I'm surprised I didn't catch a little more heat for my saying "Mind you, I don't have a problem with the release of the memos."
I was trolling a bit, I admit.
I put the whole thing out there because unlike the MSM I have the luxury of doing so and it lets you guys draw your own conclusions rather than relying solely on my cherry-picking those things that match my biases. For more on that phenomenon in action, see the update to yesterday's post on the DHS report and the link to This Ain't Hell. Besides, I did it for President Bush's speeches, and I really do think it's the right thing to do, when the situation allows.
Besides, I wanted it out there in his own words that President Obama sided with leftist lawyers in his Justice Department and released, over the objections of the intelligence community, Office of Legal Counsel memos that averred that certain interrogation techniques used (among other places, against US personnel in SERE training) in the last several years by US officials against key al Qaeda terrorists were legal - nice to get that out there in his own words. Not nice, not pretty, but... legal. For a look at the potential costs of releasing the memos (vice stopping the practices, the two are related but not inter-twined) see this WSJ Op-Ed by former Director of the CIA Hayden and former Attorney General Mukasey.
And who was surprised that it was an exercise in self-righteousness and disingenuous misdirection?
Besides, we now also have the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, putting the whole thing "into perspective" That perspective being that after after 9/11, "we did not have a clear understanding of the enemy we were dealing with, and our every effort was focused on preventing further attacks that would kill more Americans. It was during these months that the CIA was struggling to obtain critical information from captured al Qaida leaders, and requested permission to use harsher interrogation methods. The OLC memos make clear that senior legal officials judged the harsher methods to be legal."
Nicely put, though we're still going to say, "Not illegal, so you CIA interrogators don't have to worry about prosecution, but we're still going to tar the Bush administration with this brush." Okay. Politics is a rough sport and I'm no fan of torture and harsh interrogation techniques anyway. But I'm a well-known squish.
But ya have to love this bit: "Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing. As the President has made clear, and as both CIA Director Panetta and I have stated, we will not use those techniques in the future. But we will absolutely defend those who relied on these memos and those guidelines."
Heh. That's not going to sit well with those on the Left who think the Nuremburg Trials should have precedence here. You're handing over the "But we were ordered to do it" defense to the interrogators. That's not going to sit well with the Moonbat Wing of the party.
Of course, the flip side: "On a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009 appear graphic and disturbing."
So, apparently we were once in danger, and now we're not. And, apparently that's all happened since January 2009? S'truth, I hope we aren't able to throw that in their face some months and years down the road. Some forms of schadenfreude are inherently self-destructive.
Oddly though, I seem to recall that we were being made less-safe in the years preceding the dawn of the Age of Hopey-Changeyness. Amazing what a difference 90-odd days makes!
The boogey-man is gone, seemingly (well, not really, he's just busy trying to create a new national haven in Pakistan). But we now have the time to reflect and the luxury of debating and deploring and scoring political points on what we did back in the bad old days when there was a war on. Because, well, "we have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history."
Now here is where I start sounding like Cannoneer #4 and his talk of ends and means...
This was a dark and painful chapter, too. But we had to go through it to get to the other side. That's an argument #4 could support.
Because you have the other side comparing Gitmo to this:
So it's good to have the words out there.
But as I said in a previous post - this line alone makes the release of the memos worth it: "A democracy as resilient as ours must reject the false choice between our security and our ideals."
I'll be keeping that loaded in the belts of my rhetorical Ma Deuce.
I was trolling a bit, I admit.
I put the whole thing out there because unlike the MSM I have the luxury of doing so and it lets you guys draw your own conclusions rather than relying solely on my cherry-picking those things that match my biases. For more on that phenomenon in action, see the update to yesterday's post on the DHS report and the link to This Ain't Hell. Besides, I did it for President Bush's speeches, and I really do think it's the right thing to do, when the situation allows.
Besides, I wanted it out there in his own words that President Obama sided with leftist lawyers in his Justice Department and released, over the objections of the intelligence community, Office of Legal Counsel memos that averred that certain interrogation techniques used (among other places, against US personnel in SERE training) in the last several years by US officials against key al Qaeda terrorists were legal - nice to get that out there in his own words. Not nice, not pretty, but... legal. For a look at the potential costs of releasing the memos (vice stopping the practices, the two are related but not inter-twined) see this WSJ Op-Ed by former Director of the CIA Hayden and former Attorney General Mukasey.
And who was surprised that it was an exercise in self-righteousness and disingenuous misdirection?
Besides, we now also have the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, putting the whole thing "into perspective" That perspective being that after after 9/11, "we did not have a clear understanding of the enemy we were dealing with, and our every effort was focused on preventing further attacks that would kill more Americans. It was during these months that the CIA was struggling to obtain critical information from captured al Qaida leaders, and requested permission to use harsher interrogation methods. The OLC memos make clear that senior legal officials judged the harsher methods to be legal."
Nicely put, though we're still going to say, "Not illegal, so you CIA interrogators don't have to worry about prosecution, but we're still going to tar the Bush administration with this brush." Okay. Politics is a rough sport and I'm no fan of torture and harsh interrogation techniques anyway. But I'm a well-known squish.
But ya have to love this bit: "Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing. As the President has made clear, and as both CIA Director Panetta and I have stated, we will not use those techniques in the future. But we will absolutely defend those who relied on these memos and those guidelines."
Heh. That's not going to sit well with those on the Left who think the Nuremburg Trials should have precedence here. You're handing over the "But we were ordered to do it" defense to the interrogators. That's not going to sit well with the Moonbat Wing of the party.
Of course, the flip side: "On a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009 appear graphic and disturbing."
So, apparently we were once in danger, and now we're not. And, apparently that's all happened since January 2009? S'truth, I hope we aren't able to throw that in their face some months and years down the road. Some forms of schadenfreude are inherently self-destructive.
Oddly though, I seem to recall that we were being made less-safe in the years preceding the dawn of the Age of Hopey-Changeyness. Amazing what a difference 90-odd days makes!
The boogey-man is gone, seemingly (well, not really, he's just busy trying to create a new national haven in Pakistan). But we now have the time to reflect and the luxury of debating and deploring and scoring political points on what we did back in the bad old days when there was a war on. Because, well, "we have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history."
Now here is where I start sounding like Cannoneer #4 and his talk of ends and means...
This was a dark and painful chapter, too. But we had to go through it to get to the other side. That's an argument #4 could support.
Because you have the other side comparing Gitmo to this:
So it's good to have the words out there.
But as I said in a previous post - this line alone makes the release of the memos worth it: "A democracy as resilient as ours must reject the false choice between our security and our ideals."
I'll be keeping that loaded in the belts of my rhetorical Ma Deuce.
Unfortunately, I'm starting to think that it was more of a prophecy, than a simple caution.
I might feel a bit more sanguine if I were sure of what he meant when he said, "our" ideals...
I'll stand by to be corrected if I'm off, but, from what I remember, that line you quote is from Benji Franklin. It was addressing the issue of the colonies begging for the presence of British military forces to fight what became known as the French and Indian Wars.
Also from dimly remembered memory, there was an incident in WW2, that I think might apply. A POS journoscum got wind of the fact that the US had been able to crack the Jap naval codes. He published the info in the weeks preceding the battle at Midway. The Japs got the info from the newscum's article passed to them through their network operating out of Mexico. The only reason the Japs discounted the journoscum's article as propaganda and ruse, was because there was no real response from above (the military or office of the President). There was no real response from "above" because they feared validating the info. The journoscum also, later, when the situation cleared enough for his acts to be put under some retributionary heat, claimed "the public's right to know".
The above may be an "apples and oranges" thing to this current issue, but I don't think so. Its part of a long and well established pattern of acts, actions and or efforts by various elements in our own society that serve no purpose except to weaken our ability to fight against an aggressive enemy during a time of war.
Every inch given up by the wobbly, weak, sniveling, craven or manipulated to the left is a mile that will have to be bought back by blood, if it can be bought back at all.
There is exactly zero value to the release of the documents for any purpose except to play into the fever dreams of the rabid, irrational, suicidally incompetent and enemy loving left, as well as the mindless drones of the lefts useful idiots.
Another quote that's been real popular, and just about as accurately applied as those listed here, in the OP and comments.
Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism.
Oh..and I don't forget that the Press is big business and most of the bull they dish out has nothing to do with Freedom of the Press.
What's so wrong with putting out memos that argues the point of legality from first principles? No, really, what's wrong with it?
I'm sick of the lame tautology people throw around about SERE. We do it to our own. We do it to tangos. THerefor because we do it to our own it's not torture. Bollucks. We do it to our own because we suspect they WILL be tortured if captured. What's that do to that simplistic, tautological syllogism, hey?
I'm with Armorer: let's have the argument from first principles in public. It doesn't hurt anyone or anything to have that argument any more than it does to have the socialism vs non-socialism debate. Unless one's so thin skinned he can't have his ideology examined that is.
I for one suspect that the reason Obama isn't going to prosecute is that, well, the CIA and others acted in good faith. They were told by those who would know that it *was* legal. They then acted on that. I know of cases where police faced the same thing. One was where they went thru someone's trash, thinking that it was public property based on the legal opinion of some muckety muck. A SCOTUS case turned around and said the cops did wrong, that one's trash, if within a certain proximity to one's home, isn't public property. Nothing was done to the cops. The evidence was tossed and some people had the court cases against them dropped for lack of a case. Obama seems to be acting along the same way, much to the chagrin of the rabid anti-Bush throng, by not trying to sic legal hounds on the CIA operatives who did this, while believing they were operating within the law.
But, I gotta say, again, that tautology is flawed, and, quite simply, stupid. We do it because we figure our own *will* be tortured in that manner. Kinda changes it, don't it?
We're not talking about some ones legal rights to search and seizer here. We also don't do it because they do it. It is done as an expedient of war. You just were slammed by a unit, from an unknown direction and you need to find out what's attacking you. You don't go and get your prisoner a cup a coffee and ask how his mother is.
Our enemies have clearly abused their POW's, right to the point of murder. You are entrusted with the safety of others and you're going to sit around and read law books. You really believe we are so strong that no enemy can hurt us. Wait...we've been lucky..we only lost a few thousand in the past 10 years...wait till your neighbors start dropping. Oh and if you think that;s an exaggeration you didn't go to many funerals in Sep 01.
What...we're going to use the Queensbury rules in a street fight? No hitting below the belt.
I, for one, suspect that the reason Obama isn't going to prosecute is that, well, Nancy Pelosi et. al. would have to be charged as accessories before the fact.
Heh -- link preposterously lifted from Cassie's place.
So, then our ideals like RKBA, freedom of speech (of our choosing, not the administrations), and so forth, should be safe. Yeah - like Bill said, I'll feel safer if I didn't find his ideals to be a little different from mine.
"We do it because we figure our own *will* be tortured in that manner. Kinda changes it, don't it?"
Ry - They do it to film and use as propaganda. We have done it to gain information. I see a big difference.
They vilify everyone who disagrees with them in any way, seeking bloody revenge, causing more harm to the nation than the "disagreed upon point of torture."
The premise that President Bush acted in good faith for the best interests of the nation is ignored by the left because they didn't win that election. With them it's simply "they win or they destroy who defeated them." To them, the issues are not really important; they'll find one that will evoke the most public outrage and ply it for all the use they can get out of it. I honestly think Obama and his ilk couldn't care less about torture, it's a vehicle for their self promotion.
This is indeed why more conservative Americans must become far more involved in politics than we are. The only way to mitigate the left's continuous raucous war on America is to take control of the country, first through local level politics and then through the state and federal levels.
Control the school boards, city councils, mayor's offices and even the dog catcher and you have more control over your community. Eventually this will trickle up to the federal level.
YOu know, Mugger, I got buds who have thermite burns on machettes they picked up while in hot pursuit of Noriega---and folks out walking around in not safe places right now, too. Expedient doesn't make it right. I stand by Balthazar's quip: You may be compelled to wage war, but you're not compelled to use poisoned arrows. (Street fight or not, there's certain things you simply don't do so you can look yourself in the mirror and not see a psychopath staring back at you. Sheepdog, not wolf..)
The problem of the expedient is where do you draw the line. An expedient way to end the whole Islamic Terrorism thing is to simply carpet bomb the whole region for fourty days and nights. IT solves the problem(with 9/11 being a strategic analog of the being hit that FM lays out). Why not? It's expedient, it keeps us safe, which are also analogs of FM's point. You don't do it because it's illegal, immoral, wrong, and is descent down into the Abyss from which we'd likely never come back. Units in Vietnam that DID do what FM talks about are by and large the ones that then went on to perform 100% undeniable war crimes against civillian populations. Once the dog slips the leash, embraces his inner canus lupus, it's real hard, if not impossible to get him back to being the sheep dog.
And I just luuuurve the 'no funerals for you' hyper emotionalization BS. Do you know me? Do you know for a fact that none of my friends died that day? Do you? Do you know for a fact that none of my friends haven't died overseas and out of respect for their families I haven't talked about them? You know for damn sure? Frickin' a.
And what does that have to do with the validity of the argument? Or is ad hominem the order of the day? Like Armorer said: When did we turn into the bed wetting liberals who played that kinda game---I feel outraged ergo I win--- for 8 years? Weak sauce Way weak sauce.
Brab, you missed the point, apparently. We do it to our own, the basis from which many claim it's hunky dory to do it to others, so they can withstand, resist, and overcome such treatment that exists outside the rule of law, codes of civilized conduct, Geneva Conventions, and the hodge podge that makes up the LOLW(law of land warfare, which has a tradition going back to Lincoln, which Sherman was in violation of at times). We don't do it to get info from our own people, not really. It's a training tool. That we use it as a training tool does NOT make the circular argument go. We use, simulated, illegal practices to train our personell to deal with illegal practices performed on them in wartime, but some hold that this creates a loophole that makes them legal. They use poor logic in creating their sylogism(can't spell today), and then get on the emotional high horse as a way of getting an insurance goal(like it works).
The major problem with the unredacted release of the memos (and, with the FM being in open release), now our enemies train against them, too.
We're talking about collecting information not waging war. And yes we threw people out of helicopters and I agree that was a little too far. But in the world of espionage there aren't many rules. OK...some people feel we shouldn't have nuked Japan; I sleep very soundly knowing we did and the Russians knew we were crazy enough to do it again. If not, Putin would be celebrating his birthday in Paris. But we're talking spying and collecting intelligence. To gain knowledge to thwart our enemies we don't give them knowledge on a silver platter just because it hurt someones feelings or other people have trouble sleeping. We're talking about defending our way of life.
Just because we knocked some heads together to gain information; doesn't make us this big evil monster. And before you use Sherman, figure out how many lives were saved because he helped bring the war to a close. He didn't slaughter people, he burned houses and took livestock. Atlanta survived, hopefully we will too.
Just to be snarky, the units that did that as a matter of *standard procedure* have been running the show over there since 1975.
The number of VC who went for air walks has been hugely exaggerated, BTW.
If you're equating sleep deprivation and being forced to listen to bad music with being shot at with poisoned arrows, your sense of proportion is 'way skewed.