wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

#50 is correct in that it needs to be determined if the lawyers, Bybee, Bradbury and Yu were conforming their legal "opinions" to a particular agenda. There seems to be evidence leaking out that these techniques were already being used before the memos came out. Question: Did they arrive at those "opinions" to provide cover for those already engaged in this behavior?

#50 is correct.

Many of the other posts reek of partisan Bush-hatred - i.e. couldn't give a hoot about torture, would be happy to torture Republicans etc... but see torture issue as another propaganda weapon

CIA and others who administered water boarding and other interogation techniques defined as torture should not be prosecuted. They were just following orders. I know that many people reject the 'just following orders' argument because of the atrocities committed by the Nazis, but there is clearly a moral distinction between wiping out an entire population just for the sake of of it, and waterboarding a handful of terrorists who did not die after being subjected to the interogation techniques.

The lawyers in this case should not be prosecuted in this matter, unless it can be proven that they were directed to draw a legal opinion that the Bush team wanted. Any lawyer can make any opinion that they want; that alone is not necessarily a crime. It only means they are not competent as lawyers.

The only people who should be prosecuted are Bush, Cheney, and company - those who approved the use of these interogation techniques. After all, wasn't W the 'decider'?

bernard #2,
Nancy Pelosi was not on any Senate committee. She is a member of the House of Representatives.

The fact that people are still asking the question, "should we investigate" shows just how far down the unethical and mindless path the nation has been taken over the past ten years. And that there are people who agree with it, is outrageous. No one in government seems to be held responsible for anything unless they are deemed expendible,(e.g. Libby, Blagoyovich et al.). The Pinochets, the Eichmanns, the Hitlers, the Saddam Husseins, the Richard Nixons of this world all use the same logic: When "I" or the state does it -- it isn't illegal, immoral, unethical. Disgusting. If "No one is above the law" is to have any meaning going into the future, then why not now???

If they had to waterboard and throw these guys against a wall so many times, they weren't looking for information, they inflicting sadistic punishment. In what way were the people that made the rules and did this different from the Inquisition, WWII Germans and Japanese, Khemir Rouge, Rowandans and others. This is shameful, shocking and must be investigated.

US Policy?? Fear and anger policy.
This is a matter of national honor and rule of law.

We cannot be a law abiding, respected member of the world community if we discard treaties, laws, and our own values b/c of "national security".

Haven't we censured and lectured other countries for less? This is not a just political issue its a moral issue.

Truth, repentance, reconciliation, and healing are needed.
Revenge? Prosecute? Whom would that serve?
Morality first, legalisms second.
It is painful to see how easy it was to lead America to support immoral behavior b/c of fear and anger, but we must wake up and stop the denials and justifications.

Neil MD

All these holier than thou comments from liberals make me retch. BOTH parties were aware of the methods being used to illicit information. Fact is, Obama is reserving the right to adopt similar methods if the need arises again and I for one say he should be proscecuted if he doesnt.

I haven’t read the memos by Bybee or Yu, but I have read articles, and watched news programs about the memos. It seems the lawyers tried to mold their legal opinions to suit the policy. At very least, all of the layers should go through disbarment hearings, and prosecuted if they broke the law. The true villains, Chaney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Libby should also be prosecuted

Seems that if we focus on whether a given techinque is against the law or not, we miss the point.

These opinions were written to say that these certain techinques were NOT against the law. So, no one did anything against the law. The ones who engaged in it can not be prosecuted. The focus should be on who ordered the twisting of the laws to say waterboarding was not a crime.

The context of 911 should not be used.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Reveiw of Pennsylvania 1759

Starting with Bush and Cheney and continuing with the lawyers, and not excepting those who carried out these heinous acts in the name of "following orders", all should be investigated and prosecuted. They broke both international and US law and violated all standards of morality. There can be no exceptions or excuses. Above all, those most responsible, the Bush-Cheney-Gonzales cabal, should be prosecuted with the utmost rigor. They should be spending the rest of their miserable lives in jail.

All those lawyers, AND those above them in public office should be put on trial for such hanous crimes towards human kind. I just can't understand how they were able to conduct this when it was banded by the givrnment before.

Brian:

I said (as far back as Feb 2006)
(here:
http://markbnj.blogspot.com/2006/03/politics-why-bush-is-failure-as.html )

that George W Bush was the Destroyer of our nation, and will be (eventually) be
indicted on war crimes....

Send that sucker (and Dickie too) to the waterboarding chair, and broadcast it LIVE

it'll be the highest rated program in the world

AND we STILL NEED A truth and RECONCILIATION commission
(see my other blog sos-newdeal.blogspot.com)

does anyone know if any real or useful info came of this?...

ya we suck

Why the double standard? The United States cannot continue to "OK" such terrible activities. We cannot look ahead without our human rights criminals accountable for their illegal decisions.

No, I don't think we're quite Nazis, BUT if we planned to deport John Demjanjuk who followed HIS government's directives to handle the enemies of his country, then why do we give our own folks a "pass" when it comes to heinous human rights

U.S. participants ignored Article I of the Geneva ConventionParties which states that participants will "undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances." THERE IS NO "EXCEPT" following this statement.

Subsection (a) "Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;"

Again, no exceptions listed behind this convention.

And I'm not a scholar of these things. I just googled it and found it at this moment.

Is it so inconceivable that those involved in the multiple water boarding incidents, just plain liked to torture?

What were the consequences for the officials following orders to torture if they did not comply?

PROSECUTE, prosecute, prosecute, prosecute!!!!!

It should go without saying that they should be prosecuted. Unfortunately, I don't it'll happen. But I do think it will go as far as making the lives of John Yoo and whoever else was involved very difficult. Which, I mean, considering what their careless decision making led to, is at least something. Listening to John Yoo talk about how he arrived at his decision, knowing he has a comfy job at a university, and seeing how detached he is from the implications of the whole situation, is torture itself. Nothing (I imagine) like being waterboarded though.

A special hurrah for Jane Mayer

Not only should justice prosecute the lawyers AND the CIA agents, we are OBLIGATED to do so by the Geneva Convention, to which we are signatories.

Listening to Hayden using his euphemism EIT as a justification for torture was equally disgusting and his smug description of its effectiveness made me want to weep: not in my name!

Remember, as well, we "rendered" (kidnapped and sent) people to countries that engaged in even more barbaric methods, with our full knowledge.
Speaking of regimes that torture, the Nazis always wrapped their justifications in LAW, using Carl Schmitt, the same guy who became so popular among white house apologists in the Bush admin.

Bad news, folks: we helped the Latin American dictatorships torture people throughout the 70s and 80s.

If we do not establish what is right and wrong today, how do we expect future generations to do the same.

which congressperson is to be believed with their "recollections" of the briefings?

does anyone know if any real or useful info came of this?

They spun the law to justify TORTURE. Torture is not trivial. They absolutely should be prosecuted. "Looking forward" requires denouncing and precluding this type of precedent.

There is clearly a case on the face of it, so the matter should be introduced into the legal system as required by law. How simple is that? There is only one message sent by failure to do this, and that is that our principles and laws apply to minor players (Lindy Englands) and other countries, not those in power in the USA. Unacceptable.

Failing to investigate or learn from history was a hallmark of the Bush administration from torture to climate change. Attorneys, however, have an ethical duty to both investigate & follow established precedent. I personally believe that the political leaders & their advisors should be held criminally accountable; the lawyers should, at a minimum, be disbarred. It's truly a shonda for America to the rest of the world.

all of them, everyone of them, EVERY LAST 1 OF THEM ALLLLLL OF THEM!!!!!!...all the way to the top...prosecute for 100 years...we still prosecute Nazis

sorry guys, but congress knew about this all along

Why do we want to know if these acts produced good intelligence? So that we can somehow justify the means? It seems very dangerous to me for those who are against these acts of torture to give credence to that question.

It's so simple!

Punish crime - IRON THEM WITH A HOT IRON IN THEIR BROOKS BROTHERS SUITS!!!

Someone needs to be punished. The torture methods used by our guys was developed from a Chinese handbook of torture used by the SEER School (Survive, Evade, Escape, Return) to train soldiers and pilots to resist torture. These torture techniques were not meant to obtain information. The techniques developed by the Chinese were meant to break the will of their own citizens not obtain information. This is unacceptable.

The Convention Against Torture (which the U.S. has ratified) does provide for prosecution of individuals who are "complicit in or participate in" acts of torture (Art 4). It may be possible to actually charge the lawyers who wrote the memos with the criminal act of torture. Although I agree that this approach would be extreme, it is pretty clearly covered by international law.

The 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the US of A signed on April 18, 1988 and ratified on October 21, 1994, should make prosecution of the crime of torture mandatory in the US.
War crimes are not subject to statutes of limitations, pardons or any means to grant impunity (there is a Convention on the non-applicability of statutory limitations to war crimes and crimes against humanity, adopted on New York, 26 November 1968, which the US of A has not signed).

And as of the Nuremberg Statute and trials the civilized world is aware that “following orders” is not an excuse for criminals.

But there is more: customary international law (derived from the consensus of the international community) makes it mandatory to prosecute or extradite, given the fact that international jurisdiction is recognized in the case of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and torture.

Which means that if the country which could prosecute the perpetrators of those crimes is unwilling or unable to prosecute them, it has to extradite them to the country which assumes the responsibility of prosecuting them in the name of the international community (the Law Lords’ decision on the Pinochet case is one example) as part of the global fight against impunity. That is what Judge Garzón has initiated in Spain.

I think we should bring all the facts to light to guide future policy only. no prosecutions!
After 9/11 we ASKED for the "Gloves to come off" They did what was asked. It lead to overreach, as such actions often do. As the attacks fade I think people forget the very real threats that were present. The tension was palatable.

If the Democrats focus on this and there is another attack, God help them, the backlash will make this torture seem trite.

Waterboarding is not PARTIAL or SIMULATED drowning.

If you are drowning in the sea and happen to be saved at the last opportune moment, you were NOT undergoing a partial drowning. You WERE drowning.

Waterboarding is drowning -- even when the subject is "saved" at the last minute.

If government lawyers and CIA agents are prosecuted for water-boarding...then all members of Congress who voted to authorize the Iraq war should be prosecuted for this far greater war crime. This includes of course our current Secretary of State.

In general, I do not like torture for many reasons - including the fact that it prob. does not work.

However, there is a real debate that needs an answer. How do we treat terrorists? Our govt. / military knows how to treat soldiers from a nation, but how should we treat a terrorist who is not sanctioned by a nation.

So if Asians waterboard prisoners, it is a war crime and Americans do it, it isn't?

These judges are just the scapegoats to the Bush admin.

Thanks for inviting someone who can and will remind us that there is a long US history of condemning and acting against torture. It sickening to hear so many media organizations still offering the same apologies for the crimes of the Bush regime.

Once again, with the exception of people like Jane Mayer and the progressive press, it is comedians like Jon Stewart (who ridiculed Hayden) who are doing a lot of the major media 'reporting' here.

I'm astonished that we are at the point where we even question whether or not the lawyers and the people "on top" should NOT be prosecuted. Of course they should! What have we become that we question the morality and legality of this behavior?

What is the difference in the waterboarding technique used under the bush administration and the water boarding that japanese in ww2 used? Or is it the same technique?

Follow Orders???
and then the higher ups are untouchables . . .

Yes I would love to see CIA agents and Lawyers prosecuted, may be that would restore some credibility in the whole system

Yes, the lawyers should be disbarred, charged and tried. These were criminal acts.

This is an issue of common sense and commonly known shared history. We all knew these acts were wrong. There is no excuse of "ignorance."

The Bush administration cherry-picked the input they wanted to justify criminal acts, just as they did with the excuses to attack Iraq.

If... if those who employed the techniques are not guilty cuz they were following orders, then how can the lawyers be any less guilt-free? They were all just following orders. Seems like the only really guilty person is the one who gave the orders. Don't they all have to be guilty, or only just the guys at the top?

2 things-

1)Did it work? Was it/is it effective?

2)If wrong, you MUST punish all or none-done save the politicians on the opposite side of the fence looking towards trying not to alienate Congress or prosecute Presidents.

Hey, I thought Clinton should have gotten it too for mis-using his position. Good to throw us in jail-not them. NO PARDONS FOR THE RICH AND CONNECTED!!!

EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATED IN TORTURING DETAINEES SHOULD ABSOLUTELY BE PROSECUTED- "Just following orders" is NOT ACCEPTABLE- never was! Not prosecuting them makes Obama gov just as culpable as the perpetrators and Bush admin folks.

They broke the law? Prosecute. Now let's grow up here, if someone forces me to kill someone can I get away with it by saying I was just following order? This inequality of justice has to be corrected; if your collars are white, blue, or even green, you get prosecuted if you break the law.

wny not prosecute Bush and Cheney along with the Lawyers?

i still have three very important questions-
1: how many other detainees were subject to waterboarding and to what extent/result?
2: besides waterboarding, were there any other "extreme techniques", that could be considered torture, used on detainees?
3: will bob graham and nancy pelosi, ranking democrats on the senate "intelligence" committee, come under as much fire as the bush administration officials who were equally compliant with letting this happen?

The lawyers that provided the legal "justification" for torturing individuals
should at the least be disbarred. These are the people who should go to jail.