Andrew Sullivan Discovers Earlier Torture Timeline

[kpete]

Andrew Sullivan Discovers Earlier Torture Timeline
by Valtin
Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 02:11:36 PM PST

.......................

Andrew Sullivan's latest blog entry at The Atlantic, notes the legal vulnerability of the Bush/Cheney team in words this writer finds strangely familiar. Referencing the Senate report on detainee treatment, http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2008/Detainees.121108.pdf the declassified version of which was released last week, Sullivan writes:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/12/cheney-confesse.html

The decision to torture individuals was made by Bush and Cheney before the CIA ever asked for legal cover for the torture they had been ordered to commit. The torture and abuse was planned before even the January 2002 presidential memo that authorized torture:

In December 2001, more than a month before the President signed his memorandum, the Department of Defense (DoD) General Counsel’s Office had already solicited information on detainee “exploitation” from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), an agency whose expertise was in training American personnel to withstand interrogation techniques considered illegal under the Geneva Conventions.

It is important and gratifying to see the bigger names in the blogosphere pick up the import of the earlier torture timeline, and the legal exposure it brings to the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/CIA band of outlaw brothers. Gratifying in part because I noticed this last summer, and needled the Senate committee and the press in general about it:

Now something is very strange here, as Levin's own staff appear to have documents indicating DoD was asking about SERE techniques in December 2001, eight months before the July 2002 request everyone else is concentrating on. Why this gap? My guess is that it would take us even closer to the Oval Office than Levin or anyone else wants to go at this point. Where are these documents on the December 2001 request? Why did no one on the committee question Baumgartner about this issue during the hearings?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/12/16/165821/79/488/673793

[Gundam Macross]

1. Will Obama push for prosecutions?

[soulcore]

2. Hell no he won't.

We're escalating the war in Afghanistan. We are NOT pulling all the troops from Iraq by 2012. Gates is still Sec. of Defense.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[Gundam Macross]

3. What about Blackwater?

[Swede Atlanta]

4. Disagree

We have all known that Afghanistan is where the fight was. Obama is simply recognizing this and promising to provide adequate attention there.

This is a very difficult situation. On the one hand a McCarthy-esque investigation could prove distracting to the public for things that Obama wants to accomplish. On the other hand I am convinced Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, etc. are guilty as sin of crimes against humanity and of violating their oaths of office and should rot in a federal prison until they croak.

But where do we balance our efforts? I can be spiteful but if I had to choose between efforts to right-set the world, invest properly, focus on the real security threats, I would side with that versus a vengeance brigade. Can we do both with focus and vigor? The dumbed-down American populace couldn't handle both.

[Gundam Macross]

6. Are you saying that there will be no prosecutions because the American

people are too stupid?

[soulcore]

7. There is no "fight" in Afghanistan...

We are murdering women, children and former American loyalists who've now turned on us.

AL-C.I.A.-da is a myth, invented to keep us scared and in a state of perpetual war.

Just ask The head of the Pakistani ISI who helped funnel money to the 9/11 hijackers.

It's all slight of hand and distraction, and I won't be happy until we see war as a last resort, as opposed to our first and only option.

[EFerrari]

9. Bin Laden is not in Afganistan.

The "fight" was never "in" Afghanistan but always in criminal networks that know no boundaries. This is not a land war. Obama can "focus" an Afghanistan in the press all he wants but it's a loser for us and for him.

Denying terrorists territory is not the same as fighting a land war. I've yet to see anyone in our government, outgoing or incoming, that has figured that out.

[Pastiche423]

12. What fight?

What is the war in Afghanistan all about? What did the Afghanistan people do to us? What was/is their crime?


Why in the fuck are we still there?

[slipslidingaway]

5. Thanks K&R n/t

[EFerrari]

8. Well, they started rounding up and torturing people right after 9/11.

It's weird the way things we know keep becoming breaking news.

[no limit]

10. The democrats are cleary in on all of this. they are playing us for fools.

[soulcore]

11. Sad but true.

On the bright side, at least more people are waking up to that fact.

[annabanana]

13. We can't sit and allow "top down" decisions keep us from getting

a little LAW ENFORCEMENT for the American People. We have to apply pressure, relentless pressure from the ground up. Our so-called leaders will have to be dragged into prosecutions kicking and screaming.

The politician who sees which way America is going, takes a shot and jumps to the front of the crowd will wear the laurels of the National Savior.

[nichomachus]

14. I'd feel so much better about Andrew

if he hadn't enabled these people for so long. I'm glad he's calling them out now, but he's partly responsible for the mess.