This blog will discuss many issues pertaining to current events and encourages others to discuss and do the same. The goal is to raise the level of discourse and hopefully have a good time sharing thoughts and ideas.
The parade of torture sympathizers from the Bush Administration continued last night on The Daily Show with former Bush speech writer Marc Thiessen making an appearance. Thiessen has been vocal in his support of the the interrogation policies that were implemented during the Bush Administration and has most recently jumped to the defense of Liz Cheney and her organization for questioning the loyalty of some DOJ lawyers.
One lawyer in the National Security Division of Holder's Justice Department, Jennifer Daskal, has written that any terrorist not charged with a crime "should be released from Guantanamo's system of indefinite detention" even though "at least some of these men may ... join the battlefield to fight U.S. soldiers and our allies another day." Should a lawyer who advocates setting terrorists free, knowing they may go on to kill Americans, have any role in setting U.S. detention policy? My hunch is that most Americans would say no.
Do other lawyers in question hold similarly radical and dangerous views? Without the information Holder is withholding, we cannot know if such lawyers are affecting detainee policy.
Yet for raising questions, Cheney and the Republican senators have been vilified. Former Clinton Justice Department official Walter Dellinger decried the "shameful" personal attacks on "these fine lawyers," while numerous commentators leveled charges of "McCarthyism."
I was wondering how Jon Stewart would treat Thiessen after John Yoo seemed to get a big pass in his recent appearance on the Daily Show, but Stewart did a pretty good job. Here is the full discussion in three parts:
I still think Stewart doesn't give himself enough credit by telling Thiessen that their views are "not that far apart". Clearly this is not the case. It was nice to see Thiessen's views challenged and Stewart take him to task for his support of the shameful ad that was put out by Liz Cheney's organization.
Thiessen is another individual who defends the use of torture, is unapologetic about the affects of using such techniques on detainees, and is critical of those who refuse to use these same policies. It is these views that show a disrespect and some could argue, a certain level of contempt for the American justice system. These individuals want the power to be able to torture detainees and will continue to level attacks against anyone who defends the rule of law and appropriate interrogation tactics. Interviews like the one above only continue to re-enforce this point.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney was on ABC's This Week yesterday morning spouting most of the same talking points that he has become known for ever since leaving office last year. He slammed the Obama Administration as being weak on terrorism and criticized their handling of almost every aspect of their Foreign Policy.
While much of what Cheney had to say is not surprising there was this exchange between Cheney and guest host Jonathan Karl:
KARL: Did you more often win or lose those battles, especially as you got to the second term?
CHENEY: Well, I suppose it depends on which battle you're talking about. I won some; I lost some. I can't...
(CROSSTALK)
KARL: ... waterboarding, clearly, what was your...
CHENEY: I was a big supporter of waterboarding. I was a big supporter of the enhanced interrogation techniques that...
KARL: And you opposed the administration's actions of doing away with waterboarding?
CHENEY: Yes.
Cheney's open admission to being a "big supporter" of waterboarding has led some like Andrew Sullivan to claim that this is an open admission to a war crime by the former Vice President:
In fact, the attorney general of the United States is legally obliged to prosecute someone who has openly admitted such a war crime or be in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention on Torture. For Eric Holder to ignore this duty subjects him too to prosecution. If the US government fails to enforce the provision against torture, the UN or a foreign court can initiate an investigation and prosecution.
These are not my opinions and they are not hyperbole. They are legal facts. Either this country is governed by the rule of law or it isn't. Cheney's clear admission of his central role in authorizing waterboarding and the clear evidence that such waterboarding did indeed take place means that prosecution must proceed.
Cheney himself just set in motion a chain of events that the civilized world must see to its conclusion or cease to be the civilized world. For such a high official to escape the clear letter of these treaties and conventions, and to openly brag of it, renders such treaties and conventions meaningless.
In addition to pretty much confessing it only solidifies Cheney's sadistic tendencies each time he appears on one of these programs. When the former Vice President goes on national television and declares that he is a big fan and supporter of torture, one would hope that in a country that prides itself on being a nation of laws, some action would be taken. Still though, the Obama Administration and the Holder Justice Department continue to take no action on an issue that so clearly needs further investigation and civilized society suffers. After all, if there is no punishment for crimes as serious as these, then there will be no deterrent when history repeats itself in the future. These are grave and serious matters and it is on this Administration to stand up for the rule of law no matter how politically difficult.
For those interested, here is the full ABC interview in two parts:
Scott Horton has a great post in which he discusses seven of his observations surrounding the recent release of the 2004 Inspector General report. His whole post is worth a full read and you can find it here, but in the meantime, here are a few of his observations:
1. The worst is yet to come. Yesterday the CIA released a fresh copy of the report with roughly half of the “case study” discussion now unmasked. But context and placement suggest that the material that remains concealed contains some of the worst discussion of abuse in the report. The heavy redactions start around page 25, and the redactions cover discussion of the origins of the program and the approval process, as well as the discussion of specific prisoners, notably Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammad. Although cases in which the guidelines provided by the Justice Department were exceeded have been discussed, it’s likely the case that the still blacked-out passages cover instances where Justice gave a green light but the conduct was so gruesome that CIA wants to keep it under wraps. That means we haven’t heard the last of the Helgerson report, and further disclosures are likely.
2. Opposition from within. For years the CIA has said that CIA personnel would be demoralized and the reputation of the agency would be damaged by disclosure of the contents of the report. But the report documents just the opposite. The Inspector General’s review was launched by complaints coming from valued senior employees who felt that the Bush Program (as John Yoo has dubbed it) was wrong. One of them actually expresses his worry that those involved will be hauled before the World Court at some point because of [and that’s redacted!] This makes clear that good employees of the agency opposed the Bush Program, were vocal in their opposition, and focused concern on the program’s illegality. The OLC memos were intended to silence these complaints, but they only accentuated the agency’s morale problems by enmeshing it in obviously illegal and immoral conduct. By contrast, the number of CIA personnel involved in pushing it through and supporting it is tiny—probably not many more than two dozen—though their voices are heard very loudly. It’s interesting that in a stream of appearances by CIA personnel on TV yesterday—Tyler Drumheller, Jack Rice, Bob Baer and others—all said that a criminal investigation was a good idea. The official spokesman of the CIA torture team remains, as for the last seven years, David Ignatius.
[...]
4. All trails lead to the Vice President’s office. At several points, redactions begin just when the discussion is headed toward the supervision or direction of the program and context suggests that some figure far up the Washington food chain is intervening. Moreover, as Jane Mayer recounts in Dark Side, Helgerson’s report was shut down when he was summoned, twice, to meet with Dick Cheney, who insisted that the report be stopped. Cheney had good reason to be concerned. This report shows that the vice president intervened directly in the process and ensured that the program was implemented. The OPR report likewise shows Cheney’s office commissioning the torture memos and carefully supervising the process. It is increasingly clear that torture was Dick Cheney’s special project and that he was personally and deeply involved in it. And the CIA report has some amazing nuggets that show Cheney’s hand. In 2003, after Jay Bybee departed OLC, Cheney struggled to have John Yoo installed as his successor, but ultimately John Ashcroft’s candidate, Jack Goldsmith, prevailed. Goldsmith quickly backtracked on the torture authorizations that Yoo and Bybee gave. The result? The CIA stopped taking its cue from OLC and instead turned to the White House for guidance. It is remarkably vague on the particulars, and blackouts emerge just as passages seem to be getting interesting. But there’s little doubt that Dick Cheney and his staff were pushing the process from behind the scenes.
Yesterday the Justice Department released the long-awaited 2004 Inspector Generals Report on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. This is the largest single release of information that gives insight into the implementation of policies that were crafted by the Bush Administration and carried out by the CIA.
Some of the new revelations that have come to light in the release of this report are the following tactics:
- Threats of execution using guns and threats of the use of a power drill - Threats to kill a detainees children - Pressure points that were used to restrict blood flow via the carotid artery until the detainee faints, then shaking the detainee awake and repeating. - Threats to rape the female members of the detainees family in front of the detainee. - Striking a detainee in the chest with the butt of a rifle and kneeing a detainee in the chest. - Blowing smoke into a detainees face for five minutes. - Using waterboarding techniques with large quantities of water
Some conclusions that were issued in the IG Report:
250. The Agency's detention and interrogation of terrorists has provided intelligence that has enabled the identification and apprehension of other terrorists and warned of terrorist plots planned for the United States and around the world. The eTC Detention and Interrogation Program has resulted in the issuance of thousands of individual intelligence reports and analytic products supporting the counterterrorism efforts of U.S. policymakers and military commanders. The effectiveness of particular interrogation techniques in eliciting information that might not otherwise have been obtained cannot be so easily measured, however.
[...]
253.~The Dol legal opinion upon which the Agency relies is based upon technical definitions of t1severell treatment and the "intent" of the interrogators, and consists of finely detailed analysis to buttress the conclusion that Agency officers properly carrying out Errs would not violate the Torture Convention's prohibition of torture, nor would they be subject to criminal prosecution under the u.s. torture statute. The opinion does not address the separate question of whether the application of standard or enhanced techniques by Agency officers is consistent with the undertaking, accepted conditionally by the United States regarcling Article 16 of the Torture Convention, to prevent "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
Another interesting note:
232. ~'One officer expressed concern that one day, Agency officers will wind up on some '~wanted list to appear before the World Court for war crimes stemming from activities [redacted] Another said, "Ten years from now we're going to be 'sorry we're doing this ... [but] it has to be done." He expressed concern that the eTC Program will be exposed in the news media and cited particular concern about the possibility of being named in a leak.
The IG apparently had some recommendations, but they were all redacted in the report that was released.
To those blithely dismissing all of this as things that don't seem particularly bothersome, I'd say two things:
(1) The fact that we are not really bothered any more by taking helpless detainees in our custody and (a) threatening to blow their brains out, torture them with drills, rape their mothers, and murder their children; (b) choking them until they pass out; (c) pouring water down their throats to drown them; (d) hanging them by their arms until their shoulders are dislocated; (e) blowing smoke in their face until they vomit; (f) putting them in diapers, dousing them with cold water, and leaving them on a concrete floor to induce hypothermia; and (g) beating them with the butt of a rifle -- all things that we have always condemend as "torture" and which our laws explicitly criminalize as felonies ("torture means. . . the threat of imminent death; or the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering . . .") -- reveals better than all the words in the world could how degraded, barbaric and depraved a society becomes when it lifts the taboo on torturing captives.
(2) As I wrote rather clearly, numerous detainees died in U.S. custody, often as a direct result of our "interrogation methods." Those who doubt that can read the details here and here. Those claiming there was no physical harm are simply lying -- death qualifies as "physical harm" -- and those who oppose prosecutions are advocating that the people responsible literally be allowed to get away with murder.
It simply can not become any clearer than this. If the United States expects to be a moral leader and a just leader in the global community there is simply no excuse for not investigating and prosecuting all those involved in the previous administration. A narrow investigation that focuses on the lower-level personnel who carried out these brutal acts of torture is meaningless unless there are also investigations that go straight to the top. As I have stated time and time again, if the United States wishes to never go down this road again, then the only deterrent is to hold those who are responsible for implementing these techniques to account. Anything less is criminal.
I have been keeping an eye on an interesting back and forth that has been going on over the last week between the Ombudsman for National Public Radio, Alicia Shepard and journalist Glenn Greenwald.
Shepard has been receiving emails from listeners of NPR about their policy of not using the word "torture" in describing waterboarding and other techniques that were used during the interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody. (Instead, NPR opts to use the terms "harsh interrogation tactics" and "enhanced interrogation techniques".)
In response to these letters from viewers, Shepard wrote a piece in order to address these concerns. From her article:
How should NPR describe the tactics used to coerce information out of terrorism suspects?
Ted Koppel, the former ABC Nightline host and commentator on Talk of the Nation, said in May that the U.S. should "define it [torture] as being any technique or practice which, when applied to an American prisoner in some other country or captured by some other entity, that we would object to. If we object to it being done to an American, then I think it's thttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=114432749054567487orture."
That seems clear enough, but the problem is that the word torture is loaded with political and social implications for several reasons, including the fact that torture is illegal under U.S. law and international treaties the United States has signed.
Both Presidents Bush and Obama have insisted that the United States does not use torture. Officials during the Bush administration acknowledged the use of what they called "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Also, not all interrogation could be classified as torture. Sleep deprivation, nudity and facial slaps are different from, say, pouring water on a cloth over someone's face for 20 to 40 seconds to create the sensation of drowning -- a practice known as waterboarding.
[...]
It's a no-win case for journalists. If journalists use the words "harsh interrogation techniques," they can be seen as siding with the White House and the language that some U.S. officials, particularly in the Bush administration, prefer. If journalists use the word "torture," then they can be accused of siding with those who are particularly and visibly still angry at the previous administration.
There has been no clear consensus on what constitutes torture, noted Brian Duffy, NPR's former managing editor in late April.
[...]
To me, it makes more sense to describe the techniques and skip the characterization. For example, reporters could say that the U.S. military poured water down a detainee's mouth and nostrils for 40 seconds. Or they could detail such self-explanatory techniques as forcing detainees into cramped confines crawling with insects, or forced to stand for hours along side a wall.
A basic rule of vivid writing is: "Show, Don't Tell." An excellent example of using facts rather than coded language was a 2005 piece by former NPR reporter John McChesney. It gave meticulous details of tactics used against an Iraqi detainee at Abu Graib who later died.
Glenn Greenwald, who has written extensively about the issue of torture and the media coverage that surrounds the debate, responded to Shepard's piece with an entry of his own. Greenwald writes:
She describes Koppel’s standard as "clear enough" -- and it is. So why doesn’t NPR use that standard? Because -- she argues -- "the word torture is loaded with political and social implications for several reasons, including the fact that torture is illegal under U.S. law and international treaties the United States has signed."
So what? How does the fact that torture is illegal mean that NPR shouldn’t describe as "torture" tactics which -- when used against Americans -- the U.S. government has long condemned as "torture"? Her objection to Koppel’s very sensible standard is a total non-sequitur. How does the criminality of torture serve as an argument against what Koppel advocated? It doesn't. She’s just in defend-NPR-at-any-cost mode and wants to justify its refusal to use the word "torture," and Koppel’s standard would compel the opposite conclusion, because so many of the tactics that were authorized by Bush were ones the U.S. -- and the rest of the civilized world -- have always called "torture."
[...]
The U.S. has prosecuted those acts as torture in the past. Multiple media outlets and even the U.S. Government have routinely described those acts as “torture” when used against Americans, rather than by Americans. The tactics are ones we copied from manuals designed to inure our own troops to the torture techniques used by some of the world’s worst tyrants. They resulted in numerous deaths. Until the Bush administration decided to call it something other than "torture" so that they could do it, nobody had any questions about whether this was "torture."
If there are tactics about which there is a reasonable dispute, then those need not be called torture by NPR. But many of the tactics that were authorized are "torture" in every sense of the word.
[...]
Here’s the nub of the matter – the crux of journalistic decay in America. Who cares if NPR is "seen" as siding with the White House or its critics? How it is perceived -- and who it angers -- should have nothing to do with how it reports. Its reporting should be guided by the truth, by verifiable facts, and by the objective meaning of words [notably, NPR's excuse -- "the Right will get angry at us if we call it 'torture'" -- is identical to The Washington Post's excuse for why they stopped calling Dan Froomkin a reporter (it angers the Right); it's amazing how much The Liberal Media makes editorial decisions based on a desire to please the Right].
Also, note that Shepard explicitly admits that, with its language choice, NPR has opted to be "seen siding with the White House and the language that some U.S. officials, particularly in the Bush administration, prefer." That, too, is an odd choice for a supposedly Liberal Media outlet. And note her snide and revealing assumption -- conventional wisdom among the establishment media -- that the only people who want these tactics to be called "torture" are those "who are particularly and visibly still angry at the previous administration" (or, as David Ignatius put it, "liberal score-settlers").
Greenwald then extended an interview request to Shepard so that the two could discuss the issue on Salon Radio. Shepard declined the request saying that she didn't want to get into a "shouting match". Instead, Shepard has gone on a couple of NPR shows to discuss and defend her article. Here is an audio clip of her on "On The Media" offering some of the same justification:
In response Greenwald wrote another piece highlighting the fact that Shepard had declined the interview request, pointing out that none of his interviews could be categorized as a "shouting match", and further criticizing her position. That entry resulted in this wacky email exchange between NPR's Senior Manager of Media Relations, Anna Christopher, and Glenn:
E-mail from Anna Christopher to GG:
Glenn,
I just saw your most recent column, criticizing Lisa [sic] Shepard for declining your interview request. Could you please give me a call when you have a chance?
If you or your interns want to make a request to interview NPR staff, that goes through me. I would have been able to tell your intern – who so tenaciously pursued her last week – that Lisa was on vacation and unreachable until Thursday. She didn’t ignore your request. And the last time I checked, requests are just that – requests. Not demands. Able to be accepted or declined.
Thank you,
Anna
Anna Christopher | Senior Manager, Media Relations
* * * * *
Reply from GG to Anna Christopher:
Anna - You apparently didn't read the column very carefully. We were told by someone from NPR -- Anna Tauzin -- that Alicia Shepard was [out of the office] last week and would therefore respond to the interview request by Monday. That's exactly what I wrote today. Tauzin did authorize us to say: "We were told by NPR that the Ombudsman is out of the office this week and her office will get back to us by Monday with a response." That's exactly what I wrote.
I didn't say she ignored my request, so why would you deny that she did? In fact, I said the opposite: that she responded to the request by refusing to be interviewed.
If there are internal NPR structures about who has what responsibilities, that's up to NPR to make clear. Tauzin never once said it was you who had to be contacted for the interview request. She was more than willing to convey the request to Shepard, and the Salon intern then spoke with Shepard herself yesterday.
I didn't suggest that Shepard broke the law by refusing to be interviewed by me -- only that people like her who opine pedantically on controversial matters have an ethical obligation to engage critics of their views.
If you'd still like to talk, let me know and I'll give you a call -
Glenn Greenwald
* * * * *
No further reply received from NPR.
In listening to Shepard's responses and her other appearance on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" yesterday, she continues to assert that this is a political debate and that NPR should not be taking sides in this debate by labeling tactics such as waterboarding, as torture. This is an important point in her defense and in journalism today as a whole. Shepard appears to view objectivity as presenting both sides of a debate and letting the viewers/listeners decide for themselves what is true. This should not be the role of journalists whose job it is to collect facts on a story and then present these facts regardless of who it offends or how they will be "perceived" by one side of the debate.
Objectivity is not saying "while one side of the debate claims that 2 plus 2 equals four, others are arguing that 2 plus 2 actually equals five." The role of journalism is to assert that it is an undeniable fact that 2 plus 2 equals four and that the people who disputing this fact have no basis for doing so. In this example above, if one presents both "sides" of this story, it gives equal validation to both arguments regardless of the indisputable fact that 2 plus 2 really does equal four. There can be no debate over this so why should it be the role of a journalist to pretend like there is one?
Similarly, just because the Bush Administration claims that waterboarding, a tactic which they approved and used on detainees, does not constitute torture does not automatically make it so. I am glad that Greenwald pointed out an exchange that happened on the Daily Show back in 2004 which illustrates this quite well:
Stewart: Here's what puzzles me most, Rob. John Kerry's record in Vietnam is pretty much right there in the official records of the U.S. military, and hasn't been disputed for 35 years. Corddry: That's right, Jon, and that's certainly the spin you'll be hearing coming from the Kerry campaign over the next few days. Stewart: That's not a spin thing, that's a fact. That's established. Corddry: Exactly, Jon, and that established, incontrovertible fact is one side of the story. Stewart: But isn't that the end of the story? I mean, you've seen the records, haven't you? What's your opinion? Corddry: I'm sorry, "my opinion"? I don't have opinions. I'm a reporter, Jon, and my job is to spend half the time repeating what one side says, and half the time repeating the other. Little thing called "objectivity"—might want to look it up some day. Stewart: Doesn't objectivity mean objectively weighing the evidence, and calling out what's credible and what isn't? Corddry: Whoa-ho! Sounds like someone wants the media to act as a filter! Listen, buddy: Not my job to stand between the people talking to me and the people listening to me.
Without objective analysis of facts and evidence by journalists, they merely become stenographers who repeat what they hear no matter the validity of the claims. Under this policy, all one side would need to do would be to lie, assert the lies as fact, and get them out into the media to make their claims look like they have credibility. As Judith Miller knows all too well, this is probably not the best strategy.
Alicia Shepard's defense of the official NPR policy is a prime example of what is wrong with the so-called "mainstream media" in today's country and it shows just have far journalistic integrity has slipped over the years. In the "Talk of the Nation" segment she specifically states that in the discussion surrounding torture the Bush Administration does "have a different side. Whether it is to dupe people or not, again, the role of a journalist is to put that information out there..." So according to Shepard, even if government officials are lying or trying to "dupe" people, it is the "role of journalists" to put that false message out to the public without any investigation into the validity of the claims so the public can draw their own conclusions.
If anyone is still wondering how the media could have provided us with coverage that helped lead us into the Iraq War, this is a prime exhibit of the mindset that allows for the media to uncritically report facetious claims.
The man charged with murdering a high-profile abortion doctor claimed from his jail cell Sunday that similar violence was planned around the nation for as long as the procedure remained legal, a threat that comes days after a federal investigation launched into his possible accomplices.
A Justice Department spokesman said the threat was being taken seriously and additional protection had been ordered for abortion clinics last week. But a leader of the anti-abortion movement derided the accused shooter as "a fruit and a lunatic."
Scott Roeder called The Associated Press from the Sedgwick County jail, where he's being held on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault in the shooting of Dr. George Tiller one week ago.
"I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal," Roeder said. He would not elaborate.
As severalotherbloggers have pointed out, according to the Bush Administration and those who defend so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques", why shouldn't we use these techniques on Scott Roeder? He has connections to radical organizations and has hinted that he has knowledge of other "similar" events that are planned around the country that could target doctors. Should we put Roeder in a box with an insect? Put him is stress positions? Use sleep deprivation? Strip him naked and expose him to sensory deprivation? Waterboard him? If torture provides such valuable and accurate information and we are involved in a ticking-timebomb scenario, then what are we waiting for?
Former Chief of Staff to then Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson, was recently on "The Rachel Maddow Show" discussing the various comments made in the media by Former Vice President Dick Cheney:
Wilkerson then posted an entry on the website of the Washington Note in which he stated:
Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002--well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion--its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.
So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.
There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just "committed suicide" in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi....)
The seriousness of what went on over the last eight years under the leadership of the Bush Administration cannot be stressed enough. Claims that torture was being applied to detainees to elicit false information on a non-existant link between Al Qaeda and Iraq remind me of the words of another former Administration official.
Take a journey with me back to 2004 when President Bush's top adviser on terrorism, Richard Clarke, made the following claims on 60 Minutes (emphasis mine):
Clarke says that as early as the day after the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for retaliatory strikes on Iraq, even though al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan.
Clarke suggests the idea took him so aback, he initally thought Rumsfeld was joking.
[...]
After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.
"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it. "Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.
"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection."
Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Clarke then tells Stahl of being pressured by Mr. Bush.
"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.
"I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'
"He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."
Clarke continued, "It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, 'Will you sign this report?' They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer. ... Do it again.'
"I have no idea, to this day, if the president saw it, because after we did it again, it came to the same conclusion. And frankly, I don't think the people around the president show him memos like that. I don't think he sees memos that he doesn't-- wouldn't like the answer."
Clarke's statements were made five years ago. Seems like some of the puzzles pieces are beginning to fit together to bring things full circle.
It had been expected that the Obama Administration was going to comply with a court order stemming from a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and release photographs which depict abuse of detainees that were held in U.S. custody. The ACLU wanted the release of these photographs to counter the arguments of the Bush Administration that the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident and not part of government policy.
Ever since the Obama Administration announced that they would comply with the court order, there has been an outcry from both lawmakers and commentators on the Right claiming that the release of these photos would make those serving in the United States military less safe. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) even wrote a letter to President Obama in which they asked for the photographs not to be released because they would serve "no public good" and "endanger our men and women in uniform".
It is now being reported that the Obama Administration has reversed itself and that President Obama has now directly decided to oppose the release of these additional photos citing a concern for the safety of U.S. troops. Speaking to the New York Times, one anonymous administration official stated:
"The president strongly believes that the release of these photos, particularly at this time, would only serve the purpose of inflaming the theaters of war, jeopardizing US forces and making our job more difficult in places like Iraq and Afghanistan."
and another senior administration official stated:
"The president would be the last to excuse the actions depicted in these photos. That is why the Department of Defense investigated these cases, and why individuals have been punished through prison sentences, discharges, and a range of other punitive measures."
Aside from this last interesting quote (Obama is apparently in favor of prosecutions and investigations for some who carried out torture, but not for those who ordered it), the outcry over the release of these photos takes on an interesting dynamic.
On one hand you have people like Sean Hannity, Liz Cheney, Joe Lieberman, and others claiming that the release of these photos will depict American troops in a "negative light" and would cause us national harm, while on the other hand you have this same group of people actively defending the use of torture as necessary to our safety. Here is a compilation put together by ThinkProgress:
Note how in the video clip the acts in the photos are denounced by many as something that happened "in the past" and they speak of these actions as if they are obviously wrong. This does two things, first this deflects from the obvious point that the appalling act is not the release of the photos, but that these acts of torture were occurring in the first place and authorized by the last Administration. Secondly, it deflects from the aforementioned point that these same people who are so against the release of these awful photos are the exact same people who are advocating and justifying the use of torture over the last eight years.
It is situations like these which allow for Liz Cheney to state in one breath that by releasing these photos Obama is in fact "siding with the terrorists" and claim in another breath that the United States never engaged in torture and that techniques like waterboarding are vital to saving American lives.
Welcome to Lake Woebegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and those who break the law are given a pass.
This is the world according to renowned radio host of "A Prairie Home Companion" and famed story teller, Garrison Keillor. Keillor recently wrote a piece that was published on Salon.com entitled "Let War Crimes by Bygones". That title alone is perhaps one of the most absurd headings to a piece that should enrage all of those people who have placed their trust in a little thing called "the rule of law".
Keillor begins his piece describing how he sat next to Ted Stevens at a dinner a few years back and how he is happy to see that Stevens' conviction has been overturned. Keillor continues:
Let him go fishing in the cold, clear rivers of Alaska and examine his conscience, as we all do in our better hours, and let us all move on to something more promising.
I feel similarly about the Bush people whom some Democrats want to charge with war crimes. The widespread waterboarding and other acts of torture carried out in secret CIA prisons are no small matter. The free play of sadism on the helpless in the name of national service is not to be ignored. What's needed is a fair and thorough congressional investigation. Subpoena witnesses and lay the whole wretched business out on the public record. Look into the heart of darkness and meditate on it. But don't round up a few symbolic suspects and throw the book at them and let all the others go free.
That's right, Keillor actually suggests investigating acts of torture to the fullest extent possible and then, when the investigation is done and we have perhaps revealed criminal wrong-doing, let those responsible take actions equivalent of going "fishing in the cold, clear rivers of Alaska" to examine their conscience.
Keillor continues:
What's needed here is not punishment, but truth. When I hear Democrats talk about "holding them responsible," I smell the sour righteousness of the victorious lording it over the vanquished.
[...]
Holding the Bush administration responsible for torture would give us some high political drama that would feed the media goat for the next two years and also sap the body politic.
[...]
Retribution is not smart politics. That's part of what killed Rudy Giuliani's run for president, the voters' sense that he was possessed of a cruel urge to pay back old debts. He was meaner than we want a president to be. I agree with Sen. John McCain when he says, "We need to put this behind us; we need to move forward."
and there, finally you have it. That same tired idea that has been uttered by everyone from John McCain to President Obama, the need to move forward and not focus on the past. Keillor advocates truth over punishment, as if these two ideas are competing against each other. What happens when the truth indicates that some very serious laws were broken? Doesn't punishment typically follow for those who break the law? I have not seen a single murder trial in which the judge makes opening remarks during which he states that the goal of the trial will not punishment, but to simply seek truth.
While Keillor's nose detects the "sour righteousness of the victorious lording over the vanquished", my nose detects the smell of a commentator who is having a difficult time separating differences in political ideology from adherence to the rule of law. This is not about being a "mean" President, or about paying back old debts. What this is about is the need to launch serious investigations into potential criminal activity committed by some of the highest ranking government officials over the last eight years. Equating the policies of torture with settling "old debts" is disingenuous to the very issue before us.
Not only does Keillor miss this distinction, but he also tries to provide some justification for the likes of John Yoo, Jay Bybee, and other OLC lawyers who attempted to provide legal cover for the policies of the Bush Administration:
Remember that the country was in high post-9/11 jitters when the dreadful memoranda were written by the lawyers whom some Democrats want to haul into court. Apocalyptic visions were afloat of subway bombings, germ warfare, nuclear devices wiping out a major city -- I remember walking around Manhattan and thinking much too vividly about such things -- and in that atmosphere of painful vulnerability, the great bustling city practically indefensible, zealous men might consider desperate measures in the name of security. As Orwell said, "We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." I think the American electorate knew whom they reelected in 2004. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney did not run on a human-rights platform. They ran as rough men who would guard our sleep. So go talk to the voters of Ohio about war crimes.
This sounds similar to the justification that Condoleeza Rice gave to a question posed by a student at Stanford University where she stated that unless one was in a position of responsibility after the 9/11 attacks, one cannot begin to imagine the dilemmas that those in power had in keeping Americans safe. Keillor, like Rice, attempts to somehow justify these actions that were taken after 9/11 as a means of trying to protect the American public in unprecedented times. Keillor goes even one step further and indicates that the American public re-elected President Bush in 2004 because they were "rough men" who stood ready at the foot of our beds to guard us from those who would do us harm.
As Keillor ends his piece, he rattles off other projects that he would rather see this new Administration undertake instead of upholding the basic principles of law. He would like to see trains connect cities throughout the Midwest, he would like public education to be restored, and he fears that health care reforms would be forgotten all so the "left could have at the right". Keillor wrote his piece while attending "Poetry Out Loud" where children from around the country recite well-known works by various poets. Keillor ends his piece by saying:
I would forgo the pleasures of tormenting a few malefactors for the rightness of hearing a kid from Newark stand up and give an impassioned recitation of "When in Disgrace With Fortune and Men's Eyes."
Perhaps that child would even grow up to have a famous radio show and be fortunate enough to have his/her views published for thousands of readers across the globe to read. Is it Keillor's hope that this child will then also have enough courage to, as Peggy Noonan stated and Keillor's advocates in his writing, "just keep walking" when faced with potential criminal wrong-doing? Perhaps it is this type of courage, the kind that it takes to bury your head in the sand, that Keillor hopes to transfer to the generation of children that he was watching read poetry. The type of courage that rings true in a quote that you may recognize from a familiar face:
"Sometimes you have to look reality in the eye, and deny it."
There was a very interesting and rather heated exchange between former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and a student at Stanford University on Monday.
During this conversation Rice makes the statements that:
1. Al Qaeda is a bigger threat to the United States than the Nazi's were because Al Qaeda has attacked our homeland.
2. That the Supreme Court blocked detainees from standing trial under the Military Commissions that the Bush Administration had set up.
3. That because President Bush told his Administration that nothing they were doing violated the Convention Against Toture, this inherently means that it was legal.
I wonder if Rice was channeling Nixon when she gave her own "if the President authorized it, it means it was legal" defense. Watch:
Notice how condescending and defensive Rice was during this exchange. She not only tells this student that he can't begin to understand the pressure decision makers were under after 9/11, but denies responsibility for authorizing anything after dismissing the student with the "do your homework" line.
Out of the three points I listed above, the first needs no explanation and the third has been shown to be a narrow and warped Nixonesque view of excutive power, but for the second Ali Frick weighs in:
"Of course, the Supreme Court "stayed" the Bush administration's military commissions because they were woefully inadequate. The Court -- three separate times -- required the administration to come up with meaningful judicial review of suspects' detentions. Indeed, last June the court held that military commissions "are not an adequate and effective substitute for habeas corpus" and thus "operates as an unconstitutional suspension of the writ."">Of course, the Supreme Court "stayed" the Bush administration's military commissions because they were woefully inadequate. The Court -- three separate times -- required the administration to come up with meaningful judicial review of suspects' detentions. Indeed, last June the court held that military commissions "are not an adequate and effective substitute for habeas corpus" and thus "operates as an unconstitutional suspension of the writ."
The defenses for torture are flying fast and furious out of this Administration and as Spain proceeds with criminal investigations the pressure is mounting for investigations within the United States. In last night's Presidential Press Conference, President Obama voiced his direct opposition to the position put forth by Rice and other Bush Administration officials:
What I've said — and I will repeat — is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don't think that's just my opinion; that's the opinion of many who've examined the topic. And that's why I put an end to these practices.
So...if torture is against the law and if waterboarding is torture and if we know that the Bush Administration authorized waterboarding...then is there any reason why investigations should not move forward if we are a nation where no one is above the law?
The orthodox conservative position at this point, it seems to me, is that waterboarding is not torture. Nor is having someone dangle from his shackled arms in a manner so painful as to prevent sleep for a period of days. What’s more, these non-torturous “harsh techniques” are highly effective at gathering intelligence. But if that’s true, and these are legal and effective means of securing reliable information, why are we doing so little of it?
After all, people doing organized crime investigations face a lot of challenges in terms of getting information from people. Maybe cops should do routine undercover drug buys, build a case against low level dealers, and then waterboard the guys they’ve arrested and move further up the food chain. Maybe waterboarding and “stress positions” should become routine treatment for battlefield detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why not?
Indeed, if one makes the argument that waterboarding is not torture, that it provides reliable information, and that authorizing this technique will not lead to abuses down the road, then shouldn't those who defend waterboarding be arguing for its extended application into the criminal justice system?
I hope for their sakes that none of these Americans who think that torture should be "considered" ever find themselves in the grips of the legal system because allowing the government to ignore the constitution and disregard moral taboos against cruelty and barbarity can only logically lead to the same tactics being used at home.
If there is no further investigation of this terrible breach of American values and constitutional principles and this philosophy is allowed to become a mainstream, respectable way of thinking, we will have gone a long way toward making ourselves an elected dictatorship subject to the good intentions of our leaders. Personally, I'm not crazy about that idea. I've lived long enough now to know that even the best cannot be trusted with such power.
McClatchy Newspapers are reporting that the Bush Administration applied "relentless pressure" on interrogators to apply "harsh techniques" on detainees in order to obtain information that would connect Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein. It was during this time period that Khalid Sheik Muhammed was waterboarded 183 times and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in a month.
McClatchy quotes a former Senior U.S. Intelligence official in the article:
"There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder," he continued. "Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."
In addition, the Senate Armed Services Committee has released a 232 page report that discusses details on the treatment of detainees and the approval of said techniques by the Bush Administration. From the Washington Post:
The military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) has been reported to have reverse-engineered these methods to break al-Qaeda prisoners. The techniques, including waterboarding, or simulated drowning, were drawn from the methods used by Chinese Communists to coerce confessions from U.S. soldiers during the Korean War -- a lineage that one instructor appeared to readily acknowledge.
So, it becomes increasingly clear that the Bush Administration used torture techniques on individuals that were reversed engineered from the military's SERE program in order to elicit (false) confessions from detainees in U.S. custody and then retroactively attempted to provide legal cover for themselves via the torture memos. Astonishing that we would even consider NOT moving forward with a special prosecutor. Chris Floyd:
What's more, it is now undeniable that they began this program long before they had captured even one "high-profile al Qaeda detainee," and that they were using these heinous techniques not in a desperate bid to save the nation from further attacks – which has long been their preening, self-serving claim – but instead to produce spurious data about the non-existent link between Iraq and al Qaeda. In other words, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld ordered their minions to beat and torment captives in order to get them to say something a – anything – that could then be used to "justify" a war of aggression that these grand statesmen had been planning long before the September 11 attacks.
You cannot disentangle the torture program from the war of aggression in Iraq – nor from the illegal wiretapping program, the corrupt war profiteering, and all the other degradations of liberty and law that have been so accelerated in the past eight years. They are all of a piece, part and parcel of a plan to expand and entrench America's "unipolar domination" of world affairs with a thoroughly militarized state led by an unaccountable, authoritarian "Unitary Executive."
As I posted last week, President Obama made the decision to release four of the torture memos that were written during the Bush Administration. Obama's decision to do so came as he was being strongly pressured from CIA officials, including former CIA Director Michael Hayden, to keep these documents secret. In releasing these memos it has given the public a glimpse into the rules that the Bush Administration felt legally comfortable in operating under during the so-called "War on Terror".
I will make my assessment fairly brief as much has already been stated and since this conversation is far from over. I spent the weekend reading these four memos and have found them nauseating and disturbing. It is simply astounding to read the lengths that Jay Bybee and Stephen Bradbury go to in these memos to justify policies like sleep deprivation, walling (slamming a detainee against a wall), stress positions, dietary manipulation, and waterboarding. I had to remind myself that I was reading memos that shaped American policy and not the policy of some brutal dictator in a far-away land.
These memos outline the reality that played out during the Bush Administration and what was deemed acceptable during the last eight years. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones:
Reading the OLC torture memos is enough to make you ill. The techniques in question are plainly and instinctively abhorrent by any common sense definition, and the authors of the memos obviously know it. But somehow they have to conclude otherwise, so they write page after mind-numbing page of sterile legal language designed to justify authorizing it anyway. It's not torture if the victim survives it intact. It's not against the law if it takes place outside the United States. Waterboarding is OK as long as it isn't performed more than twice in a 24-hour period. Sleep deprivation of shackled prisoners for seven days at a time is permissible as long as the victim's diaper is changed frequently. And on and on and on.
There is no denying that the United States is a nation that wanted to torture, did so on a regular basis, and tried to legally justify treating detainees in ways that would be condemned if the proverbial "shoe were on the other foot". This is not up for dispute. What is also no longer up for dispute is that the Bush Administration felt that these memos gave them enough legal cover to consistently claim that the United States "does not torture" all while feeling justified in the waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammad 183 times in one month.
Despite all of these ugly revelations about our country over the last eight years, we still have commentators, talk show hosts, and a former Vice President who still stand by these tactics and are angry at the Obama Administration for discontinuing their use. These torture apologists not only try to make locking someone in a box with an insect into a political issue, but will continue to make excuse upon excuse for why this type of behavior is acceptable and necessary. For those who implemented these policies which have resulted in the torture and deaths of countless detainees, it is absolutely necessary to establish a special prosecutor to pursue charges of war crimes.
I have expressed concern in Obama's continued language of the need to "move forward" and his viewpoint that "retribution" is not the answer, but with so many conflicting statements coming out of the Administration over the last few days regarding prosecutions, a debate is more than likely happening behind closed doors. If Obama's language is intended to distance himself from the legal process, then an argument can be made that this action is justifiable. After all, bringing charges against former Administration officials should rest with the Attorney General. What is not justifiable is inaction. In order to uphold the laws of the land and to show that we are a nation of laws, there is no other option but to hold fierce and probing investigations into the Bush Administration's use and justification of torture. If these high crimes go unpunished, it undermines the very principles upon which this country stands. It is not simply enough to move on. Scott Horton:
Can anyone be surprised to learn that the new guardians of these vast and unchecked powers, while piously promising to reform and stop breaking the law, also feel that there is no really compelling reason to enforce the law–in the process breaking the oaths they just took a few weeks ago to uphold that very law? Is it not indeed amazing that these claims can be made on the public stage without being greeted with the peals of derision they deserve? Now comes the test of our democracy–will we close the door and walk away, or demand to know what’s been done in our name and hold those who guided any abuses to account for their misconduct? President Obama tells us there’s nothing to see here, just move along. But this will be a test of whether we have a citizenry worthy of that name.
I will continue to bring more opinions on this issue as we move forward.
Over the weekend I read the majority of the four torture memos that were released last week and will finish them at some point today. There have been a lot of good analysis and important reaction coming out and I while I will write my own this week, it is important to keep the conversation going.
Over the weekend we learned that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) was waterboarded 183 times in March, 2003 by the CIA and that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August, 2002. At the blogger emptywheel pointed out:
So: two two-hour sessions a day, with six applications of the waterboard each = 12 applications in a day. Though to get up to the permitted 12 minutes of waterboarding in a day (with each use of the waterboard limited to 40 seconds), you'd need 18 applications in a day. Assuming you use the larger 18 applications in one 24-hour period, and do 18 applications on five days within a month, you've waterboarded 90 times--still just half of what they did to KSM.
The CIA wants you to believe waterboarding is effective. Yet somehow, it took them 183 applications of the waterboard in a one month period to get what they claimed was cooperation out of KSM.
That doesn't sound very effective to me.
The figures that emptywheel used above, came directly out of the torture memos dictating how waterboarding was to be implemented. As Andrew Sullivan points out:
Moreover, it is worth pointing out that even if you accept the preposterous notion that waterboarding isn't torture - something no legal authority in human history ever has before Dick Cheney came along - and even if you accept the amazingly detailed limits that Bradbury placed on the frequency and severity of waterboarding to make it "legal," even then, we now know that the CIA violated those standards.
[...]
So even by the Bush-Cheney standards of legality, the waterboarders far exceeded what was allowed. They broke the law even by Bush's standards. And why, pray, is breaking the law in such a grave matter as a war crime no longer subject to prosecution or even investigation in the United States?
More to come on all of this. Meanwhile, the Daily Show takes on torture apologists:
A few items of note, specifically on the sections of the interview that focus around investigating potential criminal actions by the Bush Administration:
1. Pelosi endorses the idea of Senator Leahy's proposed "Truth Commission" to investigate past actions by the Bush Administration, but is concerned about any proposed immunity for officials that agree to testify.
- I fully agree with Pelosi on this point. Exchanging immunity for testimony, while potentially helpful in bringing out elements of the truth, would impede any meaningful attempt at holding those who broke the law accountable. The goal needs to be more than simply a "truth commission", but a serious attempt to investigate the lawbreaking of the past eight years.
2. If the Inspector General report comes back with the indication that there was criminal wrong-doing, Pelosi would support moving forward with additional action against former Bush Administration officials.
- It is reassuring to hear the Speaker of the House come out and directly state that she would support these actions. While President Obama still remains non-committal on this issue, stating that while no one is above the law he prefers to look forward, members of Congress will need to lay the groundwork and keep the pressure on Obama to move forward with these investigations.
3. Maddow does a fantastic job of following up this line of questioning with confronting Pelosi with the fact that she, and other Democrats, had been briefed on these torture programs in 2001 and 2002. Maddow asks Pelosi if it is problematic that she did not raise these concerns over torture publicly after she was briefed. Pelosi then claims that she (and others) were never made aware that the government was actually using these so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques".
Maddow continues to (rightly) push Pelosi on this point because Pelosi's presence in meetings that discussed these techniques could indicate that she and other Democrats not only knew of these programs but were complicit in approving torture. Maddow asks Pelosi if the Administration gave the inference that they believed that waterboarding was now legal. Pelosi says that they may have given that inference, but that she never knew it had been implemented.
This admission is potentially problematic. If Pelosi and others knew that the Administration viewed techniques like waterboarding as legal, what would stop them from using such techniques. Just because the Bush Administration didn't come out and tell Pelosi that they were torturing doesn't mean that it is a surprise that they did. After all, if they told Pelosi and other Democrats that they believed these actions to be legal, why would they not use them? Pelosi is adamant that she couldn't talk about anything that was disclosed in the meetings and therefore could not publicly object to these policies.
Pelosi's statements are difficult to verify at this point considering so much is still secret and I still have my doubts that Democrats were completely in the dark as to what was going on. The new information that this interview does bring out, is that Pelosi is willing to endorse investigations into criminal wrong-doing by the Bush Administration and does not believe that anything that she and/or other Democrats knew, will get in the way of these investigations.
I have devoted quite a few entries recently to the discussion of torture policies and my viewpoint that officials that approved these policies should be investigated and held accountable for their actions. I actually find it fascinating to witness some of the conversations that take place in the media in regard to torture policies and those who continue to insist that this is merely a question of political difference and debate as opposed to a discussion over accountability to the rule of law.
I am in complete agreement that outgoing administrations should not have to worry about policies being criminalized, but when those policies break the law and are potential war crimes, then certainly those who implement said policies should be investigated and held to account. When we are discussing violations of the law, we move beyond mere differences in political ideology and discussions about accountability to the law should not be viewed through merely a political lens. After all, we are a nation of laws and are of the belief that no one is above the law. It was quite refreshing to see the nominee for the position of Attorney General state today that "no one is above the law" and that "waterboarding is torture".
Despite Holder's assertion that "no one is above the law" President-elect Obama has not made any indication that Bush Administration officials will be investigated and face charges for implementing policies. In fact, Obama stated the tired line that "we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards" this past weekend with George Stephanopolous. In order for Obama's Administration to hold the line that "no one is above the law" and to remain consistent with their assertion that "waterboarding is torture", there is no other option than to hold those who made the decision to implement torture, accountable for their illegal and immoral actions.
As President Bush and other Administration officials continue to admit that they approved of torture and Holder and Obama state that waterboarding is indeed torture that the United States has prosecuted others for in the past, the scenario is set for the next step of accountability. All the while there is still a debate about whether these policies are appropriate, with people like Joe Scarborough and Dick Cheney, continuing to defend these policies as necessary to the safety of U.S. citizens. The clip below is a prime example of just how backward the discourse has slid when these issues are discussed:
