That’s Charlie Rangel from 2004.
As Ed Morrissey notes:
Whether Schumer is right is a good topic for debate, but not the point at the moment. The point here is that the CIA and the Bush administration got much different feedback on Congressional expectations for securing the nation from another devastating terrorist attack as we remained in the foxhole. That mandate got reinforced in Congressional briefings on the EITs, where people like Nancy Pelosi not only never objected, but some of them asked whether the CIA was being tough enough on Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
If accountability is to be imposed, let it be imposed across the board, and let’s see all of the relevant information — not just the leaks from the White House and CIA that fit their agendas.
I suspect it is fear of where these hearings could end up that motivated President Obama to backpedal on releasing more photographs of detainee abuse. Witness the tangled web of lies House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been forced to weave to explain away her support–or, at least, her neutrality towards–interrogation techniques now deamed “torture.”
But Democrats won’t let inconvenient things like their own prior statements stop them from acting outraged now. In fact, Schumer has changed his tune, just as he himself had predicted would happen:
It would be encouraging President Obama had come to this decision for anything other than political reasoning, but Teh One has never given any indication of a higher priority than his own advancement and popularity.
I suspect it is fear of where these hearings could end up that motivated President Obama to backpedal on releasing more photographs of detainee abuse.
Looks that way. No doubt you’ll be justifying keeping some things secret and ongoing for the good of the nation…
When a domestic thug rapes, tortures, and brutally murders an innocent victim, the ACLU and friends will intervene to prevent the execution of this monsters.
The Left tends to be united when it comes to looking out for the ‘rights’ of such monsters. Check out the fan club for the cop killer who calls himself ‘Mumia’.
Torture was widely used by Asian enemies to extract false confessions from American POWs. Such torture victims had little military information to reveal. Tactical plans change rather rapidly and ‘stale’ data is useless.
We are not dealing with enemies who follow even the rudiments of the rules of warfare. The fanatics who behead captives, prefer to attack civilian targets of no military value, and throw old men into the sea from cruise ships are not entitled to the ‘honors of war’.
So should these monsters be taken prisoner? If so, should we not take special methods to extract information that could save American lives?
Have any captive terrorists been forced to make propaganda broadcasts? Have methods of interrogation been used that resulted in dath or permanent injury?
The thug (and terrorist) huggers of the Left seem united in their love for monsters and their almost irrational desire to harm decent people.
Great links Pho. Salon, Daily Kos, Glenn Greewald? These idiots are so far left they make Marx look like Rush.
It’s okay for you and the left to be consistantly on the side of all our enemies and the enemies of freedom everywhere. It’s another to aide and abet these enemies by endorsing moonbats who believe their political rivals are war criminals.
Perhaps everyone from the Bush admin. should be thrown in prison. Perhaps some should be executed as war criminals also. Then we can release all those poor innocents at GITMO, turn over all our state secrets to the New York Times, hug a terrorist and sing We Are The World.
Perhaps next time instead of an election we just have a purge.
“I suspect it is fear of where these hearings could end up that motivated President Obama to backpedal on releasing more photographs of detainee abuse.”
No, Sharon, your speculations on motivations don’t count because we have the facts.
President Obama clearly stated that he felt that our troops would be placed in increased danger if these photos were released. He also said that they would not alter the picture already portrayed by the photos already released several years ago. In other words, he reversed himself, a politically risky thing to do, because he listened to his commanders on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Please, what is wrong with that reasoning?
The problem here is with the atmosphere created by the decisions of Cheney & Co in support of torture, which then passed down the line to the grunts in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. Now we have Cheney out there doing all he can to save his ass. I hope Congress does a thorough investigation, then, if warranted, that Cheney be prosecuted as we do for any alleged criminal. We cannot allow anyone to be above the law of our land!!!
“It’s okay for you and the left to be consistantly [sic] on the side of all our enemies and the enemies of freedom everywhere. It’s another to aide and abet these enemies by endorsing moonbats who believe their political rivals are war criminals.”
Right, snarky John C, spoken like one on the radical right.
You know perfectly well that the so called left is just as patriotic as any of you on the right. But you would rather make policy differences be a measure of patriotism. We’ve been hearing this baloney from the right ever since build up to the Iraq war of choice, and afterwards as well.
No one is saying that Bush & Co should be thrown in prison, but many are calling for investigations because it appears that we were consistently lied to in an attempt to build up the case for our attacking Iraq.
I think you will agree that we can never let this happen again!
Perry wrote:
which he posted just ten minutes after writing:
Those sound mutually contradictory to me.
So now I’m on the radical right because I don’t think it’s smart for an administration in a republic to characterize their political opponents as war criminals? How open minded of you (snarky).
If I thought that the intelligence agencies of the US, France, Britain, Israel and the UN deliberately lied to us I’d be very pissed. But I don’t. I think they were wrong and misled.
All I know is on Sept. 12, 2001 the people I know, friends, even customers were wondering where and when the next attack would come. I hasen’t so far so I guess we did something right (being the extremists we are).
And if you mean “people on the so called left” like Pelosi, Frank, Olberman, Soros, Garofolo, Penn, Alinsky, Wright, Michael Moore, Glover, Ayers and the multitude of others I say they are not patriotic. Unless they are for the other side. They are cowards who abuse the freedom others have given them. They are social leeches full of guilt that hate America and all we stand for. They hate liberty, individualism, free markets and non-centralized power. They are elitists who by definition as leftists believe in strong central government, which holds power over the individual and the factors of production. The citizen is subservient to the state. That’s a leftist.
They are the armpit of the political spectrum and I have more respect for an anarchist than a cowardly leftist who tries to use the power of central government to impose his will on his fellow citizens.
Our country has done many lousy things in its history. Many to our own people. But we have the power to correct it. Because we are free. We have the power to be wrong or right. To succeed or fail. It is a terrible burden to be free. But we correct our mistakes when we see them. We rise to help our neighbors, our allies and even rebuild our enemies.
Our army has had black divisions and Japanese divisions. Show me the leftist division. Show me all these patriotic leftists who shed their blood to protect and defend this nation with all its defects. All they do is whine and complain about perceived wrongs and inequalities while they sit at home, comfy while others protect them. While others build businesses around them. While others pay taxes to support them. Then they roar with righteous indignation that “it’s not fair.” Well, I say screw’em all and ship’em out. We have plenty of room for differences of opinion but no room for subversion. This republic is not in a suicide pact with the left.
Sock puppeteer Glenn Greenwald isn’t a credible source for anything.
If Obama were concerned about our troops, why release memos which would clearly inflame our enemies? Memos with the effectiveness of the techniques redacted?
We have a president whose greatest interest is his own advancement and popularity. I’d say it’s Bill Clinton II, but Clinton had more substance.
And Olbermann isn’t really interested in this. He’s too concerned about breast implants.
If someone broke the law they ought to be punished. I don’t give a damn why and I don’t give a damn who. If Cheney broke the law, throw his a** in jail. Ditto for Pelosi. You want to torture people? Withdraw from Reagan’s anti-torture treaty. Otherwise, the law is the law is the law.
is John C done ranting like a lunatic yet?
Starting an illegal, dishonest war and becoming all things we supposedly hated about the other side, that is your argument, Sharon.
When, has it happened that a bomb going off, was thwarted because of our torturing someone?
It’s never happened. For the record, our policies, have created an added hatred for our lying, bombing war of innocent human beings, WHICH CREATED THE INTENT OF MANY TO CREATE, and die in fact, using IEDS, BOMBS. IT DID NOT PREVENT BOMBS, IT CREATED THEM!
This might be of interest:
Cheney’s TORTURED case for an Iraq/al Qaeda link: Lawrence Wilkerson
Posted by mcmMay 14, 2009Lawrence Wilkerson Drops an Iraq-Torture Bombshell
By Bob Fertik
On Wednesday, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson dropped a bombshell:
What I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 — well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion — its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.
So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney’s office that their detainee “was compliant” (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.
There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just “committed suicide” in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi….)
I think the original point was to point out Schumer’s hypocrisy. Ditto for Nancy Pelosi.
And, you show indifference to the possiblility of our own troops being tortured, and also, encountering death through IEDs. Not to mention the poor Iraqis.
You are bobble-headed “good Germans,” the ushers of our country’s demise and road to barbaric, anti-democratic hell.
Remember, Hitler, Hussein, and other despots had their “good reasoning” for using torture. They had a following as well. You’d have been one of them if you were there. That is obvious.
Here’s another article:
Report: much of 9/11 Commission’s findings cite intelligence garnered by torture
Share on Facebook By Stephen C. Webster
Published: May 13, 2009
Updated 17 hours ago
Much of the material cited in the 9/11 Commission’s findings was derived from terror war detainees during brutal CIA interrogations authorized by the Bush administration, according to a Wednesday report.
“More than one-quarter of all footnotes in the 9/11 Report refer to CIA interrogations of al Qaeda operatives subjected to the now-controversial interrogation techniques,” writes former NBC producer Robert Windrem in The Daily Beast. “In fact, information derived from the interrogations was central to the 9/11 Report’s most critical chapters, those on the planning and execution of the attacks.”
“… [Information] derived from the interrogations is central to the Report’s most critical chapters, those on the planning and execution of the attacks,” reported NBC. “The analysis also shows – and agency and commission staffers concur – there was a separate, second round of interrogations in early 2004, done specifically to answer new questions from the Commission.
“9/11 Commission staffers say they ‘guessed’ but did not know for certain that harsh techniques had been used, and they were concerned that the techniques had affected the operatives’ credibility. At least four of the operatives whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report have claimed that they told interrogators critical information as a way to stop being ‘tortured.’ The claims came during their hearings last spring at the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”
“Commission executive director Philip Zelikow (later counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) admitted, ‘We were not aware, but we guessed, that things like that were going on. We were wary…we tried to find different sources to enhance our credibility,’” Windrem continued. “(Zelikow testified before the Senate on Wednesday, May 13, that he had argued in a 2005 memo that some of the tactics used on suspected terrorists violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.)”
He adds: “At least four operatives whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report have claimed that they told interrogators critical information as a way to stop being ‘tortured.’ Those claims came during their hearings in the spring of 2007 at the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”
Philip Zelikow, a former colleague of then-National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, was appointed executive director of the 9/11 Commission despite his close ties to the Bush White House, and he remained in regular contact with Rove while overseeing the commission, according to New York Times reporter Philip Shenon’s new book, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation.
Shenon, who led the Times coverage of the 9/11 Commission and still writes for the paper, based his book on myriad interviews with staffers and members of the commission, according to Holland. In addition to his ties to Rice and Rove, Zelikow had been the “architect” of a plan to demote Clinton-era counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, who sounded the alarm about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks they perpetrated.
Zelikow “had laid the groundwork for much of what went wrong at the White House in the weeks and months before September 11. Would he want people to know that?” Shenon writes, according to Holland’s summary.
Shenon also reports that Zelikow received at least two calls from Rove while serving as 9/11 Commission executive director, and he made numerous calls to the White House, Holland says.
Zelikow has not denied speaking to Rove, but he apparently claimed their conversations involved his old job as director of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs.
9/11 Commission members Thomas Kean and Lee H. Hamilton wrote that although US President George W. Bush had ordered all executive branch agencies to cooperate with the probe, “recent revelations that the CIA destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot.”
“Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.”
They continued: “There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the CIA — or the White House — of the commission’s interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot.
“Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations,” Kean and Hamilton wrote.
They said the panel made repeated, detailed requests to the spy agency in 2003 and 2004 for information about the interrogation of members of the Islamic extremist network but were never notified about the existence of the tapes.
The CIA has since revealed that in 2005 it destroyed videotapes of prisoners being tortured.
“I’m not a lawyer and I’m not sure if they broke the law or not but what they did do, I think, is try to impede our investigation,” said Kean. “Because we asked for…anything to do with those detainees, because they were the ones who knew most about the plot of 9/11 and that was our mandate.”
He continued: “We asked for every single thing that they had, and then my vice chairman, Lee Hamilton, looked the director of the CIA in the face and said, ‘look, even if we haven’t asked for something, if it’s pertinent to our investigation, make it available to us.’ And our staff asked again and again of their staff and the tapes were not given to us. So there was no question.”
In a telephone survey of 1200 individuals, just 47% agreed that “the 9/11 attacks were thoroughly investigated and that any speculation about US government involvement is nonsense.” Almost as many, 45%, indicated they were more likely to agree “that so many unanswered questions about 9/11 remain that Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success.”
A number of widows of the victims of attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 said the 9/11 Commission was a failure for not addressing all the concerns and questions about the day’s events. They have called for a new, independent commission to probe the real history of that day.
The above article, which is presently awaiting mopderation, as is so many of my comments, is from RAW STORY.
I think the original point was to point out Schumer’s hypocrisy. Ditto for Nancy Pelosi.
I can’t get over how some of you dead-enders still think you’re making some sort of keen insight when you point out when politicians lie. Keep up the good work, gents.
Dana says: “Those sound mutually contradictory to me.”
Not at all, Dana. It sounds to me as though you believe that if the investigations were carried out, then folks like Cheney and Bush would be found guilty and sentenced.
I’m not ready to draw that conclusion yet. But investigating Bush/Cheney — absolutely. This is a nation of laws. In spite of Nixon’s declaration, not even the President is above the law. I suspect that Bush may have thought the same. Examples: Signing statements; Ignored FISA court; Committing torture.
John C: “And if you mean “people on the so called left” like Pelosi, Frank, Olberman, Soros, Garofolo, Penn, Alinsky, Wright, Michael Moore, Glover, Ayers and the multitude of others I say they are not patriotic. …. Well, I say screw’em [the "left"] all and ship’em out.”
There you go, John C, picking and choosing who is and who is not a patriot. In other words, disagree with you and your ilk, then that “lefty” is not a patriot and should leave the country. Are you serious?
And this you attitude you define as freedom. You have no clue and are thoroughly confused about the traditional values of this country. If fact, I would label you as a potentially dangerous person in need of some serious counseling. You are so angry you can’t even think logically.
Actually, the point is, in the first video, Schumer told the truth. The fact that he and other major Dems are now howling about “prosecuting” people for something the clearly either actively supported, or at least never objected to (Pelosi) is what makes them hypocrites.
wanna clarify wingnut values for everybody while I’m here: possibly lying under oath about schtupping an intern = very big deal, there must be investigations & much taxpayer money must be spent getting to the bottom of it all. possible torture of prisoners in custody: mountain out of molehill, partisan waste of time to think about it, etc
It’s okay for you and the left to be consistantly on the side of all our enemies and the enemies of freedom everywhere.
If freedom involves raping children in front of their parents, I’m against it.
Sharon: “Witness the tangled web of lies House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been forced to weave to explain away her support–or, at least, her neutrality towards–interrogation techniques now deamed “torture.””
And just where, Sharon, is your evidence for that statement?
Pelosi admits that she was briefed on waterboarding, but she was not told that it was already being used.
Now if you know anything different from that, Sharon, kindly provide us with the evidence. Thank you!
Sock puppeteer Glenn Greenwald isn’t a credible source for anything.
Mmm-hmm. So where are those WMDs, the location of which Dick Chaney told everyone he knew for certain?
Eric, I’m against Schumer for supporting torture, but it seems he said in the first video, that if they had to, so be it, if it saves lives, (which it does not, by the way) and there were parameters set, and if the parameters were exceeded, then an investigation needs to be done.
It’s all unacceptable, and so is Schumer, as I now see him. However, YOU all calling hypocrisy is the most ironic yet,saddest joke I’ve ever heard. You all exemplify hypocrisy.
No problem here with investigations, as long as we investigate everyone, which isn’t really the plan.
Sharon, you are still holding my comment in moderation, because it mentions 911, but the article is about torture.
Blu, I’m not holding anything in moderation. I don’t check the queue all the time. No conspiracy! No YouTube! No 9/11!
The post was at 2:44 p.m. Still says “comment awaits moderation” So, what’s up?
Blu, can you leave your diatribes on your own site from now on? A comment is one thing. What you want to do is blog.
Thank you, Sharon.
Again, blu, you’ve been told multiple times in multiple ways, no one constantly monitors the moderation queue. Believe it or not, we have other things to do with our time. If you don’t want stuff in moderation, then leave short comments without the blather that gets caught.
Sharon, diatribes constitute what? Factual accounts? Apparently so, in your way of seeing things. You are speaking ill of military folks if you negate what the articles say.
that rabbit has a pancake on its head
Yeah, what’s with that..pancake on rabbit head? Pancake collapse theory on World Trade Centers I, II, and 7, from the government NIST explanation? LOL
TT> either it’s a small pancake or an enormous f***in rabbit.
Sharon, diatribes constitute what? Factual accounts? Apparently so, in your way of seeing things. You are speaking ill of military folks if you negate what the articles say.
All I’m saying is that you post these looooong freakin’ responses on someone else’s blog, sucking up all the oxygen in the room. If you want to write all that stuff, create your own blog. Otherwise, it’s just rude.
Blu: I’m normally the one who releases comments from moderation, simply because I do most of the site maintenance. But I also work, from 0600 to 1700, every weekday. I usually have an opportunity to check in with the site several times during the day, but that isn’t always the case. Several hours, even half the day, can go by in which I never get the opportunity to check for comments stuck in moderation.
TT> we’re not dealing with ordinary rabbits here. The pancake on the head shows that these jihadist rabbits will break whatever code of ethics, rules of warfare that exist in order to satisfy their blood lust. The thug-huggers at the ACLU stand between us and total annihilation of the jihadist rabbits who are currently devising plans to TP my house and water-balloon my Corvette. When will The Left realize that subjecting the rabbits to the same methods of torture that “was widely used by Asian enemies to extract false confessions from American POWs” is the only way to save innocent Americans??
gotta agree with Sharon & Shakespeare that brevity is the soul of wit
gotta agree with Art Downer that the pancake is a symbol of the future of meatloaf in the country unless we turn back from our crypto-Leninist ways
My hat goes off to you, Dana. You are a very productive human being, and your family is blessed. Except of course that your Right-wing oblivion seems inpenetrable.
Is the rabbit getting rabbit waterboarded? I only buy products that are not tested on animals.
Is the right spelling impenetrable for that? I used to think I cood spel wel.
Art, I think that what will come out of the rabbit is highly potent fertilizer. It is one of the best fertilizer. I used to have a rabbit by the name of Pablo, who had the run of my kitchen. He was mischevious. He only got bathed though. That was torture for him. Apparently come to find out, it’s a bad idea to bathe a rabbit. Uh-oh…off subject.
More often than not, I think you ignore what I say, and ignore the links as well, if you feel like you already know whatever the “reality” of the situation is, so I occasionally resort to drastic copy and pasting. So, did you ignore that too? Or just curse it?
What did Pelosi know, and which one of her seven stories is true, or will it be #8, #9 or #10
Pelosi is now claiming that the CIA lied to Congress, a felony. Leon Panetta has come out and said it isn’t true. Pass the popcorn, please.
Sharon:
Pelosi is now claiming that the CIA lied to Congress, a felony. Leon Panetta has come out and said it isn’t true. Pass the popcorn, please.
Maybe we can start a new bumper sticker? – Pelosi Lied, Agents Died
Holy shit, you waterboarded him!
Perry said: “If fact, I would label you as a potentially dangerous person in need of some serious counseling.”
I rest my case. Disagree and they “label” you and send to to the re-education camp. Now Perry is a Shrink. The tolerance is overwhelming.
Perry wrote:
How ’bout this?
A former Democratic congressman, who is now the Director of Central Intelligence, appointed by a Democratic president and confirmed by a heavily Democratic Senate, has given you the confirmation you need.
[...] Sharon noted that Democratic politicians have been for stuff before they were against it, such as Senator Charles Schumer’s (D-NY) change of position on the use of waterboarding. But Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has to be just incredibly dumb, to pick the kind of fight she’s picked, claiming that the Bush Administration never told her about waterboarding, then that they told her, but didn’t tell her that it had been used, when there’s so much evidence out there that she’s been lying through her scummy teeth. [...]
Wow, who saw this video clip of torture?
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7171
This is relevant:
Tortured to Death; “… it is very clear to me, torture puts our troops in danger, torture makes our troops less safe, torture creates terrorists … ” – Jay Bagwell, counter-intelligence agent in Afghanistan