'Damn right' may replace 'bring 'em on'

"Damn right" is what Shrub Bush said when asked if the CIA could waterboard Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

We also learn that Scott McClellan is getting the freeze-out after his tell-all book, that Mitch McConnell, even shortly before 2006 elections, had no spine or balls in dealing with Bush, to his party's detriment, that he thought about dumping Darth Cheney in 2004, and Bush's final refusal to pardon Scooter Libby really didn't sit well:

When he decided against a pardon, Mr. Cheney lashed out at him in private. “I can’t believe you’re going to leave a soldier on the battlefield,” the vice president told him. “The comment stung,” Mr. Bush writes. “In eight years, I had never seen Dick like this, or even close to it.” He worried their friendship was fractured, but writes that it eventually survived the dispute.

Did it?

The torturous details of waterboarding

As you read the sickening details of how CIA agents documented details of each waterboarding "case," the spook shack's torturers come off as sounding like ... Josef Mengele. It's that sick:

The memo also contains a last, little-noticed paragraph that may be the most disturbing of all. It seems to say that the detainees subjected to waterboarding were also guinea pigs. The language is eerily reminiscent of the very reasons the Nuremberg Code was written in the first place. That paragraph reads as follows:

"NOTE: In order to best inform future medical judgments and recommendations, it is important that every application of the waterboard be thoroughly documented: how long each application (and the entire procedure) lasted, how much water was used in the process (realizing that much splashes off), how exactly the water was applied, if a seal was achieved, if the naso- or oropharynx was filled, what sort of volume was expelled, how long was the break between applications, and how the subject looked between each treatment."

Nuremburg, indeed.

Dick Cheney: I am a war criminal

On ABC's This Week yesterday, Uncle Fester confessed to being a big supporter of waterboarding.

As Andrew Sullivan notes, it's not only a war crime, but one with no statute of limitations. And, either the death penalty or life in prison as a sentence.

Of course, Obama has the balls of a two-week-old mouse, so nothing will happen here.

That said, Glenn Greenwald notes that Cheney is performing a bitch-slap of Obama, to put it bluntly.

But, the precedent of Pinochet in mind, or that of Henry Kissinger, if I were Dick Cheney, I wouldn't travel abroad. That said, if I knew he'd get arrested elsewhere, I'd pack his bags for him.

Waterboarding your OWN KID?

Today's sick news leads to my observation, as a sort of rift on Lord Acton's thoughts on absolute power's corruptions, that barbarism, even in the alleged defense of noble ideas, can corrupt pretty absolutely, too.

Update: Over at Salon, Joe Conason agrees with my take. And even goes beyond it, to look at the domestic roots of torture in the first place.

NO PROOF torture got KSM to ‘fess up’ to truths

Conservatives are already spinning this “new” story about Khalid Sheik Muhammed coughing up all sorts of information under waterboarding torture. But, it ain’t necessarily so.

Here’s the contradicting details.

John L. Helgerson, the former CIA inspector general who investigated the agency's detention and interrogation program, said his work did not put him in "a position to reach definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of particular interrogation methods."

"Certain of the techniques seemed to have little effect, whereas waterboarding and sleep deprivation were the two most powerful techniques and elicited a lot of information," he said in an interview. "But we didn't have the time or resources to do a careful, systematic analysis of the use of particular techniques with particular individuals and independently confirm the quality of the information that came out."

Beyond that, we already know KSM claimed oversight responsibility for particular al-Qaeda actions that he, in fact, did NOT run.

And, in fact, I think this is why top WaPost reporter Walter Pincus only has an end-of-story “tagline” rather than a byline. I think somebody higher up was pushing an angle on this and he demurred at more detailed involvement.
-END-

Mancow defends use of torturous waterbording

Talk-radio conservative Mancow says, against conservative bloggers, that his recent waterboarding wasn’t a hoax, but against progressive bloggers, that, having called it torture, he’d still have our country do it.

Well, at least he’s more honest about it being torture than Darth Cheney. And, given that he’s definitely, IMO, more likely to inflame Muslim tensions than the Abu Ghraib 2.0 pix Obama is suppressing.

Pelosi still boo-hoos about torture briefings

Whether or not the CIA briefed Pelosi on waterboarding in 2002, it’s a flat-out lie to claim “Congress was incapable of stopping it.

All you had to do was speak up. Constitutional protections of Members of Congress while in their official duties legally trump any Executive Branch “national security” claim. And, it would have been fun to see such a case go to court just to establish that fact at trial.

Besides, Miss Nancy, Miss Passive Pelosi™, you DID know about waterboarding in 2003. And you still kept your pseudo-liberal mouth shut.

Ventura ready to waterboard Cheney

On Larry King Live, Jesse Ventura said that if you give him a waterboarding set-up, and Dick Cheney, an hour later, he’ll have Uncle Fester confessing to the Sharon Tate murder. (The implicit equating of Darth Cheney and Charlie Manson is funny.)

And, Ventura knows. As a Navy SEAL, he pointed out that he was waterboarded as part of SERE training. He also points out that it isn’t “simulated” anything and can in fact kill someone.

Pelosi a 2003 sellout on waterboarding

Speaker of the House Miss Nancy now admits she WAS briefed on torture way back in 2003, but, shades of Jay Rockefeller, thought it was necessary to respect and follow “appropriate” legislative channels, exactly the response upon which BushCo counted.

Pelosi still denies she or any staff were briefed back in 2002, but that’s splitting hairs. She knew, early on, about specific techniques, and refused to speak up.

Besides, contrary to her respect for “appropriate” channels (really meaning her terror of leaking a “state secret”) Congressional immunity would, Constitutionally, trump any “state secrets” executive claim.

Of course, Sellout Nancy wasn’t alone. I already compared her to Jay Rockefeller. Here’s more:

Steve Elmendorf, who served as chief of staff to former Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), said that coming so soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it would have been difficult politically for Pelosi to do more to protest interrogation techniques the Bush administration was using.

“You have to remember, in the 2002 period, the whole atmospherics, it was all about scaring people every day,” said Elmendorf. “People were legitimately concerned that we were going to be attacked again, and there was a constant drumbeat coming from the Bush administration of, ‘Bad things could happen, bad things could happen.’ Nobody wants it to happen on their watch.”

Sellout Democrats. Why I vote Green.

Madame Waterboarder and liar

Sounds like BushCo National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condi Rice told a past Congress some lies of omission about her role in waterboarding.

Obama says he will ban waterboarding

An directive to that effect could also close CIA “black sites.” (The story doesn’t explicitly call it an “executive order,” but I assume that’s what it would be.)

Props where props are due. With the fringe benefit. Unclear if this would do anything to touch CIA renditions.

And, even if Obama naively, or for worse reasons, won’t “look backward” with a special prosecutor, this executive order could maybe be evidentiary in civil suits.

Obama has no excuse now not to prosecute BushCo war crimes

But he won’t, anyway

President-elect Barack Obama’s Attorney General-designee, Eric Holder told Congress today that waterboarding is torture and that we prosecuted it in the past as a war crime.

Military commissions overseer Susan J. Crawford said we tortured Mohammad Qahtani in other ways.

We’re a signatory to, conventions against torture that are now, per the Constitution that Barack Obama will swear to preserve and protect next Tuesday, the “law of the land.”

So, no excuses. Other than being Just.Another.Politician.™

I’m not going to repost the petition to get Obama to appoint a special prosecutor. It’s clear that he won’t do it. It’s clear he can’t be shamed into doing it. It’s clear that he wants to keep at least some of the expanded presidential power that Bush arrogated to himself.

Therefore, it’s clear he will NOT prosecute, or even look into prosecuting, former executive branch individuals in this area.

Hitchens — I know waterboarding is torture

Hitchens, though still supporting the war in Iraq, has never been one to write blank checks to George W. Bush. And, he still is a progressive on most civil liberties issues.

So, he let himself be waterboarded. And then, while trying to give the best interpretation to pro-waterboarders, concluded it is torture:

I call as my main witness Mr. Malcolm Nance. Mr. Nance is not what you call a bleeding heart. In fact, speaking of the coronary area, he has said that, in battlefield conditions, he “would personally cut bin Laden’s heart out with a plastic M.R.E. spoon.” …

I passed one of the most dramatic evenings of my life listening to his cold but enraged denunciation of the adoption of waterboarding by the United States. …

I had only a very slight encounter on that frontier, but I still wish that my experience were the only way in which the words “waterboard” and “American” could be mentioned in the same (gasping and sobbing) breath.

Read all about Hitchens crossing that frontier.

Quick-draw Mukasey

So, the Eliot Spitzer investigation needed a personal okey-dokey from Attorney General Mike Mukasey?

Because the focus was a high-ranking government official, prosecutors were required to seek the approval of the United States attorney general to proceed. Once they secured that permission, the investigation moved forward.

But, Big Mike doesn’t have the time, or energy, or moral certititude, to investigate waterboarding? Or actually enforce a contempt of Congress citation?

Too bad George Tenet or Peter Goss didn’t hire call girls. Or Harriett Miers hire a gigolo, although the mere image of that might want to make me throw up in my mouth.
Qu

McCain – Against torture before for it and I know int’l law

No further comment needed:

“I think I can show my record is clear. I said there should be additional techniques allowed to other agencies of government as long as they were not” torture.

“I was on the record as saying that they could use additional techniques as long as they were not cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment,” McCain said. “So the vote was in keeping with my clear record of saying that they could have additional techniques, but those techniques could not violate” international rules against torture.

So, McCain is saying, in essence, he’s the Decider on what constitutes international law, because we know in the real world what international law says about waterboarding.

Bush: I HEART torture

The Torturer-in-Chief has said he will veto a bill banning waterboarding in the CIA.

Press question: Will the MSM actually press McCain when the time comes for an override vote?

Waterboarding OK because it doesn’t cause ‘prolonged mental harm’ — I guess PTSD doesn’t count

Like Pol Pot instead of Torquemada

In his alternative reality unverse, Stephen Bradbury, the Department of Justice official serving as titleless head of the Office of Legal Counsel, says that issue, that waterboarding doesn’t cause “prolonged mental harm,” is part of why it’s legal.:

Under the mental side, Congress was very careful in the torture statute to have a very precise definition of severe mental pain or suffering. It requires predicate conditions be met and then, moreover, as we said in our opinion in December 2004, reading many cases, court cases, under the Torture Victims Protection Act, it requires an intent to cause prolonged mental harm. Now that's a mental disorder that is extended or continuing over time and if you've got a body of experience with a particular procedure that's been carefully monitored that indicates that you would not expect that there would be prolonged mental harm from a procedure, you can conclude that it's not torture under the precise terms of that statute.

I don’t know the universe Mr. Bradbury inhabits, but from what I’ve seen, waterboard can, if not always, cause PTSD.

And, that’s not “prolonged mental harm”? Just what IS prolonged mental harm, pray tell?

Oh, and just because waterboarding CIA-style isn’t like that of the Spanish Inquisition doesn’t mean that we’re not following other torturous regimes. Instead, it’s Khmer Rouge style.

Great. We’re like Pol Pot instead of Torquemada.

Arbour, unlike Mukasey, knows torture when she hears about it

And, she says, something can be done

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has no problem calling waterboarding torture. Once again, our moral standing in the world falls like a dropped soufflé.

Arbour made her comment in response to a question about whether U.S. officials could be tried for the use of waterboarding that referred to CIA director Michael Hayden telling Congress on Tuesday his agency had used waterboarding on three detainees captured after the September 11 attacks.

Violators of the U.N. Convention against Torture should be prosecuted under the principle of “universal jurisdiction” which allows countries to try accused war criminals from other nations, Arbour said.

“There are several precedents worldwide of states exercising their universal jurisdiction ... to enforce the torture convention and we can only hope that we will see more and more of these avenues of redress,” Arbour said.

Are there specific precedents for this? Hell, yes:

Arbour referred to an arrest warrant issued in 1998 by a Spanish judge for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who died in 2006, on charges of torture, murder and kidnapping in the years that followed his 1973 coup.

Latin American dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s were known to use waterboarding on political prisoners.

I’d pay damn good money to see an international judge issue arrest warrants for John Yoo, David Addington, Richard B. “Dick” Cheney and George W. Bush.

What, Newt Gingrich is now AG?

Reason No. 973 to be leery of Democrats, especially in Congress

Mike Mukasey, the Attorney General nominee the Senate, including Democrats, so willingly signed off on, now says the question about whether waterboarding is torture or not can only be determined through a cost-benefit analysis.

So, waterboarding IS torture, Mr. Intelligence Chief?

U.S. intelligence czar Mike McConnell says waterboarding would be torture if a person inhaled water or if it were used against him.

“If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can’t imagine how painful! Whether it’s torture by anybody else’s definition, for me it would be torture.”

Nice to see that you take torture so personally. Beyond that, though, Big Mike won’t go, other to say there could be hell to pay:

“If it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it,” McConnell told The New Yorker, which published a 16,000-word article Sunday on the director of national intelligence.

Sorry, didn’t see a link online yet to the full story.