I think the Dems on the Intelligence committees who were briefed and approved torture are going down

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

with the ship too. Oh well.

[walldude]

1. As well they should.

[tekisui]

2. So be it.

[FiveGoodMen]

3. Here's hoping!

[mod mom]

4. Do you think Pelosi will go down?

Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002
In Meetings, Spy Panels' Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say
By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 9, 2007; A01

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

Congressional leaders from both parties would later seize on waterboarding as a symbol of the worst excesses of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort. The CIA last week admitted that videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of Justice Department and White House officials, provoking allegations that its actions were illegal and the destruction was a coverup.

Yet long before "waterboarding" entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

-snip
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664_pf.html

[zipplewrath]

5. Make ya a bet

Never happen.

Beer. Good beer. Full pint. Never happens.

[Zhade]

6. I wish. Obama's already made it clear he's willing to let criminals walk.

Were that it were not so, and he'd actually been serious about keeping his promise to restore the rule of law.

[JuniperLea]

Hmmm... have you read today's news? eom

[Baltoman991]

10. He has?

Really? Because I've basically heard a ton of people saying that yet I haven't heard it from Obamas lips himself other than to say those carrying out orders would be immune.

I mean, just today, long before you made this post, Obama said he's leaving it up to those whose job it is to prosecute, the DoJ and Eric Holder.

So honestly, why keep telling lies about the President? He knows what he's doing.

[Occam Bandage]

11. Were that you read the news. nt

[JuniperLea]

7. If they approved torture... they NEED to go down!

I don't care what party they belong too. Anyone that devoid of morals should absolutely go down, and hard.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

8. as well they should

[Political Heretic]

9. I think this is why its been so hard to get the right thing done

as far as bringing people to justice is because the implications are so far-reaching.

[Occam Bandage]

12. Bet you a buck they won't. nt

[mmonk]

13. No problem.

At all.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

14. Pelosi and Torture from The Nation

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/258258

[ThomWV]

15. Rockefeller lost my vote in the last election because of his stand on wiretapping

And he lost the vote of at least a few of my neighbors too if my rants against his abandonment of the rule of law were at all successful.

[riverwalker]

16. so be it

PFC Joe Darby (Abu Ghraib whistleblower) has more integrity and moral courage than they did. He just knew that it was wrong. That it must stop. No buts, no qualifiers, no rationalizing the insanity. It was wrong. He knew it, he reported it. He paid a short term price, but in the end he saved his soul.
Any elected officials who turned their heads, or made excuses, can leave public office. We can replace them, easily.

[shraby]

17. It depends on what they were actually told in the

briefings. They may have been told just a short summary of nothing.

[Raksha]

18. I hope you're right. n/t

[FLAprogressive]

19. Let 'em sink.