another exercise in legislative hypocrisy, led by the usual suspects.

At that time, most rational people would have favored waterboarding (and more) as a means of obtaining information from high value terrorists. The four members in question -- Nancy Pelosi, Porter Goss, Bob Graham, and Pat Roberts -- represent a cross-section of the political spectrum. Pelosi is a leftist; Graham is a moderate-liberal; Roberts and Goss are conservatives. But they shared a desire to protect the country from further attack. That desire trumped partisanship, and was sufficient for Pelosi and the others effectively to sign off on what the CIA was doing.

Today, of course, things are different. We haven't been attacked in more than six years, quite possibly because of the information we obtained through waterboarding and other aggressive techniques. Thus, the partisan instinct, coupled with the joy of posturing, prevails.

But the heat the CIA is taking now pales in comparison to the heat it would have taken had it not used aggressive techniques, and the U.S. had been attacked by al Qaeda again. And, with the range of available interrogation methods now scaled back, the final chapter in the dance of the congressional Democrats may not yet have been written.

As I've said before, I think waterboarding is the ideal interrogation technique for known terrorists. It is nearly always effective, works in just a few minutes, and does no physical harm. It works by frightening the subject, which seems highly appropriate for a terrorist.

What I can never understand is how, exactly, the people who object to waterboarding want us to interrogate terrorists. Presumably they don't want us to beat them; unlike waterboarding, that would not only scare the terrorists but do them physical harm. Do they seriously think that we can get timely information from hard-core terrorists through clever cross-examination? Or do they think that captured terrorists, like criminal defendants in the American judicial system, have a right to remain silent?

[Clandestino]

Mon Dec 10, 7:12 PM ET



WASHINGTON (AFP) - A retired CIA agent confirmed in a US interview that interrogators used a simulated drowning technique on an Al-Qaeda suspect and admitted that the disputed method is a form torture.

In an ABC News interview aired Monday, retired agent John Kiriakou, who led a CIA team that captured and interrogated Al-Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah, said using the "waterboarding" technique was necessary and yielded crucial information.

Kiriakou said the method broke Zubaydah -- one of the first top Al-Qaeda suspects captured after the September 11, 2001 attacks -- in less than 35 seconds, according to ABC.

"The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate," Kiriakou told ABC News.

"From that day on, he answered every question," he added. "The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

The technique involves pouring water on the covered face of a restrained prisoner.

Although Kiriakou admitted that waterboarding was used, he did not entirely approve of it: "We're Americans, and we're better than this. And we shouldn't be doing this kind of thing."

But he also said that in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, there was a sense of urgency in getting information on terrorist groups.

"What happens if we don't waterboard a person, and we don't get that nugget of information, and there's an attack," Kiriakou said. "I would have trouble forgiving myself."

Kiriakou's comments come amid a growing scandal over the CIA's destruction in 2005 of videotapes made in 2002 of interrogations of Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, another top Al-Qaeda operative, as first reported by The New York Times.

The videotapes reportedly showed harsh interrogation techniques used on the suspects.

Kiriakou said he was unaware that the Zubaydah interrogation was being secretly recorded by the CIA and that the tapes were subsequently destroyed.

CIA director Michael Hayden, who was not leading the agency when the tapes were destroyed, has said that getting rid of the tapes was necessary to protect the identity of CIA agents.

The White House has stopped short of denying any involvement in the affair. The Justice Department and the CIA's internal watchdog said they had opened a preliminary inquiry.

[Duff McCartney]

When they abide by the Geneva Convention, then we
should.

Shouldn't we abide by the Geneva Conventions no matter what? I think you've ever seen the movie The Seige...it makes perfect sense for the situation the U.S. is in.

I mean we aren't gonna win any hearts or minds by being hypocrites which is exactly what we are. People hate liars, but they hate hypocrites even more.

[Yonivore]

Shouldn't we abide by the Geneva Conventions no matter what? I think you've ever seen the movie The Seige...it makes perfect sense for the situation the U.S. is in.

I mean we aren't gonna win any hearts or minds by being hypocrites which is exactly what we are. People hate liars, but they hate hypocrites even more.
The Geneva Conventions are treaties that bind signatories to the way they behave toward one another during a time of war. So, when did al Qaeda become a signatory to the Geneva Conventions? When did radical Islam ratify the treaties?

And, why isn't anyone whining about their violations of the Geneva Conventions?

[Nbadan]

So, when did al Qaeda become a signatory to the Geneva Conventions? When did radical Islam ratify the treaties?

And, why isn't anyone whining about their violations of the Geneva Conventions?

Errr....logical error....the United States is a signatory of the Geneva Conventions banning torture....including torture on members of Al Queda....

[FromWayDowntown]

The Geneva Conventions are treaties that bind signatories to the way they behave toward one another during a time of war. So, when did al Qaeda become a signatory to the Geneva Conventions? When did radical Islam ratify the treaties?

And, why isn't anyone whining about their violations of the Geneva Conventions?

So our commitment to civility in some circumstances should give way to utter barbarism in other circumstances? In essence, we believe in civility except where we deem it expedient to stoop to a level that we've voluntarily agreed to eschew.

[Ignignokt]

So our commitment to civility in some circumstances should give way to utter barbarism in other circumstances? In essence, we believe in civility except where we deem it expedient to stoop to a level that we've voluntarily agreed to eschew.

i dont know of a man who wouldn't stoop to savagery towards the predator to save his children.

[JoeChalupa]

Torture of prisoners always happen in time of war and the US has used it just like any other country does.

[Yonivore]

Errr....logical error....the United States is a signatory of the Geneva Conventions banning torture....including torture on members of Al Queda....
Again, I ask you to read the Geneva Conventions and find such a ban on non-signatories. In fact, the Geneva Conventions specifically excludes combatants such as al Qaeda from Convention protections...and, not until our current conflict has anyone questioned that distinction.

[Yonivore]

So our commitment to civility in some circumstances should give way to utter barbarism in other circumstances? In essence, we believe in civility except where we deem it expedient to stoop to a level that we've voluntarily agreed to eschew.
If waterboarding is barbaric, what does that make beheading, real torture (that leaves real injuries), and desecration of corpses by burning, dragging through the streets, and hanging from lampposts?

Just curious if you can make a distinction...

[Yonivore]

so the u.s. government is your daddy?
Approximately 50% of the populations considers the U. S. Government to be their nanny and provider, yes.

[Yonivore]

We need to stoop to the terrorists' level to protect our freedoms.
We've come nowhere close.

[Yonivore]

not yet!
There are signs we intend to engage in real torture? Do tell. I mean, we've only been in this war for six years...and, are winning...at what point do we start burning with blowtorches and irons? When do we start drilling holes in the bodies and poking the eyes with forks? When do we start videotaping the beheadings and summary executions and posting them on the web?

[JoeChalupa]

I may be a liberal but even I know there are circumstances when even I would do what goes against my normal judgement. But that doesn't make it right. I may not agree with it....but I can understand it.

[xrayzebra]

I may be a liberal but even I know there are circumstances when even I would do what goes against my normal judgement. But that doesn't make it right. I may not agree with it....but I can understand it.

God only knows what has gone on by our troops/government
in past wars. We know the public utterances but have no
real idea of what really happened under actual conditions.

I do know that after the wars in Europe and Asia (WWII)
that the occupying forces took what they wanted, when
they wanted it and you have to wonder if maybe some
of the people on the receiving end didn't consider that
a form of torture. Like losing ones home and you are out
in the cold looking for shelter.

[Purple & Gold]

Does endorsing recognized forms of torture and disregarding the Geneva Convention put our soldiers at more risk in present and future wars??

[FromWayDowntown]

If waterboarding is barbaric, what does that make beheading, real torture (that leaves real injuries), and desecration of corpses by burning, dragging through the streets, and hanging from lampposts?

Just curious if you can make a distinction...

Again, that strikes me as some sort of moral relativism -- as long as we're not as bad as the terrorists, we're okay. It seems relatively clear that the waterboarding technique is something that we've agreed we wouldn't use against certain enemies, presumably because the signatories to the Geneva Convention agree to not employ torture techniques and because most of the world agrees that waterboarding is a torture technique.

That waterboarding isn't as bad as what jihadists are doing doesn't strike me as a justification for its use where it would otherwise be legally prohibited.

[Nbadan]

Meanwhile, a Guantanamo legal adviser refuses to say whether Iranians Waterboarding Americans Would Be Torture....


During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “The Legal Rights of Guantanamo Detainees” this morning, Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser at Guantanamo Bay, repeatedly refused to call the hypothetical waterboarding of an American pilot by the Iranian military torture. “I’m not equipped to answer that question,” said Hartmann.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who asked the hypothetical, pushed Hartmann on his answer, asking him directly if it would be a “violation of the Geneva Convention”:

GRAHAM: You mean you’re not equipped to give a legal opinion as to whether or not Iranian military waterboarding, secret security agents waterboarding downed airmen is a violation of the Geneva Convention?

HARTMANN: I am not prepared to answer that question, Senator.

After Hartmann twice refused to answer, Graham dismissed him in disgust, saying he had “no further questions.”

Watch it: Link (http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/11/graham-waterboarding-iran)

[Nbadan]

http://a.abcnews.com/images/Blotter/ht_Zubaydah1_071210_ssh.jpg
Former al Qaeda logistics chief Abu Zubaydah was captured by the CIA in March 2002 in Faisalabad, Pakistan.

[Yonivore]

Again, that strikes me as some sort of moral relativism -- as long as we're not as bad as the terrorists, we're okay. It seems relatively clear that the waterboarding technique is something that we've agreed we wouldn't use against certain enemies, presumably because the signatories to the Geneva Convention agree to not employ torture techniques and because most of the world agrees that waterboarding is a torture technique.

That waterboarding isn't as bad as what jihadists are doing doesn't strike me as a justification for its use where it would otherwise be legally prohibited.
I don't agree that it's torture and you, yourself, only claim that "most of the world" agrees that it is.

meh.

[JoeChalupa]

I do agree that it is torture just like John McCain and the man knows his shit when it comes to this subject.

[Nbadan]

Wing-nut media keeps repeating that the info gleaned from torture saved American lives by stopping future terra attacks, although they haven't provided any concrete proof that it really has....meanwhile, at least on suspect who was water-boarded admits to making up stories just to stop the torture.....


GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, March 30 -- A high-level al-Qaeda suspect who was in CIA custody for more than four years has alleged that his American captors tortured him into making false confessions about terrorist attacks in the Middle East, according to newly released Pentagon transcripts of a March 14 military tribunal hearing here.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who U.S. officials believe was involved in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and who allegedly organized the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, told a panel of military officers that he was repeatedly tortured during his imprisonment and that he admitted taking part in numerous terrorism plots because of the mistreatment.

Bush acknowledged the existence of secret CIA prisons abroad Sept. 6, 2006, as he called for the authority to try prisoners by military commissions. On Jan. 18, 2007, the Pentagon released its rules for trying detainees.


CIA'S SECRET PRISONS

Washington Post reporter Dana Priest reported on Nov. 2 that the CIA operates a network of secret prisons where it holds terror suspects. Priest was awarded a Pulitzer Prize on April 17 for her beat reporting on the CIA and the War on Terror.

"The detainee states that he was tortured into confession and once he made a confession his captors were happy and they stopped torturing him," Nashiri's representative read to the tribunal, according to the transcript. "Also, the detainee states that he made up stories during the torture in order to get it to stop."

Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/30/AR2007033002246.html)

[01Snake]

Wing-nut media keeps repeating that the info gleaned from torture saved American lives by stopping future terra attacks, although they haven't provided any concrete proof that it really has....meanwhile, at least on suspect who was water-boarded admits to making up stories just to stop the torture.....


So the US has not provided proof that torture prevented future attacks so it must not be true. On the other hand, we have a detainee stating he made up lies in order to stop bing "tortured" so that MUST be true.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[Nbadan]

Yeah right, this administration would be the first to pimp to the M$M the successful termination of a possible terra plot.....

[FromWayDowntown]

I don't agree that it's torture and you, yourself, only claim that "most of the world" agrees that it is.

meh.

To be clearer about my stance, I, myself, only claim that if it is torture -- there seems at least to be a robust debate about that, though we all know by now that a robust debate among extremely smart people is meaningless if Yonivore has already reached a conclusion on the matter -- it is forbidden by the Geneva Convention, which most of the world agrees is a standard worthy of abiding by. That there seems to be a significant consensus that the technique is either torture or is questionably close to being torture just helps to point out the fact that we're lowering our standards and judging the propriety of our actions by measuring those actions against the acts of an enemy whose barbarism we decry.

[Ignignokt]

To be clearer about my stance, I, myself, only claim that if it is torture -- there seems at least to be a robust debate about that, though we all know by now that a robust debate among extremely smart people is meaningless if Yonivore has already reached a conclusion on the matter -- it is forbidden by the Geneva Convention, which most of the world agrees is a standard worthy of abiding by. That there seems to be a significant consensus that the technique is either torture or is questionably close to being torture just helps to point out the fact that we're lowering our standards and judging the propriety of our actions by measuring those actions against the acts of an enemy whose barbarism we decry.


The geneva convention's intent was to have ettiquette rules for industrialized powers to play by. It only works because both sides will enforce it.


We're in no way in that kind of predicament now.

[Clandestino]

these are the same liberals who said we were torturing the terrorists by letting dogs bark them!!! come on, wtf... that is not torture...

this is what our country is coming to. just like the no scoring leagues and no spanking. maybe if we put the terrorists in time out for a bit, they will tell us everything and drop their arms.

[Yonivore]

To be clearer about my stance, I, myself, only claim that if it is torture -- there seems at least to be a robust debate about that, though we all know by now that a robust debate among extremely smart people is meaningless if Yonivore has already reached a conclusion on the matter
Glad you recognize that.

Today's front page headline in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/10/AR2007121002091.html) informs us that an ex-CIA officer who participated in the interrogation of Abu Zubaida believes that the waterboarding of this terrorist "probably saved lives" but constitutes "torture." The interrogator in question, John Kiriakou, says that Zubaida wouldn't provide any information until he was waterboarded. After 35 seconds of that procedure, he broke down. The Post quotes Kiriakou as saying that, as a result of the information the CIA obtained, "several" planned attacks were disrupted. In fact, Kiriakou told ABC's Nightline (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3978231&page=1) that the information "disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks." Post reporters Dan Eggen and Joby Warrick decided, in other words, to downplay the positive effects of getting Zubaida to talk.

Kiriakou is probably well-positioned to report on the efficacy of the waterboarding of Zubaida and the positive results achieved by virtue of the information the CIA obtained. On the other hand, Kiriakou's view that the technique constitutes torture, which was not his view at the time, seems largely worthless, particularly if one construes it as a legal opinion.

It's understandable that Kiriakou has held conflicting views on whether waterboarding constitutes torture, just as it's understandable that Nancy Pelosi saw nothing objectionable in the procedure when she first was briefed about it. Waterboarding has some elements in common with practices which are universally deemed torture, but lacks other elements. For example, it causes no physical harm; indeed, we subject some of our own servicemen and agents to the procedure. Kiriakou was one of them.

Under these circumstances, a metaphysical discussion of whether waterboarding fits the "torture" category is probably not the best way to decide whether to use the procedure in an exigent case. The more promising approach is to consider the actual practice (not a label) and the level/duration of the distress it inflicts, evaluate its likely efficacy, consider whether less drastic methods will work, and weigh (as best we can) the need for information that the detainee is thought to possess. If Congress objects to this case-by-case approach, it should specifically ban waterboarding.

It's easy to believe that the decision-making process just described would favor the use of waterboarding in at least a few cases, and there’s no indication that we’ve used it more than a few times. Based on Kiriakou's statements, it certainly seems that waterboarding Zubaida was the right call. Those who disagree should explain either (a) how they would have gotten Zubaida to talk or (b) why the lives of innocent people (the ones Kiriakou says were probably saved) should have been put at serious risk to spare this terrorist 35 seconds of extreme duress.


-- it is forbidden by the Geneva Convention, which most of the world agrees is a standard worthy of abiding by.
Waterboarding is mentioned in the Geneva Conventions? And, if it is -- which version? The one the Japanese utilized in WWII that actually did result in deaths or the one being employed by the current U. S. Intelligence agencies that has been used a total of three times and, by all accounts, poses absolutely no risk of death.


That there seems to be a significant consensus that the technique is either torture or is questionably close to being torture just helps to point out the fact that we're lowering our standards and judging the propriety of our actions by measuring those actions against the acts of an enemy whose barbarism we decry.
You're joking, right?

Waterboarding (in the version used today) <> any of the acts of barbarism employed by our current enemies.

[Nbadan]

http://a.abcnews.com/images/Blotter/john_interview_071210_ms.jpg


Today's front page headline in the Washington Post informs us that an ex-CIA officer who participated in the interrogation of Abu Zubaida believes that the waterboarding of this terrorist "probably saved lives" but constitutes "torture." The interrogator in question, John Kiriakou, says that Zubaida wouldn't provide any information until he was waterboarded. After 35 seconds of that procedure, he broke down. The Post quotes Kiriakou as saying that, as a result of the information the CIA obtained, "several" planned attacks were disrupted. In fact, Kiriakou told ABC's Nightline that the information "disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks." Post reporters Dan Eggen and Joby Warrick decided, in other words, to downplay the positive effects of getting Zubaida to talk.

Kiriakou has made the rounds on all the talking-head shows, ABC, CNN, of course, FAUX news yada...yada... to me this guy is the perfect propaganda plant...I mean, he can say that terra was avoided by torturing these men without having to provide any proof what-so-ever and the M$M will eat that shit up all day long...

...Where's the proof John? There, I did the M$M's job for them.....

[Nbadan]

Waterboarding is mentioned in the Geneva Conventions? And, if it is -- which version? The one the Japanese utilized in WWII that actually did result in deaths or the one being employed by the current U. S. Intelligence agencies that has been used a total of three times and, by all accounts, poses absolutely no risk of death.

Article I


1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

2. This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application


Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, G.A. res. 39/46, [annex, 39 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 51) at 197, U.N. Doc. A/39/51 (1984)], entered into force June 26, 1987. (http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/h2catoc.htm)

[Nbadan]

The Carpet-bagger provides a interesting prospective into the John Kiriakou and Abu Zubaydah stories...


Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in March 2002. The White House has identified him as al Queda’s chief of operations. Ron Suskind reported (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/19/AR2006061901211_pf.html), however, that Zubaydah turned out to be mentally ill. We were torturing a man who was, in effect, retarded.


Abu Zubaydah, his captors discovered, turned out to be mentally ill and nothing like the pivotal figure they supposed him to be. CIA and FBI analysts, poring over a diary he kept for more than a decade, found entries “in the voice of three people: Hani 1, Hani 2, and Hani 3″ — a boy, a young man and a middle-aged alter ego. All three recorded in numbing detail “what people ate, or wore, or trifling things they said.” Dan Coleman, then the FBI’s top al-Qaeda analyst, told a senior bureau official, “This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality.”

Abu Zubaydah also appeared to know nothing about terrorist operations; rather, he was al-Qaeda’s go-to guy for minor logistics — travel for wives and children and the like. That judgment was “echoed at the top of CIA and was, of course, briefed to the President and Vice President,” Suskind writes. And yet somehow, in a speech delivered two weeks later, President Bush portrayed Abu Zubaydah as “one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States.” And over the months to come, under White House and Justice Department direction, the CIA would make him its first test subject for harsh interrogation techniques. […]

“I said he was important,” Bush reportedly told Tenet at one of their daily meetings. “You’re not going to let me lose face on this, are you?” “No sir, Mr. President,” Tenet replied. Bush “was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth,” Suskind writes, and he asked one briefer, “Do some of these harsh methods really work?” Interrogators did their best to find out, Suskind reports. They strapped Abu Zubaydah to a water-board, which reproduces the agony of drowning. They threatened him with certain death. They withheld medication. They bombarded him with deafening noise and harsh lights, depriving him of sleep. Under that duress, he began to speak of plots of every variety — against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. With each new tale, “thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each … target.” And so, Suskind writes, “the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered.”

At this point, I have no idea who’s right about this. Either Zubaydah was an unstable schizophrenic who had no useful intelligence at all, or Zubaydah was a valuable al Qaeda asset who offered key information that saved lives. I have no reason to suspect that Kiriakou is intentionally trying to deceive anyone, though I would add that Kiriakou was not personally involved in torturing Zubaydah, but was part of an interrogation team that questioned him in a hospital in Pakistan after he was captured in 2002. I mention this because, it’s possible that Kiriakou was told Zubaydah produced actionable intelligence, when the truth might be the opposite.

Link (http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13880.html)

[Nbadan]

Republicans are chapped because they didn't get to muddy-the-intelligence-waters and spin the NIE before they were forced to release it....

Some in GOP skeptical of intelligence finding that Iran has abandoned nuclear weapons program
By PAMELA HESS , Associated Press


Some Republicans in Congress are second-guessing a government intelligence report that Iran has abandoned its nuclear weapons program. They want a second opinion.

The National Intelligence Estimate, released last week, concludes Iran halted its weapons development program in 2003 and that the program remained frozen through at least the middle of this year. That reversed a key finding from a 2005 intelligence report, which said Iran was intently developing a nuclear bomb. An unclassified summary of the new report was released specifically to correct that impression.

The new report was received skeptically by some Republicans on Capitol Hill who believe Iran's nuclear program remains an immediate threat, and think the 2005 report is closer to the truth.

Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada plans to introduce legislation to create a bipartisan commission to produce an alternative report on the same intelligence.

"We just see politics injected into this," said Tory Mazzola, Ensign's spokesman. "When it comes to national security we really need to remove politics. We're saying, let's take a second look."

The proposed commission is based on similar review panels convened in the mid-1970s to reconsider the intelligence agencies' analysis of the Soviet Union, and an effort in the mid-1990s to reassess the threat of ballistic missiles to the United States.

Last week, Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., said at a committee hearing he does not trust the new findings.

"I'm not sure we have a good, clear signal of what's really happening inside Iran," he said. "We've got a very big batch of mixed signals.".

Star Tribune (http://www.startribune.com/nation/12443676.html)

[Winehole23]

US walks back (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/us-colombia-cover-up-atro_b_521402.html) claims about Zubaydah.

[DarrinS]

I love reading 9/11 nutter takes on torturing jihadists.

[Winehole23]

You didn't read shit, Darrin.

[SnakeBoy]

I mean, we've only been in this war for six years...and, are winning...

Why do you think we are winning?

[Blake]

.

[SnakeBoy]

God only knows what has gone on by our troops/government
in past wars. We know the public utterances but have no
real idea of what really happened under actual conditions.

I do know that after the wars in Europe and Asia (WWII)
that the occupying forces took what they wanted, when
they wanted it and you have to wonder if maybe some
of the people on the receiving end didn't consider that
a form of torture. Like losing ones home and you are out
in the cold looking for shelter.

I know in Vietnam "enhanced interrogation" involved taking a group of prisoners up in a helicopter, asking them questions and if they wouldn't talk throwing them out of the helicopter.

[Winehole23]

It's one thing if these things are done in theatre, in the heat of combat. Not excusable, but understandable.

It's a whole nother thing if it's official US policy, and the targets are detained indefinitely, far from the action, and tortured. It's a really big difference.

[Winehole23]

Same thing happened with Padilla. When it was time to put up or shut up, most of the serious charges disappeared.

Physical duress sure compromises the value of confessions, eh?

[LnGrrrR]

It's a whole nother thing if it's official US policy, and the targets are detained indefinitely, far from the action, and tortured. It's a really big difference.

This is the biggest thing that people don't seem to get, IMHO. On the battlefield, killing someone is somewhat justified, as they might have a weapon. But once they're in permanent holding, there should be no threat to you. Again, I'm in favor of treating them humanely, because I have this crazy idea that it will be tough to win over people if we're possibly capturing innocent civilians and torturing them, or we're indiscriminate when bombing them. But obviously, I'm the crazy one.

[Winehole23]

Glad you recognize that.

Today's front page headline in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/10/AR2007121002091.html) informs us that an ex-CIA officer who participated in the interrogation of Abu Zubaida believes that the waterboarding of this terrorist "probably saved lives" but constitutes "torture." The interrogator in question, John Kiriakou, says that Zubaida wouldn't provide any information until he was waterboarded. After 35 seconds of that procedure, he broke down. The Post quotes Kiriakou as saying that, as a result of the information the CIA obtained, "several" planned attacks were disrupted. In fact, Kiriakou told ABC's Nightline (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3978231&page=1) that the information "disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks." Post reporters Dan Eggen and Joby Warrick decided, in other words, to downplay the positive effects of getting Zubaida to talk.

Kiriakou is probably well-positioned to report on the efficacy of the waterboarding of Zubaida and the positive results achieved by virtue of the information the CIA obtained. On the other hand, Kiriakou's view that the technique constitutes torture, which was not his view at the time, seems largely worthless, particularly if one construes it as a legal opinion.

It's understandable that Kiriakou has held conflicting views on whether waterboarding constitutes torture, just as it's understandable that Nancy Pelosi saw nothing objectionable in the procedure when she first was briefed about it. Waterboarding has some elements in common with practices which are universally deemed torture, but lacks other elements. For example, it causes no physical harm; indeed, we subject some of our own servicemen and agents to the procedure. Kiriakou was one of them.

Under these circumstances, a metaphysical discussion of whether waterboarding fits the "torture" category is probably not the best way to decide whether to use the procedure in an exigent case. The more promising approach is to consider the actual practice (not a label) and the level/duration of the distress it inflicts, evaluate its likely efficacy, consider whether less drastic methods will work, and weigh (as best we can) the need for information that the detainee is thought to possess. If Congress objects to this case-by-case approach, it should specifically ban waterboarding.

It's easy to believe that the decision-making process just described would favor the use of waterboarding in at least a few cases, and there’s no indication that we’ve used it more than a few times. Based on Kiriakou's statements, it certainly seems that waterboarding Zubaida was the right call. Those who disagree should explain either (a) how they would have gotten Zubaida to talk or (b) why the lives of innocent people (the ones Kiriakou says were probably saved) should have been put at serious risk to spare this terrorist 35 seconds of extreme duress.

.
Federal authorities arrested a former Central Intelligence Agency officer and charged him with leaking to reporters the identity of agency employees as well as classified information about an interrogation program.

John Kiriakou served 14 years as a CIA officer and later became a commentator who described in a 2007 television interview the use of waterboarding, a technique intended to simulate drowning, in the interrogation of alleged al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah.
A Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., alleges that Mr. Kiriakou was the source of classified information provided to reporters, including the identity of two CIA officers and of an investigative technique used to capture Mr. Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002.



Mr. Kiriakou, 47 years old, is charged with violating the Espionage Act and the Intelligence Identities Protection Act for allegedly disclosing the identity of a covert officer. He also is charged with lying to CIA employees who reviewed a book proposal he wrote, and of lying to FBI agents when questioned about the leaks.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203718504577179070432000002.html?m od=googlenews_wsj

[Winehole23]

accused of similar to Lewis Libby in L'Affaire Plame: outing US intelligence.

[Winehole23]

and lying to investigators.

[Winehole23]

The Rules of American Justice are quite clear:


(1) If you are a high-ranking government official who commits war crimes, you will receive full-scale immunity, both civil and criminal, and will have the American President demand that all citizens Look Forward, Not Backward.


(2) If you are a low-ranking member of the military, you will receive relatively trivial punishments (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9492624/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/england-sentenced-years-prison-abuse/) in order to protect higher-ranking officials and cast the appearance of accountability.


(3) If you are a victim of American war crimes, you are a non-person with no legal rights or even any entitlement to see the inside of a courtroom.


(4) If you talk publicly about any of these war crimes, you have committed the Gravest Crime — you are guilty of espionage – and will have the full weight of the American criminal justice system come crashing down upon you.


So warped but clear are these Rules of American Justice that they produced darkly sardonic applications yesterday. Mazahir Hussain said (https://twitter.com/#%21/MazMHussain/status/161553040950837250): “Bradley Manning should’ve really considered committing some war crimes instead of exposing them.”



Regarding this heinous story (http://www.commondreams.org/further/2012/01/23-2) about a campaign manager of a Democratic House candidate in Arkansas coming home to find his child’s cat murdered with the word “LIBERAL” scrawled on the cat’s corpse, a picture of which made its way to the Internet to highlight how horrible a crime it was, one commenter (https://twitter.com/#%21/mrlv426/status/161590081398906880) applied the Obama mentality as follows: “We should look forward, not back on this cat killing. But perhaps whoever released that photo should be prosecuted.” And about the Kiriakou case, John Cole sarcastically celebrated (http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/01/23/at-long-last-someone-will-face-a-waterboarding-related-prosecution/): “At Long Last, Someone Will Face a Waterboarding Related Prosecution, and then added (http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/01/23/at-long-last-someone-will-face-a-waterboarding-related-prosecution/#comment-3002825): “He’s being prosecuted for blabbing about what happened- not the actual crime itself.”


It’s long past time to rip those blindfolds off of the Lady Justice statues (http://www.google.com.br/imgres?imgurl=http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/184822/184822,1220644278,1/stock-photo-statue-of-lady-justice-17005267.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-17005267/stock-photo-statue-of-lady-justice.html&usg=__F8NYKcNpE04pSGLV-BslpgnCdEg=&h=470&w=300&sz=46&hl=pt-BR&start=1&zoom=1&tbnid=hGmFFooYq2chAM:&tbnh=129&tbnw=82&ei=IIweT8umE5GgtwfAlvQu&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dlady%2Bjustice%2Bstatue%2Bblind%26um% 3D1%26hl%3Dpt-BR%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D667%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1). When the purpose of American justice is to shield those with the greatest power who commit the most egregious crimes, while severely punishing those who talk publicly about those crimes, it’s hard to imagine how it can get much more degraded or corrupted than that.
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/24/rules_of_american_justice_a_tale_of_three_cases/singleton/