…holding al-Qahtani down while a female interrogator straddled the detainee was determined to be within the scope of the “Futility” technique (and act used to highlight the futility of the detainee’s situation).

A pretty elaborate way to get around admitting you were trying to humiliate the guy.

Before the fall of Nazi Germany, all the techniques and activities the Nazis carried out (ALL of them) were “legal” under their civil and legal framework. There was no danger at all that any Nazi official or mere flack would be punished for what they did because they had full legal clearance and assurance that what they were doing was A-OK.

But then they lost the war and what happens? A NEW legal framework is extant, one that doesn’t give any consideration for the fact that under Nazism, everything these guys did was legal. I guess Mukasey must also bemoan this fact. Those poor Nazis, they did what they were assured was legal and they STILL got reamed later on.

Of COURSE CIA, FBI, military, and civilian contractors should worry that they will get their asses handed to them in the future. Legal opinions by the totally discredited OLC aren’t worth the paper they are written on and, imagine this, it is even possible for the President to act illegally! S/He can even get into shit for ordering illegal actions – irrespective of what his “lawyers” say.

Mukasey is unfit to be AG, unfit to have been a judge, and should be disbarred and tried alongside Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Yoo, Haden, Mueller, Hadley, etc, etc, for every single illegal act that they have ordered, promulgated, or supported.

“He had only been working there two months, hired to answer the White House’s questions on foreign-policy laws at a time when the biggest legal issue before him was a treaty about polar bears.”

http://www.cooperativeresearch….._students_

A DEA government document later leaked to the press [Drug Enforcement Agency, 6/2001] suggests that a large Israeli spy ring starts penetrating the US from at least this time, if not earlier. This ring, which will later become popularly known as the “art student spy ring,” is later shown to have strange connections to the events of 9/11.

USA Today reports that “Israeli crime groups… dominate distribution” of Ecstasy. [USA Today, 4/19/2000] The DEA also states that most of the Ecstasy sold in the US is “controlled by organized crime figures in Western Europe, Russia, and Israel.” [United Press International, 10/25/2001] According to DEA documents, the Israeli “art student spy ring” “has been linked to several ongoing DEA [Ecstasy] investigations in Florida, California, Texas, and New York now being closely coordinated by DEA headquarters.”

“A newspaper reports that the DEA study on Israeli “art students” determined the “students” all had “recently served in the Israeli military, the majority in intelligence, electronic signal intercept, or explosive ordnance units.” [Palm Beach Post, 3/11/2002]

The Israeli Art Student Mystery at Salon
http://dir.salon.com/story/new…..ndex1.html

Is this investigation still going on?

Yeah and those sanctions on Iraq under the Clinton administraion. How many deaths did that cause?

Iaea Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter has written extensively about the Clinton administrations undermining of inspections in Iraq instead of completely supporting them. Ritter’s book “Target Iran” is a great read.

Seymour Hersh and Scott Ritter on Iraq, WMDs and the Role of the Clinton Administration in the 1990s
http://www.democracynow.org/20….._ritter_on

Both he and his father feel the U.S. would be in a much different situation if they would have not abandoned Afghanistan. He has also shared that working and giving power to the Mujahadeen and then abandoning Afghanistan was a huge mistake. He has told me that the poppy growing industry (he worked in counter narcotics) was not nearly as developed before Russia invaded as the years after. He has shared that many farmers grew sizable amounts of apricots, pomegrante, almonds and that many of these orchards were destroyed during the war with Russia. We have talked about the poppy farmers being subsidized by the U.S. for at least five years while they re-establish their orchards and other suitable and profitable crops for export. We have discussed how Afghanistan needs the processing infrastructure to say turn almonds into almond butter to be exported to say Wild Oats or some other large export market.

He talks with his father weekly and his father is convinced that the U.S. does not want to be successful in Afghanistan right now. He is not clear as to why, but he is convinced. Why else would the U.S. only spend I believe the figure is 20 billion in Afghanistan in six years what the U.S. spends in one month in Iraq.

His family is terrified for him due to the growing strength of the Taliban and their possible response if they find out that he has been studying in the states on his return. (I have permission to say this from him)

He firmly believes that the only way to deal with the Taliban is to incorporate them into the building of Afghanistan. To be inclusive with the Taliban who are not as radical as the picture that is painted of them. He believes that modernizing (hopefully improving access to education, health care and a legal way to support ones family) Afghanistan needs to be done slowly with a great deal of respect given to their Religious beliefs.

did you know that Afghanistan has large deposits of uranium?

Here is what you get when you try to get to PNAC
http://server4web.net/suspended.page/

Mukasey’s insinuation that the investigation into Iran-Contra was irresponsible has two very dangerous implications. First, it suggests it is improper for Congress to conduct an inquiry into the executive branch after the executive branch ignores a very clear law passed by Congress. […]
But [second] that wasn’t the only investigation into Iran-Contra, after all. There was also Lawrence Walsh’s investigation, as Independent Prosecutor, into the events. [… And from that,] the big fall-out at the CIA, after all, was that Duane Clarridge and Clair George were indicted (and then pardoned) for lying to Congress; […] Is Mukasey suggesting it would be improper to hold John Rizzo or Alberto Gonzales responsible for lying to Congress, which both have been alleged to have done? Does an expectation that Administration officials tell the truth to Congress lead to risk aversion in intelligence operations?

With potentially unspeakable consequences!!!

Yes, indeed, as important as it is, or would be, to hold this outfit responsible for their past, it is more important to try to get ahead of them like this, and show where their arguments point: all the more so since it looks like we citizens are on our own here.

Regarding NY’s senior senator, I think he was annoyed at having the tenuous basis of his bargain aired, which iirc was thought at the time to have had at the root of it some heavy-handed overnight coaching from the chief veepsman, who apparently wouldn’t know a social cue if you dragged him over to the accomodation rack at the local pool hall and broke one over his head.

The other side of that, on my conjecture, is that with Mukasey in charge we don’t have to worry ’bout any messy federal cases getting in the way of stern letters to folks who laid the basis for the entire credit debacle, or mucking up related cases in state courts, or any such.

(That underlying story was covered last week here, but since this kind of thing, i.e. what caused the shitpile, always relies on tailored opinion, it was expected, as are more of its kind.

As I proofread this, NPR update has a piece with all the finance professionals who, it is becoming very clear to all, shuddanode better, trying to blame the raters for the whole thing, as if they had no obligation to supply any input of their own. Mais calmez-vous, mes chers, for the SEC is going to look into making new rules …)