Justice Department memoranda were concocted, almost certainly in bad faith and after the fact, to authorize and legitimate what happened. In several cases already documented, Justice Department officials were actually in the decision-making process itself. In criminal law terms, they made themselves part of a joint criminal enterprise.

…along with the complicity of those same members of Obama’s transition team….

But there are a number of names in play right now who have troubling connections to the “dark side” of the intelligence community’s war on terror and who have pressing reasons to lobby against any investigation of any sort. Why? Because their own judgment-calls might come under unpleasant scrutiny. Just some for-instances:

John Brennan … Jamie Miscik … another figure who would clearly rather avoid a probe of the torture issue. And finally Jamie Gorelick … who, according to intelligence community sources, took a whopping retainer from the CIA to counsel and protect the psychologists who crafted the guts of the Bush torture program. Gorelick, a Hillary Clinton partisan, is also a name in play for a senior intelligence post.

Same 3 months minus 1 day now.

NYT: “President-elect Barack Obama will face a series of early decisions on domestic spying that will test his administration’s views on presidential power and civil liberties.

The Justice Department will be asked to respond to motions in legal challenges to the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program, and must decide whether to continue the tactics used by the Bush administration — which has used broad claims of national security and “state secrets” to try to derail the challenges — or instead agree to disclose publicly more information about how the program was run.”
– Laura Rozen via War and Piece

I’ve said that I’m cautiously optimistic about the likelihood that the Obama Administration will end Bush’s policy of “enhanced interrogations,” although less so since learning about Obama adviser John Brennan’s past and his potential role in the Obama Administration.
…
Bush was just as “clear” in his public statements about torture declaring famously “we do not torture…we will aggressively pursue [terrorists], but we will do so under the law.” The point is that public statements are important for drawing lines but are meaningless unless the same hard lines are drawn in policy and practice.

To give Obama credit for having ended a policy of torture before he takes office is just as silly as claiming unequivocally that he has no intention of doing so. Giving Obama credit for doing the right thing before he does it eliminates the ability of torture opponents to pressure Obama to, in fact, do the right thing.

–A. Serwer, TAPPED

Arsehole.

Phoenix Woman November 18th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
This is for Kilo and Barryr, from a book that they might like.

WTF is your problem with Barryr, other that you said something completely retarded and he had enough intellectual integrity to point that out ?

This wouldn’t look so pathetic if you were first able to post any response to him at all, but apparently you’re not capable of doing so.

Julia November 18th, 2008 at 6:34 am

“the unknown you’re falling back on here is 3 months and it’ll then be followed by 8 years of knowing.”

So … you acknowledge that you have no idea, but you’ve decided to devote day 2 to going all Madame DeFarge on anyone who doesn’t accept your evaluation that we’re rocketing to the worst case scenario?

What evaluation of mine would that be Julia ? Can you not quote it for us ?
Just do that at least if you are unwilling or unable in any way shape or form bring yourself to suggest you disagree with it. Whatever it is.

BTW, here’s what’s going in that 3 month period that just CANNOT be interpreted. CANNOT have anything read into it. CANNOT be used to make assessments of the likelyhood of certain outcomes, lest that same bitching goes the other way…

MELVIN GOODMAN: John Brennan was deputy executive secretary to George Tenet during the worst violations during the CIA period in the run-up to the Iraq war, so he sat there at Tenet’s knee when they passed judgment on torture and abuse, on extraordinary renditions, on black sites, on secret prisons. He was part of all of that decision making.

JOHN BRENNAN: I think it’s an absolutely vital tool. I have been intimately familiar now for the past decade with the cases of rendition that the US government has been involved in, and I can say, without a doubt, that it has been very successful as far as producing intelligence that has saved lives.

You can read these statements about and from Obama’s transition team adviser on intel and DNI candidate. But you are not allowed to interpret them in the same way you have interpreted any other piece of news about Bush’s torture team in the past few years as though you didn’t hand in your basic brain functions at the election booth.

Shit, how can have any idea what appointing Hillary to SoS means. Sure, she had a history before that happened, but Obama’s involved, so who knows who she is anymore. When they told you it was a historical election result they apparently meant that everything has changed, the ability for basic logic, independent thought and intellectual honesty included.

Why should I care who gets into office if it won’t in any way advance the causes I feel are important for this country?

I guess I have to ask what causes you think are important, cuz I think he has addressed quite a few and offered a different direction than the incumbent or his would-be successor.

If you really want to get reductionist, by having a State, a Government at all, or an Economy that means some have more than others, we have created an evil. Do we really want to sit on our thumbs and moan about how evil it all is? Or should we “try. fail. fail again, fail better” or however the Beckett line reads?