Tag: Torture (page 5)

Today I want to look at something Joe Biden said on the morning talk circuit about prosecuting Bush officials responsible for our detainee/interrogation policy.  From this morning's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos:

Something struck me today while catching up on my blog headlines.  Remember the WSJ article BTD blogged about that set off an online firestorm?  We were all supposed to sit tight and dismiss the article until Obama appointed someone like Brennan to the CIA.  Then we could complain.  Then we would find out if Obama had changed his policy.

As I continue my research into Obama's reported CIA and DNI candidate fields, I am finding it remarkable that among the candidates there is such dissent when it comes to what they believe is right/acceptable in interrogation policy and information collection. It's really quite amazing.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.  Right now, there is a really ridiculous op-ed in the NYT about rendition that promotes the deepest Bushisms we are fighting against - and the ones that make Rand Beers and other cosigners of the Campaign to Ban Torture such great choices.  

It is a demonstration of how difficult it can be to dominate the narrative.  Never expect the MSM to agree with you.

And watch when they forward something you hate - Newsweek has Mark Hosenball publishing an article that I considered completely improbable - on Obama keeping Steve Kappes.  I thought this was some AP joke.

Us liberal blogging types are such a destructive bunch, aren't we?  We hardly know anything if you go by what the MSM says.  

But what confuses me most is that the press seems ignorant of the CIA transition process as anything more than Brennan, and now perhaps, Hayden.  I have read very little on any other possible candidates.  Wondering if Obama will appoint a progressive, who agrees with his views, is apparently beyond them.  Even if that guy is one of his advisers!

So here is my suggestion, made once before, now expanded into its own diary.  Beers for CIA Director.

Yesterday, Glenn Greenwald linked to what he describes as a "very realistic, and rather Obama-sympathetic, point of view regarding his appointments and what he intends to do."  This link was to Jane Hamsher's diary "Obama and a Paucity of Progressives."  

Recently, I wrote a diary outlining the many reasons why John Brennan should not serve in any capacity, particularly as head of the CIA, in the Obama administration.  Fortunately the number of people questioning Brennan's association with Obama has grown.

If Obama appoints Brennan to head the CIA, it is truly a big deal and a big problem.  It is not enough that Brennan does not approve of waterboarding at this moment.  

As Obama puts together his transition teams for various departments and looks to future appointments, and we approach the exciting day of January 20th, I think it is important to be clear and to provide a strong body of resources for progressive opposition to John Brennan.  

I think it is important to recognize that we can do a lot better than John Brennan.  The purpose of this diary is to collect important sources, show evidence of Brennan's complicity in the worst of the Bush administration's programs, demonstrate Brennan's association with the most conservative aspects of the intelligence community, and show that there are better experts out there.

Thanks to the people who authored these sources, and esp. to BTD for bringing up Brennan in the first place.  I hope this is not too repetitive but I think it is important to gather all this information in one diary/place.

President Bush says the U.S. does not torture. That's not the truth according to new documents obtained by the Associated Press.

The 91 pages of new documents detail concerns raised by military officials over the treatment of Yasier Hamdi and Jose Padilla, both U.S. citizens, and Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident. The documents were provided by the U.S. Fleet Forces Command which is in charge of the military brigs in Norfolk, Va., and Charleston, S.C where the three were held.

The officials said the conditions of confinement had driven the three to the brink of insanity.

"These documents are the first clear confirmation of what we've suspected all along, that the brig was run as a prison beyond the law. There was an effort to create a Gitmo inside the United States," Jonathan Hafetz of the ACLU's National Security Project in New York said, using the slang word for the U.S. naval facility in Cuba.

More...

The ACLU scored a victory today in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

A federal court today ordered the Department of Defense to release photographs depicting the abuse of detainees by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the government's appeal of a 2006 order directing the Defense Department to release the photos. Today's decision comes as part of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit seeking information on the abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody overseas.

The ACLU says these photos demonstrate that the abuse was not limited to Abu Ghraib and not an occasional aberration. [More...]

The ACLU announced today it has obtained three key memos concerning the CIA's abusive interrogation techniques. You can view them here.

Among other things, they establish that the CIA was told to document the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, including who was present. The first memo shows waterboarding was an approved technique.

One of the documents obtained by the ACLU today is a redacted version of a previously undisclosed Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion from August 2002 that authorizes the CIA to use specific interrogation methods, including waterboarding.

[More...]

Jane Mayer, who has done such great writing on CIA secret prisons for the New Yorker, has written a book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. It goes on sale this week.

Mayer writes of a Red Cross report warning that the interrogation methods used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and others are war crimes. [More...]