Whatever Happened To "We Don't Torture"?

John Negroponte, the King of All Salvadoran Death Squads, spills the beans and says the obvious.

Negroponte: I get concerned that we're too retrospective and tend to look in the rearview mirror too often at things that happened four or even six years ago. We've taken steps to address the issue of interrogations, for instance, and waterboarding has not been used in years. It wasn't used when I was director of national intelligence, nor even for a few years before that. We've also taken significant steps to improve Guantanamo. People will tell you now that it is a world-class detention facility. But if you want to highlight and accent the negative, you can resurface these issues constantly to keep them alive. I would rather focus on what we need to do going forward.

It's an interesting new legal argument. Not guilty by reason of "yeah, we're guilty, but we fixed it!" I'll have to consult the Court to see if that holds.

By the way, if you want to know how to responsibly engage in interrogation, you can give this a read.

Piro says no coercive interrogation techniques, like sleep deprivation, heat, cold, loud noises, or water boarding were ever used. "It's against FBI policy, first. And wouldn't have really benefited us with someone like Saddam," Piro says.

Why not?

"I think Saddam clearly had demonstrated over his legacy that he would not respond to threats, to any type of fear-based approach," Piro explains.

"So how do you crack a guy like that?" Pelley asks.

"Time," Piro says.

(This interrogation eventually revealed that Saddam didn't have WMD, was wary of Osama bin Laden and viewed him as a threat. Clearly that was the WRONG kind of intelligence. Maybe they didn't do enough zip-bam Jack Bauer work on him so they got the wrong answers.)

Negroponte simply revealed what everyone already knew, and it's not like our country's been averse to coddling dictators and torturers for years. But there's something different in reading a public official say, in the most nonchalant matter possible, "Yeah, we tortured, so?" It's really wounding. It's one thing to know that your country has betrayed its supposed ideals. It's quite another to have that betrayal confirmed in the most putrid manner possible.

...I cross-posted this at Digby's, and to respect her position of neutrality I didn't add this. But in the aftermath of this confirmation of using a tactic that dates back to the Spanish Inquisition, it's instructive to take a look at this endorsement from 85 Guantanamo lawyers, for Barack Obama.

We are at a critical point in the Presidential campaign, and as lawyers who have been deeply involved in the Guantanamo litigation to preserve the important right to habeas corpus, we are writing to urge you to support Senator Obama.

The Administration's Guantanamo policies have undercut our values at home and stained our reputation around the world. All of us are lawyers who have worked on the Guantanamo habeas corpus litigation for many years, some of us since early 2002, and we were all deeply involved in opposing the Administration’s attempt to overturn the Supreme Court's Rasul decision by stripping the courts of jurisdiction to hear the Guantanamo cases. We have talked with Senator Obama about why the Guantanamo litigation is so significant, and we have worked closely with Senator Obama in the fight to preserve habeas corpus.

Some politicians are all talk and no action. But we know from first-hand experience that Senator Obama has demonstrated extraordinary leadership on this critical and controversial issue. When others stood back, Senator Obama helped lead the fight in the Senate against the Administration's efforts in the Fall of 2006 to strip the courts of jurisdiction, and when we were walking the halls of the Capitol trying to win over enough Senators to beat back the Administration's bill, Senator Obama made his key staffers and even his offices available to help us. Senator Obama worked with us to count the votes, and he personally lobbied colleagues who worried about the political ramifications of voting to preserve habeas corpus for the men held at Guantanamo. He has understood that our strength as a nation stems from our commitment to our core values, and that we are strong enough to protect both our security and those values. Senator Obama demonstrated real leadership then and since, continuing to raise Guantanamo and habeas corpus in his speeches and in the debates.

It's not that I think that Hillary Clinton somehow would not be committed to closing Guantanamo and reversing the evil practice of denying habeas corpus, but you can read something into the emphasis upon which these leading candidates place on it. These lawyers are a trusted source. And Obama clearly has a real concern about the denial of Constitutional rights and the slippery slope where that can lead.

WH Lawyers Discussed Torture Tapes, Including Abu Gonzales And David Addington!

The latest bombshell in the torture tapes case shows once again that the first explanation from the Bush Administration is never, ever the correct one.

At least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two operatives from Al Qaeda, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials.

We knew about Harriet Miers, but the article also names John Bellinger (the senior lawyer for the NSC at the time), Alberto Gonzales and Cheney's brain David Addington. While the reporters don't exactly know what was said, they strongly imply that the White House lawyers, and by association the White House, wanted the tapes dumped in the Potomac.

It was previously reported that some administration officials had advised against destroying the tapes, but the emerging picture of White House involvement is more complex. In interviews, several administration and intelligence officials provided conflicting accounts as to whether anyone at the White House expressed support for the idea that the tapes should be destroyed.

One former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said there had been “vigorous sentiment” among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes. The former official did not specify which White House officials took this position, but he said that some believed in 2005 that any disclosure of the tapes could have been particularly damaging after revelations a year earlier of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Some other officials assert that no one at the White House advocated destroying the tapes. Those officials acknowledged, however, that no White House lawyer gave a direct order to preserve the tapes or advised that destroying them would be illegal.

Let me have one wild guess who wanted the tapes destroyed: Addington. He's not too interested in constraints on his own power. And Gonzales would go along with whatever his minders told him. This also means that the top official at the Justice Department was privy to discussions about the destruction of physical evidence implicating the federal government in major violations of international law, and said nothing. Because of course, he was knee-deep in it himself.

Keep in mind that the Justice Department is now the agency investigating this.

The sources in the story also throw a couple other CIA lawyers under the bus.

The current and former officials also provided new details about the role played in November 2005 by Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the chief of the agency’s clandestine branch, who ultimately ordered the destruction of the tapes.

The officials said that before he issued a secret cable directing that the tapes be destroyed, Mr. Rodriguez received legal guidance from two C.I.A. lawyers, Steven Hermes and Robert Eatinger. The officials said that those lawyers gave written guidance to Mr. Rodriguez that he had the authority to destroy the tapes and that the destruction would violate no laws.

The agency did not make either Mr. Hermes or Mr. Eatinger available for comment.

This lines up perfectly with Rodriguez' defense as stated later in the article by his lawyer Robert Bennett. What it means for the purposes of the investigation is that there is even more of a paper trail than at first believed. Add it on to this known communication.

Newsweek reported this week that John D. Negroponte, who was director of national intelligence at the time the tapes were destroyed, sent a memorandum in the summer of 2005 to Mr. Goss, the C.I.A. director, advising him against destroying the tapes. Mr. Negroponte left the job this year to become deputy secretary of state, and a spokesman for the director of national intelligence declined to comment on the Newsweek article.

There's going to be a federal court hearing this week about the destruction of the tapes, so the timing of this article is pretty clear. As much as Mukasey wants to obstruct judicial or Congressional review over this situation, he cannot dictate the terms by which other branches of government conduct themselves, nor can he stop the drip-drip-drip of revelations that sink the White House further and further into complicity.

This is the second demonstrable lie from the Bush Administration this week, and it's only Tuesday night. Yesterday we learned that Bush knew about the Iran NIE intel months before he claimed he did. Tonight, it's that the White House was heavily involved in the discussions over whether to destroy these tapes and obstruct justice.

The Design Failure Of Bush-Era Foreign Policy - Making The Military Option The Only Option

Over the weekend we sent John Negroponte over to Pakistan to do the old lean on Pervez Musharraf. This was the beginnings of the "surge of diplomacy" that people are calling for in Iraq. The problem, as it would be in Iraq, is that it's too late and the Bush Administration is too discredited for any of it to matter.

A special US mission to the embattled Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf ended in failure yesterday, and the Bush administration is inceasingly alarmed about the possible collapse of the government. There are also fears that its nuclear weapons could end up in the hands of Islamist extremists.

John Negroponte, the US deputy secretary of state, flew out of Islamabad after Musharraf, a close ally of the US, rejected his call to end emergency rule, to free political prisoners, resign from his post as army commander and hold free and fair elections in January.

Negroponte failed because he has almost nothing to offer. The Pakistani foreign minister said that he "had brought no new proposals and received no assurances in return." What could he possibly say? Could he denounce the destruction of democracy from a position of moral authority? Clearly not. Could he threaten to eliminate the $10 billion in military aid? No, the Cheneyite faction wouldn't let him. Could he forge a power-sharing agreement with some of the opposition parties? It's way too late for that.

There's a structural design flaw in Bush-style foreign policy, and indeed MOST foreign policy from the establishment perspective. This can be best summed up by this awful editorial by surge architect Fred Kagan and Michael O'Hanlon, of all people, which boils down Pakistan, as they do every trouble spot globally, to a course of military action.

As the government of Pakistan totters, we must face a fact: the United States simply could not stand by as a nuclear-armed Pakistan descended into the abyss. Nor would it be strategically prudent to withdraw our forces from an improving situation in Iraq to cope with a deteriorating one in Pakistan. We need to think — now — about our feasible military options in Pakistan, should it really come to that.

First of all, we've already stood by as Pakistan descended into an abyss. They're under martial law, have turned the legal system into a kangaroo court, arrested all dissenters and indifferently watched as Islamists have taken more and more territory in the northwest region. Neoconservative loons like this aren't interested in seeing a problem until it lands on them with a thud. It's beyond the time in which America can bring forward a solution in Pakistan. Other than a military one. Which is the default position.

So then these two armchair Napoleons get our their little green Army men and spread them onto the Risk board and writhe around on the floor in ecstasy at their new glorious war plan.

The task of stabilizing a collapsed Pakistan is beyond the means of the United States and its allies. Rule-of-thumb estimates suggest that a force of more than a million troops would be required for a country of this size. Thus, if we have any hope of success, we would have to act before a complete government collapse, and we would need the cooperation of moderate Pakistani forces.

One possible plan would be a Special Forces operation with the limited goal of preventing Pakistan’s nuclear materials and warheads from getting into the wrong hands. Given the degree to which Pakistani nationalists cherish these assets, it is unlikely the United States would get permission to destroy them. Somehow, American forces would have to team with Pakistanis to secure critical sites and possibly to move the material to a safer place.

For the United States, the safest bet would be shipping the material to someplace like New Mexico; but even pro-American Pakistanis would be unlikely to cooperate. More likely, we would have to settle for establishing a remote redoubt within Pakistan, with the nuclear technology guarded by elite Pakistani forces backed up (and watched over) by crack international troops. It is realistic to think that such a mission might be undertaken within days of a decision to act. The price for rapid action and secrecy, however, would probably be a very small international coalition.

It goes on and on like this. Presumably these two think those little army men are actual soldiers.

The problem is that the military option is always foregrounded. Diplomatic solutions don't exist; diplomats are sent into countries years too late with empty briefcases.

Emptywheel had the same idea today.

I'm just a DFH and not a "serious person" or anything. But I am certain they have this wrong--dead wrong. It highlights the problem of neoconservatism--an acute myopia that therefore cannot see a problem until we're already in the thick of it and until they can make an argument--however specious--that the only solution is military.

Couple that with their ignorant assertion that, "There was a time when volatility in places like Pakistan was mostly a humanitarian worry," and you see the problem. They would not--and did not--consider action at a time when non-military solutions were the obvious solution to the problem, when AQ Khan and his nukes didn't have us by the nuts. As I said last year when I was earning Matt Bai's wrath, the time to address these problems is before they've exploded, while we're still nominally allies.

If I were of this default-to-militarism mindset, the best thing I could do would be to ignore global problems until I can claim that there's no choice but a military option. Pervez Musharraf was obviously a despot when he forced Nawaz Sharif out of the country at gunpoint in 1999. We could have conditioned aid to a return to democratic institutions, we could have finished the job at Tora Bora ourselves instead of putting Pakistan in the position to have to do our dirty work. Now we're faced with a nuclear-armed country in a fair amount of peril, and our image is worse than bin Laden's in that country. Any future interventions will be poison for whoever we intervene in favor of. A bottom up strategy in Pakistan is absolutely insane and will be sure to make things far worse. But the way these neocons get to that is by sabotaging any other reasonable effort to resolve global difficulties.

Democracy: Dispensable

Dictators who tolerate jihadism? Indispensable.

On Capitol Hill, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said Musharraf is an "indispensable" ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism and that "partnership with Pakistan and its people is the only option." [...]

While he acknowledges an ongoing review of U.S. aid to Pakistan in light of the crisis, Negroponte does not announce any changes to U.S. policy.

Musharraf "has been indispensable in the global war on terror, so indispensable that extremists and radicals have tried to assassinate him multiple times," Negroponte said. "The bottom line is, there's no question that we Americans have a stake in Pakistan."

They also tried to assassinate a leading reformer, too, and since the declaration of emergency the only Pakistanis jailed have been judges, lawyers and political dissidents.

Plus, Commander Guy wants elections "as soon as possible" because the only needs in a democratic society are elections. Haven't we all seen how well that's worked out in Iraq?