A U.S. Marine from India Company, 6th Marines guards an Afghan detainee arrested near the site of a roadside bomb explosion at a base in Marjah. The man had a false Pakistan passport, two different Afghan identification cards, some wires wrapped on a few batteries, an old rifle and pamphlets of Taliban activities in Marjah. By Mauricio Lima, AFP/Getty Images

KABUL— Afghan officials used torture while investigating suspected militants kept in some detention centers, the United Nations said in a report Monday, weeks after NATO troops halted the transfer of prisoners to Afghan authorities because of alleged mistreatment of the inmates.

The report found that detainees endured treatment that amounted to torture in 47 detention facilities, run by Afghan police and intelligence service, in 24 of the country’s 34 provinces.

The 74-page report raised particular concerns about detention centers run by the Afghan intelligence agency, known as the National Directorate of Security, or NDS, which held an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 detainees during the period when the investigation took place.

It found “compelling evidence” that 46 percent of the detainees interviewed who had been in NDS detention centers had been tortured and that “torture is practiced systematically in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan.” Most of the torture, the report said, was intended to extract confessions or information. The United Nations “also found that children under the age of 18 years experienced torture by NDS officials.”

Suddenly, being held captive under U.S. authority isn’t looking quite so bad is it? But I’m sure the detainees themselves have always known this, whether it’s Club Gitmo or Bagram, the preference of those held captive is to be held in U.S.-run detention facilities. It’s the liberal “do-gooders” who need to get the memo.

Courting Disaster, pg 283-4:

There have been more than a dozen major reviews of U.S. detention operations in the war on terror- led by twelve active duty generals and admirals, a former Air Force General, former Democratic and Republican Secretaries of Defense, and a former Member of Congress. None of these reviews found a pattern of abuse at Guantanamo or anywhere else. And all rejected claims of a government policy directing, encouraging, or condoning torture in any theater of the war on terror.

ARLINGTON, VA - DECEMBER 15: (L-R) US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, US President George W. Bush and US Vice President Dick Cheney attend the Armed Forces Farewell Tribute to Rumsfeld at the Pentagon December 15, 2006 in Arlington, Virginia. Praise was heaped on the outgoing secretary by Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld used his farewell speech to call for an increase in military spending. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“The history of the United States military is clear: Torture doesn’t work”- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

“We don’t torture. That’s not what we’re involved in.”- Vice President Dick Cheney

“This country doesn’t torture, we’re not going to torture.”-President Bush

Agents searching Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s compound discovered what one official later called a “mother lode” of valuable intelligence. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was obviously planning more attacks. It didn’t sound like he was willing to give us any information about them. “I’ll talk to you,” he said, “after I get to New York and see my lawyer.”

George Tenet asked if he had permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. I thought about my meeting with Danny Pearl’s widow, who was pregnant with his son when he was murdered. I thought about the 2,973 people stolen from their families by al Qaeda on 9/11. And I thought about my duty to protect the country from another act of terror.

“Damn right,” I said.

- Decision Points, pg 170, by George W. Bush

When asked about future plots, KSM’s reply was, “Soon you will know.” Like Abu Zubaydah before him, KSM was trained to resist standard interrogation techniques. After being waterboarded by his CIA interrogators, Zubaydah thanked them and told them, “You must do this for all the brothers.”

Around my last year of college, I picked up some work as a loss prevention specialist for a major retail clothing company. Aside from acting as an in-house detective on occasion, I also worked different stores in the district, training the sales staff in areas of loss prevention.

The person I answered to was the regional loss prevention manager who hired me. She was amazing! I had the privilege of sitting in on a couple of her interviews as she interrogated employees suspected of internal theft. After the interviews, she’d walk me through and point out the employee’s body language throughout key moments in the interview; the questions she asked, why she asked them at the moment she chose to ask them; she educated me on where the employee’s missteps were and when it became obvious to her that the employee was fabricating, hiding something, etc. By the end of the interrogation, the terminated employee would walk out of the room in a daze. Throughout the process, my boss basically got the thief to confess through a kind of relationship-building. It was so intense, that even after it was over, the employee left still feeling like my boss was somehow an understanding friend.

She confided in me that there was a time in her youth that she was approached by the Secret Service and the CIA to work for them. She was THAT good, apparently. I remember asking her why she didn’t take the job offer with the Secret Service and she simply told me she didn’t want to have to take a bullet.

What she taught me from the small amount of exposure I had been given, was just how much of an art it was to interrogate people. Watching her at work, then having her interpret for me later on what I failed to see, was like watching/listening and appreciating/analyzing good poetry.

There seems to be a misunderstanding about the nature of the CIA program under the Bush Administration that involved enhanced interrogation. So much so, that even experts in the field of interrogation have been misled into false assumptions about what the CIA interrogation program was all about. One such expert is Matthew Alexander (a pseudonym) whose book, Kill or Capture: How a Special Operations Task Force Took Down a Notorious al Qaeda Terrorist, I recently purchased.

Fortunately, early in 2010, an important book came out to try and set the record straight by defending those CIA interrogators who, up until then, could not openly speak out to defend themselves from all the slander, distortions, and assumptions about their work. The public should not have had knowledge of the details, let alone our enemies. But thanks to the leaks, media hysteria, hype, and distortions, partisan politics over patriotism, and finally the release of the OLC memos by the Obama administration, Marc Thiessen was able to shoot back with his book. As he puts it in his Author’s Note and has stated in interviews, “You should not be reading this book. I should not have been able to write it.”

The public discourse over the CIA program has in itself killed it. Its effectiveness was in the “not-knowing”; in the uncertainty. Waterboarding had already been discontinued (I think in 2003) long before President Obama’s first executive order, redundantly “banning” what was already banned. Revelations about its existence and details already effectively killed its value to CIA interrogators. Now, like those in our military who undergo waterboarding in SERE training, al Qaeda operatives can now add it to their list in interrogation resistance training. According to Thiessen, KSM, who is said to have received upward of 183 splashes during his waterboarding sessions, figured out just how long his interrogators could waterboard him for and would count down the seconds on one hand. Matthew Alexander and critics argue that this is proof of how ineffective waterboarding is. I’d say it bolsters the argument that the CIA method of waterboarding hardly constitutes the kind of waterboarding that does cross the line from the simulated feeling of drowning to one of actual drowning and torture.

The effectiveness of the CIA techniques was in the pretense of torture; of making the terrorist believe that things were worse than they actually were. As Marc Thiessen describes it:

The effect of the techniques is psychological, not physical. They trick the terrorists into thinking what they are enduring is worse than it really is.

It’s like the show Magic’s Biggest Secrets Revealed — once you know how the magician saws the woman in half, you’re not fooled. The same goes for enhanced interrogation.

In a strange twist of irony, the media falsehoods about torture at the hands of our CIA, as damaging as it’s been to our reputation in the world, may also have helped to perpetuate the “magic trick”-purpose of EITs:

The story of one senior al-Qaeda terrorist, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, illustrates the point. When Abd al-Hadi was brought to a CIA black site, agency officials told him, “We’re the CIA.” He replied, “I’ve heard of you guys. I’ll tell you anything you need to know.” And he did. Detainees like Abd al-Hadi cooperated without enhanced techniques because they feared enhanced techniques.

In wake of the “waterboarding” of Osama bin Laden’s carcass at the beginning of this month, new partisan questions have arisen regarding which administration should be credited the most with “having brought him to justice” (and his 72 urchins).

This has reignited the debate between defenders of the Bush-era CIA practice of enhanced interrogation and those attackers who choose to label it “torture” and “ineffective”, plain and simple.

Like Ali Soufan, Matthew Alexander is an expert in his field who has served his country honorably; both have played important roles in the fight against the al Qaeda network and affiliates. Both men have also been lionized by liberals (holding credibility for their expertise in the field of interrogation) on account of their scathing criticism of the CIA enhanced interrogation program; and in calling the Bush administration out with the torture charge. I, the non-expert, however, believe they themselves have been misled, just like these WWII vets and that the proof is in Thiessen’s research. I believe Thiessen’s work trumps their own assumptions regarding the CIA program as it functioned under President Bush.

In Alexander’s book, he stresses the importance of relationship-building as it relates to interrogating suspects and captures. By emphasizing this, critics of enhanced interrogations are setting up a strawman. What they don’t seem to get or acknowledge is that the CIA absolutely believes in and acknowledges the virtues of the relationship-building approach as well.

Pg. 91 from Ronald Kessler’s The Terrorist Watch:

The CIA interrogated captured terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and at secret locations throughout the world such as Bagram Air Force Base, an American installation in Afghanistan. While the CIA used coercive methods like depriving suspects of sleep and forcing them to kneel for hours, the CIA believed that actual torture involving infliction of pain produced bad information. Simply offering terrorists tea and sympathy was often enough to get al Qaeda members to talk. Often, the Stockholm Syndrome took over. Most al Qaeda members cooperated after a day or two. If not, they might be turned over to intelligence services in Egypt, Morocco, or Jordan where rough techniques could be used.

“You start by getting him talking to you,” David Manners, the former station chief in Jordan, says. “You start with items you already know about. That shows him you know a lot. His defenses diminish. Then you ask about items you don’t know about. Beating a guy up doesn’t work. He will tell you anything to stop the pain. We never used such tactics.”

Marc Thiessen would agree, based upon his research and interviews with those CIA interrogators who themselves were directly involved in the CIA program.

In the opening prologue to Kill or Capture, Alexander talks about how legendary WWII-era interrogators stuck to American values and principles, never resorting to torture. Well, guess what? The very best American interrogators- including Alexander, Soufan, and those directly involved in the CIA enhanced interrogation program- also uphold American values and principles; and also do not believe in the effectiveness of torture.

Incidentally, according to Eisenhower and the German POWs by Stephen Ambrose and Gunter Bishhof, as many as 56,000 German POWs- about 1% of the total numbers captured by war’s end- may have died while in U.S. custody. Contrast this with the .125% in today’s GWoT: Human Rights First reported in a 2006 study that since August of 2002, 100 detainees held by the CIA and the U.S. military had died while in captivity (According to military records, 34 of these are suspected or confirmed homicides). According to Department of Defense figures, by 2006, over 80,000 have been held under U.S. custody in the War on Terror.

So where lies the historical precedence that the Bush Administration behaved worse or that those under its leadership behaved worse than Americans of previous generations and of previous administrations? It doesn’t exist, other than in the fevered imaginings of media hype, sensationalizing and distorting the record.

Only about 100 terrorists were ever held in the CIA program that saw fit to subject only 30 of those 100 to enhanced interrogations (and of these only 3 were waterboarded; how many detainees both military and CIA were ever waterboarded at Guantanamo? Answer: Zero). The techniques used arguably do not rise to the level of definition for torture and were cleared by the legal counsel of the Justice Department and CIA lawyers. The European Court for Human Rights, which has a more restrictive definition of “inhuman and degrading treatment” than Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, also determined in Ireland vs. United Kingdom that the 5 techniques (wall-standing, hooding, noise, sleep deprivation, food and drink deprivation) used by British interrogators did not amount to the level of definition for torture.

When critics say, “people will tell you whatever you want them to say to make the torture stop”, what they are saying is that they completely do not have a grasp of the CIA program or the purpose for coercive techniques. Enhanced interrogations were not used to elicit confessions but to gain cooperation, after which normal relationship-building interrogation is established (de-briefing). Those 30 detainees who became candidates for enhanced interrogations were tough. A number of them most likely received extensive training in interrogation resistance for them to have entered the program.

As Thiessen wrote recently in WaPo:

Interrogators would never have asked about the names of couriers during waterboarding. As I explain in my book, “Courting Disaster,” enhanced techniques were not used to gain intelligence; they were used to elicit cooperation. According to former CIA director Mike Hayden, as enhanced techniques were applied, CIA interrogators would ask detainees questions to which the interrogators already know the answers — allowing them to judge whether the detainees had reached a level of compliance. “They are designed to create a state of cooperation, not to get specific truthful answers to a specific question,” Hayden said.

Once interrogators determined a terrorist had become cooperative, the techniques stopped and traditional, non-coercive methods of questioning were used. Moreover, the use of enhanced techniques wasn’t needed for two-thirds of the detainees in CIA custody . Just the experience of being brought into CIA custody — the “capture shock,” arrival at a sterile location, the isolation, the fact that they did not know where they were and that no one else knew they were there — was enough to persuade most of them to cooperate.

Alexander makes the argument in his article that there are negative consequences to torturing your captured enemies aside from the unreliability of confessed information:

Those consequences include the fact that torture handed al Qaeda its No. 1 recruiting tool, a fact confirmed by the U.S. Department of Defense’s interrogators in Iraq who questioned foreign fighters about why they had come there to fight. (I have first-hand knowledge of this information because I oversaw many of these interrogations and was briefed on the aggregate results.) In addition, future detainees will be unwilling to cooperate from the onset of an interrogation because they view all Americans as torturers. I heard this repeatedly in Iraq, where some detainees accused us of being the same as the guards at Abu Ghraib.

I have no doubt that many foreign fighters and Muslims embraced the jihad just as many Americans began enlisting after 9/11. A desire to protect your tribe is a natural, noble, universal instinct; a desire to defend your own. Abu Ghraib almost single-handedly cost us Iraq and gave al Qaeda new life. But more so than the actual abuses that happened there, more than any actual instances of abuses that happened at Guantanamo, Bagram, or anywhere under CIA and U.S. military supervision, was the media hyperventilation and overexaggeration of any actual let alone alleged abuses that occurred. Media distortions and misguided human rights watch groups, absent of real facts, did just as much to recruit jihadis as anything that actually happened in earnest. Jihadi propaganda could not have crafted a more self-serving narrative than the one world opinion shaped for them.

As Thiessen writes, “It is this myth, not the CIA’s actions, that has harmed America’s reputation across the globe” (Courting Disaster, pg 172)

Americans do not condone torture. Neither President Bush, VP Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, nor Marc Thiessen endorse torture. They are not “torture apologists”, nor am I. (“Torture deniers”, maybe…might be a label I’d be willing to wear )

Yes, abuses happened. But these were the exceptions, outside the norm; never part of military or CIA policy. Those abusers were prosecuted and punished.

Honest debate can be made regarding where the line in the sand should have been drawn. But it is dishonest and wrong to compare “the belly slap”, “walling” and SERE-inspired waterboarding to actual water torture by Japanese soldiers or waterboarding during the Inquisition. It is so much hyperbolic nonsense and slander. And it fuels enemy propaganda for recruitment and support.

As Thiessen writes on pg 193 of Courting Disaster,

It speaks well of our country that many Americans are uncomfortable with enhanced interrogation. We should be uncomfortable with these techniques, just as we should be uncomfortable with the decision to go to war. Americans always go to war reluctantly, recongizing that war is a tragedy, even when it is necessary and just. The same is true for coercive interrogations. It is tragic that coercive interrogations were needed, and it speaks well of our country that we placed so many liimits on them. But the CIA’s actions were not only necessary and effective- they were also moral and just.

Former President Bush:

Our intelligence officers carried out their orders with skill and courage, and they deserve our gratitude for protecting our nation. Legal officials in my administration did their best to resolve complex issues in a time of extraordinary danger to our country. Their successors are entitled to disagree with their conclusions. But criminalizing differences of legal opinion would set a terrible precedent for our democracy.

From the beginning, I knew the public reaction to my decisions would be colored by whether there was another attack. If none happened, whatever I did would probably look like an overreaction. If we were attacked again, people would demand to know why I hadn’t done more.

That is the nature of the presidency. Perceptions are shaped by the clarity of hindsight. In the moment of decision, you don’t have that advantage. On 9/11 I vowed that I would do what it took to protect America, within the Constitution and laws of our nation. History can debate the decisions I made, the policies I chose, and the tools I left behind. But there can be no debate about one fact: After the nightmare of September 11, America went seven and a half years without another successful terrorist attack on our soil. If I had to summarize my most meaningful accomplishment as president in one sentence, that would be it.
-Decision Points, pg 180-181

Photo by Jim Young, Reuters

Over half of what the CIA learned about al Qaeda can be traced back directly to the CIA enhanced interrogation program. Terror plots were derailed. al Qaeda operatives killed or captured. And it now appears the killing of Osama bin Laden can be traced back to information gleaned from the CIA program.

American lives have been saved thanks to the CIA interrogators, who did not compromise American principles and values in the handling of our enemies- those who wish us grave harm. Many have been treated with compassion and decency; some received tough treatment, for sure. And deservedly so where American lives are at stake.

What on earth do we have to apologize to the world for? Instead, we should be thanked, just as Abu Zubaydah thanked his CIA interrogators. The world is made safer by what we do; it is not made safer by the spin that distorts what we do.

Thank the CIA, the military, and our elected officials who have to make tough decisions everyday to keep America and the rest of the world safe.

It’s amazing. We found Osama bin-Laden because of the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques authorized by the prior administration. Because of the captured terrorists imprisoned at Gitmo. Because of the intelligence agents who worked tirelessly, using all the techniques authorized by Bush, to find Osama.

And to this day Obama has discontinued placing prisoners in Gitmo, discontinued EIT’s, and is investigating the agents who got the information that allowed Obama to order the execution of Osama.

Oh, but putting a few bullets into the head of the man is a-ok. Just don’t go waterboarding anyone.

“It is an outrage that we would go after the people who deserve the credit for keeping us safe for seven and a half years.”

Obama turned his back on his own supposed ideals and the supposed ideals of his followers by ordering the hit. Good for him. I fully support his decision and believe it was the one that should have been made.

But we know how it came to be, Enhanced Interrogation Techniques:

So if Obama can use the product of these interrogations, and ok the execution of Osama, then why not convince those same followers that we NEED Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. That we need those agents on the job instead of being investigated by Holder.

Well, I’ll tell you why. The left is a bit upset that Obama ok’d this and seeing as how the left has been on a crusade against the CIA and our intelligence apparatus for decades, there ain’t no way in hell they will allow Bush-light to ok EIT’s

Arthur Herman writing in August of 2009:

How posterity will view the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation tactics during the anxious years of 2002 and 2003, when the real possibility of another 9/11 attack loomed, may depend less on what we learn about the results of the interrogations themselves than on the Obama administration’s conduct in determining their appropriateness and legality.

The appointment of a special prosecutor is just one of a series of administration attacks on the CIA. Those attacks have included the release—over the objections of his own CIA head, Leon Panetta—of the classified 2004 CIA Inspector General Report revealing which enhanced interrogation methods were actually used on which suspects (including threatening to seize members of one suspect’s family and intimidating another suspect with a power drill). The administration has also created a new “High Value Detainee Interrogation Group,” effectively stripping the CIA of responsibility for interrogating important terrorist suspects and handing it over to the vastly more constrained FBI.

This assault on the CIA might seem strange considering that just two years ago, Democrats and the media were expressing outrage over the Bush administration’s alleged “outing” of a supposedly covert operative named Valerie Plame. A special prosecutor was then tasked with finding out who had been so “un-American” (as Senator John Kerry termed it) as to leak the name of a CIA employee. Now we have a special prosecutor who may not only “out” CIA interrogators but also work hard to throw them into prison.1

So what if the 2004 Inspector General’s Report explicitly states that the waterboarding and other fully authorized techniques used on al-Qaeda detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were effective and yielded valuable, actionable information that may have saved thousands of lives? Never mind that when Justice Department career lawyers scrutinized the Inspector General’s Report in 2006 looking for evidence of wrongdoing worthy of prosecution, they could find none. The argument that the United States and those in the government’s employ behaved in reprehensible ways in the aftermath of 9/11 deserving of legal sanction has become standard issue among Democrats and liberals, and when a Democratic liberal ascended to the White House, it was no longer an argument. It is now policy.

In all this, Obama and the Democrats are not just attempting to delegitimize the conduct of the past eight years. They are also reverting to type. For the past 35 years, American liberals have attacked and vilified the CIA with a fervency that borders on holy war.

Read the whole article because it’s an excellent history of the liberal assault against the CIA.

In one breath Obama thanks our intelligence agents

“We give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome.”

And then allows an investigation of those same professionals.

Hypocrites

All that stuff you hear from democrats, and Obama himself, about Bush failing to get Bin Laden and taking his eye off the ball is total crap. Obama and democrats fought tooth and nail to rip Bush’s eyes off of Bin Laden. They did their damnedest to prevent Bush from getting Bin Laden.

George Bush was dealing with 3000 dead innocent Americans in the worst attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor. He needed intel to work from. He needed information. He needed help.

Democrats stood behind Bush. They kneed him. They tripped him up. They opposed every single thing he did to keep the nation safe and find Osama Bin Laden.

Warrantless Wiretapping

Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 – Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible “dirty numbers” linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

Democrats call for investigation of NSA wiretaps

Democratic House leaders called Sunday for an independent panel to investigate the legality of a program President Bush authorized that allows warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens, according to a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

“We believe that the President must have the best possible intelligence to protect the American people, but that intelligence must be produced in a manner consistent with our Constitution and our laws, and in a manner that reflects our values as a nation,” the letter says.

Pelosi Statement on President Bush’s Authorization of National Security Agency’s Activities

“We all agree that the President must have the best possible intelligence to protect the American people, but that intelligence must be produced in a manner consistent with the United States Constitution and our laws. The President’s statement today raises serious questions as to what the activities were and whether the activities were lawful.

“I was advised of President Bush’s decision to provide authority to the National Security Agency to conduct unspecified activities shortly after he made it and have been provided with updates on several occasions.

“The Bush Administration considered these briefings to be notification, not a request for approval. As is my practice whenever I am notified about such intelligence activities, I expressed my strong concerns during these briefings.”

Democrats question credibility, consistency of DNI McConnell

“You have to keep a certain distance from that power to whom you have to speak the truth,” said Holt. “And that’s why it concerns me that when you talked about the lawyers who were working to prepare this legislation back in August, when you made some of the statements that you made, they clearly seem to be influenced by lawyers in power, in the White House, in the vice president’s office.”

Pol: Americans support Bush impeachment for wiretapping

By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge’s approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Sen. Leahy tells Mukasey that his nomination is tied to subpoenas

Acknowledging the White House’s resistance to complying with Democratic subpoenas, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) told attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey on Wednesday that the executive-privilege fight is now his to resolve.

Leahy had indicated that Mukasey’s confirmation hearings could not begin until the Bush administration met at least some Democratic demands for documents on the U.S. attorney firings and the president’s warrantless wiretapping program. But in a letter to Mukasey released Wednesday, Leahy suggested that he would shift his focus from negotiating with the White House to negotiating with the nominee.

Committee targets White House, DOJ

The House Judiciary Committee has long been known as the site of some of the fiercest social policy battles on Capitol Hill. It has lived up to its reputation in the 110th Congress, with fights over immigration, wiretapping and the scope of executive power all boiling over at the committee.

Led by Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the Judiciary Committee has taken a sharp leftward turn since Democrats regained control of Congress, launching investigations into voter fraud, the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and other hot-button topics.

And, of course, Barack Obama August 2007

That means no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are. And it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. The FISA court works. The separation of powers works. Our Constitution works. We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary.

Barack Obama 12/27/07

They know that we must never negotiate out of fear, but that we must never fear to negotiate with our enemies ( ed note: you mean like Osama Bin Laden?) as well as our friends. They are ashamed of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and warrantless wiretaps and ambiguity on torture. They love their country and want its cherished values and ideals restored.

Obama Camp Says It: He’ll Support Filibuster Of Any Bill Containing Telecom Immunity

It’s official: Obama will back a filibuster of any Senate FISA legislation containing telecom immunity, his campaign has just told Election Central. The Obama campaign has just sent over the following statement from spokesman Bill Burton:

“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”

Rendition

Dems regroup on Iraq plans

The Responsible Plan draws heavily from the Baker-Hamilton Commission’s report and from 17 bills that have been introduced in Congress; it would set a date to begin withdrawal, though it would rely on military advice for the pace of that redeployment. The plan’s broad reach promotes clean energy, a restoration of habeas corpus, a ban on torture and rendition, opposition to media consolidation, State Department reorganization, veterans care and a new GI Bill.

Learning from President Bush’s mistakes

The Bush administration opened several lines of attack against the rule of law and the integrity of an independent Justice Department. The scandals are so famous that they’ve been reduced to shorthand: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, NSA, Attorneygate.

No matter what, these incidents will remain a blot on our nation’s history. But we can achieve a measure of closure and justice by pursuing legal accountability for anyone involved who broke the law. The initiation of proper legal proceedings — both investigations and prosecutions — simply cannot depend on whether the accused are powerful.

Rendition hearings video uploaded by Nancy Pelosi

Click here to view the embedded video.

Obama outlaws torture, rendition flights and secret jails run by CIA

PROPELLING the United States rapidly away from the Bush era, President Barack Obama yesterday banned torture and closed the CIA’s infamous “Black Site” prison network, the secret locations used to interrogate terror suspects.

The orders will also mean the end of so-called extraordinary-rendition flights, in which the CIA transported hundreds of bound-and-gagged suspects around the world, using airports including Prestwick for refuelling, so the detainees could be interrogated in “friendly” states that permit torture.

ICC Complaint filed against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tent, Rice, Gonzalez

Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, U.S.A. has filed a Complaint with the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) in The Hague against U.S. citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, and Alberto Gonzales (the “Accused”) for their criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” perpetrated upon about 100 human beings. This term is really their euphemism for the enforced disappearance of persons and their consequent torture. This criminal policy and practice by the Accused constitute Crimes against Humanity in violation of the Rome Statute establishing the I.C.C.

Enhanced Interrogation

CIA’s Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described

Harsh interrogation techniques authorized by top officials of the CIA have led to questionable confessions and the death of a detainee since the techniques were first authorized in mid-March 2002, ABC News has been told by former and current intelligence officers and supervisors.

Democrats must demand special prosecutor for torture

In other words, George Bush and Dick Cheney are lying. Is there any chance a bipartisan commission will reject these lies and demand the truth? No chance whatsoever, because the Republicans on the commission are guaranteed to remove every single word that suggests criminal or moral liability for Bush, Cheney, David Addington, and other high-level officials.

Will Bush officials ever be prosecuted for ‘enhanced interrogation’ program?

Meanwhile a new Senate report shows that top Bush administration officials approved the use of waterboarding as early as 2002 and 2003 – the harsh methods were approved by the likes of then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft, CIA Director George Tenet, and Vice President Dick Cheney. Maybe that’s one reason we’re hearing so much from Cheney these days.

Up to Democrats to investigate Torture

Democrats criticized the Republican-controlled “rubber-stamp Congress,” which failed to provide adequate oversight of the Bush administration. Now that the Democratic Party has control of Congress, the onus is upon them to restore law and order, to investigate the use of torture and to demand prosecution of those who engaged in it.

About that torture:

Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002

The former intelligence official familiar with the matter noted that Goss has given only one on-the-record interview on these CIA controversies since leaving the CIA director job. In the December 2007 interview, he said that Congressional leaders including Representatives Pelosi and Harman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), had been briefed on CIA waterboarding back in 2002. “Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing,” Goss told the Washington Post. “And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.”

Jane Harman claimed to object to waterboarding but…

The only forthright objection contained in Harman’s letter is to the CIA’s intention to destroy the videotape of Abu Zubaida’s waterboarding.

In which Nancy Pelosi tortures the truth

Nancy Pelosi has a tall tale regarding her purported ignorance of the enhanced interrogation techniques that President Obama and Pelosi’s fellow Democrats condemn as “torture.” Pelosi boldly denied she had been informed of the actual use of the techniques in the briefings she received as a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. Huck Finn would have called Pelosi’s tale a “stretcher.” Here is Pelosi’s classic “stretcher” of April 23:

“In that or any other briefing…we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used. What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel…opinions that they could be used.”

Scott Johnson concludes:

I think we can fairly draw at least one conclusion from this episode. The case of Nancy Pelosi provides the key to the “torture” controversy. It is a partisan charade. And it is a charade of a particularly disgusting kind. The Democrats’ “torture” charade is a case of low politics masquerading as high principle.

After Bush, or when a democrat became President.

Obama administration goes to bat for secrecy

For the second time this week, the Obama administration has gone to court in San Francisco to argue for secrecy in defending a terrorism policy crafted under George W. Bush – in this case, wiretapping that President Obama denounced as a candidate.

Obama Administration defends Bush warrantless wiretapping program

President Obama is maintaining the secrecy of a wiretapping program authorised by his predecessor, George W Bush, a Department of Justice lawyer told a San Francisco courtroom on Wednesday.

Rendition Case Under Bush Gets Obama Backing

The Obama administration backed the Bush administration’s arguments in a lawsuit involving the practice of seizing terror suspects abroad and sending them to third countries for questioning.

U.S. opposes “rendition” review

With Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan not taking part, the Obama Administration on Wednesday afternoon urged the Supreme Court not to hear a major test case challenging the once-secret program of “rendition” — that is, capture of terrorism suspects and transporting them to other countries, often for aggressive questioning and even torture. Solicitor General Kagan’s deputy, Neal K. Katyal, signed the new brief as “Acting Solicitor General.” It is unclear whether this was an indication that, while Kagan’s nomination to be a Justice is pending, she will opt to stay out of government cases. The new brief is here.

Obama Makes Indefinite Detention and Military Commissions His Own

While the order is new, most of the ideas [3] it contains are not. This is the third time such a board has been created for nearly the same purpose. Two similar processes to review detainee cases were in place during the Bush administration. Like its predecessors, the Obama administration’s review process will operate outside the courts and will be subject to no independent review. Also like the Bush White House, the Obama administration alone will choose all members of the review board and appoint a “personal representative” to advocate on behalf of the detainees.

The major difference is that the White House, sidestepping claims that detainees have a right to counsel, will allow them to hire private attorneys The order states that the government will not pay legal fees. While detainees will have access to some evidence against them, the government will choose what evidence to share. The process is meant to be more adversarial than it had been under the Bush administration. Detainees can submit their own evidence to the review board but will be permitted to call only those witnesses the government determines to be reasonable. It is unclear whether a detainee can dismiss his personal representative or how the lawyer and representative will work together. The order allows a detainee to make his case for release once every three years.

Obama: torture doesn’t work.

President Obama said tonight that the “torture memos” do not show that intelligence obtained using harsh interrogation techniques could not have been discovered through alternate methods.

From Ace:

1. 2003: Enhanced Interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad Results in the Nom De Guerre of bin Ladin’s Courier.

2. 2004: Enhanced Interrogation of al-Qahtani Confirms the Nom De Geure of bin Ladin’s Courier.

3. 2006 (?): Enhanced Interrogation of an Al Qaeda Captured in Iraq, Ghul, Produces the Real Name of the Courier.

4. 2006-2009: NSA Begins Furiously Intercepting Any And All Communications Made By Anyone “al-Kuwaiti” Has Ever Known.

5. Then in the middle of last year, the courier had a telephone conversation with someone who was being monitored by U.S. intelligence, according to an American official, who like others interviewed for this story spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation. The courier was located somewhere away from bin Laden’s hideout when he had the discussion, but it was enough to help intelligence officials locate and watch him.

6. 2011: Surveying Abbottabad, We Grow Confident We’ve Found Bin Ladin’s Hideout.

Obama frequently says that Bush took his eye off the ball:

Well, I think– I talked frequently during this campaign that we took our eye off the ball when we invaded Iraq.

Ghul (#3 above) was captured in Iraq.

The torture didn’t work. Except it did.

The hunt for Osama bin Laden was helped over the years by information from prisoners, including at Guantanamo Bay, US officials say, while arguing that criticized interrogation techniques yielded no specific clues.

“The intelligence was acquired over the last nine years or so. And there was some painstaking work done by some very, very dedicated analysts,” John Brennan, the top White House counter-terrorism adviser, told CNN.

“There was no one single piece of information that was an ‘ah-ha’ moment that led us to Abbottabad,” the Pakistani city where bin Laden was killed in a raid by US special forces.

“It was acquired over time. There was a lot of information from a lot of different sources including some people in detention.”

“Over the last nine years”

“It was acquired over time.”

“..including some people in detention.”

The bulls**t hasn’t stopped yet.

Senate Intelligence Chair: Information That Led To Bin Laden’s Killing Did Not Come From Torture

Today, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) rejected these assertions. She was asked by a reporter whether the intelligence that led to the killing was the result of waterboarding and other harsh treatment of detainees. She responded: We are in the process of a big study on the detention and interrogation of the detainees on the Intelligence Committee. The Republicans have pulled out of the study. So this has been carried out by the Democratic staff essentially. They have gone through more than 3 million emails, cables, pieces of paper looking for this. To date, the answer to your question is no. Nothing has been found to indicate this came out of Guantanamo.

There’s a fly in that soup. No one was waterboarded at Guantanamo

Current and former U.S. officials say that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, provided the nom de guerre of one of bin Laden’s most trusted aides. The CIA got similar information from Mohammed’s successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Both were subjected to harsh interrogation tactics inside CIA prisons in Poland and Romania.

The waterboarding KSM got persuaded KSM to become compliant with more conventional interrogation methods.

When KSM was captured, he was resistant to any form of interrogation, conventional or otherwise. As our colleague Marc Thiessen learned in writing Courting Disaster, KSM’s resistance was “superhuman.” It was only after being subjected to waterboarding and other enhanced measures that he became compliant, and from that point forward, cooperated with more conventional techniques. As one of the CIA interrogators told Marc, “If we had not had these techniques, we would have gotten zero from him.” So enhanced interrogation methods played an integral role in all of the intelligence collected from him.

Or you could read it for yourself.

Barack Obama’s embrace of virtually all of George Bush’s policies is complete vindication of Bush.

Democrats began their war on George Bush not long after the fires of 9-11 were being put out and they concentrated their war on Bush far more earnestly than they sought Osama Bin Laden. Had they sought to assist Bush, had they stopped distracting Bush, or had they stopped hamstringing Bush at every opportunity and simply gotten out of the way Bush would almost certainly have gotten to Bin Laden before Obama.

But then, maybe that was the plan all along.

I won’t politicize if you won’t, Mr. President.

President Obama does deserve credit as it happened on his watch. He’s made good on his campaign promise (really, it was only a matter of time before justice would catch up to al Qaeda’s #1 figurehead, a culmination of the last 9 years, not just the last 9 months). But it’s irksome that his narcissism can’t help but inject himself into this:

“Last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground,” President Obama told the nation in a speech Sunday night.

“Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body,” he said.

Or maybe as a partisan, I’m far too sensitive and am reading more into it than is warranted. Of course President Obama had to green light the operation; but I seem to always feel like this president has a way of always making it all about him; of taking undue credit for things he had little to do with (yes, he gave the order; but what sitting president wouldn’t have? Actually, Clinton had opportunities and did not take them, so nix that). Even when he says, “it’s never been about me”, he inadvertently seems to make it otherwise.

President Obama deserves credit, whether he wants to claim it (and he does) or not. And I am glad he called his two predecessors to give them the news. The hunt did not begin on his watch but President Obama has seen it to through to its conclusion.

The real winners, of course, are the American people.

Finally setting aside partisan politics at the end of this partisan post, I’d like to say, thank you President Obama and congratulations for a job well done!

Josh Rogins offers a timeline (beginning with Obama’s decision-making for what led directly to this operation).

Close to five hundred captured Taliban are now free once more to fight another day:

In one of the most elaborate prison breaks in recent Afghan history, the Taliban managed to free hundreds of inmates from Kandahar’s central prison in the early hours of Monday morning through a 1,180-foot tunnel.

The mass escape – reportedly not discovered until hours after it was over – has further shaken Afghans’ faith in their government, and intensified concerns that the freed prisoners will bolster the insurgency in Kandahar.

The escape is a particular blow to NATO and Afghan forces who have ratcheted up their campaign against the Taliban during the past year and hoped to expand their gains this summer. While NATO forces captured many of the Taliban fighters who were being held in the prison, the escape cast doubts on the ability of Afghan forces preparing to take more responsibility for providing security.

“I would call this a shameful incident for the Afghan government,” says Ahmad Shah Khan Achakzai, a former member of parliament in Kandahar. “It is impossible for the Taliban to get 500 men out of prison without anyone’s help. I believe there are some people from the prison or the government who gave the Taliban support.… It’s now clear to everyone how corrupt the government is.”

The reactions by the Afghan population have been quite angry:

…Military analyst Abdul Hadi Khaliq warns that the escapees are “radicalized, ready-to-fight, and extremist” fighters. “This shows that the Kandahar government is paralyzed or has made a deal with the enemy. Either way, major changes need to be made in Kandahar. The Kandahar authorities must be punished, not rewarded as in the past,” Khaliq argues, referring to a previous Taliban prison break in Kandahar three years ago.

Cheragh Daily also alleges that local authorities were complicit in the jail break. “Even if digging the tunnel was not a scenario to free the terrorists from prison as concessions to [Taliban] leaders, we cannot rule out involvement of powerbrokers and influential hands in the incident.” Ridiculing Hamid Karzai’s conciliatory approach to the Taliban, the paper asks the president to explain whether the escapees were “foreign elements” or “dissatisfied brothers.” The paper warns that all escapees will “return to their trenches and continue to kill defenseless Afghan people and troops.” Afghan daily Hasht-e Sobh writes that the escape of Taliban fighters could “boost the morale of the Taliban and weaken the confidence of security forces.”

…Mohammad Sarwar Usmani, a lawmaker from Farah Province, also implicates local authorities and warns that the enemies’ growing infiltration into the security forces is dangerous. Usmani calls on the Karzai government to stop releasing Taliban prisoners through the High Peace Council. The council has recently asked the United States to release Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo jail, including top Taliban leader Khairullah Khairkhah. “If Khairkhah wants to make peace, we will welcome him. We will make contacts and discuss his release,” Karzai told journalist in Kabul recently. Usmani, however, argues that Taliban fighters freed from jail rejoin the terrorists and their release has had no effect on the prospect for peace.

And we’re left to ponder a few things. First, how in the hell can the coalition even think about relying on THIS government to disengage from the conflict. Second, wouldn’t it been better if these 400+ terrorists had no longer existed in the first place?

In the end it matters little from the vantage point of Taliban fighters in the countryside. As I have observed before, given the catch-and-release program, the radicalization of half-way insurgents in these prisons, and the reflexive reversion to capture rather than kill, ISAF operations that capture insurgents are becoming a literal joke among the Taliban (see prior articles). I pay absolutely no attention whatsoever to ISAF press releases that begin with “Taliban fighters detained …”

If this is offensive to sensibilities, if this causes an outcry over advocacy of harsh rules of engagement, if this causes moral preening over the rules of war, then so be it. Withdraw from Afghanistan and end the campaign now. In either case, prisons do not work in counterinsurgency. Kill them or let them go, but putting them into a fake justice system is a worthless enterprise.

The restrictions put on our soldiers fighting in either war is ridiculous and will be the undoing of any success we’ve had in the wars.

Oh, btw, had to throw this out there since it’s related to the War on Terror….more evidence of the ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

I never thought I’d say it, but I miss Janet Reno. I never thought I’d ever again see an Attorney General of such incompetence, yet here we are.

In what CNN calls “A long line of Obama shifts” Eric Holder announced that Khalid Sheik Mohammaed would be tried in a military tribunal instead of a civilian court. The poor man whined about Congress interfering and forcing him to try KSM in the military rather than the civilian system. He made it clear that he believes he knows better than Congress what to do with KSM:

Expressing his disappointment in no uncertain terms, the attorney general said that as a native New Yorker, he knows as well as anyone the federal court’s capacity to try the suspects. He added that he’s intimately familiar with the cases, much more so than congressional members — or the public — who opposed allowing the cases to be held in the United States.

“Do I know better than them? Yes. I respect their ability to disagree but they should respect that this is an executive branch function, a unique executive branch function,” Holder said in a press conference.

Some of us doubt that more than a little.

First, there’s the cost of a civilian trial. Trying KSM in New York City in a civilian court is estimated to cost at least a billion dollars and take five years. It is no surprise that the wealthy Holder would have little regard for the burden of expense he would rest upon the country. This was to have been an ego trip for Holder at our cost.

Then there’s issue of Obama and Holder predetermining the outcome. Holder came right out and said that if somehow KSM was found innocent he would still not be freed.

Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledged on Wednesday a previously unspoken proviso to the controversial decision to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-conspirators in a federal court in New York: even if the defendants are somehow acquitted, they will still stay behind bars.

Obama played Carnac to Holder’s Ed McMahon and divined the outcome of the KSM trial:

Obama said that those offended by the legal privileges given to KSM won’t find it “offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.”

Heck, if the outcome is already determined, why have the trial?

If KSM was found innocent and ordered freed by a judge, Holder said that he’d then circumvent the law of the land

“Under the regime we are contemplating … the ability to detain under laws of war, we would retain that ability,” Mr. Holder added, meaning anyone freed by the courts could simply be returned as an enemy combatant to indefinite military detention.

In Bagram. Like in a military tribunal.

So Obama and Holder want to utilize the civilian judicial system unless they lose and then they’ll ignore the judiciary in favor of their own playground rules.

Now if that doesn’t inspire confidence in the US Judicial system, nothing does.

Holder has politicized the Department of Justice as never before.

Both in Congress and among a number of current and former Justice Department employees is a growing concern that the Obama administration is politicizing the department in ways the Bush team never imagined. A former Justice employee cautions that every administration has the right and the obligation to set policy. “Elections have consequences,” he affirms. But he thinks that the Obama administration has gone beyond policy reversals and is interfering with prosecutorial decisions, staffing the department with unqualified personnel, and invoking privilege to thwart proper congressional oversight and public scrutiny.

The DOJ under Holder is stonewalling FOIA requests:

Eric Holder’s Justice Department has even politicized compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. According to documents I have obtained, FOIA requests from liberals or politically connected civil rights groups are often given same day turn-around by the DOJ. But requests from conservatives or Republicans face long delays, if they are fulfilled at all.

The documents show a pattern of politicized compliance within the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. In particular, I have obtained FOIA logs that demonstrate as of August 2010, the most transparent administration in history is anything but. The logs provide the index number of the information request, the date of the request, the requestor, and the date of compliance.

Then there was the Holder who could not make up his mind as to whether waterboarding was torture or not. Andy McCarthy pointed out that as far as Holder was concerned, it was all about intention.

The bottom line is, Rep. Lungren skillfully steered Attorney General Holder into the truth: As a matter of law, CIA waterboarding — like the same waterboarding actions featured in Navy SEALs training — cannot be torture because there is no intention to inflict severe mental or physical pain; the exercise is done for a different purpose. When Rep. Gohmert’s questioning made it crystal clear that Holder’s simplistic “waterboarding is torture” pronouncement was wrong, the attorney general — rather than admitting error — tried to change the legal definition of torture in a manner that contradicted a position the Justice Department had just urged on the federal courts. It seems that, for this attorney general, there is one torture standard for Bush administration officials, and another one for everybody else.

Then there’s the pardon potential.

Holder bent over backwards clearing the way for his pardons of the members of the Puerto Rican terrorist group FALN

New interviews and an examination of previously undisclosed documents indicate that Holder played an active role in changing the position of the Justice Department on the commutations.

Holder instructed his staff at Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney to effectively replace the department’s original report recommending against any commutations, which had been sent to the White House in 1996, with one that favored clemency for at least half the prisoners, according to these interviews and documents. . . .

and the pardon of Marc Rich

The entire matter was handled in an unorthodox manner – on a straight line from Rich’s lawyer to the White House, with a consulting role for Holder. Later, Holder said he told White House counsel Beth Nolan the day before the pardon was issued that he was “neutral, leaning toward favorable” in regard to the pardon. He said he and Nolan “never had a prolonged conversation about the matter.”

To make matters worse, Holder had asked Quinn for his help in becoming attorney general in the event then-Vice President Al Gore won the 2000 election. Rich did not even qualify for a pardon under Justice Department guidelines, which say no pardons can be requested until five years after completion of a sentence in a criminal case.

~~~~~

Members of Congress pointed out that Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, visited the White House more than a dozen times during Clinton’s presidency and contributed an estimated $450,000 to the president’s library foundation, $1.1 million to the Democratic Party and at least $109,000 to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for the Senate.

In so many of these events the Stealth Democrat Lindsey Graham was present to ask all the right questions only to lose his spine and wind up voting exactly the wrong way.

One cannot help but wonder if Holder is angry because a military trial would make pardoning Khalid Sheik Mohamamed so much more difficult.

The. Worst. Attorney. General. Evah.

Barack Obama says he was all for World War II:

I don’t oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil.

He doesn’t oppose all wars- just dumb Bush wars:

I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war.

And he is opposed to wars which distract us from our terrible economy:

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

And he is opposed to a war in which there is no threat to the United States, because that would be a dumb war:

Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power…. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors…and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

And we should fight with those who oppress their people- like the Saudi’s

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

Here’s Barack Obama making sure the Saudis don’t oppress their own people.

Barack Obama has done nothing to stop the Saudis from oppressing their own people but Barack Obama said we should fight them to stop the oppression.

Both Curt and I have observed how eerily similar Obama’s actions recent actions are to those just prior to the Iraq war. Now so has Drudge:

MARCH 19, 2011
OBAMA: ‘Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people. And we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world’…

MARCH 19, 2003
BUSH: ‘American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger’…

The actions taken by Obama represent a complete reversal of his own administration. Not long ago the establishment of a no-fly zone was called “loose talk” by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The Secretary of State said that the US was “a long way from making that decision.” In fact, Gates said, the establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya would constitute “an act of war.”

“A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya.”

Now I know for a fact that Congress has not authorized this action by the US military. I also know how someone else named Barack Obama opposed any such action:

Q: In what circumstances would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress?

A: The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action. As for the specific question about bombing suspected nuclear sites, I recently introduced S.J.Res.23, which states in part that “any offensive military action taken by the United States against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress.”

So Barack Obama said that Barack Obama does not have the authority to initiate the military action that Barack Obama just ordered and Barack Obama is in violation of the legislation proposed by Barack Obama.

If you really want to read the words of a miserable lying hypocrite- just read the entire article at the link. For example:

Q: Is there any executive power the Bush administration has claimed or exercised that you think is unconstitutional?

A: I reject the view that the President may do whatever he deems necessary to protect national security, and that he may torture people in defiance of congressional enactments. I reject the use of signing statements to make extreme and implausible claims of presidential authority. Some further points:

* The detention of American citizens, without access to counsel, fair procedure, or pursuant to judicial authorization, as enemy combatants is unconstitutional.
* Warrantless surveillance of American citizens, in defiance of FISA, is unlawful and unconstitutional.
* The violation of international treaties that have been ratified by the Senate, specifically the Geneva Conventions, was illegal (as the Supreme Court held) and a bad idea.
* The creation of military commissions, without congressional authorization, was unlawful (as the Supreme Court held) and a bad idea.

Barack Obama has ordered military trials to continue at Gitmo, but Barack Obama said they were unlawful.

But that’s for another post.

And please remember Obama’s words here:

A: It is absolutely clear that Pres. Bush continues to not let facts get in the way of his ideology.

Facts.

Until Barack Obama became President, the media increasingly took to describing the Iraqi conflict as a “civil war.”

In 2006 the Alternet outright called Iraq a civil war and argued that its being a civil war was a reason to get out.

James Joyner said that you can’t win with civil wars.

Dick Durbin said We cannot police a civil war.

In The Democratic Strategist it is recommended that one way for Democrats to argue and win a debate about Iraq is to maintain that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war and we not stay involved.

Libya is in the midst of a civil war.

“Change in the region will not and cannot be imposed by the United States or any foreign power” said Barack Obama but Barack Obama said Gaddafi must leave Libya.

In Cairo in 2009 Barack Obama said

So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other.

Barack Obama also said

“Change in the region will not and cannot be imposed by the United States or any foreign power.

The Obama sops at Politico said there was something behind these bombings;

Then there’s the feasibility of the larger underlying mission — ousting Qadhafi through the destruction of his military infrastructure, a kind of regime change on the cheap.

“The use-of-force resolution is focused on protecting civilians, not removing Qadhafi from power … but everything else we’re doing is aimed at pressuring him to give up power,” said a senior administration official.

So Barack Obama said that change in Libya will not be imposed by the United States or any foreign power but Barack Obama is using the US and foreign power to impose change in Libya.

In the Libyan civil war, rebels have engaged Gaddafi in an armed insurrection. It is NOT the peaceful protest Barack Obama has repeatedly described.

“The suffering and bloodshed is outrageous and it is unacceptable, so are threats and orders to shoot peaceful protesters,” Obama said in his first televised remarks on the situation in Libya. “These actions violate international norms and every standard of common decency. This violence must stop.”

Obama has not once properly described the civil war sparked by armed rebels.

President Obama says it is imperative that the world speak “with one voice” to condemn the suppression of peaceful demonstrators in Libya and to support their universal rights, and adds that the administration is preparing “a full range of options” that the United States can take unilaterally and multilaterally in response to the ongoing violence.

He keeps calling them “protesters” and “demonstrators.” They are armed revolutionaries.

One need not go back very long in time to see Barack Obama feel differently:

When President George Bush said

The dictator of Iraq is a student of Stalin, using murder as a tool of terror and control, within his own cabinet, within his own army, and even within his own family. On Saddam Hussein’s orders, opponents have been decapitated, wives and mothers of political opponents have been systematically raped as a method of intimidation, and political prisoners have been forced to watch their own children being tortured.

Candidate Barack Obama said Bush was wrong and “dumb” to get into a war over that.

Now President Obama says of Gaddafi:

For decades, he has demonstrated a willingness to use brute force through his sponsorship of terrorism against the American people as well as others, and through the killings that he has carried out within his own borders. And just yesterday, speaking of the city of Benghazi — a city of roughly 700,000 people — he threatened, and I quote: “We will have no mercy and no pity” — no mercy on his own citizens.

Surely candidate Obama would find this wrong and dumb to get into a war over.

President Barack Obama has committed an act of war against Libya without the permission of Congress. There is no imminent threat to the US from Libya. President Obama has repeatedly lied about situation in Libya. It has to be about oil, right?

Barack Obama the candidate would demand impeachment of Barack Obama the President.

Cpl. Michael Klipp, left, and Pfc. Brandon Ingram, 25, of Karoll, Ohio, right, load their weapons before heading out.
Max Becherer-Polaris

Andrew Lebovich’s The Legal War on Terror news brief:

In remarks last Friday President Barack Obama conceded that his failure to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay was a “rare unfulfilled campaign promise” (Miami Herald).

Obama also promised to end the war in Iraq within 16 months of being put in office. I recall a liberal friend in 2008 who told me “Obama is going to end the war in Iraq.” (President Obama didn’t “end” the war in Iraq; he’s merely riding on the coattail conditions and decisions set under his predecessor)

It’s now mid-September, and although “Mission Accomplished” has been declared, we still have 50,000 troops in harm’s way. As Thomas Ricks wrote after President Obama’s August 31st speech to the American people,

he was fulfilling a campaign pledge to get all combat troops out of Iraq by today. Unfortunately, it was a phony pledge — the mission of the U.S. troops still in Iraq is, if anything, more dangerous today than it was yesterday. And so the core of the speech was hollow.

And of course, a number of those leaving/diverted from Iraq are still in theater, in Afghanistan.

Col. Andrew Berdy:

Can you explain to me how, or why, the myth of “all combat troops out of Iraq” is allowed to be perpetuated by the press, much less our senior military leadership? Yes, the mission has changed. But units like my son’s Stryker Brigade (not the one that just left!) are, and always will be, combat infantry units.

This is fiction pure and simple. I just don’t get how the nation has swallowed this and why members of the media are not reporting facts the way they are rather than the political PR message the Administration wants portrayed. Does anyone not think that the likelihood of continued combat operations is a reality? When casualties are taken by these “non-combat forces” will those casualties be characterized as “non-combat” as well? Does the public not understand that the secondary mission of our remaining forces is to be prepared to conduct combat operations either to defend themselves or to support Iraqi forces if requested? And when these train and assist “non-combat” units have to engage in, dare I say, combat operations, what will the Administration say then?

I can tell you, as a former brigade commander responsible for securing and helping to rebuild Port-au-Prince, Haiti, while we went in prepared for battle, and quickly transitioned to peacekeeping/nation building, there was never a moment that my infantry brigade was not prepared to conduct combat operations (which did occur late in the deployment) and there was never a moment when we were anything but a combat force. I suspect if you ask those troopers on the ground now they would agree with me and take incredible umbrage with what is being trumpeted on TV and in the press.

Randy, 12 days ago:

This came from a friend who has a son in Iraq. Think there was another political spin on the troop withdrawl from Iraq?
Randy

Hey, everybody! I just wanted to send a quick update and give y’all the REAL story on what’s going on over here with the troop withdrawal. The picture is of my crew and I on a break during a mission. The guy to the far left is my gunner (Burks) and the guy in the middle is my driver (Mizell). They go with me on every mission and are great guys. The reason I’m sending this out is because I have had a few people ask if I left Iraq early because all of the combat troops are out of Iraq and I wanted to let everyone know the real deal. It’s kind of ridiculous how the news is saying that the last of the “combat” troops are out of Iraq because of Pres Obama. He says that it was his campaign promise. Take our Brigade for example. We were originally called a HBCT (Heavy Brigade Combat Team). Well, since Obama said he would pull all of the “combat” troops out by Aug, all they did before we left was change our name from a HBCT to a AAB (Advise and Assist Brigade). We have the same personnel/equipment layout as before and are doing the same missions. The ONLY difference is that they changed our name from a HBCT to an AAB and that’s how he is getting away with saying that he has pulled all of the “combat” troops out. It is really ridiculous what he’s doing and he has ticked a lot of people off. And it’s funny how the media is buying all of it, too. So no the last combat troops are not out of Iraq . We are still here. There are other Brigades just like ours that are doing the same missions that are still over here. Sorry for going on about it but we are just sitting over here watching it and are like “You’ve got to be kidding me!” So anyway now you know the REAL story, so that’s why I’m not coming back early. You have to watch those liberals, they’re sneaky!

Anyways I hope everyone is doing well and I’ll see you soon!
Travis

Peter Feaver:

President Obama’s speech a few weeks ago on Iraq left me a bit queasy. I had urged him to make a strong case for why 50,000 American soldiers should remain in the line of fire in Iraq. I wanted him to be as compelling in speaking to the soldiers who remained as I expected him to be in speaking about the soldiers who left. And in my opinion, his speech did not hit that mark as well as it could have.

My concern was that without a stronger line of communication between the commander-in-chief and the troops in the field, we would start to see reports about disconnect and alienation. And so we have. Now a single article quoting one or two disgruntled grunts is hardly an indicator of a budding mutiny. But it could be an indicator of a more widely held sense that the president is losing interest in what the troops are doing over there. The consensus interpretation of Obama’s speech — fairly or unfairly — was that his call for America to turn the page was a signal that he would be turning his attention elsewhere. That may play well with Obama’s political base, but as the Reuters account suggests, it may not play as well to the troops in the field.

Let’s not forget the 50,000 U.S. soldiers who are still in harm’s way, serving in theater. Let’s not allow the American people to be fooled by this political shell game.

Members of Charlie Company, Second Platoon, listen as 1st Lt. Michael Makrucki, 27, of Pittsburgh gives them a “ramp brief” before heading out on a mission. Soldiers with the 25th Division, 1-21 Infantry Battalion, arrived in Iraq in early July as the deadline for President Obama’s deadline for the drawdown of U.S. combat forces in Iraq loomed.
Max Becherer-Polaris

Barack Obama has given up on closing Gitmo within his first and hopefully only term in office.

WASHINGTON — Stymied by political opposition and focused on competing priorities, the Obama administration has sidelined efforts to close the Guantánamo prison, making it unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013.

Of course, it’s not his fault.

When the White House acknowledged last year that it would miss Mr. Obama’s initial January 2010 deadline for shutting the prison, it also declared that the detainees would eventually be moved to one in Illinois. But impediments to that plan have mounted in Congress, and the administration is doing little to overcome them.

Obama made it sound so eeeeeeasy before he was elected.

As one of his first acts in the White House, Barack Obama is preparing to move hundreds of detainees from Guantanamo Bay prison to the US where they will be given legal hearings, trials or face yet-to-be-established special terrorist courts.

Mr Obama has a long-standing commitment to shut down Guantanamo, which has become a symbol of injustice for human rights campaigners, and a lightning rod for anti-US criticism since it opened eight years ago. Closing the prison, which is on a part of Cuba leased to the US, will bring to an end one of the most poisonous legacies of the Bush administration while sending a signal that the “war on terror” is under more enlightened management.

The feckless RINO known as Lindsay Graham spread some of the blame around to his fellow Republicans

And Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who also supports shutting it, said the effort is “on life support and it’s unlikely to close any time soon.” He attributed the collapse to some fellow Republicans’ “demagoguery” and the administration’s poor planning and decision-making “paralysis.”

Poor planning indeed. Closing Gitmo is not a new idea. George Bush wanted to close Gitmo for some time:

“The president has said he would like nothing better than at some point to shut down Guantanamo Bay, but there are a number of steps that need to be taken between here and that stated objective and they are tough issues,” McCormack said. “There are people down at Guantanamo Bay who are very, very dangerous and you can’t just let them walk free.”

But unlike the Community Oganizer-in-Chief, Bush realized just how difficult it would be;

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman noted Defense Secretary Robert Gates supports closing the facility.

“I think that’s the goal of everybody in the administration and probably most Americans — that we would rather not have to have a place like Guantanamo,” he said. “But the fact remains that there are dangerous people out there that are being picked up on the battlefield that have vowed to return to the fight if released and individuals that have committed war crimes and should be held accountable for their actions.”

PMSNBC declared, with much hoopla, that Bush’s secret prisons would be closed along with Gitmo:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Thursday moved quickly to undo a contentious Bush administration national security program, ordering the CIA to close down secret overseas prisons and the Pentagon to close down the Guantanamo prison within a year. The president also banned the harshest interrogation methods.

We all know how awful those secret prisons are:

The CIA has used secret “black site” prisons around the world to question terror suspects, usually plucking them from one country and moving them to another where U.S. agents operated a prison. A senior White House source said the CIA will be allowed to continue these “renditions” but not to countries that torture and not to its own prisons.

So what did Obama actually do? Actually, he maintains his own personal black prison.

Bagram is Now Obama’s Guantanamo

Bagram, their brief contended, “is not a temporary holding camp, intended to house enemy soldiers apprehended on the battlefield, for the duration of a declared war, finite in time and space.” It said the “war on terror” as conceived by the government is “unlimited in duration and global in scope.”

Members of Congress are getting the message that Obama has given up:

“They are not really putting their shoulder to the wheel on this issue,” Mr. Levin said of White House officials. “It’s pretty dormant in terms of their public positions.”

Closing Gitmo is a failed policy. It is an Obama failure, but don’t look for any admissions.

In any case, one senior official said, even if the administration concludes that it will never close the prison, it cannot acknowledge that because it would revive Guantánamo as America’s image in the Muslim world.

“Guantánamo is a negative symbol, but it is much diminished because we are seen as trying to close it,” the official said. “Closing Guantánamo is good, but fighting to close Guantánamo is O.K. Admitting you failed would be the worst.”

“We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.”
- Erich Hoffer