Setting Limits

Steve Chapman of Reason does not seem to have an appreciation for shades of gray in the torture debate.  His Big Finish:

And if effectiveness is the only gauge, why even debate whether these techniques fit the definition of torture? The problem with using "it worked" as an argument is that it justifies too much. By that rationale, we can justify subjecting enemy captives to every form of torture ever devised. We can even justify torturing and killing their spouses, siblings, parents, and children, right in front of them.

Cheney and others have yet to advocate going that far. But if they really believe what they say about the techniques we've used, here's a question they need to answer: Why not?

Well, "it worked" is one part of the argument.  If the enhanced interrogation techniques were ineffective they would have no justification at all, but the reverse does not follow.

And while decrying an absence of limits Mr. Chapman is incredibly hazy about his own:

Enforced sleeplessness, [Solzhenitsyn] explained, was favored because it was cheap, easy, and left no marks on the prisoner—not to mention that it was effective. Solzhenitsyn attested from bitter experience that "it is not really necessary to use a rack or hot coals to drive a human being out of his mind."

But American intelligence officials also learned something from the Soviets about manipulating language to conceal reality. When our enemies use methods like this, they amount to torture. When we do, they don't. A newly released 2002 memo from a Bush administration official authorized keeping prisoners awake because "we are not aware of any evidence that sleep deprivation results in severe physical pain or suffering."

...The former is obviously untrue as well as dishonest: Solzhenitsyn makes that clear. So do numerous U.S. government reports accusing various regimes of violating human rights through such forms of torture as sleep deprivation. Likewise, the U.S. government used to take a negative view of waterboarding. But apparently we only object when we're not the ones doing it.

Is that really all Mr. Chapman took from his study of the OLC memos?  Let me pose the same riddle I posed earlier today - is all sleep deprivation "torture"?  How about four hours?  How about for four days?  (I think we will all conced four weeks is torture).  Does Mr. Chapman recognize any limit at all, or do prisoners have some heretofore unrecognized Universal Right to Naptime?  (And does that right extend to Presidential advisers?)

And if Mr. Chapman is bold enough to pick a limit, as the OLC lawyers were asked to do, why is he right?  Why can't we decide, in the fullness of time and with the benefit of hindsight, that Mr. Chapman is a lawless torturere for having opined that. e.g., forty-eight hours of sleeplessness can be inflicted when every right-thinking person knows the correct limit is thirty-six?

I wonder what the OLC should have done when faced with the question of when and whether sleep deprivation crosses the line into torture.  The safe course would have been to find a Universal Right to Naptime, but I don't know how realistic that would have been.  And I am curious to see how Mr. Chapman chooses. 

Comments

[bad]

"Enforced sleeplessness"

What did the CIA do, give them menopause?

[clarice]

My son's an adult now. I think I'll sue him. For the first hand reports about the effects of sleep deprivation , ask a parent.

How stupid is this "debate"? About as dumb as the ones during the campaign. As far as I can see the thinking at OLC was this:
These are bad guys who've badly harmed us and are plotting yet new ways to do this over and again.

We have an obligation to prevent this.

We need to find the most effective yet humane (no lasting psychological or physical harm) way to break these guys.

Since we use these techniques on our own guys (SERE) we hace some empirical evidence upon which to base our red line and that is what we'll do.

Everything in life requires some balancing..except for nitwits.

[Pofarmer]

This whole debate is torture.

Oh.

And Ameren UE just announced they are scrapping plans for a second reactor station at Callaway Nuclear plant. So much for the hundreds of high paying UNION jobs that would have created. So much for "Energy Independence" Pheh.

Change if you can keep your lights on.

If we run this bunch out on a rail, where the hell do we run them too? This is ridiculous. All of our energy infrastructure is getting older, and they wanna put 100KW hydrokinetic generators on the Mississippi. Whoop de do.. Smart grid. Yippee, that'll be great with no generation to put in it. We won't need smart meters, we'll need magic meters.

This is gonna be a long, long, long reccession folks, and this gang is doing everything possible to prolong it.

[PMII]

When I'm President I promise to try the current administration - every single one of them on charges to be determined at a later date. I will probably have to water board some of them but that's the breaks. Hope I can rent out Six Flags for the day. I plan to auction off tickets to the public for these proceedings. Expect it to pay off the national debt - well the old one not the new one.

[lurking]

This guy misses an important point. Everyone seems to agree that unenhanced techniques, like getting the guy on your side, work best for gathering accurate intelligence, when time is not of the essence. Most also agree than 'enhanced' techniques AKA torture are not reliable for getting actionable intelligence, even in the short term.

But this is the important point: Waterboarding is an exception to the general rule about 'torture'. It does give actionable intelligence when time is of the essence. It is a smart bomb to the central nervous system. See 'diving reflex'.

Unless waterboarding is regulated, and used only in extraordinary circumstances, with approval at high levels, it will come to be abused. Try telling armed forces, who've just been through a little episode of threatening and receiving threats of mortality, AKA combat, that they cannot use waterboarding on captives, when the safety of comrades may still be at risk.

Inevitably, because it is so effective, and because it leaves no marks, the technique will come into use, whether we like it or not. It should be common knowledge that its use is available, when absolutely necessary, but not to be used casually. The technique should be regulated, safe, legal, and rare. We invite abuse otherwise.

The point this guy is missing is that waterboarding constitutes its own separate brand of interrogation, not to be confused or confounded with other 'crude' methods.

[verner]

And if effectiveness is the only gauge, why even debate whether these techniques fit the definition of torture? The problem with using "it worked" as an argument is that it justifies too much. By that rationale, we can justify subjecting enemy captives to every form of torture ever devised. We can even justify torturing and killing their spouses, siblings, parents, and children, right in front of them.

Reductio Ad Absurdum, and another one for Ethics 101.
Give it up.
If A-Q had one of their loved ones, they'd be begging the CIA to Water Board the creeps.

As TM says, Cheap Grace.

[Extraneus]

If we run this bunch out on a rail, where the hell do we run them too?

Maybe we need a Plan-B, Po.

Rumour spreadin' around
In that Texas town
'bout that shack outside La Grange...

[verner]

Indeed, I'm ignoring all of them until one of the Obama fans comes forward and says, under oath:

"They had my four year old, and told me they were going to chop her head off on video. The CIA told me they could water board an enemy captive that they believed had vital information--but I declined, because torture is never justified by 'it worked.'

That's right, they cut my kid's head off, but at least I've got my principles, and the world loves the USA!!!"

[centralcal]

Setting limits?

Obama is having ANOTHER prime time press conference next Wednesday.

[Jane]

Obama is having ANOTHER prime time press conference next Wednesday.

One can only imagine what he plans to take from us.

[Cecil Turner]

Talk about dishonest:

A newly released 2002 memo from a Bush administration official authorized keeping prisoners awake because "we are not aware of any evidence that sleep deprivation results in severe physical pain or suffering."

A simple word search shows 250 instances of the word "sleep" in the memos (five times on the page of the quoted passage alone). The implication that this is the sum total of the analsyis is ridiculously misleading. The memos go into ad nauseam detail over various levels of sleep deprivation and their effects, and whether it exacerbates other techniques, and the requirement to have medical staff standing by to stop this (or other techniques) if the detainee were having an atypical reaction.

Whatever your view of the subject, this doesn't enhance understanding. Like the talking point that we used to "take a negative view of waterboarding," it's a silly argument based on phony parallels.

[Pofarmer]

Obama is having ANOTHER prime time press conference next Wednesday.

Viva El Presidente!!!!!!

On a related note, he's supposed to give an ACORN pep talk in St. Louis sometime soon.

[bad]

This is what he's going to talk about:

Bill O'Reilly on Glen Beck says GE, parent company of NBC, the Obama network, has set up a division to profit from Cap-and-Trade.

I'm sure it's all in the interest of acountability, transparency, and full disclosure.

[Pofarmer]

"Secede"

I'm starting to think that Obama really does idolize Lincoln.

[Danube of Thought]

What's the statute of limitations on torture? Why not go back and get 'em all?

"[T]he US military ran the notorious School of the Americas from 1946 to 1984, a sinister educational institution that, if it had a motto, might have been 'We do torture'. It is here in Panama, and later at the school's new location in Fort Benning, Georgia, where the roots of the current torture scandals can be found.

"According to declassified training manuals, SOA students - military and police officers from across the hemisphere - were instructed in many of the same "coercive interrogation" techniques that have since gone to Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib: early morning capture to maximise shock, immediate hooding and blindfolding, forced nudity, sensory deprivation, sensory overload, sleep and food "manipulation", humiliation, extreme temperatures, isolation, stress positions - and worse. In 1996 President Clinton's Intelligence Oversight Board admitted that US-produced training materials condoned 'execution of guerrillas, extortion, physical abuse, coercion and false imprisonment'".

(From the UK Guardian)

[centralcal]

"...where the roots of the current torture scandals can be found."

Oh brother!

[BC]

If sleep deprivation regardless of duration is torture, then I would like to file a human rights complaint against my law school.

[hit and run]

Chapman:
And if effectiveness is the only gauge

Only guage?

Of course effectiveness will be a guage in the consideration -- unless, as some might claim, the US really just wants to pull fingernails from babies out of lust for pain, doing anything ineffective is pointless.

But where the hell did the idea that it was the only guage come from?

I mean, I've heard for years that torture doesn't work, the statement that waterboarding was torture...so logically therefore, waterboarding cannot work.

But, when confronted with evidence that it does work, which would either 1) disprove that an act of torture doesn't work; or 2) prove that waterboarding isn't torture (according to their definitions)...where do the "torture doesn't work and waterboarding is torture" crowd go?

Well. http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/04/not-a-lawyer-or-even-a-clear-thinker.html>Sullivan gave us something along the lines of: "if it does work (causes them to talk and tell the truth), then it's torture".

Sullivan takes the "if" out of the "if effectiveness is the only guage".

Guage we can believe in.

[bad]

Gauge? Are we talking energy policy again?

[clarice]

Nicely done, Hit. It's time we got you a radio show, too.

[Old Lurker]

OT for sure, but WTF is wrong with this? Shall we count the ways?:

"DETROIT (Reuters) - The Treasury is preparing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing for Chrysler LLC that could come as soon as next week, The New York Times reported on Thursday, citing people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The Treasury has an agreement in principle with the United Auto Workers union to protect pensions and retiree health care benefits as a condition of the bankruptcy filing, the paper said."

Where does the government get off preparing a filing for a private company? Is it acting as a creditor ATTEMPTING to force a filing, or as an owner opting to do so? Where does the government get to negotiate conditions for a BK filing?

Have we come this far, this fast from any notion of free enterprise, where directors do what's best for shareholders, and BK is there to protect and balance the interests of all the parties, and so the assets can be redeployed in an efficient manner. This is state command and control of the first order!

I am so confused!

[Fresh Air]

OL--

Thank you for going off-topic. Anything to relieve the torture of torture, especially if it involves substandard thinkers like Steve "The Tribune runs me so I must be for real" Chapman. [Groan]

Yeah, since when is it appropriate for a creditor/investor to draw up the Chapter 11 filing? By the way, which is it? Do we own Chrysler or just have a claim on its assets? If the thing never comes out, do all taxpayers get new Dodge pickups?

[Rick Ballard]

FA,

I'll bet you $1 that the 10 year breaks 3.05 and holds by next Friday.

I'll also bet that the Feds promise to the UAW thugs re their pensions gets a very serious challenge by senior bondholders.

I wonder when ZombieMotors is going to start bringing in Chicom SlaveDrivers to offset the lack of sales of the WidowMakers?

[Soylent Red]

First of all, if sleep deprivation is torture, then I submit the current Administration is guilty as well. Aren't you laying awake at night wondering what they'll screw up next?

Now...

What all the self-righteous civil libertarians are missing is that:

a. we are at war with these people; and
b. Presidents are call on during time of war to make hard decisions

It's not like GWB, Cheney, or the CIA sat down one day and worked out a way to justify torture so they could get their rocks off. It falls under the heading of cost-benefit analysis. Presidents do it all the time, and during wartime the two sides of the equation become weightier and the consequences of a wrong decision more dire.

For instance, do we kill a whole bunch of semi-innocent women and children, quietly folding paper cranes, with an atom bomb, or, do we allow hundreds of thousands of US soldiers to die wresting control of the country from not-so-innocent fanatics?

Do we saturation bomb industrial cities to reduce the warmaking capacity of an out of control government, or, do we allow that warmaking capacity to continue to devise new and improved ways of killing Americans?

Do we invest American lives and money in protecting helpless political victims overseas, or, do we save our lives and money and let the unlucky bastards fend for themselves, while we have a second helping of cake?

You know...little Presidential leadership conundrums like that.

So when it comes to torture, do you use a means that you know will produce raw intelligence for corroboration and analysis, hoping that by pushing back your regular moral boundary you will save lives, or, do you do gently question a detainee (who can endure 2:30 of waterboarding), and hope for the best?

You answer that question by viewing the situation through the lens of what you hold to be most important. It's clear that GWB held the safety of the American people to be the most important thing. He said so on many occasions. And so, in order to accomplish that thing he held most important, as opposed to say, having the world praise his public moral stance on torture, he pushed back his moral boundary and did what a leader should do. And I'll bet he took no joy in it.

President Moobs won't be burdened by decisions of that magnitude. The safety of the American people comes in behind feeding his ego in his list of priorities.

[sbw]

Speaking of torture, as I was flipping through the channels past CNN, someone was talking about a Republican push to get Michael Steele to label Obama a socialist. The talking head asked David Gergen about it.

The Gherkin replied that he didn't think the majority of Americans thought Obama was a socialist.

And I thought... Hello? Knucklehead? The majority would think Obama was socialist IF YOU DID YOUR JOB! ... If you explained what Obama was doing as any reasonable, professional journalist should. Ya know, tell the American people what they need to know to make informed decisions? But, why would either CNN or that pickle want to do a quality job.

So I turned the channel, lowering CNN's ratings some more.

[matt]

it seems that Politico is breaking the story that Nancy Pelosi knew in detail all about the waterboarding program, and then she denied it.

The only problem for her is that a WaPo article in 2002 outlined the CIA briefing she attended in detail.

The hypocrisy of these assholes is astounding.

[Old Lurker]

Rick, you read, I'm sure, about the Chrysler bondholders rejecting Treasury's proposal that they take about a 75% haircut on their Chrysler secured bonds, and were not even offered stock in return. Bondholders offered a much smaller reduction to be replaced with equity. That position is normal horsetrading; the government's offer was comical. But to my main point above, where do they get off acting as the negotiator for this company? And how in the world do they cook a special deal with one unsecured creditor (UAW) at the expense of the the other, perhaps more secured creditors?

Grrr.

[sbw]

So what is the place of pain in American liberal society? A no-no?

Corporal punishment is torture? A smack on the backside to get someone's attention torture?

Is incarceration the only liberal punishment that is acceptable? For how long? How about solitary? for how long?

[Jack is Back!]

Anyone here posting been through SERE like me? Then do you want to share with Tom's crowd what real "torture" feels like? And especially, if you are one of the lucky SFO's who get to Beta test the Really Super Advanced AIT's it would be nice to compare those to what the wimp universe of lefty wing nuts refer to as "inhumane" and "torture". What a circus. Every serving air crew member and SFO who has been through SERE must be chuckling in their beer tents to the politically absurd theater being presented as Hope and Change.

[matt]

Obama is nationalizing the banks and financial institutions. The auto industry next. Her's pushing programs ranging from cap & trade to government subsidies for solar/wind to bailouts of the states. That's not socialism? How so?

We have a supine media today who have abnegated all responsibility. Take the Constitution and a good definition of socialism and compare them. I think the answer is clear.Obama should be challenged on constitutional grounds, especially since he's a professor of constitutional law.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Cliff May apparently reads JOM.

The hypocrisy of these assholes is astounding.

Mmm, okay.

"Astounding |əˈstoundi ng | |əˈstaʊndɪŋ|(adjective) surprisingly impressive or notable : the summit offers astounding views."

I might have gone for "Appalling: shocking, horrific, horrifying, horrible, terrible, awful, dreadful, ghastly, hideous, horrendous, frightful, atrocious, abominable, abhorrent, outrageous, gruesome, grisly, monstrous, heinous, egregious."

But I was confusing "astounding" with "astonishing", ie surprising. And that it isn't.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Anyone here posting been through SERE like me?

Or been rushed in a fraternity?

[PeterUK]

test

[Old Lurker]

PUK! How's that new 50% tax rate going down over there?

[verner]

YAY Cliff May!! Just what I said!!!:

According to two sources, both of them very well-informed and reliable (but preferring to remain anonymous), the 180-plus times refers not to sessions of waterboarding, but to “pours” — that is, to instances of water being poured on the subject.

Under a strict set of rules, every pour of water had to be counted — and the number of pours was limited.

Also: Waterboarding interrogation sessions were permitted on no more than five days within any 30-day period.

No more than two sessions were permitted in any 24-hour period.

A session could last no longer than two hours.

There could be at most six pours of water lasting ten seconds or longer — and never longer than 40 seconds — during any individual session.

Water could be poured on a subject for a combined total of no more than 12 minutes during any 24 hour period.

[clarice]

Exactly, Soylent..and a hand clap to May for catching up to JOM.

[Jane]

Hey Hit,

Move here and do the radio with me. We would have a blast!

[Rick Ballard]

"where do they get off acting as the negotiator for this company?"

I read it as a Turbo bluff. I've only seen this piece and I'm kinda curious as to what Fiat is actually bringing to the deal if not money. It's not as if there is any marketing cachet attached.

[Danube of Thought]

"I'll bet you $1 that the 10 year breaks 3.05 and holds by next Friday."

What will be the significance of that if it does occur?

[Mark O]

Friends and neighbors, as I frequently say before I begin my serve in a set of tennis, "morituri te salutamus." (I know, I know, I'm singular.) I love to read your postings, although I admit to some weariness of subject. You see, “Broke” Obama is, to paraphrase the red-faced football coach, exactly who I thought he would be. This is the administration of the sublimely unqualified.

To the subject that now draws my attention, the distribution of selected portions of selected memoranda regarding the legal theory of “enhanced” interrogation. First, and least important, the use of the adjective “enhanced” to describe either torture or a prison sentence does violence to the word. “Enhanced” should be used with things like Viagra, where it really means something.

Second, after what seems like two or three lifetimes of litigation experience, I can tell you that a “limited, modified hang-out” always means that the hanger-outer is being deceptive and that a full release of information would not make the same intended point. Most of you know that anyway. For me, I was shocked, no, really shocked to learn that we were dropping fuzzy caterpillars into boxes full of unrepentant combatants. That must be torture. But, only for the crawler not the one seeking virgins. Where is PETA?

I have this question for the lawyers, academics and other sundry worthies here: is killing one of these combatants in the field, except where one is in immediate danger of harm torture? Is every kill by a sniper torture? Was every air strike against any of these “evil doers” [no wonder the effort bogged down] torture? Murder? Why not? Is not “Broke” also exposed to criminal prosecution? Explain yourselves.

Trial by insect may well have been illegal during the Inquisition, but is it now? I just can’t help but wonder how this will go if we apply the notions of self defense to war. These folks were enemy combatants, were they not?

I await the return of serve.m

[Fresh Air]

I'm kinda curious as to what Fiat is actually bringing to the deal if not money

It's that quaint Italian unreliability. It adds a certain frisson to the driving experience when you aren't sure whether your brakes will go out on a mountain descent.

The question I have is when will the union's bacon finally drop into the fire?

[Rick Ballard]

DoT,

It will mwan that the Fed/Treasury shell game involving the Fed injecting cash through the purchase of agencies to fund the purchase of new Treasury issues will have a higher price tag going forward. The 10 year has been ticking up for a bit and Treasury is auctioning about $100 billion of new debt next week.

I think the market is going to ask for more interest. It also decreases the value of China's bond holdings although they will remain deep in the black. 3.05 is a technical level - if it breaks and the break holds then the march to 5% will be underway (IMO, obviously).

Oh yeah - it will drive up the deficit as well.

[Old Lurker]

My take, DoT, S/T the others answering too: 3.05 breaks through the rate that caused the Treasury and the Fed to throw the kitchen sink into the mix last month, printing dollars and massively buying treasuries to force rates down. "The One takes charge..." Dutifully, the bellweather 10yr treasury dropped almost half a point - a huge, fast drop. Proving as usual that you cannot push a string, they are now back where they were and the powder perhaps wasted. Proving also that huff and puff all you want, but central command cannot control a global market for money. Proving also that $45 oil floods the world with fewer dollars and buying less from China breaks that bank too, so there are fewer buyers for our debt and markets then drive prices higher. You ain't seen nothin yet...

[Porchlight]

When is Obama going to start making speeches from balconies?

[Rick Ballard]

"When is Obama going to start making speeches from balconies?"

With the torchlit crowds below crying out

Doofus!!

Doofus!!

Doofus!!

Dunno about when - I'm waiting to hear about an Independence Day March on Washington by the Tea Party. I might just go to that one.

[Old Lurker]

Scary image, Porch, this being Hitler's B'day.

[Old Lurker]

Ooops. should of double checked before showing off. Hitler's was 4/20...

[Soylent Red]

I'm kinda curious as to what Fiat is actually bringing to the deal if not money

Plumes of blue smoke and a vague pinging sound.

[Extraneus]

Is there any way Obama won't pay this guy $10M?

Detainee Claims CIA Tortured Him Before US Memo OK'd It

[ROA]

In 1996 Leslie Stahl asked Secretary of State Madeline Albright: "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And is the price worth it?"
Ambassador Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it ... It is a moral question, but the moral question is even a larger one. Don't we owe to the American people and to the American military and to other countries in the region that this man not be a threat?"
Stahl: "Even with the starvation and the lack ..."
Albright: "I think, Leslie--it is hard for me to say this because I am a humane person, but my first responsibility is to make sure that Unites States forces do not have to go and refight the Gulf War."

It is apparently acceptable for Democratic presidents to starve 500,000 children to maintain the safety of the American military, but not acceptable for a Republican president to have three adult terrorists water boarded under medical supervision.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Scary image, Porch, this being Hitler's B'day.

Today is Shakespeare's birthday.

[Soylent Red]

"When is Obama going to start making speeches from balconies?"

Michelevita:

It won't be easy, you'll think I'm strange
When I try to explain how I feel
that I'm stilled filled with hate after all that I've done

You won't believe me
All you will see is the bitch you once knew
Dressed up like it's nine
Even though it's a quarter to two

I had to make it happen, You had to change
Couldn't frown all my life, being ashamed
Hiding out in the shadows, staying out of the sun

So we chose fascism
Jetting around, pushing everything new
But nothing could pay for it all
We never expected it to

Chorus:

Don't cry for me Venezuela
The truth is we always liked you
All through our bullshit
Made up existence
But now we promise
We'll crush resistance.

And as for fortune, and as for fame
I never invited them in
Though I wined and I dined like the money was mine.

They are distractions
Focus on the handouts we promised to bring
And stay away from Tea Parties
'Cause we're watching the psycho Right Wing

Don't cry for me Venezuela

(chorus)

Have I said too much?
There's not much else we can take from you.
And as for the Constitution?
Well we're fixing that too

Brought to you by the Obamic Re-Education and Friendship Camp #7 People's Theater Troupe.

[Old Lurker]

I knew that too, Charlie, but the R&J balcony scene didn't fit Porch's idea. Darn, I always thought they were both April 23.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

By the way, Fox is now reporting that they have documentation of 30-odd Congresspeople, including Pelosi, being briefed on waterboarding.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I knew that too, Charlie, but the R&J balcony scene didn't fit Porch's idea. Darn, I always thought they were both April 23.

Go for the Scottish play.

And watch for Michelle washing her hands.

[Fresh Air]

ROA--

Yeah, never let any of the Mediacrats forget that it was Bill Clinton who made the liberation of Iraq the official policy of the United States government.

[Rick Ballard]

"Obamic Re-Education and Friendship Camp #7 People's Theater Troupe"

Oh sure - rub it in. Here at #5 all we have is a damned mime. You #7 people are always lording it over everybody else. Buncha suckups.

[clarice]

Of course, we know now that that starvation figure was hockum--Saddam was starving those children and stealing the OFF money. He was starving them to get nitwits like Stahl to pressure everyone to release the sanctions so he'd be free to murder millions, but i get your point.

I think Pat Lang may be one of the background former intel dopes the press is talking to--here's his blog post on Harman--and it's full of beans. He was a DIA official..I am now persuaded we find the dumbest people we can find anywhere and put them in these positions.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/04/harper-on-the-harmanaipac-affair.html>Another of those crack wits who worked for US intel

[Obamajugend Oberfuehrer Cleophis]

Both of you stop bickering and eat your potato!

Don't make me get the rubber hose...

Which, by the way, is not torture. When done to wingnuts.

[centralcal]

OH, Clarice, I have thought so for the longest time. It is kinda like many (not the majority, not all) in law enforcement. If they weren't cops, they woulda been criminals.

Changing topics I am really heartened by the polls, especially those being done by the lefty media. They are having to really s - t - r - e - t - c - h the gap between Republicans and Democrats (with extra padding of Independents) to get to their glorious leader numbers. That is a really, really, really good sign.

Things are rotten in Obamaland, and our Legacy Media are having harder and harder times disguising it!!!

[cboldt]

-- Things are rotten in Obamaland, and our Legacy Media are having harder and harder times disguising it! --
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

[Elliott]

Porchlight,

"But John Yoo is an honourable* man."
_________________
*Spelling in honor of England day, if I recall correctly. I hope you had a good one, PUK.

[Rick Ballard]

Potato? Here at #5 it's wheat chaff and grubs (grubs and wheat chaff on Sunday). What toffs.

[Old Lurker]

Rick, that Yahoo Finance piece you linked above on Chrysler gave the impression the the bondholders had moved first in asking to trade debt for equity. I think in fact Treasury, through Car-Czar Ratner, went to the bondholders and asked them to accept 15 cents on the dollar and no equity. That opened the bidding but they are nowhere close. WSJ reports Ratner is trying to divvy the pie between the Treasury $, Fiat, UAW, and the secured bondholders, and if he can get the bondholders to cave, that's more left for the UAW. Since lots of the bonds are held by TARP banks, Treasury is on several sides of this deal.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we accept government into our businesses.

[Pofarmer]

By the way, Fox is now reporting that they have documentation of 30-odd Congresspeople, including Pelosi, being briefed on waterboarding.

I hope they shove em under the dishonest no good bitches fingernails.

[clarice]

King is threatening scorched earth if they try Bush officials on the Hill and Obama is begging his peeps to lay off. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21654.html

[clarice]

I'm sorry TP ate the link to Lang's http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/04/harper-on-the-harmanaipac-affair.html

[Jane]

King is threatening scorched earth if they try Bush officials on the Hill and Obama is begging his peeps to lay off.

Who is King?

I say: BRING IT ON! I want to see nancy pelosi on trial!

[Elliott]

Jancy Karpelosi: "The patriarchy kept me in the dark!"

[Rick Ballard]

OL,

Do you recall a few weeks back when the Mediacrats tried a new meme concerning the PBGC having invested in equities at the height of the bubble? Both Turbo and the Car Rat know the size of the hit the PBGC is going to take if both the zombies fall.

There is also the not so small matter concerning the inadequacy of insurance company reserves if the Fed/Treasury interest rate scam collapses due to oversupply. Those boys are walking a barbed wire tight rope.

[Jane]

Elliott our worst nightmare has come true.

LUN

[bad]

From Clarice's link:

Sources said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressed her support for a “truth commission,” but her comments came near the end of the 90-minute session, after Obama had already thrown cold water on the idea.

She is safely clinging to her principles, now that no one will folllow through on them. What a dis.... LOL

[verner]

OK, let's see,
10 sec x 183 - 30.5 minutes
40 sec x 183 -122 minutes.(max)

One possible senerio:

183/6= 30.5 sessions @2 sessions a day=15 days.

Since sessions were permitted only five days in 30, you're talking about 3 months of interrogation.

KSM captured March 1 2003
Hambali captured August 11 2003

Per wiki, this is just one thing Hambali's capture prevented:

Hambali used a series of safe-houses throughout Southeast Asia, especially Thailand and Cambodia to move around. While he was in Ayutthaya, Thailand, 75 kilometers north of Bangkok, he was planning a terrorist attack against several Thai hotels and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit (APEC) in Bangkok on October 2003.

OK, so ask yourselves. Was "water boarding" KSM for a maximum of 122 minutes at 40 second intervals over three months worth preventing a "Mumbai" in Bangkok?

Since we're all into this one world stuff, maybe we should ask the Thai people.

[Elliott]

One of my 2009 predictions may come to pass then. But, will Faxon and Mickelson hug the current Secretary of State?

[Topsecretk9]

By the way, Fox is now reporting that they have documentation of 30-odd Congresspeople, including Pelosi, being briefed on waterboarding.

HAH -- you knew this gambit the Dems have been playing was going to give sooner or later.

[clarice]

Even the Axelturfers didn;t try that one on us.. We must be on the premier list or maybe Axel has decided Nancy's on her own.

[centralcal]

Oh, golly darn! The Ministry of Magic is imploding.

[bad]

Kudlow:

Barofsky’s investigators reported Monday that they have opened 20 criminal probes into possible securities fraud, tax-law violations, insider-trading, and mortgage-modification fraud related to TARP.

Good Grief LUN

[JM Hanes]

"By the way, Fox is now reporting that they have documentation of 30-odd Congresspeople, including Pelosi, being briefed on waterboarding."

I suspect we have Pete Hoekstra to thank for that. He fired a major shot over both Congressional & White House bows yesterday. In case this hasn't been posted yet, here's where he ends up:

Members of Congress calling for an investigation of the enhanced interrogation program should remember that such an investigation can't be a selective review of information, or solely focus on the lawyers who wrote the memos, or the low-level employees who carried out this program. I have asked Mr. Blair to provide me with a list of the dates, locations and names of all members of Congress who attended briefings on enhanced interrogation techniques......

An honest and thorough review of the enhanced interrogation program must also assess the likely damage done to U.S. national security by Mr. Obama's decision to release the memos over the objections of Mr. Panetta and four of his predecessors. Such a review should assess what this decision communicated to our enemies, and also whether it will discourage intelligence professionals from offering their frank opinions in sensitive counterterrorist cases for fear that they will be prosecuted by a future administration.

Perhaps we need an investigation not of the enhanced interrogation program, but of what the Obama administration may be doing to endanger the security our nation has enjoyed because of interrogations and other antiterrorism measures implemented since Sept. 12, 2001.

You'll definitely want to read the whole thing! I ♥ Heokstra. So the rest of you conniving JOM wimmin can forget about getting anywhere near him.

The Wall St. Journal has really been doing the heavy lifting lately, hasn't it?

[clarice]

es, it has. I posted the Hoekstra article earlier..And he does have the names. Our young friend Nick thinks all these evil Congresspeople ought to be criminally prosecuted, too. Just think some of our tax money's probably been squandered on his education.

[JM Hanes]

bad:

I used to discount Kudlow because he struck me as so relentlessly over optimistic, so this one was sort of a double bombshell -- being buried by the usual suspects it appears. On top of the playground for corruption, I found this astonishing too:

By the way, one of Barofsky’s recommendations is for Treasury to abandon its whole plan of buying toxic assets from banks and investors. The IG’s report also notes that what started last October as a single-purpose $750 billion effort to buy toxic securities has morphed into twelve separate programs that cover up to $3 trillion in direct spending, loans, and loan guarantees. In other words, TARP is nearly equal in size to the entire federal budget.

Just in case anyone thought we used up this week's quota of bad news yesterday.

[verner]

ALso, the idea that with the 183 "pours", each "pour" had to last a full 10 seconds may not be the case at all.

Watch the Steve Harrigan video LUN. In the third clip, Harrigan gets 4 pours in a matter of about 15 seconds.

If this is the way they were counting the 183 "pours" then the time KSM would have been under "water" likely would not have been anywhere near 122 minutes.

Harrigan was WBded 3 times with various methods. His experience would have been about the "limit" allowed in the OLC memos for a session. Check out his comments at the end. He said that the amazing thing was how quick the recovery time was.

The Press really needs to pick up on this. There is a big difference between getting "waterboarded" 183 times and counting 183 pours over three months.

[JM Hanes]

Clarice:

Well, Nick does have a point. I'd hate to see someone like Hoekstra go, but if we could get rid of 'em all in one fell swoop and start over again, maybe we should think about it.

[Old Lurker]

"The Ministry of Magic is imploding."

Thanks, Centracal, I was just thinking how to reply to Rick re PBGC & Insurance, and I think your phrase cover the territory perfectly.

Those guys are sliding down razor wire, Rick. Covering all the promises with the demographics that exist would be a huge task even for the free-est of efficient economies, and the lightest of government burdens. Creating enough new wealth to pay those generational bills with all the economic anchors introduced in just 94 days, on top of the accumulating weaknesses we already had, is frankly a fantasy.

[clarice]

Sure, JMH we'll try all the congressmen D and R in D.C. --which ones do you think will get off scott free and which ones will go to jail? And isn't that a fine way to resolve political disagreements?

[verner]

That Kudlow piece scares me worse than anything I've read in years--except the story today that the Taliban is taking over Pakistan maybe.

I'm ready to liquidate everything I have and buy gold and non-hybrid seeds.

[cboldt]

-- I'm ready to liquidate everything I have and buy gold and non-hybrid seeds. --

Think harder ... gold has been (and will be) the object of government confiscation.

[RichatUF]

I don't even know where to jump in.

[verner]

Come on baby, the water's fine.

[Topsecretk9]

Our young friend Nick thinks all these evil Congresspeople ought to be criminally prosecuted, too.

and

Clarice:

Well, Nick does have a point. I'd hate to see someone like Hoekstra go, but if we could get rid of 'em all in one fell swoop and start over again, maybe we should think about it.

Posted by: JM Hanes | April 23, 2009 at 10:34 PM

I've got an idea. How about we prosecute anyone who privately supported the practices, but publicly denounced and denied knowing about them? That seems to me to be the only true crime here.

(OR we could let all the scumbaggy lowlife Dems who lied choose to be put in a small cell with a caterpillar instead)

[narciso]

Agreed OL, there's no way to really
compensate for these galactic, not astronomical levels of spending, on top of cap n trade, card check and other idiocies,
that have yet to be considered. I mean we know Obama inhaled, Gore never exhaled, but
what are they consuming up there.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised seeing how the incentives seem to be almost always for
the pro Wahhabi, anti Israel position to be
the default one. But Israel has never done anything purposefully to hurt us, the Sauds
underwrote the PLO, staged the first oil embargo, funded the Ilkwan wurlitzer than lead to September 11th, and has in part, funded the murder of Americans inAfghanistan
Iraq, Thailand, et al. But Lang, Johnson,
Cannistraro,Close, McGovern, Madsen all concentrate on the former and not the latter. Yes I know they are crazy VIPSers and repeat visitors to Olbermann, and sadly the McClatchy editorial pages.

[Ann]

I just heard on the radio that Holder is going to release 44 pictures from Abu ghraib. Has anyone else heard this?

It was a news announcer at the top of the break on a local channel.

[clarice]

ts--Now there's a grand idea. Maleum in hypocrisy or something--surely we can find something in ancient Scottish law to support that.

[Ann]

Here is a upi article it might have something to do with: UPI

[Topsecretk9]

Deborah Burlingame is going off on Obama and Democrats.

Hamilton Peterson is going after the NYT's too.

[cathyf]

...and counting 183 pours over three months.

Actually, verner, the reports were quite specific about it being 183 over one month. But the "journalists" have this odd juxtaposition of paraphrase and passive-voice bureaucratese that obfuscates whether KSM was the only person waterboarded that month.

[RichatUF]

verner-

I think I'll do a belly flop.

I'm stunned that the Obama Administration has released the memos and then Obama is trying to weasel himself a "present" vote. Tacky and stupid. And dangerous too.

bad, thanks for the Kudlow article. Wow.

I'm not sure how Obama's surge into Afghanistan is going to be supported if Pakistan blows up and the Russians and Iranians are arm twisting in Central Asia. Wonder if Obama ever played Risk as a kid?

::splash::

[clarice]

Karpinski was so incompetent and it another yutz who should just stay buried in the woodwork.

[bad]

I wondered if I missed that info when it came out but Kudlow seems to be the only one reporting on it. I'm not sure I'm game to wade through that 240 page report.

[Pofarmer]

The IG’s report also notes that what started last October as a single-purpose $750 billion effort to buy toxic securities has morphed into twelve separate programs that cover up to $3 trillion in direct spending, loans, and loan guarantees. In other words, TARP is nearly equal in size to the entire federal budget.

Oh, yeah, jolly, what could go wrong with that?
I just heard on the radio that Holder is going to release 44 pictures from Abu ghraib. Has anyone else heard this?

As long as he also releases 44 from when Saddam ran the place.

Holder is a scumbag. He's the prottypical sleazy defense attorney, it's all he knows.