What next, you gonna figure out oif Kennedy killed Mary Jo...

Get over it, ancient histry and if anything you better work on proping up Obama, because he is really sucking right now...

such a black period of our history, St. Croix, so you will have give Lisa a little leeway here. Didn't you think it was kind of strange the way CNBC sent her to Egypt for one day and then pulled her out to safe Saudia Arabia? Even Mark Haines asked her -"what are you doing in Saudia Arabia"?

Someone lost their nerve.

     As to your point about the military, my guess is they had little to do with extraordinary rendition. This is secret police stuff and they may be just as happy to see Sulieman and his cronies exposed.

      And in fact exposure and condemnation is precisely what they need to do to keep the money rolling in and those tourists visiting the pyramids. Check out the Egyptian ETF yesterday.

I predict that in about six months you will be reading about extraordinary rendition in the mainstream press.

You have no idea what they did but because the victims were guys with names like Mohammed and Abdullah, you just want to move forward right?

This is torture by proxy, plain and simple.

and the cases of Khalid El-Masri and Maher Arar, where the practice of extraordinary rendition was applied by mistake to innocent civilians. Even the CIA is investigating these cases.

      You okay with "erroneous rendition" as well?

     And as to "I  flat out don't give two shits about what happens to terrorists," look up the word "suspected" for me.

whose names will be in Sulieman's records are the ones who will sweat this out.

    Plus I would love to see George Tenet go down who had the audacity to write a book about how we don't torture.

which is a legal transfer to another jurisdiction and "extraordinary rendition" which is illegal.

    As far as I know, Clinton and Obama only engaged in rendition. Obama supposedly stopped Bush's extraordinary rendition program.

rendition with limitations that he believed made it legal. In interviews, Clinton has always insisted that each rendition was in accord with his directive. I've seen no proof otherwise.

From the ACLU webpage:


The current policy traces its roots to the administration of former President Bill Clinton. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, however, what had been a limited program expanded dramatically, with some experts estimating that 150 foreign nationals have been victims of rendition in the last few years alone. Foreign nationals suspected of terrorism have been transported to detention and interrogation facilities in Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Diego Garcia, Afghanistan, Guantánamo, and elsewhere. In the words of former CIA agent Robert Baer: "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear -- never to see them again -- you send them to Egypt."

on people, so that's not the best analogy.

    I know that you still are in denial as to whether waterboarding is torture but what they did in Egypt meets even John Yoo's definition.
Plus a lot these guys were never heard from again so they were presumably killed.

      And, as usual, you skip over the "suspected" terrorist part- we pretty knew that the Nazis had done, didn't we? The release of nearly 65% of the Gitmo detainees in habeas corpus proceedings should tell you that the case officers had a poor record in identifying who really was a terrorist.

"Finally, American "torture" is mild compared to Arab prisons.  Every American who water boarded a prisoner had it done to him. No permanant damage.  Unlike people like Saddam, we didn't cut off ears, gouge out eyes, smash knee caps, or other stuff.  

If you can't see the difference between water boarding which leaves no permanant injury and enucleation with a plastic spoon, I just do not know what to say.  I think the comparison is beyond silly."


      But hey I will be the first to apologize if you will come out and say - "yes, waterboarding as we did to KSM and other main suspects was torture."


     Given your many posts on the subject where you avoid making such a statement, I think my post that "you are still in denial as to whether waterboarding is torture"  was a fair statement of your expressed position.

source of information or opinion on this topic. Like I said, she is an Associate Professor in Sociology @ UCSB. Anybody who graduates with PhD, and stays in academia to teach starts an an Associate Professor. She is probably a Berkeley or Santa Cruz reject (lol). I just don't think she is very credible.  

What does Erin Burnett have to do with this topic? She is a business journalist. Her job was to report on the demonstrations as it relates to the price of oil, potential economic impact to a possible Suez closure, commodity inflation prices, and yes the Egyptian ETF. What's next? You going to criticize Meredith Whitney, because she ain't commenting on what's going on in Egypt?

I get it! You don't like Bush or the CIA. Every President, and every country has skeletons. We don't live in a perfect world. I'm just saying this info won't be released because it's not in the Egyptians best interests, including the military and the secular population.

Six months? Let's circle back on August 12, 2011. Send a few articles from the mainstream press. Not only exclude MSNBC and Fox, but also Democracy Now, and hippie looking Associate Professors chicks masquerading as experts. She is giving the girls of UCSB a bad rap.

Look at you. You have a serious problem. Assume arguendo?


"IN FACT, the entire thrust of my post could be read to assume, arguendo, that if Bush authorized tortured..."

      There is nothing to "assume arguendo." He authorized the waterboarding of KSM and others. That is torture by the CIA. Even President Obama has acknowledged this.

     Bush either authorized or tacitly permitted extraordinary rendition - that is torture by proxy.

     Whether be belongs in the same class as Churchill, FDR, Attilla the Hun, and other great torturers of history was not the subject of my post.

     If your point is that Bush is not the greatest torturer in history, hey, I'll concede that point.

Congratulations on a winning argument. Yes, the world has seen worse...

but she seemed to have studied all the available info so I chose her for the link. But I will defer to your greater knowledge about the lady. I will say her statements are largely corroborated by other commentators I have read.

    And, no, I do not dislike Bush, or the CIA per se. But I abhor it when they break the law and lie to the American public.

       Just remember these words -"extraordinary rendition." If I'm right and the fall of Mubarik exposes what really happened to 150 or so suspects who are believed to have been sent to Egypt, you'll be hearing a lot more about this in coming months.

     Next time, I may post about California's plan to use extraordinary rendition on poor Roman Polanski.

can be credited with exposing a lot of the most recent information showing that the US knew what was happening when detainees were sent to Egypt.

      Those diplomatic cables he revealed showed that the Ambassador to Egypt was quite aware of the brutality of the secret police.

There was at least one place in Central England where captured Nazis were questioned.  My understanding is that they were not brought in after dinner, served brandy, and asked, "I say, Old Bean. So this war stuff.  Brutal, no? Pip, pip.   Not quiet sticky wicket.  Do you know anything about those tanks on the coast?  No?  Tut, tut.  Well, do your boys like that French cooking in Paris?  Too much garlic for my taste.  And try and find a decent pint in Dijon.  Cherio Old Bean."

Of course, not one capture Kraut ever had rough treatment under a Yank.

In NYC, 3,000 people had just been blasted to shreads small enough to pass through a button hole.  The intelligence from every source in the world indicated that thousands had passed through terrorist training camps in the region.  There were captured documents re all sorts of terrible plots and weapons.
The thousands that graduated the camps were hooked up to millions of dollars.  And no one knew where they were.

There was one person arrested in Long Beach with a perfectly forged French passport.  He was a Moroccan who came to the US via various cities in Europe that were associated with radical Islam.

It is pretty well established that KSM did reveal info that may have disrupted plans.
Yeah, a lot of shit happens.  No. I don't want it to happen to U.S troops who are captured.

But if I am judging the president -including the current on - and there was the chance of a another 9-11, I will judge lightly.

Final word. If it hasn't happened, and we don't know, if Obama ever gets a high priority captive with a high likelihood of another immediate 9-11, he will call the White House Supply Room and ask, "Do we still have that table they used to use."

He will not want to lose Detroit and have people find out two months later that they had a suspect.

I take that back. He may be willing to lose Detroit, but not Chicago.

not illegal when FDR did what you describe as the same stuff.

I can't comment on Churchill - don't know English law.

       Following the Nuremberg trials which I believe for the first time imposed international criminal sanctions on individuals who had committed war crimes, Congress gradually added laws to limit what the Executive could do in prosecuting wars. The war crime statute itself I believe was not enacted until 1996.

    So your attempt to justify extraordinary rendition by Bush by saying it puts him in the same class with FDR is a great point, except it ignores the difference between legal conduct and illegal conduct, a surprising omission for a self-professed criminal defense attorney.

Right.  And the broader point here is that, not only were innocent, non-terrorists tortured, they admitted to false information just to stop the torture.  That false info was then used to justify a war based on these and other lies.  This is the central problem with torture: it doesn't work because it doesn't deliver reliable information.  The best interrogators have laughed at these methods for precisely this reason.  As a moral issue, I don't like torture to begin with.  But my biggest problem with it isn't moral; it just doesn't work.  
Still, some people don't like to be confused with the facts.

Re: Clinton signed a presidential order authorizing a blind eye EOM

-- Modified on 2/12/2011 7:31:52 AM

I didn't say in this post that water boarding isn't torture, but just attribute that to me if it makes your argument easier.  If you make up what I didn't say, it is pretty easy to refute it.

Indeed, whether it is torture is irrelevant to my point. In fact, my point impliedly recognizes that it is, since I am saying Churchilll also tortured.

After making up something I didn't say, you didn't address what I did say. When faced with perceived danger, Churchill and FDR tortured.

We knew what the Nazis had done, at least partly, but that wasn't the reason Churchill tortured.  The reason they authorized it was to see what the Nazis might be doing in the future. Likewise, we knew what they had done on 9-11,but that was not why it was authorized.  It was authorized to see what might be done in the future, so as to prevent it.

And again, you ignore my main point, since that makes it easier for you to refute what I didn't say.  Every intelligence source in the world indicated that it was very likely that there were thousands of people who had passed through training camps and were scattered around the world with money, knowledge, and ability to do it again.
If you are the president and that is the state of your knowledge, and you capture the No. 2 person, what do you do?

subjective view of right and wrong.

     That was not the subject of my post which addressed the legal peril I would hope Bush admin officials find themselves if the Sulieman rendition files show specific officials had actual knowledge that Egypt was torturing and killing suspects.

      The problem with your subjective view, however, is that it justifies ANY conduct if the President reasonably believes it might prevent the next 9/11.

     You probably do not realize this but you have effectively adopted the view of John Yoo, who says that no law prohibits the president from squeezing the testicles of a terrorist's child if he does so in the interests of national security.

     So you are certainly not alone in your view, but it is not company I would care to keep.

BTW, waterboarding wasn't invented yesterday.  In fact, the Japanese used it during WWII against Americans.  And, guess what?  We used it as a basis for prosecuting them for war crimes.  Can you spell "hypocrisy?"

I did not mention it or anything like it in my first post in this thread, but you start out with " I know that you still are in denial as to whether waterboarding is torture but...."

I wasn't talking about it now. So I wasn't still in denial, and it had nothing to do with what I was talking about now.

IN FACT, the entire thrust of my post could be read to assume, arguendo, that if Bush authorized tortured, it puts him in the class with Churchill, who also authorized torture.  (Come on. Tell the truth. didn't you like my monologue.  I hope the people who were upset about Rush's Chinese didn't read it.)

In any event, I am greatly pleased that you remember my past posts so well.  

However, although you changed the subject by going there, you never got to what I had been saying, that even if it is true, it is not a huge difference from those we idolize, even if they some cigars and cause second hand smoke.

Likewise, in your infatuation with my brilliant posts of the past, you didn't address the second point.  that if the there is a serious danger of it happening again, Obama will be on the phone to Cheney to ask, "How many pints do you suggest?"

Now,  for the second time, I have clearly said what I am talking about.  You can address the point I was making, that even if there was torture, it puts him in the class of Churchill, or you can go back and point out that 6 months ago I was opposed to Obama Care and I questioned Global Warming.  

Assume arguendo is, okay, assuming for the sake of argument.  that is perfectly proper when that is not the topic I am talking about.  

I don't mention it, you bring it up.  "Assume arguendo" is the way to just skip over it.  I ain't getting dragged in now because that was played out.  Assuming that's the case, my point is X.

I am not talking about it, so I am not still in a state of anything, except boredom and California.

Okay, he authorized. he tortured. he cut off balls and jammed them down people's throats.  Now my point is THAT PUTS HIM IN THE CHURCHILL CLASS.  When shit happens, leaders may had to do shit. For the third time, it there is credible evidence that Obama's donor base in SF is going to get his with a dirty bomb, Obama, Pelosi, Reed, and Michael Moore will be saying, "A drop more won't hurt."

You can be as morally upset as you want to fake it.  Dirty Harry inspires more people than he revolts, and I consider Dirty Harry to be quiet the guy. Yup. That says a lot about me.

It isn't the subject of your post, but it was the subject of mine.  If you didn't want to respond to the subject of mine, there was no need to change the subject, then say I am in denial when I try to get it back to the subject I raised.

I didn't say he was the greatest. I didn't say he was not the greatest.  Make up stuff and its so, so, so easy to make the other side look silly.

My point didn't depend on his ranking, but where it puts him in the overall scheme of leaders.  

Now, you can avoid it again and again.  Make up more stuff I am not saying, and that's fine.  I have played this enough.

For the last time, "puts him in the class with Churchill and FDR.  Make of it what you want.

Adios.

PS. If Charlieis reading, there is no god.

For the record, Lisa Hajjar, while not a bad person, is of Arab descent and has always had a strong point of view.  She may be a useful source of information and opinion, but she is far from being an objective news source.

You are right. What Churchill and FDR did may not have been legal. I say "may" because I don't know, and as you will see, I don't care.  (I do think it was always illegal for the police to beat up a suspect, and I don't think the executive could over ride laws on assault and battery, so I am not sure if your analysis really holds.  However, I will accept it for the sake of discussion.)

Many times in judging both presidents and people, I am less concerned with legality, and more concerned with right and wrong.  This is not to say that people shouldn't pay the legal price for illegal action.  But apart from that, I am more concerned with good and bad.

Torture was wrong, but not illegal, in the Inquisition, which why that period is an intersting subject.
Torture was wrong, but probably not illegal in the concentartion camps.  
Whipping a slave in the south in 1850, until blood ran down his back was not illegal. But it was wrong.

On the other hand, a mercy killing may be illegal, but it may not be "wrong." There are a thousand other times when the law may be broken and it is not "wrong."

I have to judge Bush and Obama in this area in what is right.  I know the pres has to "follow the law," but that may not be "right."  It is a chance that every actor takes.

If someday Denver is hit and 300,000 people die, if it turn out the President at the time, who ever that may be, could have stopped it through an illegal act of any kind, from wire tapping to tapping the balls of a terrorist with an iron mallet, I will not judge him on how he followed the law.  I will judge him on how he reacted to a percieved emergency.

Now, it is nice in hindsight to say it did or didn't happen and the second 9-11 never happened and the wrong terrorist was water boarded.  But these days, and for the next 20 years, the president will not have the luxury of hind sight.  

He will have to evaluate a threat on what he nows then, and act on that, including HE HAD TO ACT on what he does not know
.
(Ironically, the left accuses the right of simplistic thinking and not seeing the shades between black and white.  To judge on the basis of legality is far more simpistic than having to look at all the factors and determine reasonableness.  In every discussion I have had on this subject, I don't think the other side was willing to say, "Yeah. Lot of shit happening then. Don't know what I would have done in those circumstance."  It is always the simplistic, "it was illegal."

With what Bush knew then, and I will not repeat it again, he was between Iraq and a hard place.

Now, will you please admit that the last pun was pretty good.

My view would not justify "any" conduct of Bush after 9-11. If he had done an FDR and rounded up all Moslems and anyone who lived in the Middle East, it would have been wrong.  If he said that every copy of the Koran should be burnt, it would have been wrong. If he had nuked Mecca, that would have been wrong.

I think that REASOSONABLE actions in light on a unique national emergency of unkown proportion and unknown danger might justify derivation from the norn.  Can't you agree to even that?

3,000 people blasted to hell in our biggest city, and you want to confine him to the legalities of the day before?????
Sorry, I want the pres to have a little more flexibility for a few months.

But if he captured the No. 2 al Quaeda baddie and poured water over his face, well, no tears here.

And you make up stuff again. I do not think that Yoo ever said that he could torture the children of suspected terrorists.  If that was Yoo's opinion, I would like to see a reference.  If you have one, I will say that is wrong.  Again, I think you are making up stuff to bolster your argument.

But feelings are mutual:  If you think Bush had to act strictly within the law to protect the US agaisnt unknown dangers, that is not a company I would care to keep.

Finally, didn't you at least like my comment that Bush was between Iraq and a hard place. I thought it was very good.

saying precisely that in response to an interviewer's question?

No Phil that was John Yoo and he said it.
Or at least he says it depends on why the president wants to do that and, in the memo itself, he explains it has to be a serious matter of national security.


    Well, you can go to the source if you want. The statement was plucked by the interviewer from Yoo's memo to Bush.

    As to your post about "Iraq and a hard place," very witty except that it's not original - I've some a number of variations of that one.

That’s right, a warrant to torture. In cases of the most extreme national emergency, the Atty General should be required to petition a special court – let’s just use the FISA court since they don’t have that much to do –  and make a prima facie showing of great and immediate need, that clear and convincing evidence shows the suspect actually has the information, and that there is no other source from which the info can be obtained.

     The warrant issued would authorize torture under medical supervision and in the presence of the suspect's attorney for a limited time solely to procure this info, and would probably specify what could and could not be done.

    Compare that to what the Bush administration did. They took these guys in secrecy and went on a fishing expedition. They had no particular basis to believe the guys had “ticking bomb” info. They just wanted to see if there were any other plans like 9/11, so not surprisingly some of the guys said there were to stop the torture.

      No fishing expeditions Phil; no torture in secrecy; no “it’s up to the CIA" to decide.

  This approach best preserves the national interest and the rights of the suspect.

I do have some idea...

AND I SUPPORT IT!!!

I THINK WATERBOARDING IS A BEAUTIFUL THING!!!!

As liberals are so fond of saying, there was no declaration of war, therefore there are no geneva convention rights afforded to these guys. They fight for no recognized army. What they do do is kill as many innocent civilains as they can, why, because they do not cow tow to Islam.

I say FUCK EM'. They are getting what they deserve, and short of scaring the shit out of them, what does waterboarding REALLY DO? Explain that one to me?

It's already been proven we have gotten credible innformation WHICH HAS SAVED LIVES by uising these methods.

BTW, Obama been POTUS for two years and the last I checked, GITMO is still in business. Funny how the liberals aren't crying about that anymore. Talk about giving someone a pass!!!



-- Modified on 2/13/2011 5:06:48 AM

He said, "no law."  

I have to admit, I haven't researched the law to determine what the presdient can do in extreme national emergency.  So I don't knowif he was right or wrong by saying "no law."  In fact, I would say there is no correct answer.

The concept of justification as a defense is pretty well established.  Admittedly, it has never been used to excuse murder and torture.  It is always to prevent the greater evil. But it has never been used to justify saving the lives of 100,000 people.  If my client had very good evidence of the death of that many people, I would not feel bad arguing that defense.

As I indicated, I don't care that much about the law.  

But in the area of right and wrong, I am appointing you president, and I have a question. What would you do in the "ticking bomb situation?"  I know you don't think we have had one, although there may be degrees.  However, I think the president has to be prepared for every possibility, and accepting the fact that it is possible, what what you do if you honestly believed 100,000 people were in real and iminent danger.

(For the sake of saving time, you explored all options, asked are you sure., etc. Now it is you know it exists, you can stop it, what do you do?

My ultimate point is good people can differ.

You should have deployed some "ass facts" to support your position.LOL

The nazi's did that kind of thing!

Bark

At least you agree that it can be done.  It seems we only disagree on the procedure. And our disagreement may not even be that far apart. You say the AG "should" be required to petition a court.  Yes, I will agree with you there.  He should.

But I don't know if that provision exists now or then.  (I am not being coy, but does that procedure exist.  I don't know because I do enough legal research without letting it bleed into non-work.)

Finally, we don't know what they were looking for, what they suspected at the time, what they prevented, what they didn't prevent.  

Years later, it is easy to make judgments.  When the towers were fresh in the memory of the people who were charged with preventing it a second time, I am hesitant to make judgements in light of the little that we (you and I) knew at the time and what we don't know now.