As usual, not letting anything like a fact get in the way of their crazy freak out sessions, the Fools & Friends on Fox have their boxers in a bunch over the ridiculous idea that "Eric Holder is going to prosecute the 'Heroes' who helped us get Bin Laden".
Yeah, except that none of that shit is true.
DOOCY: So there you've got this administration, unlike the previous one, has simply said that waterboarding will not be allowed. And, in fact, the attorney general of the United States is going after the people who did administrate [sic] some of these waterboardings to these CIA captives -- there were only three of them in all, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. But when you look at what the president said last week, he thanked the men and women of the intelligence community behind the scenes and around the world in getting us to this point. So effectively he was thanking them for getting the information via waterboarding. Meantime, you've got Eric Holder who is looking into their, perhaps, abuses.
I take these lies apart over the flip.
Lie #1: Waterboarding gave us the "link" we needed to get Bin Laden.
This is now the TOP MEME from the right-wing these days as they whine they didn't get enough "Credit" for taking down bin laden.
They point to comments by Leon Panetta about the interrogation of High Value Detainees.
The right wing has argued that Panetta "admitted' that the information came from Waterboarding, but what he actually said is that.
Panetta: We had a multiple source - multiple series of sources. Clearly some of it came from detainees. Some from signals intelligence. It's difficult to say there was any one source of the information that we got.
Pressed further by Williams, Panetta admits that some "enhanced" interrogation techniques were used against some of the detainees, and those techniques included "waterboarding" - but he doesn't say that the waterboarding generated any critical information.
Because it didn't.
The fact is that the Enhance Interrogation program was terminated in 2004 and the information regarding the couriers code-name wasn't gained until 2007. One couldn't have possibly led to the other, but it's actually even worse than that.
As I documented earlier this week former CIA director Gen Hayden has explained that KSM was asked about that courier years after he was tortured and that He Lied about him!
Hayden: We went back to [KSM] and he and another detainee were so demonstrative - atypically - demonstrative in rejecting knowledge of this individual that, that in itself turned into lead information. If he had not been largely cooperating with us, this would not have been anomalous behavior.
So how in the world did these interrogation methods "Work" when their so-called "compliant" detainee managed to conceal that they'd discovered the name of the person who would lead them to bin Laden? Even after being tortured - THEY LIED.
Lie #2: That Eric Holder will be prosecuting the CIA even though what they did was certified "legal" at the time.
Kilmeade: "Can We Stop Investigating The CIA Interrogators That Are Doing What They Had The Right To Do?" In a later segment on Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade asked former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, "Can we stop investigating the CIA interrogators that were doing what they legally had the right to do back in early 2003 and 2004?" Mukasey responded, "Absolutely" and went on to say that it is "an outrage" that "the new administration decided, without reading [memos on enhanced interrogation] to reopen those investigations." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 5/9/11]
NRO Asks If Obama Will "Call Off The Dogs" Who Are "Investigating The CIA For Interrogating" Terrorists. In a May 8 post on National Review Online, Mona Charen claimed that "President Obama needs to be asked" whether he will "instruct Eric Holder to call off the dogs who are currrently [sic] investigating the CIA for interrogating the terrorists who led you to Osama bin Laden?" [National Review Online, 5/8/11]
NRO: Holder "Is Investigating [Interrogators] With An Eye Toward Possible Prosecution." A May 9 National Review Online post claimed, "Eric Holder is investigating [intelligence officers who used enhanced interrogation] - even though their action were assessed lawful at the time." The post later claimed that Holder should be asked "why dedicated intelligence officers - whose work, in part, led to the termination of the world's most wanted terrorist -- should be in continuing legal jeopardy for actions they'd been assured were not only lawful, but necessary to national security?" [National Review Online, 5/9/11]
In point of fact the torture actually began before the memos were even written in 2002, not 2003 or 2004. Torture of Abu Zubaydah began in February of 2002, the first of the OLC memos rationalizing techniques such as Waterboarding weren't even written until August.
The legality and validity of that view expressed by these memos were no "slam dunk", they were opposed by Legal Council for the State Department by Phililip Zelikow.
The program quickly fell apart.
The consensus of top administration officials about the C.I.A. interrogation program, which they had approved without debate or dissent in 2002, began to fall apart the next year. Acutely aware that the agency would be blamed if the policies lost political support, nervous C.I.A. officials began to curb its practices much earlier than most Americans know: no one was waterboarded after March 2003, and coercive interrogation methods were shelved altogether in 2005.
The OLC may have briefly claimed these techniques were legal, but under challenges from the State Dept and CIA they were rescinded within a year or two. That's NOT a definitive or compelling argument for their "legality".
The fact is that two years ago Holder appointed a Special Counsel to look into this issue with a mandate to analyze if any interrogates went beyond what was authorized - and various documents from dissenters such a Phillip Zelikow were actually Destroyed by the Bush Admin.
Eventually the CIA Inspector Generals report put an end the program.
The real trouble began on May 7, 2004, the day the C.I.A. inspector general, John L. Helgerson, completed a devastating report. In thousands of pages, it challenged the legality of some interrogation methods, found that interrogators were exceeding the rules imposed by the Justice Department and questioned the effectiveness of the entire program.
So the argument that all of this was "Legal" has in fact always been on shaky ground, and the Bush Administration knew that, and attempted to cover it up by destroying the documentation.
The bottom line point though is that the decision whether to prosecute or not isn't the President's, and it's not under the control of Eric Holder, that decision is in the hands of Special Prosecutor John Dunham.
Holder is poised to name John Durham, a career Justice Department prosecutor from Connecticut, to lead the high-stakes inquiry, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is not complete.
Durham's mandate, the sources added, will be relatively narrow: to look at whether there is enough evidence to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of current and former CIA personnel who may have broken the law in their dealings with detainees. Many of the harshest CIA interrogation techniques have not been employed against terrorism suspects for four years or more.
Apparently the GOP thinks it would be completely proper for President Obama to illegally interfere with the investigation of a Special Counsel, the way that Nixon tied to fire the Watergate investigator - an action which led almost directly to his resignation. What would they have said about President Clinton if he'd done that with Kenneth Starr?
It would have been Armageddon that's what.
Holder himself has specifically stated that Dunham's mandate is very specific.
There are those who will use my decision to open a preliminary review as a means of broadly criticizing the work of our nation's intelligence community. I could not disagree more with that view. The men and women in our intelligence community perform an incredibly important service to our nation, and they often do so under difficult and dangerous circumstances. They deserve our respect and gratitude for the work they do. Further, they need to be protected from legal jeopardy when they act in good faith and within the scope of legal guidance. That is why I have made it clear in the past that the Department of Justice will not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees. I want to reiterate that point today, and to underscore the fact that this preliminary review will not focus on those individuals. [Department of Justice, 8/24/09 emphasis added]
The Special Prosecutor is not going to re-litigate the Bybee/Yoo Memos. Many of us might wish he would, but he will not. The DOJ's Office of Personal Responsibility Cleared Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury of wrong doing in crafting these memos, even though the original draft of this report recommended disbarment.
They were still criticized for "Poor Judgement" but unfortunately, that's not Illegal.
So despite the constant whining from the Foxers, the people who actually did help get bin Laden, the analysts, the signal intel people at the NSA, the Special Forces on the Ground - are not being persecuted by anyone.
Although the Bybee memos argued that torture wasn't torture by claiming that torture was only "pain equal to that of organ failure or death" - the fact is that some quite a few of the detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan actually DID DIE
Accoring to Human Rights First there were 35 murders in custody due to mistreatment. 8 of whom were the result of Torture.
Since August 2002, nearly 100 detainees have died while in the hands of U.S. officials in the global “war on terror.” According to the U.S. military’s own classifications, 34 of these cases are suspected or confirmed homicides; Human Rights First has identified another 11 in which the facts suggest death as a result of physical abuse or harsh conditions of detention. In close to half the deaths Human Rights First surveyed, the cause of death remains officially undetermined or unannounced. Overall, eight people in U.S. custody were tortured to death
Despite these numbers, four years since the first known death in U.S. custody, only 12 detainee deaths have resulted in punishment of any kind for any U.S. official. Of the 34 homicide cases so far identified by the military, investigators recommended criminal charges in fewer than two thirds, and charges were actually brought (based on decisions made by command) in less than half. While the CIA has been implicated in several deaths, not one CIA agent has faced a criminal charge. Crucially, among the worst cases in this list – those of detainees tortured to death – only half have resulted in punishment; the steepest sentence for anyone involved in a torture-related death: five months in jail.
So there is room, despite the OLC memos and despite the limitations of the Dunham mandate, for further prosecutions to take place especially where the treatment exceeded the law and led directly to the deaths of those being held in custody.
There is a possibility for some justice to be served, depending on what John Dunham ultimately does, and whether he's able to get a Grand Jury Indictment.
We'll see.
VyanUpdated by Vyan at Tue May 10, 2011 at 06:08 PM PDT
Not going beyond the Bybee Standard for prosecutions of War Crimes, isn't a political stance, it's also can be argued - as I undestand it - to be The new legal standard under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which changed and rewrote the War Crimes Act from applying to all "grievous breaches of Geneva" to a specific list of near-death inducing applications of pain.
TORTURE: Any person subject to this chapter who commits an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control for the purpose of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or any reason based on discrimination of any kind, shall be punished, if death results to one or more of the victims, by death or such other punishment as a military commission under this chapter may direct, and, if death does not result to any of the victims, by such punishment, other than death, as a military commission under this chapter may direct.
...
The term `serious physical pain or suffering'
means bodily injury that involves--
``(I) a substantial risk of death;
``(II) extreme physical pain;
``(III) a burn or physical disfigurement of a
serious nature (other than cuts, abrasions, or
bruises); or
``(IV) significant loss or impairment of the
function of a bodily member, organ, or mental
faculty.
This means that the Bybee standard, is the current law and that neither Holder or Dunham really has any authority other than to look at cases where this standard was exceeded.