Your government's secrecy at risk

[JayB]

What was once fodder for uncritical, categorical denunciation now requires elaborate exercises in ethical spectrophotometry, such are the many hues of grey associated with "rendition" these days.

 

"Oh...well...there's rendition and then there's rendition..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The difference is the rule of law or lack thereof.

 

For some of us, that's a pretty big difference.

 

Yes - I'm sure that a McCain administration's decision to continue the use of renditions under the very same set of guidelines would have elicited the very same response heralding the resurrection of the rule of law and all the rest of it. Please.

 

 

 

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

It's meaningless to speculate about what McCain would have done. He lost.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

What was once fodder for uncritical, categorical denunciation now requires elaborate exercises in ethical spectrophotometry, such are the many hues of grey associated with "rendition" these days.

 

"Oh...well...there's rendition and then there's rendition..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The difference is the rule of law or lack thereof.

 

For some of us, that's a pretty big difference.

 

Yes - I'm sure that a McCain administration's decision to continue the use of renditions under the very same set of guidelines would have elicited the very same response heralding the resurrection of the rule of law and all the rest of it. Please.

 

 

 

 

 

The rationalizations are in full-effect. Par for the course.

[tvashtarkatena]

No rationalizations. I think STP had it right: trust but verify. Obama's executive order requires that the U.S. adhere to the rule of law in the treatment and movement of detainees. Rather than assuming or speculating about his supposed hidden agenda, I'll take him at his word until proven wrong by actual events. That seems like a reasonable approach to me.

[JayB]

No rationalizations. I think STP had it right: trust but verify. Obama's executive order requires that the U.S. adhere to the rule of law in the treatment and movement of detainees. Rather than assuming or speculating about his supposed hidden agenda, I'll take him at his word until proven wrong by actual events. That seems like a reasonable approach to me.

 

Oh come on now, the hombre doth protest too much methinks. You resemble a man who puts principle above politics about as closely as Mike Ditka in a little black dress resembles Audrey Hepburn.

 

To paraphrase Churchill a bit: we both know what you are, we're just quibbling about the label.

[tvashtarkatena]

Judging by your political choices, you strike me as someone who suffers from an inability to accurately judge character, however willing you are to assign the same.

Edited February 5, 2009 by tvashtarkatena

[billcoe]

Oh come on now, the hombre doth protest too much methinks. You resemble a man who puts principle above politics about as closely as Mike Ditka in a little black dress resembles Audrey Hepburn.

 

To paraphrase Churchill a bit: we both know what you are, we're just quibbling about the label.

 

It seems to me to be the right tack which the Obama admin is taking...ie, lets not do this, while leaving some wiggle room for an emergency. I wouldn't want another incident where Shiek Mohammeds computer gets picked up, and instead of saying that the US gov't needs a court order to review the files (like the Janet Reno blame game in this very instance), the password gets immediately forced out of the dickhead foreign combatant and the plans for 9/11 are layed bare and over 3,000 innocent lives get spared. There's lots of potential for those kinds of incidents and scenarios in the future: so why be dumb and totally ban something which should not be routinely utilized (like it has been), but which should be kept as a very rare backup in extra-ordinary and ulta-extreme highly-critical emergency situations?

 

Say something like this scenario: you know a nuclear weapon has been smuggled into the city which you are living in, and you have captured one of the asswipes responsible and dude isn't talkin'? Are you going to keep saying "please tell us" and just let 2 million innocents die or do you man up and spin the crank ?

[billcoe]

...And the correct answer Alex is "crank".

[Dechristo]

Crank caused me to be frenetic and aggro. I don't do it anymore.

[rob]

It seems to me to be the right tack which the Obama admin is taking...ie, lets not do this, while leaving some wiggle room for an emergency. I wouldn't want another incident where Shiek Mohammeds computer gets picked up, and instead of saying that the US gov't needs a court order to review the files (like the Janet Reno decision in this very instance), the password gets immediately forced out of the dickhead foreign combatant and the plans for 9/11 are layed bare and over 3,000 innocent lives get spared. There's lots of potential for those kinds of incidents and scenarios in the future: so why be dumb and totally ban something which should not be routinely utilized (like it has been), but which should be kept as a very rare backup in extra-ordinary and ulta-extreme highly-critical emergency situations?

 

Say something like this scenario: you know a nuclear weapon has been smuggled into the city which you are living in, and you have captured one of the asswipes responsible and dude isn't talkin'? Are you going to keep saying "please tell us" and just let 2 million innocents die or do you man up and spin the crank ?

 

Torture is notorious for false information. That's why civilized nations no longer rely on it. How would you know he's giving you the right location? Keep torturing him until it's found? How do you know when somebody is planning a 9/11 attack on their computer? Just torture everyone and be safe? Besides, if you have to torture someone to get their password, then you need to hire better computer experts.

[rob]

Tell me, bill, since you seem to support torture in some cases: what form of torture do you prefer? Thumbscrews? Genital shocks? I'm curious what form you think the U.S. should adopt.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Tell me, bill, since you seem to support torture in some cases: what form of torture do you prefer? Thumbscrews? Genital shocks? I'm curious what form you think the U.S. should adopt.

 

they should have to read Kevboner's postings on cc.com until they spill their guts.

[kevbone]

 

Say something like this scenario: you know a nuclear weapon has been smuggled into the city which you are living in, and you have captured one of the asswipes responsible and dude isn't talkin'? Are you going to keep saying "please tell us" and just let 2 million innocents die or do you man up and spin the crank ?

 

 

I understand the fear here Bill.....but....the minute we live in a society without rules…..we become them. We become what we hate the most. We have to strive to transcend into a new level of morality. IMO everyone gets treated like you would want to be treated. Everyone…..no matter who you are or what you did. In America….you have rights. Torture does not work. It lowers us to the scum of the earth. Bush has made the US even less safe with his cowboy antics.

[tvashtarkatena]

Oh come on now, the hombre doth protest too much methinks. You resemble a man who puts principle above politics about as closely as Mike Ditka in a little black dress resembles Audrey Hepburn.

 

To paraphrase Churchill a bit: we both know what you are, we're just quibbling about the label.

 

It seems to me to be the right tack which the Obama admin is taking...ie, lets not do this, while leaving some wiggle room for an emergency. I wouldn't want another incident where Shiek Mohammeds computer gets picked up, and instead of saying that the US gov't needs a court order to review the files (like the Janet Reno decision in this very instance), the password gets immediately forced out of the dickhead foreign combatant and the plans for 9/11 are layed bare and over 3,000 innocent lives get spared. There's lots of potential for those kinds of incidents and scenarios in the future: so why be dumb and totally ban something which should not be routinely utilized (like it has been), but which should be kept as a very rare backup in extra-ordinary and ulta-extreme highly-critical emergency situations?

 

Say something like this scenario: you know a nuclear weapon has been smuggled into the city which you are living in, and you have captured one of the asswipes responsible and dude isn't talkin'? Are you going to keep saying "please tell us" and just let 2 million innocents die or do you man up and spin the crank ?

 

Congratulations. You've just parroted the most well worn myth in the torture business: the "24" scenario. It's never happened.

 

Stepping away from TV miniseries drama and into a real example, 911 didn't happen because we couldn't get information. Rather, by the administration's own account, we had too much information on the hijackers and neither enough arab translators nor interagency coordination to put the pieces together prior to the attack.

 

To address another point: the Janet Reno style bureacrat standing in the way of our HEROES! . Bullshit since the passage of FISA in the late 70's: which gave the government all the statutory authority to monitor foriegn terrorist organizations in an unencumbered fashion. FISA courts can operate 24/7; FISA warrants can be issued in a matter of hours. They are virtually never denied. On the flip side, such checks and balanced provide a monitoring point for the kind of massive surveillance abuses committed by the Bush Administration...at least until the Press uncovered it.

[Fairweather]

Tell me, bill, since you seem to support torture in some cases: what form of torture do you prefer? Thumbscrews? Genital shocks? I'm curious what form you think the U.S. should adopt.

 

There are things a man values more than his own life and physical comfort. I'm just saying...

[billcoe]

Rob, for the last 8 years stronger legal minds that us have looked at these issues and declared them to NOT be torture. Take it up with them. For myself, Rob, I like the idea of not using any of that shit, but yet having that available, in ultra-rare emergency's only like the Obama admin appears to be wisely trying to head LIKE I ALREADY SAID.

 

This is the story I was referring to Trash. Whether they could have gotten and leveraged the info out of the hard drive to obtain more info that could have stopped the plane hijackings is open for a long debate. I was only using it for an example, certainly the law enforcement types are claiming they HAVE stopped actual terrorist attracts and good intel from lots of sources is one reason. Some say yes, they could have stopped the hijackings. I can't say. Certainly law enforcement was calling Zacarias Moussaoui "the 20th hijacker" back then, and had your buddy Jack Bauer been involved, I'm sure he would have kicked ass.

 

Link to 9/11 Hijacker story

 

The full story, which I believe to be acurate, is this:

"Reno Reprimand Prompted FBI's Caution on Moussaoui

 

 

Posted on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 9:22:30 AM by kattracks

 

Misleading FBI affidavits submitted during the Clinton administration to a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court resulted in the court's sharp reprimand of Attorney General Janet Reno, in an episode that likely contributed to the FBI's later reluctance to approve a search warrant application for the laptop computer of "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui.

 

In the fall of 2000, the seven judges on the surveillance court ordered Reno to appear in their secure courtroom, the New York Times reported Monday.

 

"The judges, in a letter signed by Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth, had complained to her of a serious breach. Misleading affidavits had been submitted to the court, which approves warrants to eavesdrop on people suspected of being foreign agents or international terrorists."

 

Attorney General Reno acknowledged to the judges that the problem was "serious," the Times said.

 

The problem affidavits had been prepared by Michael Resnick, who is described by the paper as the F.B.I. supervisor in charge of coordinating the surveillance operations related to Hamas.

 

Resnick's track record with affidavits in terrorism cases was so bad that the court told Reno it would no longer accept applications for search warrants and other surveillance requests that he prepared.

 

The court's reprimand in the Hamas cases prompted then-FBI Director Louie Freeh to review surveillance applications for various al Qaeda suspects, where he uncovered similar problems.

 

As a result of the affidavit problem, Reno turned Resnick's case over to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, short-circuiting his career at the FBI, where he had previously been described as a "rising star."

 

The episode prompted the bureau to adopt a "play-it-safe" approach when it came to seeking information on terrorists like Moussaoui, according to intelligence sources interviewed by the Times.

 

In a 13 page letter delivered last Tuesday to FBI Director Mueller and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Minneapolis agent Coleen Rowley complained that a midlevel manager at FBI headquarters in Washington blocked her office's attempts to secure the Moussaoui search warrant.

 

"She said that the headquarters supervisory agent had perceived that pressing the application for the warrant was an unnecessary career risk," the Times reported, drawing a parallel with the Resnick case.

 

While Rowley has not specifically named the person who she says blocked the Moussaoui warrant, Senators Pat Leahy, D-Vt., Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., have identified David Frasca as in bureau official responsible. "

[j_b]

I was only using it for an example, certainly the law enforcement types are claiming they HAVE stopped actual terrorist attracts and good intel from lots of sources is one reason. Some say yes, they could have stopped the hijackings. I can't say. Certainly law enforcement was calling Zacarias Moussaoui "the 20th hijacker" back then, and had your buddy Jack Bauer been involved, I'm sure he would have kicked ass.

 

Per usual, no link to substantiate your ravings. Is it the moment I am supposed to say that others should ignore you? just asking.

 

and when you provide a link, of course it's out of wingnut central.

[j_b]

Smart political moves by Obama. It's important to understand the value of appearances.

 

Are you saying there is no difference besides appearances between legalizing torture and doing it on the sly? I think you'll find there is a world of difference in term of what the former does to democracy, even if doing it on the sly is still immoral and wrong.

[STP]

Torture is notorious for false information. That's why civilized nations no longer rely on it.

 

Reliable? First, you'd have to make a distinction between physical torture and psychological torture. Psychological techniques including sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, and sensory overload have been shown to lead to loss of resistance of will and eventually to the breakdown of self.

 

Then, you'd have to look at the desired effect. For instance, if the function was to elicit outside response resulting in outrage among the Muslim community and motivation to avenge what they perceive as injustice, then perhaps it hit its mark, the justification and perpetuation of war.

 

Maybe the prisons were actually pilot studies with live experimentation in a real world environment apart from the clinical setting where the Nuremberg Code governs ethical medical behavior. Seems like a perverse way to accelerate knowledge but nevertheless effective.

 

Third possibility: There is no systematic program of torture, that 'bad apples' spoiled [the image of] the bunch.

 

 

[JosephH]

...for the last 8 years stronger legal minds that us have looked at these issues and declared them to NOT be torture.

Bill, let's at least be clear on the record and history of this issue. The history of the issue is that Rumsfeld and Cheney wanted 'extrordinary' rendition and torture by both outsourced and American personnel (CIA and it's contractors). CIA personnel were reluctant and pushed back wanting some form of legal cover, albeit after they started and realized how deep they had gotten themselves in the process. The Bush administration, after ignoring them and pushing back, reluctantly set about manufacturing a "legal" basis for those 'activities'. The task of penning what are now known as the 'torture memos' fell to an eager Jay Bybee and John Yoo.

 

As a backgrounder to the torture memos, though, you have to understand Cheney, Rumsfeld, Roberts, Alito, Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, and a whole cadre of other Bushies grew-up in their youths in the Nixon and Reagan administrations - all thinking both presidents (and they themselves) got a raw deal relative to the impeachment and Iran-Contra trials. That, and they were solidifying a 'neoconservative' identity and agenda at the time that would only ever be actualized in whole rather than piecemeal. The solution to both the previous slights to the Executive, and how to implement the neocon agenda, was for them to collectively and rigorously advocate for a strong, if not imperial, Executive. We know they found the vehicle to realize all their dreams in a Bush candidacy.

 

The torture memos did, however, dovetail nicely with their overall neocon legal strategy and effort to 'bulk up' Executive and U.S. power once they got in office - even if some viewed them as bringing more light to their efforts than desired, and serving as a distraction to greater goals. In particular, they worked well within, and as an expression of, efforts under way to claim the Executive had the right (some would say the responsibility to) abrogate U.S. treaty obligations because international treaties in general were viewed as usurping the [god-given, natural] authority derived from, and due to, the U.S. as a / THE superpower (especially even the whiff of a 'World Court'). War, torture, rendition, gitmo, suspending habeas, wiretaps, treaties, etc. - all expressions of a 'righteous' and proper exercise of Executive power.

 

Bottom line - there was and is zero real legal basis for the Bush adminstration's use of extrordinary rendition and torture - it was a tail-wagging-the-dog exercise. The only possible way legal cover for them can exist is in the context of the overall view of an 'imperial' Executive prevailing. But so far even Bush's right-leaning, activist-loaded SCOTUS doesn't quite have the stomach for much of that view of the Executive. That, and they intended for such power to be wielded by a "permanent Republican majority". Much of what you see happening with Obama, other than Chicago pragmatism (a city that's no stranger to rendition and torture), is the unwillingness of the Executive to yield new powers. It's in some ways to be expected from Obama and his [Clintonian] crew (who also feel slighted), but am in no way happy about it...

[STP]

I don't know if I buy the issue that the Bush administration was an aberration, neoconservative or otherwise.

 

If 911 hadn't happened then the actions of the Bush administration could possibly have centered around some semi-privatization scheme for Social Security on the domestic front. With regard to foreign policy we may have seen the evolution of Cold War policy structure in such things as the withdrawal from the ABM treaty. But we perhaps would have seen none or few of the changes initiated after 911.

 

Would a Gore administration have acted much differently after 911? BTW, methods such as 'extraordinary rendition' were practiced as early as 1995 during the Clinton administration. So, you can see the trajectory beginning before Bush came to power.

 

Regarding things such as 'torture' etc., I'd venture to say that these things existed prior to Bush and at least as far back as the 60's and 70's when the Democrats controlled Congress. Perhaps it's just a matter of scale and scope after 911.

 

So what I'm saying is that Bush is sort of a fall guy for methods that I'd postulate would have just as well occurred under a Democratic administration given the necessity of responding to 911.

 

You gotta ask yourself also why there weren't investigations leading to impeachment or other actions meant to censure the Bush administration (with the lone exception of the Scooter Libby case). And, why won't there be any 'war crimes' investigation or other legal actions surrounding warrantless surveillance or torture?

 

...Because Democrats are complicit in authorizing and sanctioning these actions...

[JosephH]

STP, if you go read any number of the policy letters like this or this at the neocon's website 'Project for the New American Century' (note that's a 'the' and not an 'a' in the title) and check the various signatories, you'll see that is explicitly not the case. 9/11 just gave them the pretext and cover they needed to initiate an attack Iraq they already had in mind. And prior to 9/11 the Bush administration was having numerous internal debates on how the could just attack Iraq. Also, the DoD was actively planning for an invasion of Iraq well before 9/11.

[JosephH]

Also, with regard to torture - Rumsfeld and Cheney explicitly shopped for, designed, and built the capability and policy up from, North Korean torture techniques as persisted in our military in the form of SERE training. This was not in any way some innate, lingering capability we used all the time - this was a deliberate and far-ranging policy, methods, and infrastructure play - extrodinary rendition, jet leases, 'interrogation' subcontractors (including Syria and Egypt), gitmo, Abu Ghraib, CIA and DoD policy and protocols, and reasoned treaty abrogations. All part of the plan. The only part they skipped in their planning (what's new) was producing a 'legal' basis for their actions, glibly decrying none was necessary as it all fell under Executive perogative and priviledge.

 

You can tie this behavior directly back to the Nixonian belief that "if the President does it, it isn't illegal" - a belief held far more widely than just by Nixon himself. Post 9/11, Gore, like Obama is now, would have built a vetted legal and Constitutional basis for the use of any extrordinary methods which in turn would need to be authorized on a case-by-case basis by him personally. The entire fabric of any such protocols should have been, and will be, reviewed and vetted by the Congress and SCOTUS and not simply cloaked behind a veil of Executive priviledge.

[kevbone]

STP, if you go read any number of the policy letters like this or this at the neocon's website 'Project for the New American Century' (note that's a 'the' and not an 'a' in the title) and check the various signatories, you'll see that is explicitly not the case. 9/11 just gave them the pretext and cover they needed to initiate an attack Iraq they already had in mind. And prior to 9/11 the Bush administration was having numerous internal debates on how the could just attack Iraq. Also, the DoD was actively planning for an invasion of Iraq well before 9/11.

 

 

I will take it a step further......9/11 was an inside job. All just to invade Iraq. Why? Money.

[rob]

I will take it a step further......9/11 was an inside job. All just to invade Iraq. Why? Money.

 

So, 9/11 was planned by the U.S. government, not by bin laden? Weird! We should just stop looking for him, then. Terrorists are not a threat afterall!

 

Phew. I don't know about you, but that's a huge load off.