That "memo" is all you need, John Conyers (Dammit)

[kpete]

That "memo" is all you need, John Conyers (Dammit)

'Justifying' Torture: Two Big Lies

By Coleen Rowley and Ray McGovern
July 19, 2008


One can assume that former Attorney General John Ashcroft didn’t mean it to be funny, but his testimony on Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee might strike one as hilarious, were it not for the issue at hand — torture.

....................

He explained that he initially blessed the infamous torture memoranda drafted by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo and others in mid-2002 because he (Ashcroft) believed it imperative to afford the President “the benefit of genuine doubt” regarding how to protect American lives in the “war on terror.”

But Ashcroft added that, despite this, when concerns about that earlier guidance for interrogations were brought to his attention, changing his mind “was not a hard decision for me.” A very flexible Attorney General.

“The benefit of genuine doubt?” Perhaps Ashcroft thought that this genteel way of looking at things would appeal to the poorly led, motley group calling itself the House Committee on the Judiciary, chaired by Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan.

But the rest of us, whose time does not expire in five minutes, cannot buy his defense of torture.

........................

Quick, someone download for Congressman Conyers the President’s Action Memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002, which provided the loophole through which George Tenet and Donald Rumsfeld drove the Mack truck of torture.

That memo is all you need, John.
It is signed at the bottom with felt-pen strokes one and half inches high.

If that’s not good enough for the Judiciary Committee chairman, then please let members and staff go home for an early vacation and spare all of us further humiliation.

more at:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/071808e.html

[seemslikeadream]

1. President’s Action Memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002,

[spanone]

2. k&r ----be sure to kick!!!!!

[Ian David]

3. John Conyers = Johnny Letter. n/t

[seemslikeadream]

4. Then, drawing on the lawyerly legerdemain, Bush did something really dumb.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/041008a.html

Then, drawing on the lawyerly legerdemain, Bush did something really dumb. Using words drafted by Vice President Dick Cheney's lawyer, David Addington, for a memo dated Jan. 25, 2002, signed by then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, the president ordered that detainees be treated, "humanely ... to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity."

Tacked onto the end of that sentence is a classic circumlocution: "in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva." But that is not what Geneva says, and there is no way to square that circle.

[kpete]

5. "no way"

at all, ,kp

[intheflow]

6. The Downing St. memo was all he needed.

But maybe this one will do the trick. Please come through for us, Mr. Conyers!

[Senator]

7. Sadly, Failure To Act On The Memo (Impeach) Is A War Crime In Itself

The treaties we signed -- and thousands of Americans fought and died to forge -- require that ALL Gov't Officials report and ACT to stop torture and war crimes. Failure to do so simply makes them "Nuremberg defendants" as opposed to being "as guilty" as the torturers themselves. (There are no exceptions for "winning the next election" or "not wanting to be called names by the propagandists.")

I too wish that so many DC-Dem "leaders" did not find themselves currently in that category -- as the firewall against accountability for this war criminal regime.

Only impeachment can vindicate them and satisfy our treaty obligations -- for the world and our grandchildren to see.

----

[omega minimo]

8. .

[salguine]

9. It's pretty obvious that the whole reason the Democratic leadership

has been dragging their feet on impeachment this whole time is because so many of them are so inextricably mixed up in all the illegal shit that they'd all go down with him. Protecting their own asses trumps protecting the Constitution and the country.

[wurzel]

11. Yes. They were complicit in it all. To think that is all we've got.

A bunch of unbelievable Wimps

[Joe Chi Minh]

10. The US State Department and Pentagon may enjoy a uniquely egregious status in the annals of

inhuman depravity, in their responsibiity as the military directorate of the US forces in Iraq, for the sodomising of a young Iraqi lad in Abu Ghraib - as an interrogation aid.... I presume, rightly or wrongly that the CIA and their hirelings operated under their authority.

I don't believe even the Nazis, or perhaps even Rape Dog Pinochet and his demonic crew had such an accursed stain on their character. Can you imagine being a member of the family of an employee of either? "Oh, my dad/mum works for the State Department/Pentagon."

Perhaps someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe it was perceived as an issue, to the extent of identifying and punishing the rapist and his chain of command.

[Kaleko]

12. Kick

[crickets]

13. Kick.

[NewJeffCT]

14. Monday morning kick

and rec