Good morning, Jane and Marcy, kudos.

As another commenter recently noted, the temperature is rising.

Seems to me that we should find out the names of the people in Congress that were briefed and approved of the torture. It would also be nice to find out what information was gained from the torture. After we have all of the information, then let’s make a decision who goes to jail, the folks who did it, or the folks who approved of it, or maybe the information saved so many lives that we might want to forget it.

President Obama banned these techniques.

Fine. But, since there are to be no repercussions or punishment for the instigators of these atrocities, what will keep the next president from re-instituting these techniques?

The following is a contradiction:

1. Claiming that torture has made America safer.
2. Opposing full disclosure of the details.

If torture really is so great, then its supporters should be in favor of letting everyone know all about it. Or conversely: if they are going to say the details must remain secret then they should be prohibited from making any claim about its effectiveness. The whole “it works/can’t tell you” construct specifically excludes the possibility of knowing if it is true (which is the point ofcourse).

Oh, see? There you go looking over your shoulder at the past. Let bygones be bygones, I say. No harm, no foul. Leave the poor Bushies alone already. /s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s/s

But why destroy video tapes of perfectly legal procedures that they claim produced large amounts of usable information and that could have been used to train generations of future interrogators on how to get such valuable information?

-G

183 times in one month?

Sounds like somebody didn’t have much else to do?

Excuse me for not understanding how this torture could continue to be ‘productive’ after say, the hundreth time?

Well that is a very god question, isn’t it?

AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Hamsher and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

Keep the heat on and the red flags flyin’ but what do ya hear about the battles goin’ on inside the bureaucracies, particularly the CIA? I am beginnin’ ta see Obama’s strategy in keepin’ some a the criminals on, they set up a perfect dialectic as this stuff hits the front pages and makes the criminals argue against the rule of law while providing scapegoats for the administration when the shit finally hits the bowl.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, FASCISTS ARE NOT GOOD FOR CHILDREN AND OTHER LIVING THINGS!!!

They blew it. He would’ve probably talked after the 184th time.

The pattern seems clear: no punishment for bad deeds. In fact, in economics, bad deeds get rewarded by high cabinet posts.

I wonder if the Obamas apply these principles to raising their daughters.

Well that is a very god question, isn’t it?

I like it when a typo adds to a sentence.

183 times in one month. Generously assuming a 31 day month, that averages just a shade under 6 sessions each and every day. I wonder if our Torquemada impersonators took weekends off. But what the heck. Let bygones be bygones. At this point, I find my disgust overwhelming.

So, they torture suspects to get more suspects. Keystone cops with too much by your leave to maim and kill at will.

Kudos to Scott for crediting Marcy, she did a lot of hard work and usually journalists just steal from bloggers and then call them parasites.

I agree. NY Times’ Scott Shane deserves credit for pointing out that Marcy Wheeler found the 183 waterboardings of KSM. I’m not sure who he means by the “number of bloggers” qualifier. Who else published the number so early on? Who else reads as fast as she?

I wish as the qualifier he had said something about how Marcy published the number by noon on Friday, as she was reading the torture memos while doing yard work.

Once again, Marcy leaves the rest behind in the dust.

An article on the Daily Beast by a extremely successful interrogator named “Matthew Alexander” on the pitfalls of torture: http://www.thedailybeast.com/b…..esnt-work/

On MSNBC, just before the commercial break, they said new details on torture…will see if they are talking about the NYT’s picking up Marcy’s piece.
Baton down the hatches, Jane. FDL might have a huge spike today!

The cover story will be that it was done to protect sources and methods. The reality is that it was probably done to destroy evidence of methods even beyond those authorized by the OLC memos.

FDL is rocking now.
Jane this is a letter I sent to the NYT at 6:30 still hasn’t been printed

Since there was a doctor present we have to assume he died and was revived a couple of times.Or were so perfect they batted a 1000.

Where’s his two children 7 & 9? Were they covered with bugs to find their dad?

There’s a copy of a torture tape somewhere (even if it’s an 8 track) Digital doesn’t die.. Does it show a betting pool, betting to see how long he could last this time.

How do we now water wasn’t applied with a hose? Roll those tapes.

The real question is do we accept these deranged human beings that did this are still in the Presidents service, as this is clearly criminal, and no not looking into it will not remedy this unconstitutional action.

Contessa is interviewing a retired military , and he says if you hve to torture that many times, it’s not working. But, no citing of the source of that 183 times. Should someone call MSNBC? Wondering.

MSNBC said he was waterboarded 183 times but didn’t mention that it was in a month. Their military talking head something like if they had to do it that much they should have known it ain’t working and that he had much more success giving them cigarettes and medical attention

Heyden is not more than an evil little thug, which i think we ALL knew just by the fact that Bu$h loved him so!
He IS on the list of known war criminals, is he not?
They ALL need to be brought to justice.
I’m completely opposed to Obama’s shielding these inhuman monsters from justice and I DO NOT understand his motivation in doing so.
Especially when they continue to go on national media and bash the President for what he IS doing about their crimes.
There would have been such uproar and likely arrests had anyone spoken of the monkey disaster in that manner after 9/11!!!
and WTG Marcy!
It’s high time someone around here got some credit for hard work and excellence in reporting!!!
Jane should be next!!!

the subconscious speaks?

Emanuel says that this administration wants to look forward, not backward re prosecution for the war-crime of torture. Is that because the Bush administration’s [Illegal] wire-taps have most of congress by the balls, i.e., Rep. Jane Harman D-CA?

It’s been widely reported, in the NYT and elsewhere, that the CIA knew of bin al Shibh’s identity before Abu Zubayda was captured. And Ron Suskind has reported that it was information from an al-Jazeera reporter that led to bin al Shibh’s capture. As Jane Mayer notes in her book The Dark Side, the fact that he wasn’t captured for a year and a half after Zubayda lends credence to Suskind’s claim.

And yet the terra meme will continue ad nauseum. I can see Joe Lieberman whining and singing and dancing to this tune as I write.

I can’t even imagine what it must be like to go through a simulated drowning 183 times. I wonder what the physical and mental effects are.

I am dumbfounded that Congress refuses to act.

I am dumbfounded that Obama thinks civility and “looking forward” are more important than investigation (which he deems “retribution”) of torture.

Just dumbfounded.

Emanuel says that this administration wants to look forward, not backward

and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!

Is Obama seeking to coax testimony from CIA officials and possibly the torture lawyers by his statements last week? The act of his release of the memos seems to warrant, or at least strongly advocate support for, investigations and, so far, he and Rahm have said that the administration wouldn’t prosecute these officials. Considering that the taped evidence of torture has been (completely?) destroyed, is securing the testimonies of these people by granting immunity the only gateway to sucessfully prosecuting those at the top?

It’s easy to forget that this was not a simulated drowning. This is slow-motion, controlled drowning. Very real. I have seen video of a demonstration and brutal doesn’t come close.

I am dumbfounded that Obama thinks civility and “looking forward” are more important than investigation (which he deems “retribution”) of torture.

I’m dumbfounded that Obama so cavalierly disregards his oath of office! Enforcement of the laws is one of his main jobs!

But my real question is, is Jane Harman the congresswoman that was referred to in several articles this weekend about the NSA wiretapping a member of Congress, or was she one of many. And if she was one of many, how can I be expected to believe that all of the press is not spied upon by our “intelligence” agencies, or that all ordinary citizens are not spied upon as well?

Obama looking forward= keeping a certain status quo
I guess that means we are supposed to look toward that “great shining city on the hill” even though this country has been zapped by parasites. That’s like someone trying to pretend he/she never got such and such a disease even though he/she still suffering. all in the name of “moving forward” .

Oh. I thought drowning can cause brain damage.

I wonder who *dealt* with information obtained from tapping during the Bush administration.

and they only had permission, according to ‘known’ memos, for two sessions a day.

Georgetown University gives a faculty position to George Tenet who is mostly responsible for this outrage. Prior to that the Clintons appointed George Tenet to an NSC staff position and then Director of the CIA. Have the Clintons said one word about Tenet or Georgetown or the MSM, Never.

President Obama should now be blamed for not going after these scoundrels. How much power do you think Obama wields? The Congress and the MSM and the entire US system is up to its nose in this outrage.

That wasn’t for two sessions a day for each of three crews? /s

KSM being waterboarded 183 times in one month

Oh come on! That’s only 6 times a day.

eh-hem. Let’s see, that means they were drowning him more times a day than they were feeding him. You’d think they’d be smart enough to at least feed the body so that in terms of stimulus-response that subconcsiously “the subject” would be able to better differentiate between pleasure and pain….

No, I can’t get my mind around it even that way.

6 times a day….

I think Marcy did a fabulous job this weekend on all of her posts.

Hayden is as predictable as David Rivkin. After reading the Rivkin piece early this morning I wrote a blog post about it and why the Cheney crowd not only need to deny torture for legal reasons but to also fool rank and file Republicans into continuing to protect them from calls for legal accountability.

Jane has a brand new post up: “Talk About Torture with Bruce Fein”

It would seem we’re fast aproaching the point where we have to admit that it makes more sense to ask who in our government was not involved in some disgusting, and or impeachable act related to the BushCo GWOT, and how many of them are not caught on tape.

Which explains perfectly why nothing is being done about throwing even the known criminals in jail.

So what threats can the CIA be using to keep this cover-up covered up?

Wusses. They couldn’t keep it up cause they were soft. They let the terrorists win.

I want investigations or prosecutions so I can hear their answers to simple questions like, “Is waterboarding terrorism?” and “Why 183 times? Didn’t you get the answers you wanted after 1 or 2 times?” and “If a bomb was about to go off and you needed to get answers in a hurry then why did you use techniques which weren’t working, even after 183 times?”

Since the CIA destroyed the tapes of Zubaydah’s torture, maybe Hayden would like to say what exactly the information was that he provided which was of value.

I know, I know. It’s classified….

…..and it will STAY classified because they don’t want it known that not only did Abu offer to trade some Dead tapes, but a couple of them took him up on it…..