December 08, 2007 05:40 PM
Bob Schieffer Commentary: CIA Torture Tapes & The Message Of Edward R. Murrow
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Bob Schieffer's commentary on today's Face The Nation looks at the growing CIA torture tape scandal and notes Edward R. Murrow's belief that sometimes it's not our actions that do the most damage, it's the message we send when we act inappropriately that can truly do the most harm.
Schieffer: "Is THAT our message to the world? That we are a government of laws except when it is inconvenient? If so, then what was done in the name of security has greatly harmed security. Weapons keep our enemies at bay, but our real security risks are whether the rest of the world comes to share our values, or the values of those who oppose us."
At last the voice of reason rises from the ashes of the burning BUSH would be dictatorship!
Good for CBS!
glad you woke up Bob. You did twist the knife nicely tho.
I just notice that this "waterboarding" scandal have wiped off the story about
Iran from the blogs and newspapers.
We have a President who is going gung ho against Iran.
Nothing will stop him.
And no one is paying attention.
Clinton. Obama and Opraphrenia. Bill and Hillary. Same thing.
This week was Obama and Oprah trading.
A message 5 years in the making. America historically waits around, waits around and finally does the right thing.
So DEMS (Nancy & Diane?) lets do the right thing - and repudiate all things BUSHCO.
Message to the world from the USA ? ........ oh that's loud and clear, hence why every one is turning their back and letting the country rot in it's own bile.
>waits around and finally does the right thing.
The right thing ? bwhahahhahaa
If
BobBullSchiefferSchitt were music, there'd be brass bands playing behind old BS. He helped these bastards get in and his brother still works for them.fucking BS!
OK...we have two choices...we can Impeach the Bush Administration now...or wait until they're out of office then indict each and every one of them for criminal conspiracy for each and every dirty deed they've committed against the American People and the Constitution. We can't let them get away with any of this!!!
Rich in San Bruno @ 8:
They already have, americans wont lift a finger against this.
Actually, Bob here is repeating the old Commies vs. Capitalists philosophy of the Cold War.
It's not like the rest of the world is going to be so put off by the US that they'll side with al Qaeda. They have another choice, which is to just not trust us. It doesn't mean they'll "oppose" us, but they won't want to dance with us, either.
Oh! I forgot: vacuous, empty speech.
look at the falling dollar.
look at the outstanding debt.
look at who supports us against that non-enemy Iran.
the french and germans want in on the contracts.
it's about money, plain and simple.
so whatthefuck is bob really blathering about?
I wonder what's in it for bob himself?
I agree with Bob. At some point someone should tell Bush, we have to be like Caesar's wife.
The rest of the world already knew we are criminals. No it isn't just our government. We are all responsible for what is going on.
and
why doesn't
somebody ask bush if
it is alright for americans to be
waterboarded
heh...
Another topic for Bob: "Do Bears Shit in the Woods?" Bob looks like he wants to start screaming out the truth but can't because someone's pointing a gun to his head off camera.
Corporate Broadcasting System ended the Vietnam war when they stated the obvious. Why do we have to wait until obese america has every strand of support for their denial shredded? I mean, would Jesus even bomb the bad people?
I'm sick of these fools running/ruining our country.
Wake up sheeple!
The C&L Thread with Fox News scroller advertising pedophilia is closer to the truth than most will accept. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5OJPeHCmhA
No one can win with you people. If he doesn't speak up, he's an enabler. If he does speak up, he's 4 years too late.
beltman713 @ 16:
Correct . . Bob is all washed up and the show is a joke.
"our real security risks are whether the rest of the world comes to share our values, or the values of those who oppose us."
The real security risk is whether the US comes to share the values of it's enemies or not. That is the security risk for all decent folk everywhere - within or without the States.
beltman713 @ 16:
Glad you said this. We can't change the past, but can use the lessons of the past to change what we do today. Schieffer's message is right.
B @ 18:
CORRECTION: Just FYI, this was transcribed incorrectly: "He says "our real security RESTS ON whether the rest of the world...etc"
Not "RISKS ARE" -
darrelplant Says:
Our real security risks are whether the rest of the world comes to share our values, or the values of those who oppose us.
Actually, Bob here is repeating the old Commies vs. Capitalists philosophy of the Cold War.
It’s not like the rest of the world is going to be so put off by the US that they’ll side with al Qaeda. They have another choice, which is to just not trust us. It doesn’t mean they’ll “oppose” us, but they won’t want to dance with us, either.
Darrelplant - you beat me to it... it's just as you say. I feel like yelling at these commentators when they get out the "white hats, black hats" theme... just a crocka
The more "you guys, us guys" that's spoken, the more it will actually end up being true, but it will be more about apathy and disbelief. The boy who cried wolf is standing up to his knees in dead dross...
Time to stop playing cowboys and indians and start growing up in the real world...
BTW, I'm not real proud of what Australia's done by any means - just thought I'd better throw that in in case I get someone rearing up at me! :)
Oh, the messages we send when we act inappropriately...
Pre-emptive war, invasions, torture, detentions without due process, obscene war profiteering, debt-based war funding...How many dead by our actions? Let's not count.
Wouldn't be prudent. What will we tell our children?
Let's tell them the truth. We stood by while, in the heat of retribution and greed, we let our government act in our names. Five years later, a soft voice here, a protest there...we have not yet found our collective moral compass.
Much of the world still shares the promise of our long-held values. We must tell our children that in this decade, we lacked the courage to live those values. The whole world was watching. We came up short. In our hearts and in our silent moments we know we must stand hat in hand and begin to set a sustainable and responsible course for the future.
Thank you Mr. Scheiffer. Maybe convictions expressed from your unique pulpit can help us to see the need to begin living and defending the values we cherish.
I have no idea what this mad stood for back when the war started, as I was just a Freshman in high school with no worldly views whatsoever, but ever time I see his segments here on C&L I wonder why they're aren't at least a hundred other Bob Schieffers on our new networks. He is one of the most reasonable and logical people I've ever seen on television.
mad was supposed to be man, typo :)
Right on Bob! Now if only we can get the sheeple who watch Fox noise to agree with you.
BOMBSHELL!!!!!!!!!!!! Why is Joe not linking to this little piece of breaking news, Pelosi and others were told about Waterboarding (when, where and how) by the CIA in 2002 and she didn't object.......... http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Pelosi_did_not_object_to_waterboarding_120...
oh yeah, it doesn't service the negative narratives about Bush so Joe will not even mention it. Nor will Olbermann and the rest. See no evil.
The United States has become a nation of monied interests. It has not been a nation of laws for some time. The rest of the world knows this. The contrary fiction is only maintained here.
Schieffer’s commentaries are too little, too late. Where was his indignation when he was championing BushCo products. He and his fellow corporate punditry enabled every aspect of the mess the country's in by pushing the morally bankrupt neocon theology every change they had for 30 years.
well said and sadly, these words could have been said many times over the past 6 years. too many times the bush administration has presented the world with a "do as we say not as we do" face to america. and that is a fact that does not make anyone who sees it or speaks it a "blame america first leftist". i would say it makes us/them a balls on realist.
I agree on the whole with Schieffer -- for pity's sake, I've been saying something very similar for most of the past six-odd years -- but this is still a case of much too little, much too late from his end in my opinion. Schieffer and other people in the mainstream media should have done this years ago, but they haven't had the cojones to do it in spite of the fact that this is supposedly one of the ethical obligations of a free press -- and yes, the press is still more or less free although it may not remain so if they don't collectively start growing a spine and begin fulfilling their duties and responsibilities to the American people instead of falling asleep at the switch as they have done far too many times in the last few years. One of the functions of a free press is to serve as a challenge to the powers of the state -- to expose if need arises the misdeeds of the government. Our Founding Fathers knew this which is one of the reasons why they included Freedom of the Press in the very First Amendment of the Constitution -- they knew that it's that critical. When the press is no longer able or willing to do this and instead simply parrots whatever the government encourages them to regardless of whether the government is ethical or not, all they succeed in doing is becoming agents of the state who assist in the exploitation of the people rather than serving the people's interests by being a thorn in the side of the state. Unfortunately, too many journalists seem to have been putting personal security above ethical principle for most of the past few years. If more of them had been willing to put themselves on the line -- like the CIA agents who were apparently willing to put themselves and their jobs on the line to see the NIE released, even if it would have meant going to jail for coming forward -- perhaps we might be in a better position now than we are.
Speaking of waterboarding, guess what?
Nancy Pelosi was briefed on CIA waterboarding techniques and did not object to it, way back in 2002!!! What's more, she BOOTED the only House member that did object to it.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Pelosi_did_not_object_to_waterboarding_120...
I truly hope that progresive blogs will cover this story and report ALL the Crooks and Liars in Washington.
Oh, look, isn't it cute to watch a corporate lapdog wake up and declare that he smells some coffee.
In all the discussions about whether 'To torture or not to torture', no one has brought up the inconvenient fact that for some ignorant, perverse, sadistic as*holes, 'TORTURE IS FUN'.
And our government is currently run by ignorant, perverse, sadistic as*holes. They're torturing us, why shouldn't their subordinates follow their lead, and torture who they can?
sulphurdunn @ 28:
smedley butler agreed with you. WAR IS A RACKET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ron @ 29:
Yeah! But to read the whiners in this thread, Shieffer is a singular bastion of journalistic integrity! :lol: :lol: :lol:
Nice commentary - Now let's actually DO something about it!! Yeesh...
Old, white-haired ... and eloquently right - time after time after time after time ...
Make no mistake the CIA and military HAVE never and WILL never shy away from torture if they really believe that is the only way to get vital information.
The problem with the current torture debate has nothing to do with that. It has to do with changing the STANDARD practices for ANY suspect to include torture. It is NOT about protecting people or justice. It is about punishing dissent and sending fear through the people. Also hoping that people will become accustomed to you it so they don't complain to much until it is too late (and they are on the rack themselves).
Cops are running around tazering people NOT to protect themselves (as a last resort) but as a tactic to terrorize the population into total submission. Don't think the Democrats are any different (they are either paid off puppets or willing participants).
Don't let yourself be split by party, religion, color or any of those manipulation tools, it is the people against the elite. The only way they can succeed is if we let them. They are turning the US into a third world country. Wake up and do something while you still can.
Straight Shooter @ 33:
it is a well-rehearsed, oft-repeated routine that BS pulls off every few weeks. he's as full of scheiss now as he was when he shilled for the bushes during the debates. just search C&L for schieffer and marvel at how many times he woke up and said something about booshco.
I cannot believe the asshole John Aravosis over at Americablog.
He is actually defending Pelosi.
This madness has gone far enough.
If this country is turning into a nation of vegetables, where TORTURE, I repeat TORTURE is defended in any way shape or form, this nation is lost.
God help us.
Nice to see Bob coming around....I guess he's had enough now.About Fricken Time...BOB!sheeesh......better late than never........sheeesh
"...whether the rest of the world comes to share our values..." Shieffer has it wrong. The rest of the world has seen our values and those values don't comport with what other countries believe are acceptable:
A government that lies to its electorate and an electorate that is too stupid to understand or to do anything about it.
A government that tortures or sends prisoners to other countries so that they can be tortured.
A government that benefits the rich because the poor and middle class have been disenfranchised or, once again, are so preoccupied with day-to-day living to know what is happening.
A press that is equally co-opted by corporate ownership and scared even when their errors are pointed out to them.
A corporate structure that is simply greedy.
This is not the America that I remember as a child. Except for Feingold, where are the Profiles in Courage?
Regards,
Bob
Secretly briefed, Pelosi did not object to waterboarding in 2002
John Byrne
Published: Sunday December 9, 2007
Pelosi would later boot sole objector to program from chance to chair Intelligence Committee
Two senior Republicans and Democrats in Congress -- including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- were briefing on the CIA's program to use waterboarding on terror suspects in September 2002 and did not object, according to Sunday's Washington Post.
In the long-ranging article, which seemingly takes the lawmakers and the Bush Administration to task by discussing the practice's emergence in Nazi Germany and other totalitarian states, a Pelosi aide said the Speaker remembered discussion of "enhanced" interrogation techniques and "acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time."
"In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody," the Post wrote. "For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk."
"Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill," the Post added. "But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said."
Democrats have since been vehement critics of the practice, piggybacking on public outrage to a practice many have described as torture -- including 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain (R-AZ) who was tortured in the Vietnam War.
Only Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) -- then the second-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee who would supplant Pelosi in 2003 -- formally objected. Harman, who was set to lead the House Intelligence Committee when the Democrats retook the chamber in 2006, was pushed aside by Pelosi when she took over as Speaker, in what was seen as an element of personal rivalry.
"Harman, who replaced Pelosi as the committee's top Democrat in January 2003, disclosed Friday that she filed a classified letter to the CIA in February of that year as an official protest about the interrogation program," the Post notes. "Harman said she had been prevented from publicly discussing the letter or the CIA's program because of strict rules of secrecy."
"When you serve on intelligence committee you sign a second oath -- one of secrecy," she said. "I was briefed, but the information was closely held to just the Gang of Four. I was not free to disclose anything."
None of the other lawmakers briefed raised formal objections. Those lawmakers included former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), former Sen. John Rockefeller IV (D-WV), former Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KN).
"Individual lawmakers' recollections of the early briefings varied dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support," the Post added. 'Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing,' said Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. 'And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.'"
Read the full Post story here.
Rawstory Article
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Pelosi_did_not_object_to_waterboarding_120...
84 Comments
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/rawstory/8505a/
IHMO Nancy Should Resign her position effective immediately!
Member of White House Senior Staff involved in CIA Tape Destruction
Probe sought in destruction of CIA tapes Lawmakers charge agency ...
San Francisco Chronicle, USA -
... told the Washington Post that longtime Bush aide Harriet Miers knew of the tapes' existence . ...
CIA was advised to keep interrogation videotapes Houston Chronicle
CIA Was Urged to Keep Interrogation Videotapes New York Times
Comment by Jennifer Daskal Sr. Counterterrorism Counsel, Human Rights Watch
Seattle Times - Reuters Canada
all 1,354 news articles »
ABC: White House counsel knew of plan to destroy tapes
WBOC TV 16, MD - 5 hours ago
The network quotes three sources as saying Miers urged the CIA not to go through with it. Word that the tapes were destroyed has sparked a firestorm on ...
Report: Miers knew about... | kxnet ...
KXMC, ND - 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) ABC News reports that then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers knew the CIA was planning to destroy videotapes of the interrogation of two ...
CIA video firestorm...Blackwater focus narrows...KXMB Bismarck
Demands for CIA probe... KXMC
http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&hl=en&ned=us&q=harriet+mi...
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By: billw on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 6:10 PM - PST
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Guess ole Bob won't be invited to anymore golf outings with G.W.
Well, either remember or don't forget the schieffer referred to dick cheney as 'my old friend' during one of his credulous commentaries. The proximity and complicity of the fourth estate to the morass we find ourselves in now is palpable. The press and punditry have as much blood on their hands as bushco....they will grow a conscience when the dems grow a spine.
#44 and 45 right on....
pelosi and hoyer are a disgrace
mudshark @ 42:
this is about the 30th time. please don't be so overwhelmed. it's definitely temporary.
Drew @ 41:
some of these 'progressive' bloggers, like cenk, kos and some others are raygun democrats and they continue to advocate dialogue with the murderers-in-charge. it's worse than pathetic.
Have a look at Bob SCHEISSer's Past collection of 'OUTRAGES' at Crooks and Liars Now tell me he's not FOS!
WASHINGTON — Four top members of Congress, including now-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, got a close look at CIA overseas detention sites and interrogation techniques in September 2002 and offered no challenge to their legitimacy, according to a news article out Sunday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR200712...
'Couldn't have put it better than Shieffer!
chimpeach
A link to the past Bob Shieffer. I wonder how you guys felt
when the right wingers were in charge and control during
the 1950's. This was when the know-nothings ran into the educated few
and the few won and they called it the 60's, 70's, 80's. A new generation of know-nothings
are back in the form of the religious right conservative Republican politics. Science was
gaining the upper hand putting liberal arts and conservative religious leaders in their place in the 90's.
Bush took care of that. GN&GL
Speaking as a member from the rest of the world, I have no faith in this administraion, nor do I trust it, nor do I beleive the USA is currently law abidng, and hence would not defend it.
Yeah, it's not good, Bob.
Almost enough to make you wish you hadn't given your good friend, that "great guy" George W. Bush (you know, your brother's business partner? the guy you fish with?) such a tongue bath in that last debate, hein?
Breaking News! Bush told one lie . . . Bob Schieffer will read to you from his teleprompter next week on Farce the Nation!!!!
Its not personal . . . but paleeeze . . . the ship is sinking and there aren't enough life boats and we want to applaud one of the nice gentelmen in the elite class for pointing this out to us.
Are the so called-elite journalists trying to jump on Keith Olbermanns band wagon? They're too late. I'm sure they all follow what KO says Countdown every night. The respect KO gets must drive them crazy. They know they have been bought and paid for by coportate entities or they finally realize how naive and stupid they are to have been played by the Bush administration and the GOP. These people have journalistic college degrees. Sickening.
Why is he so concerned with what our "children know"?
Has Daddy been getting some in the shed?
I'm way more concerned about who we are than what others think.
The metatron speaks from many mouths, my friends.
Sheiffer does make some good ending comments on his show but just knowing that he is a card-carrying member of the American Enterprise Institute and a favorite golf partner of Poppy Bush keeps me skeptical.
huh, Murrow. if he were around these days he'd say "God night, and God help us."
Can't we get rid of airhead Couric and replace her with this older gent?
The ONLY way to restore some respect and power for the USA in the world again will be to impeach the administration...forget this "it's too late" reasoning; it's not the timeliness of impeachment, it's the act of doing so. It's the only way left to start to regain moral authority and being "the good guys" again.
So even though we are not supposed to talk about that thing which must not be mentioned, uh maybe that thing isn't everything we have been told by the US Government? The Military or Government or Media would never lie? There will be no Revoluiton.
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