The Torture Memos

LostinKildare

High-minded political commentary from the rightwing media:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhd9_sqjHsI

JohnMc1

LostinKildare wrote: »

I'm saying it's not true that nobody objected til now. And I'm saying if Pelosi was told about waterboarding in September 2003 (which still would have been after the fact, in violation of the law) what could she have done about it? Various other people (not just in govt, and not just Democrats) did speak out about things they did know, to little or no effect. The Bush White House grossly suppressed dissent.

She was there and you know it. She could have easily said "I don't like that I think there should be different [or better depending on how you look at waterboarding] ways to interrogate our prisoners." She didn't. She just sat there, said nothing and went along with it. Now she wants to play the good guy and play the honest and virtuous hero that's fighting to bring down the "evil" CIA. Now she's been told to put up or shut up. Prove she wasn't there or apologize.

LostinKildare

JohnMc1 wrote: »

She was there and you know it.

No, I don't know it, and neither do you. We might find out or we might not.

She could have easily said "I don't like that I think there should be different [or better depending on how you look at waterboarding] ways to interrogate our prisoners."

Mmmm, I'm sure the Bush officials would have been receptive to her helpful suggestions. "Nancy, you're right, thanks for that! What were we thinking, setting up that crazy torture regime!?! Lots of other people have told us it's immoral, illegal, pointless, likely to endanger our own troops, and a betrayal of values Americans hold sacred, but we didn't listen. But Nancy, since you don't like it, we'll stop it!"

No point in me repeating the argument I made above, twice, if you don't want to respond to it.

Now she wants to play the good guy and play the honest and virtuous hero that's fighting to bring down the "evil" CIA.

She's not playing the honest and virtuous hero, or trying to bring down the CIA, she's simply trying to save her own skin. As politicians will do. I don't know if she's lying about this specific thing (it's not out of the question that the CIA would lie, either, of course), but I certainly don't claim that she's clean.

Prove she wasn't there or apologize.

How can she prove what was or wasn't said in a meeting? Strictly speaking, even Panetta isn't willing to confirm the accuracy of the CIA record of the meeting.

JohnMc1

:rolleyes:

Jack Sheehan

JohnMc1 wrote: »

:rolleyes:

What a reasoned and well thought out rebuttal.

LostinKildare

I think I convinced him.

JohnMc1

LostinKildare wrote: »

I think I convinced him.

Think again.

jank

Well come on then, spill the beans.... whats wrong? Fox got your tongue?

JohnMc1

jank wrote: »

Well come on then, spill the beans.... whats wrong? Fox got your tongue?

Yeah because with a post like you're willing to actually listen for once. :rolleyes: LOL @ the partisans accusing others of partisanship.

Overheal

LostinKildare wrote: »

No, I don't know it, and neither do you. We might find out or we might not.

Mmmm, I'm sure the Bush officials would have been receptive to her helpful suggestions. "Nancy, you're right, thanks for that! What were we thinking, setting up that crazy torture regime!?! Lots of other people have told us it's immoral, illegal, pointless, likely to endanger our own troops, and a betrayal of values Americans hold sacred, but we didn't listen. But Nancy, since you don't like it, we'll stop it!"

They would want to, and she would be failing her job as the Speaker not to know that torture was going on. She is after all 2nd in the line of succession to the Presidency. Right under Cheney and now Biden. If she maintains she didnt know, I call failure on her part. If she did know and has now lied to us about it? She has then lost all credibility anyway. Its a no win scenario for her. She needs to be gone.

Yesterday, Jon Stewart sat down for 13 minutes with former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=228277&title=newt-gingrich-unedited-interview

LostinKildare

Overheal wrote: »

They would want to, and she would be failing her job as the Speaker not to know that torture was going on. She is after all 2nd in the line of succession to the Presidency. Right under Cheney and now Biden. If she maintains she didnt know, I call failure on her part.

I don’t get your point. Pelosi is Speaker now, but she wasn’t at the time of the disputed briefing in September 2002 -- that was Dirty Dennis Hastert, flunky for dirtier Tom DeLay. The Republicans controlled Congress as well as the White House. Pelosi says the CIA revealed the August 2002 waterboarding in February 2003, and that that time the ranking Democrat, Jane Harmon (not Pelosi), did protest, to no avail, of course.

Pelosi didn't become Speaker until 2007, by which time everyone who can read a newspaper knew about waterboarding. The CIA admitted it publicly in 2005. So how is there any failure on her part as Speaker?

The Republicans have overreached with their shocked outrage at Pelosi’s claim that the CIA misled her. This is just infantile:

"It's hard for me to imagine that anyone in our intelligence area would ever mislead a member of Congress... I don’t know what motivation they would have to mislead anyone.'' (Boehner)

John, didja fail U.S. History or what?

And how embarrassing to have sent out that idiot Pete Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Intelligence to do media slamming Pelosi for suggesting that the CIA deals in nothing short of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Hoekstra himself has on numerous occasions accused the CIA of lying:

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/19/hoekstra-cia-lied-to-me/

Diane Sawyer calls out Newt on this shabby line of attack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zog7UOd2pU

Think Progress also notes that Newt himself has accused the CIA and other intelligence agencies of not just misleading Congress, but also undermining the president -- when they reported in 2007 that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/20/gingrich-hoekstra/

JohnMc1

LostinKildare wrote: »

I don’t get your point. Pelosi is Speaker now, but she wasn’t at the time of the disputed briefing in September 2002

She was a member of the Intelligence Committee at the time. Try again.:rolleyes:

LostinKildare

JohnMc1 wrote: »

She was a member of the Intelligence Committee at the time. Try again.:rolleyes:

So? You really have nothing, do you?

JohnMc1

LostinKildare wrote: »

So? You really have nothing, do you?

I have more than you. Again Keep trying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_pelosi

In the House, she served on the Appropriations and Intelligence Committees, and was the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee until her election as Minority Leader

You can shut up now.

LostinKildare

Um, what's your point? How does that dispute anything I've said?

JohnMc1

LostinKildare wrote: »

Um, what's your point? How does that dispute anything I've said?

My point is she was obviously there. Here job at the time called for her to be there. You in all of your partisanship are in total denial [while accusing others of partisanship].

bobbyjoe

JohnMc1 wrote: »

My point is she was obviously there. Here job at the time called for her to be there. You in all of your partisanship are in total denial [while accusing others of partisanship].

We know what her job was. But did the CIA tell her? thats the question. If they did she should resign if they didn't then there should be an investigation to find out why not.

All of this of course is designed to deflect from the real crime of Bush and co.

LostinKildare

JohnMc1 wrote: »

My point is she was obviously there. Here job at the time called for her to be there. You in all of your partisanship are in total denial [while accusing others of partisanship].

I don't know what you mean when you say "she was there." In briefings? Of course she was there. She was a member of the committee, the ranking Democrat member until January 2003 -- before February 2003, which is when (according to her and others) members were told that waterboarding had been done the previous August. At that point, Jane Harman was the ranking Democrat, and as ranking member she protested in the only way legally available to protest what is learned in a classified briefing.

If you're so convinced that Pelosi was told sooner, in September 2002 (which still would have been after the fact and therefore in violation of law), why is it that Porter Goss, the Republican member present with Pelosi at that briefing, refuses to confirm or deny her version of events?

And don't tell me to shut up.

JohnMc1

You lost. You are grasping at straws. Yes you should shut up. You are only burying yourself deeper like Pelosi does with every erratic speech [If she is telling the truth why was she so uncomfortable? [when she usually so cocky like she's the President and not Obama] She is obviously full of it and was briefed on it [she was on the committee until she became Speaker of the House, so she was briefed on it regardless of what time frame you want to make up]

LostinKildare

Okay. You seem to be strangely immune to facts. So I'll drop it. It's getting tiresome.

JohnMc1

LostinKildare wrote: »

Okay. You seem to be strangely immune to facts. So I'll drop it. It's getting tiresome.

Takes one to know one. I'm giving you facts but you're too busy doing your Keith Olbermann impersonation.

The Mad Hatter

JohnMc1 wrote: »

Takes one to know one.

Takes one what?

All you're giving is opinions.

For example

[when she usually so cocky like she's the President and not Obama] She is obviously full of it and was briefed on it [she was on the committee until she became Speaker of the House, so she was briefed on it regardless of what time frame you want to make up]

is nothing more than a series of poorly-informed opinions (not to mention an appalling sentence - no wonder you like Sarah Palin).

JohnMc1

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Takes one what?

All you're giving is opinions.

For example



is nothing more than a series of poorly-informed opinions (not to mention an appalling sentence - no wonder you like Sarah Palin).

Typical can't dispute facts so we'll resort to insults route. :rolleyes: I gave LostinKildare facts that Pelosi was a Member of Intelligence Committee until she became Speaker of the House. So she was obviously involved in the discussions regarding Waterboarding and whatever other Interrogation techniques they were planning of employing at the time.

sceptre

JohnMc1 wrote: »

You lost. You are grasping at straws. Yes you should shut up.

Don't be telling people to shut up. I tend not to do that and it's my job to do that.

The Mad Hatter

JohnMc1 wrote: »

I gave LostinKildare facts that Pelosi was a Member of Intelligence Committee until she became Speaker of the House.

Fact.

So she was obviously involved in the discussions regarding Waterboarding and whatever other Interrogation techniques they were planning of employing at the time.

Opinion.

JohnMc1

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Opinion.

How is that an opinion when its blatantly obvious she was in a position where she would be briefed on Waterboarding and any other Interrogation technique they were employing?
Plus here recent Press fiasco made her dead guilty.

The Mad Hatter

JohnMc1 wrote: »

Plus here recent Press fiasco made her dead guilty.

Opinion again - can you seriously not tell the difference?

Just because she was present at the briefings does not mean that she was fully informed of what was happening. I don't know whether she was. Neither do you. There isn't enough evidence to say either way. To be certain either way without all the facts is base foolishness.

Overheal

Im not willing to let her slide on Plausible Deniability. It was her job to know. Again, if she didn't know, she wasn't doing her job.

JohnMc1

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Opinion again - can you seriously not tell the difference?

.

So you can't or won't admit that in her press conference last week she did not look like she was hiding something?

Overheal wrote:

Im not willing to let her slide on Plausible Deniability. It was her job to know. Again, if she didn't know, she wasn't doing her job.

Exactly. It was her job. Too bad some people on here can't or won't accept that.

The Mad Hatter

JohnMc1 wrote: »

So you can't or won't admit that in her press conference last week she did not look like she was hiding something?

No, that's another opinion. It is your opinion that she looked like she was hiding something. I have not given my opinion on the press conference, and I won't, because my opinion doesn't affect the facts one way or the other.

It is very cute that you can't possibly see anything other than your point of view, though.