One of the weakest points in the minds of Americans is that the abuses and torture in Abu Ghraib are separate and apart from the “torture or EI Program”. Although most of us here know the connections, the vast majority of the American public see these as separate issues. Republicans are still using this canard of a few bad apples as they refer to the Abu Ghraib torture program. These photos will shock us all and bring the debate to a higher fever. We need to be ready for a tough hard sell weekend around Memorial Day. It will create a situation where the Republican right will argue endlessly that the release shows contempt for our military by the Obama administration.

“…There are two issues. First, torture. Second, all the damage that was done in the structures of government to make that torture possible. That is an equally important story that has to be told because American democracy is important.”

I appreciate all the way through his comments he stresses American democracy. I think there is a strong message in his stressing American democracy and not just stating “democracy”.

- An assumption that the Domestic United States is a Military Battlefield, and that the Battle is one for both Ideological Supremacy and Existential Survival (”Our Way of Life is Threatened”).

- Citizens ‘could’ be Enemies, too, necessitating active Testing for Ideological Loyalty – based on the Standard of Suspicion, instead of Presumed Innocence protected until Probable Cause.

- In Bush/Bradbury’s Ideology-First Paradigm, Disloyal Citizens are ‘not different’ than ‘Detainees’ – and therefore could be ‘hung from the ceiling, Waterboarded, etc.’

So, Bradbury’s support for Bush’s Torture is based on Bradbury’s Professional Legal Belief that Bush the UE has the Ability to Declare anyone – even a US Citizen – an ‘enemy combatant’ and Treat them like a Detainee.

Zelikow, in opposing, is saying that Bradbury is Gitmo-izing American Jails to treat Ideologically-Designated ‘Dis-Loyal’ Citizens as Non-Citizens, ‘non-persons’ who’ve lost their Constitutional Protections.

The difference between the two is the difference between a Banana Republic, where the Dictator ‘decides’ whose Thoughts/Words/Deeds are Loyal, and whose Thoughts/Words/Deeds are Disloyal – and therefore suitable for Torture – and a Republic of Principled Citizens, Free to Think and Feel and Believe, as they Choose, within the bounds of the Rule of Law.

Bradbury = Torture Acceptable for Ideologically Dis-Loyal (”Them”)

Zelikow = Torture Never Acceptable to Principled People (We’re All “Them”)

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who chairs the subcommittee presiding over Wednesday’s hearing, has sought to obtain a copy of Zelikow’s memo from the State Department. More than one copy of the February 2006 memo has apparently been located; one is in the process of being declassified, a committee source said on condition of anonymity.

Cheney was expert at gaming the system. He knew the rules that OTHER people (e.g., senators & congressmen) play by, and he had his own set of rules to take advantage of them.

Bob in HI

Bob in HI

Politics and life are not chess. There is no set of knowable or absolute rules agreed-upon, much less enforced by an absolute referee.

Game Theory [a la Johnny vonNeumann] is a better descriptor. His Game Theory allows for both use and abuse of rules; unilateral making and unmaking of rules and new rules; creativity as lying; etc all to some purposes known only to each player, alone. Anything goes to win some prize. Johnny vN did not lay in any ethical restraints or niceties. Thus Game Theory can be, and is, used to forward any purpose.

Game Theory uses aspects of chess and mathematics…”to game” a contest, wild-style. [That could be implied by the phrase “eleven-dimensional chess” which would then not be “chess”.]

Don’t want to take this OT.
But if he does fit, it would be one more puzzle piece. The FBI raided his home in April 2007 (he was suspected of destroying evidence), and he was fired in 2008.