Sunday Funnies

Greenwald, Crooks and Liars, and Firedog Lake

Obama’s allegedly “new” centrism and his ABC interview today

by Glenn Greenwald, Salon

Sunday Jan. 11, 2009 08:23 EST

Update II: Regarding Obama’s apparent desire to have a new process created where torture-obtained evidence can be used (and/or where the standards of proof are lowered), the U.S. Supreme Court, in the 1935 case of Brown v. Mississippi, addressed the question of whether the U.S. Constitution allowed the State of Mississippi to use a confession obtained by beatings and other forms of coercion to convict African-American defendants of murder (h/t lennonist).  The Court invalidated the convictions because they were secured by coerced confessions and said (emphasis added):

In Fisher v. State, 145 Miss. 116, 134, 110 So. 361, 365, the court said: ‘Coercing the supposed state’s criminals into confessions and using such confessions so coerced from them against them in trials has been the curse of all countries. It was the chief iniquity, the crowning infamy of the Star Chamber, and the Inquisition, and other similar institutions.  The Constitution recognized the evils that lay behind these practices and prohibited them in this country. . . .  The duty of maintaining constitutional rights of a person on trial for his life rises above mere rules of procedure, and wherever the court is clearly satisfied that such violations exist, it will refuse to sanction such violations and will apply the corrective.’

There’s absolutely no good reason for Obama not to close Guantanamo immediately and simply try the detainees in our already-extant courts of law.  That’s how we’ve convicted all sorts of accused terrorists in the past.  The only reason not to do so is a desire to disregard — violate — these long-standing American principles and instead create a new process that allows torture-obtained evidence to be used.

Crooks and Liars

This Week: Obama Thanks Cheney For Good Advice And Hedges On Closing Gitmo and War Crimes Investigations

By Nicole Belle Sunday Jan 11, 2009 12:00pm

I have never been one of those who saw Barack Obama with blinders on, projecting all my best liberal hopes upon him. However, that said, I will say that just days from his inaugural, it is heartbreaking to my liberal soul to see Obama become so deeply embedded into the Beltway Bubble crowd that he can validate all the logical fallacies that have had so many of us beating our head against the wall for the last eight years.

For example, in a discussion of the War on Terror and what measures must be taken to “keep the country safe,” Obama tells host George Stephanopoulos that [he appreciates Cheney’s advice ] to not judge the Bush administration’s action without the full knowledge of what has taken place, a strange challenge from the most malevolently secretive executive this country has seen, though one not completely ignored by Obama:

“I think that was pretty good advice, which is I should know what’s going on before we make judgments and that we shouldn’t be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric,” Obama said. “So, I’ve got no problem with that particular quote. I think if Vice President Cheney were here, he and I would have some significant disagreements on some things that we know happened.”

…

I realize there’s a danger in saying too much before the inauguration (and while Bush can still issue pardons), but I find it disheartening that the “Change We Can Believe In” does not include accountability. The whole notion that we shouldn’t look back is ridiculous, even when Reid and Pelosi used it. Our whole notion of criminal justice is all about looking back. Unless of course, we’ve developed some sort of “Minority Report”-like ability to charge people with crimes before they commit them.

Firedog Lake

Note to PEBO: This “Prosecute the Torturers” Issue isn’t Going to Go Away (Part II)

By: looseheadprop Sunday January 11, 2009 4:00 pm

One former CIA agent says that every punch, every slap, was individually authorized through Langley:

The former intelligence officer says the interrogators’ activities were carefully directed from Langley, Va., every step of the way. “It wasn’t up to individual interrogators to decide, ‘Well, I’m gonna slap him. Or ‘I’m going to shake him.’ Or ‘I’m gonna make him stay up for 48 hours.’ Each one of these steps, even though they’re minor steps, like the intention shake– or the openhanded belly slap, each one of these had to have the approval of the Deputy Director for Operations. “. . . . [B]efore you laid a hand on him, you had to send in the cable saying, ‘He’s uncooperative. Request permission to do X.’ And that permission would come. ‘You’re allowed to him one time in the belly with an open hand.'”

Think about how extraordinary that statement is! Agents in the field, were marionettes, getting directions from the White House basement, relayed through CIA HQ at Langley, about every single blow, every zap, every drop of waterboarding. And Cheney admits it!

It also turns out that the White House has it’s own interrogation room in the basement. Sounds more like Saddam’s basement than our president’s, doesn’t it?