[PAA-Discuss] An obvious solution to resolve the conflict

[robert]

We have allowed these "the ends justify the ends" people to run out country
way to long........we need to rid the body politic of this kind of thinking
entirely......this is a path to total destruction!  

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at paa-tx.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at paa-tx.org] On
Behalf Of C. Lee Taylor
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2009 8:06 AM
To: PAA Core
Subject: [PAA-Discuss] An obvious solution to resolve the conflict

>From the esteemed digby of Hullabaloo

A Modest Proposal

by digby

Nancy Pelosi says she wasn't told about waterboarding in 2002 and that
the CIA misled the congress. Bob Graham says he wasn't told either.
Richard Shelby says he was, sort of. Porter Goss says he wasn't but
everyone thinks he said he was. The classified briefings have been
sent up to Capitol Hill and Republican Senator Kit Bond, who says he
has seen them, claims they prove that Pelosi is lying. (He also claims
that Pelosi could have called for closed hearings on the subject,
which is disputed by the rules of the House.)

Leon Panetta released a memo to his troops today which said this:

    Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead
Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency
indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our
contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers
briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing
"the enhanced techniques that had been employed." Ultimately, it is up
to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions
about what happened.



These "partisan food fights" are just so tiring. (Why can't these
people just work together for the good of the American people?) Even
Chris Matthews, Jim Warren and Ron Brownstein all agreed today that
the partisans are out of control on this thing and the president
really needs to put it all behind him and move on (especially
considering that kicking the crazed hard left in the teeth is such
good politics.)

It's pretty clear that all this partisan bickering means the "he
said/she said" can't be solved by a truth commission or even a DOJ
investigation. After all, they weren't allowed to take notes, and the
CIA's records when it comes to torture can't be considered dispositive
since they are just a teeny bit implicated themselves. It's a pickle.

But since they are considered by so many people to be reliable and
useful, perhaps ought to consider using some enhanced interrogation
techniques on the principals so we can get to the truth of this
matter. After all, if they were reliable enough to keep the nation
safe from evildoers, they would certainly be reliable enough to get
politicians and bureaucrats to admit what happened in some CIA
briefings.

And it's not like this stuff is torture or anything. It doesn't equal
the pain equivalent to organ failure. It doesn't leave many marks and
there is supposedly no lasting psychological damage, so it's hard to
see why any of these people would object to being put to the test on
the waterboard. And since we have a very complete rule book in those
OLC memos, which according to numerous commenters, are very well
reasoned and totally within in the purview of the president to
authorize, we can use them as the guideline.

We could even stipulate that no one could be waterboarded more than 83
times or kept awake in shackles for longer than say 21 days at a
stretch. (After all, politicians routinely endure sleep deprivation
when they're campaign, so they've ben trained in resisting such
enhanced techniques.) We could agree that if they are kept naked any
videos would be destroyed and all pictures would be withheld as long
as possible. (And for the good of the nation, I would have to agree
that they be destroyed as well. There's only so much people can take.)

Diapering, forced enemas, walling, solitary confinement and being put
in coffins with bugs will only be used if the subjects refuse to admit
what they've done. (We're not completely uncivilized, after all.)
(We're not sure what that is, admittedly, but it's logical that it's
best discerned by who cracks last. This would work along the lines of
other tried and true techniques for getting to the truth, like witch
dunking.)

It's not as if these techniques are cruel or inhuman. They aren't even
illegal if the president authorizes it (although we may have to
conduct the interrogations on a ship at sea somewhere, just to be sure
we don't violate the spirit of the constitution.) There is absolutely
no reason that we can't use them to get to the truth in Washington as
we used them to get to the truth in Afghanistan and Guantanamo. After
all, the Obama administration is all about "what works."

So, let's "interrogate" the lot of them -- Cheney, Pelosi, Graham,
Goss, Shelby, Kit Bond, the CIA briefers, anyone on the Senate and
House staffs who may have been privy to these classified hearings. In
my view, to fail to use these techniques is a slap in the face to all
the fine American military personnel who ever went through the SERE
program. As far as I'm concerned, we might as well be spitting on the
troops if we don't agree to start using torture on members of the US
Government.

As Dick Cheney said, "it's a no-brainer."

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

---------------
Progressive Action Alliance  http://progressiveactionalliance.org/
Discuss mailing list   Discuss at paa-tx.org
To subscribe, unsubscribe, access the archives, or change your options on
this list, go to:
http://paa-tx.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_paa-tx.org

To reply only to the person posting this note, use "Reply".
To reply so that everyone on this list receives your note, use "Reply All".
Check the "To:" field in your message, before sending, to ensure it goes to
the correct address.