H2O-pocracy

Think Progress:

DoJ Official Experienced Waterboarding, Told WH It Is Illegal, Was ‘Forced Out’

...in 2004 then-acting assistant attorney general Daniel Levin was so concerned about the administration’s use of waterboarding that he went to a military base near Washington and underwent the procedure himself.
...
ABC reported that after Levin personally experienced waterboarding, he told the White House that it could be considered torture:

After the experience, Levin told White House officials that even though he knew he wouldn’t die, he found the experience terrifying and thought that it clearly simulated drowning.

Levin, who refused to comment for this story, concluded waterboarding could be illegal torture unless performed in a highly limited way and with close supervision. And, sources told ABC News, he believed the Bush Administration had failed to offer clear guidelines for its use.

Levin was working on a second memo that would have imposed tighter controls on the use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding.
While working on that memo, ABC reported “Levin was forced out of the Justice Department when Alberto Gonzales became Attorney General.”

Let me see if I understand this correctly...

An acting assistant attorney general of the United States, someone with authority to determine for legal purposes whether this treatment was torture, underwent the process himself, determined that it was indeed a form of torture administered in a seemingly lawless fashion, and was fired by his superiors when his views were made known because he was viewed not to be '...endorse(ing) White House policies' enthusiastically enough.

Some people never know how close to the edge they are, until they step over it.

Rice, Full Of Beans

Crooks & Liars - Countdown: Rice's Tortured Excuse

Q: Even in World War II facing Nazi Germany, probably the greatest threat that America has ever faced –

RICE: Uh, with all due respect, Nazi Germany never attacked the homeland of the United States.

Q: No, but they bombed our allies –

RICE: No, just a second, just a second. Three-thousand Americans died in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

Q: 500,000 died in World War II –

RICE: Fighting a war in Europe.

Q: — and yet we did not torture the prisoners of war.

RICE: We didn’t torture anybody here either.

Frankly, comparing one of the great industrial powerhouses of the 20th century, held in the grip of a sinister right-wing eliminationist ideology...one responsible for the murder of millions of innocents in their drive to conquest and a truly representative face of fascism, to a ragtag amalgamation of zealous cadres in the thrall of fundamentalist paymasters who achieved a showy Pyrrhic victory with stolen resources is specious at best and malignantly duplicitous at worst.

And for this pugnacious bit of dissembling to come from one who sat in front of a hearing on the events of 9/11 and successfully bluffed them on her own incompetence is particularly galling.

Condoleezza Rice was stunningly ineffectual as U.S. Secretary of State, blown as a reed in a breeze on whatever noxious winds issued from the Executive office.
One might infer from observing her term that she held that office not by dint of qualification, but so an eager vassal would be in position to act on a child-king's whims...A repeated pattern seen rather conspicuously during the Bush administration.

As to her claims that the Nazis performed no offensive acts on the 'homeland of the United States'...When her boss's grandfather is balls deep in business with them, should this be surprising?

This week, she offers the double fungoo - The Sergeant Schultz defense ('I vas just following orders') blended with the Nixon/Frost neener neener ('I'm the President, the law is whatever I say it is').

Will this be enough to save her, America?

Over to you.

;>)

What? Me Torture?

It's Torture, I Tells Ya

Falling From Crass

C & L: Cheney: Torture investigation 'offended the hell out of me'

Cheney: "I guess the other thing that offends the hell out of me, frankly, Chris, is we had a track record now of eight years of defending the nation against any further mass casualty attacks from Al Qaeda."

Merely a passing thought, but it occurs to me that the above statement is similar to an habitual drunk driver who caused a multiple-fatality accident proudly declaiming their eighth year of sobriety.

;>)

Torturous Routing

Apparently, the American senate has initiated the process to quickly confirm a candidate for the top law enforcement official of the United States, an individual who has made promises to the Federalist society and other sponsors of the status quo that he won't trouble Junior's beautiful mind with any sort of questioning of the specious rationales devised to use torture in an extra-legal way while prosecuting the combat du jour.

How wonderful that a nation of laws is now on the fast track to becoming a nation of one man, and his quest to suspend reality by any means necessary.

Of course, the usual reasons are proffered...'time of war', etc., but these, ultimately, are non sequiturs.
After all, hiring someone to ignore broken laws and flout established principle in the support of a quest for blood, treasure, and vindication for long-failed policies, wrapped within the context of an illegitimate use of force hardly requires a 'by-your-leave' from someone as determined to subvert the nation as the current president.

Your country is being looted by career criminals who are using your own fears and your own laws against you, America.

If you don't like it, I suggest you do something about it. If you do like it, well...Meet you for root beers in the wasteland.

I'll be the one wearing a necklace of skulls.

Hold The Lies

Politics Daily:

On the heels of 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee's complaint last week over the grief he has received for authorizing the so-called "torture memos," Alberto Gonzales himself appeared on CNN after the Justice Department's verdict had been handed down.
Instead of expressing the relief he surely must feel at having dodged a federal criminal indictment, Gonzales said instead: "I feel angry that I had to go through this. That my family had to suffer through and what for?"
...
Of the scandal itself, Gonzales repeated his long-held story. "I made the decision based upon what I thought was best for the department and for the American people. All these investigations have now confirmed that this was not to influence improperly any ongoing investigation or to punish anyone for political reasons."

Oh, Alberto, you wild funnyman...Frankly, I'm surprised that you can even remember how those pesky decisions were made. Have you been taking Gingko? What a kidder. Keep up the angry shtick babe, they're rolling in the aisles.

What those investigations have confirmed in actuality, is that truth is for the little people and one can have as much justice as they are willing to spend on for time to run off the clock, and payoffs for the witnesses to...um...um...'I don't recall'. Same as it ever was.

Of course, it helps when no one wants to look back, too. That might lead to a disruption in chummy comity. Why, some people might give the game away by getting cranky and asking too many favors in return for their votes. Nothing funny about that. Gosh, no.

For a bit of back story and review, let the knowledgeable bmaz at emptywheel have the final post mortem.

;>)