Rice Makes News - Implicates Bush AND Cheney For Torturing Detainees ILLEGALLY!

[kpete]

If the President Does It, It Isn’t Torture:
Did Rice Just Implicate Bush?
By Spencer Ackerman 4/30/09 2:00 PM

So says Condoleezza Rice, the former national security adviser and secretary of state to President George W. Bush, in this extraordinary talk with a student at Stanford University. Annie Lowrey at Foreign Policy does the hard work of transcribing, so I can simply cut-n-paste Rice’s recollection of her July 2002 approval of the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah:
http://washingtonindependent.com/40206/now-this-is-how-you-guarantee-getting-the-conclusions-you-want

The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against torture. So that’s — and by the way, I didn’t authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency. That they had policy authorization subject to the Justice Department’s clearance. That’s what I did….

The United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. And so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Conventions Against Torture.

..........it appears Rice has actually made some news here.

Until now, Rice has been the seniormost Bush administration official known to have signed off on waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation” methods for Abu Zubaydah. In an April 2008 interview with ABC News, Bush said that he knew that his top advisers had met to discuss what was acceptable for the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah in the spring of 2002, but acknowledged merely that he “approved” of such meetings while giving no indication that he specifically signed off on the interrogation plan.

But Rice is now portraying herself as merely being a conduit for approving the CIA’s interrogation regime: “I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency.” Well, there are only two more-senior officials than Rice in this context, and that’s Bush and then-Vice President Dick Cheney. If she hadn’t made a decision on the part of the administration for the Abu Zubaydah interrogation plan, only one of these two men would have had the authority to do so.

And all of this would have happened before the Justice Department determined the interrogation techniques to be legal.

more (Lots of Links)at:
http://washingtonindependent.com/41346/if-the-president-does-it-it-isnt-torture-did-rice-just-implicate-bush
VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijEED_iviTA&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwashingtonindependent.com%2F41346%2Fif-the-president-does-it-it-isnt-torture-did-rice-just-implicate-bush&feature=player_embedded

[lunatica]

1. petard hanging time

It's coming!

[IntravenousDemilo]

5. A petard is an explosive device, not a noose.

"Hoist with his own petard" means "blown up by his own bomb".

[lunatica]

7. thanks for the teaching moment

I appreciate it, and stand corrected!

:thumbsup:

[IntravenousDemilo]

9. You're welcome. Not surprisingly, most people get it wrong.

Now that you know better, don't you feel like one of those awful elitists that the Republicans kept going on about during the election? :D

[jkshaw]

18. Demilo, that definition of yours was a great help.

I'd been under the impression a petard was a kind of sword!

[Hissyspit]

12. DU Video HERE:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=305364&mesg_id=305364

[ourbluenation]

16. petard "hoisting" time. n/t

[geckosfeet]

2. And bUsh said "I was just following orders" is not a viable excuse.

Wonder if he meant that for his folks as well as the folks on the other side of the guns.

[polichick]

3. Condi probably realizes they'll throw her to the wolves in two seconds flat!

[monmouth]

4. I'm kind of glad she's starting to realize that. She's of no use to them

anymore so they'll throw her under the bus. If she thinks her buddy George W is going to come to her aid she's not as smart as they thought she was...

[opihimoimoi]

21. Double Jeperdy for Condi...Scorned by the Dems and now..Scorned by the GOP

Soon she be singing (Link please...."All Alone am I...") as they throw her under the bus.....

[Subdivisions]

6. Why did David Frost just flash across my internal sensors? n/t

[jsamuel]

8. nm

[RufusTFirefly]

10. Powell was not above Rice.

The National Security Advisor reports to the President, not to the Secretary of State.

Just sayin'

[jsamuel]

13. oh, that is right

i thought she was asst. sec. of state

[riderinthestorm]

11. This is pretty big. I hope this grows legs and gets out there.

I know Bush and Cheney are fairly unrepentant about torture and their authorization of it, but frankly I hope this story stays out there niggling at the Obama admin until they do the right thing. When the pictures come out and the atrocity is/has been/continues to be firmly laid at Cheney and Bush's feet, hopefully the groundswell of disgust will motivate Justice to get moving. The more former senior Bush Admin officials recoiling in (now) disgust, that just simply adds more weight to the pile in my opinion.

That Condi is now trying to distance herself now with this ridiculous, Nixon-like, argument says a lot.

[malaise]

14. Talk Condi talk

The Prosecutor is listening. To the fugging Hague!!

[barbtries]

15. she's guilty as hell!

lock her up. she's a lying sack of shit.

[Mme. Defarge]

17. Although I am against torture,

when Condi was SOS, I reflexively wanted to slap her everytime I saw her, or heard her say something.

[Dragonfli]

19. If justice becomes more than optional, she just screwed herself

Cheney and Bush pretty much confessed publicly, if the rule of law is brought back I don't see too much of a problem getting convictions.

If rule of law remains a matter of political convenience on the other hand, I fear an international court will have an easy time convicting Bushco for us. That would be a moment of shame that we may never live down.

I still hope my suspicion that our president is helping unleash evidence and outrage in order to facilitate the Justice Dept. is correct. He does not strike me as one to ignore the rule of law no matter what he may "appear" to be doing.

It is obvious that it would help the cause of justice to continue demanding justice while laying waste to specious arguments meant to rationalize clear violations of the law. If President Obama has a "plan" it would certainly include this sort of outcry by us, no matter what scorn we may gain from people that think they are defending him by ridiculing such dissent.

We are the ones we have been waiting for remember?

(not to imply anything about the OP, he clearly advocates rule of law in every post I have seen by him)

[leftstreet]

20. K&R