Froomkin: Torturers had to repeatedly ask Bush-Cheney WH if torture was legal.

[grasswire]

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/froomkin/

The Bush administration was so adamant in its public statements against torture that CIA officials repeatedly sought reassurances that the White House officials who had given them permission to torture in the first place hadn’t changed their minds.

In a July 29, 2003, White House meeting that included Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director George Tenet went so far as to ask the White House “to cease stating that US Government practices were ‘humane.’” He was assured they would.

The memo describing that meeting is one of several documents that were unclassified last year but apparently escaped widespread notice until now. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole called attention to the trove of documents on the Just Security blog.

The documents were apparently posted in December at ciasavedlives.com, a website formed by a group of former senior intelligence officials to rebut the newly released Senate report that documented the horrors that CIA officers inflicted upon detainees and the lies about those tactics’ effectiveness that they told their superiors, would-be overseers and the public.

The new documents don’t actually refute any of the Senate report’s conclusions — in fact, they include some whopper-filled slides that CIA officials showed at the White House. But they do call attention to the report’s central flaw: that it didn’t address who actually gave the CIA its orders.

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[PoliticAverse]

1. They don't seem to have asked if it was 'legal' but rather 'still approved'. n/t

[grasswire]

8. yes, good point. nt

[Baitball Blogger]

2. So, Bush and Cheney lied.

Let's face it. In the eyes of the right-wingers a trait of a great leader is the ability to look the public in the eye and lie. Just goes to show their hypocrisy in the way they handled the Clinton-Lewinsky matter.

[Jefferson23]

3. What a hell of a case this would be, they're so busted and there is no statue of

limitations on not only death from torture but to include serious injury. I don''t
know what constitutes serious injury under that provision of the law, but I imagine
there were more than a few cases where it would apply. What a disgrace.

[grasswire]

4. are you saying that those tortured would have standing...

....to sue the principles --Bush, Cheney, etc.?

[Jefferson23]

6. I can't say that with certainty, yet I have not read anything convincing that would

eliminate them..how would they be immune under international law?

I hope they both live a very long life, just in case we ever get there.

[grasswire]

7. yes, the idea should be to take it to court and test it out!

Who goes first? Cheney? Or some underling who could be squeezed? Yoo, perhaps?

[Jefferson23]

9. Honestly, I do not know who would be served first nor the details of

how they could approach it. Who gave the orders? Would that not be the beginning?
That is how I imagine it begins..you have a crime, a violation of international law,
Yoo constructed what he believed would cover them legally, that could be tested,or
should I say, would be tested, as that legal premise would be part of the Bush
Administrations defense, no?

The formulation of the plan to torture, I would think that is where it begins and
which violations under signed treaties, the Nuremberg Charter, but as I say, I
am no expert on the subject.

[Rex]

5. So IOW, the CIA headsmen worried about getting a knife in the back.

Cuz Ari and all the fucking shitheads that lied us into the Iraqi Invasion of 2003, were so dam good at bullshit - they had their head torturers convinced they were going to get 'Clintoned'.


I remember Clinton getting stabbed in the back by fellow Dems. The more things change...

[malaise]

10. Waterboard the war criminal of a Dick

and let's find out

[Hekate]

11. Bastards

[Jefferson23]

12. States must uphold human rights principles in struggle against violent extremism

GENEVA (5 March 2015) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, in a major speech on Thursday, warned that the world may be “at a turning point in our young and troubled century,” and urged States not “to lose their grasp” of the human rights principles underlying their societies in their struggle against violent extremism.

“There is real danger that in their reaction to extremist violence, opinion-leaders and decision-makers will lose their grasp of the deeper principles that underpin the system for global security which States built 70 years ago to ward off the horror of war,” the UN Human Rights Chief said.

“The fight against terror is a struggle to uphold the values of democracy and human rights – not undermine them,” Zeid added. “Counter-terrorist operations that are non-specific, disproportionate, brutal and inadequately supervised violate the very norms that we seek to defend. They also risk handing the terrorists a propaganda tool – thus making our societies neither free nor safe,” he said.

The use of torture, neglect of due process and collective punishment do not make the world any safer, he said, quoting former US President George W. Bush's statement that Guantanamo became “a propaganda tool for our enemies."

The wide-ranging speech to the 47-member UN Human Rights Council spanned numerous major issues affecting countries and individuals all across the world, including many forms of discrimination, as well as racial and religious hatred.

“I am appalled by the rising tide of attacks around the world that target people on account of their religious beliefs,” he said. “…We continue to observe horrific acts of racial and religious hatred, including in many countries in Western Europe and North America, as well as evidence of unfair policing, daily insults and exclusion.... It should be obvious that Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and attacks that single out Christians or other groups because of their beliefs are identical manifestations of the same poisonous intolerance.”

The High Commissioner also addressed the failure to give enough attention to economic and social rights, as well as related issues such as poverty, migration, climate change, and the root causes of the Ebola epidemic.

The tentacles of the extremist Takfiri movment reach into not just Iraq and Syria, he noted, but also Nigeria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and beyond. The High Commissioner said he was deeply concerned at measures that restrict freedom of expression and democratic space in numerous countries including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Hungary, Myanmar, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela, and Viet Nam.

“When powerful leaders feel threatened by a tweet, a blog, or a high-school student’s speech, this speaks of profound underlying weakness,” he said. “And when writers are abducted, jailed, whipped, or put to death; when journalists are assaulted, subjected to sexual violence, tortured and killed; when peaceful protestors are gunned down by thugs; when human rights lawyers, human rights defenders and land activists are arrested and jailed on spurious charges of sedition; when newspapers are attacked or shut down – such cases attack and undermine the foundations of stable governance.”

Zeid also expressed regret at the renewed use of the death penalty in Indonesia, Jordan, and Pakistan, and the continuing extensive use of the death penalty in China, Iraq, Iran and the United States. He also highlighted the human rights situation in the Central African Republic, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Mexico, Sri Lanka, South Sudan, Sudan, and Ukraine, as well as Australia’s approach to irregular migrants and asylum seekers. The High Commissioner commended Colombia and Tunisia for important advances in human rights.

“It is the people who sustain government, create prosperity, heal and educate others and pay for governmental and other services with their labour. It is their struggles that have created and sustain States. Governments exist to serve the people – not the other way round,” Zeid said.

ENDS

To read the full speech, go to http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15642&LangID=E
- See more at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/media.aspx?IsMediaPage=true#sthash.tc9Y1MuH.dpuf

[Scuba]

13. Now, now, don't be sanctimonious. These were just patriots protecting America. Now look forward.

[grasswire]

15. Infuriating. nt

[G_j]

14. K&R