Obama to decide today on torture memos

[Kuya]

Is cannibalism really so wrong?

[Lurking Badger]

“A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.” --Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill: So, what do you think of modern clvilization?
Mahatma Gandhi: I think it would be a very good idea.

[Dimmauk]

Gen. Ricardo Sanchez calls for war crimes truth commission.

Sitting on a panel moderated by Rachel Maddow last night, retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq from 2003-2004, called for a truth commission to investigate Bush-era interrogation and torture tactics. The Huffington Post’s Jack Hidary reports:

The General described the failures at all levels of civilian and military command that led to the abuses in Iraq, “and that is why I support the formation of a truth commission.”

The General went on to say that, “during my time in Iraq there was not one instance of actionable intelligence that came out of these interrogation techniques.”

I interviewed General Sanchez after the event and asked him to elaborate on why he felt the US needed such a commission. … “If we do not find out what happened,” continued the General, “then we are doomed to repeat it.”

Sanchez described the interrogation program as “a personal failure on the part of many.” Indeed, Sanchez himself wrote and signed a 2003 memo that included specific interrogation tactics approved for use despite noting that they may violate the Geneva Conventions. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sanchez denied signing off on these interrogation methods.

[Kuya]

Updating on what i posted previously, it seems the Lieberman-Graham amendement has been dropped from the supplemental. Here is Greenwald previously mentioning how the amendment might be defeated:

But passage of Graham-Lieberman now appears much less certain because of what appears to be the refusal of some key liberal House Democrats -- including Barney Frank -- to support it. The votes of liberal House Democrats actually matter (for once) because most House Republicans are refusing to support the overall supplemental bill due to their objections to a provision for $5 billion in funding to increase the IMF's lending capacity. To pass the supplemental spending bill, House leaders need the votes of numerous House Democrats who are currently refusing to vote for anything that contains the photo suppression amendment. If Congressional Democrats succeed in blocking enactment of this amendment, that would be a critical assertion for the first time of Congressional checks on Obama's desired powers and would, independently, prevent a truly odious new secrecy power from being enacted.

However here are Graham and Lieberman protesting the rejection of the amendment:

Lieberman and Graham said in a forceful joint statement that they would attach their bill, which allows the Secretary of Defense to suppress any detainee interrogation photos for three years at a time, to every measure that comes before the Senate until it becomes law. The two senators did not rule out a filibuster, and they suggested that their move has the backing of the White House.



"We will employ all the legislative means available to us including opposing the supplemental war spending bill and attaching this amendment, which was unanimously adopted by the Senate, to every piece of legislation the Senate considers, to be sure the President has the authority he needs not to release these photos and any others that would jeopardize the safety and security of our troops.

Here are the two assholes complaining to Bill O'Reilly and accusing anyone who oppose the amendments of endagering the troops and having blood on their hands. However, notice how they claim to have the support of Obama and military professionals in blocking the abuse photos and them claiming that not doing so will harm the troops. What the hilarious thing is is how they supported the torture techniques AND keeping Guantanamo open:

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina loves the law. Nuts about it. We know this because he tells us this many, many times at this morning's Senate subcommittee hearing on "What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration." We know he loves the law because he says "[t]he fact that we embrace the rule of law is a strength" and that "the only way is to operate within the law," and he says these things mere seconds after he explains that in the desperate days after 9/11, when the lawyers were crafting legal arguments to legalize conduct that was illegal, they did so because "they saw law as a nicety we couldn't afford."


All morning, Graham clings to the argument that he believes in the rule of law. And as he does so, he explains that the lawbreaking that happened with respect to torture: a) wasn't lawbreaking, b) was justifiable lawbreaking, c) was lawbreaking done with the complicity of congressional Democrats, d) doesn't matter because al-Qaida is terrible, or e) wouldn't be lawbreaking if the Spanish police were doing it.


Soufan testifies from behind a panel for security reasons, and photographers are purged from the room, which is all very Get Smart, but Graham won't give the man a chance to speak. Time and again, Soufan—the only man present who has ever conducted an interrogation—begs to speak. But Graham keeps hollering at him about how dare he purport to speak for all interrogators everywhere. (Erm. He didn't.)

And behold, now we have military professionals saying that Guantanamo and Abu Graib are the biggest terrorist recruitment devices that currently exist, and even though Obama has wanted to close Guantanamo, Lieberman and Graham oppose it. Meaning they only care what the military or Obama says when they feel like it:

Former Navy general counsel Alberto Mora. . . blasted the Bush administration’s abusive detention practices as leading to the recruitment of new radicals and the deaths of more American soldiers: "[T]here are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq -- as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat -- are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo."

Furthermore, there is actually no evidence that the Abu Graib photos actually increased attacks against the US military:

The U.S. government’s case for embargoing the release of photographs said to depict abuse of detainees rests largely on a questionable claim that disclosure of the images would endanger U.S. troops.
President Obama and many members of Congress from both parties support withholding the release of the photos, because senior military officers have persuaded them that their release would trigger violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. . . . But Defense Department data and independent experts confirm there is no clear link between the Abu Ghraib scandal and violence in Iraq. To the contrary, U.S. troop deaths were cut approximately in half in the month after the abuse photos broke in the last week of April 2004. Attacks on coalition forces were higher in the first weeks of April than they were in the 14 weeks after the scandal broke . . ..

Meanwhile, in Congress, Obama is opposing attaching the Lieberman-Graham amendment because it would delay the approval of the supplemental, which also contains money directed to the IMF. Here is part of the letter Obama sent:

I am writing to urge you to oppose the McConnell Amendment, which is being offered in conference on the supplemental appropriations bill.

As you know, I have no higher priority than ensuring the safety of our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Given the singular importance of providing funding for our troops, it is essential that Congress pass the supplemental appropriations bill. Passage of the McConnell Amendment would unnecessarily complicate the essential objective of supporting the troops, and would accomplish no substantive purpose.

Posting another hilarious issue concerning the argument of protecting our troops soon.

[Kuya]

This is what Glenn Greenwald said pertaining to the blocking of the release of photos and what the rationale for doing so could lead to:

Think about what Obama's rationale would justify. Obama's claim . . . means we should conceal or even outright lie about all the bad things we do that might reflect poorly on us. For instance, if an Obama bombing raid slaughters civilians in Afghanistan (as has happened several times already), then, by this reasoning, we ought to lie about what happened and conceal the evidence depicting what was done -- as the Bush administration did -- because release of such evidence would "would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger." Indeed, evidence of our killing civilians in Afghanistan inflames anti-American sentiment far more than these photographs would. Isn't it better to hide the evidence showing the bad things we do?

Here is another one of his comments i posted here recently:

Given that anything which reflects poorly on our Government can be said to endanger our troops and American citizens, why stop here? Why not just have a general power of suppression whereby the President can keep any evidence secret as long as his Defense Secretary decrees that its disclosure will "endanger" the troops?

Guess what happened recently?

Yep:

WASHINGTON — Defense Department officials are debating whether to ignore an earlier promise and squelch the release of an investigation into a U.S. airstrike last month, out of fear that its findings would further enrage the Afghan public, Pentagon officials told McClatchy Monday.
The military promised to release the report shortly after the May 4 air attack, which killed dozens of Afghans, and the Pentagon reiterated that last week. U.S. officials also said they'd release a video that military officials said shows Taliban fighters attacking Afghan and U.S. forces and then running into a building. Shortly afterward, a U.S. aircraft dropped a bomb that destroyed the building.
However, a senior defense official told McClatchy Monday: "The decision (about what to release) is now in limbo."

There you have it folks. If something makes the US government look bad, then keeping it secret so it won't "harm the troops" is justified.

[Muffins]

See, the thing about their argument of protecting the troops is that it really doesn't. It's been said numerous times already that the main reason most terrorists are doing what they do now is because of the torture, rendition, kidnappings, and deplorable treatment of their brothers and countrymen in places like Guantanamo. These things actually put our troops at risk. Knowledge of the torture of their people is motivating ordinary angry people into violent extremists.

So really, whose interests are Lieberman and Graham looking out for by pushing this amendment through? If we are to believe that they're sincere in their claim that they want to "protect the troops", then the amendment is misguided and wrong because it puts our troops at greater risk. So I find it hard to believe them at face value.

So, if we look to who else has an interest in the Guantanamo/Detainee/Torture regime, we have the military/state, the contractors, and the detainees and victims (and there are innocent victims still being held in Guantanamo). We can rule out any possibility that they're looking out for the detainees and victims as this amendment does nothing positive for them.

We can assume that the private contractors tasked with the maintenance and other functions of Guantanamo have an interest in keeping their operations going, so they would likely support keeping things hush-hush. But this comes at a cost in recruitment for "the enemy" and possibly lead to the deaths of servicemen and women in the field. If Lieberman-Graham are aware of this, do they care? If Lieberman-Graham are supporting those interests under the cover of "protect the troops", then they're either being deceitful and aren't sincere in their care for our troops.

The military has an interest in keeping Guantanamo open because it keeps troops employed and businesses operational on the base in addition to locking up "terrorists". Similar to the problem with the contractors, keeping the base open costs us with recruitment for "the enemy." Again, are Lieberman and Graham aware of these consequences? If so, and they knowingly side with the military and/or contractors, then they're willfully trading the livelihoods of some for the lives of others (troops in the field). It would also be a hell of a spin to say they "support the troops" serving in Guantanamo... while neglecting the troops being shot at and blow up in the fields of Iraq and Afghanistan as a result of their support.

It could also just be a blind attempt to expand the nebulous powers of the presidency, which again come at the cost of American soldiers.

(TLDR) So really, there are a number of possibilities to take from this:
-If their argument is sincere, the consequences show they are misguided and wrong.
-Their argument is insincere. They're supporting any number of other interests while using the troops argument as cover. Either knowingly or unknowingly, their support comes at the cost of American soldiers.
-They support these troops in Guantanamo that would lose their jobs should the base close as a result of the photo publication (yet failing to mention or being aware that keeping the base open and photos secret may lead to the deaths of those troops in the Middle East).
-A blind, naked power for the presidency and the state.

Each of these possibilities carries its own form of outrage for using the troops as a rhetorical bludgeon to silence opposition and stifle the congressional agenda. Sadly, the interests of the innocent detainees don't even register a blip on Lieberman's and Graham's radar.

If I'm way off here, I apologize, I've been up for far too long to be thinking over this stuff.

[Kuya]

Yes, that's essentially it. The worst case scenario is that they're just using "The Troops" as a rhetorical device to get what they want, whilst supporting things that at the same time put the same troops in danger.