Last week I wrote that the Center for Constitutional Rights questioned President Barack Obama's January 22 orders on interrogation and closing Guantanamo, cautioning that while they in no uncertain terms stated the CIA must close its secret black hole prisons, they may have left a loophole for the CIA to resume them. A secret or extraordinary rendition refers to the practice of the CIA whereby it kidnaps suspects and flies them to a country where they are held in secret prisons and interrogated by non U.S. personnel, where the Red Cross has no access to them and no lists are made available as to who or how many people are victims of the practice. Some of the countries these suspects are shipped to practice torture.

The ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights and other human rights groups have been campaigning for several years to stop secret renditions. I have always agreed with them that secret renditions must stop. Now there's a question over whether Obama fully ordered it stopped or not. The Timesonline today: [More...]

Via Steve Clemons, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote:

I and many others believe that the use of torture and indefinite detention have not only tarnished our honor but also diminished our security. In this global counterinsurgency effort against al Qaeda and its allies, too often our means have undercut our efforts by wasting one of our best weapons: the legitimacy that comes from our moral authority.

. . . Torture elicits lies -- not just from those experiencing it, but from those who seek to conceal it. After years of Orwellian denials and legalistic parsing, what a relief it was to hear our new attorney general-designee finally acknowledge what we know to be true: that yes, "waterboarding is torture."

As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Kerry seems well positioned to investigate and document these hard truths. It should be part of his work now.

Speaking for me only

On January 06, 2009 House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) introduced H.R. 104, a bill to establish a National Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties. The resolution will establish a Blue Ribbon Commission comprised of experts outside government service to investigate the broad range of policies of the Bush administration that were undertaken by the Bush administration under claims of unreviewable war powers.

Co-sponsors of the bill include Nadler, Johnson, Jackson-Lee, Cohen, Gutierrez, Delahunt, Wasserman Schultz.

If you are on Facebook, the easiest way to join is to go to the group's facebook page and click on the group to join. I found it through Daily Kos writer Joan McCarter and joined on the spot.

You can read the full text of the legislation here (pdf.)

Vice President Dick Cheney has told the Associated Press there is no need for President Bush to issue preventive pardons for abusive interrogation techniques. Why?

He also said he doesn't think anyone at the CIA did anything illegal during interrogations. He says they followed the administration's legal opinions.

What about waterboarding? Cheney believes the information gleaned from suspects after the simulated drowning is reliable. And,

The vice president said waterboarding has been used with "great discrimination by people who know what they're doing" and produced much valuable information.

He's learned nothing since 2006 when he publicly first endorsed waterboarding. Is he living in an alternative universe or what? 12 days and counting.

What will the CIA do to win friends among the Afghans? The Washington Post reports almost anything -- including handing out little blue pills to help the warlords with "sagging libidos."

Officials say these inducements are necessary in Afghanistan, a country where warlords and tribal leaders expect to be paid for their cooperation, and where, for some, switching sides can be as easy as changing tunics. If the Americans don't offer incentives, there are others who will, including Taliban commanders, drug dealers and even Iranian agents in the region.

The usual bribes of choice -- cash and weapons -- aren't always the best options, Afghanistan veterans say. Guns too often fall into the wrong hands, they say, and showy gifts such as money, jewelry and cars tend to draw unwanted attention.

What's next? Stress relievers, anti-depressants, "pep pills", Ambien?

Responding to Reuel Marc Gerecht's defense of his pro-torture position, Kevin Drum writes:

Sadly, I suspect that Gerecht is right: if torture had been put to a vote back in 2001, it would have passed. The language would have been prettied up, of course, but the intention would have been clear enough and the public would have approved. Even today, I'm pretty sure that a majority of Americans are basically OK with torture as long as it's mostly kept out of sight and they can go about their business.

Drum begs the question - since no such vote took place, torture remained illegal. And of course, if an open vote was held - torture could not have been "kept out of sight." The United States would have had to opt out of the UN Convention on Torture and repeal its codification of the Convention. Would we as a people have approved of this when forced to say "we approve of torture?" I do not know, but the illegality, indeed, the criminality, of what occurred remains manifest. In our names. The stain will never be removed.

Speaking for me only

Actually, Cheney says "we don't do torture." However, a few questions later he contradicts himself:

KARL: And on KSM (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed), one of those tactics, of course, widely reported was waterboarding. And that seems to be a tactic we no longer use. Even that you think was appropriate?

CHENEY: I do.

In case you are wondering waterboarding has been considered torture for thousands of years. It violates US law. It is a crime. Not just a war crime, but also a violation of US criminal law. Cheney has admitted to committing this crime. In our names. And our Congress knew and did nothing. This stain will not wash out.

Speaking for me only

Michael Isikoff of Newsweek scores a huge exclusive, NSA warrantless wiretap whistleblower Thomas Tamm's story, in his own words.

Exhausted by the uncertainty clouding his life, Tamm now is telling his story publicly for the first time. "I thought this [secret program] was something the other branches of the government—and the public—ought to know about. So they could decide: do they want this massive spying program to be taking place?" Tamm told NEWSWEEK, in one of a series of recent interviews that he granted against the advice of his lawyers. "If somebody were to say, who am I to do that? I would say, 'I had taken an oath to uphold the Constitution.' It's stunning that somebody higher up the chain of command didn't speak up."

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Via lilburro, it amazes me still that sentences like these can still be spoken by supposedly respectable people:

Mr. Obama will soon face the same awful choices that confronted George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and he could well be forced to accept a central feature of their anti-terrorist methods: extraordinary rendition. If the choice is between non-deniable aggressive questioning conducted by Americans and deniable torturous interrogations by foreigners acting on behalf of the United States, it is almost certain that as president Mr. Obama will choose the latter.

The writer is a former CIA official and is indicative of everything that is wrong with the intelligence community. They know nothing, learn nothing (torture does not work and never has) and of course have no moral compass (the writer thinks Bush and Cheney will be vindicated). The more I read from these people, the more I am convinced that the CIA requires a complete overhaul.

Speaking for me only

From The Hill:

Senior U.S. officials authorized the use of aggressive interrogation techniques resulting in the abuse of military detainees in U.S. custody, according to a report released by the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. The authorization was not only the cause of aggressive interrogation techniques, but also conveyed the message that it was OK to mistreat and degrade detainees in U.S. custody, according to the report released by panel Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.)

This should surprise no one. The question now is do Dems want to end it?

[House Intelligence Committee Chair Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) recommended to Obama's transition team that some parts of the CIA's controversial alternative interrogation program should be allowed to continue . . .

Speaking for me only

If this fellow is to be believed, apparently so:

Mark M. Lowenthal, an intelligence veteran who left a senior post at the C.I.A. in 2005, said Mr. Obama’s decision to exclude Mr. Brennan from contention for the top job had sent a message that “if you worked in the C.I.A. during the war on terror, you are now tainted,” and had created anxiety in the ranks of the agency’s clandestine service.

Yes, Mr. Lowenthal, if you were involved in torture, if you defended torture, as Mr. Brennan did (his empty protestations to the contrary notwithstanding) you are tainted, for life. I do not presume Mr. Lowenthal's libel of the entire CIA is accurate, but I DO agree with him that torture enablers are tainted. And rightly so.

Speaking for me only

The World at Risk Terror Report was released today. You can read it here(pdf).

It predicts a biological, chemical or nuclear attack before 2013. From the executive summary:

The Commission believes that unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013. The Commission further believes that terrorists are more likely to be able to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon.

The Commission believes that the U.S. government needs to move more aggressively to limit the proliferation of biological weapons and reduce the prospect of a bioterror attack.

Among the report's recommendations:[More...]