CIA Boss: Waterboarding May Be Illegal- 1 hour ago ..... all 1,109 news articles »

CIA Boss: Waterboarding May Be Illegal- 1 hour ago ..... all 1,109 news articles »
WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA Director Michael Hayden cast doubt on the legality of waterboarding on Thursday, a day after the White House said the harsh ...
CIA chief says legality of "waterboarding" now uncertain AFP

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CIA Boss: Waterboarding May Be Illegal
By LARA JAKES JORDAN – 1 hour ago - http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h0HzC22rsazNY3EH2NhxMtOE-1agD8ULL7300


WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA Director Michael Hayden cast doubt on the legality of waterboarding on Thursday, a day after the White House said the harsh interrogation tactic has saved American lives and could be used in the future.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House and Senate Democrats pressed Thursday for the Justice Department to investigate whether U.S. interrogators broke the law when waterboarding al-Qaida detainees the years after 9/11.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey, appearing before the House Judiciary Committee, said he would not.

"Are you ready to start a criminal investigation into whether this confirmed use of waterboarding by U.S. agents was illegal?" asked committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., calling the technique an "odious practice."

"No, I am not," Mukasey answered bluntly.

"Whatever was done as part of a CIA program at the time that it was done was the subject of a Department of Justice opinion, through Office of Legal Counsel, and was found to be permissible under the law as it existed then," Mukasey said.

He said the Justice Department could not investigate or prosecute people for actions that it had earlier authorized. ........

..........

Tuesday, the CIA admits to torturing at least three individuals.

Wednesday, the WH said they COULD torture again. And, that chimpy may RE-authorize it's use, after Mukasy et al gat back to him on the legality.

This means that Torture only happens by authorization from the prez. And it can be RE-authorized only if it had at some point in time been AUTHORIZED.

B*SH AUTHORIZED TORTURE!!

This week, we had the first admission of a WAR CRIME!!!!!

Amnesty Interational is calling it a WAR CRIME. The UN has confirmed it is illegal, INTERNATIONALLY.

And now the CIA has admitted it is illegal. The CIA wouldn't have done it without authorization.

MOST IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE YET!

Hey, and it's new. Now, Nancy, NOW.

IMPEACH '08!

Their's Gonzo's WAR CRIME. It will go to Addington, dickie and chimpy!!!

Whew! I don't know about you, but I don't know where to find "Torture-for-Hire guys"!!

We are living under a War Criminal Prez.

Waxman or Conyers or somebody, has it all laid out, well documented and ready for the "go" word.

I just wish they would hear it.

GO!

methods were in use. He refused to detail those because it would provide the
enemy ways to combat those methods. Now we know what some of those methods were.
They were methods of Torture. He authorized those methods. Busholini has commited
War Crimes. Will he be held accountable?

He better be held accountable. This admission has my blood boiling. They think they can slowly, softly let it out and that we are all to fucking stupid and distraction to even notice.

lives. This is the claim. Where is the freakin' proof?

THE CIA'S SIX 'ENHANCED' TECHNIQUES

CIA interrogators say they are allowed to use six "enhanced interrogation techniques", each progressively tougher, on top al-Qa'ida detainees. Their superiors have to give separate approval for every prisoner and every method, all claimed to be legal.

* THE ATTENTION GRAB: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him. Israel, the only democracy to have openly debated coercion of prisoners, declared this legal in 1987, but the Supreme Court ruled it out in 1999.

* THE ATTENTION SLAP: Interrogators may deliver "an open-handed slap", which is "aimed at causing pain and triggering fear".

* THE BELLY SLAP: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

* STANDING FOR HOURS: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to a ring bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are claimed to be effective in yielding confessions.

* COLD TREATMENT: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept at around 10C, and constantly doused with cold water. Misapplication of this technique is blamed for the death of a detainee in Kabul.

* WATERBOARDING: The prisoner is bound to a board, head slightly below the feet. Plastic is wrapped over his face and water is poured over him, or his head is lowered into a bath. The gag reflex is automatic; few can endure more than a matter of seconds.

* These are the methods that have been admitted. Are there other methods that have not been admitted to?

to use extreme methods on terrorist extremists following 9/11...that it was necessary rather than illegal. He claims to be proud to stand by the prez's decisions on the matter and that "tougher programs are needed for tougher customers".

None of them will ever acknowledge that waterboarding is illegal torture, cause to do so would be admitting their crime.

The rest of the world are now given free rein to waterboard any American military captives (or even civilians, for that matter) because of these war crimes sanctioned and ordered by our own leaders.

Our servicemen and women should thank the White House for having such forethought and compassion. Not!

Let's hope!

are in the WH and the DoJ.

How the hell can they not be arrested???

to investigate the matter of War Crimes & the "missing E-mails. Muckeasy has to recuse himself.

and said it was legal too.

"They didn't die, it's not torture." Was that in the Geneva Convention?

since we instituted torture. And of course, no, not in any Geneva convention I'm familiar with.

:kick:

Today's Must Read - Paul Kiel - February 7, 2008, 9:44AM
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/todays_must_read_271.php


If it's seemed to you that the administration has blundered its way into its recent pro-waterboarding PR offensive, you're right.

It all started, Newsweek reports, when John Negroponte blurted out in an interview that "waterboarding hasn't been used in years":



That's right: the "public-relations benefit." You might think that admitting to a technique internationally condemned as torture would have no PR pluses. But not from the administration's point of view. .........

Torture is a Goddamned Liar!!!

Is it that they are trying to convince our population that there are certain types of people who are so beneath us that torture can be warranted? Is it to their benefit to drum up such hatred that "anything goes" will become the motto of our country? By the sounds of Cheney's recent comments, that is definitely the feeling he's aiming for...invoking national tragedy right along with his justified torture, but I don't understand how that translates to any sort of public relations benefit.

Is it fascism yet?

First, they torture in violation of Geneva Conventions, and they are having fun torturing. They make beautiful digital pictures and videos of torturing "terrorists" and everyone is having a great time of it. Then the Abu Graib images hit the news and the cleanup and cover up started. All the fun was suddenly war crimes. That is the context of the initial bungle.

Thereafter, as part of the cover-up, Bush went into denial mode, chanting, "We do not torture" to himself mostly--everyone else knew what the pictures said. Then his lie was revealed too, with admissions of waterboarding "terrorists" by CIA officials. So denial mode proved to be a bungled initial cover-up.

So, then it became imperative to PR the situation. What was needed was a distinction between admissions and crimes, of course. Thereafter, waterboarding was no longer torture because Bush said so, of course, and he had, after all, authorized it after his subordinate said it was legal so now is was legal then even if it wasn't legal now for reasons unknown. This was the last bungled cover-up, one lasting oh, over 24 hours!

DCIA Hayden said, two days ago, that waterboarding could be criminal, and CIA hasn't been doing these crimes for five years now. He didn't speak for the military, of course! So, Was Hayden saying "Bush is a criminal," or Did Bush waved his wand and made waterboarding legal before and torture again (or torture criminal again), these are questions the PR doesn't want you to ask.

The would-be PR benefits are:

You might forget any pictures you have seen or the relationship of those pictures to the CIA tapes.

You might focus on the wrong aspects of the crimes, and not see five years of continuous torturing of detainees.

There is a really long list of stuff to distract from, but I've ranted on too long ....