Left Lashes Out Against Obama

Sometimes you have to pick your battles.
People who are politically centered are more flexible, more independent thinking and not inclined to cling so much to ideologies.
But the left and the right are so constrained by their political rigidness that they miss the point: Let's not get bogged down in politics. Let's get healthcare reform, education reform, the things that are important to everybody and not just a few. I've been chewed out on Daily Kos for making that point. I've been chewed out by the right for lots of things.
But it seems both sides are always just trying to prove that they're right.
Just like the right insist that Obama's views on abortion automatically disqualify him from even living on the planet, the left insists that Obama is now covering up for the Bush administration, which is silly.
For those out here just hoping to get healthcare or get access to a quality education, the left and the right are trampling on progress.

CIA Turns Down Cheney's Request to Release Memos

Turns out Cheney was running around suggesting waterboarding as in hey, why don't you waterboard that guy. Not sure why this surprises the reporter in the video below. I'd go a step further and suggest that Cheney probably was in the room during waterboarding or other types of torture. I believe Cheney's a high-functioning twisted man.
In other Cheney news, the CIA turned down Cheney's request for the release of memos that Cheney perceives would prove him innocent. Apparently, Cheney is appealing.

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Pelosi's Pants are on Fire

Of course Nancy Pelosi knew about torture. If she didn't know, then she should've known. Democrats didn't stand up to Bush-Cheney. They all knew. All of Congress is culpable.
I knew.
The American people elected George Bush for a second term when we knew what was going on. We're all to blame. 
Peggy Noonan says Pelosi thought torture prosecutions would be risk free. Noonan also says Cheney is probably "so deeply worried" about terrorism, which is why he keeps oozing up. Noonan seems to buy the argument that the Obama administration is putting the nation at risk. She is a conservative after all, and they all are "so deeply worried." It's why they've squirreled away all their guns and ammo. I have more concern for a gun toting wingnut than I do a terrorist attack.

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Gibbs Says Torture Prosecutions Not Obama's Decision

The president doesn't make the decision on prosecutions, Gibbs said on Meet the Press. Justice does. It's clear, though, that Obama wants to look forward. Eric Holder has already said that he has no intention of prosecuting CIA agents.
Gibbs said the torture memos were released because of a legal case (by the ACLU), which required the release of the memos.
He says if a review of torture is to take place, it should take place within the senate intelligence committee, which is where an investigation is already underway.
Obama doesn't favor a truth commission.
Personally, I think if there was a truth commission, they'd find everyone in Congress culpable, even Nancy Pelosi, who says she wasn't informed that people were being tortured. It's her job to know.

Military Agency Warned Torture Could Produce Unreliable Information

WaPo: The military agency that helped to devise harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects referred to the application of extreme duress as "torture" in a July 2002 document sent to the Pentagon's chief lawyer and warned that it would produce "unreliable information."

"The unintended consequence of a U.S. policy that provides for the torture of prisoners is that it could be used by our adversaries as justification for the torture of captured U.S. personnel," says the document, an unsigned two-page attachment to a memo by the military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency. Parts of the attachment, obtained in full by The Washington Post, were quoted in a Senate report on harsh interrogation released this week.

It remains unclear whether the attachment reached high-ranking officials in the Bush administration. But the document offers the clearest evidence that has come to light so far that those who helped formulate the harsh interrogation techniques voiced early concerns about the effectiveness of applying severe physical or psychological pressure.

Torture photos set to be released:

The Bush administration had repeatedly blocked through legal channels appeals from human rights groups for release of the pictures, which are held by the Army Criminal Investigation Division. But the Obama administration late yesterday lifted all legal obstacles and the pictures are to be published by 28 May.

The justice department has initially agreed to the release of 21 images of abuse at detention centres in Iraq and Afghanistan other than at Abu Ghraib and 23 other pictures. It added "the government is also processing for release a substantial number of other images". Up to 2,000 could be released. Guardian

Gibbs on possible backlash from photo release:

Brown Man has a thoughtful post on what is and isn't torture and the hypocrisy of indicting anyone in the Bush administration for this now:

What is with the sanctimony about torture?

Are these self righteous pundits serious? The United States of America has killed millions of people around the world in the name of democratic freedom, and we will kill many more before all of our bullets and bombs run out. To insist on some kind of twisted recollection of America's history, as though the spouting of a few ideological suppositions could bring life back to those who have been slaughtered by the hand of U.S. soldiers since the beginning of this country's history is the lowest kind of immorality, the type that allows the mind to release itself from the stricture of the facts in order to construct a past that aligns perfectly with one's cherished ideals.

Torture is not just waterboarding.

Torture is when you kill everybody in a village but an eight year old child who will have to live with the horrific sounds and smells of death as their entire community suddenly disappears.
Read the rest at Brown Man

Dennis Blair Says Torture Worked

Once again, I'll say, just because torture works doesn't make it right. It also doesn't mean it's the best method to get information. The point is, it doesn't matter if torture works. HELLO. Ignorant arguments for torture are being presented.

If stealing makes me rich, does that mean I should steal? Come on people. 
The U.S. is not about torture. It is illegal and it is what barbarians do. It sounds like we really have lost our moral bearings.
Obama needs to give another speech specifically on torture.
In an old memo written by Dennis Blair, now Obama's director of national intelligence, Blair says torture works. 

CNN: The Bush-era interrogation techniques that many view as torture may have yielded important information about terrorists, President Obama's national intelligence director said in an internal memo.

"High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country," Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said in a memo to personnel.

The memo, obtained by CNN late Tuesday, was sent around the time the administration released several memos from the previous administration detailing the use of terror interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

Obama Leaving Door Open to Prosecutions for Torture

Updated with video below-Obama speaks to the press on the torture memos. Obama worries that this could get so politicized that it hampers national security operations. 
Dick Cheney is calling torture a success. But maybe he'll be getting his due:

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Obama doesn't want the agents prosecuted. Nor should they be. They were underlings. If anyone is prosecuted, it needs to be the big guys:

Obama said it will be up to Attorney General Eric Holder to decide whether or not to prosecute the former officials.

"With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more a decision for the attorney general within the parameter of various laws, and I don't want to prejudge that," Obama said during a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah at the White House.

"There's a host of very complicated issues involved there. As a general deal, I think we should be looking forward and not backward. I do worry about this getting so politicized that we cannot function effectively, and it hampers our ability to carry out critical national security operations."

Obama reiterated his belief that he did not think it is appropriate to prosecute those CIA officials and others who carried out the interrogations in question.

"This has been a difficult chapter in our history and one of [my] tougher decisions," he added. CNN

Bush Torture Memos to Be Released

The intelligence community should stand behind their torture instead of fearing the light.

Newsweek: Over objections from the U.S. intelligence community, the White House is moving to declassify—and publicly release—three internal memos that will lay out, for the first time, details of the "enhanced" interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration for use against "high value" Qaeda detainees. The memos, written by Justice Department lawyers in May 2005, provide the legal rationale for waterboarding, head slapping and other rough tactics used by the CIA. One senior Obama official, who like others interviewed for this story requested anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, said the memos were "ugly" and could embarrass the CIA. Other officials predicted they would fuel demands for a "truth commission" on torture.