CHENEY'S FALSE ASSERTIONS ON "ENHANCED METHODS" OF INTERROGATION

Dick Cheney in his speech yesterday claimed that his "enhanced interrogations" were "legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do." This statement is false in each of its parts. Thanks to Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel of McClatchy for their article on Cheney's misstatements.

Each one of Cheney's characterizations of his methods - throwing people against the wall, waterboarding them, stuffing them in small boxes, and otherwise subjecting them to cruel and inhuman treatment - is wrong and false.

First. These techniques were not "legal," notwithstanding legal blessing opinions from Cheney's lawyers who tried to give a veneer of legality to practices clearly illegal and against human rights and dignity. No one can ever justify waterboarding as "legal." It was torture back 600 years ago when churchmen did it to suspected heretics and witches, and it is the same today.

Cheney says his methods were "essential." To what? No professional interrogator relies on torture to elicit information. Why? Because the person being tortured will tell anything his interrogator wants. To prove this point, let's subject Dick Cheney or even Liz Cheney to 60 seconds of waterboarding. Tell them we know they were complicit with Osama bin Laden. We want them to tell all they know. I am sure they will confess everything and then some.

Cheney says his methods were "justified." In other words, waterboarding was the appropriate response to these victims. Remember the Inquisition's leaders believed their waterboarding of people suspected in consort with the devil was also "justified." Looking back over the centuries, nothing ever could "justify" torture.

Cheney says waterboarding was "successful." There has been no evidence to date that Cheney's dark methods produced any information that was not known or discovered beforehand. And officials from the FBI and National Intelligence Agency have refused to say that waterboarding or slamming prisoners into walls produced anything of value.

No, Dick Cheney, your methods of torture were not "the right thing to do." They were wrong, they were illegal, they were torture.

OBAMA SHOULD ORDER COMPLETE INVESTIGATION OF TORTURE, SECRET PRISONS, STATE SECRETS

Eugene Robinson writes in The Washington Post about the crimes that deserve punishment.

Robinson writes:

"Who are the "health personnel" who monitored the suffocation sessions and the "stress position" tortures, at times suggesting a pause or a resumption of the agony? Who are the CIA torturers? Who are the Air Force officers at Bagram who might have disapproved of what the CIA was doing but took no steps to stop it?

"I have believed all along that we urgently need to conduct a thorough investigation into the Bush administration's moral and legal transgressions. Now I am convinced that some kind of "truth commission" process isn't enough. Torture -- even the torture of evil men -- is a crime. It deserves not just to be known, but to be punished.

"From George W. Bush on down, individuals decided to sanction, commit and tolerate the practice of torture. They took pains to paper this vile enterprise with rationalizations and justifications, but they knew it was wrong. So do we."

I second Mr. Robinson's call for an complete investigation. We need an investigation of the Bush policies on secret prisons, "harsh interrogation techniques" (aka "torture") and the origins of the War in Iraq.

For some reason unknown, Leon Panetta, now head of the CIA, says there will be no investigation or punishment for those in the CIA who engaged in torture or who set up the dark prisons. This is unacceptable.

Those who followed Bush's unconstitutional policies and directives should be held to account just as the Germans who were put on trial at Nuremberg. Obama should reject Panetta's whitewash and order full public investigations. And he should do it right away. We have all waited much too long for the truth to emerge.

CHENEY INSISTS TORTURE WAS JUSTIFIED

Dick Cheney is still at it, threatening the country with destruction unless Obama retains harsh interrogation methods (i.e., torture), the hated Patriot Act, as well as unconstitutional eavesdropping of Americans' telephone calls without warrants.

Politico interviewed Cheney today, and among other things, Politico reporters John F. Harris, Mike Allen & Jim Vanderhei quote Cheney as follows:

"Protecting the country’s security is “a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business,” he said. “These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.”"

Here Cheney admits that he engaged in activities which he himself describes as "mean, dirty, nasty ..."

Harris, Allen and Vanderhei quote Cheney on national security:

"“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry,” Cheney said."

In other words, Cheney is proud and stands by his implementation of torture on the captured Al Qaeda suspects held at Guantanamo and elsewhere.

But what if the "Al Qaeda terrorist" is only a farm boy or a rustic Afghan villager picked up in Afghanistan and sold to the Americans for U.S. dollars? What if Cheney's "terrorist" turns out to be unconnected with any jihad or has never even heard of Osama bin Laden? Can the U.S. torture this person without any accountability? And what does it say to the rest of the world when everyone finds out that the hard-core" prisoners in U.S. detention camps are totally innocent?

I have a good suggestion what to do with Cheney. Let's subject him to "harsh interrogation methods" and see if he confesses. If waterboarding is no big deal to him, let's try it out on him. To stop the ordeal, we must insist that Cheney confess to be bin Laden's undercover counsellor. I predict Cheney will confess within 30 seconds.

Remind you of anything historical? Oh yes! The Inquisition in Spain and Portugal and the rest of Europe used this very technique of water torture on all those accused of being in consort with Satan. Almost everyone confessed.

OBAMA WILL END TORTURE AS INTERROGATION METHOD

Today's The New York Times carries an article by Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane on president-elect Obama's future reorganization of the CIA.

When I first read Mazzetti and Shane's take on Obama shutting down the CIA's harsh interrogation methods (aka "torture"), I had misgivings about some Democrats like Diane Feinstein who refuse to give up the possibility of using these methods on high value prisoners.

Writes Mazzetti and Shane:

"In a speech last year, Mr. Obama cast the matter as a practical issue, as well as a moral one. “We cannot win a war unless we maintain the high ground and keep the people on our side,” he said. “But because the administration decided to take the low road, our troops have more enemies.”

"On Wednesday, a dozen retired generals and admirals are to meet with senior Obama advisers to urge him to stand firm against any deviation from the military’s noncoercive interrogation rules.

"But even some senior Democratic lawmakers who are vehement critics of the Bush administration’s interrogation policies seemed reluctant in recent interviews to commit the new administration to following the Army Field Manual in all cases.

"Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who will take over as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in January, led the fight this year to force the C.I.A. to follow military interrogation rules. Her bill was passed by Congress but vetoed by President Bush.

"But in an interview on Tuesday, Mrs. Feinstein indicated that extreme cases might call for flexibility. “I think that you have to use the noncoercive standard to the greatest extent possible,” she said, raising the possibility that an imminent terrorist threat might require special measures."

What is Ms. Feinstein talking about, "Extreme cases might call for flexibility." This is Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld speak for "torture is okay if we get the information we want." This type of thinking allowed Bush to initiate water-boarding and other methods subjecting prisoners to severe mental and physical punishment.

Of course Obama will do away with allowing the CIA to get away with these un-American forms of torture. If the U.S. is to regain a position of moral leadership, this change must be first and foremost as soon as Obama takes office on January 20th.

Dan Froomkin blogs extensively today on the web site of The Washington Post on the meeting of retired military officers with Obama in which they will call for a definitive end to the Bush/Cheney acceptance of methods taken right from the Inquisition.

READ ANDREW SULLIVAN'S PIECE ON BUSH/CHENEY APPROVED "COERCIVE TECHNIQUES"

There are those in the Bush administration, such as Dana Perino as well as George Bush himself, who insist that the U.S. does not "torture." Harsh interrogation techniques, yes, torture no.

The most shocking thing is that it seems that the Republican faithful eat this up and willingly transmit this canard. You would think that Republicans could see through the charade and that they all would condemn these harsh interrogation techniques for what they are. But no, Republicans stand solidly behind Bush and Cheney in approving torture as an approved policy.

Andrew Sullivan has a must read post on his blog The Daily Dish for The Atlantic Monthly:

"This is the defining line of torture: not some arbitrary comic book technique, but a psychological and physical fact: pushing another human being to the point where choice becomes unavailable to him or her. You can do this in any number of ways; it can take three seconds of electrocution or it can take two months of sleep deprivation, hypothermia and darkness. But the line it eventually crosses is the same line. Throughout human history, human beings have known what that line is, and the West was constructed on a disavowal of ever crossing it again. Why? Because a society that endorses torture commits itself not to limiting, but to extinguishing human freedom. And a protection of human freedom in its most minimal form is what our entire civilization is premised on."

Sullivan goes on to describe some of the Bush/Cheney et al. approved techniques:

"Even the word "torture" can be too vague and abstract a term. So let us state in plain English how Bush, Cheney, Tenet, et al. actually got information. They did it by subjecting prisoners to repeated drowning, or freezing, or heating, or sadistically long sleeplessness, or shackling or crucifying them until the pain could be borne no longer, or beating them until they pleaded for mercy, or threatening to kill or torture their children or wife or parents. Or all of the above in combination, in isolation, and with no surety of ever seeing the light of day again, with no right to meaningful due process of any kind, sometimes sealed off from light and sound for months at a time, or bombarded with indescribable noise day and night in cells fro which there was no escape ever. This is what "under coercive conditions" actually means. It drove many of the victims into become mumbling, shaking, insane shells of human beings; it killed dozens; it drove others still to hunger strikes to try to kill themselves; and it terrified and scarred and "broke" the souls of many, many others."

BUSH, CHENEY WANT CONGRESS TO GO ALONG THAT U.S. IS STILL "AT WAR"

Eric Lichtblau has an important article in today's The New York Times on the machinations of the Bush administration aimed at codifying that the U.S. remains "at war" with Al Qaeda.

Reports Lichtblau:

"Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Bush’s advisers assert that many Americans may have forgotten that. So they want Congress to say so and “acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us and who are dedicated to the slaughter of Americans.”

"The language, part of a proposal for hearing legal appeals from detainees at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, goes beyond political symbolism. Echoing a measure that Congress passed just days after the Sept. 11 attacks, it carries significant legal and public policy implications for Mr. Bush, and potentially his successor, to claim the imprimatur of Congress to use the tools of war, including detention, interrogation and surveillance, against the enemy, legal and political analysts say."

This proposal smacks of Cheney and his diabolical assistant David Addington. By having congress go along and reaffirm that the U.S. is "at war," Cheney and Addington hope to put up an extra buffer between themselves and those who feel they must be held accountable for the introduction of "harsh interrogation methods," read "torture."

Writes Lichtblau:

"Mr. Mukasey laid out the administration’s thinking in a July 21 speech to a conservative Washington policy institute in response to yet another rebuke on presidential powers by the Supreme Court: its ruling that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay , were entitled to habeas corpus rights to contest their detentions in court.

"The administration wants Congress to set out a narrow framework for those prisoner appeals. But the administration’s six-point proposal goes further. It includes not only the broad proclamation of a continued “armed conflict with Al Qaeda,” but also the desire for Congress to “reaffirm that for the duration of the conflict the United States may detain as enemy combatants those who have engaged in hostilities or purposefully supported Al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated organizations.” "

Congress must not go along with this. The Bush regime of using waterboarding, harsh methods of interrogation, sleep deprivation, long hours of forced standing, psychological punishments - these must not be allowed to become institutionalized because the U.S. is "at war." Cheney, Addington, Rice, Chertoff, Libby and Bush must all face trial as war criminals after their term of office comes to an end. Only another five months!

BUSH SEEKS CONFESSIONS OF THOSE WATERBOARDED - BUT OF WHAT VALUE?

What is the matter with the mind set of Bush's political appointees and supporters? Justice Antonin Scalia says it is no simple question whether waterboarding is torture. Bush's Attorney General Michael Mukasey says he does not have enough information to tell whether waterboarding is indeed torture, but he will not hold an investigation into its legality. Republicans in Congress say they support "harsh interrogation methods," meaning waterboarding and torture.

Have these guys ever heard of the Inquisition that terrorized Europe between the 14th and 18th Centuries? How the Church suspected someone of being in consort with the devil, therefore church authorities put him on the rack and turned the screws until he confessed. Or how witches were given the "water treatment" until they admitted they were indeed witches commissioned by the forces of evil.

All these suspects did confess their allegiance to Satan, their diabolical powers, their conspiracy against God and his Church. Surely it must be the same with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the others. Waterboard them and they will surely confess.

CIA VIDEOTAPES HARSH INTERROGATION OF TERROR SUSPECTS, THEN SECRETLY DESTROYS VIDEOTAPES

The C.I.A. destroyed in 2005 two videotapes of terror suspects being harshly interrogated, The New York Times reported just seven minutes ago on its web page.

"The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials. NY Times reporter Mark Mazzetti writes:

"The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said."

Mazzetti reports that hardly anyone knew of the existence of the tapes, including the 9/11 Commission.

"Staff members of the 9/11 commission, which completed its work in 2004, expressed surprise when they were told that interrogation videotapes existed until 2005.
"“The commission did formally request material of this kind from all relevant agencies, and the commission was assured that we had received all the material responsive to our request,” said Philip D. Zelikow, who served as executive director of the Sept. 11 commission and later as a senior counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"“No tapes were acknowledged or turned over, nor was the commission provided with any transcript prepared from recordings,” he said."

So this appears as if the C.I.A. is destroying evidence of wrong-doing. The C.I.A. was concerned that these "harsh interrogation methods" could subject C.I.A. torturers (oops, I mean officers) to criminal penalties and charges.

Reports Mazzetti:

"Daniel Marcus, a law professor at American University who served as general counsel for the 9/11 commission and was involved in the discussions about interviews with al Qaeda leaders, said he had heard nothing about any tapes being destroyed.

"If tapes were destroyed, he said, “it’s a big deal, it’s a very big deal,” because it could amount to obstruction of justice to withhold evidence being sought in criminal or fact-finding investigations. . . ."

"John Radsan, who worked as a C.I.A. lawyer between 2002 and 2004 and is now a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, said the destruction of the tapes could carry serious legal penalties.

"“If anybody at the C.I.A. hid anything important from the Justice Department, he or she should be prosecuted under the false statement statute,” he said."

The C.I.A. claims that the tapes were destroyed to protect the identity of the C.I.A.

"The C.I.A. said today that the decision to destroy the tapes had been made “within the C.I.A. itself” and were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value. The agency was headed at the time by Porter J. Goss. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Goss refused to comment this afternoon on the destruction of the tapes. interrogators."