So they did notice

That Mukasey slipped up and actually let some information out:

Conyers, Judiciary Members Demand Answers from Attorney General on 9/11 Surveillance (Washington, DC)- Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and Subcommittee Chairmen Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Robert “Bobby” C. Scott (D-VA) sent a letter to United States Attorney General Michael Mukasey demanding answers about a recent public statement claiming there was a pre-9/11 call from a terrorist safe house in Afghanistan that was apparently not intercepted by federal authorities. The Members also followed up on previous requests for an October 2001 Office of Legal Counsel memo providing legal analysis about the President’s war powers. The letter notes: “The notion that the President can claim to operate under ’secret’ powers known only to the President and a select few subordinates is antithetical to the core principles of this democracy.”

Now let's see how fast Mukasey will not be able to recall what he meant by saying what he doesn't really remember saying just a few days ago...

crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

Tortured argument

We don't torture because what others call torture the preznit doesn't call torture, so nobody can call it torture even if it is torture because we said it's not torture....

In 2005, CIA officials ordered the destruction of videotapes depicting the harsh interrogation of prisoners in the agency's secret overseas prisons. CIA Director Michael Hayden admitted that in December 2007 amid a public debate over the use of "waterboarding" on detainees and whether or not the technique — which simulates drowning — constituted torture. At that time, Hayden said that only a few prisoners were ever subjected to "special interrogation techniques," which can include waterboarding, and that nothing was recorded on video after 2002. That claim is now coming under additional scrutiny, in part due to a classified briefing that will be delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence this Friday. Lawyers for one current Guantanamo detainee tell TIME that they plan to present evidence that he was subjected to unspecified "systematic torture" that was videotaped when he was held in secret CIA prisons. The lawyers say the alleged videotaped torture took place after his arrest in 2003.

Majid Khan, 27, a former suburban Baltimore high school student, was first seized by authorities in Pakistan, where he said he was visiting his brother. Khan then spent more than three years in a secret overseas CIA "black site" before President Bush ordered his transfer to Guantanamo along with 13 other high-value detainees. Also transferred was alleged 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheik Mohammed, who had allegedly ordered Khan to research attacks on American water reservoirs and gas stations.

Khan's lawyers are armed with more than 500 pages of top-secret notes taken during recent sessions with their client at Guantanamo; they will use the material to describe his interrogation and detention to the Intelligence Committee. Though details are highly classified, his lawyers claim that he and others were tortured and videotaped, charges that Hayden and other CIA officials deny. On Feb. 5, Hayden admitted to Congress that the CIA had used waterboarding on Khaled Sheik Mohammed and two others. The CIA continues to assert that it does not engage in torture.

Picture taken from article.

Attorney General Mukasey joins the ranks of those using the Nuremberg excuse,"I was just following orders."




Crossposted at Rants from the Rookery.

Update: The White House would consider using waterboarding again:

In congressional testimony yesterday, CIA director Michael Hayden confirmed that his agency used waterboarding on three al Qaeda suspects. In 2006, Hayden banned the use of waterboarding in CIA interrogations. The Pentagon also banned its employees from using it, and the FBI said its investigators do not use coercive tactics in interviewing terror suspects.

But in today’s gaggle, White House said that it may approve the use of waterboarding again “depend[ing] upon circumstances”:

“It will depend upon circumstances,” spokesman Tony Fratto said, adding “the belief that an attack might be imminent, that could be a circumstance that you would definitely want to consider.”

Later, in a press briefing, Fratto tried to distance himself from these remarks, claiming that he only was talking about “the process” of approving waterboarding. “I’m not speculating,” he declared.

Click on the link to watch him backpedal.

Update 5:00: Blue Girl at BlueGirl, Red State says it best:

When the current occupant authorized waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" (call them what they are: torture) he sold America's soul, and illustrated Ben Franklin's observation that those who would trade away their freedoms for a false sense of security deserve neither.

Waterboarding is torture. Period. Full stop.

It has long since been classified as such, and Congress is considering taking up legislation banning the CIA from using it. It is already prohibited under the Army Field Manual.

I am the ultimate Cold War brat. I have some pretty set-in-stone ideas and ideals. One of them is that we simply don't do things like that. There truly are prices that are simply too high to pay. Abdicating the moral high ground out of fear is one of them.

I realize full measure that "American Exceptionalism" was always a myth - but at least we used to pretend to behave in an exceptional manner.

Smile for me, my Diane

Just faxed to 4 of my senior senator Feinstein's 5 offices (sorry, Fresno, you really don't count):


Sen. Diane Feinstein
One Post Street, Suite 2450
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 393-0707
Fax: (415) 393-0710


Dear Sen. Feinstein:

I am appalled by your decision to support Michael Mukasey for Attorney General. His refusal to acknowledge “waterboarding” as torture is so far outside the American mainstream as to be intolerable. And it is in clear violation of our Constitution.

As you can see from my address, I am a constituent of yours. I also am a blogger, both at my own blog, http://SteveAudio.blogspot.com and at http://HuffingtonPost.com , so you see I have access to a pretty large megaphone. If you vote to confirm Mr. Mukasey, I can no longer support you, and I will work to support any Democrat who challenges you for your seat during the next election cycle.



Regretfully yours,

Stephen Anderson


Here are the other 3 addresses:

Sen. Diane Feinstein
11111 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 915
Los Angeles, CA 90025
Phone: (310) 914-7300
Fax: (310) 914-7318


Sen. Diane Feinstein
750 B Street, Suite 1030
San Diego, CA 92101
Phone: (619) 231-9712
Fax: (619) 231-1108


Sen. Diane Feinstein
United States Senate
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone: (202) 224-3841
Fax: (202) 228-3954

Torture me with sorcery, it's forcin' me so torture me

(image h/t to One Utah)

John Kerry, who was actually in combat and, some say, shot at and wounded, has this to say about "Waterboard" Mukasey:

"Judge Mukasey’s refusal to classify the barbaric practice of waterboarding as torture waves a red flag about his nomination to serve an Administration that has adhered to the Cheney doctrine on executive power and torture. I am not comfortable confirming anyone who cannot see that this method of interrogation is antithetical to American values and traditions – especially not to a position that is charged with representing our entire justice system. We need to reestablish faith in the Department of Justice.

“Many of us wanted to believe that Judge Mukasey could undo the damage of the Gonzales years. Unfortunately his lack of candor and his refusal to acknowledge this abuse of power suggest he is unable or unwilling to do so, and this is why I will be opposing Judge Mukasey’s nomination to be the next Attorney General of the United States."

Damn straight.

Of course, even though Mukasey is supposed to be the Top Legal Officer in All The Land™, he's really just a beard:

Mukasey is not a free agent. He had been strictly briefed and in his testimony was following orders. He has avoided calling waterboarding torture because that is consistent with the administration's position and past practice. Mukasey's refusal to disavow waterboarding reveals his acceptance of his assignment to a secondary role as attorney general, an inferior agent, not a constitutional officer, to certain political appointees in the White House.

Those who are responsible for waterboarding have defined and dictated Mukasey's evasions. His acquiescence demonstrates that no one in his position could take a contrary view to that of David Addington, Vice President Cheney's former counsel and now chief of staff, who directed and coauthored the infamous memos by former deputy assistant director of the Office of Legal Counsel John Yoo justifying torture, and charged the current acting director of OLC, Stephen Bradbury, to issue new memos rationalizing it.

So Mukasey is the public face of the administration's unconstitutional torture policy, appointed to rubber-stamp Addington's and Cheney's evil fantasies of playing Jack Bauer.

Or, as commenter Fluffy writes at Lawyers, Guns, and Money:

TR wasn't masculine for the simple reason that he wasn't a man. He was a boy.

All "national greatness" types are essentially adolescent boys.

That's because they don't really dream of national greatness. They dream of personal greatness, with greatness being defined as being the star of their own comic book. I don't think you can underestimate the impact of the "Buffalo Bill" style popular culture of newspapers and pulp magazines in the second half of the 19th century, and their role in producing Hemingwayesque personalities like TR and, well, like Hemingway himself.

They wanted to grow up and have people write pulp stories about them, like the stories they read about Custer and Wyatt Earp. All of the rest of it is rationalization to that end.

Indeed.

Bastards.