Who's in charge here?
ABC News reported this week that a group of so-called “Principals” — including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice — met dozens of times in the White House to “discuss and approve” specific interrogation techniques to be used against suspected terrorists.
The AP moved the ball forward on this story today.
Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, The Associated Press has learned.
The officials also took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved.
So, Bush was “insulated.” It’s quite a concept. I’m trying to imagine the president walking through his White House asking his chief of staff, “Hmm. Dick, Rummy, Colin, Tenet, Ashcroft, and Condi are all huddled together. What’s that all about?” Only to hear in response, “Don’t worry about it.”
It’s vaguely reminiscent of the “out of the loop” defense utilized during the Iran-Contra scandal. Everyone around the president was engaged in criminal behavior, but we need not blame the president directly because he had no idea what was going on and no clue what the top members of his White House team were doing.
How reassuring.
Who’s in charge here?
Not any of them.
None of this surprises me. Not the involvement of Dick or Rummy. Not W's lack of curiosity or actual involvement in real governance.
The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists." --J. Edgar Hoover
I think that "insulation" is probably grade-a bullshit. It's no excuse, anyway. if the President doesn't know what his direct reports are doing, he is nonetheless responsible for knowing and doing something about it.
He should be tried as if he tortured those people himself.
Oh he was there all right, but he was listening to random noises on an Ipod. Bright lights and noises easily distract the chimp.
Yes, but GWB says he knew all about it, approved of it, and doesn't see what the big deal is.
the evidence builds.
While I'd prefer he repeat that story in a US court of law after his term is up, the mess in our courts will take years to untangle, if then - so the best chance at a fair trial might be the Hague.
You think it will happen?
Me, neither.
If they'd told George all about it he'd still have no idea what it was all about.
Can we drop the "simulates drowning" trope when we discuss waterboarding? It IS drowning. But they revive the victim before it's final. And sometimes, they don't.
I hope you are writing this with sarcasm, because you can be assured George Bush was and is well aware of what was ordered. He's slick, plays dumb, but is pure evil.
I noticed that too the first time I read the story .. and had to read it a couple more times to get it to sink in.
Yes - reminiscent of Iran Contra.
But most disturbing is the implication that this cabal within the executive branch - without the knowledge of the "chief executive" - formulated these policies.
His Dad called it " plausible deniability" back in the day. Never outright refute the charges only a shoulder shrug with a "so?" Worked like a charm for Dad.
Bush: "I'm Aware Our National Security Team Met On This Issue. And I Approved."
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/Story?id=4635175&page=1
‘Cad Pits’ Stars in ‘Dick Cheney’s Torture Club’
Welcome to the MBA Presidency at its finest... the boss has no clue what's going on.
Who's in charge here? There's some debate whether a continuity of government plan may be still in effect. An emergency plan that has not been lifted since Sept. 11th.
One is by Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story posted over at Huffington Post:
If I am reading this correctly, it seems to me that this administration has justified its crimes by NOT suspending the state of emergency that went up on September 11, 2001. They are using emergency powers if you look at the whole of the spying, military actions inside the US, etc. I would wager that if asked, this administration will admit that we have been in a state of emergency for their tenure in office. Congress? Was the state of emergency lifted, yes or no?
The other is here.
I believe that I mentioned something to the fact that they didn't mention Bush's name. I wonder how anyone could believe that he wasn't in on the conversation.
Philippe Sands has a detailed, devastating and deeply chilling article at VanityFair.com on the machinations and mechanics behind the Bush Administration's path to implementing torture as policy and its institutionalized scorn for international human rights standards. I've got excerpts (the piece is pretty lengthy) and some analysis at my blog, Sensen No Sen, and the entire original can be found here.
Bush: "I Was Aware" of Harsh Tactics
By Jan Crawford Greenberg, Howard L. Rosenberg and Ariane de Vogue
ABC News
Friday 11 April 2008
President says he knew his senior advisors approved tough interrogation methods.
President Bush says he knew his top national security advisors discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday.
[deleted--please do not do long cut and pastes. Just link and excerpt.]
the bush's have been getting away with this evil crap since their 'united fruit' days in central america circa the 70's.
Nothing unusual for a Republican regime, the Reagan administration did the same thing with Iran-Contra. They call it plausible deniability, which only really means something can be denied within the realm of plausibility, not really that it didn't happen. Like Reagan before him, Bush can claim ignorance of the crimes that have been committed in his name. By delegating authority, a President can insulate themselves from particular policies, especially illegal ones, and face little repercussion if they are uncovered. At worst, a subordinate will fall on their sword, resign or, if prosecuted, be pardoned (Oliver North, Scooter Libby?) at the end of the Presidential term.
The language manipulation in the coverage of this regime has been truly amazing. "Torture" has been renamed "harsh interrogation techniques". The use of weapons of mass destruction to terrorize a population has been renamed "shock n' awe", when the Bush regime does it. A 100 year occupation has been dubbed "liberation". Mercenaries are "contractors". Can't think of them all, yet seems we hear new ones frequently. I heard Petraeus is his doublespeak refer to something called "military geometry".
In the context of the current thread, Cheney et al, authorized "torture" against the suspected terrorists.
So for the past couple of years Bush has sworn that :"he didn't know" or that "America doesn't torture" - all of which anyone with a half of a half of a sentient brain knew that he was lying and that the directives came from the top down…I mean. let's get real here. The whole administration almost without exception has committed some form of Crime and Misdemeanor that warrents impeachment - and if we had ANYONE in the Senate or House with some balls, they would throw the book at these miserable shits and frogmarch them off to Gitmo for a trial and hanging for crimes against humanity. But nooooo…we've taken impeachment off the friggin table. So what do the Dems think - that they are going to win big in o8? Not if past performance is any indication of future results - we can expect another 51% to 49% loss through fixed voting machines, voter disenfranchisement and vote rigging - and basically the American public is fucked once again. In the meantime, the economy sucks, salaries have been stagnant for 10 years, inflation is in the double digits, and the thieves on Wall Street are robbing us of trillions of dollars. Meanwhile Bush fiddles, while Rome burns.
We can only hope McCain will be reached for comment.
This was as pertinent then as it is now:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8476042566108039966
"Past as Prologue".
30 years later and the very same shit is going down.
Will we get our own Senate Hearings on this torture scandal??
For the sake of our country, we had better. Presidential election or no presidential election.
With liberty and justice for all."
The buck stops nowhere.
As usual, as in the aftermath of 9/11, it's Dick Cheney calling the shots.
Liberals hate the right and vice versa - what NO ONE understands is that the Bushites hate everyone who isn't one of them - read wealthy, priviledged, white, entitled - and that right and left will be strung out to dry when the SHTF. A police state will not discriminate between R&L. The people - both sides of the political spectrum have to get over their differences and recognize that as Pogo said, "we have met the enemy and he is us" - in this case it's the US - as in government. It staggers the brain to think that some yahoo redneck thinks that Bush actually is looking out for him, protecting him from "those kind of people - code words for African Americans" and that Bush will make his life better. Bush is a Yale-bred wealthy drunk who leaves all his shit behind for everyone else to clean up afterwards. Take Iraq, for example. Or the coming debacle and war crime against Iran. We had better start working together soon, because when Bush declares martial law and cancels the election in November, the right and left had better be armed, dangerous and working together or else. A few million strong marching on Washington DC is in order.
The US is hopelessly broken, this torture revelation proves the criminal Bush has taken us into medieval times again. The future is dark with a corporate media relentlessly hiding the truth and pushing another disaster John Mccane on a gullible electorate.
slippy hussein toad @ 4:
I agree. and fwiw, this is the same excuse Ken Lay used for flushing Enron down the toilet. "I didn't know!"
It's their job to know. Jeez, leaking info looks rather tame now, doesn't it?
it's documented historical fact that many highly ranked NAZIS actually denied that HITLER knew any thing of the holocaust. history has proven other wise. HITLER'S direct orders did in fact put into action the holocaust itself as well as the prioritizing of the very machinery that made it happen (i.e. manpower, railways/transport).
does this sound familiar?? as if BUSH was "out of the loop" on torture and methodoligy? let's get real here..
Iran Contra Affair
In his testimony to the congressional committee studying Iran-Contra Affair, Vice Admiral John Poindexter stated: "I made a deliberate decision not to ask the President, so that I could insulate him from the decision and provide some future deniability for the President if it ever leaked out."[11]
The Reagan administration set the precedent, the failure of the Democrats to impeach back then, just as now, is an open door to further malfeasance and abuse of power by future administrations. For some reason, Congress has an inability to think past the concept of plausible deniability and assess the chain of responsibility for illegal or inconvenient covert operations. Even though, the concept is inherently flawed and, in a way, an implicit admission of guilt, Congress just seems to throw up its hands whenever it's invoked by a Republican regime. Each time they do so, it ensures that the next time will be worse.
dosido @ 31:
So true. And I'm afraid this whole country is going to be Enron'd. I'm sick about it. No one thought Enron, the "biggest" corporation or whatever, could go down. I don't want this to happen to our country. I hope everyone else is not only studying this stuff, but also taking appropriate actions to ensure it doesn't. Let's see.
Oh, he knew exactly what they were doing but KKKarl told him to stay out of the room and not ask questions (as if he ever does). Barefoot and pregnant (who's your daddy?). Plausible deniability. CYA. Protect the Leader at all costs. Well, I say haul them all up for crimes against humanity and get somebody to turn evidence. Otherwise, send them all to Gitmo. Then close it down except for the Bushco defendants. Leave them there for 5 years with no lawyers or hearings. No phones or blankets or TV or $1000 suits or brie or wine or maids or 5-course meals or sex. Or send them all to county jail in any major city. I don't care as long as somebody here is prosecuted. Or we could impeach. Now there is an idea.
bush could deny it, but his denial wouldn't be plausible. too many of his lies have been documented.
bubba clinton digs him some jack bauer torture, too, y'know...
between hillary's statements supporting mccain, her support of the credit-card company sponsored bankruptcy bill, the gobs of money she takes from pacs and giant corporations, her husband screwing america via nafta, her team secretly meeting with columbia to broker a fta (even as she publicly spoke out against such a thing), mark penn's firm working for blackwater and john mccain, her husband frollicking around places like bohemian grove with poppy bush, hillary's refusal to take any meaningful stand against the neocon agenda over the last 8 years, her vote for war in iraq, her vote for kyl-lieberman, and now her husband's's endorsement of torture...
do you understand why team clinton is completely unacceptable for the democratic ticket? ZERO OPPOSITION to the republican party, when america needed it most. hillary / mccain is a goddamn dog and pony show.
how can c&l or any of it's readers even be remotely on the fence anymore?
did i mention hillary and bill are both proven pathological liars? in fact, bill's perjurer disbarred from practicing law.
bill clinton... if you're out there reading... a long time ago you were a good guy. a passionate anti-war protestor, an actual real life jfk democrat. but you've clearly lost something.
now there's a candidate running -obama- who is exactly the kind of person you would have fought for when you were younger.
please drop out of this race. please tell hillary what no one has the guts to tell her. you people are really hurting the democratic party, in particular, and america as a whole.
Biggus Diggus @ 28:
Aftermath???
How about before and DURING??
"harsh interrogation techniques"
C'mon, you can say it MSM, it's OK...."torture"... Is there an aversion to using the correct term? Oh, never mind...
bullfrog @ 37:
Billo Clinton lost it while he was running (and apparantly snorting) drugs while he was "running" the great state of Arkansas. He (and, I fear, his lovely bride) are now so corrupt it would really be a shame if they had four more years in the WH.
God
blesssave America....tr @ 21:
the 70's? are you kidding? i'm pretty sure poppy bush was undercover in dallas on 11/22/63, i'm pretty sure fdr froze prescott bush's assets during ww2 for doing business with the nazis, i'm pretty sure prescott bush was part of the fascist cabal that nearly overthrew fdr in the 1930's, and i'm pretty sure prescott's dad was up to no good during ww1 as well.
bullfrog @ 41:
Now we are talking.
Amitola @ 40:
there's so much not to like about team clinton, i don't even need to bring up the mena, arkansas or the huma abedin stuff -but you bet your @$$ the right already is.
Orangutan. @ 42:
i agree. i was only referring to the torture angle.
Orangutan. @ 42:
now if only george h.w. bush would start talking before he gets too old and dies -about zapata, bay of pigs, jfk, the iran-hostage backroom deal, iran-contra.
might save his soul from eternal damnation, ya never know...
Thank you slideguy, NoBuddy, and others -- these techniques are torture. And if we want to keep some of the other key frames going here -- Promoting torture endangers *our* people.
Plenty of other reasons not to do it, but let's keep in mind that supporting our people in uniform means supporting the Geneva conventions and keeping draft-dodging sickos away from military policy. (and civil judicial policy too, but I digress...)
bush will never talk bullfrog. just too much evil in his background.
"Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality... "
---> So!
(Guess who I am.)
Currently reading "Static" by Amy Goodman, excellent book, it shows a White House policy of appointing sadists to run prisons and authorize "interrogations techniques" to be used at all the lovely little concentration camps dotting the globe.
There are some truly sick people running this country.
If you ran prisons in the U.S. and were under indictment or otherwise suspected of abuses against prisoners, chances are you are training others in Iraq, Afghanistan or GITMO.
"We do not torture." Repeat until true.
Why would they include a guy who has not even mastered basic English in their policy and decision making ?
Fine.. impeach all those mother fuckers and start putting them in prison until one of them fingers Bush, then impeach him too.
tr @ 47:
you're probably right, but do you remember his emotional moment in december 2006?
and then his statements about the jfk murder less than a month later, at ford's funeral?
i don't think bush sr. is a man without conscience -i think his conscience is eating him alive.
and, hey, even darth vader got one thing right before he died...
(sorry for strayin' a little o.t., mr. benen... thanks for indulging us...)
and now, back to torture...
War Criminals, plane and simple. If we (America) don't hold them accountable, then we are complicit. IMPEACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
.
Who's in charge here...?
Bush is...
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB127/02.02.07.pdf
.
tjb @ 13:
The neocons think "plausible deniability" is for sissies. They blatantly conduct their criminal enterprises in the open, threaten, imprison, and murder their most powerful opponents, accuse the rest of being terrorists, and rely on a compliant press and a somnolent nation to maintain their leverage.
Well, in Bush's defense, he probably was too busy clearing brush to attend any meetings.
Bush: 'I Was Aware' of Harsh Tactics ("And I approved.")
link
Dave H. Smith @ 59:
I agree that it definitely bears repeating... :)
I read that there is a 2002 memo with George's signature on it. Surely not another fake like the Dan Rather "fake"!
MountainMan23 @ 12:
So what else is new? Clinton used the same defence with Whitewater and every scandal he faced politically, except MonicaGate. It's what Presidents do. The office of President is NOT a person, but an entity. Of course they try to keep it at arms length in all illegal dealings.
As a lawyer -- Notice to the agent is notice to the principal, Hence the President is on notice of what his Cabinet and staff do.
As an officer -- A leader is responsible for everything they personally do or fail to do and for everything their subordinates do or fail to do. Hence The CinC is again responsible.
Our press is so weak it makes my head spin. They never provide context for how bad or how criminal something is, they never connect the dots to show patterns of abuse, and they're too "polite" to use words like torture and lies when they it can be proven they apply. They'd rather spoonfeed us tabloid crap than talk about the Yoo memo or the president's admission that he approved torture - things that should take down a presidency. "Nothing to see here, folks. Just move along. Let's go take a look at that Rev. Wright video again."
So here it is:
Cheney et al: So, yeah, we agreed to torture. We told George about it, he agreed to it, and we renditioned and tortured prisoners for information.
Average Joe: Oh, well that's okay. You have to torture those people to get information to protect us!
See, it doesn't matter if they prove the Principals promoted torture. Nobody cares. Habeas Corpus was essentially erased; nobody cares! It's our fault, the uninformed, brainwashed American public who needs to stand up now and do something. But I don't see it happening.
(ABC News) Bush Aware of Advisers' Interrogation Talks
President Says He Knew His Senior Advisers Discussed Tough Interrogation Methods
(Wash Post) Bush Approved Meetings on Interrogation Techniques
President's Comments to ABC News Prove Top-Level Involvement in Allowing Harsh Coercion
All ABC did was to make public what has been known for a long, long time. Congress is so corrupt and spineless that they will do nothing. This also has been known for a long, long time.
The question at hand is what can we do about it? The answer may be “not much.”
Bush is a pussy, plain and simple. He didn't have the balls to serve in Vietnam, didn't have the balls to make a motion to amend the Constitution to allow warrentless wiretapping, and doesn't have the balls to take responsibility for his own disasterous war. What a pussy.
They didn't need his dimwitted ass there, the real president(Cheney) was present.
Fellow citizens,Left, Right Middle. Lets try to regroup here a bit. The fight is class war and class war only, not gays,not pro choice or pro life, not about blacks,whites,browns or grays. And most of all it is not about," dope smoking hippies or drunken rednecks! The most important thing ,THE MOST IMPORTANT THING to hold as truth is their are only two sides on which we fight for. This is something that the top 1% of rulers fight to keep undercover. If you are not in the top 1% of income earners,350,000%+ a year,YOU are not counted as "one of them", you may think so,they may act like your in the club, but they are bullshitting you and you are bullshitting yourself! This top 1% has for the last 35 years worked to peel away the power of unions and in doing so has taken away healthcare,workers rights,lowered wages on and on. Really its been longer than the last 35 years, all the way back since we threw out the robber barons in 1932. Since that time the rich puds have been trying to put us back under their thumb and doing a fair job of it because memories fade,we have jobs hence limited time to watch them, they have big money to spend on false or misinformation ads plus they CONTROL damn near all we see and hear! Fellow citizens of America lets re group! Rednecks, Hippies, everybody,unite now. The rich fuckers that are running our country and our lives are a group of only about 330,000 or so of greedy ,snobbish selfish little fuckers who, just because of the money they have makes them better than us and that they are best fit to rule over us. Come on be honest, half of these turds you would not even speak to on the street let alone put in charge. All the money and time in the world to do as they wish and how do they use it? To make more more more and see to it everyone else gets less, riding on the back of us "common folk" I have no problem being rich. But to use those richs to gain more richs at the expense of everybody else. Middle class? think your safe? they are working their way up to you ,make no mistake about it. Their are only two clubs, ours--290 something million. theirs 330,000 give or take a few ass kisser want a bees! Why do we keep grabbing the end of the stick with the shit clearly on it. CEO
Comments are closed on this entry