Daily Nonsense

In an interview with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, Susan J. Crawford, has admitted that Mohammed al-Qahtani, the suspected 20th terrorist in the 9/11 attack on the US was brutally tortured while being detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.  Brutally tortured by Americans while being held without regard for the Geneva Convention.

Tortured by us.  Tortured by Americans.

Let’s couple this with Still Vice President Cheney’s admission on December 15th that he authorized and approved of the interrogation tactics used against a so-called "high value prisoner" at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison,.  So Cheney admitted to giving official sanctioning of torture.

Where is the moral outrage?  Where are the arrests and public humiliation of these government officials?  Why is Still Vice President Dick Cheney not locked up right now?  We know that he believes that he is above the law (or worse, a law unto himself), but surely saner minds know better.

Why has there been no action?  Why has the name Cheney not be irrevocably linked with torture like Aaron Burr has been linked with treason?

Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official
Trial Overseer Cites ‘Abusive’ Methods Against 9/11 Suspect

By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 14, 2009; A01

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.

Crawford, 61, said the combination of the interrogation techniques, their duration and the impact on Qahtani’s health led to her conclusion. "The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . . You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge" to call it torture, she said.

Military prosecutors said in November that they would seek to refile charges against Qahtani, 30, based on subsequent interrogations that did not employ harsh techniques. But Crawford, who dismissed war crimes charges against him in May 2008, said in the interview that she would not allow the prosecution to go forward.

Qahtani was denied entry into the United States a month before the Sept. 11 attacks and was allegedly planning to be the plot’s 20th hijacker. He was later captured in Afghanistan and transported to Guantanamo in January 2002. His interrogation took place over 50 days from November 2002 to January 2003, though he was held in isolation until April 2003.

"For 160 days his only contact was with the interrogators," said Crawford, who personally reviewed Qahtani’s interrogation records and other military documents. "Forty-eight of 54 consecutive days of 18-to-20-hour interrogations. Standing naked in front of a female agent. Subject to strip searches. And insults to his mother and sister."

At one point he was threatened with a military working dog named Zeus, according to a military report. Qahtani "was forced to wear a woman’s bra and had a thong placed on his head during the course of his interrogation" and "was told that his mother and sister were whores." With a leash tied to his chains, he was led around the room "and forced to perform a series of dog tricks," the report shows.

The interrogation, portions of which have been previously described by other news organizations, including The Washington Post, was so intense that Qahtani had to be hospitalized twice at Guantanamo with bradycardia, a condition in which the heart rate falls below 60 beats a minute and which in extreme cases can lead to heart failure and death. At one point Qahtani’s heart rate dropped to 35 beats per minute, the record shows.

The Qahtani case underscores the challenges facing the incoming Obama administration as it seeks to close the controversial detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including the dilemmas posed by individuals considered too dangerous to release but whose legal status is uncertain. FBI "clean teams," which gather evidence without using information gained during controversial interrogations, have established that Qahtani intended to join the 2001 hijackers. Mohamed Atta, the plot’s leader, who died steering American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center, went to the Orlando airport to meet Qahtani on Aug. 4, 2001, but the young Saudi was denied entry by a suspicious immigration inspector.

"There’s no doubt in my mind he would’ve been on one of those planes had he gained access to the country in August 2001," Crawford said of Qahtani, who remains detained at Guantanamo. "He’s a muscle hijacker. . . . He’s a very dangerous man. What do you do with him now if you don’t charge him and try him? I would be hesitant to say, ‘Let him go.’ "

That, she said, is a decision that President-elect Barack Obama will have to make. Obama repeated Sunday that he intends to close the Guantanamo center but acknowledged the challenges involved. "It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize," Obama said on ABC’s "This Week," "and we are going to get it done, but part of the challenge that you have is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom may be very dangerous, who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication. And some of the evidence against them may be tainted, even though it’s true."

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have said that interrogations never involved torture. "The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values," Bush asserted on Sept. 6, 2006, when 14 high-value detainees were transferred to Guantanamo from secret CIA prisons. And in a interview last week with the Weekly Standard, Cheney said, "And I think on the left wing of the Democratic Party, there are some people who believe that we really tortured."

"I sympathize with the intelligence gatherers in those days after 9/11, not knowing what was coming next and trying to gain information to keep us safe," said Crawford, a lifelong Republican. "But there still has to be a line that we should not cross. And unfortunately what this has done, I think, has tainted everything going forward."

"The Department has always taken allegations of abuse seriously," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in an e-mail. "We have conducted more than a dozen investigations and reviews of our detention operations, including specifically the interrogation of Mohammed Al Qahtani, the alleged 20th hijacker. They concluded the interrogation methods used at GTMO, including the special techniques used on Qahtani in 2002, were lawful. However, subsequent to those reviews, the Department adopted new and more restrictive policies and procedures for interrogation and detention operations. Some of the aggressive questioning techniques used on Al Qahtani, although permissible at the time, are no longer allowed in the updated Army field manual."

After the Supreme Court ruled in the 2006 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case that the original military commission system for Guantanamo Bay violated the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, Congress rewrote the rules and passed the Military Commissions Act, creating a new structure for trials by commissions. The act bans torture but permits "coercive" testimony.

Crawford said she believes that coerced testimony should not be allowed. "You don’t allow it in a regular court," said Crawford, who served as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces from 1991 to 2006.

Under the act, Crawford is a neutral official overseeing charges, trials and sentencing, with ultimate decision-making power over all cases coming before the military commissions.

In May 2008, Crawford ordered the war-crimes charges against Qahtani dropped but did not state publicly that the harsh interrogations were the reason. "It did shock me," Crawford said. "I was upset by it. I was embarrassed by it. If we tolerate this and allow it, then how can we object when our servicemen and women, or others in foreign service, are captured and subjected to the same techniques? How can we complain? Where is our moral authority to complain? Well, we may have lost it."

The harsh techniques used against Qahtani, she said, were approved by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "A lot of this happened on his watch," she said. Last month, a Senate Armed Services Committee report concluded that "Rumsfeld’s authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there." The committee found the interrogation techniques harsh and abusive but stopped short of calling them torture.

An aide to the former defense secretary accused the committee chairman, Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), of pursuing a politically motivated "false narrative" that is "unencumbered by the preponderance of the facts."

In June 2005, Time magazine obtained 83 pages of Qahtani’s interrogation log and published excerpts that showed some of the extreme abuse. The report of a military investigation released the same year concluded that Qahtani’s interrogations were "degrading and abusive."

Crawford said she does not know whether five other detainees accused of participating in the Sept. 11 plot, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, were tortured. "I assume torture," she said, noting that CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has said publicly that Mohammed was one of three detainees waterboarded by the CIA. Crawford declined to say whether she considers waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, to be torture.

The five detainees face capital murder charges, and Crawford said she let the charges go forward because the FBI satisfied her that they gathered information without using harsh techniques. She noted that Mohammed has acknowledged his Sept. 11 role in court, whereas Qahtani has recanted his self-incriminating statements to the FBI.

"There is no doubt he was tortured," Gitanjali S. Gutierrez, Qahtani’s civilian attorney, said this week. "He has loss of concentration and memory loss, and he suffers from paranoia. . . . He wants just to get back to Saudi Arabia, get married and have a family." She said Qahtani "adamantly denies he planned to join the 9/11 attack. . . . He has no connections to extremists." Gutierrez said she believes Saudi Arabia has an effective rehabilitation program and Qahtani ought to be returned there.

When she came in as convening authority in 2007, Crawford said, "the prosecution was unprepared" to bring cases to trial. Even after four years working possible cases, "they were lacking in experience and judgment and leadership," she said. "A prosecutor has an ethical obligation to review all the evidence before making a charging decision. And they didn’t have access to all the evidence, including medical records, interrogation logs, and they were making charging decisions without looking at everything."

She noted that prosecutors are required to determine whether any evidence possessed by the government could be exculpatory; if it is, they must turn it over to defense lawyers. It took more than a year, she said — and the intervention of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England — to ensure they had access to all the information, much of it classified.

Crawford said detainee interrogation practices are a blot on the reputation of the United States and its military judicial system. "There’s an assumption out there that everybody was tortured. And everybody wasn’t tortured. But unfortunately perception is reality." The system she oversees probably can’t function now, she said. "Certainly in the public’s mind, or politically speaking, and certainly in the international community" it may be forever tainted. "It may be too late."

She said Bush was right to create a system to try unlawful enemy combatants captured in the war on terrorism. The implementation, however, was flawed, she said. "I think he hurt his own effort. . . . I think someone should acknowledge that mistakes were made and that they hurt the effort and take responsibility for it."

"We learn as children it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission," Crawford said. "I think the buck stops in the Oval Office."

Researchers Julie Tate and Evelyn Duffy contributed to this report.

Defense Lawyers for the Blackwater 5 had thought to influence justice by having their clients surrender in Utah.  A state that traditionally supports the military, the lawyers for the defense hoped to find a sympathetic jury there.

Those hopes were squashed like bugs underfoot when a federal judge there ordered the defendants to report to a District of Columbia courthouse on January 6th of next year.  Considering the likelihood that this will be a high profile case that is sure to set precedent, I can only applaud the judge’s decision to move venue to the capitol.

Of course, the larger issues remain.  Will the corporation itself and the legislators who approved the no-bid contract which allowed Blackwater to be in Iraq in the first place ever be called to task?  Probably not in this lifetime, but Karma is a bitch and we will certainly hope for justice.

 

Judge: Blackwater guards must report to DC court

Staff and agencies
08 December, 2008

Blackwater charges: 14 counts of manslaughter

The shooting by the largest U.S. security contractor in Iraq sparked international condemnation, launched congressional hearings and inspired anti-American insurgent propaganda.

A sixth Blackwater guard struck a deal with prosecutors, turned on his former colleagues, and pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding another.

Prosecutors said the slain included young children, women, people fleeing in cars and a man whose arms were raised in surrender as he was shot in the chest.

Blackwater, which was not charged in the case, maintains its guards were protecting themselves from what they believed was an imminent car bomb attack.

In all, 17 Iraqis were killed in the assault. But Assistant Attorney General Patrick Rowan said evidence in the case could only prove the guards shot 14, although he left open the possibility of future charges.

The guards are Donald Ball, a former Marine from West Valley City, Utah; Dustin Heard, a former Marine from Knoxville, Tenn.; Evan Liberty, a former Marine from Rochester, N.H.; Nick Slatten, a former Army sergeant from Sparta, Tenn., and Paul Slough, an Army veteran from Keller, Texas.

The sixth guard, who is cooperating with the government, is Jeremy Ridgeway of California. He pleaded guilty to one count each of manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, and aiding and abetting. In his plea agreement with prosecutors, Ridgeway admitted there was no threat from a white Kia sedan whose driver, a medical student, was killed and his mother, in the front passenger seat, was injured.

Following a car bombing elsewhere in the city, the heavily armed Blackwater convoy sought to shut down an intersection. Prosecutors said the convoy, known by the call sign Raven 23, had violated an order not to leave the U.S.-controlled Green Zone.

Khalid Ibrahim, a 40-year-old electrician who said his father, Ibrahim Abid, 78, died in the shooting, welcomed the charges.

"The killers must pay for their crime against innocent civilians, Ibrahim said in Iraq. "Justice must be achieved so that we can have rest from the agony we are living in. We know that the conviction of the people behind the shooting will not bring my father to life, but we will have peace in our minds and hearts."

But the drama is far from over. After more than a year of investigative missteps and fierce debate, the Justice Department now faces stiff challenges to the evidence and legal grounds at the heart of its case.

Most importantly, prosecutors must prove they did not rely on protected statements the guards gave to State Department investigators within hours of the shootings.

The State Department gave limited immunity to all the guards in the four-car convoy, promising not to prosecute them based on the initial statements recounting how the violence began. The move left Justice Department and FBI investigators with a crime scene long gone cold and with limited forensic evidence to bolster their case.

"We fully expect that the defendants will raise the issue," Rowan said. "We‘ve been very careful and very painstaking in the way we have investigated this case, the way we have assembled evidence. And we fully expect to prevail when the court hears that issue."

Defense attorneys also will argue that the guards cannot be charged under a law intended to cover soldiers and military contractors since the men worked as civilian contractors for the State Department. Rowan, however, said Blackwater was supporting the military‘s mission in Baghdad and the law therefore applies to them.

It is the first time prosecutors have used that argument to prosecute contractors. The Justice Department recently lost a somewhat similar case against former Marine Jose Luis Nazario Jr., who was charged in Riverside, Calif., with killing four unarmed Iraqi detainees.

The Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater said it stands behind the guards despite being "extremely disappointed and surprised" that one had pleaded guilty.

[Thanks, News One]

I’m so overjoyed I’m incapable of commenting!

Cheney, Gonzales indicted for alleged prisoner abuse

(CNN) – Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been indicted on separate charges related to alleged prisoner abuse in federal detention centers, Willacy County, Texas, District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra told CNN Tuesday.

The indictment stems from Cheney’s investment in the Vanguard Group — an investment management company that reportedly has interests in the prison companies in charge of the detention centers, according to The Associated Press. It also charges Gonzales halted an investigation into abuse at the detention centers while he was attorney general.

Democratic state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. also is charged in the indictment.

Michael R. Cowen, an attorney for Lucio, issued a statement calling Guerra a "one man circus."

"In the March 2008 Democratic Primary, 70 percent of the Willacy County voters elected to remove Juan Guerra as Willacy County District Attorney," Cowen said. "Now, with only a few weeks left in his term, Mr. Guerra has again chosen to misuse his position in an attempt to seek revenge on those who he sees as political enemies."

Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said, "The vice president has not received an indictment."

Willacy is near the United States-Mexico border.

[Thanks, CNN]

I imagine that Still President Bush and his shotgun totin’ sidekick Herr Cheney are all but gnashing their teeth at the miscarriage of justice that took place in Cuba earlier this week.

In case you live under a rock, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the former driver of Osama Bin Laden, was sentenced to a paltry 5 1/2 years for his part in the terrorism leading up the the 9/11 tragedy.  His crimes?  Being a driver….

No, really, I’m not kidding.  This poorly educated citizen of Yemen was simply a driver for Bin Laden, not a gun totin’ man shooter (that particular distinction rests with the Veep) or a bomb makin’ radical.  Nope, Salim’s crime was he knew how to drive and got hired by the wrong guy.

And the prosecution was seeking the death penalty.  Thankfully cooler heads prevailed and Salim was sentenced to 66 months with full credit for time served.  (Time served being the quaint way that the judge referred to the 61 months Mr. Hamdan was held without the benefit of Habeas Corpus and probably tortured in Gitmo)

I wonder how it’s going to fare for Bin Laden’s greengrocer when it’s time for his trial and sentencing?

Bin Laden’s Former Driver Is Sentenced to 5 1/2 Years

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: August 7, 2008

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the convicted former driver for Osama bin Laden, was sentenced Thursday to 66 months in prison by the military panel that convicted him of a war crime Wednesday.

The military judge, Capt. Keith J. Allred of the Navy, had already said that he planned to give Mr. Hamdan credit for the 61 months he had been held, meaning that Mr. Hamdan could complete his criminal sentence in five months. After that his fate is unclear, because the Bush administration says that it can hold detainees here until the end of the war on terror.

The unexpectedly short sentence was far less than military prosecutors had sought. Through more than five years of legal proceedings against Mr. Hamdan, prosecutors had pursued a life sentence, and earlier in the day, faced with Mr. Hamdan’s acquittal on the most serious charge against him, prosecutors recommended a sentence of at least 30 years and said life may be appropriate.

Mr. Hamdan’s lawyers had recommended 45 months, or less than four years, as a reasonable sentence.

After just over an hour of deliberations on the sentence, the panel of six senior military officers returned to the windowless tribunal room with their sentence on the single war crimes charge for which they convicted him Wednesday, providing material support to a terrorist organization.

After the president of the panel, the most senior officer, read the sentence, Mr. Hamdan rose at the defense table, collected himself for a moment and spoke. Referring to an apology he had made to victims of terrorism Thursday morning in the same room, he began: “I would like to apologize one more time to all the members. And I would like to thank you for what you have done for me.”

After Captain Allred explained the sentence to Mr. Hamdan, he said he was not certain of Mr. Hamdan’s fate after the end of the criminal sentence, in January. “After that, I don’t know what happens,” said Captain Allred, who had developed a warm relationship with Mr. Hamdan during months of pre-trial hearings.

In the courtroom after the military panel members filed out, Mr. Hamdan, who was captured in the middle of the Afghan war on Nov. 24, 2001, hugged the former American military lawyer, Charles Swift, who has represented him here for four years and helped take his case to the United States Supreme Court.

The sentence came after the first war crimes trial here in a system the administration says it plans to use to try about 80 other detainees here. Twenty other detainees are already facing charges.

[Thanks, NY Times]

On September 26, 2002, freedom loving United States Immigration and Naturalization Service agents detained Mahar Arar as he waited for a connecting flight to Montreal.  He had just flown in from Tunisia.

In the first know act of "extraordinary rendition" to be conducted on American soil, Mr. Arar was deported to Syria where he spent the next year being interrogated and tortured by Syrian and American intelligence officers.

Three members of the House Judiciary Committee recently petitioned US Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, to appoint a special counsel to investigate the incident.  Citing the need for the special counsel to "show the U.S. government was willing to conduct a fair investigation into serious allegations of wrongdoing.", the reasonable request was contemptuously dismissed by Mukasey as unwarranted "at this time."

I wonder why these Democrats continue to pursue these futile attempts at justice?  As long as there is a Republican in the White House with tools and lapdogs holding our highest offices of trust, Justice will not be served.  Maybe we can revisit the whole question in 178 days.

Arar special counsel unwarranted: U.S.

JAMES VICINI, Reuters
Published: Thursday, July 24

WASHINGTON – Attorney-General Michael Mukasey said yesterday he had rejected a request from lawmakers that an outside special counsel investigate the case of a Canadian taken off a plane in New York and sent to Syria, where he says he was tortured.

Mukasey said under questioning at a House Judiciary Committee hearing that he did not believe that a special counsel was warranted "at this time."

Maher Arar, a Syrian-born software engineer, was taken into custody by U.S. officials during a 2002 stopover in New York while on his way home to Canada and then deported to Syria because of suspected links to Al-Qa’ida.

Arar says he was imprisoned in Syria for a year and tortured. His case has become a sore spot in U.S.-Canada relations.

Three committee Democrats sent a letter July 10 asking Mukasey to appoint an outside special counsel to investigate and prosecute any violations of federal criminal laws.

They said a special counsel would ensure the investigation is thorough, impartial and independent, and would show the U.S. government was willing to conduct a fair investigation into serious allegations of wrongdoing.

Two lawmakers who sought the outside investigation, including committee chairman Representative John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan, criticized Mukasey’s decision.

Conyers said Mukasey had continued the "unfortunate tradition" of refusing to appoint a special counsel not only in the Arar case, but also for President George W. Bush’s warrantless surveillance program and for the CIA’s use of waterboarding for terrorism suspects.

Representative William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, cited testimony last month that U.S. officials may have sent Arar to Syria, rather than Canada, because they knew of the likelihood of torture.

[Thanks, Montreal Gazette]

Take an opportunity to sign a petition and document of support against the atrocities that the Chinese occupiers are conducting against the subjugated Tibetan People.  Click HERE.

Amnesty International is concerned that China’s history of flagrant human rights abuses will continue in this time immediately prior to the Olympic Games as China seeks to remove dissidents from the ‘public’ eye.  Visit Amnesty International and learn how you can help.

The European Union Parliament passed a resolution yesterday calling for all European countries to boycott at least the opening ceremonies in Beijing this upcoming august 8th.  The resolution further demands that China re-open negotiations with the Dalai Lama regarding the controversy surrounding Tibet which has been unlawfully occupied by the Chinese for the past 58 years.

China is not reacting well to these criticisms.  The US Congress passed a resolution calling on Beijing to stop cracking heads in Tibet and talk to the Dalai Lama.  The head of the International Olympics Committee has even issued a statement criticizing the human rights record of China.  That’s gotta’ sting.

European Parliament passes resolution urging Olympic boycott

BRUSSELS, April 10 (Xinhua) — The European Parliament (EP) on Thursday passed a resolution urging European Union (EU) leaders to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics despite opposition from the international community to attempts to politicize the games.

    The resolution urges for "a common EU position with regard to attendance at the Olympic Games opening ceremony with the option of non-attendance in the event" unless the Chinese government resumes talks with the Dalai Lama.

    However, the resolution was branded by Member of European Parliament (MEP) Adrian Severin as "hypocritical, short-sighted and irresponsible."

    The Romania MEP told a press conference following the vote that the EP had politicized human rights issues by approving the resolution, thus missing the opportunity to exert its influence for the best solution to the Tibet issue.

    The Chinese Foreign Ministry has said that there was sufficient evidence to prove that the Lhasa riots were masterminded by the Dalai Lama clique and staged by "Tibet independence" forces in and outside China.

    Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said on Monday that the Chinese government is willing to continue contacts and talks with the Dalai Lama as long as he truly abandons advocating "Tibet independence," stops activities aimed at splitting the motherland and current activities to fan and mastermind violent crimes in Tibet and other regions and to sabotage the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games, and admits the fact that Tibet and Taiwan are both inalienable parts of the Chinese territory.

    Meanwhile, a number of governments and senior officials worldwide have warned against linking sports with politics.

    The Afghan Foreign Ministry said Thursday that the Olympic Games is an opportunity for making peace and should not be linked with politics.

    Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Tuesday he did not believe in any boycott of the Beijing Olympics and the world should not mix athletics with politics.

    German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on March 28 that he was opposed to a boycott of the Olympics opening ceremony over the Tibet issue.

    President of the Singapore National Olympic Council Teo Chee Hean has also voiced opposition to politicizing the Olympic Games.

[Thanks, China View News]

Related Stories:

• China Accuses US of Interference
• China Says U.S. House Tibet Resolution Is `Rude Interference’
• Politics follows Dalai Lama to Seattle
• Chinese anger and terror warnings cloud Olympics

The University of Georgia hosted a roundtable discussion this week that was comprised of the 5 former Secretaries of State; Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell.  During the discussion they quickly reached a consensus that the detention/torture facility at the US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay should be closed as soon as possible by our next president.

It was summed up quite simply by Colin Powell, "Our image abroad has dropped significantly."  He then went on to place part of the blame on his old boss.

But, you might have noticed that the count was 5 out of 6.  What’s up with that dissenting vote?  That would be Condoleezza Rice and she dissents because she’s a tool.

Former secretaries of State: Close Guantanamo
By AARON GOULD SHEININ
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/27/08

ATHENS — Five former U.S. secretaries of State said Thursday the next president should move quickly to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

That single act would improve America’s dismal reputation in the world immediately, agreed Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell.

The five former secretaries, who served under Presidents Nixon, Ford, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush, were at the University of Georgia for a roundtable discussion billed as "The 16th Report of the Secretaries of State," which offered "bipartisan advice to the next administration." Kissinger, Baker and Powell all served Republican presidents. Albright and Christopher served Clinton, a Democrat.

Powell, who was in office when the notorious prison opened in Cuba, was the first Thursday to call for it to be shuttered. The most recent holder of the office on the stage, Powell served the current president from 2001 to 2005.

"Our image abroad has dropped significantly," Powell said. He put some of that blame on his former boss.

"Perhaps this administration has spoken a little too harshly in a unilateral way," Powell said. He added, however, that he thinks the case can be made that the administration did act in conjunction with other governments. "There are some things the new president can do right away," Powell said. "I hope the new president, and it seems it will be the case, will close Guantanamo immediately. And saying to the world [that] we are now going to go back to our traditional, respected way of dealing with people who have potentially committed crimes."

All three major-party candidates still running for president —Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and Republican John McCain — have called for Guantanamo to be closed.

Kissinger, who served under presidents Nixon and Ford, said that not all of the criticism of the United States is because of American actions. "Some of it is also due to structural changes going on in other parts of the world," he said.

In Europe, for example, governments no longer are the driving forces of national sentiment, Kissinger said. "European governments cannot ask their people to make sacrifices that American presidents can."

Baker, secretary of State under the senior Bush, said he thinks America’s reputation is on the upswing internationally, but he was harsher than the others in criticizing U.S. policy on enemy combatants.

Guantanamo "gives us a very, very bad name, not just internationally," Baker said. "I have a great deal of difficulty understanding how we can hold someone, pick someone up, particularly someone who might be an American citizen, even if they were caught somewhere abroad, acting against American interests, and hold them without ever giving them an opportunity to appear before a magistrate."

In addition to calling for Guantanamo’s closure, all five agreed that the United States should talk to its enemies, including Iran.

"We have to understand what diplomacy is really about," Albright said. "It’s talking to your enemy."

The United States should not "see diplomacy as appeasement, which is what’s happening," Albright said. "How we dig ourselves out of Iraq, and a bad reputation, has to do with using all the tools."

On China, most of the discussion centered on that nation’s economic growth and its battles with pollution and air quality. Albright jokingly predicted that Chinese athletes will dominate the Beijing Olympics this summer, because "no one else will be able to breathe."

Kissinger, who made two key trips to China before Nixon’s historic visit in 1972, said it is a "fundamental" part of American foreign policy that our attitude toward China be bipartisan.

"Every administration has substantially followed the way the relationship evolved, with some tactical variations," Kissinger said. "The main line about the importance of a close relationship has been maintained and should be maintained and will be maintained."

But that relationship, Christopher said, could change dramatically as the insular giant deals with outside forces it cannot contain.

"We need to expect more difficulty in China in the future — not to sympathize with them, but to be realistic," Christopher said. "The Internet is going to make it much, much harder to maintain the kind of control they need."

[Thanks, Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

I think we all know where our ex-AG stood on waterboarding, he knew damn well it was illegal torture.  Our newest AG doesn’t seem to be able to make that leap of intellect.  After three months of ‘review’, Mukasey still can decide if simulated drowning, condemned by every civilized nation, is actually torture.

It’s kind of a shame that our Commander in Chief can’t seem to find anyone intelligent to help or advise him……..

Mukasey masters Bush administration strategy

By: John Bresnahan
Jan 31, 2008 06:06 AM EST

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has been in office for less than three months, but he has already mastered one of the Bush administration’s strategies for responding to congressional inquiries: When pressed on an issue, say little. And if questioners still persist, just politely refuse to answer.

Mukasey put that strategy on full display Wednesday as he faced more than four hours of sometimes sharp questioning from the Senate Judiciary Committee, his first trip to Capitol Hill since being confirmed last year.
Most of the questions focused on the hugely controversial issue of waterboarding, during which a prisoner undergoes simulated drowning.

During his confirmation hearing, the former federal judge’s refusal to say whether waterboarding was torture, and therefore illegal, almost derailed his nomination.

Mukasey was eventually approved by a 53-40 vote, the closest vote on an attorney general nominee in five decades.

But after completing a promised review of CIA interrogation techniques since being sworn in on Nov. 9, Mukasey still refused on Wednesday to take a position on the legality of waterboarding, a stance that angered and perplexed Democrats on the committee.

Mukasey did say that the CIA is not waterboarding any detainees at this time and is not authorized to do so under its current interrogation program.

But he would not be drawn into a discussion of whether it could be used by the agency in the future or whether it had been a violation of U.S. law to do so in the past.

There is an ongoing criminal probe by the Justice Department, as well as congressional investigations, into the 2005 destruction of CIA videotapes on which two Al Qaeda detainees reportedly were waterboarded during interrogations two years earlier.

“They should have built a stone wall around him,” one Democratic insider joked in expressing the frustration of committee members following Wednesday’s session with the new attorney general.

Mukasey admitted that waterboarding was “repugnant” to him personally, and he noted that “I would feel that it was” torture if it were ever done to him.

Yet he declined, despite repeated prodding from Democrats, to rule out the future use of waterboarding by the CIA or describe situations where he could state definitively whether it was legal or illegal.

“It’s like saying that you’re opposed to stealing but not quite sure if bank robbery would qualify,” said an exasperated Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) engaged in a tough exchange with Mukasey, getting the attorney general to say that the legality of an interrogation technique may be linked to the value of the information extracted.

That answer upset the former Democratic presidential candidate, who said it clashed with the legal training he had received.

“But the truth of the matter is, I just never heard the issue of torture discussed … in terms of the relative benefit that might be gained from engaging in the technique,” Biden said. “I don’t understand that premise.”
Republicans tried to rally to Mukasey’s defense, with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) pointing out that waterboarding was never widely used by the CIA or any other government agency.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), a former Judiciary Committee chairman, offered him heavy praise for his running of the Justice Department after taking over from the highly unpopular Alberto Gonzales.

Democrats seem to have no personal animus toward Mukasey; that was not the case with his predecessor.

He was even praised by some Democrats, including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), for his willingness to appoint John Durham, a veteran federal prosecutor from Boston, to oversee the CIA videotape probe.
Yet Whitehouse, too, was rebuffed when he asked Mukasey about whether the waterboarding sessions shown on the destroyed CIA tapes were a criminal offense, given that the destruction of the CIA videotapes was a potential criminal matter.

Mukasey demurred, but Whitehouse persisted, saying CIA officials couldn’t just use the “Nuremberg defense” of “we were only following orders” to defend the use of waterboarding.

Again, Mukasey refused to directly offer his opinion, although he clearly bristled at the way Whitehouse, a former U.S. attorney, raised the issue.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), ranking member of the Judiciary panel, offered some of the sharpest comments of the day. Specter asserted that President Bush violated the law by initiating the warrantless surveillance program.

Specter also pushed Mukasey on whether he could help forge a compromise between Congress and the White House on allowing current and former top Bush administration officials to testify under record about the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, although Mukasey showed little enthusiasm for that possibility.

At the end of the hearing, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) summed up the Democrats’ frustration, although no one was ready to put Mukasey on anywhere near the same level as the infamously opaque Gonzales.

“I’m worried we’re not getting enough clarity on critical issues,” Leahy stated. “Instead, we heard references to legal opinions.”

[Thanks, Politico]

  A brilliant Op/Ed piece from my local Seattle Times:

Democracies don’t torture

By Robert Crawford
Special to The Times

Torture has re-entered the public domain. From Attorney General Robert Mukasey’s equivocation about waterboarding at his confirmation hearings to the current controversy over the CIA’s destruction of interrogation videotapes, adverse publicity may finally force Americans to face the torture issue.

What has taken us so long? And what might still subvert the much-needed confrontation with this nation’s torture policies?

The administration has never admitted to a policy of torture, instead hiding behind secretly authorized "alternative" or "enhanced" interrogation practices. Thus, when Mukasey refused to call waterboarding torture, he was not only protecting his administration sponsors from future prosecution; he was also rejecting the legitimate right of Congress to know whether the administration will obey the law.

"What goes outside the statute," Mukasey asserted, "nonetheless lies within the president’s authority to defend the country."

For several days after 9/11, it was reasonable to suppose that a real "state of emergency" existed in the United States that may have given substance to Mukasey’s comment. Six years later, however, we have a government that, when denials of torture are no longer credible, claims a right to violate national and international laws in the name of the "war on terrorism."

Do we want to endorse the claim that this war, which may "last generations" and has "battlefields everywhere," authorizes the president to do whatever he likes in the name of national security, irrespective of law?

The excesses of a national-security state are not new. During the Cold War, civil-rights and Vietnam War eras, the principles that make for a republic were undermined. In each era, courageous people stood up against unlawful excesses.

What is new, however, is that the administration, seizing on radical arguments for the president’s wartime powers, has adopted what is in effect an ongoing state of emergency that claims a right to go outside the law.

Such an assertion is no small thing. The rule of law is the sine qua non of the revolutionary idea that ushered in the democratic era and has since become the ideal of a democratic republic: The state cannot rule arbitrarily. The people have rights that cannot be violated. A democratic government’s credibility rests upon the extent that it obeys its own laws. In a democracy, the rule of law both limits and legitimizes the government.

An emergency government, however, is not confined by the rule of law. Instead, it seeks a "whatever-it-takes" authorization to protect America from "imminent" terrorist attacks. This rhetorical move is a dangerous escalation toward an authoritarian politics that treats the law as a nuisance or, with the assistance of legal advisers, as a radically reinterpreted set of permissions.

The claim of emergency powers may not be apparent because the government has not suspended the Constitution; and on occasion the courts have ruled against it. Yet, the government has taken a number of steps, mostly in secret, to subvert national and international law concerning torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. It has done the same with detainee policy and warrantless surveillance. These policies and the claims made in their behalf leave most constitutional lawyers astounded.

The practice of torture by the U.S. government, resulting in numerous deaths and the anguish and suffering of many more, has been extensively documented. Several civic organizations, including the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, in which I participate, are crying out, "This is not America! Torture goes against our fundamental moral beliefs." There have been modest attempts in Congress and the courts to limit the practice of torture.

When it comes to the American public, however, the jury is still out. Are Americans so far down the road of mass-manipulated opinion formation that we are no longer able to see through the tricks of language employed by the administration and its lawyers? Will mere repetition of the mantra of necessity continue to seduce us into silence?

Or, will we the citizens finally bring together our American abhorrence of arbitrary and unlimited governmental power with our equally American abhorrence of the dehumanization of human beings that torture presupposes and then inflicts? In 2008, let us hope for a resounding "No" to torture, for democracy and torture cannot coexist.

Robert Crawford is a professor in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, Tacoma.

[Thanks, Seattle Times]

In a brilliant and twisted turn of events, Canada has placed both the US and Israel on their list of countries who torture prisoners as well as classifying some of the more common techniques that the US uses as torture.

We’ve officially become the bad guys to at least one normal democratic nation.

Canada places U.S., Israel on torture watch list

By David Ljunggren Thu Jan 17, 3:16 PM ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada’s foreign ministry has put the United States and Israel on a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured and also classifies some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture, according to a document obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

The revelation is likely to embarrass the minority Conservative government, which is a staunch ally of both the United States and Israel. Both nations denied they allowed torture in their jails.

The document — part of a training course on torture awareness given to diplomats — mentions the U.S. jail at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where a Canadian man is being held.

The man, Omar Khadr, is the only Canadian in Guantanamo. His defenders said the document made a mockery of Ottawa’s claims that Khadr was not being mistreated.

Under "definition of torture" the document lists U.S. interrogation techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation and blindfolding prisoners.

"The United States does not permit, tolerate, or condone torture under any circumstances," said a spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Ottawa.

A spokesman for Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier tried to distance Ottawa from the document.

"The training manual is not a policy document and does not reflect the views or policies of this government," he said.

The government mistakenly provided the document to Amnesty International Canada as part of a court case the rights organization has launched against Ottawa over the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan.

Amnesty Secretary-General Alex Neve told Reuters his group had very clear evidence of abuse in U.S. and Israeli jails.

"It’s therefore reassuring and refreshing to see that … both of those countries have been listed and that foreign policy considerations didn’t trump the human rights concern and keep them off the list," he said.

Khadr has been in Guantanamo Bay for five years. He is accused of killing a U.S. soldier during a clash in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15.

Rights groups say Khadr should be repatriated to Canada, an idea that Prime Minister Stephen Harper rejects on the grounds that the man faces serious charges.

"At some point in the course of Omar Khadr’s detention the Canadian government developed the suspicion he was being tortured," said William Kuebler, Khadr’s U.S. lawyer.

"Yet it has not acted to obtain his release from Guantanamo Bay and protect his rights, unlike every other Western country that has had its nationals detained in Guantanamo Bay," he told CTV television.

Other countries on the watch list include Syria, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

"If Israel is included in the list in question, the ambassador of Israel would expect its removal," said Israeli embassy spokesman Michael Mendel.

The awareness course started after Ottawa was criticized for the way it handled the case of Canadian Maher Arar, who was deported from the United States to Syria in 2002.

Arar says he was tortured repeatedly during the year he spent in Damascus prisons. An inquiry into the case revealed that Canadian diplomats had not received any formal training into detecting whether detainees had been abused.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Rob Wilson)

[Thanks, Yahoo & Reuters]

From about 1478 through 1834, in both Spain and Mexico, the black garbed priests of the inquisition used three methods of interrogation:

1. The prisoner could be hung by his wrists from a pulley, repeatedly hoisted and dropped.
2. He could be tied to a rack and stretched.
3. Or he could be waterboarded.

Utilizing the incredibly detailed records from this time in history, David Gitlitz, a professor at the University of Rhode Island, describes how the waterboarding technique was torture less than 200 years ago.  It’s difficult to imagine that in our enlightened times something that used to be considered torture has suddenly become a viable interrogation method.

If Mr. Gitlitz can understand that, how come our top-cop, AG Michael Mukasey doesn’t get it?

Spanish Inquisition made a science of waterboarding – Bush, others try to sanitize method of torture with new name

David B. Offer
01/15/2008

President Bush won’t answer questions about the CIA’s use of waterboarding to question terror suspects.

"I assure the American people that we were within the law and we don’t torture," Bush says.

Vice President Dick Cheney says it’s "a no brainer" to use some form of simulated drowning to question terror suspects.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey says he’s not sure what waterboarding is, if it’s torture, or if it’s illegal.

Bush, Cheney and Mukasey should consider the Spanish Inquisition.

The Inquisition had rules on how to torture prisoners and it kept detailed records.

"The records were carefully maintained," according to David Gitlitz, a professor at the University of Rhode Island. Gitlitz, my longtime friend, is an internationally respected scholar who has written many books and articles about the Inquisition.

"One difference between the Inquisition and what goes on at Guantanamo is that the Inquisition didn’t destroy its tapes," Gitlitz said. "They are in the archives for people to read."

Gitlitz and his wife, Linda Davidson, also a scholar and author at URI, have done their reading. Over a period of 30 years, they have spent months in the national archives of Spain and Mexico researching the carefully preserved original Inquisition documents.

If Mukasey does not know what waterboarding is, it’s because he has not tried to find out.

Records show that the Inquisition used three methods of torture: The prisoner could be hung by his wrists from a pulley, repeatedly hoisted and dropped. He could be tied to a rack and stretched.

Or he could be waterboarded.

"The Spanish Inquisition didn’t invent any of these systems of torture but they systematized them," Gitlitz said.

Waterboarding was used in medieval times and was used by the Inquisition for more than 350 years — from about 1478 to 1834 — both in Spain and Mexico.

Henry Kamen, a respected historian, described waterboarding in his book, "The Spanish Inquisition."

"He was tied down on a rack. His mouth was kept forcibly open and a toca or linen cloth was put down his throat to conduct water poured slowly from a jar. The severity of the torture varied with the number of jars of water used."

The Inquisition used torture in about 20 percent of the cases, Gitlitz told me. It was not used more often because even in those times "there was debate about whether testimony elicited under duress was credible," Gitlitz said.

Confessions generated by torture were generally disregarded unless other evidence corroborated them.

There was always a doctor present; the historic records show that many times the doctors made the inquisitors stop.

"There are a lot of false ideas about the Inquisition, but these facts are pretty straightforward," Gitlitz said.

"I’m astounded that well-educated leaders who have a sense of history — or whose staff do — or who have access to this kind of material think waterboarding is so novel," Gitlitz said.

It took him about five minutes to find two books with detailed description if what went on in Inquisition days.

More modern records, presumably available to Bush and Mukasey, would describe the findings of the U.S. military commission that prosecuted Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American prisoners during World War II, according to Human Rights Watch.

In 1968, A U.S. soldier was court-martialed for waterboarding a Vietnamese prisoner.

"The Bush administration continues to astonish," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International.

Cox noted that the State Department has called waterboarding torture when other countries do it, "yet in President Bush’s legal wonderland, waterboarding is renamed ‘an enhanced interrogation technique.’"

Gitlitz pulled a second book about the Inquisition from his library:

The author, Cecil Roth, also a well-regarded scholar, wrote:

"The prisoner was fastened almost naked on sort of board, his head lower than his feet, and the limbs bound to the side pieces with astonishing tightness," Roth wrote.

"The mouth was forced open and a strip of linen was inserted into the gullet. Through this, water was poured from a jar, obstructing the throat and nostrils and producing a state of semi-suffocation. The process was repeated time after time."

Enhanced interrogation technique, indeed.

"It’s shocking and it’s shameful," Gitlitz said.

"It violates human rights — something the Inquisition was not particularly interested in," Gitlitz said.

"I think it’s criminal for the United States to squander our military, financial capital and human capital, but it’s tragic for us to squander our moral capital," he said.

Bush won’t say if he thinks waterboarding is torture.

"I don’t want to talk about techniques," he said.

He didn’t talk about moral capital.

David B. Offer is the retired executive editor of the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel. E-mail Davidboffer@hotmail.com.

[Thanks, MaineToday.com]

There is a very interesting article in the Eugene, Oregon, Register-Guard that put the appointment of Justice Department prosecutor John Durham in a new perspective.  The basic question posed was this:  Did Mukasey find so much evidence of wrongdoing at all levels of our current administration, that even a jaded party hack like himself knew there was no way to have a successful cover-up?

Seeking accountability

Published: January 7, 2008 05:00AM

A couple of things stand out about Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s decision to launch a criminal investigation of the CIA’s destruction of interrogation videotapes.

First, it signals a much-needed retreat from the disgraceful politicization of the Justice Department under Mukasey’s predecessor, Alberto Gonzales. And second, it means that even if Mukasey were inclined to join Gonzales in protecting his political patrons in the administration, he found too much evidence in his initial inquiry to believe the matter could be swept under the rug.

The tapes, recorded during the “enhanced” interrogation of two al-Qaeda suspects in 2002 and destroyed in 2005, may have depicted illegal torture techniques being carried out under President Bush’s authorization. CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said the videos were incinerated “out of concern that the tapes would leak someday” and endanger the interrogators. Hayden added that they were destroyed only after the agency concluded the tapes were “not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries.”

Clearly, Mukasey has serious questions about Hayden’s flimsy rationale. The criminal investigation certainly will explore whether the destruction of the tapes constituted obstruction of justice, perjury or related false-statement offenses.

Under federal law, it is obstruction of justice to destroy evidence that might be relevant to a pending official proceeding or to one that is foreseeable. The tapes were destroyed in late 2005 while Congress was completing legislation to tighten restrictions on the types of aggressive interrogation techniques portrayed on the CIA videos.

It isn’t idle speculation that the CIA may have broken the law by refusing to provide the tapes to various official panels. The tapes were never provided to the courts or to the Sept. 11 commission, which had requested all CIA documents related to al-Qaeda prisoners.

In an op-ed column in The New York Times on Wednesday, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the chairman and vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, bluntly stated their belief that CIA officials deliberately had withheld the tapes from the commission. Kean and Hamilton suggested that any deliberate withholding of evidence might have violated federal law.

“Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation,” they wrote.

Nor can the CIA claim the tapes’ destruction came absent any congressional or administration requests that they be preserved. More than two years before the tapes were burned, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., wrote a letter warning CIA officials that disposing of the recordings would “reflect badly on the agency.”

Prophetic words from Harman.

Now it will be up to veteran Justice Department prosecutor John Durham to determine just how badly the CIA has tarnished its reputation. It will be up to Mukasey to guarantee Durham’s complete independence, and it will be up to Congress to make sure its concurrent investigations don’t impede the more important criminal probe.

[Thanks, Register-Guard]

The Baltimore Sun has a spiffy piece which reflects on Mukasey and his attempt to thwart a Congressional probe into the CIA tape fiasco, who Alberto had Pledged his Allegiance to (and the result isn’t shocking to me!), and the controversy itself over the legality of waterboarding as a torture interrogation device.

Tapes and cover-ups redux

January 4, 2008

Ordering a criminal probe into the destruction of Central Intelligence Agency interrogation tapes was both an obvious and relatively minimal response by Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey.

His predecessor, Alberto R. Gonzales, set such a low standard for independence and integrity, though, that the Justice Department inquiry announced this week sounded downright bold.

Mr. Mukasey’s choice of a highly regarded career federal prosecutor to conduct the probe also signals some sensitivity to the terrible political taint left on the Justice Department by Mr. Gonzales, whose first loyalty was neither to the law nor to the American people but to President Bush.

Yet the criminal investigation, which may focus narrowly on CIA officials, should not be accepted as an excuse for thwarting or stonewalling parallel congressional inquiries that are likely to be much broader. While care must be taken not to imperil the prosecutor’s work, Congress nonetheless must get a full account of how this cover-up occurred and take whatever steps are appropriate to prevent history from repeating itself.

At the base of the controversy is the Bush administration’s use of harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, to gain information from suspected terrorists in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Interrogations of at least two alleged al-Qaida operatives were videotaped in 2002.

Despite a later swirl of controversy over whether interrogators were engaging in torture, neither the CIA nor White House officials made the tapes known to Congress, the courts or the 9/11 commission, which had all sought related information. After years of internal administration debate, the tapes were destroyed in 2005 on orders from Jose Rodriguez Jr., then director of the CIA clandestine service. Their demise appears to have been hastened by press revelations of secret CIA interrogation prisons overseas. The Bush administration might still be keeping the tapes secret but for press inquiries that forced an official CIA explanation early last month.

Several potential criminal offenses could be involved here, including obstruction of justice, perjury, conspiracy and illegal use of torture. A grand jury will likely be involved to sort that out.

At a minimum, there seems an obvious breach of the public’s trust in government to respect its own laws – even in times of peril. Mr. Mukasey’s help with repairs would do the nation a great service.

[Thanks, Baltimore Sun]

Additional Reading:

• Editorial | The CIA Tapes
• Handling the CIA tapes case
• Criminalizing the CIA
• Mukasey gets another chance to address waterboarding (ed. but probably will continue to toe the party line)