'If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong'
Following up on an earlier item, yesterday was not an encouraging day for those who still take U.S. torture policy seriously.
A senior CIA lawyer advised Pentagon officials about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on detainees at Guantanamo Bay in a meeting in late 2002, defending waterboarding and other methods as permissible despite U.S. and international laws banning torture, according to documents released yesterday by congressional investigators.
Torture “is basically subject to perception,” CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman told a group of military and intelligence officials gathered at the U.S.-run detention camp in Cuba on Oct. 2, 2002, according to minutes of the meeting. “If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.”
The document, one of two dozen released by a Senate panel investigating how Pentagon officials developed the controversial interrogation program introduced at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002, suggests a larger CIA role in advising Defense Department interrogators than was previously known. By the time of the meeting, the CIA already had used waterboarding, which simulates drowning, on at least one terrorism suspect and was holding high-level al-Qaeda detainees in secret prisons overseas — actions that Bush administration lawyers had approved.
Of course, senators also got to hear from William “Jim” Haynes II, the Pentagon’s former top lawyer who signed off on those techniques (he was also, ironically, a one-time Bush judicial nominee). Regrettably, Haynes came down with an acute case of Alberto Gonzales Disease.
Over the course of just a few minutes, Haynes said, “I don’t recall seeing this memorandum before and I’m not even sure this is one I’ve seen before…. I don’t recall seeing this memorandum and I don’t recall specific objections of this nature…. Well, I don’t recall seeing this document, either…. I don’t recall specific concerns…. I don’t recall these and I don’t recall seeing these memoranda…. I can’t even read this document, but I don’t remember seeing it…. I don’t recall that specifically…. I don’t remember doing that…. I don’t recall seeing these things.”
And making the scandal significantly more painful, newly released materials also showed that lawyers candidly talked about curtailing abuse when Red Cross observers came around, and even tried to hide detainees from the humanitarian group.
I remember a time — I believe it’s known as “pre-2001″ — when the United States used to accuse countries which did this of being guilty of disgraceful human rights abuses.
They hate us for our freedom
This is sickening. Every American should feel shame.
J>S> @ 2:
Why should I feel shame? I didn't vote for Bush. I don't think torture is ok.
No. Every American should feel ANGRY!
Until those responsible are seriously threatened with jail time, nothing will change.
Count me ashamed and angry. I am afraid that we have hardly seen the beginning of the world backlash to be unleashed. If there are any mushroom clouds in the USA it will be the fault of Commander ****tard and his merry band of rapists. Life imprisonment in a regular federal penitentiary would be a fate worse than death for these privileged escapees of an abortion.To think of them eating lunch in the general population of other murderers and rapists gives me a warm feeling. "Hey Cheney! No seconds on the mac and cheese, fatboy!"
How can they hire these people with such crappy memories?
Jo @ 3:
i am pissed right now i am tired of the dem pussy shit..we are expected and should take the high road. beyond that our executive branch lied and used propaganda on the american people...they want to torture to prolong these wars......look at the pakistan/afghanastan border taliban is strong.....they want permanent bases in iraq and afghanastan...why resources and presence around china
This is too funny.
“is basically subject to perception,”
That's actually true to an extent. And if the Jonathan Fredman had an IQ that was above 50 he'd be able to understand that to mean that if it's torture when it's done to you then it's torture when you do it to some one else.
Maybe this guy needs a straitjacket?
Could we pay another country to come and get the bad guys? There must be plenty of people wanting Commander fucktard's finger removed from the button. No one in their right mind wants total nuclear annihalation of the planet.
Hey this America hating Jonathan Fredman guy the one that gave that mcsame clwon the idea that it's only torture when it's done to an American. This ashats talking about perception and mcsanes statement a few weeks back to that effect seem to come from the same stupidity and lack of rational thought proccess.
CannibalPlanet @ 4:
I would guess if I tried a few of those harsh interrogation techniques on asshole he would start remembering pretty damn fast.
Surprahzz, surprahzz . . .
The last two presidential terms have been a blight on our reputation, a stain on our conscience, and a scar in our psyche.
Right on Dana Milbank.
i wonder what god thinks about this......
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/41514.html
Captain Obama’s Bitter Half Husein Kangaroo @ 15:
And dogs nipping at his balls.
Isn't Republican America great?
Now remember, if we let our fellow citizens forget what its like under the current batch of Republican politicians, we'll likely have to deal with this junk again, so talk about it around them as much as possible.
maybe a couple sessions of waterboarding that William “Jim” Haynes II
approves of would be just the medicine to regain his faulty fucking memory.
Julian @ 18:
the republicans i meet in this state are either wealthy and could care less about anything except taxation.
on other end of the spectrum poor, angry, defeated and lack much knowledge of policies/politics. not always but most of time the republicans i come across are black and white thinkers...much easier to talk to a wall at times.
J.Fredman: "If the detainee dies,then you're doing it wrong"..
So, only when he dies..something is wrong.. !!!
"I remember a time — I believe it’s known as “pre-2001″ — when the United States used to accuse countries which did this of being guilty of disgraceful human rights abuses."
Yeah, yeah, but...we're so much SAFER now, and think of those MILLIONS that are free because of us!
blame it on the troops........listen to this interview piece
about 1.5 minutes long
http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/42191-bush-blames-torture-policy-on-u-s-tr...
If we're going to consider jail time for these thugs let's throw in Erik Prince. TPM links to an article in a NC paper about Blackwater wanting to have a lawsuit filed against it by American spouses of BW contractors killed in Afghanistan tried under Islamic law, not U.S. law. That's right, the hyper-American, super-patriotic mucho macho firm that's fighting dirty Islamists to preserve our way of life now wants to resort to Sharia law when things get uncomfortable. And this is at the same time these bastards are fighting Iraqi attempts to hold them legally responsible for murders committed by BW personnel.
The entire article is at: http://www.newsobserver.com/917/story/1112708.html
Jesus, how did Haynes get through law school, which is basically a memory course:
I - Issue
R - Rule (you gotta memorize a whole bunch of rules.
A - Analysis
C - Conclusion
You know what? I'm thinking Haynes is a slime and a liar (aka making INTENTIONAL MISREPRESENTATIONS).
At the war crimes trial, how about 40 years hard labor without parole. Hard labor does not require memorization.
Jo @ 3:
What did you do to stop this? I'm serious. What on Earth did you do or not do to stop this torture from happening in Soviet Muraka? Post on a blog? Big fucking whoop. Feeling angry isn't exactly good, either. If you didn't vote for Bush, you should have put up a colossal stink about his election. Not just online, offline. Making macho sounds as a voiceless person online is nothing. Facing down police in riot gear with a bunch of people like you, like that Paul in LA claimed he did, is a whole different level. Don't throw shit on the Intarwebs and expect people to feel anything but scorn.
Another stain on our American soul.
Nancy Pelosi makes me sick. I hate her almost as much as I hate George Bush. She is just like him with her stupid stubborness and refusal to obey the law and do her job.
I heard something about this yesterday on NPR. It was said that it was only torture if there was a possibility of death. Does this mean that McC#nt wasn't tortured?
"If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong"
Oh this is a long standing tradition. In the medieval Balkans, an impaler was a public executioner with a incentive plan (Dracula was based on one Vlad the Impaler). The impaler would hammer in the pole, careful to avoid major organs, until it protruded from the shoulder. The pole could then be hoisted upright and planted into a hole, with the victim skewered atop. The longer the victim stayed alive, the more the impaler was paid. Some would linger for days.
The Bush administration: Bringing medieval torture principles to the US of A.
How did we dodge the Haynes on the judicial bench bullet? Oh, and post 9/11, doesn't Bush still hypocritically use "human rights abuses" to beat China over the head?
off the beaten path but some of you may be interested
http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/18/185659/039/915/538089
John Tighe @ 29:
Good point although the exact nature and degree of punishment/torture to which he was subjected during 'nam has been questioned. Given the BS surrounding the Kennedy/PT 109 "heroics", it wouldn't be surprising to find out that McCain's saga is more comic book superhero fiction than reality.
Start thalking about charging everyone involved with war crimes. They should be afraid of being charged, and nothing would return America to respectability like sending Chenney and Rumsfeld to jail.
america has been a cruel country since reagan.
General_Rennenkampf @ 26:
Well, let's see: My husband and I hung IMPEACH signs on overpasses. We stood with several other Vietnam vets and their families every Friday night at the mall with signs. We marched over a bridge and blocked traffic. We passed out information before the (s)election. We wrote letters to ye ed. I wrote an editorial about permanent bases in Iraq and it was published in our local paper. Every day we buttonhole someone and set them straight about this murderous administration.
It seems that so many people have done so much and yet nothing seems to reach our representatives in D.C. I am angry that they rolled over and gave Bush so much power. But, I am not ashamed of anything but my government.
I had a freind that survived 1 out of 2000 from hitler
People are sick to think torture is ok
and cafefull what they ask for.....
Jo @ 11:
That would make for a fun exciting reality TV show, 20 top Repugs and or corrupt civil servants on an island,
who survives alive to the end of the series.
tr @ 35:
Tell that to the people who were here when the Pilgrims arrived...
Paraphrasing Bush when he had this interview in England a few days ago: We passed a law that circumvented the Constitution about using torture, so you see, what the Supreme Court says doesn't mean anything. Can you see this joker as your lawyer?
samdog @ 22:
Hell this administration accuses China of human rights violations and rightfully so but the chinese have to be laughing up their kimono sleeves
mcBlames going with this guy to smear barack regarding terror........i can't stand him he is self surviving big time
http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/42262-giuliani-is-mccain-s-front-man-on-te...
so?
"Torture in the name of the free, more misery for you and me.
They ship 'em out so we can't see, the way they bring 'em to their knees..."
-Wackiavelli
So when can we start the trials, convictions, and hangings??? (and hanging is too good for these scumbags...)
CannibalPlanet @ 4:
No. Not until those responsible seriously DO jail time. In one of their horrid privatized prisons.
"No Club Fed for YOU, Jim Haynes II"
Godless SOB @ 45:
the underground Supermax in Colorado, the perfect place for the Reslugs to rot away their finals years.
Pete @ 41:
Kimonos are Japanese garments. Just FYI. The chinese wear business suits just like the criminals here.
ferrofluid (Obama 08) @ 47:
Right next to Robert Hansen.
I am sick of all this talk amongst ourselves about the evil Mr. Fredman. We are talking to each other and NOT to him. Will someone knowledgeable please put up a web site with Fredman's name, address, phone number, email and any other of his personal informatioon so we can talk with him or his family directly and tell him and them what a low life he is.
I watched Haynes last night on c-span. He was/is a sickening joke. Torture is not something that should be a part of American values. Granted it is fun to watch movies where the bad guy gets a thrashing; but, in real life most people want the bad guy treated respectfully and fairly. Mistakes are made all the time in arrests here. Bushworld has made nothing but mistakes for 8 years. Also, I think it is funny when they say they finally released some of the Gitmo detainees and the detainees are caught fighting against US soldiers. What does anybody expect? They have been imprisoned for a number of years falsely w/o cause--they are pissed off and become anti-american.
Not surprising, considering he's already perjured himself.
Haynes didn't just "sign off on those techniques."
Guardian UK (Tue Jun 17): Pentagon planned harsh Guantánamo tactics, Senate probe reveals
With this story combined with the story about General Taguba (who was the main guy in the Abu Guraib torture item) who said these are War Crimes, I am really surprized to see that most of the newswires are NOT carrying this information.
The only NEWS happening is happening on the Internet. The Networks Pander to the Corporate masters.
US citizens should be outraged, maddened, Angry as hell and out in the streets saying so.
Jo @ 36:
So you've done more than most. I'm glad to hear it. Somebody needs to tell the Reps and Sens in Washington to take the Dubya Presidency with its enhanced powers, and remove it. Obama with that much power would be just as scary as the incumbent or McPapen, or especially (more than any of them....) Ron Paul!
karl @ 23:
Ahh, yes, that's it, it was some soldiers who caused all the problems. Their commanders had no idea what they were doing, those CIA handlers that were roaming about didn't know anything about it either.
Yep, it was the fault of the soldiers.
This man needs to be put in a jumpsuit and tried.
General_Rennenkampf @ 54:
Yes. That much power in the hands of one, be it Bush or Obama or McSame or Paul, is not what our forefathers had in mind. Washington had the common sense to decline being king when asked. Common sense must have gotten shredded with the Constitution.
Has something happened in the US? I haven't seen a post for 15 minutes.
Terrible @ 12:
Could you please restate that in English? Is that language from Tonga or where?
Randy @ 21:
This guy is a neocon from you know where.
If Bush is still in power within the next 17.3 nanoseconds, the Democrats are doing it wrong.
mystic @ 59:
Hell?
The war criminals from the Pentagopn and those who wrote this congressional report love saying that waterboarding is "simulated drowning". It is NOT. Every expert will tell you it IS CONTROLLED DROWNING. Water is actually pushed into the alveolar lung spaces using a "controlled" manner.
People have diedand not so rarely. It is NOT the benign procedure the neocons or other "experts" pretend. That;s why the Geneva Conventions forbid it. At their warcrimes trials, they will use this argument to no avail. Head of the pack is Yoo the architect of torture and the burning of people alive at Abu Ghraib in a crematorium.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/24/080324fa_fact_gourevitch
We are pathetic as citizens....where is the outrage? We should be taking to the streets and demanding to get our country back!
While the CIA and assorted other perverts are getting their jollies off by torturing goat herders and misc fools who got enslaved by their enemies...
In California there some weird shit going down, foreign nationals selling or attempting to sell military software to foreign governments and the moronic prosecutors call it 'economic espionage' and the courts hand out soft delayed 24 month sentences to club Fed.
We live in a f*cked up country where Republican politics / appeasement to China perverts the true course of justice..
my guess is that they are lowering the bar to allow for soft sentences to the AIPAC spy ring people.
Torture “is basically subject to perception,” CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman told a group of military and intelligence officials gathered at the U.S.-run detention camp in Cuba on Oct. 2, 2002, according to minutes of the meeting. “If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.”
So if the detainee "perceives" mere agony or panic and will say anything at all to make it stop, you're doing it right.
It's amazing the road we've traveled over the past few years, where waterboarding, extraordinary rendition, attacks on habeas corpus and illegal wiretapping are fit subjects for consideration.
An Open Letter to the Democratic Party
Party Leaders, Candidates and Members,
I don't know how to put this politely so I will instead simply say it. I cannot vote for a party which is not willing to act against torture or torturers. With the release of the report Broken Laws, Broken Lives by the group Physicians for Human Rights, it has become clear that the United States has engaged in torture in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and most likely at various locations across the globe. The silence coming from all but the most sidelined of Democratic politicians is deafening. Not a single major party figure has called for even as much as investigations, much less laid out a plan for stopping the torture. This is not an acceptable position to hold in the twenty-first century. Torture is wrong and must be condemned always and confronted and stopped when occurring. But this is not the case at this time.
Because of this I can say now with no doubt in my mind that I shall not and cannot vote for a candidate for high office if that candidate has not condemned torture both in deed and in action, and I can see no candidate for high office from the Democratic Party in this year who can make that claim. Make no mistake, I do not endorse the opposition candidate, who has as of late made his position on torture quite clear, and goes beyond the tacit consent of the Democratic leadership. But all the same, I can never in good conscience work towards the election of a candidate who has not acted against the gross violation of human rights that is torture, even in such a small way as voting for that candidate.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen
The purpose of torture is torture. Fucking sadists.
Captain Obama’s Bitter Half Husein Kangaroo @ 13:
I'm sorry I wasn't more specific. I was talking about Bush and Cheney Co.
Again, I ask -- If McCain didn't die at the hands of the North Vietnamese (which he obviously didn't), then they must not have been doing it wrong?
What was it that the North Vietnamese did to McCain that the USA is not doing to the 'enemy combatants' at Gitmo?
Its like reality has turned into Simpson-episode..
Chief Wiggum: "If the detainee dies you're doing it wrong, Lou."
But see the following links for more on the SASC report and its methodology:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/or_...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/...
War Crimes tribunals. Nothing else can begin the process of fixing this mess. Everyperson involved, from the person to conceived a crime to the person who personally carried if out must be brought to justice. Everyone. In elected office, in civil service and in uniform. These people are criminals, and they have done and are doing evil. I refuse to recognize them as fellow countrymen.
I'm ashamed of my namesake.
Its absolutely painful to watch what the Bush administration does to Congress. What a job it must be to sit through hearing after hearing documenting on a nearly daily basis all of the laws this administration has broken, and to ask tough questions, to appear shocked, and to wind up each day by doing nothing, even though you have the power and have even taken an oath to protect the Constitution; you do nothing but document the transgressions. Man, that must make it hard to sleep at night.
Roger Waters of Pink Floyd nailed it back in 1983:
Pre-9/11 we were better as a people than we are now. Now the fundie chickenhawks are running the asylum and as a people we have become an arrogant, bitter, frightened, self-righteous, morally bankrupt, murderous, torturing bullies. It's too bad that the herd follows the loudest voice without questioning too deeply what is being said. America has been ruined for decades to come.
This is exactly why we must impeach Bush and the rest. We can't improve our standing in the world merely by changing leadership. If we ever again want to say to another country that they need to stop human rights abuses, we can't just say "well that was the last administration- I don't approve." By letting them get away with it, you become complicit. Impeach, impeach, impeach, then try the f*ckers for war crimes.
If the US ever wants to make up for all the crap it pulled, punishing people like this would be required.
It is not a mistake if you do it on purpose and thus they must be punished.
All of them.
Anything else is just bull.
Man those Dems are an opposition to be reckoned with...
Did you people know the RUSSIAN government recently warned the world it is not obligated to protect them from the American government. They are the only ones that could come even remotely close big equipment wise but thats changing considering the state of the Army after Iraq.
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