Torture memos

[Undertoad]

I don't disagree. I don't think I've stated a position. I just find that partisanship is a terrible way to determine truth, guaranteed to fail regularly, and that's important.

Also, you used the word believe, and that set me off. Why choose to believe when the facts are not present? Why not just wait for better information, or admit you can't know?

As a skeptic, I believe that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I find many partisan people making extraordinary claims *constantly*, with little to no actual evidence in sight. I think that's a big mistake.

Eventually they wind up in such a tight circle that it's embarrassing, as in the case of UG, whose logic is so minimal at this point that he'll have this conversation:

UG: "This Democratic Party idea is dumb."
Others: "Why, what makes it dumb?"
UG: "Because it's from the Democrats."

The radio biz takes advantage of this kind of thinking:

Excited teen: "KQOR plays the very best music!"
Program Director: "Why do you think that's the best music?"
Excited teen: "Because it's on KQOR, duh!!!"

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I don't disagree. I don't think I've stated a position. I just find that partisanship is a terrible way to determine truth, guaranteed to fail regularly, and that's important.

Also, you used the word believe, and that set me off. Why choose to believe when the facts are not present? Why not just wait for better information, or admit you can't know?

As a skeptic, I believe that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I find many partisan people making extraordinary claims *constantly*, with little to no actual evidence in sight. I think that's a big mistake."

UT....that is a fair critique.

Can I invoke the classicman ACORN "guilt by association" defense? "Where there is smoke, there is fire"....and I see a hell of alot of smoke in the justification of the torture memos.

I think it is important for the facts to come out in some forum. And I have said repeatedly that I dont think anyone should be prosecuted.

My interest is in ensuring that such questionable practices be subject to greater oversight in the future.

[Undertoad]

Heh, yeah as long as you do a fair post-mortem of where you went wrong if it turns out you went wrong.

[tw]

Originally Posted by classicman

And the current administration would never do anything like that

That from one who advocated torture, knew that Saddam had WMDs, believed the myths about Al Qaeda in Iraq, and will not even ask a question that any decent American would ask - when do we go after bin Laden.

The fact that classicman repeatedly and only criticizes Obama says so much about how much good Obama has accomplished in only 90 days. He even closed America's overseas torture chambers that classicman said did not exist. Who should we believe?

Extremists are still parroting what Limbaugh et al tells them to. So classicman posts another cheap shot. Extremists: people who will routinely lie to promote a poltical agenda.

A smarter classicman would stop posting where he has nothing useful to offer - as if that was somehow supposed to be humorous.

[classicman]

Based upon that logic you would have stopped posting years ago.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

snip~
If the Bush DoJ writes opinions with its left hand, and investigates itself for those opinions with the right hand, then if the left hand is politicization, the right hand is utter lack of it.

~snip

Wouldn't that depend on the right hands marching orders? Violating Occam's Razor, I can think of a lot of nefarious reasons for having the right hand do investigations, and would not put much stock in them without more detail as to exactly what they did/didn't do.

[Undertoad]

I agree. We need more and better information, which is why Obama's push for more transparency in the future is a good thing.

But you remind me that Dux's post contains two internal investigations, CIA and DoJ.

The first is interpreted as political: you did what the WH didn't want you to do, so we're investigating you.

The second is interpreted as the result of politics: you did what the WH wanted you to do, so we're investigating you.

In both cases, there is not enough information to know, yet it's the narrative pushed by the reporters that is generally accepted.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I agree. We need more and better information, which is why Obama's push for more transparency in the future is a good thing.

....

In both cases, there is not enough information to know, yet it's the narrative pushed by the reporters that is generally accepted.

For 5+ years, the narrative pushed by the Bush administration, from political appointees at DoJ, CIA, DoD to the the very top officials in the WH, was "we do not torture" and "harsh interrogation techniques have been directly responsible for preventing attacks on America."

Internal reports from the DoJ OPR and the DoD and CIA IGs, in carrying out their responsibilities to investigate their respective agency policies and practices without regard to political considerations, would appear to suggest otherwise .

Which is why we need full disclosure (w/o harming national security interests) in order to ensure that current oversight and transparency is adequate to prevent illegal acts or acts that are in violation of administrative policies and procedures...or to determine if greater oversight and transparency is needed.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

For 5+ years, the narrative pushed by the Bush administration, from political appointees at DoJ, CIA, DoD to the the very top officials in the WH, was "we do not torture" and "harsh interrogation techniques have been directly responsible for preventing attacks on America."

Internal reports from the DoJ OPR and the DoD and CIA IGs, in carrying out their responsibilities to investigate their respective agency policies and practices without regard to political considerations, would appear to suggest otherwise.

Negative. That is not at all what has been said. They didn't believe it was torture. Period. You don't have to agree with it. You can draw all the analogies and historical references you want, and I won't always disagree with you, but they didn't think it was wrong or they wouldn't have done it. And if they did think it was borderline then why did they do it if it had not produced the intel that it did. Certainly this is still open to debate, but there is ample evidence that it did produce actionable intel. That is significant in this circle jerk of arm chair quarterbacks like yourself trying to say it produced nothing. Who you choose to believe is up to you. You speak as if you know the facts when you know nothing more than anyone else that can read the reports and news. Hop on the train.

[classicman]

IF waterboarding produced a positive outcome then this administration could be pressured to use it in the future if a key operative were captured. If they did not and something terrible happened, they would be blamed. Right or wrong, for political reasons (among others) this administration does NOT want a credible link.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Negative. That is not at all what has been said. They didn't believe it was torture. Period. You don't have to agree with it. You can draw all the analogies and historical references you want, and I won't always disagree with you, but they didn't think it was wrong or they wouldn't have done it. And if they did think it was borderline then why did they do it if it had not produced the intel that it did. Certainly this is still open to debate, but there is ample evidence that it did produce actionable intel. That is significant in this circle jerk of arm chair quarterbacks like yourself trying to say it produced nothing. Who you choose to believe is up to you. You speak as if you know the facts when you know nothing more than anyone else that can read the reports and news. Hop on the train.

We can debate who is doing the circle jerk.

The fact remains that CIA,DoJ and DoD IGs all reported to their respective cabinet level directors/secretaries that the proposed "harsh interrogation techniues were potentially (probably) illegal...and those superior chose to ignore those reports (and in one case, CIA, investigate the IG)....and those report were either not shared with the WH or were shared and the WH chose to ignore them as well.

And the fact remains that Bush/Cheney/Rice et al made repeated public pronouncements (and continue to make such pronouncements) that those harsh interrogation techniques directly resulted in protecting the country from attack..and there is no credible evidence to support that.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Redux

there is no credible evidence to support that.

No credible evidence? OK then the administration should release all the documents regarding this issue. To release only those that potentially support "their side" is less than honest. There have been numerous reports that the documents exist.

side note - How bout her majesty Nancy P claiming to know nothing of this and being quite critical till the truth again came out.
She knew all about it from day one - forkin hypocrite.

Originally Posted by classicman

No credible evidence? OK then the administration should release all the documents regarding this issue. To release only those that potentially support "their side" is less than honest. There have been numerous reports that the documents exist.

side note - How bout her majesty Nancy P claiming to know nothing of this and being quite critical till the truth again came out.
She knew all about it from day one - forkin hypocrite.

The next report likely to be released is the DoJ Office of Professional Responsibility investigation conducted last year (and held up by the last Bush AG) that reportedly found that the DoJ attorneys who wrote the torture memos may have deliberately slanted their legal advice to provide the White House with the conclusions it wanted....but we wont know til we see it.

Beyond that I agree that all relevant documents should be released...but in a structured forum like an independent commission rather than just dumping the reports in the media.

And there is plenty of hypocrisy to go around....from the WH to the leaders of both parties in Congress.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Negative. That is not at all what has been said. They didn't believe it was torture. Period. You don't have to agree with it. You can draw all the analogies and historical references you want, and I won't always disagree with you, but they didn't think it was wrong or they wouldn't have done it. And if they did think it was borderline then why did they do it if it had not produced the intel that it did. Certainly this is still open to debate, but there is ample evidence that it did produce actionable intel. That is significant in this circle jerk of arm chair quarterbacks like yourself trying to say it produced nothing. Who you choose to believe is up to you. You speak as if you know the facts when you know nothing more than anyone else that can read the reports and news. Hop on the train.

Of course they knew it was torture. They were warned by more than one source that it was. They just had to try and justify it because that's what Cheney wanted. I think it is all his doing.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by classicman

IF waterboarding produced a positive outcome then this administration could be pressured to use it in the future if a key operative were captured. If they did not and something terrible happened, they would be blamed. Right or wrong, for political reasons (among others) this administration does NOT want a credible link.

No, they wouldn't, because they know they can get more reliable information by other methods. Torture is proven to be unreliable. By the gods! I can't believe some of you actually believe torture is OK.