Bruce Jessen, Torture Architect

[video: here]

"... the two [Mitchell and Jessen] made good money doing it, boasting of being paid a $1,000 a day by the CIA to oversee the use of the techniques on top al Qaeda suspects at CIA secret sites."

Napoleon is always right.*

"...if it was authorized by the President, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture."
- Condi Rice

*George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 5

Barney Frank is not representing your interests

Washington Examiner:

Former Barney Frank staffer now top Goldman Sachs lobbyist

Goldman Sachs' new top lobbyist was recently the top staffer to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., on the House Financial Services Committee chaired by Frank. Michael Paese, a registered lobbyist for the Securities Industries and Financial Markets Association since he left Frank's committee in September, will join Goldman as director of government affairs, a role held last year by former Tom Daschle intimate, Mark Patterson, now the chief of staff at the Treasury Department. This is not Paese's first swing through the Wall Street-Congress revolving door: he previously worked at JP Morgan and Mercantile Bankshares, and in between served as senior minority counsel at the Financial Services Committee.

To go with this sad state of affairs, another great Chomsky clip.

"When people are asked that question, do you think your government represents you, they tend to give the answer that they learned in an eighth grade civics class."
- Noam Chomsky

Public data for the asking...

Via Google. Cool!
More info: here

Obama declares torture a "mistake"

So waterboarding is torture but torture is a mistake.

How many "mistakes" add up to a crime? 5? 10? 25? 83? 183?

Update: Bob Cesca explains why he might have done this:

But imagine the craptastical legal morass it would've created: a chief executive announcing who's guilty on national television. It would sabotage the whole thing. I'm satisfied with "waterboarding is torture" and "it was a mistake." And the investigation needs to happen in a non-partisan way. The president's responses were sharp without screwing the whole deal.

Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, all the children are above average, and torture is forgotten.

[source]

Garrison Keillor:

Holding the Bush administration responsible for torture would give us some high political drama that would feed the media goat for the next two years and also sap the body politic. The healthcare system would go unfixed, schools would crumble, basic public services would deteriorate, all so that the left could have at the right. I am an old museum-quality Northern liberal, and I know something about the righteousness of my confreres. I've been with old lefty friends who can get emotional about the Haymarket bombing in Chicago and the innocent men railroaded to the gallows, but dear hearts, it happened in 1886. Let's move on.

[...]

Rather than square off in a bloody battle over war crimes, let's return decent train service to the Midwest and test out the German maglev (magnetic levitation) system -- the 360 mph trains -- and connect Chicago and St. Paul-Minneapolis, Cleveland, Detroit, Omaha, Kansas City. Let's restore education to the public schools so that our kids get a chance to hear Mozart and learn French.

Better yet, let's restore education to the public schools so that our kids get a chance to hear Mozart, learn French, and discover in civics class why we consider some people to be above the law.

Happy tomorrow, everyone!

Good for CalPERS: “The entire [Bank of America] board failed in its duties to shareowners and should be removed."

Note: CalPERS is the largest U.S. public pension fund. It "administers retirement benefits for more than 1.6 million active and retired State, public school, and local public agency employees and their families."

SACRAMENTO, CA – The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) today announced it is voting against the re-election of all 18 Bank of America directors, including Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Ken Lewis.

CalPERS contends that Lewis and other directors failed to disclose information to shareowners in connection with Bank of America’s merger with Merrill Lynch. The pension fund also believes that the undisclosed payment of billions of dollars in bonuses to Merrill Lynch executives – before completion of the merger - warrants a vote against all directors.

“The entire board failed in its duties to shareowners and should be removed,” said CalPERS Board President Rob Feckner. He noted the poor condition of the company, the failure by directors to disclose the extent of Merrill Lynch’s losses prior to consummation of the merger, the payment of billions of dollars to Merrill executives in bonuses for failure, and the failure of the board to act in the best interests of shareowners in overseeing management.

According to news reports, Bank of America directors allowed more than $3.6 billion in bonuses to be paid to Merrill Lynch executives and that the payment date was stepped up several months - prior to completion of the merger transaction. They also failed to fully disclose the true financial condition of Merrill Lynch until after the merger was completed last fall. [source: CalPERS]

Pressure Mounts to Appoint Special Prosecutor

[full letter: here]

Raw Story:

Congressmen John Conyers and Jerrold Nadler have written a letter to the Attorney General requesting the appointment of a special prosecutor on torture.

“While I applaud the Obama administration for releasing these torture memos in the spirit of openness and transparency, the memos’ alarming content requires further action,” opined Nadler, who chairs the House Judiceary Committee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. “These memos, without a shadow of a doubt, authorized torture and gave explicit instruction on how to carry it out, all the while carefully attempting to maintain a legal fig leaf.

“These memos make it abundantly clear that the Bush administration engaged in torture. Because torture is illegal under American law – as the U.S. is a signatory to the Convention Against Torture – we are legally required to investigate and, when appropriate, to prosecute those responsible for these crimes.”

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Adam Green:

On the very day Arlen Specter became a Democrat, he lamented that not enough right-wing Bush judges got confirmed, he opposed workers' right to organize, and he compared himself to Joe Lieberman. The DSCC and Pennsylvania Democratic Party will be supporting Specter in the primary.

Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan

A blow to government secrecy, a victory for civil liberties.

Glenn Greenwald:

Today's decision is a major defeat for the Obama DOJ's efforts to preserve for itself the radically expanded secrecy powers invented by the Bush DOJ to shield itself from all judicial scrutiny.

From the decision:

According to the government’s theory, the Judiciary should effectively cordon off all secret government actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the CIA and its partners from the demands and limits of the law.

[...]

...it was “ ‘the central judgment of the Framers of the Constitution’ ” that “[w]hatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its exchanges with other nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake.”

[...]

“The very essence of civil liberty . . . consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury,” and “[o]ne of the first duties of government is to afford that protection.”

Looking back at first 100 days quashed by Obama Press Secretary

Kudos to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs for stomping out this latest effort to look back at the past!

"But as I've also said, I think the American people are less likely to spend a lot of time sitting around Wednesday judging what we've done in our first 100 days, and are more concerned with what we're going to do each and every day going forward."

Nipped it right in the bud! Happy tomorrow, everyone!

Harried Harry Bypasses Bybee Blame

"While the memos that have been released are disturbing to Sen. Reid, at this point in time, he doesn’t think we should be making a rush to judgment.” [source]

Get back to us, Harry, when you feel a judgment coming on. But don't strain yourself, Harry. We know it has been a number of years since you exercised that faculty.

The N.Y. Times violates the "don't look back" doctrine

Did you notice that they are [gasp!] revisiting the past? For shame! Get with the forward-into-the-future program, N.Y. Times. This nonsense has got to stop!

In late 2007, there was the first crack of daylight into the government’s use of waterboarding during interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees. On Dec. 10, John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who had participated in the capture of the suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002, appeared on ABC News to say that while he considered waterboarding a form of torture, the technique worked and yielded results very quickly.

[...]

Read no further. It's stuff that happened in the past and we. do. not. think. about. that. any. more. Happy tomorrow, everyone!

Was, you mean, was...

"America is a nation of law."

- George W. Bush, Sept. 6, 2006

The Look Forward Mafia Meets the Look Back Kings

“It is time for the President to quit looking back and start looking forward to keep Americans safe from attacks.” - Kit Bond

"We have to look forward and not go back over and over the issues of the past." - John Warner

"We have every interest in looking forward to solutions, not backward to recriminations." - McCain, Lieberman and Graham

"It seems to me we are better off focusing on cleaning up the policies and practices for the future than trying to settle scores for past actions." - David Broder

"We're looking forward, we're not looking back." - Harry Reid

"Generally speaking I am more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards.” - Barack Obama

“I think we should be looking forward, not backwards.” - Joe Biden

"When we look back at the initial chapters of the 21st century we will say we've done our duty; we defended the United States of America, and we laid the foundation for peace to come." - George W. Bush

"I think when people take a look back at this moment in our economic history, they'll recognize tax cuts work." - George W. Bush

“One day, people will look back at this moment in history and say, 'Thank God there were courageous people willing to serve because they laid the foundation for peace for generations to come.'"- George W. Bush

"I'm convinced 50 years from now people will look back and say thank God there were people who were willing to sacrifice." - George W. Bush

"And one of the interesting -- I think when people look back at the history of the Middle East and history of the world it's going to be women who helped lead the freedom agenda." - George W. Bush

"I'm convinced that when people look back at this era, they're going to say, thank goodness the United States of America never abandoned its belief that freedom is universal." - George W. Bush

"I believe that one day an American President will be talking about the world in which he is making decisions, or she is making decisions, and they'll look back and say, thank goodness a generation of Americans understood the universality of liberty and the fact that freedom can change troubled parts of the world into peaceful parts of the world." - George W. Bush

"Someday an American President and a United States senator is going to look back at this generation's call and say, thank goodness they stood true to the values America believes in -- freedom; freedom to worship; human rights and human dignity -- and help spread that to parts of the world." - George W. Bush

“When the history is written, it will be said this is a safer country and more hopeful world because George Bush was president." - Dick Cheney

"I do believe that when we look back on this period of time, 2005 will have been the turning point when, in fact, we made sufficient progress both on the political front and the security front, so that we'll see that as the watershed year." - Dick Cheney

The Dark Side is Indifference

Frank Rich:

Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to “protect” us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from “another 9/11,” torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House’s illegality.

Levin suggests — and I agree — that as additional fact-finding plays out, it’s time for the Justice Department to enlist a panel of two or three apolitical outsiders, perhaps retired federal judges, “to review the mass of material” we already have. The fundamental truth is there, as it long has been. The panel can recommend a legal path that will insure accountability for this wholesale betrayal of American values.

President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won’t vanish into a memory hole any more than Andersonville, World War II internment camps or My Lai. The White House, Congress and politicians of both parties should get out of the way. We don’t need another commission. We don’t need any Capitol Hill witch hunts. What we must have are fair trials that at long last uphold and reclaim our nation’s commitment to the rule of law.

Mitchell Jessen and friends

The firm Mitchell Jessen played a central role in making U.S. torture a reality. Their methods quickly spread from C.I.A. black sites to Gitmo to Iraq. As the information collected below shows, the people associated with Mitchell Jessen continue to thrive and prosper in the world of security training.

Useful dates to keep in mind (emptywheel has an excellent, thorough timeline here):

December, 2001, JPRA begins advising DoD on detainee exploitation, after being contacted by William J. Haynes II, the Pentagon's General Counsel.

January, 2002, James Mitchell, retired Air Force psychologist, and Bruce Jessen draft a paper on "al-Qaeda resistance capabilities and countermeasures to defeat that resistance."

January 9, 2002, the Yoo memo says that the President and the Armed forces are not bound by international law when detaining members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

January 25, 2002, in a memo to President Bush, Alberto Gonzales writes that "the new paradigm" of the war on terror "renders obsolete" the Geneva Conventions' “strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

March, 2002, senior military psychologist Bruce Jessen begins two-week crash courses for training government interrogators.

March 28, 2002, Zubaydah picked up.

April 16, 2002, senior military psychologist Bruce Jessen circulates "exploitation" plan.

July, 2002, Daniel Baumgartner, JPRA's chief of staff sends "a lot of cautionary notes" regarding harsh techniques to the Pentagon, techniques recommended by James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen.

August, 2002, memo from OLC Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee provides the legal rationale for waterboarding. Zubaydah waterboarded at least 83 times.

October 2, 2002, "Army memo for the general in charge of Guantánamo ... discussed the use of SERE techniques at GTMO."

October 11, 2002, commander at GTMO requests permission to use "aggressive interrogation techniques."

September, 2003, JPRA is "cleared hot to use SERE methods" in Iraq.

Mark Danner: “By no later than the summer of 2004, the American people had before them the basic narrative of how the elected and appointed officials of their government decided to torture prisoners and how they went about it.”

Background from the Spokesman Review, December 2008:

Dr. Bruce Jessen, a senior military psychologist with offices in Spokane, had a key role in expanding the controversial use of torture against enemy combatants, according to a report released Thursday by U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and John McCain, ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The torture policy – approved at the highest levels of the Bush administration over objections of many military officials – allowed the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency where Jessen worked to operate “outside its charter” teaching coercive techniques used at Guantanamo and other detainee facilities, the committee’s executive summary says.

[...]

Mitchell Jessen’s business partners include Randall W. Spivey and Roger L. Aldrich, according to a 2005 city of Spokane business license. Other “governing people” include David M. Ayers, president of Tate Inc., [should be Ayres?] a private contractor with training contracts at Fairchild and other military sites, and Joseph D. Matarazzo, an emeritus psychology professor at Oregon Health Services University in Portland and the former president of the American Psychological Association.

Of Mitchell and Jessen:

“Mitchell and Jessen are reportedly being paid $1,000 a day plus expenses for their CIA work” [at interrogation sites].

Torture can be very profitable.

Salon, April 22, 2009:

In early March 2002, Jessen began two-week, "ad-hoc 'crash'" courses for training government interrogators slated for Guantánamo. The courses therefore began before the allegedly uncooperative Zubaydah was ever captured, and Zubaydah was the first allegedly high-level al-Qaida operative in U.S. custody after 9/11.

Zubaydah was picked up on March 28, 2002, and hospitalized for wounds suffered during his capture. The FBI interviewed Zubaydah first, with some reported success. Zubaydah disclosed to the FBI that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or KSM, was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks and used the alias Mukhtar.

Then the CIA got involved. As the report details, the FBI objected to the CIA's treatment of Zubaydah, calling it "borderline torture," and pulled out, leaving the CIA to do as it pleased. The exact date of handoff from FBI to CIA is unclear.

In April 2002, the Senate report shows, Jessen drafted another paper, an "exploitation plan," suggesting the establishment of a secret prison away from the prying eyes of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Soon, Zubaydah was whisked off to a secret CIA black site prison. Mitchell participated in his interrogation.

On April 16, 2002, Dr. Bruce Jessen, who was then the senior SERE psychologist at JPRA, circulated a draft “exploitation plan” to JPRA Commander Colonel Randy Moulton and other senior officials at the agency. Emails exchanged between Dr. Jessen and Colonel Moulton suggest that JPRA intended to seek approval of the exploitation plan. [source: Carl Levin]

Of Roger L. Aldrich, Director, Training Division, Center for Personal Protection and Safety

[From: KXLY]

Mr. Aldrich is a well-known expert in travel safety and crisis survival. He served for 33 years with the Department of Defense (DoD) as an instructor, instructor trainer, curriculum developer, and director of the U.S. government’s only specialized, foreign governmental detention and hostage survival program for DoD’s and select other governmental agencies’ (OGA) highest risk operators. Mr. Aldrich was responsible for the successful training of over 60,000 military and civilian personnel during his unique career. He also conducted debriefings and interviews of several individuals who returned from captivity, ranging from Vietnam POWs and peacetime detainees, like the Navy EP-3 crew, held by the Peoples Republic of China in 2001, to terrorist victims such as Gracia Burnham, held by the Abu Sayef in the Philippines, and Roy Hallums, held by terrorists, in Iraq.

Since retiring from U.S. governmental civil service in 2004, Mr. Aldrich has created, developed and managed specialized, tailored captivity survival programs for the highest risk operational personnel in the State Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and select OGAs.

Roger Aldrich, Director of Training, Safe Travel Institute. As the Director of Training for the Safe Travel Institute, Roger Aldrich is a well-known expert in travel safety and crisis survival. Roger served for 33 years with the Department of Defense, as an instructor, trainer and manager, specializing in detention survival. During his career as an instructor, instructor trainer, curriculum developer and manager of the only program in the U.S. government which addressed peacetime detention and hostage survival, Mr. Aldrich has been responsible for the successful training of over 60,000 high-risk-of-capture personnel. He has created, developed, and managed specialized, tailored captivity survival programs for the highest risk operational personnel in DoD, as well as the State Department, Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. [source: Safe Travel Institute]

Of Joseph D. Matarazzo:

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of Psychology has a scholarship named after Matarazzo, who attended Brown University before getting his master's and doctoral degrees from Northwestern University.

Matarazzo was an assistant professor of medical psychology at Washington University in St. Louis and was a research associate in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School before moving to Oregon.

Of Randall W. Spivey:

[source: Safe Travel Institute video]

Randall W. Spivey has 20 years experience in the DoD. As the Chief of the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency Policy and Oversight Division, he managed and provided oversight to all hostage survival-training programs in the DoD from 1997 to 2002 and authored multiple hostage-related policy and doctrine documents. Since forming the Spivey Group in November 2002, he has personally trained 8,000+ individuals in abduction prevention and hostage survival procedures.

Spokesman Review, June 29, 2007 on Spivey:

Spivey, another officer of Mitchell Jessen, also operates Safe Travel Institute, RS Consulting and the National Hostage Survival Training Center one floor above in the same Spokane building. He worked previously for Tate Inc., a Germantown, Md., firm with a U.S. Air Force contract to train soldiers and airmen in survival techniques. He, too, declined interview requests.

[...]

Spivey was a survival instructor for 12 years before becoming involved in the now-defunct Fort Sherman Institute at North Idaho College in Coeur d’Alene. The college spent $700,000 before closing the institute that was to teach anti-terrorism and hostage survival courses.

Mr. Spivey has a Bachelor of Science Degree in International Relations from the United States Air Force Academy, Colorado and a Master of Science Degree in Counseling and Human Resource Development from South Dakota State University. [source]

JPRA advised the Department of Defense on detainee "exploitation" beginning in December 2001.

Air Force Times:

JPRA’s involvement came to a head in September 2003, when Kleinman led a three-man team to Iraq, under orders from Joint Forces Command, to advise a special operations task force that was having trouble getting information out of detainees. The other two members of the team were retired Air Force master sergeants, SERE specialists working at Fairchild, one as a civilian employee and the other as a contractor.

[...]

Concerned that the interrogation methods were illegal, Kleinman said he called his boss, JPRA commander Air Force Col. John Moulton, now retired, to object.

Moulton said he would check with legal advisers and Joint Forces Command superiors. Kleinman and Moulton spoke again 24 hours later, and Moulton told him, “We are cleared hot to use SERE methods,” Kleinman testified.

"At some point during the trip I was called by Lt Col Kleinman on my secure phone at my personal residence. Lt Col Kleinman related that the SMU TF wanted training on counter-resistance measures, something we had not planned for. ... I was told that the detainees were designated unlawful combatants and that the techniques being requested were ones used by JPRA personnel during Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Ecape (SERE) training." - Written Testimony of John R. Moulton II, September 26, 2008

Jeff Kay on JPRA:

...in many ways and from the very first contact between JPRA and the General Counsel of DoD in December 2001, JPRA tried to position itself as indispensable experts for the torture project being initiated by higher-ups in the Bush Administration. Attempts to paint JPRA as some kind of bureaucratic opponent of the drive towards harsher and harsher interrogation techniques simply does not fit the facts. The appearance of occasional warnings about the effects of torture reflect either a minority opinion within JPRA (a possibility), or a bureaucratic reflex of covering for oneself that is apparent throughout the discussions about implementing the JPRA/SERE program in an operational fashion.

A current job opening at Tate Inc.:

Job Description
Plans, organizes, directs and conducts SERE training activities in support of contractual obligations

Assists in the development and instruction of SERE and Code of Conduct curricula and programs

Performs and instructs in classroom, laboratory, and operational environments to ensure student mastery of course objectives using lecture, demonstration, and guided hands-on instructional methodologies

Determines training schedules according to student load, course curricula, and applicable Department of Defense and Services directives, policies, and instructional principles

Qualifications
Ideal candidates will have strong background, including actual experience in SERE instruction and proficiency in Level C SERE instruction

Candidates must have completed the SERE Indoctrination Courses, Basic Combat Survival Courses, and SERE Training Instructors Course

Candidates must have excellent interpersonal and communication skills along with a strong work ethic

Applicants selected will be subject to a government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information

Applicants are subject to drug screening

Some travel required

A current Tate contract:

It takes a village.

David Broder, On and Off Drugs

David Broder off drugs, July 3, 2008:

"I have not worried about the fundamental commitment of the American people since 1974. In that year, they were confronted with the stunning evidence that their president had conducted a criminal conspiracy out of the Oval Office. In response, the American people reminded Richard Nixon, the man they had just recently reelected overwhelmingly, that in this country, no one, not even the president, is above the law. They required him to yield his office."

David Broder on drugs, April 25, 2009:

Suppose that Obama backs down and Holder or someone else starts hauling Bush administration lawyers and operatives into hearings and courtrooms.

Suppose the investigators decide that the country does not want to see the former president and vice president in the dock. Then underlings pay the price while big shots go free. But at some point, if he is at all a man of honor, George W. Bush would feel bound to say: That was my policy. I was the president. If you want to indict anyone for it, indict me.

Is that where we want to go? I don't think so. Obama can prevent it by sticking to his guns.

Jay Bybee is a stain on California who must be impeached

(h/t Bad Attitudes)

On torture, Obama should listen to his Mama

Torture brings out the wails and cries of those subjected to it.

It also brings out the cries of those who would rather not think about it.

“Sometimes in life you want to just keep walking, Sometimes, I think, just keep walking…. Some of life just has to be mysterious.” - Peggy Noonan.

To which I say:

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Torture brings out the desire to run and hide.

"Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past." - Barack Obama.

To which I say what was said of Obama's Mama:

"I think she cared about the core issues, and I think she was not afraid to speak truth to power.” - Nancy Barry.

Torture brings out a desire to let the perpetrators off the hook.

"Stop scapegoating." - David Broder.

And:

"This whole thing about punishing people in past administrations reminds me more of a Banana Republic than the United States of America." - Kit "It's like swimming, freestyle, backstroke" Bond.

To which I say loudly and passionately:

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

The only thing that is going to make investigation and prosecution happen is our collective voice, calling for accountability.

Silence = Complicity

"There are no exceptions in the Convention." None.

Manfred Nowak, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture:

The United States of America is a party to the United Nations Convention Against Torture from 1984, which clearly contains the obligation to make torture a criminal offense under domestic law, on the one hand, with adequate sanctions taking account of the gravity of torture as a very serious civil rights violation, and then to exercise jurisdiction on the basis of different principles -- the territoriality principle, the nationality principle, but even the universal jurisdiction principle, because one wants to make sure that perpetrators of justice have no safe haven wherever they are.

But primarily its the territorial state's obligation. So, if under the direct jurisdiction of the United States of America, a government official - whether its a high official or a low official or a police officer or military officer, doesn't matter - whoever practices torture shall be brought before an independent criminal court and be held accountable. That is, the torturer, him or herself, but also those who are ordering torture practices, or in any other way participating in the practice of torture. This is a general obligation, and it applies to everybody; there are no exceptions in the Convention.

It's very confusing.

Is the U.S. position now, "we torture and so can you"?

Or, "these laws are fine for other countries but we will do whatever the hell we want" (imagine if everyone acted this way)?

Or, "never mind that we torture, we're the special, exceptional country that does awful things to protect the world from awful people"?

Whatever it is, it's wrong.

Health Insurers Hate Health Care Reform

The current system is making them a fortune and they are doing all they can to sabotage the budget reconciliation process, which will make it possible to pass reform legislation with just 51 votes.

In a joint letter, a coalition of organizations representing health insurance advisers, agents, brokers and others urged congressional budget leaders to oppose including health care reform in the budget reconciliation process.

The group -- including the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, the National Association of Health Underwriters and the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors -- said taking the reconciliation route would skip essential deliberation and debate.

"An issue of this magnitude deserves its due consideration under regular order," the April 22 letter read. "We applaud Congress and the administration for making health care reform a top priority this year and agree that this legislation must be a bipartisan product with consultation and cooperation from the American public as well as stakeholders representing all sides."

Under the budget reconciliation process, Congress may include instructions for the purpose of legislating mandatory spending and tax revenue policy proposals. Under normal Senate operating procedures, it takes 60 votes to prevent a filibuster and pass legislation; under reconciliation, only 51 votes are required.

Democrats hold a working majority in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, Democrats currently hold 57 seats; independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont allies with the party for organizational purposes.

Keep Tending That Garden, Michelle!

The UCLA Newsroom recently reported on an epidemiological study of Parkinson's disease among residents of California's agricultural Central Valley that significantly strengthens scientific evidence of the dangers of pesticide exposure:

Reporting in the April 15 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology, Beate Ritz, professor of epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health, and Sadie Costello, a former doctoral student at UCLA who is now at the University of California, Berkeley, found that Central Valley residents who lived within 500 meters of fields sprayed between 1974 and 1999 had a 75-percent increased risk for Parkinson's.

In addition, people who were diagnosed with Parkinson's at age 60 or younger were found to have been at much higher risk because they had been exposed to maneb, paraquat or both in combination between 1974 and 1989, years when they would have been children, teens or young adults…

Ritz noted that this is the first epidemiological study to provide strong evidence that maneb and paraquat act synergistically to become neurotoxic and strongly increase the risk of Parkinson's disease in humans.

Of particular concern, Ritz said, and consistent with other theories regarding the progression of Parkinson's pathology, is that the data "suggests that the critical window of exposure to toxicants may have occurred years before the onset of motor symptoms when a diagnosis of Parkinson's is made."

Now pass this on to the United Farm Workers (happy birthday, Dolores!)...

Torture, no matter how well-intentioned, no matter who does it, is still torture. It's time to vindicate the rule of law.

Glenn Greenwald:

Punishing politically powerful criminals is about vindicating the rule of law. Partisan and political considerations should play no role in it. It is opponents of investigations and prosecutions who are being driven by partisan allegiances and a desire to advance their political interests. By contrast, proponents of investigations are seeking to vindicate the most apolitical yet crucial principle of our system of government: that we are a nation of laws that cannot allow extremely serious crimes to be swept under the rug for political reasons, and that's true no matter what is best for Obama's political goals and no matter how many Democrats end up being implicated -- ethically, politically or even legally -- by the crimes that were committed.

You go back, Jack, and do it again...

William Greider:

...everything Obama does now -- or fails to do -- becomes an inescapable precedent for the future, defining the true meaning of law and moral principle. The president's rationale on government-led torture sounds dangerously close to the line of defense invoked by Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. We were only following orders. CIA barbarians are invited to hide behind that excuse.

So in a sense are the bankers from Wall Street. They were merely doing what the financial markets wanted and what the government allowed. Rescuing these players now, while declining to force fundamental structural changes on the banking system, would essentially ratify the bankers' arrogant beliefs. They are too important to fail. The government will never let it happen. Despite their destructive behavior, they will be allowed to remain in power and free to do it all again.

I do not doubt the president's good intentions, but if he is not vigilant, the "Obama precedent" could prove to be an ugly legacy. His name might someday be linked to wilful evasion of misdeeds and the degradation of law and moral principle. When great crimes are committed in the future by government or by powerful private interests, people in authority might decide to let them go by, citing the national interest and recalling how Barack Obama dealt with similar events.

Banana Republican: "This whole thing about punishing people in past ... reminds me more of a Banana Republic than the United States of America."

Washington Monthly:

McCain: "In Banana Republics they prosecute people for actions they didn't agree with under previous administrations."

Bond: "This whole thing about punishing people in past administrations reminds me more of a Banana Republic than the United States of America. We don't criminally prosecute people we disagree with when we change office. There are lots of questions that could have been asked of the Clinton administration failing to recognize the war on terror. They did not. The Bush administration went forward, and that's the way our country should. The President said he was going to be forward looking and now he has opened up the stab in the back."

Still stubbornly looking forward

Washington Monthly:

According to a presidential aide, "His whole thing is, 'I banned all this. This chapter is over. What we don't need now is to become a sort of feeding frenzy where we go back and re-litigate all this.'"

Our whole thing is, "the law was broken. Do something."

Calling Eric Holder, AG Eric Holder, Your Prosecution is Calling

Raw Story:

A man imprisoned after Sept. 11, 2001, as a suspected terrorist was tortured in numerous secret CIA prisons before Bush administration memos allowing the practice had even been written, according to a lawsuit filed in a Newark federal court on Thursday.

"Beginning in December 2001, [Rafiq] Alhami was tortured repeatedly, the lawsuit claims," reported the Associated Press.

"The methods were varied: At different times Alhami was stripped naked, threatened with dogs, shackled in painful 'stress' positions for hours, punched, kicked and exposed to extremes of heat and cold. The suit also alleges Alhami's interrogators sprayed pepper spray on his hemorrhoids, causing extreme pain."

While Congress and Obama and Holder are dickering about how to proceed, time is running out.

Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU:

AG Holder doesn’t have to appoint an independent prosecutor today, but he can’t take *too* much time. The Anti-Torture Act has an eight-year statute of limitations, which means that interrogations that took place in 2002 may soon be beyond the statute’s reach. And as you all know, some of the most brutal interrogations took place in August 2002, just after the OLC issued the two major Bybee memos.

Reid stalling torture investigation

The. Last. Straw.

Senate Democratic leaders, joining forces with the Obama White House, said they would resist efforts by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other prominent Democrats to create a special commission to investigate the harsh interrogation methods that the Bush administration approved for terrorism suspects.

[...]

“I don’t think there is a division among Democrats,” Mr. Reid said. “Justice must be served. Retribution should not be a part of what we’re talking about.” He said that it was premature to act without facts to be provided by the intelligence committee. “They will make a public report,” he said. “I hope that it will come toward the end of this year.”

Condi, early torture adopter

Condi okayed torture early in 2002 because her adoring fan-boy Bush had a thing about Zubaydah and an Iraq-Al Qaeda link.

Thus the dozens upon dozens of torture sessions.

You can almost hear Bush saying, "torture him again, Condi, I want an Al-Qaeda link and I want him tortured until he reveals it!"

The truth is starting to look very tawdry. An impulsive, immature President, a country to invade, and an adviser's desire to please her man.

(updated)

Today's news is old news...

The Washington Post is reporting on a timeline showing that Rice approved of torture as early as the Summer of 2002. This is very old news!

Intelligence Daily, September 2008:

(The Intelligence Daily) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has admitted for the first time that she led high-level discussions beginning in 2002 with other senior Bush administration officials about subjecting suspected al-Qaeda terrorists detained at military prisons to the harsh interrogation technique known as waterboarding, according to documents released late Wednesday by Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee.


[...]

In his book “The One Percent Doctrine,” author Ron Suskind reported that President George W. Bush had become obsessed with Zubaydah and the information he might have about pending terrorist plots against the United States.

"Bush was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth," Suskind wrote. Bush questioned one CIA briefer, "Do some of these harsh methods really work?"

The waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah was videotaped, but that record was destroyed in November 2005 after the Washington Post published a story that exposed the CIA's use of so-called "black site" prisons overseas to interrogate terror suspects.

[...]

The wheels of justice grind slowly. Let's hope that they grind exceedingly fine.

Calling all meat eaters...

To these meat-related facts:

1. Excrement produced by chickens, pigs, and other farm animals: 16.6 billion tons per year -- more than a million pounds per second (that's 60 times as much as is produced by the world's human population -- farmed animals produce more waste in one day than the U.S. human population produces in 3 years). [...]


2. Water used for farmed animals and irrigating feed crops: 240 trillion gallons per year -- 7.5 million gallons per second (that's enough for every human to take 8 showers a day, or as much as is used by Europe, Africa, and South America combined). [...]


3. Emissions of greenhouse gases from raising animals for food: The equivalent of 7.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to the UN report. [...]


4. It takes more than 11 times as much fossil fuel to make one calorie of animal protein as it does to make one calorie of plant protein.


5. Soil erosion due to growing livestock feed: 40 billion tons per year (or 6 tons/year for every human being on the planet-of course if you don't eat meat, none of this is attributed to you; [...]


6. Land used to raise animals for food: 10 billion acres. [...]


7. According to the UN, animal agriculture is a leading case of water pollution. [...]


8. Livestock are also responsible for almost two-thirds of anthropogenic ammonia emissions, which contribute significantly to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems.


9. Grain and corn raised for livestock feed that could otherwise feed people, according to the UN: 836 million tons per year (note that the more commonly used figure, 758 million tons, is metric). [...]


10. An American saves more global warming pollution by going vegan than by switching their car to a hybrid Prius.


11. Razing the Amazon rainforest for pasture and feed crops: 5 million acres of Amazon per year. Former Amazon rainforest converted to raising animals for food since 1970 is more than 90% of all Amazon deforestation since 1970.


12. According to the UN: "Indeed, the livestock sector may well be the leading player in the reduction of biodiversity..." And "[l]ivestock now account for about 20 percent of the total terrestrial animal biomass, and the 30 percent of the earth's land surface that they now pre-empt was once habitat for wildlife." [...]


13. United Nations scientists, in their 408-page indictment of the meat industry, sum up these statistics, pointing out that the meat industry is "one of the ... most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global," including "problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity."

Scapegoated Karpinski is pissed

"Follow the law wherever it takes us."

ACLU:

NEW YORK – Attorney General Eric Holder said today that the Justice Department will "follow the law wherever it takes us" in investigating the U.S. officials behind the CIA torture policies under the Bush administration.

The American Civil Liberties Union renews its call for Attorney General Holder to appoint an independent prosecutor who will be impartial and free from political influence.

The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU:

"It is encouraging to hear the attorney general state that the Justice Department will fulfill its most basic mandate of enforcing the law. Torture is a crime, and the Justice Department is the right place to initiate an independent top-to-bottom investigation of it.

"To fulfill the Department's essential role as enforcer of the nation's laws, Attorney General Holder is compelled by his oath of office to initiate investigations of those who authorized, legally sanctioned and carried out unlawful acts of torture that have been a stain on our nation's name and its commitment to human rights and the rule of law."

Republicans McCain, Lieberman, and Graham agree with Obama on looking forward

Via Salon:

Given the great challenges that face our country in dealing with detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Airfield, and elsewhere, along with detainees that will undoubtedly fall into U.S. custody as the result of future operations, we have every interest in looking forward to solutions, not backward to recriminations. That is why we do not support the idea of a commission that would focus on the mistakes of the past... [W]e look forward to working with you on the panoply of detainee issues, ranging from interrogation standards to the disposition of detainee cases, which will engage our country going forward. In the interest of national security, it is the future, rather than the past, on which we believe America’s gaze must be fixed.

Destroying dissent

Raw Story:

Philip Zelikow, former counselor at the State Department and a trusted adviser and deputy to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, revealed the allegation in Foreign Policy Tuesday. He expanded on his remarks in an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Tuesday night.

Zelikow says he was told to destroy copies of his own memo arguing against the torture techniques ultimately approved by the Bush Administration, and averred that his views against the torture techniques was shared by his Rice, his boss. But he believes some copies of the dissenting torture memos still exist.

Two people who should be in jail

A Salon article from last year, which provides good background for the Senate Armed Services Committee report released yesterday:

June 30, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- The former Air Force general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, helped quash dissent from across the U.S. military as the Bush administration first set up a brutal interrogation regime for terrorism suspects, according to newly public documents and testimony from an ongoing Senate probe.

In late 2002, documents show, officials from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps all complained that harsh interrogation tactics under consideration for use at the prison in Guantánamo Bay might be against the law. Those military officials called for further legal scrutiny of the tactics. The chief of the Army's international law division, for example, said in a memo that some of the tactics, such as stress positions and sensory deprivation, "cross the line of 'humane treatment'" and "may violate the torture statute."

Myers, however, agreed to scuttle a plan for further legal review of the tactics, in response to pressure from a top Pentagon attorney helping to set up the interrogation program for then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Pricing fans out of the national pastime

A sign of the times. A trip to the ballpark is no longer an option for many Americans. It's becoming the rich person's spectator sport.

The price of an average premium ticket is $510 for the Yankees and $150 for the Mets. The prices of nonpremium tickets rose 76 percent this year at Yankee Stadium.

You should be looking forward, Harman, not back

Glenn Greenwald nails Jane Harman:

But I'm really wondering: as serious as it is when a member of Congress is the target of government eavesdropping, can we really afford to investigate this? After all, we have so many very important things to do. It really seems like we need to be looking forward, not backwards. The Bush administration is gone. This all happened in 2005 -- years ago. Is this really a time to be pursuing grudges, to be re-litigating old disputes? What kind of partisan witch hunt is Harman after? We can, and surely should, reflect on what happened to her -- in fact, let us now pause together for a moment of quiet reflection on what was done to Jane Harman -- but this is not a time for retribution or looking back. "Most Americans" want the people's business done, not "abuse of power" investigations.

Besides, if Jane Harman didn't do anything wrong -- as she claims -- then what does she have to hide? Only Terrorists and criminals would mind the Government listening in. We all know that government officials have better things to do than worry about what innocent Americans are saying. If she did nothing wrong -- if all she was doing was talking to her nice constituents and AIPAC supporters about how she could be of service -- then Bush officials obviously weren't interested in what she had to say.

Beyond that, even if there were "illegal" acts committed here, surely we should be rushing to retroactively immunize those responsible, just as Harman eagerly advocated and engineered and then voted for when it came to the telecoms who broke our laws and enabled illegal spying on American citizens. That was when she voted to gut FISA protections and massively expand the Government's power to eavesdrop on Americans with no warrants as part of the Cheney/Rockefeller/Hoyer Surveillance State celebration known as the "FISA Amendments Act of 2008."

Color-coded torture risk management for dummies

From the Senate Armed Services Committee report (p. 125-126):

Each of the 36 recommended techniques was included in a color-coded matrix or a "stoplight" chart and designated as either "green," "yellow," or "red" to signify the Working Group's assessment of legal and policy considerations.

[...]

[T]here was a column originally . . . in the stoplight chart, that was labeled "Customary International Law." So one ofthe things we were supposed to assess was whether or not the techniques were consistent with customary international law. The stoplight chart had all 36 techniques green under customary international law because the OLC opinion and thus the Working Group report maintained that customary international law did not impose any constraints on the actions . . . That green column was absolutely wrong legally . . . it was embarrassing to have it in there, and one of my comments to the report was ... You need to delete that column entirely, because it's embarrassing to have it in there and it's not reflective of the law.

Obama & Co. must act NOW.

These cretins and the people they trained could all be back in four to eight years and beyond if Obama lets all of the incredibly damning evidence that is pouring forth just flutter away in the wind. Does he not understand that?

Their ideas and their careers must be stamped out.

Tortured torture excuses

We have heard every excuse in the book:

it had limited application,

it works,

it's justified when used against the people who attacked us,

it was managed responsibly,

its not torture (it's "enhanced" interrogation, or a "controlled acute episode"),

it's okay because we used it to toughen people who might be tortured by our enemies,

it kept us safe,

the President can do whatever he wants,

and my favorite (the lamest excuse of all),

it happened in the past,

so fuggedaboudit.

None of them holds up.

Start the investigations and the prosecutions.

Harman must go

New York Times:

Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said in a statement Monday that Ms. Harman called Philip Taubman, then the Washington bureau chief of The Times, in October or November of 2004. Mr. Keller said she spoke to Mr. Taubman — apparently at the request of Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then the N.S.A. director — and urged that The Times not publish the article [ disclosing a program of wiretapping without warrants conducted by the National Security Agency].

“She did not speak to me,” Mr. Keller said, “and I don’t remember her being a significant factor in my decision.”

"What we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country."

"I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country." -Richard B. Cheney

If his torture works, it's a crime.

If his torture does not work, it's a crime.

Does he not understand this?

You don't get to violate or ignore the law based on outcomes.

"The criminal law is not a private matter completely at the discretion of citizens."

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

But what if all parties involved in a conflict really want to forget? What if there is a tacit or explicit agreement not to dwell on the past? What are we to make of Mozambique, for example, where in the aftermath of a long, bloody civil war, the combatants actively elected not to address past atrocities? In her superb book on truth commissions, Hayner (2002) describes an election rally in post-war Mozambique in which a candidate was literally chased out of a hall for bringing up the conflict. Can we really make a normative argument for remembering if both sides freely chose to forget? One possible way to make such an argument is by analogy. It is quite clear to us that, in the domestic context, the fact that two sides to a conflict agree to bury the hatchet does not preclude their prosecution by the criminal justice authorities. Thus, if two neighboring families become entangled in a massive brawl, during which property on both sides is destroyed, and some injuries are sustained, the District Attorney's Office may decide to issue indictments, even if all of those who did the fighting would like to put the whole incident behind them. The criminal law is not a private matter completely at the discretion of citizens. The public has a stake in upholding the criminal law, and is understood to be an interested party whenever it is broken. After all, in the example provided above, wider interests were compromised: traffic may have been disturbed by the fighting, the small children of other neighbors may have been watching, publicly funded hospitals may have been called on to treat the injured, reports of the fight may have made their way into the news media bringing down house prices, etc. In short, the fight, almost any fight, has repercussions for third parties. That is why, in important ways, such fights are everyone's business. And that is why criminal cases are typically titled Commonwealth vs. Jones rather than Smith vs. Jones.

Obama and the C.I.A. are acting as though they can resolve the torture issue between themselves, without any interference.

This is wrong.

Quoting the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

"The criminal law is not a private matter completely at the discretion of citizens. The public has a stake in upholding the criminal law, and is understood to be an interested party whenever it is broken."

We have a stake in the crimes that were committed. They reflect on us. It is our society that has been damaged - and will be damaged in future - and it cannot ever be up to Obama and the C.I.A. to sweep it all under the rug after a day of mutual admiration.

He has no right to do what he is doing. He has no right to alienate us in this way.

Stopping torture is an "extraordinary step"?

"The President is focused on looking forward."

The whinge of the super rich

Via the Washington Monthly:

"We're in a hypercapitalistic society. No one complains when Julia Roberts pulls down $25 million per movie or A-Rod has a $300 million guarantee. We have ex-presidents who cash in on their presidencies. Our whole moral compass has shifted about what's acceptable or not acceptable. Honestly, you can pick on Wall Street all you want, I don't think it's fair. It's fair to say you ran your companies into the ground, your risk management is flawed -- that is perfectly legitimate. You can lay criticism on GM or others. But I don't think it's fair to say Wall Street is paid too much."

"All the puppets ... whinge sooner or later"
- Samuel Beckett

Bruce Fein on what to do about torture

Because not laying blame is not good enough.

Via Firedoglake:

You should push Congress to pass a concurrent resolution demanding that Obama faithfully execute the laws against torture and electronic surveillance. Obama should either prosecute or take the political or public heat for issuing pardons, which at least requires the culprits to accept guilt. Also, petition Congress to impeach and remove Judge Bybee for complicity in the torture memos. In addition, demand Congress enact laws ending the President’s authority to withhold any information from Congress or the American people except military plans and identified intelligence agents. Finally, a law should impose a criminal penalty for Presidential lies to Congress or the American people to obtain authorization for war.

The C.I.A. gets a pep talk

It's so hard to be a torturer and have your super special, super secret techniques exposed to the whole world. So humiliating. And so hard. Obama visits the C.I.A. and provides a shoulder to cry on.

N.Y. Times:

Don’t be discouraged by what’s happened in the last few weeks,” the president said. “Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes. That’s how we learn.”

[...]

“What makes the United States special and what makes you special is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy, even when we are afraid and under threat, not just when its expedient to do so,” Mr. Obama said, adding, “So yes, you’ve got a harder job and so do I, and that’s okay.”

He went on: “And over the long term, that is why I believe we will defeat our enemies, because we’re on the better side of history.”

Dumbfounded

I am dumbfounded that Congress refuses to act.

I am dumbfounded that Holder refuses to act.

I am dumbfounded that Obama thinks that civility and “looking forward” are more important than investigation (which he deems "laying blame" and “retribution”) of torture.

Torture.

Just dumbfounded.

Blue-About-Blue-Jeans Republican Asshole du Jour

Denim is the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances. But the appearances that people choose to present in public are cues from which we make inferences about their maturity and respect for those to whom they are presenting themselves.

[...]

This is not complicated. For men, sartorial good taste can be reduced to one rule: If Fred Astaire would not have worn it, don't wear it. For women, substitute Grace Kelly. - George Will

Brain-dead Republican Asshole du Jour

"The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you've got more carbon dioxide." - John Boehner

Stop Hoping, Start Demanding

"...a growing number of Obama enthusiasts are starting to entertain the possibility that their man is not, in fact, going to save the world if we all just hope really hard. This is a good thing. If the superfan culture that brought Obama to power is going to transform itself into an independent political movement, one fierce enough to produce programs capable of meeting the current crises, we are all going to have to stop hoping and start demanding." - Naomi Klein

Republican Asshole du Jour: Christopher Buckley

"It is, yes, good that the U.S.A. is not doing this anymore, but let’s not get too sanctimonious about how awful it was that we indulged in these techniques after watching nearly 3000 innocent Americans endure god-awful deaths at the hands of religious fanatics who would happily have detonated a nuclear bomb if they had gotten their mitts on one. And let us move on. There is pressing business. (Are you listening, ACLU? Hel-lo?)" - Christopher Buckley

Yes, people had to be tortured so that spoiled little Christopher Buckley could feel safe from nuclear Armageddon.

"Truly one of the indispensable independent media outlets in our country's history."

"Power cedes nothing without a demand." - Frederick Douglas

"This is not a time for retribution" Rahm catapults the propaganda.

The face that launched a hundred waterboardings...

We should never forget that the face also has its enthusiastic Democratic supporters.

Bad Attitudes:

Following his spell as a torture enabler at the Justice Department the Honorable Bybee was appointed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals with the enthusiastic support of Senator Harry Reid and Senator Charles Schumer.

Chuck "do what you have to do" Schumer is making it possible for a torture advocate to have a thriving career. Schumer's attitude is also what makes it possible for Obama to wave his future-oriented, history-dissolving, magic wand and declare the crimes of Bybee & Co. untouchable.

We now know how easy it is to advocate for torture. Schumer and Bybee have shown us the way.

"It’s easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture cannot be used. But when you’re in the foxhole, it’s a very different deal. And I respect, I think we all respect, that the President’s in the foxhole every day." - Chuck Schumer

We also know how easy it is to promote the careers of criminals. Thanks to Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid.

And we know how easy it is to forget, to sweep torture under the rug. Thank you, Barack Obama.

Bybee, Schumer, Reid and Obama show us just how easy it is to sit back and say that torture can be mercilessly employed and then entirely forgotten, without any consequence for those responsible.

How hard it will be for all of us to swallow that lesson.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez give Obama a book about remembering...

"I'm a writer obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past of America above all and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia." - Eduardo Galeano, author of Open Veins of Latin America - Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

To get anything out of the book, Obama will have to overcome his natural inclination to bury the past beneath mounds of forward-looking obstinence: “Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” - Barack Obama

Video of presentation: here.

"Let reality be as it wants to be, with no ruling state deciding the destiny of other countries. Please, no more. Stop with this tradition of the messianic mission of, you know, saving the world." - Eduardo Galeano

"An exceptional organization of talented men and women, dedicated to our national security."

"This is an exceptional organization of talented men and women, dedicated to our national security. It is an extraordinarily capable organization that quietly defends our country while following its laws and upholding its values. For that reason, I am proud to stand beside you as your Director. And for that reason, this President—and future Presidents—will continue to ask us to undertake the hard missions that only we can. This is an opportunity for CIA to begin a new and great chapter in our history of service to the nation."

"You need to be fully confident that as you defend the nation, I will defend you."

Leon E. Panetta

A Timeline of CIA Atrocities

[...]

1947

Greece — President Truman requests military aid to Greece to support right-wing forces fighting communist rebels. For the rest of the Cold War, Washington and the CIA will back notorious Greek leaders with deplorable human rights records.

[...]

1948

[...]

Italy — The CIA corrupts democratic elections in Italy, where Italian communists threaten to win the elections. The CIA buys votes, broadcasts propaganda, threatens and beats up opposition leaders, and infiltrates and disrupts their organizations. It works -- the communists are defeated.

[...]

1953

Iran – CIA overthrows the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh in a military coup, after he threatened to nationalize British oil. The CIA replaces him with a dictator, the Shah of Iran, whose secret police, SAVAK, is as brutal as the Gestapo.

[...]

1954

Guatemala — CIA overthrows the democratically elected Jacob Arbenz in a military coup. Arbenz has threatened to nationalize the Rockefeller-owned United Fruit Company, in which CIA Director Allen Dulles also owns stock. Arbenz is replaced with a series of right-wing dictators whose bloodthirsty policies will kill over 100,000 Guatemalans in the next 40 years.

1954-1958

North Vietnam — CIA officer Edward Lansdale spends four years trying to overthrow the communist government of North Vietnam, using all the usual dirty tricks. The CIA also attempts to legitimize a tyrannical puppet regime in South Vietnam, headed by Ngo Dinh Diem.

[...]

1959

Haiti — The U.S. military helps "Papa Doc" Duvalier become dictator of Haiti. He creates his own private police force, the "Tonton Macoutes," who terrorize the population with machetes. They will kill over 100,000 during the Duvalier family reign. The U.S. does not protest their dismal human rights record.

1961

The Bay of Pigs — The CIA sends 1,500 Cuban exiles to invade Castro’s Cuba.

[...]

Dominican Republic — The CIA assassinates Rafael Trujillo, a murderous dictator Washington has supported since 1930. Trujillo’s business interests have grown so large (about 60 percent of the economy) that they have begun competing with American business interests.

Ecuador — The CIA-backed military forces the democratically elected President Jose Velasco to resign. Vice President Carlos Arosemana replaces him; the CIA fills the now vacant vice presidency with its own man.

Congo (Zaire) — The CIA assassinates the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba. However, public support for Lumumba’s politics runs so high that the CIA cannot clearly install his opponents in power. Four years of political turmoil follow.

1963

Dominican Republic — The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Juan Bosch in a military coup. The CIA installs a repressive, right-wing junta.

Ecuador — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows President Arosemana, whose independent (not socialist) policies have become unacceptable to Washington. A military junta assumes command, cancels the 1964 elections, and begins abusing human rights.

1964

Brazil — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the democratically elected government of Joao Goulart.

[...]

1965

Indonesia — The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Sukarno with a military coup.

[...]

Congo (Zaire) — A CIA-backed military coup installs Mobutu Sese Seko as dictator. The hated and repressive Mobutu exploits his desperately poor country for billions.

[...]

1967

Greece — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the government two days before the elections. The favorite to win was George Papandreous, the liberal candidate. During the next six years, the "reign of the colonels" — backed by the CIA — will usher in the widespread use of torture and murder against political opponents. When a Greek ambassador objects to President Johnson about U.S. plans for Cypress, Johnson tells him: "Fuck your parliament and your constitution."

Operation PHEONIX — The CIA helps South Vietnamese agents identify and then murder alleged Viet Cong leaders operating in South Vietnamese villages. According to a 1971 congressional report, this operation killed about 20,000 "Viet Cong."

1968

Operation CHAOS — The CIA has been illegally spying on American citizens since 1959, but with Operation CHAOS, President Johnson dramatically boosts the effort. CIA agents go undercover as student radicals to spy on and disrupt campus organizations protesting the Vietnam War. They are searching for Russian instigators, which they never find. CHAOS will eventually spy on 7,000 individuals and 1,000 organizations.

Bolivia — A CIA-organized military operation captures legendary guerilla Che Guevara. The CIA wants to keep him alive for interrogation, but the Bolivian government executes him to prevent worldwide calls for clemency.

1969

Uruguay — The notorious CIA torturer Dan Mitrione arrives in Uruguay, a country torn with political strife. Whereas right-wing forces previously used torture only as a last resort, Mitrione convinces them to use it as a routine, widespread practice. "The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect," is his motto. The torture techniques he teaches to the death squads rival the Nazis’. He eventually becomes so feared that revolutionaries will kidnap and murder him a year later.

[...]

And on and on...