And now argument (a) has made its long-overdue guest appearance, albeit without the usual "order of magnitude worse" panache. You couldn't resist, now could you, PG?
As a lawyer you should be well aware that the punishment should fit the crime.
The facts are that Bybee/Yoo knew that the CIA would waterboard Zubaydah and gave it the legal seal of approval. And that Pelosi was not briefed before or while Zubaydah was waterboarded. Pesky facts.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PG
The facts are that Bybee/Yoo knew that the CIA would waterboard Zubaydah and gave it the legal seal of approval.
I don't know that your claim is any more factual that the claim you desperately try to refute: that Pelosi knew just as well that they weren't discussing hypotheticals that would never come to fruition.
Be that as it may, so long as there was a colorable argument that waterboarding didn't run afoul of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340 & 2340A, the OLC attorneys did nothing wrong. For that matter, they had no power to compel CIA to use or not use the techniques at issue. Meanwhile, Pelosi who had actual oversight authority over CIA was utterly derelict in her duties if she actually believed, as you steadfastly maintain, that the enhanced interrogation program was wrong.
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And that Pelosi was not briefed before or while Zubaydah was waterboarded. Pesky facts.
So too is the pesky fact that the waterboarding of the other two high-value detainees occurred after Pelosi was briefed. Pesky facts.
Even better, that Zubaydah was subject to enhanced interrogation techniques before Pelosi was briefed is a fact that cuts against her claim that she thought the techniques were only hypothetical techniques that weren't ready for use. Again, her briefing was on the "use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah . . . and a description of particular EITs that had been employed.”
Hotair guts the fig leaf you all too happily offer Pelosi:
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It wasn’t a hypothetical, it was a progress report. If Pelosi wants to stick by her story, she has no option left except to accuse DNI — in a report written seven years ago, which also mentioned Republican Porter Goss — of outright lying to frame her. The second, more nuanced excuse is that the report never says Pelosi was told about waterboarding specifically, only that she was briefed on certain unnamed enhanced interrogation techniques. . . . It would be sweet if it were true since it would force her defenders to distinguish “bad” EITs like waterboarding from the “not so bad” ones that she was briefed on, thereby cracking the left’s dopey absolutist position on this topic.
[. . .]
Consider the context of when the briefing was held — one week before 9/11/02, when fears of an anniversary attack were sky high — and ask yourself why the CIA wouldn’t have told Pelosi they had waterboarded Zubaydah. In the political climate of the time, the agency would have been more concerned with covering its a$$ by assuring Congress it was doing everything it could to stop a new attack than covering its a$$ by omitting information for fear of a speculative backlash against waterboarding years down the road. They had every reason to disclose.
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Ace of Spades on Speaker Pelosi's hat trick of lying about her knowledge of the enhanced interrogation program:
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Pelosi Lies for Third Time on Torture
Version 1: I knew nothing at all about waterboarding. So you can understand why I didn't object.
Version 2: Okay, maybe I was told something about waterboarding, but only as a hypothetical future technique. I was never told we'd already waterboarded Zubaydah. So you can understand why I didn't object.
Version 4: Okay, maybe I personally took part in waterboarding Zubaydah, but I swear I only held his forehead back and didn't pour any of the water. So you can understand why I didn't object.
Does anyone remember the good old days when flagrant lies and ludicrous backpedaling by a Speaker of the House warranted serious media attention?
I do. I believe the period in question lasted from 1994 to 2006.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by uastarflyer
If the underlying activity was just fine, what's the point of this fap-fest of a thread?
Oh wait, I answered my own question.
That'll usually result in the wrong answer. This case was no exception.
If the underlying activity was fine, you, the rest of the frothing-at-the-mouth left, the Congressional Democrats, et al., should all stick a fork in it. Even as it was fine, the lying about it, the double standards, and the hypocrisy are all rather unbecoming.
If the underlying activity was fine, you, the rest of the frothing-at-the-mouth left, the Congressional Democrats, et al., should all stick a fork in it.
No way! Don't you understand the tactic? It keeps Cheney and Limbaugh front-and-center representin' the GOP peeps, sucking the air out of the room. Just as we planned it.
I am not "desperately seeking to exonerate" Pelosi. I've said often that she very well may be guilty of not trying to stop some (though not all as she was briefed AFTER Zubaydah was waterboarded) of the torture.
But to find guilt/innocence we need hard facts, and the current information is quite insufficient.
I agree. This thread is nothing but SAT Lawyer's playground du jour, by which method, a larger than average chicken egg can become a golden egg after just merely a few posts from like minded OMNI Cons.
When I read this report before seeing this thread, I also thought whether Pelosi and some others were aware the extent of CIA's plan to use waterboarding on many other POW and whether these congressmen were aware the seriousness of what CIA was proposing. It was unclear to me whether Pelosi and others clearly understood the little amount of information they were fed.
To turn around and accuse someone of lying with such definitive and accusatory language and little evidence is at best, premature and worse, wrongful prosecution.
If the underlying activity was just fine, what's the point of this fap-fest of a thread?
Oh wait, I answered my own question.
Interesting eh? The OP has always maintained that waterborading was a legal interrogation technique when the Bush Adminstration used it circa 2002 and onward. Yet, when certain members of the Congress who were [mis]-informed by Bush Administration that such tactics were "legal" and now, these Congressmen such as Pelosi are accused of doing nothing to stop it? First of all, I have to admit, if I were Pelosi, I might have reacted the exact same way. If somebody at CIA just told me they are using an interrogation technique that is deemed legal and they have just used it on one suspect - why would I go any further at that point? After all, if I were Pelosi in 2002, she was just a Congresswoman from SFO - not the Speaker - what exactly could she do about it?
The determination of illegality re: these tortures were ascertained much later. To show that Pelosi lied, or anyone else for that matter, you have to show she understood or should have known that these "approved" interrogation techniques were raising serious ethical or legal concerns yet knowingly chose to ignore those warning signs.
Being briefed after merely one suspect was subject to waterborading and subsequent meetings never made mention of that phrase is hardly sufficient as evidence.
I'll let the OMNI Cons have their fun in this thread. As far as I can see, the evidences available are far from conclusive, not even enough to accuse her of being negligent. Did any other Congressmen raise concerns re: waterboarding in 2002? Surely, Pelosi wasn't the only one being briefed about it.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Guava
First of all, I have to admit, if I were Pelosi, I might have reacted the exact same way.
Really? If you had been briefed about and told of the use of techniques that the left now insists were clearly torture, you would have said nothing and done absolutely nothing? And, with supposedly nothing to hide, you would have managed to offer three mutually exclusive stories in a span of weeks years later as the lies you started to peddle went horribly awry?
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If somebody at CIA just told me they are using an interrogation technique that is deemed legal and they have just used it on one suspect - why would I go any further at that point? After all, if I were Pelosi in 2002, she was just a Congresswoman from SFO - not the Speaker - what exactly could she do about it?
She was "just a Congresswoman"? Uhh, not exactly. She was the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, you know, the committee whose very responsibility is to exercise oversight over the CIA. She along with the committee chairman, Porter Goss, were the first two members of the House briefed on the enhanced interrogation program and its use on Zubaydah.
And what could he have done? Plenty. She could have registered any dissatisfaction in writing with the CIA and/or the President. She could have made clear to the Administration that what they had done and were proposing to do was, in her estimation, wildly inappropriate, if not definitively torture. She could have demanded further information or answers from the CIA over the program, its techniques, and their use. She could have insisted upon closed-door committee hearings. She could have tried to use the power of the purse to clamp down on the CIA. She could have joined her colleague and future successor, Jane Harman's complaint letter. Basically, she could have done just about anything other than to acquiesce to the enhanced interrogation program only to have an epiphany years after the time to act had passed that the program was a terrible evil and blight on America. At which point, the lying and revisionist history began in earnest.
I agree. This thread is nothing but SAT Lawyer's playground du jour, by which method, a larger than average chicken egg can become a golden egg after just merely a few posts from like minded OMNI Cons.
When I read this report before seeing this thread, I also thought whether Pelosi and some others were aware the extent of CIA's plan to use waterboarding on many other POW and whether these congressmen were aware the seriousness of what CIA was proposing. It was unclear to me whether Pelosi and others clearly understood the little amount of information they were fed.
To turn around and accuse someone of lying with such definitive and accusatory language and little evidence is at best, premature and worse, wrongful prosecution.
Exactly.
We need to know precisely what she was told and when she was told.
Furthermore these were such highly classified briefings that they could not share them even with other members of the Congress, nor did they have the authority to stop the torture. Nor did the Bush administration seek their permission before starting torture. The only avenue they had was to object. In another case (illegal surveillance) Rockefeller did object by writing a letter to the VP. Cheney then filed the letter in his cabinet and sat on it. With this kind of treatment, the burden and blame falls on those who ordered torture.
Also note that when the full Congress was informed, the Democrats did try to pass a law which was supported by Pelosi.
The double standard is of those who are trying to deflect blame away from those who ordered the torture simply beacuse those folks had a (R) after their name.
I agree. This thread is nothing but SAT Lawyer's playground du jour, by which method, a larger than average chicken egg can become a golden egg after just merely a few posts from like minded OMNI Cons.
When I read this report before seeing this thread, I also thought whether Pelosi and some others were aware the extent of CIA's plan to use waterboarding on many other POW and whether these congressmen were aware the seriousness of what CIA was proposing. It was unclear to me whether Pelosi and others clearly understood the little amount of information they were fed.
To turn around and accuse someone of lying with such definitive and accusatory language and little evidence is at best, premature and worse, wrongful prosecution.
Exactly.
We need to know precisely what she was told and when she was told.
Furthermore these were such highly classified briefings that they could not share them even with other members of the Congress, nor did they have the authority to stop the torture. Nor did the Bush administration seek their permission before starting torture. The only avenue they had was to object. In another case (illegal surveillance) Rockefeller did object by writing a letter to the VP. Cheney then filed the letter in his cabinet and sat on it. With this kind of treatment, the burden and blame falls on those who ordered torture.
Also note that when the full Congress was informed, the Democrats did try to pass a law which was supported by Pelosi.
The double standard is of those who are trying to deflect blame away from those who ordered the torture simply beacuse those folks had a (R) after their name.
It disgusts me that people are so quick to throw around words like "lied" when it comes to flimsy "evidence" with respect to Pelosi, but if you suggest for one second that Bush or Cheney lied or mislead in the leadup to war... That's verboted.
Interesting eh? The OP has always maintained that waterborading was a legal interrogation technique when the Bush Adminstration used it circa 2002 and onward.
It's just a display of hypocrisy by which he tries to argue both sides at the same time.
On one hand, there's nothing wrong with anything the Bush administration did.
But the Democrats are a bunch of lying hypocrites since they didn't stop the Bush administration.
It's a double dose if it turns out the Democrats do the same things because now he'll simultaneously claim the administration and congress are both hypocritical for doing what he wants them to do.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Plato90s
It's just a display of hypocrisy by which he tries to argue both sides at the same time.
On one hand, there's nothing wrong with anything the Bush administration did.
But the Democrats are a bunch of lying hypocrites since they didn't stop the Bush administration.
You don't understand the concept of hypocrisy very well.
I don't believe that there was anything legally or morally wrong about the enhanced interrogation program. I believe that the Bush Administration was right to implement it, and Congressional Democrats like Pelosi were right to offer their near unanimous backing for the program at the time. Pelosi & Friends did nothing wrong by supporting the Administration's efforts to prevent another 9/11.
What they did do wrong is in changing their tune years after the enhanced interrogation program had ended, using the program as a target of partisan bloodletting, and in the case of Speaker Pelosi, lying to blatantly revise history. That is, indeed, hypocrisy and fraud. And it is disgraceful. So now that the Administration and the Democrats have opened up this Pandora's Box, it is coming around to bite them in the a$$. How unfortunate.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by magiciansampras
It disgusts me that people are so quick to throw around words like "lied" when it comes to flimsy "evidence" with respect to Pelosi, but if you suggest for one second that Bush or Cheney lied or mislead in the leadup to war... That's verboted.
Funny how that works. Add that to the fact that the Obama administration are all liars and cowards because they didn't fulfill every campaign promise on the afternoon of January 20.
First of all, I have to admit, if I were Pelosi, I might have reacted the exact same way. If somebody at CIA just told me they are using an interrogation technique that is deemed legal and they have just used it on one suspect - why would I go any further at that point? After all, if I were Pelosi in 2002, she was just a Congresswoman from SFO - not the Speaker - what exactly could she do about it? 
