A Great Deception

What about the 4,000 deaths of American troops that they tried to use torture to justify? Or hadn't you read yet Scherer that at least part of the reason they kept torturing prisoners over and over was because they wanted to be able to link Iraq to al Qaida to justify going to war with Iraq. And they did this even though their own people were telling them that ther WAS NO LINK! How can they spin that Scherer?
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html

Michael,

Does anyone in the press care that low level soldiers served (are serving?) prison time for carrying out the directives of senior officials? Senator Levin has pointed this out but I've yet to see any stories or opinion pieces from the MSM. Do you think this issue will be given its proper due?

-Squashua

michaelscherer
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No the soldiers at Abu Ghraib are serving time because they got caught in pictures doing what they were doing. Mind you a lot of what they were doing as far as keeping detainees naked and humiliating them WAS ordered from above. As was the use of dogs. Do you really think that if there was a picture of them doing exactly what was ordered they wouldn't still be doing time? Give me a frikkin break. These soldiers took their cues from the top and there is no way in hell you will ever convince me that the first the Bush Administration knew about it was when the pictures came out.

Neither revelation comes as a surprise...
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I'm finding this whole process fascinating. There are a number of things which I have firmly believed to be true from late 2002 onward. To have everything that I've known all along slowly being revealed in some sort of surreal striptease is a little disconcerting. The only thing surprising is the fact that people are acting surprised.

Scherer
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Thanks for the link
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But while the Pentagon's own probes have acknowledged that military commanders, civilian contractors, the CIA and government policymakers all bear some responsibility for the abuses, to date only nine enlisted soldiers have been prosecuted for their crimes at Abu Ghraib (see sidebar). An additional four soldiers and eight officers, including Brinson, Pappas and Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of military police at Abu Ghraib, have been reprimanded. (Pappas and Karpinski were also relieved of their posts.) To date no high-level U.S. officials have been brought to justice in a court of law for what went on at Abu Ghraib.

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I rest my case.

To shout out your "disgust" over what happened in 2002 or 2003 or even 2005 is simply fictional outrage. Fictional because NONE of you expressed any so-called "anger" or "disgust" at that time. Show me comments you have made in 2002, 03 or even 05 that proves you took opposition to the Bush policies of interrogation.
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The same as Obama can't do it today, because he didn't say or do anything at that time either. America was attacked. You fools and your phony outrage now is simply trying to play politics with a very important part of our American history. Feining outrage now only proves what hypocrits you all are. It is totally disgusting.

Feining = feigning

"They can only argue that the death of 3,000 Americans and the threat of further attacks justified what they did."
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It still does not justify it though.

Too easy.....
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http://phd9.blogspot.com/2005/01/from-antiwarcom.html
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http://phd9.blogspot.com/2005/01/from-joe-conason.html
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http://phd9.blogspot.com/2005/01/by-jacob-g-hornberger.html
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http://phd9.blogspot.com/2005/03/argle-bargles-and-other-beasts-from-du.html

To have everything that I've known all along slowly being revealed in some sort of surreal striptease is a little disconcerting
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Yeah. I live in a very conservative part of South Carolina, and there has been precisely no conversation, pro or con, about any of this since it broke. One wonders what is going through the minds of the folks who insisted that questioning the White House was tantamount to treason throughout the Bush presidency.

Rusty challenges us to point to where we were complaining about torture in 2005. My first month of blogging includes no fewer than three examples. Sorry if they get posted twice. My last comment appears to be in limbo:

http://phd9.blogspot.com/2005/01/from-joe-conason.html
http://phd9.blogspot.com/2005/01/from-antiwarcom.html
http://phd9.blogspot.com/2005/01/by-jacob-g-hornberger.html

And:
http://phd9.blogspot.com/2005/03/argle-bargles-and-other-beasts-from-du.html

Rusty - What's worse than people feigning outrage over this - and I don't think anybody is feigning their outrage - are people like you, who defend the use of torture by our intelligence services. It doesn't matter that we were attacked on 9/11, it doesn't matter if the torture produced actionable intelligence, it doesn't matter if nobody died (some did, of course). We are the United States of America and we don't torture. Period. Full stop.
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While the information contained in the memos recently released isn't really new, in 2002 and 2003 opponents of torture (I can't believe there are actually two sides to this issue in our country) didn't voice any outrage because they didn't know this stuff was going on. And in their wildest dreams they didn't think that our government would make the use of torture in interrogations the official policy of our intelligence services. Plus, the Bush admin was doing their best to make sure nobody found out about the torture. We've been numbed by a lot of this now but you have to remember the shock when the Abu Ghraib photos were first release. And even then, many tried their best to believe that it was a case of "just a few bad apples" and not Pentagon/CIA/WH policy...because they couldn't believe our government would do such a thing. But there was outrage then in 2004 and in 2005...and it wasn't feigned.
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As for the members of Congress who were briefed on these torture techniques but who didn't initially object or sound the alarm, shame on them, regardless of party. You'd be hard pressed to find anybody on this board - or any liberal (again, I can't believe this is a liberal v. conservative issue) - defending, say, Nancy Pelosi for not trying to do something about this before it became the official policy of our government.

"The real outrage, in my opinion, is that they were the only ones punished."
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Maybe you could ask Sen. Graham about that. I recall, voice full of passion, Graham declaring "I don't want to see only sargents being punished"

Michael,

Thanks for the link(s) but I sense you're missing the larger point that American soldiers served time in the brig for following explicit directives. The articles to which you refer primarily focus on the photos and those in the photos (lower level army personnel). The articles do not address what we have long suspected and now know:

*In 2002, the CIA proposed "interrogation" techniques from SERE which was being used to train American soldiers how to resist TORTURE
*The proposed techniques were presented to Bush and his staff and none objected (in fact, Rice said she didn't want their conversation to be too specific...hmmmm....wonder why.....)
*Military and contract psychologists and behavioral scientists were consulted to provide clinical support to the torture techniques
*In 2002-2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld were pushing the CIA (and others?) to torture prisoners in order to establish a Qaeda-Iraq connection, a connection their own staff repeatedly said lacked all credible evidence
*Cheney and Rumsfeld seemed to encourage torture techniques more to fulfill political objectives (war with Iraq) than national security (Al-Qaeda)
*Administration legal council provided opinion on the "interrogation" techniques not so much to determine if the techniques were legal but rather if and how could the administration circumvent and/or disregard the law
*Torture policies moved from the administration to Guantanamo where they were used against Zubaidah and Mohammed with questionable (at best) results
*Those same torture techniques were shared among staff in Afghanastan and Iraq where they were handed down the chain of command, i.e. General Sanchez, to subordinates
*Untrained guards at Abu Gharaib were instructed and/or encouraged to use the given techniques

So where for you does "abuse and policy become muddy?" The policy WAS abuse! This stains the honor and integrity of the United States. And those that paid for it were most likely lower middle class soldiers with very little power having to defend themselves against the political interests of the entire Bush administration. Those soldiers were consequently convicted by the same powers that gave them the torture directives in the first place.

So again I ask, do you think the issue of lower level army staff being sent to prison for the wrongs of administration officials be given its proper due? At this time I fear not.

Respectfully, squashua

MS points out that the Abu Ghraib situation is complicated. Perhaps. I would attribute it to simplemindedness and human nature. I have no sympathy for the soldiers held accountable, because I don't know that they were just "following orders" to use the standard nazi refrain. But I have no doubt that the camp was full of high ranking intelligence operatives, and that the tone and implicit approval for such behavior was prevalent.
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The lead story online on Time is what a dilemna Obama has caused himself by releasing the memos but promising not to prosecute (who? line operatives? or DOJ legal punks? or leadership?). That may be, but I believe he can't satisfy the RWnuts any of the time and should proceed with holding accountable any active perpetrators in this shameful blot on our country, from the line level to the top. It's a chicken or egg dilemna, what came first, operatives practices embraced by the leadership, or the other way around?

Michael - Thanks for your recent attention to this story (sincerely).
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I notice you are still hung up on the euphemisms - why not say "torture" instead of the Orwellian "harsh interrogation technique", or "lie" rather than "mislead"?
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What is striking to me is that "in retrospect" everybody "knew all along." Maybe so. Certainly anyone who followed Jane Meyer's reporting knew. But then, was the rest of the media playing out a dumb pantomime of not really being sure what was happening? Because I distinctly remember Meyer et al being consigned to the "kooky left." Or does the media simply follow the winds of public opinion?

squashua, excellent post, thanks.

Alternative (amplified) conclusion:
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They can only argue that the death of 3,000 Americans due to the administration's negligence, and the mere possibility of further attacks, justified what they did – including the sacrifice of another 4,000 Americans, uncounted foreign nationals and our national reputation as a decent, responsible member of the world community. Even that overlooks the very real likelihood that the primary purpose of the war was directly for profit and indirectly for maintenance of power, to expand all manner of policies advantageous to their rich supporters.

I want to second the opinion that it's nice to see Scherer so involved in this issue... also want to second the query about the Orwellian Newspeak. Now that the toothpaste is out & everybody knows that these "techniques" are torture, why can't the media start saying so? In fact, I'd like to posit that journalists' refusal to describe these techniques as torture, when the U.S. and International Law both consider them so, actually helped our government hide what they were doing, and allowed them to continue to engage in these horrid practices. Care to make a "mea-culpa" for your passive editorial complicity in the Bush-era torture campaign, Michael?

I wish to third the opinion that it is admirable for Mr. Scherer to cover this important issue even if he continues to use Orwellian-speak when describing torture which is clearly prohibited by every applicable legal standard, every single religious tradition and every single precept of morality that humanity has ever devised. If America is truly going to face this issue, then we desperately need "conservatives" and "Republicans" and their media sycophants to join with us in pursuing this abominable stain on America's image and reputation. The fact is that not a single conservative Republican in the Senate has joined Senator Leahy's call for investigation - this is utterly shameful.

Just think - if Mr. Scherer writes about this horrific episode in American history as often as he did about that huge crucial issue about public financing in last year's Presidential election, then we're likely to see a daily barrage of torture-related postings from a Republican sycophant. This is a very good thing - regardless of the continuing use of Orwellian language.

Nobody should be surprised that the administration planned for the interrogations before they received authorization. You always plan before you ask for authorization: that way you 1) know what you're asking for, and 2) are ready to implement your plan as soon as you receive authorization.
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The Pentagon has plans to invade most any country in the world just sitting on the shelf; that doesn't mean there's an illegal government plot to invade France.
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The interrogation tactics, and their approval by senior administration officials, were reprehensible, but it's important here that our outrage is intelligently targeted. Otherwise, we may end up trying to solve the wrong problems.

Well said, Peter @ 3:21 pm