Comments on: SEREingly Illegal http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/ Dip your toe in the legal waters and change politics as you know it. http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:06:02 -0500 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 By: robspierre http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9859 robspierre Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:10:12 +0000 http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9859 <p>SERE exists to make torture ineffective as a means of extracting actionable information. To me, using it as the prototype for CIA torture thus demonstrates bad faith and points to a broader, more cynical conspiracy. No one expected to get intelligence or protect national security with a waterboard. It was all theater. They needed props for the Unitary Executive, Commander-in-Chief, Permanent War show, and they used detainees for the purpose.</p> SERE exists to make torture ineffective as a means of extracting actionable information. To me, using it as the prototype for CIA torture thus demonstrates bad faith and points to a broader, more cynical conspiracy. No one expected to get intelligence or protect national security with a waterboard. It was all theater. They needed props for the Unitary Executive, Commander-in-Chief, Permanent War show, and they used detainees for the purpose.

]]> By: tjbs http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9858 tjbs Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:44:57 +0000 http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9858 <p>Put them on pencil sharping duty.</p> Put them on pencil sharping duty.

]]> By: Leen http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9856 Leen Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:15:41 +0000 http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9856 <p>my sense is that Spain coming out saying they would do the job that the U.S. DOJ/Obama administration seemed unwilling to do pushed and embarrassed the Obama administration.</p> <p>How many times can we hear the Obama administration and many of the other Dems and all the Republicans defining holding people accountable for very serious crimes “retribution, vengeance, witch hunts, blame game,” How many ways can they describe not upholding the rule of law?</p> my sense is that Spain coming out saying they would do the job that the U.S. DOJ/Obama administration seemed unwilling to do pushed and embarrassed the Obama administration.

How many times can we hear the Obama administration and many of the other Dems and all the Republicans defining holding people accountable for very serious crimes “retribution, vengeance, witch hunts, blame game,” How many ways can they describe not upholding the rule of law?

]]> By: cinnamonape http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9854 cinnamonape Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:34:32 +0000 http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9854 <p>Why do I think that Zelikow’s memo was something of a CYA effort? It was written in 2005 while he was Condi’s aide-de-camp at STATE. C’mon…is he really asserting that he never learned about any of this when he was at the National Security Council? That’s where they would have been far more directly learning about the bogus intel. from these guys. </p> <p>Sounds suspiciously like he got cold feet when the criticism related to torture began to rise to “warm”. It would be interesting to place this memo into that context if we had more precise dates.</p> <p>“Okay, you’ve now covered your a**…” [Rummy]</p> <p>As well, WHO ordered the documents destroyed? Why did “they” want him to do it? Could it be that if he destroyed them it would be on his neck for violating the Presidential Records Act? That’s a criminal act that he could be held accountable for. It’s one thing to place a classification code on such a document, it’s quite another to make a document “disappear”. </p> <p>He should name names as to who received the “Memo”. His hard drive should be examined for the memo, the date of composition, number of copies printed, and who it was transmitted to.</p> <p>I would suspect that ordering the destruction of the document constitutes a criminal act (Sandy Berger got slapped hard for destroying copies of copies). This was intended to eradicate all information about Zelikow’s opposition viewpoint from the record.</p> <p> “No one could have foreseen…” [Condi]</p> Why do I think that Zelikow’s memo was something of a CYA effort? It was written in 2005 while he was Condi’s aide-de-camp at STATE. C’mon…is he really asserting that he never learned about any of this when he was at the National Security Council? That’s where they would have been far more directly learning about the bogus intel. from these guys.

Sounds suspiciously like he got cold feet when the criticism related to torture began to rise to “warm”. It would be interesting to place this memo into that context if we had more precise dates.

“Okay, you’ve now covered your a**…” [Rummy]

As well, WHO ordered the documents destroyed? Why did “they” want him to do it? Could it be that if he destroyed them it would be on his neck for violating the Presidential Records Act? That’s a criminal act that he could be held accountable for. It’s one thing to place a classification code on such a document, it’s quite another to make a document “disappear”.

He should name names as to who received the “Memo”. His hard drive should be examined for the memo, the date of composition, number of copies printed, and who it was transmitted to.

I would suspect that ordering the destruction of the document constitutes a criminal act (Sandy Berger got slapped hard for destroying copies of copies). This was intended to eradicate all information about Zelikow’s opposition viewpoint from the record.

“No one could have foreseen…” [Condi]

]]> By: goldpearl http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9851 goldpearl Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:05:49 +0000 http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9851 <p>ding!</p> ding!

]]> By: goldpearl http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9850 goldpearl Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:03:12 +0000 http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9850 <p>ck this out - george lucas & maureen dowd discuss cheney vs darth</p> <p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/opinion/19dowd.html?_r=2&th&emc=th" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04.....038;emc=th</a></p> ck this out – george lucas & maureen dowd discuss cheney vs darth

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04…..038;emc=th

]]> By: HanTran http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9849 HanTran Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:02:22 +0000 http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9849 <p>As to your point 6, there was no reverse engineering. These techniques were not changed in any way since there re-creation in 1957 by Dr. Biderman.</p> <p>from NYT <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/02detain.html?th&emc=th" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07.....038;emc=th</a></p> <p><i>What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.</i></p> <p><i>The 1957 article from which the chart was copied was entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War” and written by Albert D. Biderman, a sociologist then working for the Air Force, who died in 2003.</i></p> As to your point 6, there was no reverse engineering. These techniques were not changed in any way since there re-creation in 1957 by Dr. Biderman.

from NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07…..038;emc=th

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The 1957 article from which the chart was copied was entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War” and written by Albert D. Biderman, a sociologist then working for the Air Force, who died in 2003.

]]> By: goldpearl http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9848 goldpearl Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:58:05 +0000 http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9848 <p>maddow - “did you ever consider resigning?”</p> <p>zelikow - “no”</p> <p>this from the man in charge of tweaking the 9/11 commission</p> maddow – “did you ever consider resigning?”

zelikow – “no”

this from the man in charge of tweaking the 9/11 commission

]]> By: Adie http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9846 Adie Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:32:09 +0000 http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9846 <p>it’s amazing what a rug and a bit (!) of black shoe polish can accomplish.</p> it’s amazing what a rug and a bit (!) of black shoe polish can accomplish.

]]> By: cbl2 http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9845 cbl2 Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:30:31 +0000 http://christyhardinsmith.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/sereingly-illegal/#comment-9845 <p>Special Prosecutor -</p> <p>I have “Republican” and “Southern” in the pool. a true ringer would be Reagan Appointed GA. Appellate guy who initially struck down their Voter ID</p> Special Prosecutor -

I have “Republican” and “Southern” in the pool. a true ringer would be Reagan Appointed GA. Appellate guy who initially struck down their Voter ID

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