Comments on: Torture Tape Destruction Accountability: How It Is Done

By: PPDCUS

PPDCUS — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:23:02 +0000

By this logic, a refusal to destroy those tapes showing their violations of law and human rights would amount to backtricide. Wouldn’t it?

By: PPDCUS

PPDCUS — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:14:08 +0000

Redefining Accountability

Sam Ervin & Howard Baker have no peer in today’s congress. Russ Feingold can’t move anything through judiciary when he’s flanked by whores like Lieberman, Specter, and Graham.

What we’re left with is the Roberts Star Chamber and our Constitution hanging by a thread called Justice Kennedy.

And President Change We Can Believe In can’t distinguish Make No Mistake from Preserving, Protecting and Defending the Constitution of the United States.

By: TheLurkingMod

TheLurkingMod — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:02:10 +0000

montanamaven's diary is upstairs! Liberals Need a 12 Step Program – We ask Taibbi What We Should Do Next

By: busboy33

busboy33 — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:57:56 +0000

I have never understood the “they have no value so we destroyed the tapes” argument.

Absolute best case scenario, the tapes show absolutely nothing, and the answers contained on them are utterly worthless (which as an aside demonstrate we got the wrong guys). Why not save them anyways? How much possible physical space could the videos hold? 2 DVDs? It’s not like they are shot in 1080p Hi-Def. Seems like it takes more time, effort and resources to destroy them than to archive them.

Just because they appear to have no evidentary value today doesn’t mean they won’t in the future. We’re (allegedly) talking about terrorists here. What if in the future technology is developed that can discern if someone is lying from their vocal patterns? Thank God we got rids of all those tapes. Blood evidence that has been “useless” in rape/murder cases for decades has suddenly become valuable thanks to advances in DNA analysis. Why risk not having access to potential evidence in a potential terrorist attack case?

. . . y’know, aside from the obvious answer.

By: rafflaw

rafflaw — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:22:47 +0000

John Durham is the brother of Bull. There is no way that the CIA can destroy those tapes for any reason other than to cover their backside. I am of the opinion that there are still tapes that the CIA is not admitting to. We need a real investigator to dig deeper.

By: Beerfart Liberal

Beerfart Liberal — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:07:01 +0000

s’posed to be a 9:15 start now. gotta run.

By: alinaustex

alinaustex — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:51:40 +0000

earlofhuntingdon @ 23
And would that we would be blessed by Statesman like Howard Baker – that would be prepared to be defend Our Constitution first . Recall Senator Baker went up the Whitehouse driveway to tell President Nixon resign or be impeached . Perhaps its time for a third political party -one that would put defending the Constitution first .
Also as an ironic aside the speechwriter for Agnew – Pat Buchanan who had that wonderful gift of alliteration in speeches written – (‘the nateering nabobs of the press’ )-well Pat is doing a lot of nateering himself these days on the MSM -Wonder what Mr Bucahanan’s position on the Plame illegal declassification would be if it had been a Democratic VP that outted Brewster Jennings for political reasons -ie to push back on charges that the same VP had started an illegal occupation of a soveriegn country.
Maybe we should call the third party the ‘ Sam Rayburn- Howard Baker Constitutionalist”
And to wind up where we began I still have faith in Durham and his investigation -

By: timbo

timbo — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:27:09 +0000

There is another area of interest in those tapes in that they might show direct evidence of many different kinds of violations of various Geneva treaties. Not to mention direct evidence of government contempt for US courts…oh, wait, let’s mention that too.

By: earlofhuntingdon

earlofhuntingdon — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:00:04 +0000

The most that can be said for Durham is that he may need more than circumstantial evidence for a conviction. If no one who has first-hand information blabs, it would be hard to get a conviction.

He would be taking an almost unprecedented step. Almost in that Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment, trial, loss of office and possibly criminal prosecution thereafter. One of his VP’s, Spiro Agnew, left office under a similar cloud, in his case of corruption. But Nixon’s case comes closer in that his was corruption in the service of staying in power. Cheney’s was too, but he’s alleged to have committed far worse crimes, such as authorizing state-sanctioned torture, a national and international crime with severe penalties. Hence, the political tentativeness.

To be fair to everyone else, this Democratic administration is so tentative about everything, it wouldn’t bet that the sun rises in the East without first asking Joe Lieberman or Olympia Snowe their opinions.

By: alinaustex

alinaustex — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:21:27 +0000

earlofhuntingdon@ 18
“in a manner indicating a desire to suppress the truth ”
Is it a fair critique that USA Attorney Durham should have brought indictments against someone by now because the evidence is so abundant to do so ? Or could it be there is so much wrong doing done by several Principals that it might just be taking awhile to bring the first indictment – because it could be several indictments at once ?