UN Demands Torture Prosecutions
Manfred Nowak, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on torture, proclaimed yesterday that the United States must prosecute the lawyers who drew up the torture memos and that if we fail to do so it is the duty of other states to step in and bring charges. In my New Atlanticist piece, "UN: United States Must Prosecute Torture Lawyers," I wonder how ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 25, 2009 11:28
Quote of the Day – Repugnant Edition
"For those most committed to the ridiculous crusade for terrorist rights, 'enhanced interrogation' is not only immoral and illegal, it's ineffective. That argument, like Khalid Sheik Mohamed, doesn't hold water." - Michael Goldfarb One wonders what John McCain, who suffered torture for five years as a guest of the North Vietnamese and whose campaign employed Goldfarb as deputy communications director, thinks ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 24, 2009 06:00
Rogue Agents Tipped Pelosi To Harman Wiretap
"Intelligence officials, angry that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had blocked an FBI investigation into Democratic Rep. Jane Harman's interactions with a suspected Israeli agent, tipped off Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, that Harman had been picked up on a court-ordered National Security Agency wiretap targeting the agent," CQ's Jeff Stein reports. "In doing so, the officials flouted an ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 23, 2009 10:16
Torture and Sex: Moral Relativism or Morally Unrelated?
Kevin Drum observes, When the subject has anything to do with sex, the right in America is the party of moral absolutes. We know what's right, we know what's wrong, and even if there's a price to pay we can't shirk our responsibility to set a proper example and do the right thing. But when the subject is torture, suddenly it's all ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 22, 2009 13:07
Torture Worked! Foiled Los Angeles Attack! Yay Torture!
After several days of inflamed public debate following official confirmation that the United States government tortured suspected terrorists under specific authorization from the Bush administration, the inevitable pushback has begun. Several reports now suggest that these extreme interrogation techniques had the desired effect, yielding valuable intelligence that saved lives. The most interesting of these, alas, comes from CNS and is headlined ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 22, 2009 07:42
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Waterboarded 183 Times
Marcy Wheeler picks an interesting factoid out of the "Bradford memo," one of several documents detailing the interogation techniques used by the U.S. intelligence community released last week by the Obama administration: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 (his first month in custody) alone. As noted repeatedly on this site and others over the years, waterboarding is ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 19, 2009 06:31
Cheney’s Assassins
The big story at memeorandum is a report by MinnPost's Eric Black, passed on by Raw Story's Muriel Kane, that Dick Cheney ran a super secret assassination ring out of his office. Not surprisingly, perhaps, most bloggers on the Right, such as Jules Crittenden and Dan Collins, think Hersh is crazy as a loon while most on the Left, like Marcy ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 12, 2009 07:12
The Chas Freeman Affair
Pat Lang has Chas Freeman's scathing letter announcing his withdrawal as a candidate for NIC chair, including this brilliant assessment of the state of affairs of the political appointment process: As those who know me are well aware, I have greatly enjoyed life since retiring from government. Nothing was further from my mind than a return to public service. When Admiral ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 11, 2009 14:13
Obama Invokes State Secrets Privilege
Meet the new boss -- same as the old boss: In a closely watched case involving rendition and torture, a lawyer for the Obama administration seemed to surprise a panel of federal appeals judges on Monday by pressing ahead with an argument for preserving state secrets originally developed by the Bush administration. In the case, Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian native, and four ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on February 10, 2009 08:03
‘We Tortured Mohammed al Qahtani’
[caption id="attachment_29926" align="alignright" width="300" caption=" Mohammed al-Qahtani, 2006 file photo (AFP) "][/caption] The blogosphere is abuzz over an issue of semantics. The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on January 14, 2009 13:07
CIA Rains Hellfire on Al Qaeda
A story on the front page of today's NYT reports on the killing of two very senior al Qaeda officials in Pakistan. In my New Atlanticist piece "Marriot Bombing Planner Killed in CIA Strike," I argue that it actually matters this time.Posted in Outside The Beltway on January 9, 2009 08:01
Team Players
John Cole is furious [UPDATE: merely "disgusted"] at Dianne Feinstein and other Democrats critical of the nomination of Leon Panetta as CIA director, saying it proves that the party are "unparalleled masters at fratricide." Way to go, team. Feinstein, who had no problem voting yea for Porter Goss, George Tenet, and Michael Hayden, as well as Mike Mukasey, Robert Mueller, and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on January 6, 2009 09:54
Leon Panetta as CIA Director
[caption id="attachment_29532" align="alignright" width="190" caption="Leon E. Panetta, the former congressman and White House chief of staff. (Kevin Wolf/Associated Press)"][/caption] When I saw the news yesterday afternoon that Leon Panetta was Barack Obama's pick to head the CIA, I decided to hold off on posting and go play with my baby instead. My initial reaction was much the same as to the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on January 6, 2009 07:38
CIA Viagra Torture Not Funny!
With respect to the generally humorous tone with which the blogosphere, yours truly included, greeted the news that the CIA is giving Viagra to Afghan chieftains in hopes of softening them up psychologically by temporarily doing the converse physically, Kathy Kattenburg is concerned that 1) the wives of the chieftain in question may not be willing sexual partners and that ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on December 27, 2008 09:07
Viagra Anti-Terrorist Weapon
The CIA has figured out a way to use sex as an interrogation tool in a way that's likely to elicit chuckles rather than horror. WaPo's Joby Warrick begins with a story about giving an Afghan chieftain for Viagra tablets. The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on December 26, 2008 08:14
