Comments on: A Trial Showing Torture Was Unnecessary

By: Hmmm

Hmmm — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:23:20 +0000

…since no attacks occurred until Hasan shot up Fort Hood, the bottom line goal was met.

Confuses correlation with causation. More supporting evidence or logic, please?

By: bmaz

bmaz — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:14:11 +0000

To get evidence of coming attacks was the stated purpose for the masses. It may well have been one of the purposes; however, the evidence seems incontovertible that they were also torturing to derive statements consistent with what the Bush Administration had already stated as justification and fact for their actions – i.e. they tortured to get false corroboration for their lies.

Secondly, it is false that there were no other attacks; there was the anthrax matter and there were a myriad of attacks on allied interests overseas.

Lastly, your last three paragraphs could quite easily be the case under military commissions as well, so that is a false dichotomy you have drawn.

By: cregan

cregan — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:57:32 +0000

This misunderstand the purpose of the torture. Those actions were taken to stop future attacks, not to gain evidence that could convict KSM. In that sense, since no attacks occurred until Hasan shot up Fort Hood, the bottom line goal was met. You can argue whether useful information came, etc., but the bottom line is still there and cannot be altered at this point.

Nothing will change the fact that no attacks occurred before Bush left office. That is permanent.

But, certainly, it looks like the trial may very well show that you can torture someone and STILL convict them in a court of law with full Constitutional protections.

In that sense, it would have been much better to try them in military tribunals so that this point was never made and proven.

Worse, should any of the five be acquitted, and then re-arrested (as Holder and others have said would likely happen) what message is THAT going to send to the world–you can get acquitted and we’re still going to hold you. That doesn’t look very good.

By: geminorange

geminorange — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:26:48 +0000

Does anyone think that John Yoo is setting up the defense that he is mind-bogglingly incompetent that it was physically and mentally impossible for him to generate the intent to commit war crimes?

By: timbo

timbo — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:22:50 +0000

All these so-called secrets haven’t been able to catch OBL…so, um, why are we keeping them secret? So we won’t be able to catch OBL? I mean, seriously, all these so-called secret methods have resulted in what exactly? So, for Yoo and his crowd, it is much more likely that they are trying to avoid embarrassment…and the US government is trying to avoid culpability in illegal behavior and war crimes? What’s more likely? That these secret methods have not been able to catch OBL for eight years and will suddenly start working sometime in the future to catch OBL? Or that it’s more embarassing to the US to admit all the incompetence and criminality?

Good show and a great post–and let’s hope that there are some rational journalists out there that will actually analyze the incompetent and self-serving statements of these thugs and tortures…so that America will be safer and more responsible.

By: fangorn1

fangorn1 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:24:54 +0000

Yoo probably is an intellectual, but his arguments employ sophistry and cynicism. I view him as as a second rate propogandist, sycophant, and enabler.

By: boloboffin

boloboffin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:27:57 +0000

I don’t recall knowing that Osama was handed that list of suspected operatives on a “silver platter” before. Even if you allow for hyperbole in description, Yoo appears to be speaking of a specific event. How it is we know that Osama got that list? I believe Yoo has revealed another intelligence-gathering operation.

Of course, it’s alright if you’re a Republican trying to cover up your many crimes against the rule of law.

By: georgewalton

georgewalton — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:38:28 +0000

Yoo is the consummate intellectual. He lives in a world of words by and large. His words define and defend other words; words which have in turn already been defined and defended by words he had collected previously.

Once you accept your own definitions, your own conviction about what words mean, you can then make them define and defend [and, of course, rationalize] virtually any human behavior. But what does Yoo know about terrorism or war or torture or injustice or the human pain and suffering that sprouts willy nilly from them—the nitty gritty grime of the real world where these words are used eyeball to eyeball to inflict the most barbaric atrocities against others.

Instead, he embodies the banality of evil when it has access to those fully capable of going out into the world with the most sophisticated arsenal of WMD known to man. BushWorld, for example. And now, perhaps, ObamaLand?

By: Blub

Blub — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:52:35 +0000

Yoo’s just the apparatchik. A criminal who facilitated crimes.. The real travesty is that the “buck stops over there” mentality in WDC is going to let those ultimately responsible walk – Dick Cheney, George W Bush. They gave the orders to shred our constitution and end the rule of law. Let’s not forget that.

By: PeterHug

PeterHug — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:46:40 +0000

You know, I really do think I would like to see the Government produce the kids – or at least demonstrate that they’re OK.

Because I really don’t think they are, when you come right down to it. And that should put a number of people in jail.