quote:

Originally posted by Lesbianosaur (CNN) — Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that waterboarding should not be used regularly in interrogations, but might be called for in a “once in a lifetime, once in a decade situation.” "Having looked at this, it certainly should not be a practice that should go on generally,” the former mayor of New York said in an interview in Columbia, Missouri. But Giuliani told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that there may be situations where waterboarding — a technique where a person undergoes simulated drowning — would be warranted to obtain critical information from an alleged terrorist, such as the location of a nuclear bomb about to explode. Many human rights organizations consider waterboarding to be torture. "I don't think you can write this out as a procedure that should be write out for all situations,” Giuliani said. “I think the president and the appropriate officials should have some discretion here.” –CNN.com Senior Political Producer Scott Anderson

WHAT? ARE YOU SERIOUS?

quote:

Originally posted by Lesbianosaur Given the evidence of its imperfection and the fact that it goes against everything we stand for, I really struggle more and more to understand how people can justify the use of torture.

That's what it is man.

It hurts me to know that someone in my nation, which has spouted freedom and goodness from the word go, has taken pre-emptive measures without my knowledge and broken every law and sentiment that we've held dear to what it SHOULD mean to be an American.

I'm fucking ashamed as always, the last 7 years have just been repeats in shame. If only we monkeys had a little more foresight, if not for ourselves, than for our progeny.

We can blow each other up left and right for however many decades or centuries we deem necessary... but the fact remains, the central issue requires a bit of empathy.

quote:

CIA withheld al Qaeda tapes from 9/11 panel-paper NEW YORK, Dec 22 (Reuters) - The Sept. 11 commission asked the CIA in 2003 and 2004 for information on the interrogation of al Qaeda suspects, only to be told the agency provided all that was requested, The New York Times reported on Saturday. The CIA said on Dec. 6 it destroyed hundreds of hours of videotape in 2005 showing interrogations of al Qaeda suspects Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, prompting former members of the commission to review classified documents. The taped interrogations were believed to show a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding that rights activists have condemned as torture. The Sept. 11 commission's chairmen, Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean, said their reading of the review, a copy of which the newspaper obtained, convinced them the CIA made a conscious decision to impede the panel's inquiry, the Times said. A memo prepared by Philip Zelikow, the panel's former executive director, concluded that "further investigation is needed" to determine whether the CIA's withholding of the interrogation tapes from the commission violated U.S. law, the paper reported. CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield on Saturday said the CIA gave the commission "a wealth of information" and did not destroy the tapes while the commission was active. "The 9/11 commission certainly had access to, and drew from, detailed information that had been provided by terrorist detainees," Mansfield said in an e-mail. "That's how they reconstructed the plot in their comprehensive report." "Because it was thought the commission could ask about tapes at some point, they were not destroyed while the commission was active. As Director Hayden pointed out in his December 6th statement, the tapes were destroyed only when it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative or judicial inquiries," Mansfield said. The CIA said it destroyed the tapes lawfully to protect the agents involved in the interrogations, but the news prompted an outcry from rights activists and Democrats in Congress, as well as investigations by the Bush administration and Congress. The commission investigated what went wrong before and after al Qaeda militants used hijacked commercial airliners to attack the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. The panel's report called for an overhaul of the U.S. intelligence community. Kean, a Republican and former New Jersey governor, said the panel would give the memo to federal prosecutors and lawmakers looking into the destruction of the tapes. A CIA spokesman told the Times the agency had been prepared to provide the Sept. 11 commission with the tapes, but was never asked to do so. "I don't know whether that's illegal or not, but it's certainly wrong," Kean said of the CIA's decision not to disclose the existence of the tapes. Hamilton, a Democrat and former Indiana congressman, said the agency "clearly obstructed" the commission's investigation. NOT HOLDING BACK Among statements that the memo suggested were misleading was a June 2004 assertion by John McLaughlin, deputy director of central intelligence, that the CIA had "taken and completed all reasonable steps necessary to find the documents in its possession, custody or control" in response to the panel's requests and "has produced or made available for review" all such documents, the Times said. Kean and Hamilton expressed anger once it was revealed the tapes had been destroyed, the paper said. The Times said Zelikow's report provides more evidence to bolster their views about the CIA's actions and was likely to put more pressure on the Bush administration over its handling of the matter. McLaughlin told the Times that agency officials had always been candid with the commission and that information from the CIA proved central to their work. "We weren't playing games with them, and we weren't holding anything back," the paper quoted him as saying. The memo draws no conclusions about whether the withholding of the tapes was unlawful, but notes that federal law penalizes anyone who knowingly withholds or covers up a material fact from a federal inquiry or makes a false statement to investigators, the Times reported. (Editing by John O'Callaghan) LOL

This is getting messier.

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Download and review ! Omega_M - In the Mix (Beta Version)

Originally posted by twilightki : It feels like something you'd listen to at 4 in the morning, or listen to in your car while you're going in a tunnel.

Seems this Navy JAG had enough of this insane bullshit, especially when Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser at Guantanamo Bay, refused to call waterboarding torture:

quote:

It was with sadness that I signed my name this grey morning to a letter resigning my commission in the U.S. Navy. There was a time when I served with pride, knowing that by serving with the finest men and women in the country, we were part of an organization whose core values required us to “do the right thing,” and that we were far different from the Soviet Union and its gulags, the Vietcong with their torture camps and a society of surveillance and informers like Nazi Germany. We were part of the shining light on the hill who didn’t do those things. Sadly, no more. The final straw for me was listening to General Hartmann, the highest-ranking military lawyer in charge of the military commissions, testify that he refused to say that waterboarding captured U.S. soldiers by Iranian operatives would be torture. His testimony had just sold all the soldiers and sailors at risk of capture and subsequent torture down the river. Indeed, he would not rule out waterboarding as torture when done by the United States and indeed felt evidence obtained by such methods could be used in future trials. Thank you, General Hartmann, for finally admitting the United States is now part of a long tradition of torturers going back to the Inquisition. In the middle ages, the Inquisition called waterboarding “toca” and used it with great success. In colonial times, it was used by the Dutch East India Company during the Amboyna Massacre of 1623. Waterboarding was used by the Nazi Gestapo and the feared Japanese Kempeitai. In World War II, our grandfathers had the wisdom to convict Japanese Officer Yukio Asano of waterboarding and other torture practices in 1947, giving him 15 years hard labor. Waterboarding was practiced by the Khmer Rouge at the infamous Tuol Sleng prison. Most recently, the U.S. Army court martialed a soldier for the practice in 1968 during the Vietnam conflict. General Hartmann, following orders was not an excuse for anyone put on trial in Nuremberg, and it will not be an excuse for you or your superiors, either. Despite the CIA and the administration attempting to cover up the practice by destroying interrogation tapes, in direct violation of a court order, and congressional requests, the truth about torture, illegal spying on Americans and secret renditions is coming out. Andrew Williams, Gig Harbor http://www.gateline.com/opinion/story/295.html

Hopefully it will continue to come out as he says.

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Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

Judge demands to know why CIA tapes trashed

Associated Press
January 25, 2008


WASHINGTON -- A federal judge said Thursday that CIA interrogation videotapes may have been relevant to a case he's presiding over, and he gave the Bush administration three weeks to explain why they were destroyed in 2005 and say whether other evidence was destroyed.

Several judges are considering wading into the dispute over the videos, but U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts was the first to demand a written report on the matter. The order is a legal setback for the Bush administration, which has urged courts not to get involved.

The tapes showed harsh interrogation tactics used by CIA officers questioning Al Qaeda suspects Abu Zubaydah and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri in 2002. The Justice Department and Congress are investigating the destruction of the tapes.

When they were destroyed, the government was under various court orders to retain evidence relevant to terrorism suspects at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After it became public in December that the tapes had been destroyed, lawyers for several detainees went to court demanding to know more.

"There's enough there that it's worth asking" whether other videos or documents were also destroyed, said attorney Charles H. Carpenter. "I don't know the answer to that question, but the government does know the answer, and now they have to tell Judge Roberts."

The Justice Department has warned that a judicial inquiry could jeopardize the criminal investigation.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw....story?ctrack=1