About fucking time: "US acknowledges torture at Guantanamo and Iraq, Afghanistan: UN source"

- The Economist

NYT has two great stories: one on the surge and the other on one Jack Goldsmith, forher head of the Office of Legal Counsel. He resigned a couple of years ago after withdrawing a couple of memos authorizing the torture of detainees. The usual suspects come up: John Yoo and David Addington, the latter now Dick Cheney's chief of staff.

Most chilling moment: When Goldsmith presented his analysis of the Geneva Conventions at the White House, Addington, according to Goldsmith, became livid. “The president has already decided that terrorists do not receive Geneva Convention protections,” Addington replied angrily, according to Goldsmith. “You cannot question his decision.” (Addington declined to comment on this and other details concerning him in this article.)

Goldsmith then explained that he agreed with the president’s determination that detainees from Al Qaeda and the Taliban weren’t protected under the Third Geneva Convention, which concerns the treatment of prisoners of war, but that different protections were at issue with the Fourth Geneva Convention, which concerns civilians. Addington, Goldsmith says, was not persuaded. (Goldsmith told me that he has checked his recollections of this and other meetings with at least one other participant or with someone to whom he described the meetings soon after.)

Months later, when Goldsmith tried to question another presidential decision, Addington expressed his views even more pointedly. “If you rule that way,” Addington exclaimed in disgust, Goldsmith recalls, “the blood of the hundred thousand people who die in the next attack will be on your hands.”

As for John Ashcroft, who would have thought that his pillar-of-rectitude schtick was the real thing?

Vivid Bill Moyers interview with Goldsmith here, thanks to Andrew Sullivan's site.

Mark Danner on the ICRC report on torture.

Has anyone read/heard more about the claim that waterboarding Al Queda operative KSM prevented a 'Second Wave' attack on the US?

The story apparently first appeared in 2005, but I don't remember it.

just heard that mentioned by.. herridge, is it? defense reporter on fox, just on studio b, that those who wrote the memos are standing behind them. don't know.

been reading the senate report (got through only a third of it last night and not to the worst of it yet.)

froomkin (i agree with this):

Torturing for Propaganda Purposes
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/white-house-watch/torture/torturing-for-propaganda-purpo.html

The whole thing is a sad and frustrating clusterfuck, but not ultimately a surprising one. It is interesting watching a lot of formerly blithe fools either double-down on the blitheness or start realizing what they were defending all this time.

well, studio b just had judith miller and some conservative think tanker on to argue about this, and it got pretty heated. shep went on a bit of a tear at the end of the conversation, evidently appalled by what we've done & declaring that the US does not torture. i suppose that video will get posted somewhere soon.

actually i am surprised in the sense that.. i didn't put the pieces together (it never even occurred to me that there might be these pieces): these interrogations may have been partly done for the purpose of linking al qaeda to iraq. when there was no link! the significance of this.. i'm stunned. i will state and have many times that bush/cheney deliberately lied us into an illegal war, but to consider that they tortured detainees to help cook the intelligence that helped them lie us into an illegal war = next level.

like i said though, i haven't finished reading the senate report so i don't know precisely what they say on this point.

full senate report:
http://armed-services.senate.gov/Publications/Detainee%20Report%20Final_April%2022%202009.pdf
(263 page PDF)

mcclatchy:
Report: Abusive tactics used to seek Iraq-al Qaida link
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html

A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq.

"While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."

fuck.

Well, from the few comments I've read and heard about this in the wake of Dick Cheney's request to declassify the other documents, I think this will sadly play out like most political issues. The evidence will be anecdotal, it will be selectively cherry-picked, and any chance at really moving public opinion will be drowned-out by all the noise.

Actually, to be fair, I'm sort of amazed the public mood seems to be against these "enhanced interrogation techniques," so maybe the sustained pressure of progressive critics has had some effect. Also, BushCo came to be seen as incompetent, which I'm sure went a long way toward souring public opinion -- for the moment -- on all things conservative.

goddamn Cheney should be shot in the face what a horrible human being

frankly I'm amazed at how publicly Cheney is wading into this debate - as if he is completely oblivious to the fact that the more digging is done, the more investigations that take place, the more memos that get released, the worse he is going to look, and the more public opinion will turn against Bushco (even moreso than it already has)

Conclusion 19: The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a
few soldiers acting on their own.

NOW we hear this! i recall ppl wondering what got into those crazy appalachian hicks, at the time. graner is a psychopath who belongs in jail, of course, but they didn't come up with that stuff on their own. go up the chain of command and prosecute the people who authorized it, finally.

Rove: Sure, as long as they've released the limits to which America will go to extract this information, let's share the information that was extracted, and saved America from further attacks. We know, for example -- it's already a part of the public record -- that the interrogation of these high-value targets kept them from being able to attack Los Angeles by flying airplanes into the Liberty tower, the tallest building in Los Angeles, which was one of their plans.

But look, let's step back for a minute. What the Obama administration has done in the last several days is very dangerous. What they've essentially said is, If we have policy disagreements with our predecessors, what we're going to do is we're going to turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run colonels in mirrored sunglasses. And what we're going to do is prosecute, systematically, the previous administration, or threaten prosecutions against the previous administration, based on policy differences.

Is that what we've come to in this country? That if we have a change in administration from one party to another, that we then use the tools of the government to go systematically after the policy disagreements that we have with the previous administration? Now that may be fine in some little Latin American country that's run by, you know, the latest junta. It may be the way that they do things in Chicago. But that's not the way we do things here in America.

translation: maybe if I wave the flag hard enough they won't send my ass to jail

There's something almost endearing about his 'if I repeat this loud enough I might believe it' approach.

It may be the way that they do things in Chicago. But that's not the way we do things here in America.

lol, someone tell this guy Chicago is in America

btw I am all for them releasing what information they found; I just think the "we're not some shady Latin American country" rhetoric is maybe a tad on the unbelievably racist side

the mirrored sunglasses is pretty funny/stupid though--wtf is rove thinking

I'm trying to imagine Obama in mirrored sunglasses. I bet he'd loook cool.

CSI: Washington

what we're going to do is we're going to turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run colonels in mirrored sunglasses.

wait didn't Rove already do this

y'know seizing power via a contested election, fomenting wars, acting above the law, etc.

public opinion vs Bushco is a nonstarter; people are worried about food and shelter for the rest of 2009.

someone did post the smith/miller/may segment on fox news that i was talking about on the youtubes (it wasn't me.)
this is the blog post by zelikow that miller references..

Boy, Shep is really het up there.

and effing abu ghraib. is my memory bad or did they mostly sweep that shit under the rug, as far as holding anyone up the chain of command accountable? and particularly accountable for what was done, not just that the situation got violent and out of control. i have seymour hersh's book around here somewhere but haven't read it yet.. but just googling now for some background landed me on some academic paper (cultural studies world): Seymour Hersh quoted a senior US political official as saying at the height of the scandal, "We've got some hillbilly kids out of control."

right. this went all the way up to tenet, rumsfeld, and cheney.

i mean, i knew it did. i wasn't in town at the time but i'm from the same region as the soldiers in question, and media from all over the country & the world showed up to try and figure out what was it in the water out there that made these hillbillies do these things. i'm not saying there isn't ignorance and racism out there (and there is nothing in the water, not even fluoride), but this shit was thought up by somebody in the administration.

Chain of Command is a great book

Hersh kinda went off the deep end about Iran tho, I think

"you could tell just by looking at them. . . ." love this:
http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/?id=2409648
go l. o'donnell: "tell us what you saw"

two questions about that video though: 1) are nora and lawrence related? 2) does obama always strut like that?

(U) The first ofthe two August 1,2002 OLC memoranda, known to many as the "First
Bybee" memo, presented OLC's narrow interpretation ofwhat constituted torture under U.S.
law. The memo stated that the federal anti-torture statute of 1994 prohibited "only extreme acts"
and that in order to constitute torture, physical pain would have to be equivalent in intensity to
that accompanying "serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily
functions or even death. For mental pain to rise to the level oftorture, according to the
memo, it would have to result in "significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g.,
lasting for months or even years. The First Bybee memo also found that the federal antitorture
statute may not be applicable to interrogations ordered by the President ifhe acted
pursuant to his Constitutional commander-in-chief powers. Further, the memo argued that even
if the federal anti-torture statute could be construed to apply to such interrogations, the defenses
of necessity and self-defense could potentially eliminate criminal liability under the statute.
(U) The First Bybee memo also effectively dispensed with the "specific intent"
requirement ofthe federal anti-torture statute by narrowly defining that requirement. The federal
anti-torture statute states that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be "specifically intended
to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering." The First Bybee memo stated that in
order "for a defendant to have acted with specific intent, he must expressly intend to achieve the
forbidden act. Under that interpretation, to violate the law, a person must expressly intend to
commit torture and the memo stated that "knowledge alone that a particular result is certain to
occur does not constitute specific intent."

bybee has a lifetime appointment as a federal judge.. NYT called for him to be impeached in an editorial the other day

The great thing with these revelations is that it allows Americans who haven't followed this the chance to connect dots that journalists have drawn for years. If you're looking for a great synthesis, Charlie Savage's Takeover and Barton Gellman's Angler define the theory of the unitary executive and how it led to a pliant Office of Legal Counsel, doubly menaced by the possibility of more attacks on US soil.

so earlier shep was on judge napolitano's fox news show (it's a webcast only, they can say whatever they want) and started *yelling* at him I DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS, WE DO NOT FUCKING TORTURE

duh! i remain stunned that people all over the media are still having this debate with the same stupid BS talking points. scarbs has treated it like a big fucking joke half the time. or rather, people are trying to justify or gloss over what happened by weaseling out of the debate, making jokes about it, picking out little details like they're no thing - oh, that guy was afraid of a caterpillar so we put him in a box with it, that's not torture. it's fucking disgusting. it's also probably a waste of energy to even get angry at these people, save it for the obama administration (inc my favorite person in the world HRC) who might actually DO something to make sure this never happens again.

ok i need a drink. off to meet with some left wing conspirators at an open bar. christ

they better not only have rail gin

it's just one of those days.. everything i thought was horrific and criminal about the prev administration.. it's worse

Dana Rohrabacker is such a cockfarmer - glad Hilz zinged him a little today re: Cheney's torture memos blather

Seymour Hersh quoted a senior US political official as saying at the height of the scandal, "We've got some hillbilly kids out of control."

right. this went all the way up to tenet, rumsfeld, and cheney.

― the shep (shepard smith ha ha) (daria-g), Wednesday, April 22, 2009

So Senior US Political Official OTM

I see what you did there

Foretold back in October: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/19/seymour-hersh-new-yorker-reporter

"You cannot believe how many people have told me to call them on 20 January (the date of the next president's inauguration)," (Hersh) says, with relish. "(They say:) You wanna know about abuses and violations? Call me then."

Boy, Shep is really het up there.

He did, but it was all kind of begging-the-question. Both panelists and Smith agreed: Torture is bad, and we shouldn't do it. The key question is whether the techniques that were approved and used under the Bush Admin. -- either (a) in isolation or (b) in combination on a single detainee -- constituted torture. The "guy from the right" kept saying "no," and only Miller engaged his argument, and even then only in a cursory way. I'm not suggesting that Miller or Smith were wrong about their apparent feelings that these techniques constitute torture -- indeed, the BushCo techniques certainly seem like torture to me; I wouldn't want my dad or mom falsely accused of something and facing "walling," "waterboarding" or the "bug box" -- but I want to see that issue debated thoroughly.

i.e., we might say that someone going to war for personal profit is 'cynical', but their going to war for personal profit might rather be very sincere indeed xp

if the shoe fits

― Οὖτις, Thursday, December 11, 2014 12:37 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sadly, we never found out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM3Z_Kskl_U

i don't know cardamon. i just don't think the idea that this was about energy resources makes sense, especially in light of the fact that we didn't even secure these resources. if it was about cheney's halliburton stock, why would he need more money? he's been on death's door for two decades now. i think something as seemingly meaningless as pentagon restlessness -- ie, we have this huge military and it's tempting to use it -- make more sense to me than the idea that this was about individuals or businesses pursuing profit.

The Iraq war also (obviously) didn't play out anything like anybody said it was supposed to, and probably not like any of those people secretly hoped it would either. It could very well be that the war is what it looks like: the neocons who wanted it and sold it on false premises also misjudged what they were getting into, figuring it was the 19th century and you could just take over a country, get a puppet government going, and start pumping oil in a week, two weeks tops.

Sully destroys Kathryn Bigelow.

it wasn't even a success tho from an empire pov - there has been practically no exploitation of iraq in the classic colonial sense, from what i understand china ended up buying most of the resources?

totally forget making that post but this would have been my point in citing sicily: imperial failures sold as necessities. have similar feelings about vietnam. there is, not incidentally, glory for alcibiades and profit for bell helicopter, but the real cause seems to be a deeper misunderstanding of a country's place in the world, which then distorts the way the world is seen.

These reasons are all pretty abstract for something that was totally out of the blue and unnecessary. The people driving the ship had reasons - real, very misguided reasons.

Like it was not some great, predictable event driven by larger historical forces, the reasons were personal and ideological and unique to the players involved. No other administration would have pursued iraq.

xps

make more sense to me than the idea that this was about individuals or businesses pursuing profit.

The Bush white House viewed profit in a much, much broader perspective than bankable quarterly profits for corporations, not that this was in any way divorced from their grand vision.

In my opinion Cheney and the neo-cons saw Iraq as a chance to expand US power in ways that made our power more secure from challenge for decades to come, if not for the next century. In their minds, victory in Iraq was simply a matter of employing a sufficient will to win, because the power that such a will would already have at its command would prove to be irresistible. The neocons and Cheney never doubted that their own will to win was unshakeable, no matter what political opposition might arise from among the peons people, thus our victory was all but certain, a done deal before we even arrived in the country.

In their minds, all that remained was to properly envision the rewards of our eventual victory: greatly enhanced economic power based on massive and newly-secure oil reserves placed firmly under the control of western oil companies and backed by US military power, a cowed and pacified middle east (previously sought by less capable administrations through far less visionary means), a world overawed by our success and less likely to challenge any new US initiatives, so that our power could only grow and prosper as a result of the Iraq invasion, like a yeasty mass.

This kind of hubristic thinking is what led to those all-too-telling remarks about the inferiority of the 'reality-based community', that set of unfortunate fools who could only see the facts that lay under their noses, whereas the Bush administration was prescient enough to rise above, into the empyrean of those who have only to reach out and shape history to their liking, as if it were putty in their hands.

it was not some great, predictable event driven by larger historical forces, the reasons were personal and ideological and unique to the players involved

i think it was both but i think literally everything is both

like yes this specific invasion was unique in its detail and in its ideological justification but it is also part of a pattern that goes deeper than its specifics

In their minds, all that remained was to properly envision the rewards of our eventual victory: greatly enhanced economic power based on massive and newly-secure oil reserves placed firmly under the control of western oil companies and backed by US military power, a cowed and pacified middle east (previously sought by less capable administrations through far less visionary means), a world overawed by our success and less likely to challenge any new US initiatives, so that our power could only grow and prosper as a result of the Iraq invasion, like a yeasty mass.

otm i think, and this vision--an indefinite, even infinite period of hegemony, secured or ensured by this or that, not-coincidentally aligning perfectly with everything the hegemon genuinely believes to be Good for the world + its people, not-coincidentally bringing great satisfaction and glory to certain of the hegemon's key actors--has not been unique to dick and don is all

Achieving it by invading iraq, specifically, very much was, is the thing

the neocons who wanted it and sold it on false premises also misjudged what they were getting into, figuring it was the 19th century and you could just take over a country, get a puppet government going, and start pumping oil in a week, two weeks tops.

Still surprised at US ever thinking it can cruise through a war, even with its massive military/tech resources. Have they won a war since vs Spain in the 1890s? WW1 and WW2 kinda, but only by coming in years after everyone else (and having made $$ out of it beforehand). Korea was a shitty draw, Cuba a loss, Vietnam a loss, Iraq 1.0 hardly a win, and Afghanistan and Iraq 2.0 spectacular fails.

Dude we liberated that foot locker in grenada

the point wasn't to cruise through a war but to line the pockets of defense companies by paying for more massive military/tech resources

the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court.
wtf seriously !?

I find the degree to which the US is misunderestimated by members of our community distressing.

aimless otm. the us views itself as a benevolent power, no matter how much violence it spreads throughout the globe. for cheney and bush, a unipolar world -- indefinite hegemony -- was a net good not just for the us, but for all nations. this goal would involve controlling energy resources but it is more complicated than just "$$$$" implies. not to disparage anyone on this thread, but other people elsewhere, when they bring up "profits", seem to literally think this was about cheney trying to line his own pockets or something. and this is just too simplistic to help us make sense of what was going on.

nobody said that, it's more like

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2007/08/31/great-iraq-swindle-how-bush-allowed-army-profit-contractors-invade-us-treasury

The Bush administration's lack of interest in recovering stolen funds is one of the great scandals of the war. The White House has failed to litigate a single case against a contractor under the False Claims Act and has not sued anybody for breach of contract.

etc etc etc

it seems necessary to keep bringing this up because you seem weirdly focused on discounting the financial motivation

oh wait I missed your qualifier there, agreed that it does get simplified

yeah no one's saying bush and his people weren't corrupt. they helped their people profit from this, and their entanglement with private contractors definitely added motivation. i just think if we are going to ask ourselves why we tortured people in guantanamo bay (with no beneficial result) we should also look more broadly about why these wars began in the first place, and why they are continuing. it involves coming to terms with obama's drone program. who are they targeting? what is the benefit?

the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court.
wtf seriously !?

I find the degree to which the US is misunderestimated by members of our community distressing.

Yep. Bill Clinton was strongly in favour of the International Criminal Court up until the point it was made clear that the members of the Security Council would not get a veto on prosecutions (which would have meant, for example, Russia being able to block prosecutions of Serbian criminals if they'd wanted to and the U.S. being able to block action against any of its citizens)). The position has always been 'the ICC is a great idea, as long as it can't hold Americans accountable'.

Other countries can potentially still seek to prosecute US citizens in the ICC but the U.S. would not cooperate and has signed a number of bilateral treaties (often with the threat of removing aid) that preclude either the country in question supporting action against US citizens or vice versa.

Prosecuting torture on its own isn't easy within the ICC structure and the assumption would normally be that the U.S. has an obligation to seek prosecution domestically first. However, its worth bearing in mind that some of these activities took place in countries like Poland which are signatories.

Aside from all that, torture is 100% illegal anyway and recognised as a crime of universal jurisdiction. The UK could indict CIA agents in its own criminal courts if it wanted to (spoiler alert: it won't). If I was a CIA agent, though, I wouldn't book a holiday in Spain or Italy any time soon.

Proposal to rename torture Freedom Tickling

the real scandal here is why the current administration refuses to be this transparent about BENGHAZI

i don't think bush's motives for invading iraq are all that hard to fathom -- he was a lifelong underachiever who lucked his way into the biggest job in the world, got handed the highest approval rating in history without actually doing anything, and suddenly saw his chance to be a "great" president (i.e., a wartime president). he was intent on "finishing the job" in iraq from day 1, and apparently told a reporter right before his first election that he felt his father had wasted all the "political capital" earned from the gulf war, and that he wouldn't make the same mistake.

cheney is actually a little harder to fathom because he'd explicitly opposed overthrowing saddam back during the bush sr. era, but he's made no secret of what his career goals are. i think the halliburton stuff was always something of a red herring; cheney sincerely wanted to expand the power of the presidency and promote his vision of a "strong" america.

and, i dunno, that's all you need! a couple of lunatics in the white house at the right time, and a hapless opposition, and you've got your needless war right there.

@tanehisicoates
People think Dick Cheney is saying something un-American, when in fact he is reflecting American heritage and tradition.

It's unamerican to say it out loud

@DennisThePerrin
I'm beginning to think that Cheney's on Obama's payroll. "Woo hoo! Over here! It's all me!"

clearly the guy who advocates torture is secretly on the same side as the guy who banned torture

and apparently told a reporter right before his first election that he felt his father had wasted all the "political capital" earned from the gulf war, and that he wouldn't make the same mistake.

What's the source for this?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade...if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father's shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. "Suddenly, he's at 91 percent in the polls, and he'd barely crawled out of the bunker."

the guy who banned torture

words, such beautiful things when you're prosecuting no one, detaining ppl w/out charges and blasting away from drones

I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.

Bush proved conclusively that this is a non-sequitor.

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2007/10/15/timestopics/topics_reagan_395.jpg

torture and drones are two different things and i'm not sure what purpose it serves to claim otherwise, unless your purpose is to make ppl even more cynical than they already are and care even less than they currently do

hey, J.D., did you finish the Morris bio?

O is too much like Cheney for me to want to claim anything.

plenty of reports that the CIA is still enhanced-interrogating ppl in somalia

the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court.
wtf seriously !?

standard operating procedure.. its also why we didnt sign that agreement with the iraqis to stick around because we demanded immunity.. I think the same is the case in okinawa. probably everywhere else too.

I banned torture too btw

xxxpost: the reagan one? yeah -- could have done without some of the fictional stuff but otherwise loved it.

torture and drones are two different things and i'm not sure what purpose it serves to claim otherwise

This is amoral nonsense. Killing is painful, killing brings grief, infliction of pain and grief is torture. Circling over the heads of whole villages incessantly for weeks on end, as you know they do, is a particularly evil form of psychological torture.

life is torture and all our parents are war criminals

i was referring to the cia's torture program.

fwiw i oppose the drone campaign, but trying to argue that obama didn't really ban torture because he still does other bad stuff or that obama's numerous failings mean that he's no different than cheney is a weird and self-destructive stance for progressives to take.

Oooh, trenchant sarcasm from Mordy. Okey dokey.

Anyway, Obama didn't really ban torture because he keeps saying idiotic stuff about "looking forward not backward". Try to imagine anybody using that argument in any other law and order situation....besides dealing with Wall Street of course. Say, what's the downside for progressives criticizing this stuff again? I forget.

mordy otm

fwiw i oppose the drone campaign, but trying to argue that obama didn't really ban torture because he still does other bad stuff or that obama's numerous failings mean that he's no different than cheney is a weird and self-destructive stance for progressives to take.

idk, arguing that the problem is with the man and not the expression of US power through the office seems like a weird position to take. Torture has still been used by the US army under Obama and the fundamental idea that international law can freely be ignored when US interests dictate is as alive today as it ever has been. I'd take the view that Obama's problem with torture is more logistical than moral - you get to the point, as you have with Guantanamo, where you're stuck with a group of people you can't release and have to keep hold of indefinitely. Killing them and their neighbours remotely is cleaner.

as torturers go, Cheney revels more publicly in getting his hands in the gristle and gore, good enough for you desperate Dems I hope.

The thing to do in election years is talk up the crucial importance of the chief executive while you nag your recalcitrant friends not to let the disaster of a Republican win happen through their irresponsible voting or non-voting, and after the victory spend the rest of the time patiently explaining that the president's hands are tied.

arguing that the problem is with the man and not the expression of US power through the office seems like a weird position to take

;_; you're ruining action figure playtime

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/13/pentagon-blocking-guantanamo-transfer-shaker-aamer

an amazing attitude from the pentagon through all this

More fun with torture revelations: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/09/cia-insider-daniel-jones-senate-torture-investigation

The CIA has stopped defending its torture program but not its personnel. While it has reknit its relationship to the committee, thanks to a GOP leadership that has all but disavowed the torture investigation, it continues to maintain that the torture report is inaccurate. Obama, whose trusted aide John Brennan runs the CIA, kept the report at arm’s length, with his administration declining even to read it.

But the CIA has gone beyond successfully suppressing the report. In a grim echo of Jones’s fears, the agency’s inspector general, Langley recently revealed, destroyed its copy – allegedly an accident. Accountability for torture has been the exclusive province of a committee investigation greeted with antipathy by Obama. While Obama prides himself on ending CIA torture, the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, has vowed if elected to “bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding”. Key CIA leaders defending the agency against the committee, including Brennan and former director Michael Morrell, are reportedly seeking to run Langley under Hillary Clinton.

This is the inside story of the Senate investigation into torture and the crisis with the CIA it spurred. It is formed from interviews with critical players in the drama, supported by voluminous internal reports and publicly available documents. Jones agreed to provide new details but would not discuss classified information with the Guardian.