No Intent, No Torture

Andy McCarthy points out that Eric Holder's Justice Department is using the same "no intent, no torture" argument accepted by a Federal Court (Pierre v. Attorney General) and employed in the infamous OLC 'torture' memos.

Hmm.  I doubt Holder will be pursuing his own indictment or disbarment.

Background on the Pierre case is here.

Comments

[PaulL]

CathyF,

Excellent posts, one and all!

[Danube of Thought]

"Weak Treasury auction sends stocks lower
By TIM PARADIS and SARA LEPRO – 53 minutes ago

"NEW YORK (AP) — Weak demand at a Treasury bond auction touched off worries in the stock market Thursday about the government's ability to raise funds to fight the recession.

"The government had to pay greater interest than expected in a sale of 30-year Treasurys. That is worrisome to traders because it could signal that it will become harder for Washington to finance its ambitious economic recovery plans. The higher interest rates also could push up costs for borrowing in areas like mortgages."

[Danube of Thought]

Clarice, my recollection from torts is that the tortfeasor takes his victim as he finds him. If, without provocation, I punch a guy in the face and it turns out he has an eggshell skull, I'm liable for the unexpectedly bad result. But if I go up and give a guy a good-natured pat on the back and it pops his eggshell skull, there's no liability.

Upon review, my comments appear to shed no light on anything...

[clarice]

That's the way I remember it, too. DoT. Now let's say the waterboarding procedure has been done without lasting problems on 33k of our own troops. Should one of the three we waterboarded have a long lasting serious problem as a result of it, are we in the first or second category ? I say the second--we used a technique on him not designed to leave a lasting injury and one which our experience indicated would not do so.

[Ignatz]

Francis Cianfrocca, the excellent economics blogger at Redstate disappeared awhile back.
For those interested he now blogs at Contentions.

[Pofarmer]

I'll make one other observation. My BIL is a trim contractor about an hour from St. Louis. Lot's of small private contractors are totally out of work, by and large, they don't show up on unemployment numbers. Also, he just bid a bank job. Pretty large by residential standards, but pretty small by commercial standards. 3 floors, maybe 40,000 square feet. 120 contractors bid on the job. That's huge. Heck, I've been looking at putting up a couple of pissy little farm buildings and I've got engineers calling ME back asking if I like the truss layouts, and if there's anything I want changed. Lemme tell ya, that's never happened before. Most of these places have made good money the past 5 or so years, and have been slow about letting help go, but when I can call a major truss manufacturer, and they tell me that they can get my non-stock truss order out the door TOMORROW??? Things ain't good.

[Sid]

"we used a technique on him not designed to leave a lasting injury and one which our experience indicated would not do so."
There is a lot of evidence suggesting the technique was not applied as in SERE.

The FDA might approve two capsules of Vioxx daily. But a doctor prescribing 183 Vioxx could find themselves out on a limb if something goes awry. He might have been acting in good faith, but he is still stuck with going beyond FDA guidelines.

[centralcal]

Ignatz is correct that Cianfrocca blogs at Contentions, but he hasn't quit RedState altogether - he has a post up right now about the Bond auction referenced by DoT above.

[Old Lurker]

"Upon review, my comments appear to shed no light on anything..."

DoT if our host installs that as a new rule, we're all toast.

[Rick Ballard]

Ignatz,

I don't quite understand why he doesn't mention the carry trade potential for taking down money at historically low long rates. I'm also not sure how a bond winds up in the asset column.

The 30 year auction debacle is pretty entertaining. I suppose the Friends of Fascisim among the primary dealers may have wanted to get the bosses attention regarding his decision to crap on Chrysler secured debt holders. Life just got a little tougher for TurboZero.

[clarice]

Sid:"There is a lot of evidence suggesting the technique was not applied as in SERE."

Show me. I haven't seen it.

[Mark]

Clarice:
"Show me. I haven't seen it."

You should read primary data. I can link the Bradbury 46page 5/10/2005 techniques memo if you want. If you are too busy, read pages 6 and 13-15. Supplement that with P37 of the Bradbury 5/30/05 memo.

First of all, Bradbury 5/30/05, P37:

Other techniques, however, are undeniably more extreme [than SERE] as applied in the CIA interrogation program.

1. SERE never get more than 2 applications of 40 seconds in their lives. AZ got 83 applications in two sessions of when he was strapped to the board, KSM 183 in 5 days.

2. SERE gets doused with 500ml of Crystal Geyser. Terrorists get sterile saline because they end up drinking so much they get hyponatremia with distilled.

3. SERE is training; they know they will come out alive; The terrorists know they are pieces of shit that no one really cares about. No special word or signal to make it all go away.

4. SERE training: no pulse oximeter to measure blood oxygen. Terrorists (i.e., KSM) get the pulse ox so you can take them to hypoxic loss of consciousness, then take a cigarette break before going back for more. KSM got 183 applications in 5 days of boarding. That ain't SERE training.

Look, America was and is at war. We did bad things to evil men to keep the country safe, and we should do it again. It is a necessary evil, accept it. I understand the passionate and obtuse attempts to deny that we would torture. But please read primary documentation.

[boris]

Why? So we can understand better why ninnies have their undies in a bundle? Who cares ... ninnies ALWAYS have their undies in a bundle. Ninnies even think getting picked on is torture.

[Mark]

"why?"
Because you sound stupid if you have not even made an effort to support your arguments by reading available documents that were written by the people we are trying to defend.

You may be able to sway people on a blog by being forceful and affecting intelligence, but that is the extent of your influence. I have to explain this to you? It's fucking sad, that's why.

[boris]

the people we are trying to defend

Take off poseur eh ...