And it’s not like it was a contained evil. It was invasive and spread everywhere. But for the ability to torture al-libi and lie without compunction bc of the DOJ approved misuses of state secrets and classification authorities, Iraq would not have been invaded; Bin Laden would likely have been caught; Fallujah would still stand; more than a million refugees would still have homes, thousands of American soldiers would not have brain injuries, lost limbs and lost lives; Blackwater would not have gone on killing sprees etc etc etc. They all made sure that they buried as much of the truth as they could and helped get Bush re-elected at any cost.

I guess if we still had a criminal justice system, the analogy you could give is that none of them will allocute, none of them shows remorse, and all continue in their chosen paths of obstruction.

There are some heroes – someone like Mora for example, and Dan Coleman. But I don’t agree with Mayer on some of her other picks.

Once again we’re on parallel tracks. Despite how grateful I am for her reporting, I’m made very, very uneasy by Jane Mayer’s setting up Goldsmith and others as heroes and her ‘craziness after 9/11′ theme.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01257.html

This is an op ed piece by Goldmsith, from August of 2006, priming the election pumps with his wise words on GITMO. Read the piece with the keeping in mind the things that Goldsmith, if he was competent, had to hve known about after all his involvement with Haynes, Yoo, Comey, Ashcroft, etc. That since Jan of 2002, GITMO had been the source of abuse complaints. The torture of Zubaydah and others. Waterboarding. That Priest reported “young detainee” tortured to death by hypothermia and stress positions. KSM’s disappearing children. Maher Arar’s shipment to torture, el-Masri being disappeared, likely many others. Dilawar having his legs pulverized. The systemic corruption of DOD and particularly DOD Military Intelligence, the reasons behind the refusal to follow up on Taguba’s recommendation to investigate MI and what it had wrought. Children as young as 11 or so at GITMO, alll the mistranslations or non-existant translations, all the human trafficking transactions, and on and on and on.

Per Goldsmith: “Terrorist trials are both unnecessary and unwise.”

Regarding military commissions: “Even if they can be made to work, skeptics will still regard them as kangaroo courts”

Yep – those skeptics like the guys kicking Hartmann out on his butt.

Really, the only problem, per Goldsmith, is that you lock up village bakers with no habeas and no involvement in terrorism for the rest of their lives – but hey, maybe not, yaneverknow. “The main concern with military detentions is that the war will last a long time, perhaps indefinitely. If so, detention could mean a life sentence. We don’t yet know whether this concern is warranted”

Such a system will not assuage the complaints of those, especially our allies, who reject the military model for terrorism and abhor long-term detention without trial. But Congress and the president have consistently endorsed the military model since Sept. 11. And our allies have not proposed a better system than military detention that both ensures American security and respects human rights.

He leaps over tall buildings and declares that the US system of waterboarding, disappearing civilians and torturing Uighur refugees, has ensured American security and respected human rights – in a way that Europe’s criminal trial approach has not. All baseless, but when you are base enough yourself, baseless is just another point on your personal continuim.

Oh well.

And thanks to WO and the many incisive commenters.

I have questions about the sequence of events with Hiwa Rashul that I’ll reserve until part 2’s available. But I’m so grateful for this post, for the Freedom of Information Act (let it temper your irritation with Ralph Nader, Dems!), and for the intertubes…

That’s where I think we are coming at things differently. Bc as I see it, he didn’t do that. I may be mistaken and may have missed a loop, but my understanding is that what he did was to say that the people that were being disappeared out of country for interrogation were, after all, “protected persons.” But he allowed for the Article 49 violations against protected persons as long as the military didn’t have formal charges pending against them. Do you have a formal opinion link where he ruled they had to be returned? That would be contrary to his later draft, which says nothing like that.

122/126 – Looks like you were pretty prescient bmaz. It’s a Note.

134 – Nice comment. There is, in particular, a very big problem with anyone attempting any kind of reliance on OLC opinions that were secret. OLC has more than one function, but when it comes to setting forth the legal boundaries being established by the AG, which are meant to act as law within the Executive branch, they have to do it publically- the United States and common law have no “secret laws” history and never really adopted the underlying rationale for star chambers.

The Gitmo Shrinks Find Their Super Ego And Cowboy Up

There is something very fishy about Woodward. I thought his efforts undermine Plame and that investigation said a great deal about Woodward and what sure appears to be an agenda

New Study Challenges Administration’s “War on Terrorism” (Full Text of Rand Report Below

How Terrorist Groups End