Bush - Torture saved lives

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11715577

What do we reckon? I know where I stand on this...

 

This is not exactly news - yes, it appeared in Bush's memoir, Decision Points - but he has said so previous to this.

Strikingly, Bush did admit to two major screwups during his presidency (and yes, there were more than two, but at least he came clean on two of them).

First, he said he never should have done the "Mission Accomplished" speech on the carrier a few weeks after the invasion of Iraq had occured, especially since we're still there seven or so years later.

Secondly, he admited to badly mishandling the Katrina disaster in 2005.

 

Subjectively he is probably honest in that he wants to believe it. Point is, he is wrong.

When Bush said, I paraphrase, 'it was legal because my lawyers said so' I found that unconvincing and asinine in the extreme.

Not only because it was factually incorrect. People get sentenced all the time for doing things their lawyers said them would be legal - and in such cases the lawyers often get sentenced with them, for abetment.

Bush's legal hacks Addington, Gonzales, Bybee and Yoo (and some I probably forgot) were in their reading of the law more in the tradition of a mob consigliere.

The law prohibiting torture is explicit. Their job was to weasel a way around that explicit prohibition, because they did want to torture (and had to sanction things they had already been doing after some folks [i.e. the people tasked with executing these policies in particular] rang the alarm about the legality), and so they reinterpreted the term, prepared justifications etc. pp. Their obvious intent just oozes out of every line of their memoranda, and even more so out of that retroactive immunity bill Bush hastily enacted.

To me they are beyond contempt. In WW-II people with their approach to the legality of torture were hanged or sentenced to long prison terms for war crimes. Good I say. That's not just for Germans and Japanese. What's good for the goose ... but before that, there has to be the recognition of wrongdoing, which I see lacking in the US. A lot of 'folks' probably find that these 'terr'ists' deserve it and have it coming. I find it as disappointing as it was predictable that the R's (Cheney Jr in particular) have succeeded in their rearguard action to protect the Bush hacks from prosecution.

 

Ragusa - I agree with most everything in your post

If they ARE terrorists they do have it coming. That said, we are still a nation of laws and we cannot pick and chose which ones seem good, or not good, in the heat of the moment.

While an argument can be made that the Commander and Chief may have to act outside the law to preserve security of the nation, it should be done with complete transparency and accountability.

 

I was not a Bush, Jr. supporter to put it mildly.

Just yesterday I listen to a talk show he was on discussing his book. He was specifically asked about this subject. He certainly gave the impression that he believed what he did was legal. If this is not true it would seem that the lawyers were at fault for misguiding him. I also get the impression that he was misguided by a lot of people who should have been better at what they did.

In his defense and the defense of any President it (the office) is the top of the hierarchy. The President has to make the final decision based on the information he receives. "The buck stops here." Harry Truman. Right or wrong he will need to live with his decisions for the rest of his life.

 

'If the president does it, it's not illegal' ruined one man, why not this one? Maybe because he's already ruined...

Torture does nothing and helps noone. I don't know about you, but if I was being tortured I would tell them whatever I thought they wanted to hear.

 

Hah, and I was about to pick a fight with you when I read the first half.

They may deserve it, but they do not 'have it coming' because a state that breaks its own laws (like the explicit and absolute prohibition of torture) is a lawless state.

Bush's violations in that regard are significant, and worse, under Obama, except for the torture, some of them endure. At least he stopped that. Leaves only trifles like extrajudicial killings of US citizens, once, by administrative fiat, they have been labelled terrorists.

With such 'fun' abound, what's a constitution good for?

 

The philosophy of 'torture saves lives' is fundamental to some people. They believe Jack Bauer can beat the truth out a committed terrorist or serial killer and save the day.

 

I have to point out that the Bush people, including GWB, denied that we "tortured anyone" -- while the torture was going on. Now that the cat is out of the bag, they are taking the usual, "We had to do this to save lives" routine, but only after they had been caught.

 

I think that for some reason "water boarding" wasn't considered torture.

I agree with T2Bruno that under torture I would say whatever those torturing me wanted to hear.

 

That I don't believe. It is a matter of public record that others have been prosecuted in the past for the same offense. And that these techniques were brought to the adminstration by "torture experts" from South East Asia.

 

That doesn't always work though. Think Marathon Man.

 

The point is that really about everybody agreed on that point - during the Reagan administration a iirc Texas sheriff was prosecuted for torture for water boarding suspects. That near drowning of a person was torture was generally understood. That only changed when the Bush hacks did their very best to wilfully obscure that, simply by staunchly and unblinkingly pretending it wasn't - domestically with considerable success.

They did that because they wanted to use water boarding, and since torture was prohibited, water boarding had to not be torture. So they asked for legal opinions to that effect. Delivered as ordered.

Take that for the power of the bully pulpit, amplified with the avid help of FOX, FOX contributors, talk radio and the right wing blogosphere and nowadays through miscreants like the shameless Marc Theissen or Liz Cheney (though her PAC 'Keep America Safe' [or: 'don't prosecute my dad']).

All the while the D's didn't really get their asses up out of fear to be denounced to be either terrorists sympathisers or weak on national security - you just don't gain votes by speaking out on behalf of terrorists or alleged terrorists, never mind what the Bush administration did to them was criminal. Disgusting. They got what they deserved: For all their meekness, the Cheney rearguard squad accused them of just that anyway.

The ever formidable Ray McGovern has a wonderful piece on Bush's comments.

 

I agree with you, Ragusa. Water Boarding is torture in my opinion.

There is plenty of blame to pass around. Everyone is going to defend their actions and try to justify themselves. It takes a lot of guts to admit when one is wrong even if it is only to onself.

 

I wonder though...if alot of innocents get stortured and such (not saying they all are of course), wont that just create more enemies for the US in the future? And therefore add more enemies to the basket? Not sure it would save lives, if that is the case.

 

Rawgrim, The USA is quite good at making enemies. Possibly this is because we lack experience. We did not suffer through two World Wars. Oh, we participated in the, we lost soldiers but other than Pearl Harbor we weren't attacked. 9/11 was a shock to us because our experience with terrorists was limited. It did awaken us to the fact that we were not invulnarable and it scared us.

Just some idea I have.

 

Why? You hire lawyers to interpret the law, that's their purpose. The law is so vague, convoluted and ambiguous, that even lawyers and judges (professionals in the field of law) can't agree on what the hell is legal. Some would argue that the law is fashioned this way so that lawyers remain in demand.

I could easily see Bush being 'mislead' by lawyers and advisors. He doesn't strike me as the brightest bulb in the box.

 

More than that, before Bush sent his merry troupe of silver tongues to work the question was as controversial as the question whether the sun rises in the east.

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Mordea,
that's utter nonsense. A gvt lawyer is supposed to go to work under the premise, 'this is the law, these are the limits of the law and that is what you can do and this what you cannot do'. A sane reading of US code and international treaties leaves no doubt that water boarding is torture. That is why the successors of Bush's merry troupe of silver tongues were appalled by the quality of legal advice rendered to Bush. The poor quality is not a result of lack of qualification but of an unprofessional attitude, unsuited for government service.

Bush didn't take 'No, it's illegal' for an answer. In essence Bush's merry troupe of silver tongues were asked: 'I don't care whether it's torture and illegal, make it legal'. They delivered, and simply pretended that water boarding wasn't torture. Think of it as a game of chicken. Who blinks first, loses. These people sure have nerve, proportional to the integrity they lack.

The necessity for their legal advice came from the fact that Bush administration's original actions were the result of the original advice that Cheney's legal counsel David Addington gave, who said 'Whatever the president orders, it is legal because as Commander in Chief he has unlimited powers' (think Louis XIV and "l'etat c'est moi", or 'unitary executive branch').

Other lawyers, and in particular the CIA officers tasked to torture, were appalled because they lacked Addington's, shall we say, cheerfully expansive, view of the law. So the CIA people went on strike, since they understood that what they were ordered to do under sane legal analysis probably qualified them for serious criminal charges (and if sentenced for punishment up to the death penalty). So they were demanding legal cover - that was what Bush's lawyers produced, with their memos, and to be super safe, after it became ever more clear that that legal advice rendered by Bush's merry troupe of silver tongues was a brazenly formulated load of manure, with that retroactive immunity.

That's why I find Bush's evasions on the question of the legality of torture unconvincing and asinine in the extreme. Lawyers don't 'mislead' when they craft advice as you ordered it.

PS: What puts me off more than this disingenuity is the sheer dishonesty: Bush brags about ordering torture ('damn right I did'), but then hides behind his lawyers, claiming to have acted within the limits of what they told him was legal - and if it wasn't, that was an honest error was on their part. What we see in Bush's evasions is his defence counsel speaking. Would he openly admit that he ordered torture and that he knew water boarding was torture, he'd create a bulletproof prosecutorial case. Bush isn't that dumb.

And since this is about him selling his 'legacy', an open admittance that he knowingly broke the law, gives a damn and would cheerfully do so again, that might be a tad too much for law and order Republicans to stomach. His safety (and the safety of the team involved in his torture efforts) depends on the support and loyalty of his rearguard squad. It will be easier to maintain as long the narrative of water boarding being really a tricky case on which lawyers disagree (they can't) endures.

 

Mordea, look:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding

Conservative AM radio host "disproves" waterboarding is torture: