Bush Principals discussed torture for specific subjects
April 10
This ought to be huge, though my guess is there will be far more concern over who told ABC than over who directly authorized torture. Senior officials of the acting president authorized the use of torture against specific detainees. That's according to anonymous sources. Be careful when anonymous sources repeat the government line because that means they're almost surely lying. This time, the anonymous sources said things they almost surely can't get caught saying without something bad happening to them. I believe them. I hope Congress considers them likely enough to be right to drag these officials in front of Congress in a process that ought (in the moral sense of "ought") to lead to impeachment or resignations of some current officials and then to war crimes trials. The acting president himself wasn't in on these discussions according to the story, and there's no proof he knew, at least for now. What his principals say to save their own skins might tell a different story. These Principals were Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and CIA Director George Tenet. It sounds like the CIA was so concerned about the legality and possible repercussions of what they were ordered to do, that they wanted this specific approval regarding each use of torture on some detainees, despite the legal cover already provided.
Personally, I would be willing to let every interrogator off the hook if they would tell what they know. The torturers at Guantanamo and Bagram can go free, provided we get the people at the top. Rumsfeld resigned in disgrace, but that's all he's suffered. Powell was pushed out, but spare me the "he's so honorable" crap: he knew and didn't quit. Tenet has suffered some awkward interviews and tough hearings, but that's all. Ashcroft is off cashing-in in the private sector and though he is quoted as raising an objection, he knew and stayed. Rice is still there as Powell's successor. Cheney is still there as the acting vice-president ("acting" because like the acting president, he stole his election and isn't legitimate, so he acts in the job until there's a real vice-president). War crimes somehow seem worse to me when the people who committed them not only aren't punished, but are still in charge. Congress, please screw the undeserved courtesy and subpoena these people now.
The fool who spoke and removed all doubt
April 2
That heading refers to the old saying, "Better to be silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, proved that twice recently, making me wonder if his constituents really consider him smart enough to be in Congress. He probably is smart enough, but he's showing the reflexive defensiveness on behalf of the acting president that's dragging down the Republican Party.
Last month, Issa was at a hearing on the biggest of the many Republican scandals, the missing White House e-mail. It's worth repeating that this is the biggest scandal because the e-mail sent using RNC domains or "lost" from the White House servers holds who knows how much evidence to all the other scandals. It screams cover-up, unless you're Issa. He defended the White House decision to replace the Lotus Notes system used by the Clinton administration with essentially nothing by claiming the real problem was Notes was antiquated. Given the technical proficiency normal to congressmen, you may rightly assume this means Notes is a fully up-to-date system in widespread use in large organizations. It pales in market share to Microsoft's Outlook, but that doesn't mean it's inferior or inadequate. Even if Issa was right, that begs the question of why it was replaced with nearly nothing. It's obvious of course: the bushies wanted no records of their nefarious activities (otherwise known as "pretty much everything they do") so they tried to make their deleted messages stay deleted. Of course, even without a proper archiving system, e-mail is really hard to get rid of, which is why "we can't find it" is followed by "we destroyed the drives". I just bet they did.
That was February. Yesterday Issa was merely callous in playing down the effect of 911 (remember, play it up when you need to scare people into voting for you, play it down when you need to deflect blame). During a hearing on a new 911 victims fund, which I'm guessing includes rescue workers sick from toxins they were exposed to, Issa expressed doubt they could be all that sick. After all, they weren't hit by weapons, right? "It simply was an aircraft, residue of two aircraft, and residue from the materials used to build this building." No, residue from crashed airliners and collapsed skyscrapers couldn't cause problems. Not at all. Wow. And not only do these guys get to vote on humanitarian matters, they get to vote on science too.




