I love this line: "As the president told ABC News, "It will be interesting to know what the true facts are.""

I'd also like to know what false-facts are. Fact? Fiction?

Help! I'm trapped in a truthiness paradox!

I am certain that you have nailed it there Siouxrose. There are other tapes, we can bet on that, someone will sell them to a media source ant the story will come out. After all, it will be news.

I see the NEWS of the NIE report, the Bush lies concerning that issue is not news anymore. ___ Of course not.

"And who authorized (or knew of) their destruction? Not our national Decider, who insists, via White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, that he didn't decide anything whatsoever, because he has "no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction." That's in contrast to former White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers, who apparently knew all about the tapes but didn't bother to share the news with her boss."

Could the Duplicitous Duo of Pennsylvania Avenue really believe that most Americans are stupid or lazy or apathetic enough to accept for one moment such nonsense? Or do they no longer care? If the latter, I'm concerned that these are not simply "cornered rats," but cornered, suicidal rats.

Nancy Pelosi endorsed waterboarding in 2002, and here I was thinking Nader was wrong, there's a lot of difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Goddamn them all!

From Cory Doctorow:

Amnesty International's "Unsubscribe Me" campaign invites us to unsubscribe from the use of torture in fighting the "war on terror;" to tell the world's governments that torture cannot be done in our name. As part of the campaign, they've released an incredibly moving and disturbing video reenacting a CIA-approved "stress position" torture taken straight out of a CIA interrogation manual. In order to make the film, the directors put the actor into a stress position for six hours -- the whimpers and trembling we see are real, the anguish you feel even when you choose to do this, let alone when you are kidnapped and subjected it for weeks, months or years. Amnesty is making two more videos and then doing a theatrical release for all three. We will never be made free by adopting the tactics of dictatorships.

Waiting For The Guards

kelmer wrote:
Major western civilizations have been torturing not suspects–innocents for about 150 years in laboratories.

Yeah, its called vivisection, condoned by meat eaters, leather-wearers and other POS.

Eh I dont get it.
Major western civilizations have been torturing not suspects--innocents for about 150 years in laboratories.

Far worse than water boarding and you can see some of the videos in university courses.

I will believe we have a civilized society when we care at least as much about innocents suffering as we apparently do about alleged criminals and real criminals. Yeah mercy for criminals is good but mercy for innocents is better.

If liberals have any sense, at least some of them (us) will connect that a "no-torture" policy is an article of FAITH---to be embraced by any faith-based voters who actually have any FAITH (which is, by the way, only a fractional portion of the church-going crowd.)

Nonetheless, all of the social liberals plus a fraction of the church coalition is quite enough to win the elections of 2008.

If torture can be tagged on "conservatives" as somehow necessary to their worldview of corporate safety, then liberals will win. The CD readers ought to be leading the pack on this, but sadly, too many are lost in the criticism wilderness.

Why is it that only conservatives torture?

I sincerely hope that The Hague is ready to review these cases. I hope that they are VERY busy in February 2009.

"Yeah mercy for criminals is good but mercy for innocents is better."

Kelmer:

Even better: justice for all, including criminals (note: those human suspects we torture are not all "criminals"), innocent humans, and nonhumans alike.

Amnesty International has a campaign against torture:

http://www.unsubscribe-me.org/waitingfortheguards.php

I would say that at least there IS a debate in the U.S. about "torture". In many countries of the world, torture is just a fact of life. Saddam happily tortured with electric drills, bone crushing, even an Iron Maiden - without any discussion. It is the same in many other countries of the world.

Maybe I'm too full of past "Law and Order" episodes but it seems likely that at least some people privvy to these tapes (and the "procedures" they recorded) got OFF on them. Lots of sadists like to keep souvenirs. I'm SURE there are some with copies of those tapes in full, or in pieces. There could even be a good guy style whistle blower waiting in the wings for the right time to OUT this damning evidence. Let's hope so... from the photos of abuse at Abu Graib to a regular cast of players who did what they could to expose the sinister nature of this administration's sick and sickening M.O. (Sibel Edmonds, etc) there ARE more out there.

Um, who "leaked" the news about the destruction of the tapes? Could the leak have been from the White House, as comeuppance for the NIE? Remember, we have seen this revenge behavior before with Plamegate.

People have been convicted of war crimes without tapes. There is plenty of evidence right now. The tapes just would have made it easier.

A Green Beret who worked in Berlin when it was chopped up into quarters described to me this way of making someone talk: "You ask the question and the guy doesn't talk. So you bring another person into the room and kill him. Then you ask the question again."

To do this sounds pretty easy, with no complicated wood, straps or water involved. And there is doubtless no investigation afterwards. Hurting and killing people is ridiculously easy.

Still, a majority of Americans, I hope, act from moral conviction and don't do either of these things. The others are crap, and to deal with them, we need to borrow an old idea from India-- a Pariah or untouchable class.

I'm sorry that so many well-known politicians and operatives, friends and relatives of actual human beings, must join this bottom class. I'm sorry, too, that my friend the Green Beret would find himself among them.

When the Commander in Chief Decider says he doesn`t know anything about anything, I believe he is telling the truth.

Hey Kem,

I left you a post in Cindy Sheehan's article.

IMO the destruction of these "interrogation" tapes have as much to do with what may have been said by the victims of torture, as the torture itself. These are alleged 911 co-conspirators. The "masterminds" of the 911 attack. Since many of us know that the official version of 911 promulgated by our govt is the only "conspiracy theory" out there, you gotta wonder what sort of slips of the tongue may have been revealed, necessitating destruction of the evidence .

I frankly doubt very much that the reason the tapes were destroyed was because of the hideous interrogation techniques. Since there have been no apologies for years now for employing torture, these tapes being destroyed is about something else altogther. That must have been some very damning information!

Thank you Claudius, that was extremely nice. Some day we will meet and have some fun discussions, that don't involve our corrupt government.

The doings of the CIA, our new national pass time. What they do to protect us is so minimal its a wonder they stay in business.
Oh, but the last guy who tried to put them out to the street was assassinated, so . . . .

The CIA destroyed tapes of prisoner "interrogations."

CSIS destroyed tapes of surveilence of Terror suspects right after the bombing of Air India.

Brian Mulroney destroyed any record of how he spent the money Karlheinz Schreiber gave him or even what he did to earn the money.

Seems like there is a pattern of destroying evidence to avoid further "embarrassment".

And because I don't think you hate "Doris" enough:

Why the Pentagon treats Omar Khadr differently ...

At least six boys between the age of 13 and 16 were captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan during the initial fighting and taken to the Guantanamo detainee facility. But from the moment five years ago when Khadr shuffled off the plane in shackles into the hot Cuban sun, he was treated differently than the other teenagers.

They were separated from the adult prisoners. They spent their time watching DVDs and learning English and math. Later, they were sent back to their countries of origin.

But Khadr spent his remaining teenage years (when not in solitary confinement) growing up with men the U.S. military calls the "worst of the worst." ...

Khadr's lawyers say Omar Khadr was tortured, too. They say he was subjected to hours of intense questioning, deprived of sleep and once pushed around the interrogation room floor and used as a mop to wipe up his own urine. ...

Khadr's case is attracting the attention of international human rights groups and the world's media, but not just because of the child soldier issue or even because Guantanamo and the military commission process are controversial.

(cont)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_gillespie/2007/12/why_the_pentagon_treats_omar_k.html

KEM PATRICK; Trying to catch up. I just replied to you and OKINAWA on yesterday's post on the article titled,"Iraq Rejects Permanent US Bases; Advisor".

Time to do the chores. Later.

STAR OF THE SEA -- I so agree that the "destruction of these … tapes have … to do with what may have been said by the victims of torture"

Secrets such as "the tapes" are designed to stay buried for at least 40 years, to avoid the em'bare'ASS'ment of those culpably pulling the strings, behind and underneath the scenes.

The CIA in total complicit alignment with the Unitary Terrorist_in Chief, decided to gamble that Congress just might grow a spine, and attempt to use the previously (intrinsically) powerful basis of Constitutional law, to infiltrate and probe for aspects and glimmers of the truth.

Lordy LORDY (as you might say )

These DARK'ened thieves of the LIGHT, have of themselves opened the gates of reasonable doubt for the American People, and their lack of faith in their hidden secrets staying hidden will be their downfall.

(Tarot's) toppling tower, shuttering struggling - Mars redoubled - lightning struck!

Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
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We are a violent and twisted culture. One truly understands this when observing the US from afar and amidst other contemporary cultures. "24" is emblematic, political candidates have referenced the show and it's protagonist character. Suitcase nukes and torture. US cinema, TV, Sports, Video Games, criminal activity, our public discourse and Nat'l conversations, FBI stats.....all full of violence and bloodletting. Torture of "enemies" is fully supported by a huge chunk of Americans, probably the same supporters of the ineffective Death Penalty. This is the gist of Rosa Brooks' conclusion and the conclusions of many of our brightest commentators....our Nation sadly seems to support this krappe. How do we reverse this slide to oblivion?

VOO DOO PATRIOT -- I agree.

JACK's the ultimate SHOCKWAVE RIDER, with the important qualification of the PHOENIX-like qualities (from the ashes), that Jack Bauer retains a certain "once-human" compromised morality in spite of (or because of) all of the traitorous double (triple+) crosses: family (father & brother), lovers (one girl friend kills wife, another saves his only to be tortured ruthlessly), bosses, presidents, various opportunists, and of course the really evil ones that manipulate those close to Jack.

Through it all and constantly getting back up, while paying the highest price (2nd to his own almost death [again]^n power) with a unmeasurable weight of moral baggage to subvert and overcome every moment. He does have a moral compass, which although vastly twisted and even shattered by circumstances, it retains the unfathomable ability to sense when he's being manipulated into decisions of even greater evil than this owns evil acts.

His coupled self sacrifice and iconoclastic behaviors make him paradoxically both hero/slave and slave/hero. This is where the "story" in untenable to me, that any other dozen extraordinary persons would never have been capable of living through, but nonetheless he out-does the energizer bunny (who never had to live through an atomic blast …).

The only thing even closely capable of powering Jack, must be the penultimate di-lithium crystallized miraculously healing BANKER driven investor satisfying source of fascist underpinnings of the current hidden world leaders -- greed and evil incarnate

I guess that means that even though Jack is on the side of the angels (in the big picture; sometimes), that he really is just another confused devil agent of oppression, set up as an impossibly selfless warrior to combat unspeakable evil. Who would ever want to be like him, as he isn't a nice person and no one really wants to be anywhere close to him, or they'll die because of him?

So YES, it's emblematic of crass material commercialism and desensitizes Americans to pending suffering, while humping the dead husk of military service.

Ultimately "entertaining" the same way that I believe that torture would be, as there is no room for any other reality to be present. Oh My God, every time I watch it, I'm succeeding in further torturing myself, while simultaneously numbing whatever sensibility, humanity, and realistic scale (that I hold tenaciously to) of the world

How can it "feel" so GOOD to be doing such a "BAD" thing?