If We're Going to Reveal More Memos
Former VP Dick Cheney has requested the release of additional memos showing that torture and abuse saved American lives by preventing terrorist attacks. If the Obama administration decides to release these memos, then I suggest they also release statistics from Iraq showing the number of foreign fighters that were recruited because of our policy of torture and abuse. It was tracked. I know because I saw the slides and because I heard captured foreign fighters state this day in and day out. The government can also release the statistics that show that 90% of suicide bombers in Iraq were these same foreign fighters. These foreign fighters killed hundreds, if not thousands, of American soldiers.
After these revelations, Americans can judge whether or not a policy of torture and abuse kept us safe. Unfortunately, we'll never be able to evaluate the damage that was done to past or future interrogations. As I experienced firsthand, detainees were less likely to cooperate when they viewed us as hypocrites. We can't establish the trust that is required to convince a detainee to cooperate unless we live up to the principles that we preach.
I had one detainee in Iraq, a previous Al Qaida fighter, who provided me with all the information he knew willingly without me having to run an interrogation approach. He told me that Al Qaida had accused him of being a mole and tortured him before we rescued him. He then proceeded to say that the reason he was going to cooperate was because we didn't torture him and because of that, he knew everything that he'd been told about us by Al Qaida was wrong.
Before 9/11, the protection of American soldiers from terrorist attacks was a priority for our country. Consider our responses to the Beirut Bombing, Khobar Towers, and the USS Cole. When we talk about keeping Americans safe from terrorist attacks, we need to include all Americans, especially those that serve in uniform.
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I'd like to take these records back to the Florida elections, but slim chance.
I would sure like to see who's signature is on the orders to ignore
customary and critical forensic protocol in gathering evidence
following 9/11
Exactly, you don't get someone to talk by being violent. You do it by treating them like kings and making them believe everything they were ever told about you is completely wrong. People not only talk, they tell the truth because they want to help you. Whiskey and women, and sometimes men, dedicated to the cause yield more information than torture, always have. Torture is about inspiring fear in a populace in order to control its behavior.
I just thank god that a man like Dick Cheney was not in charge in 1941 after Pearl Harbor. I think we would have a much less honorable legacy to look back on.
Scary how easily those honorable and thoroughly vindicated principles were tossed aside with the wrong people in charge.
If Cheney had been in charge at the time of Pearl Harbor, we would have tortured someone from Albania to prove that the Tasmanians did it. Then we could have gone to Bolivia and picked up some Enemy Combatants.
if Bush was president, after Pearl Harbor he would have declared war on India
http://news.neilrogers.com/news/articles/2009042308.html
In the above article it lists Timothy Flanigan was an early creator of the torture memos, maybe he has a copy, Flanigan according to the article was deputy of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, and worked on justifying water boarding and torture. Flanigan is a dream come true, Mormon, as Bybee and others are, and appears, according the article, involved in deeply in corrupt dealings. Maybe Flanigan still has some notes.
Timothy Flanigan: The torture memo lawyer no one is mentioning
by Muriel Kane
Link to Article
The torture memos recently released by the Obama administration have focused interest on three of their authors: John Yoo, Jay Bybee, and Steven Bradbury. However, there's another lawyer involved in the creation of the torture memos whose name hasn't yet come into the discussion -- Timothy Flanigan.
Flanigan did not work for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel like the others. He was a deputy to then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales in 2001-02, when he helped craft some of the earliest justifications for the use of waterboarding and other forms of torture
Flanigan's career is particularly intriguing because of the odd manner in which he left the White House at the end of 2002 and went to work as the general counsel for Tyco International, where he engaged in what appear to have been deeply corrupt dealings with Jack Abramoff. I wrote up much of that story here a couple of months
http://news.neilrogers.com/news/articles/2009042308.html
And yes Flanigan is Mormon also. The question will Huntsmans appointment lessen the chances of an investigation into the legalities of enhanced torture? The list gets longer on LDS'ers involvment.
Time for everyone to face reality- Conservatives hate America.
They are the enemy inside the gates, destroying us from the inside. Until we purge government of all Conservatives, we will continue having problems like we had the last eight years.
Conservatives will NEVER love America, because they don't feel it's their country in the first place. They either view themselves as Confederates, citizens only of their state, or whatever anti-logical lunatic fringe beliefs they hold. To view conservatives as Americans is a huge mistake.
The main problem with conservatives these days is they are rigid, fanatical ideologues who place their party over their country - the catch and the dangerous thing is that they don't realize it.
The fact that they do not realize it IS the most dangerous part. This is what makes them fanatics...and just as dangerous as those "enemies" that we fight. I see no difference whatsoever!
The most peaceful path is to try to enlighten them. A campaign must be initiated to convert them into liberalism. Because its not the people themselves that cause their idiocy and hate. Its the ideology. We must eradicate the ideology and save the people.
These alleged terrorists are not American citizens. As such thay are not entitled to trial under the American judicial system. They are not even prisoners of war as they were captured on the battle field out of any reconizable military uniform. Therefore, under the Geneva Convention rules, they should have been shot summarily. So all this BS complaining by the bleeding heart liberals makes no sense--what would they have prefered done to these prisoners--shoot them in the field or "torture " then for information? Apparentaly, all the liberals want is to let them go free and to let them try attacking the US again. You folks better wake up before it's too late.
"...under the Geneva Convention rules, they should have been shot summarily."
Sorry, Shortbus.... but you're wayyyyyyy off.
This is the Geneva Convention rule. Full POW protection:
_______________________________________________________________
Article 44. - Combatants and prisoners of war.
3. In order to promote the protection of the civilian population from the effects of hostilities, combatants are obliged to distinguish themselves from the civilian population while they are engaged in an attack or in a military operation preparatory to an attack. Recognizing, however, that there are situations in armed conflicts where, owing to the nature of the hostilities an armed combatant cannot so distinguish himself, he shall retain his status as a combatant, provided that, in such situations, he carries his arms openly;
4. A combatant who falls into the power of an adverse Party while failing to meet the requirements set forth in the second sentence of paragraph 3 shall forfeit his right to be a prisoner of war, but he shall, nevertheless, be given protections equivalent in all respects to those accorded to prisoners of war by the Third Convention and by this Protocol. This protection includes protections equivalent to those accorded to prisoners of war by the Third Convention in the case where such a person is tried and punished for any offences he has committed.
________________________________________________________________
Key phrase:
"...he shall, nevertheless, be given protections equivalent in all respects to those accorded to prisoners of war..."
Our CIA field officers also fit your profile. If all CIA agents were summarily executed, would you back that? Civilization requires many and varied compromises. If I had sighted a rabid coyote in my field and gone out with my rifle to shoot said coyote and Al Quaida folks saw me w/o a uniform and with a rifle, would they be covered if they summarily executed me? You have to remember that we parachuted into these folks fields, they were there before and we were new to the territory. Did they even know that they were on a "battlefield"? What constitutes a battlefield? What is an illegal combatant?
It depends on what the meaning of is is.
Where do you draw the line? Is there to be a law against mistreating prisoners or not? If not, then we have regressed to the Dark Ages again.
A good point was made the other night on one of the news shows. If we have captured a person on a battlefield or any other place, after we have him in custody and have disarmed him, we are compelled by law (if not by common decency) to treat him as we would want our own troops treated.
I don't want guilty people to go free as you say. But it is a fact that a number of the detainees at Gitmo and in other sites are not guilty of any wrongdoing...only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Would you shoot them outright...or just torture them to death?
Have you no decency in you? I actually feel sorry for you!
So they are not Americans therefore we can treat them worse than animals? You may call yourself an American but you don't have the slightest clue about what that really means. Liberals have fought the enemy with extreme courage and honor in ever war we have ever fought. Conservatives like you lost in their macho fantasy would have fit in much better in the Nazi or Russian army where such effete niceties as respecting and honoring human rights was a laughable concern. You would fit right in with that murderous bunch.
"Therefore, under the Geneva Convention rules, they should have been shot summarily."
Which rules under the G C allow summary executions? Only in your murderous fantasies.
"Apparentaly, all the liberals want is to let them go free and to let them try attacking the US again."
What BS, I could just as easily say, and in fact it is true unlike your comment above, that "people" like you do not care how many innocents are swept up in this and tortured and/or killed. It has happened many times and you could give a F' S' less. That's a real American value my A$$.
Which rules under the G C allow summary executions? Only in your murderous fantasies.
"Apparentaly, all the liberals want is to let them go free and to let them try attacking the US again."
I think the Bush Admin already did that, not Obama.
What BS, I could just as easily say, and in fact it is true unlike your comment above, that "people" like you do not care how many innocents are swept up in this and tortured and/or killed. It has happened many times and you could care less.That's a real American value. Whatever.
And your type doesn't seem to expect the people of the ME to act like people. What kind of effect does hearing that the enemy is torturing Americans have on you? Does it make you cower in fear and want to surrender, or does it enrage you and make you commit to getting the enemy at all costs?
You types will never understand (or have forgotten) the true and very real power our commitment to freedom AND human rights has given us in the world. I only hope we can get it back.
The terrorists won. The denials, the lies, misinformation, redacted papers, cover-ups, on and on an ever changing story, rationalizing until finally belligerently proclaiming Yes we did and so what - it "saved lives" so anything is justified. Lay it all out and let the guilty fall where they may.
Thank you Mr. Alexander, for speaking out.
Cliff May on the Jon Stewart show....very well stated: Defining torture is not easy. A simple legal definition is that it “shocks the conscience.” Cutting off Daniel Pearl’s head on videotape — that shocks my conscience. Sending a child out as a suicide bomber — that shocks my conscience. People jumping off the World Trade Towers because they’d rather die that way than by burning — that shocks my conscience. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 atrocities, gagging for a few minutes and, as a result, providing information that saves lives, then going back to his cell for dinner and a movie — no, my conscience is not shocked by that.
Your little story about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a lie. Oh and you compare our military to the hijackers of 911, or a group that uses young kids as a weapon.
There is no comparison, we as a nation are supposed to be better than that. People do not become monsters to catch a monster. Then one would be just as bad as the monster and nothing seperates the two but semantics. You would become exactly what you are fighting. No thanks.
Get with the program.
KSM provided no information that saved any lives. That has already been testified to -- under oath -- by the Army psychiatrist Maj. Charles Burney who was present. Burney said their orders were to establish connections between Iraq and Al Qaida... which explains the waterboarding because that technique is used to get false confessions.
Cheney is all BS... the facts, the documents, and the testimony all conclusively show that.
Why continue to play the fool for Cheney?
As far as "shocking the conscience" goes, it should shock your conscience that at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and other prisons our soldiers sodomized children to death in front of their mothers as a coercion technique... a technique excused and OK'd by the Office of Legal Counsel in the Dept of Justice, on orders from the Office of the Vice President.
The documentation of that is in General Antonio Taguba's investigation report.... with films.
Thank you pjburke! I am so frustrated with the MSM. They are not reporting anything past the waterboarding which is probably the least of the torture done in our names.
I am going to continue to post the following link that just became available a few days ago. I have challenged the torture apologists to read it and then come back with their defense. So far, I have had no takers on my challenge....just what I thought! A bunch of cowards!
http://thesidetrack.blogspot.com/2009/05/seymour-hersh-children-sodomized-at-abu.html
Sodomized children to death? I have never heard that and seriously doubt it. Please provide a link from a credible source to this info.
"As far as "shocking the conscience" goes, it should shock your conscience that at Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and other prisons our soldiers sodomized children to death in front of their mothers as a coercion technique"
This statement is the main symptom of a condition known as "koolaid overdose". You need to see a doctor and have your stomach pumped right away!!
Oh, give it up already.
Obama has done another reversal and has reinstated the military commision process.
Bush was right all along and Obamas decision are proving him so.
Pelosi's lies confirm the cynical, politically motivated insincerity of the Democrats in regards to all things terror.
"Torture" was simply a political hammer to beat up the Republicans....there isn't an ounce of principal involved, only politics.
LOL at "...in regards to all things terror"
hey mylemmingisgreen, the cliff is thattaway --------->
I still recall Obama reversing one of Bushco's greatest crimes - torture.
Because of this last week, you cons are going to keep trying to say that Obama's actions are vindicating Bush. While he has made some disturbing moves, he has repudiated Bush's worst excesses. And don't get your hopes up too much, Obama may still return honor and justice to this country yet. He inherited quite the mess from war criminal Bushco.
i have no doubt the bush/cheney mideast policies recruited more al quaeda members than osama could have ever hoped to recruit. torture was just one of the effective tools to accomplish their feat.
What's the philosophy here...Muslim Islamic Terrorists can behead, invade countries like Pakistan for 60 nuclear weapons, strap bombs on children to blow up mosques, churches, restaurants, violate women, 1500 rockets to Israel, kill 3,000 in the US ...
all in the name of ALLAH...and we should ask PLEASE and thank you.
Ok point made....we get it....we get ....for god's sake we get it...Democrats will ask please for information ....and Democrats won't go the extra effort to save lives.....ok....and then they will borrow from the new NATO philosophy...ok....you know the one....the wildlife CAPTURE AND RELEASE program NATO uses.
As for enhanced interrogation....I don't care what they did....might I add with a doctor standing by.....it worked. I would water dunk anybody 300 times ... if I thought anyone was in danger....I just wouldn't have the doctors.
Luckily for the great majority of us the founding fathers had different ideas.
Just because you were born in America doesn't mean you have a clue to what that means.
Life is full of contradictions. If a loved one of mine was brutally tortured, raped and murdered by some sicko, I would personally want to tear them limb from limb. Does that mean the punishment handed down from the court should be the same? No, that would be bad for our country, society, and justice.
Think a little beyond your animal impulses.
No it didn't work, and more 'rockets' fly in my town every 4th of July than in Israel in a decade.
You failed to mention your time served in the military and your vast amount of experience in conducting interrogations. No, owning a box set of "24" episodes doesn't count. Until such time as you provide convincing evidence, or even verified proof of one single "ticking time bomb" scenario that was successfully foiled through the use of torture, I will continue to rely on Mr. Alexander's professional record, my own military training and my own conscience (you may need to look that word up) as apposed to your anonymous and unproven bluster.
I am going to paraphrase a comment I made yesterday.
For all you torture supporters, for all the Cheney defenders, for all you people who think that the previous administration "kept us safe" with their torture of detainees, I dare you to read the following link:
http://thesidetrack.blogspot.com/2009/05/seymour-hersh-children-sodomized-at-abu.html
Then, I want you all to come back here and tell me how you can defend this! Can you tell me that the rape and torture of children in front of their mothers is not the greatest recruiting tool for AQ? Tell me how you would feel about America if one of these children were yours! C'mon, you big, bad, tough guys! I dare you!!!
It makes one wonder if Bush wanted to invade Iraq before 9/11 and they went through all the trouble to try to prove to the world we had every right to invade Iraq because of ties to Al Qaida through torture then how far did Bush go to prove the point of our attack in NYC? The build up to that war is key they threw weapons of mass destruction ,that seemed not to stick then they blamed the Iraqi's of shooting at our planes, that seemed not to stick then after the attack came the reason to scare the hell out of all the American people ties with Al Qaida. After the invasions billions of dollars later and many pockets lined with tax payer money no wmd's there were no ties to Iraq and Al Qaida,and a country in a destructive mess that i will with out a doubt have a civil war when we leave. Bush & Cheney should be proud of themself's all in the name of revenge they put this country in a economic downfall because of a grudge they had with Saddam Hussien they are war criminals and should be brought to justice.
You can stop wondering. The answer is yes.
An easily verifiable yes.
Revenge had nothing to do with it, see - oil
Someone -- please get this man an interview with Rahm Emmanuel and Gates and Obama. Please.
I heard that Emannuel told Brett Bair that he watches Fox every night. Well, too much of it twists your thinking.
Obama got elected because he DIDN'T think like Roger Ailes and the rest of them on Fox. So, why is he trying to appease the bullies instead of doing the right thing.
Since the last 2 commanders at Gitmo said that over 50% of those detainees were innocent, he needs to come up with a plan to sort them out, give some of them mental health care and support, and come up with a plan to transition them back to their country in a humane way.
That is the purpose of a fair trial -- to sort them out.
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