Of course they started with the answer, which was an article of faith (making it ignorable, as most articles of faith are by fundamentalists-unless it's one of those that is used to manipulate others; they really didn't care whether AQ had a relationship to Saddam-they were going to destroy him anyway. 9/11 became nothing but a propaganda tool for Bushetc.

Kruggs says there's a name for deliberately torturing in order to justify an immoral invasion: it's evil. He's right. That is evil.

so we tortured people solely to provide domestic political cover.

and prosecutions are off the table?

do we care if we ever have any moral high ground to stand on again?

War crimes to find an excuse for war crimes. Lovely.

I love to state the obvious.

Creationists with electrodes.

Nice.

Have you ever been in a long term relationship, ended it, and then later discovered your former partner was somehow a sick, twisted nutjob? A pedophile, escaped bank robber, serial dog killer, something unimagineable. You think back to your time together and get cold, creepy chills at the thought of the person you had under the same roof as yourself. As a nation I can see many people coming to the realization they were being led by a crew of sick, crazy people. Eight years of twisted fucks at the helm. And now you look back and get the same creepy chills you'd experience finding out your husband or wife burned down churches or screwed donkeys while you were at work. All manner of conflicted emotions come to fore, stuff you can't reconcile, stuff that bothers you all the time. Finally something has to purge those feelings, a cleansing and coming to terms. Failing that the less stout among us facing such problems go just a little mad. Personally I think a few people need to hang for all of this. I guess rotting in jail would do failing erection of some gallows.

What's almost more depressing to me is that the Democrats--as the political opposition--were complicit in all this, so any real investigation would lead half of Washington away in chains. That seriously reduces the odds of a real investigation. John Cornyn is right that the Democratic Congress can't do a credible job of it. Only the hated "bipartisan commission" could do that, and of course the GOP will load their side up with saboteurs and whitewashers. And maybe the Democrats too.

Of course the Al Qaeda/Iraq connection ultimately did come from a guy named Iban al Shakh al Libby, who was renditioned (?) to Egypt for torture.

This story is all over MSNBC today. The more play it gets the more likely people will come to the conclusion that something has to be done for punishing the evil doers, Bush, especially Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo and Bybee. I don't think prosecutions are really off the table. Once enough info is out there, it will become apparent. Obama is doing a great job letting the info out and giving people some time to digest it. And Cheney can't help himself and keeps popping off. When people widely realize that we did torture innocent people to get political cover for a war that didn't need to be faought, and still didn't get any info that connected Saddam, there is going to be widespread outrage. There's a storm coming for republicans and they should be very afraid...and I am not talking about that stupid anti gay marriage commercial.

Jane Mayer asks some interesting questions about actions pre Bybee memo.

What did the F.B.I. see in the spring of 2002? And exactly who was involved? How high up was this activity authorized? Is it off-limits for criminal investigation?

There are plenty of new names and details in the Armed Services Committee report, including a scene of two military men teaching the C.I.A. how to use Chinese torture techniques. One of the instructors, Joseph Witsch, played the “beater,� while the other, Gary Percival, became the “beatee.� By the mid-summer of 2002, beating was no longer just an academic exercise. Precisely when these tactics were used on live captives, and at what point top Bush officials endorsed them, may be a matter of serious interest to Attorney General Eric Holder.

"Chinese Torture Techniques". Never thought I'd hear that discussed as American behaviour.

What's darkly ironic is that the one thing torture has been effective at doing, throughout history, is producing false confessions. The Bush League couldn't even do that.

CNN's headlines were instructive: American lives in danger because Obama rejects techniques.

Is Cheney on CNN's Board?

...interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq.

Interrogator: All right, for the 181st time, was Bin Laden working with Saddam Hussein?

Sounds of splashing water and wall-slamming.

Interrogator: Ok, let's try this again. For the 182nd time,.....

The contrast drawn in Steve's post between this and the "ticking time bomb" is, I would say, not a real difference. This is exactly the same as any real instance would be where the "ticking time bomb" excuse was invoked: it was torture based on what the torturer believes he "knows" but does not, in fact, know.

And, in either case, the torture's purpose quickly becomes largely to justify the torture itself. That is, the belief in the justification of the torture becomes unquestionable to the torturer because if the justification were false, the torture would be (as it, in fact, always is) morally reprehensible on a scale that the mind cannot easily cope with. So, the justification must be true, and confirming it—by torture—becomes more imperative.

Of course, we've known this for a long time. Which is one reason why the world has declared torture to be categorically unacceptable, inexcusable by any exigency, and has declared that, in the words of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, “the torturer has become like the pirate and slave trader before him hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind.”

When Cheney says we haven't seen the memos that said all the good information they got from interrogations, why do I get the feeling the information he's talking about is the Iraq/Al Qaeda link and the Atta meeting in Prague?

Now we know why Cheney keeps repeating all those long-debunked claims -- all the people he water boarded confirmed it.

Wow. I haven't been to church in awhile, but now I fervently hope that there *is* a hell for these bastards to burn in. I thought my outrage-o-meter had worn out, but today I find there's still the capability to be shocked by the evil that ran our country.

I think this is far worse than people are suggesting. I'm guessing they knew that torture would not produce accurate, factual info. They knew it would lead to false confessions. And that was the point. The Inquisition was perhaps the greatest example of that. Under extreme duress, people will confess to anything. What is being confessed can be "suggested" by the torturers. They often get what they want.

So let me get this right, we invaded, occupied, and presided over the demise of a soveriegn nation because one of the detainees may have made up a bunch of shit in order merely to get the 101st waterboarding session to stop? Sound plausible? Invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a failure, and I would imagine it has all been made possible by Çheney's torture system. Bad intel comes from desperate souls looking to make the pain go away. And now Cheney wants us to see all the intel? Dick, it seems you don't know dick! -Kevo

"...hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind.�

There you go. Thanks, cmdicely.

I'm with Torquemada.

This latest news is even MORE horrible than the torture we already knew about.

This was for POLITICAL COVER. This was not to "protect" us, it was to protect Cheney, his lapdog/meal-ticket Bush, and all their cronies.

This is the most cynical, evil thing I have ever heard done in the name of MY country.

THIS is TREASON.

"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used. The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

These two reasons don't hold together. The main one was the second (fabrication of evidence), not the first (another attack after 9/11). If prevention of a post-9/11 attack had been even an equal concern to our government, we would not have risked destroying our witnesses.

The anonymous source is deceived or lying.

What a surprise. Chickenhawk Cheney and Rumsfeld the reanimated cold warrior were really just run of the mill, closet Stalinists.

Two things:
First, I remember back during the earlier years of the Iraq war (just the fact that we can say that...) I remember a lot of talk using phrases like "taking another look at the intelligence," especially related to stories dealing with how the Office of the Vice President was heading over to Langley and directly involving themselves in an unprecedented way in intelligence collection and analysis. The image that always came to mind was one of harried analysts sighing and sitting down to go back through the stacks of paper in the cabinets and scattered over their desks. In retrospect, I was like the child that believes it when told that the sick dog that disappeared is now living on a farm in the country and running through the open fields without a leash.

Second, the most infuriating thing about the ticking time bomb scenario, is that it assumes only the best case scenario and precludes examination of all others. When you think about the specifics, there is no way to give it any credence. Let's walk it through. You're an intelligence professional, you have a guy tied to a chair in front of you, and let's assume that you are certain that he know the location of some sort of device that's set to blow. So you torture him and he says, "OK! No more. The device is on a Ryder truck circling the beltway." So you set the wheels in motion to find the truck. Do you sit back and wait? Of course not. There's a ticking time bomb, and he might be lying. So you keep going. And whether he was lying or just realizes that you won't stop if he keeps saying the same thing, he says, "OK! No more. The device is in a hanger at the airport." The cycle repeats itself. Only one of three outcomes can reasonably stop the torture. Either the device is found, the device goes off, or (udoubtedly the most likely) nothing happens and you keep going until the suspect is unable to communicate or dead. The only way to accept the ticking time bomb scenario is if you are just as comfortable with the third outcome as with the other two.

Bush wanted to invade Iraq to be a war preznit.

They tortured KSM (and who knows who else), not to find out about imminent attacks on America by Al Qaeda, but to find a connection between AQ and Saddam Hussein.

I believe that corroborates what the Brits wrote in the Downing Street Memos -- that the Yanks were fixing intelligence around the policy.

In light of so many experts, and torture victim's statements that the victim will say "anything" to get the torture to stop, even for a few minutes - how remarkable is it then, that with the hundreds tortured, at least 2 and perhaps 100 murdered by torture - that not one was ever induced to say that bin Ladin and Hussain were in cahoots?

Duhbya and Co. were so far wrong they couldn't even get people who were tortured to death to facilitate their lies.

I find that breath taking.