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Bush's Lawyers Strike Back
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In a brutally frank and at times contentious interview, former Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales sat down with Dan Abrams to talk about:
•their definition of torture (“Were the interrogations harsh? Yes. Did they save lives? Absolutely.”)
•whether it was illegal (“It was a very close call.”)
•mistakes they made (“Wouldn’t it be great, if all of us in public service, could go back and correct any mistakes that we may have made on behalf of the American public?”)
•when it’s acceptable to fire a U.S. Attorney (“I think it is improper, as I indicated before, to remove a U.S. attorney, because that U.S. attorney failed to prosecute, say, a Democrat.”)
•a fear of prosecution and disbarment (“only a fool wouldn’t worry about it“)
•and who the attorney general really answers to (“I think the Constitution and the American people are your primary clients.“).
Our interview, part of a speaker series organized by the American Jewish University on April 27, included a dinner and post-event cocktail “meet and greet.” Maybe I was naïve, but after chatting with the guests, I assumed the audience would be pretty evenly split politically. But on that stage, in front of about 2,500 people, I felt like the visiting team shooting free throws at a crucial moment in the game. I was booed, hissed, and heckled while Ashcroft and Gonzales were regularly applauded. While I occasionally received polite applause, their supporters made sure to have their voices and hands heard.
“I think that the U.S. government provided advice to CIA interrogators based upon the best legal reasoning by the lawyers in the Department of Justice. Was it torture, when that advice was given? No.”
Throughout my career, I have conducted many contentious interviews but they were generally for my show or my network—on my turf. Not this time. The two men fidgeted. I fidgeted. I pushed and they pushed back. They rolled their eyes and I continued to pursue some clearly uncomfortable topics—the definition of torture, who the attorney general actually works for, and under what circumstances U.S. Attorneys can be fired.
You can find a full transcript of the interview on my Twitter page.
Dan Abrams: Let’s start by just talking broadly for a moment. Attorney General Ashcroft, how’s Obama doing?
John Ashcroft: [Laughter] I think he’s done pretty well. I’m glad he hasn’t decided precipitously to close down Guantánamo. Because it’s the national interest that we be able to keep dangerous people who we apprehend on the battlefields from being released. We know that out of the people we have released, hundreds of people that have been released—even the ones that we thought it was OK to release. So I’m glad he made that decision. I don’t want anything to happen that impairs the national interest, particularly in the area of national security. So there are lots of things I’m thankful for. I don’t have quite the same tint in my glasses that you do in yours, but that doesn’t keep me from being grateful.
I just can’t decide, Attorney General Gonzales, if Attorney General Ashcroft is kind of pulling his punches. Do you agree with those comments, or are you more critical?
Alberto Gonzales: I tend to follow President Bush’s model in terms of saying less—as opposed to Vice President Cheney’s [Laughter]. The decisions at this level are so incredibly hard, you can’t even imagine how difficult they are.
Let’s assume they’re hard. Let’s assume the questions are hard. How’s Obama dealt with them. Has he dealt with them well?
AG: I think it’s probably too early to tell. It’s 100 days. The man should be given the opportunity to succeed or fail. He was elected by the American people, and he deserves the benefit of the doubt, and I think it’s just too early to tell. I’m pleased generally with some of his decisions. Some of his decisions I’m not so happy with. But I just think it’s too early to tell.
OK. Speaking of Vice President Cheney. He did have something to say about President Obama. He said: “He’s making some choices that in my mind will in fact raise the risk to the American people of another attack.” Judge Gonzales, do you agree with that?
AG: You know, I’m a lot more interested in the assessments by the intelligence professionals, quite frankly. When I hear Mike Hayden, former CIA director, express concerns that the release of the interrogation memos, for example, has weakened our national security, that concerns me. And so, again, we need time to evaluate.
But can you theoretically say that the release of the four memos is somehow going to lead—is going to make an attack more likely?
JA: Well, whether you elevate the risk by providing more information to the enemy—
That elevates the risk?
JA: Very frequently.
In this case.
JA: No, no—
Do you think the release of these memos elevated the risk?
JA: I don’t know. I haven’t made that decision. I’m talking about the fact that when you provide information to the enemy, and it’s valuable to the enemy, the risk goes up. When you also suggest to the American people that the risk is going down, there’s almost the situation where when people guard against the risk less because they feel more secure, the risk goes up. We’re dealing with an enemy that has sworn that they want to destroy us. And they call us the Great Satan, and they have continued to say that they want to fight us and that they want to injure us, and I take them at their word on that. Without adequate regard at one time it has cost us greatly. So I don’t think it’s reckless to say that if you provide something that assists the enemy.
And I think the difficulty we have here is the idea that we have to somehow hand them an engraved invitation to hit us again before people think it helps them. There are lots of things that could help.
But it sounds like you’re suggesting that the release of these memos is somehow handing them an invitation to attack. Let me read you what President Obama said about this. He said: “the interrogation techniques recorded in these memos have already been widely reported. The previous administration publicly acknowledged portions of the program, and some of the practices of these memos. I’ve already ended the techniques described in the memos through an executive order, therefore withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time. This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States.”
AG: Let me just say, Dan, that [former CIA director] Mike Hayden and Mike Mukasey, who followed me as attorney general, responded in an Op-Ed to the release of the memos in response to these arguments. It is one thing to say that we engage in these kinds of techniques—
Engaged, past tense.
AG: [Puts his hand up.]
Well I mean, there’s a difference. You can’t just say we engage, because it’s almost like they got an old playbook. Right? From five years ago. And they’re saying, “Hey, we got the playbook! We got the playbook!” And it turns out they got a new coach, and a new play.
AG: The main point, the main point, is—it’s one thing to say that this particular technique, but the level of detail in these memos have never been made public before. In does provide, in my judgment, important information to the enemy.
Like what?
AG: But more importantly, in the judgment of Mike Hayden, and the current CIA director, and four previous CIA directors…
But CIA Director Leon Panetta did not say that it was providing comfort to the enemy or providing information…
AG: I’m not saying comfort to the enemy, but I’m saying it does harm the national security of our country.
He didn’t use that term, but—
AG: And then secondly, to say that we have now discontinued these techniques. They may be necessary in the future. And by disclosing it, means you take them off the table and they can never be used again.
JA: I believe there’s been a law change since some of these memos were originally written. And I think if the president wanted to, he could withdraw and discontinue things, maybe predicated on the change in the statute, which was endorsed, I think, by the Republican candidate for president and in the legislative process as well, as the members of the Senate generally and the House, and signed by the president. So, it may well be that there is a minimization of the potential damage here that could happen based on a discontinuity, but I think that General Gonzales makes a point that’s worth understanding.
Judge Gonzales, I’m going to ask you a very direct question. And it relates to something you just said. Do you believe waterboarding is torture?
AG: Here’s what I’ll say. I think that the U.S. government provided advice to CIA interrogators based upon the best legal reasoning by the lawyers in the Department of Justice. Was it torture, when that advice was given? No. Were the interrogations harsh? Yes. Did they save lives? Absolutely.
[Applause]
Did they get it right? I’m asking your legal opinion. Waterboarding is—they define it in all the memos how waterboarding is defined—and if we need it defined I’m happy to read from it—how torture is defined. Do you think legally that waterboarding is torture?
AG: Dan, when I served in the administration, the position of the administration was that under certain conditions and circumstances, this technique would be lawful.
Now that you’ve had some time to think about it. You’ve been out of office for a while, and you get the opportunity to look back with 20/20 hindsight. Do you look back and do you say to yourself, we got that one right?
AG: Wouldn’t it be great, if all of us in public service, could go back and correct any mistakes that we may have made on behalf of the American public?
Well, you’ve got the opportunity right now.
AG: —We don’t have that opportunity.
You have the opportunity to say you know what, we blew it. We messed this one up, we got this one wrong.
AG: I will say that I made my fair share of mistakes in government. But I will also say that I, and the people that I work with, took actions to the very best of our abilities to protect our country in a very difficult period in our nation’s history. [Applause.]
Let me follow this. The U.S. military prosecuted our own troops for using waterboarding in the Philippines, tried the Japanese for war crimes for using it against the Allies and the U.S. troops in WWII. And yet, we’re suggesting that it’s not torture. [Applause]
JA: First of all, the word waterboarding can be defined in a lot of ways.
Let’s talk about the definition that was used in these memos—this is a legal document—of the definition of waterboarding. “Lying on a gurney that is inclined with an angle of 10-15 degrees from horizontal, with the detainee on his back. . . head toward the head end of the gurney, cloth pasted over the detainees’ face, and cold water poured on the cloth approximately 16-18 inches—this is the definition. The question is—
AG: Dan, the opinions have been withdrawn. There are no longer binding position of the department…
I understand that, but that doesn’t mean, as lawyers, we can’t sit and discuss whether this was a correct legal assessment. Because it seems to me, in my opinion, that it is impossible to explain how this particular procedure would not be considered torture. [Applause]
JA: Members of the department went and underwent the procedure.
Once or twice, not 266 times.
JA: Many members of our military in training undergo the procedure—
Once or twice.
JA: Were you there?
No, the memos explain it. It’s once or twice.
JA: OK. I don’t know how many times they underwent it. Let me just put it this way. We relied—I relied—on the best judgments of the lawyers in the department. There are 110,000 employees in the department, the lawyers are expert, and they came up with an opinion that became part of a memo. Later, some lawyers came to me and said "We’re not confident that that memo best expresses the law here." And I said to myself, "Well, I’m the attorney general, and if we have stuff out there that’s not the best expression, we ought to amend it. We ought to get the best information we can." You know we’re in a war, you give it to the president, you give information to the other individuals, but you say, you know, they deserve the best judgment. They reworked the memo, and they came a second time, these professionals did, and according to the definition of torture, they came to the conclusion that the procedure as provided along with the advice to our personnel did not amount to legal torture.
Did they get it wrong?
JA: I don’t think they got it wrong. It’s different now.
It’s different in what sense?
JA: Because the law has been changed. [John Ashcroft called me after the event to correct a mistake he made. He wanted to let me know that, in retrospect and after conducting more research on the matter, he realized that no such change in the law was ever enacted.]
The definition of torture?
JA: Yes! The definition of torture.
So the answer then, it sounds like, is the only reason you still believe the legal assessment was correct was because there’s been a change in the law?
JA: I believe that the work of the department by these professionals came to the right conclusion.
That waterboarding is not torture.
JA: That, as described, and as commented on in their memorandum, that it was not torture.
Judge Gonzales, are any of the following torture, and these were all things that were in the memo.
AG: Dan, I’m not—
Nudity, facial grasp, facial slapping, abdominal slap, cramped confinement, stress positions, water dousing—including 41-degree water—sleep deprivation, and waterboarding. Are any of those torture?
AG: Dan, as John said, and again I’m [saying] that what you’re reading from represents the work of the department. The lawyers within the department looked very, very carefully at the words of the statute, looked at the conditions and circumstances in which these procedures would be undertaken, and rendered a legal conclusion that under these circumstances, it would not violate the statute. Now, my understanding of the legal positions of the department has now been changed. So we can spend all evening debating the merits of a legal opinion of the Department of Justice, which by the way, opinions get changed—I don’t want to say all the time—but it’s not unusual to have opinions change and be modified as conditions change, as administrations change, as the Supreme Court renders a decision, opinions change.
[Applause]
So let me ask, in your view, this was a close call. It sounds like you’re saying this was a close call because there was a legal judgment made, and you think that they made the right call.
AG: It was a very close call. These are very, very difficult issues.
If in a year from now, Judge Gonzales, Attorney General Eric Holder fired eight or nine U.S. attorneys because they would not pursue, or at least in part, because they wouldn’t pursue certain politically charged cases against Republicans, would that be a problem?
AG: That would be a problem. Assuming if there were no merit. You know.
But what if it was part of the decision?
AG: If it was to interfere with ongoing prosecution or to punish a U.S. attorney for failing to prosecute someone when there’s no reason not to—that would be improper.
Well, take it apart, and let’s assume for a moment that there have been reasons that have been laid out for firing U.S. attorneys, and those stated justifications, there have been some questions about that, but you’d agree—if the primary reason why they were fired was because they wouldn’t pursue politically charged cases, they would not be proper.
AG: What do you mean politically charged cases? For example, if you’re saying one of the president’s priorities is voter fraud. And if we have U.S. attorneys who say "I don’t care about voter fraud, I don’t care what the president thinks, I’m not going to prosecute those kinds of cases," I think it would be legitimate to replace him. They serve at the pleasure of the president.
Well that’s the question, that’s why I’m asking the question.
AG: That would not be an improper reason.
Because voter fraud, you’d agree, is a politically charged issue, and it tends to be something Republicans pursue more than Democrats.
AG: But it also happens to be a crime. It’s stealing someone’s vote. There is a law against it. It is OK to enforce that law. And if a U.S. attorney doesn’t want to enforce it, and it happens to be a priority of the president of the United States—you bet.
So it sounds to me like you are saying it wouldn’t be—let’s use the voter fraud example—that it wouldn’t be improper for nine U.S. attorneys to be fired if they refuse to pursue cases like voter fraud?
AG: If you’re talking about as a general category, I’m fine with that. If you’re talking about specific cases, then I have to look at the facts of the specific case.
So is there any difference to you in appointing a U.S. attorney and firing one? Meaning, that everyone agrees that the appointment of U.S. attorneys is a political position. A president can clean house. When a Democrat comes in, they can appoint an entirely new group of U.S. attorneys that they want. Is there a different standard for firing them than for hiring them?
AG: I think the problem is that people have different definitions of what it means to be a political reason to remove someone. Because everything as you indicated with respect to the appointment is very political.
Should it be for firing?
AG: I think it is improper, as I indicated before, to remove a U.S. attorney, because that U.S. attorney failed to prosecute, say, a Democrat.
Even if that was the president’s—you said the president has a certain set of policies and positions he wants to take—even if that was one of them?
AG: To prosecute Democrats? President Bush would not have had that as a policy. [Laughs]
Let me move to a serious issue that has gotten a lot of, that has been testified to in front of Congress, that has been reported on extensively, and that is an incident that occurred when you were quite ill, Attorney General Ashcroft. And James Comey, the assistant attorney general, testified to this, as has former director of the FBI Mueller. That basically Mr. Gonzales, and [former White House Chief of Staff] Andrew Card had come to your bedside in order to get approval for the NSA spying program. And according to Mr. Comey, that basically you pointed at him and said he’s still the attorney general. And many have said that was a very brave thing to do at the point, particularly in your condition, at the time. And when the spying program was renewed, despite the fact that Mr. Comey had objected to it, that you and a group of others threatened to quit. Is that true?
JA: It’s true that it’s been reported in the papers that way.
Is this one of those times where they got it right?
JA: You know, I consider my health records to be confidential. [Laughter] And I don’t discuss my hospital records.
What about after the hospital? Put aside for a moment what happened at the hospital, what happened in the days after? This, I think very important claim, that you and a group of others threatened to quit.
JA: I’m not going to comment on that. But let me just say this, everybody who serves in the federal government ought to be ready to quit if they need to.
AG: We often want to quit, let me tell you.
DA: Judge Gonzales, you mentioned in your testimony—you mentioned you testified about it—and one of the controversial issues has been that in February 2006, that you had said that there has “not been any serious disagreement about the program the president has confirmed,” referring to the NSA program. And yet, we learned later, through the testimony of Comey and others, that there was real disagreement as is evidenced by what happened in Attorney General Ashcroft’s hospital room. James Comey testified, “I was angry. I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of attorney general because they had been transferred to me.” Mr. Mueller testified that “I had an understanding the discussion was on an NSA program.” Were you candid in your testimony when you said there has not been any serious disagreement about the program?
AG: Dan, I stand by the testimony.
Were you candid?
AG: I stand by the testimony. And subsequent testimony. And believe me, I’ve been asked this question many times. I submitted a letter amplifying, clarifying my testimony. I think that letter was sent August 1, 2007, so there’s a lot already out there on the record about my testimony. I’ve got nothing else to add.
But how could you have said that there was no serious disagreement about this, when there was this major showdown?
AG: Here’s the problem, folks. We’re talking about the sensitive, classified programs of the United States. The president disclosed only one aspect of many things that we do. And so it’s very difficult to talk about these things in a public setting, it really is. So obviously I did that, Dan. I’ve said everything I could say in testimony. In closed hearings, I’ve amplified my remarks, but I can’t say anything more in a public setting. [Laughter]
Did you have any qualms about going to the room of a sick man? [Audience boos] You’ve got the audience’s support.
AG: You know, John is right. What’s really important is that at the end of the day, a very important program on behalf of the United States of America, it continued. There may have been some modifications, there may have been some changes, but the lawyers worked these things out.
Judge Gonzales, as attorney general, is the president your client?
AG: The president is obviously someone who receives legal advice from the attorney general. But I think the Constitution and the American people are your primary clients.
You say primary. Is the president also—is it a shared responsibility?
AG: The president looks to the attorney general for legal advice. He looks to the attorney general for legal opinions. Not just the president, the other executive branch agencies, turn to the Department of Justice, the AG, the Office of Legal Counsel, for legal opinions which represent the legal position of the executive branch. So in a sense, yes, the president, the executive branch agencies, represents one of the clients of the attorney general, but the attorney general takes an oath to defend the Constitution. He has an oath to the Constitution and to the American people.
Because as you know, some have said about you, that as Attorney General, you viewed the president too much as your client, as opposed to the American people.
AG: I think that people have said that because I had a relationship with President Bush that I could not have been an effective attorney general.
Judge Gonzales, and this is something that’s come out in the news as of late, and it relates to Representative Jane Harman. The CQ, and I’m sure you’re familiar with this report, has reported that the Department of Justice lawyers concluded that Rep. Harman, they believed, had actually committed a crime by promising to put in a good word for two AIPAC officials being prosecuted for passing classified information. In exchange, the report says, an Israeli agent pledged to help Harman get chair of the Intelligence Committee, but the investigation was halted, the report says, by you. And the sources who were quoted said because you wanted to maintain her credibility, so she could publicly defend the NSA wiretapping program which had just been exposed. And the quote from the article was “Gonzales said he needed Jane to help support the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed.”
AG: Yeah, I’m not going to comment publicly whether or not there was or was not or is an investigation. I will say that I would not interfere with an investigation for an improper reason. And that’s all I can say about that.
As you know, you’ve become a kind of a target for many on the left. A lot of people say that you should be prosecuted, that you should be disbarred, etc. Do you worry about any of that?
AG: Well you know, Washington being such a political town, and certain groups being so politicized, only a fool wouldn’t worry about it. But I think that if it really is a question of what happened, if it’s a question of the truth, then no, I’m not worried. I did my best, and that’s all that we can do in these positions, in these very difficult positions. I think John’s comment of being grateful for the privilege to serve summed it up well. I too, am very proud of the fact that I played a very small part in the safety of our country following the attacks of 9/11. That’s something that will always be very, very special to me.
Do you believe that if different legal decisions hadn’t been made, then there would have been another terrorist attack?
AG: Well, we’ll never know for sure.
Do you think there’s a real chance that the legal decisions prevented another attack?
AG: The legal decisions?
The choices made by the Department of Justice.
AG: As lawyers, you provide to policymakers an opinion on whether a certain policy which would make America safe is available to them. They then decide if this is something they would want to exercise to make America safer.
JA: Legal decisions sort of suggest that the business of the department is just making decisions. But the Department of Justice includes the FBI, which has not only national intelligence responsibility, but international intelligence responsibility. It’s the universal intelligence agency. I have no doubt that there were very serious contributions made to our safety and security by them.
I want to ask you both one final overall question, and that is, when you both talk about your greatest regret, you talk about your failure to explain. Some people are going to look at that and say, of all the problems this administration has had, you have two attorneys general sitting up there, saying the biggest problem we had is that we failed to explain?
JA: Let me tell you, I’m not talking about problems we had. I’m talking about problems I had. I’m talking about a personal failure. I don’t think it’s a failure of the administration, it’s a failure of mine. I’m not here to apologize, you have to remind me that there’s something else that I need to apologize for. I don’t regret my service to the country. I don’t back up to the pay window to get my pay. Now I do think I should have done a better job there if I were to do a better job there, but I don’t want to do it again, so thank you.
Dan Abrams is CEO of Abrams Research, an attorney, and chief legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.
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Alberto should be in prison.
Again, the notion that "it's done to our Service Members" when referencing any portion of what is legally defined as torture is a copout. Things are done, (particularly waterboarding) to certain Service Men so that they will be better equipped to handle interrogations should they ever be captured by Nations or organizations that themselves haven't signed certain treaties. Allowing "lawyers" or anyone else to continue to get away with this excuse is ridiculous.
YOH LIBERALS THE OTHERSIDE DOSENT TORTURE . HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A LIVE AMERICAN PRISIONER THEY KILL THEM SO A LITTLE WATER WONT HURT.THANK YOU GEORGE BUSH.FOR KEEPING US SAFE
Well, KEVROY1, you mean thanks George Bush for keeping us safe AFTER 9/11. Ufortunatley, it's too bad we cannot say that for the 3000 innocent Americans that died on HIS WATCH.
Or, did you already forget about them?
Abrams Research is a PR outfit, is this a genuine piece of journalism or is it an info-mercial?
In other words Mr Abrams, is AG a client of yours (were you paid to do this and by whom)?
Are you kidding? Did you read this interview? Why would Alberto Gonzales pay a PR agency to prod and attack him on stage and effectively try to get an apology or admission of guilt from him?
The point about torture that seems to be left out by the media is that the torture was used to make the case that Saddam Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda. The media is not reporting on this aspect of the torture case. Has this angle been discredited? I haven't seen anything to the contrary. If that is the case, then people in the administration have no choice than to argue that we didn't torture. It is in their best interest not to argue about the connection that they tried to make and were unable to make convincingly. These people have no standing since they have lied in the past and continue to do so. This is why we need a special prosecutor (my choice is Patrick Fitzgerald) to get to the bottom of the case for torture. So I ask this question one more time: Has the assertion that the Bush administration used torture to forge a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda been discredited?
Mauiboy, I have looked into this extensively and you are right on the mark! No one has discredited it. They can't because it's true. And people can say what they want about MSNBC but Chris Mathews did report on this last week.
"AG: And then secondly, to say that we have now discontinued these techniques. They may be necessary in the future. And by disclosing it, means you take them off the table and they can never be used again."
This is the problem. They were never supposed to be used in the first place. If you don't prosecute they will be used again.
Today they torture Al Q. Tomorrow it will b us.
I have to wonder why anyone cares about this issue to speak of. I guess it gives the intellectuals and liberals of the world something to rip Bush on but here In the heartland of American farm country, noone cares. The vicious dogs blow their enemies to bits and cut heads off yet we weap over gettin em wet.
And when the enemy uses "enhanced interrogation techniques" on your sons and daughters... will you then howl like the "vicious dogs"? Who will stand up for your sons and daughters then? Don't worry, those same vicious dogs will stand up for your sons and daughters because they are Americans, WE are Americans. And as Americans we stand up together and fall down together. Though you would turn you back on the very people trying to protect your freedom and liberty. You would name call and say you don't care about the issue. You use the words "intellectual" and "liberal" as if you are proud you are neither. Here are a few quotes you may or may not have heard of since you are so proud of being the opposite of intellectually liberal:
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790), Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Only the educated are free.
Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD), Discourses
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), to Archibald Stuart, 1791
Your point is well taken, but what does the US do when the enemy uses "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as beheading Daniel Pearl? What did the "Left" do? Issue a citation? say "Don't do that, it's Bad?" The fact is, the left said and did nothing to counter our enemy's torture/murder?
I am still waiting for an answer or response that if we stop, our enemies will also stop. So far, I only hear silence. Step up and provide an alternative.
Are you prepared to live with the possibility that not using every means available may cause the death of many innocent lives? Just be honest and say that is the price you are willing to pay.
I'm trying to reply to krugerw below me, but for some reason the "reply" button isn't showing up. Can't figure out for the life of me why, but whatever.
I don't think the left is concerned with matching terrorists in their brutality or the way they treat their prisoners. In fact, that's the entire reason there's a discussion to be had--they *don't* want to see our government give the okay to act the same way a fanatical sociopath does.
No one is arguing in favor of your assertion that "if we stop, our enemies will stop." The point is they will continue--but we're America, and America is better than that. Or should be better than that, at the least. There's also a very convincing argument to be made that torture simply doesn't produce the results that less violent interrogation techniques do. Torture someone and they'll tell you whatever you want to hear to get you to stop. It doesn't mean it'll be true, or that it'll help you in the end.
Chris Hitchens "got a little wet" a little while ago and had some things to say on this issue: http://tinyurl.com/3gjrje
As for your final point, personally, I feel that if it were a *last resort*, and time was pressing (like a bomb was going to go off in a matter of hours), then yes, torture would be worth the risk of getting inaccurate information and risking our nation's credibility. But again, I feel it should be a *last resort*.
And because I feel that there are other interrogation methods that are usually more effective than torture, then yes, I think it's worth putting down the "tool" of torture and risking innocent lives. In the end, the interrogation methods that don't involve torture have a much higher chance of succeeding.
lmktacwa; I am humbled. Bless you.
I care because it matters, I live in Indiana, also part of the heartland. Torture is illegal, unjust and unAmerican, if we accept torture, then we lose all moral high ground, we cannot be the ideal that other nations aspire to. We become a problem, and we lose, our legacy is ugly and we fail to uphold our own constitution.
submarinemn; you do not represent my heartland. if you can't see the glaring reason as to why this is such a controversial topic, then you are ignorant and blind.
this very issue is an issue of the heart, and by definition what it is to be HUMAN. the question is when and why the Cheneyites, when given the option to torture or not to torture decided on the worst option which rendered the worst results; by torturing.
this is part of the great question my friend, but distinguished this time as; to be a torturer or not to torturer, to be inhuman or to be whatever its opposite implies.
the definition my friend is not as you say intellectual and of the mind, but a question, submarinemn, of the heart; which you have co-oped as your place of residence, gated without liberals or intellectuals of course......comeon brother!
But, it "ain't" about "em" it's about us. Are you a law abiding citizen or a criminal?
Plus, why is no one considering the fact that tourtue produces unreliable information, and in turn, makes us LESS safe? Don't you think there are smarter ways to get good inntellegence? There are. The FBI has used the most advanced interrogation practices (not tourture) for years. These practices are based on the psychological studies from the past century and they work.
I think when people like you say rip-em kill-em make them pay for what they did, you are revealing what is truly more imporntant you. That is, to make them pay - gathering vital intellegence is secondary.
I'd rather be smart about it, use what works, and instead of making a few guys pay, systematically take down the whole evil network You people are the types that when you hand them a gun in battle, they jump out of the foxhole firing and charge straight into the teeth of the enemy. Ok, maybe you get one or two - horay. I'd rather kill "em" ALL!
Because we're supposed to be better than that. Because we have no moral authority, if we behave in the same way as those we proclaim to be immoral. Because we're supposed to be a country of laws. Because we say we live by the words, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Add to the end of that sentence, "as you would have them do unto you, your wife and children."
It was torture after WWII and it's torture now.Guilty,guilty,guilty.........
Whoaaa up there pardner! I too, happen to live here in the heartland of American farm country, and in fact also happen to be a farmer right here in one of the reddest of the red states.
Now, when I was growing up the term "red" had an entirely different connotation than it does today.
You asked "why anyone cares about this issue to speak of", and one reason is that even us farmers know how to listen.
We listen to the wind, we listen to the crows, we listen to the lawyers as they dance around issues.
One of the things this farmer heard was; Ashcroft stating, "keep dangerous people who we apprehend on the battlefields from being released." Now, another trait common to us farmers here in the heartland of America is the ability to remember.
I clearly remember during the aftermath of the 9/11 debacle/attack, Mr. Rumsfeld (Mr. Ashcroft's evil co-joined at the hip twin) stating that the "battlefields" of the past no longer exist, that we are now confronting a new enemy.
Under the new interpretation of "battlefield" our very own backyards, or in my case acreages, could now be considered the "battlefields". If the government decided that I may be an
"enemy combatant", they could pick me up in the middle of the night, haul my farmer's rear-end off to the pokey, hold me indefinitely, waterboard me several hundred times, and then shroud their mistake under the auspices of national security.
If you cannot understand the inherent danger this type of thinking poses to all Americans, then you ought to go back and try to gain your high school diploma. Oh, I have sympathy for the difficulty one may have in cutting through the legal-speak of the lawyer boys, afterall they go to graduate school to learn how to obfuscate, and argue.
But, when you distill this whole deal down, what we find is an unprecedented attack on American civil liberties. Do you remember that saying "Give me liberty, or give me death?"
That, my friend submariner, is the true issue!
Should waterboarding be considered "torture"? That I do not know, but should the guvm'nt be able to wisk Americans away under definitions decided behind political closed doors?
That question, even a farmer can answer!!!
Well put, thanks.
I grew up with farmers... feels like home. LOL Amen!
These guys have no credibility. NONE! And frankly after having to listen to Cheney and Rove and now these two trolls... I've had enough. I can spot fear when I see and smell it. These guys are sweating. They know what they did wasn't legal and they know that it was wrong.
Zorkadork doth grok the inherent danger of any government in the business of torture.
I doubt that our soldiers would allow themselves to be shot in the knee caps, or have fingers or toes cut off, or burned with hot irons or anything else which would result in permanent injury as part of a training excercise against terrorism.....If I were a mother of a soldier and thought that the techniques used by our government were the worst that would happen to them if captured by the enemy, I think I could sleep a lot easier...I think that governments of most other countries both ally and enemy, are laughing at us right now....
So your logic is our torture is not as bad as the other guy's torture, so that makes it okay? Even on people who are not terrorists or have committed any crime or wrong-doing (beyond perhaps having irritated some Afgan warlord who decided to proscribe them)?
So torture which leaves no physical marks on the human body is not torture?
Your knowledge of these things is limited, I would say.
Yes, I'm sure the mothers of all US servicemen would sleep easier knowing their children were being tortured. WHY DO YOU HATE YOUR COUNTRY?
This interview just reinforces why they should investigate and consider prosecutions. It's clear that they just don't get it, particularly AG. He appears to be saying that it was their view that the techniques were "not torture" under "certain conditions" which had nothing to do with the method but with the threat level or the results. In other words, if we perceived we're under threat and the technique works, it's not torture. And he's serious, which is the scary part.
It's really hard to believe this guy got any school to give him a degree or any state to put him on the bar with such poor basic logic. Look, the technique is either torture or its not - that doesn't change regardless of the threat level or the results. You can argue whether the U.S. is justified to use torture in certain conditions, but to try and make a legal distinction that it ceases to be torture under those conditions is just moronic to the core. It's akin to a bank robber saying it's not theft if he really needed the money. Or a guy who kills his wife in a fit of jealousy saying it's not homicide because he thought she was cheating.
All this interview reinforces, besides Albert's stunning lack of basic intelligence, is that those involved convinced themselves that any means is justified by the perceived end result. We're under attack, so it's okay to bend the rules because we're fighting for our lives, right? The fact that we're breaking International Law is irrelevant; the fact that we sometimes detained and tortured innocent people is unfortunate but acceptable. Etc.
First of all, in point of fact the jury is still out on whether it was "effective." There has yet to be any concrete proof of this, only indirect assertions and the dumb logic of "well we haven't been attacked again, so it must have worked." More importantly, it has started to come out that much of the supposed basis for this assertion has turned out to be discredited. The same people who were supposedly on the inside and said it worked have later been proven to be lying or asserting things they didn't have any direct knowledge of (for example, Rush, Glen and their like all widely quoted as proof a former CIA agent who said waterboarding "cracked" a particular suspect in about 20 seconds on the first try and asked if 20 seconds is really "torture"; the memos recently released prove he was subjected to almost 100 extended sessions - so I guess he didn't "crack in 20 seconds"). But let's put a pin in that little detail and assume for the sake of argument that through the thousands of incidents of torture, some useful intel did come out of it...
Guys, didn't we learn in grade school that the ends don't justify the means and that might wasn't always right? If the ends do justify the means, we need to seriously re-think our position on a lot of other history. For example, the Japanese before WWII had serious reason to feel threatened by the U.S. due to our embargos and blockades of their interests in Asia - much akin to our concern about the flow of oil in the Middle East now. So if their end result was the neutralize the threat the U.S. had created with these actions and protect their own economic interests, then was a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor a morally justified action? So if an Iraqi group decided to send in a covert force to the U.S. and kidnap random people and ship them back to a secret, protected location and indefinitely hold them and torture them because any one of them might have useful intel on U.S. policy toward Iraq, is that ok? After all, their country is under occupation, a military action never sanctioned by the U.N. So its fair to say some of them have reason to believe they are under attack from the U.S.
The worst responses you read here and elsewhere is from posters who try and turn it around and say "at least we're not blowing up babies or cutting off heads like those terrorists are." Really, do you really believe that makes it all ok? So I guess you never learned "two wrongs don't make a right" in Sunday School either. But just to be clear - what you are saying when you respond like that is the following: 1) Someone commits a wrong against me and may do so again; 2) Therefore I am justified in committing what I perceive to be "lesser" wrongs to someone else, who may have nothing to do with the first party, to lessen the chance of the first party wronging me again. So I guess by that logic, if someone is robbed and he has reason to believe his neighbor's teenage kid was involved, its okay for him to detain and rough up that kid to see if he can get the boy to admit it. If it turns out he got the wrong kid, that's ok, because he was only trying to protect himself. Ok, I get it now, that makes total sense...
Look, those of us against the use and justification of torture, aren't in denial that we're under threat of future attacks, or that more innocent lives will likely be lost. The truth is in much of the world people have been under this threat constantly. Yet we don't look favorably on those people when they start responding by kidnapping, torture or other violations of human rights. So why is it uniquely ok if we respond to the very real threat that way? And some of us also believe that, moral objections aside, its simply bad strategy. We may win a battle but we'll lose the war with Bush's twisted logic. Our actions have made us less secure, not more so. We have helped take a minority fringe group of extremists and make their hatred of America vastly more popular with millions of other people who initially reacted with horror to the actions of 9/11. And by proving that we're quickly willing to abandon our own moral and legal code the moment we feel threatened, we've also impossibly compromising our ability to expect humane responses to our own citizens in the future. We've lost our moral credibility. And that's much more important to our security in the long run, not to mention to the justification of our system of government. If we start ignoring the principles of our Constitution the document is worthless. And then on what basis do we justify our government and laws at all? This isn't just a high-minded principle, it has very real implications on our ability to survive as a country in the long run.
But to end on a note of optimism, there's every reason to believe a majority of us "get it." Thank god.
Hey citivas, I personally appreciate your logic as I'm sure some other here do as well. I also happen to agree with you, but the one's your trying to convince don't think like that. I'm not saying they can't - I'm saying they just won't. Mostly because they don't want to have real discussions to find real answers. They don't use intellect; they are driven by any number of emotions (fear, hate, ect.). They don't act; they react.
You'll either get no (lucid) response, or personally attacked (as an anti-American or something). I'm not trying to deter you in any way - by all means keep going. I'm just pointing something out about what I see everywhere lately, whenever the argument is clearly laid out, as you have put it.
In delaying/avoiding any decision to prosecute the previous Administration, Obama is attempting to avoid a demoralising, divisive and painfully introspective look at itself.
All of the defenses and mitigations put forward by the Bush administration are of the same form as those proferred by the Nazi regime post WW2. Essentially based on false premises that a form of behavior could be allowed in their regime despite numerous treaties and international laws to the contrary.
We all know that there was a deliberate attempt to get legal justification for the torture; and if the people involved were literally *ANYBODY* apart from the previous US administration they would be impeached.
I don't see how Obama's administration is going to dodge the issue, maybe Obama is trying to trump the legal obligation with the pragmatic desire to go forward.
This issue is not going away. But Obama has a lot on his plate and he is still trying to woo Republicans, so this is not the time to lose his momentum and divide the country again on another divisive item. As long as this issue is in the public mind, it will get proper airing when the time is right. Remember how long it took the German people to acknowledge the Holocaust. Keep the flame burning on this issue, but be aware that it's not going to happen today.
It was torture. Period. These guys broke the law as did the rest of this administration. I want them prosecuted so that any president doesn't think they have the right to abduct and torture me without due process. Will the law of the land be upheld or will our system of special exceptions for those with money and power remain intact? Holding Bush & his gang accountable is not about retribution, it is about keeping liberty protected and keeping the constitution viable.
These two still don't understand that they live/lived in a country that 1) Has laws, and, 2) the country they live/lived in has International obligations under which we have agreed certain global truth. The primary is that TORTURE IS ILLEGAL - EVERYWHERE.
These folks belong at the Hague in a cue for their WAR CRIMES TRIALS..As soon as possible..(today is too late).
These two, in addition of course to the unholy trinity of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, are ideological demagogues, who would twist, not only the constitution, but even the bible, if need be to justify the unjustifiable acts of professional treason they committed. They were entrusted with America's constitution, and to uphold the laws of that constitution, and instead they manipulated it in a most self-serving deceitful way to give the devoid-of-any-sense-of-morality Bush administration the legal cover it needed to break the law and rape its soul and the very foundation it was built on. One, if driven enough by ideology, like Bush's cronies, can easily justify his wrongdoing by any crap so long as he adorns it with the banal, overly-used and abused key words like terrorism, national security, Alqaida, Saddam..etc.
America hasn't been so soiled and its name and moral standing marred with dirt, since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, like it did with the historical mistake of Bush's presidency. It was a dark ugly chapter in the history of this country, which, undoubtedly, will stand with the worst of them in the trash can of history.
it is beyond belief that someone so educated can be so stupid and without remorse for what they did. Both should be in jail with bubba as a cellmate. Gonzo who when in front of congress couldn't remember his name now finds only answeres to save his butt. They should take the whole gang including bush and cheney and rummy and lock them up, maybe bushey would lose that smug look on his face when he heard the door slam shut and cheney could be left to die the death god intended for him to have,,,, Its a shame that we will not see the punishment they will get in the end!
At the beginning of world war II, my uncle was stationed with the North China Marines. His unit was taken captive by the Japanese and he was a POW throughout the war. He was waterboarded by the Japanese along with others in his unit. At the end of the war, the commander of the prison where he was kept was prosecuted for war crimes. How anyone can say that waterboarding is legal is beyond me. It is inhuman and we have never been given an Exhibit A that would show what information was gained in this process that "saved lives".
Anyone else notice Abrams' mischaracterization of the voter-fraud issue? It wasn't an issue of US Attorneys going off the policy reservation and saying, "I don't care about voter fraud." They weren't political enemies of Bush, they were Bush appointees. The problem was that the Bush folks wanted prosecutions that these US Attorneys could not, as legal professionals, pursue in good faith. That's why they were fired.
Abrams' question is irrelevant, and allowed Gonzalez to skate.
This is the problem with putting ideologues in positions of power. The elder Bush "herbert walker" also had no respect for the institutions of the nation. He constantly skirted the laws of the land, pushing, and pushing the limits of the Constitution. Thus you get a creep like "W" to chirp "just a goddamn piece of paper". Neither of them has a clue as to what holds the country together.
Hopefully we will not get the ideologues from the left gaining too strong a foothold as the coming years unfold.
Brilliant sommers. Hats off to you! The mother is an old "smugletarian" switch, (characterized here by a poster recently barred from posting) as 'Bar-Donna Bush-Corleone.' The uncle was doing business with Hitler well into 1942. I forget the masthead but the oldest newspaper in New Hampshire ran a series of articles about the uncle.
Thank you to Mr. Abrams for posting this partial transcript. I was in the audience. I'm not a Bush supporter at all, and really don't like many things that Mr. Gonzales did while in office. I think Mr. Abrams lost some in the audience b/c the questioning was a bit like non-stop cross-exam. It was "brutal" as he says, but it also didn't let up over a long period of time. So, even some anti-Gonzales people like me started to wonder if Mr. Abrams was, perhaps, pursuing his own agenda at some point. Mr. Abrams shouldn't take it personally, though. He's obviously very sharp and well spoken. And if he had been playing the role of, say, prosecutor at Mr. Gonzales' trial, he'd have done a superb job.
on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me... last weekend one panelist said "Saying that waterboarding is okay because it works is like a shoplifter saying 'Call it what you want, but look at all this cool stuff I got!'" and that really struck me as a good analogy. Why is it that when it supposedly works (meaning we get information that supposedly saves lives) it's ok?
I was really hoping that Dan would get as lucky as Frost did with Nixon and get Gonzo to actually answer a meaningful question about his tenure... maybe next time.
I love
Wait Wait.
I heard that
Too.
To me, it is a question of what kind of a world do we wish to live in?
Do we wish to live in a world where the highest public officials lie about matters of the gravest concern, condone practices which ought to disgust most human beings, and do these and other evil deeds with impunity?
If we, as a people, as a nation, do nothing but ignore the errors and malicious blunders of the Bush administration, we create a wound in the national psyche which will not heal. We communicate to the rest of the world that we are hypocrites.
Aren't we still dealing with the savaging of America's bounty, the decimation of the Original Peoples, and the "business as usual" of the slave trade?
I do not know if such grave offenses can ever be resolved. But if we do not try, we cast a vote for barbarism in human affairs. We say to ourselves and to our children that the world is inherently an evil place and there is no value in resisting the evil deeds of ourselves or others.
Henri, you and the farmer, Zork have my vote!
How many State Attorney Generals were fired, after Bill Clinton was sworn in?
None to the best of my knowledge...but all of the US Attorneys were replaced with Clinton appointees...generally how things work when a new administration takes over.The problem AG ran into was firing Bush's appointed US Attorneys with less than a year left in Bush's term.
Who cares whether it's legal. Is it right?
I am absolutey and completely FLOORED by the thought that there is any question as to what is "torture" and "illegal." I cannot comprehend that, in some people's minds, what we did to the detainees/rotten little bastards was not torture and illegal. But I have an idea how to show them; it would serve the dual purpose of moral lesson and entertainment. Let's have a little prime-time live reality show on all the major networks: each week we will examine one "interrogation technique" in depth by snatching ten random adults off the street and subjecting them to one typical round of the technique. The public could then vote Idol-style whether they believe it is torture or not. There can be military physicians there to monitor the detainee's health and CIA oversight to ensure that the interrogators follow all rules and regulations. Whaddayathink?
That had to be an excruciating interview, because I was getting frustrated simply reading it! Thank you, Mr. Abrams, for making the attempt...As an American citizen, I believe they got it wrong. As a lawyer, I know they got it wrong. Minimally, we have a President who has not only read the Constitution but studied it, understands it, believes in it, and will strive to keep it in tact.(I heard the new administration had to get new copies of the Constitution on hand because they couldn't salvage what was left in the shredders.)
Alberto G.: I played a very small part in the safety of our country following the attacks of 9/11.
Note: Alberto Gonzalaz diminishes his role, like Conoleeza Rice saying she only passed information along - hers was a messenger service not Condi our policy maker. Alberto G., Bush's "Fredo" doesn't want to be disbarred and go to jail so he downplays himself. He played a "very small part."
Look at this A.G. gem: "As lawyers, you provide to policymakers, an opinion on whether a certain policy which would make America safe is available to them. They then decide if this is something they would want to exercise to make America safer."
See how the sentence runs - without a breath "which would make america safe" - this is their talking point more than likely practiced by the both of these Bushites in front of a mirror and repeated twenty times each morning.
The justification for torture and war crimes was keeping America safe. Except when you torture people, and word gets out, it inflames the enemy - as many jihadis became armed and dangerous, prepared to die, just as our young joined the army after 9/11, for the same reasons, and where are they today, their arms and legs shredded their heads blown off.
How many of ours and the Iraqi mothers' husbands and children senselessly dead - so Bush could make himself look good to his Mom and Dad and the Stalinist Cheney could quad-ruple the value of his Haliburton holdings?
Jonathan Turley for special prosecutor.
Thank you.
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