You know what I found “poignant” today? I was reading Khalid Sheikh Mohammad’s CSRT transcript ( http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/csrt_ksm.pdf ). Out of everyone present in that room, only one talked about the Constitution and George Washington and the idea of America: Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. Only one was concerned about fair treatment for others in Guantanamo, and getting the truth known: Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. Really, in terms of faithfulness to an oath of office, again, one guy: Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. He confessed to everything — and that’s been made a joke of, in that he confessed to things he couldn’t possibly have done, and yet as I read it, he was sharing/taking responsibility even if it meant his end. No weaseling. No Bush. He asked to have the hearing conducted in English, with the help of a translator for things he didn’t know how to say, which led to some funny passages…

PRESIDENT: Do you have any questions concerning the Tribunal process?

DETAINEE: Okay by me.

and

DETAINEE: I hope you will take care of other Detainees with what I said. It’s up to you.

and

DETAINEE: So, we derive from religious leading that we consider we and George Washington doing same thing. As consider George Washington as hero. Muslims many of them are considering Usarna bin Laden. He is doing same thing. He is just fighting. He needs his independence. Even we think that, or not me only. Many Muslims, that al Qaida or Taliban they are doing. They have been oppressed by America. This is the feeling of the prophet. So when we say we are enemy combatant, that right. We are. But I’m asking you again to be fair with many Detainees which are not enemy combatant. Because many of them have been unjustly arrested. Many, not one or two or three. Cause the definition you which wrote even from my view it is not fair.

I think it was Woody Allen’s Zelig where he had movie newsreel footage running behind him on the wall of his room– ? A powerful counternarrative. What I wouldn’t give for these hearings and courtrooms to have such walls. Franklin Templeton has a commercial out now with a ubiquitous giant engraving of Benjamin Franklin’s face in rooms and behind papers and in the sky and on buildings around the world. In Guantanamo it should be George Washington, the father of our country, watching the American devolution.

If I saw that, I would know shame.

We Americans have hardly begun to acknowledge the costs of indulging in torture.

CTC frequently uses the information from one detainee, as well as other sources, to vet the information from another detainee. Although lower-level detainees provide less information than the high value detainees, information from these detainees has, on many occasions, supplied the information needed to probe the high value detainees further. … [T]he triangulation of intelligence provides a fuller knowledge of Al-Qa’ida activities than would be possible from a single detainee.

If one accepts that torture is a justifiable means to extract intelligence, couldn’t this line of thought lead to justification for it’s use on lower value detainees to establish corroboration?

Something is confusing me about these later memos. Is the Bradbury memo designed as a “shield” for past actions taken under Yoo/Bybee or is it designed to guide future policy? In other words, if a JSOC task force used sleep/sensory deprivation, stress positions, dietary manipulation and induced hypothermia on a couple dozen detainees in the course of trying to find a high value target – what happens in relation to the legality of their actions if Yoo is rescinded (or if it was done after Yoo, pre-Bradbury)? Does a properly crafted Bradbury memo theoretically mitigate past issues?

since L&O often takes real cases as a basis for their story lines .. i wonder when they’ll take on a torture case .. or if ..

as i see it ..getting the torture issue to a point of prosecution is an ongoing battle .. and that battle is being fought in the blogs .. like this one .. by folk like you and marcy and labdancer and mad dog and bmaz ..and me .. and others .. i simply refuse to believe this nation .. in the end .. will shirk it’s responsibility to justice ..

The one that was supposed to get big big big laugh lines. The, “Oh yes, and a venerable television instituion has also jumped onboard with their own WH spinoff. Look for ‘Law & Order, XIXIVIII – Torture Prosecutions’ next season” (huge self generated guffaws) “What? Oh com’on guys, that one was really funny – think how many people I punk’d on that one! (grumbling) Ok, I’ll cut it, but it was almost as funny as the Williams stopping up the toilet joke”

/S

On the effectiveness front, all anyone had to ever do to smack the snot out of Cheney was go to al-libi and the training camps and link to how quickly he was re-disappeared after that was shown to be false and it was never done by anyone in Congress, in the DOJ, in the MSM – it wasn’t done by Panetta, it wasn’t even done by Whitehouse and Feingold, who probably do walk a fine line on what they can say about things that they have been briefed on, but which overlap with things that are being publically discussed (on blogs only pretty much, or in a few books if people ante up for them).

Still, I’m not really expecting a Godzilla v. the Torture Monster set of efficacy revelations.

Aw, intel. Remember the good ol days when it wasn’t a copyrighted chip reference.

that’s a poignant line .. lol..