Uh-OH, Conks. Torture Report Coming…Prepare Your Spin!

[Ivytalk]

Dianne Feinstein should be condemned to roast in hell, with Cap'n Cat ordered to eat her out for eternity.

Cheney and Rummie will be too busy Eifel Tower-ing her.

You don't fool me, douchebag. You'd give a million bucks for five minutes with that sweet honeypot.

[travelinman67]

This has been driven by Sen. Feinstein's ego since the beginning. She was one of the principle architects of the covert interrogation program. When she attempted to shove the blame onto the Conks, the intelligence community turned on her and leaked the truth.
This has been a vendetta-pissing match between Feinstein and the intel community for the past 10 years. Though the investigation "report" was finished two years ago, it wasn't publicly released due to the potential harm in revealing intel methods (operative placement) and programs. While the report doesn't explicitly absolve the Senate Intel Committee members of creation/approval of the methods, the report was spun to specifically protect Sen. Feinstein, cherry-picking committee briefings, chronologically, then summarizing content to omit the truth.
Now that Reid & Assoc. are out the door, this was Feinstein's last chance to win the pissing match.

Notable:
That Reid, Feinstein, and Sen. Dem leadership have chosen to compromise national security for the sake of their personal vanity and ego.
That most Americans understand that while the interrogation methods were beyond the scope of past practices, our nation was involved in a global war, people were dying, and the interrogation results unquestionably saved thousands of lives.
That most Americans (60%+), don't give a flippin, friggin, fuck about "he said/she said" politics, as this report typifies, WHEN IT DOESN'T BENEFICIALLY CONTRIBUTE TO OUR NATION'S SECURITY OF PROSPERITY.
That this thread further ingrains Cappy as the thoughtless King of Hate.

Jeezus...

Bumping my prior remark...

...and adding former Sen. Bob Kerry's OpEd on this matter.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2 ... /20088647/

[ASUG8]

From this morning's CNN homepage:

Obama has also made a political decision that despite his belief enhanced interrogation compromised bedrock American values, he will not seek to dredge up the past by backing prosecution for CIA officers opposed by crimes.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/09/politics/ ... ?hpt=hp_t1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Isn't this report doing exactly that - dredging up the the past?

[DSUrocks07]

Meanwhile, Obama extends the NSA spying program for another three months, can't risk having that shutdown...

[CID1990]

This is purely political.

Politicians and the CIA disagree on it, and there's really no way to know for sure because the particulars of the assertion that waterboarding led directly to Bin Laden (or not) is classified.

IN these situations I tend to slide towards the public servants over the politicians, but in this particular case I really have no idea.

I have no problem with waterboarding, though.

[kalm]

One big reason it's important to find out the details...

And then within a few minutes George Tenet showed up with the spellbinding news that high level Al Qaeda operatives had revealed under interrogation, he said -- no revealing that he was being tortured at the time -- that he'd revealed significant contacts between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's operatives in Baghdad.

This was a flat-out lie. We later learned it was Sheik Al-Libi, we learned he was being tortured, no US personnel were even present, and that in a week to ten days he recanted what he'd given under torture.

So this is the kind of thing that was happening when I was out at the CIA for five days and nights with these people who are now trying to tell the American people that they are competent and they were telling the truth.

HAYES: So I just want to clarify here. So you didn't know about the program, the Secretary didn't know about the program and it looks like Condi Rice didn't know about the program. There were a lot of people at the highest levels of government in the executive branch who were not read in to the fact that we were torturing people.

WILKERSON: I think that's true. I'll go out on a limb and I'll say the only person who was completely read in and no one knows all the details, but the one who was read in on both the need for the law to cover their rear ends and the need to continue the program because it was effective was Richard Bruce Cheney.

He was the man in the shadows orchestrating all of this from his position in the White House.

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/12/col-w ... y-informed" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Torture, domestic spying, drones all need some sunlight. Good thing we have both parties looking out for us!

[kalm]

Meanwhile, Obama extends the NSA spying program for another three months, can't risk having that shutdown...

[Ibanez]

I still say that calling the stuff they're talking about "torture" is kind of diminishing the significance of the concept of torture. Sure, at the extreme, we can call a lot of things torture. To me listening to rap music over the PA system when I go to a football game is torture.

The stuff described at http://io9.com/the-10-most-gruesome-tor ... 1626942115" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, for example, is torture. For example:

7. Rat Torture

Rats have also been employed to perform torture. There were many variants, but a common technique was to force a starving rat through a victim's body (usually the intestines) as a way to escape.

To make it work, prisoners were completely restrained and tied to the ground or any horizontal surface. A rat was then placed on the stomach covered by a metallic container, which was gradually heated. The rat began to look for a way out, which inevitably meant through the victim's body. Digging through the body usually took a few hours, resulting in a painful and gruesome death.

Calling stuff like sleep deprivation and water boarding "torture" is really kind of ludicrous to me. To me it shows a lack of historical perspective of what "torture" has been understood to be.

You don't need a historical perspective for something in the 21st Century to be torture. Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain on someone as either punishment or as means to obtain information. The effects of sleep deprivation or the psychological effects of feeling like you're drowning are intense. And to suggest that they are ludicrous goes to show how little you know about the topic.

[Ibanez]

The point isn't what you call it. The point is that it doesn't work.

That is in dispute.

Besides, I'm not missing the point in terms of what I'm getting at.

And the point is that, whether it works or not, it's ridiculous to call things like water boarding and sleep deprivation "torture."

If you told me ahead of time that I was going to be tortured if I was captured I'd be very concerned. But then if you told me what you're talking about is water boarding or sleep deprivation I'd be extremely relieved.

That's because when you said I'd be tortured I'd think of stuff like the stuff at that link I posted above. I don't care HOW bad water boarding is when you experience it. I'd know it doesn't really hurt you or damage you. And sleep deprivation? OK it'd be unpleasant. But it's not like the stuff at that link I posted.

I would love to see you act in a water boarding situation. I'm 100% positive that you would change your tune. Torture can be any method. Playing loud music, 24/7, in a small room can be torture.


Reading your posts are often times torture.

[GannonFan]

It's hard to read this thing as anything other than a political shot across the bow, and as a way for Feinstein to separate herself for knowing about a lot of this, and other things (NSA spying) and her not doing anything about it at the time. It's basically her trying to adjust her legacy while she still has a chance to rewrite it.

I think most reasonable people agree that we did torture people and that, at times, we crossed the line and did bad things. The thing is, we knew about all of this 5 years ago at least, so what's new in this report that we didn't already know?

And the conclusion that Feinstein offers that we didn't get any information from doing this that we couldn't have gotten by other means has been contradicted many times by people on both sides of the aisle. Heck, Leon Pannetta says in his autobiography that we did get information from doing this that we couldn't have gotten otherwise. It doesn't make what we did right in terms of right or wrong, it just adds more fuel to the fire as to what we would do next time we find ourselves, as a nation, having to make the hard decisions as to what we do in times of war. Not easy questions to answer.

[Grizalltheway]

That is in dispute.

Besides, I'm not missing the point in terms of what I'm getting at.

And the point is that, whether it works or not, it's ridiculous to call things like water boarding and sleep deprivation "torture."

If you told me ahead of time that I was going to be tortured if I was captured I'd be very concerned. But then if you told me what you're talking about is water boarding or sleep deprivation I'd be extremely relieved.

That's because when you said I'd be tortured I'd think of stuff like the stuff at that link I posted above. I don't care HOW bad water boarding is when you experience it. I'd know it doesn't really hurt you or damage you. And sleep deprivation? OK it'd be unpleasant. But it's not like the stuff at that link I posted.

Reading your posts are often times torture.

We'd know everything we wanted to if we employed this method.

[Ibanez]

It's hard to read this thing as anything other than a political shot across the bow, and as a way for Feinstein to separate herself for knowing about a lot of this, and other things (NSA spying) and her not doing anything about it at the time. It's basically her trying to adjust her legacy while she still has a chance to rewrite it.

I think most reasonable people agree that we did torture people and that, at times, we crossed the line and did bad things. The thing is, we knew about all of this 5 years ago at least, so what's new in this report that we didn't already know?

And the conclusion that Feinstein offers that we didn't get any information from doing this that we couldn't have gotten by other means has been contradicted many times by people on both sides of the aisle. Heck, Leon Pannetta says in his autobiography that we did get information from doing this that we couldn't have gotten otherwise. It doesn't make what we did right in terms of right or wrong, it just adds more fuel to the fire as to what we would do next time we find ourselves, as a nation, having to make the hard decisions as to what we do in times of war. Not easy questions to answer.

Very good post. This isn't anything new. It's political fodder.

[ASUG8]

It's hard to read this thing as anything other than a political shot across the bow, and as a way for Feinstein to separate herself for knowing about a lot of this, and other things (NSA spying) and her not doing anything about it at the time. It's basically her trying to adjust her legacy while she still has a chance to rewrite it.

I think most reasonable people agree that we did torture people and that, at times, we crossed the line and did bad things. The thing is, we knew about all of this 5 years ago at least, so what's new in this report that we didn't already know?

And the conclusion that Feinstein offers that we didn't get any information from doing this that we couldn't have gotten by other means has been contradicted many times by people on both sides of the aisle. Heck, Leon Pannetta says in his autobiography that we did get information from doing this that we couldn't have gotten otherwise. It doesn't make what we did right in terms of right or wrong, it just adds more fuel to the fire as to what we would do next time we find ourselves, as a nation, having to make the hard decisions as to what we do in times of war. Not easy questions to answer.

Very good post. This isn't anything new. It's political fodder.

I'd add it's diversionary to keep our attention focused elsewhere from ACA, IRS, NSA, etc.

[Ibanez]

Very good post. This isn't anything new. It's political fodder.

I'd add it's diversionary to keep our attention focused elsewhere from ACA, IRS, NSA, etc.

Add America's dissatisfaction with President Obama.

[andy7171]

If I were an enemy combatant, I think I would probabley choose to be waterboarded and forced to stand listening to Barney over being beheaded. But that's just me.

[ASUG8]

If I were an enemy combatant, I think I would probabley choose to be waterboarded and forced to stand listening to Barney over being beheaded. But that's just me.

Well, one of those techniques is likely survivable, then other, notsomuch.

[Grizalltheway]

Cheney and Rummie will be too busy Eifel Tower-ing her.

You don't fool me, douchebag. You'd give a million bucks for five minutes with that sweet honeypot.

[Ibanez]

President George W. Bush was never briefed by the Central Intelligence Agency on the details of harsh interrogation techniques and secret detention of terror suspects for the first four years of its controversial program, and when he did find out the details, he was “uncomfortable” with some of the practices, according to a long-awaited report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The 500-page declassified executive summary of the majority staff’s 6,700-page investigation into CIA rendition, detention and interrogation practices after Sept. 11 states that despite agency efforts to keep the Bush administration informed about the program, top White House officials repeatedly resisted having the CIA brief cabinet-level figures about the details, and CIA officials were not permitted to brief Bush directly until mid-2006, more than four years after the president signed a broad executive order authorizing the program, according to Senate Democratic aides who briefed reporters ahead of today’s release.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2 ... n-the-dark" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Ibanez]

I do not need to read the report to know that the Democratic staff alone wrote it. The Republicans checked out early when they determined that their counterparts started out with the premise that the CIA was guilty and then worked to prove it.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2 ... /20088647/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[travelinman67]

I do not need to read the report to know that the Democratic staff alone wrote it. The Republicans checked out early when they determined that their counterparts started out with the premise that the CIA was guilty and then worked to prove it.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2 ... /20088647/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Already posted above, Illiterati.

Reading: It's a good thing.

[Ibanez]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2 ... /20088647/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Already posted above, Illiterati.

Reading: It's a good thing.

My mistake, curmudgeon.

Try not being a prick: It's a good thing.

[Grizalltheway]

Already posted above, Illiterati.

Reading: It's a good thing.

My mistake, curmudgeon.

Try not being a prick: It's a good thing.

Ease up, it's a genetic thing with him.

[andy7171]

President George W. Bush was never briefed by the Central Intelligence Agency on the details of harsh interrogation techniques and secret detention of terror suspects for the first four years of its controversial program, and when he did find out the details, he was “uncomfortable” with some of the practices, according to a long-awaited report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The 500-page declassified executive summary of the majority staff’s 6,700-page investigation into CIA rendition, detention and interrogation practices after Sept. 11 states that despite agency efforts to keep the Bush administration informed about the program, top White House officials repeatedly resisted having the CIA brief cabinet-level figures about the details, and CIA officials were not permitted to brief Bush directly until mid-2006, more than four years after the president signed a broad executive order authorizing the program, according to Senate Democratic aides who briefed reporters ahead of today’s release.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2 ... n-the-dark" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Awesome! So the last swipe at the Bush Administration by the Democrats ends up giving him a pass of most of the knowledge of the program. All that comes out of this is a reason to kill Americans and a chink in our national defense.

[ASUG8]

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2 ... n-the-dark" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Awesome! So the last swipe at the Bush Administration by the Democrats ends up giving him a pass of most of the knowledge of the program. All that comes out of this is a reason to kill Americans and a chink in our national defense.

It's funny that you think this will be the "last swipe" at the Bush Administration. I'll bet the BHO Presidential library will be devoted to swipes.

[andy7171]

Awesome! So the last swipe at the Bush Administration by the Democrats ends up giving him a pass of most of the knowledge of the program. All that comes out of this is a reason to kill Americans and a chink in our national defense.

It's funny that you think this will be the "last swipe" at the Bush Administration. I'll bet the BHO Presidential library will be devoted to swipes.

Sorry. Last swipe by Congress while still in Democrat control. I expect everything coming out to be muted from here on out. By Congress itself. The swipes will still be set to full on blast by MSNBC and CNN with every upcoming White House fail.