We measured Cell 5 at about 20 x 20 feet. Cell 5 holds 67 people. That’s about a 2 x 3 foot rectangle for each person — for 23 hours a day. To eat, to sleep — everything. I took this picture after the cell had been vacated for a few minutes while the men took a shower. What it can’t capture is the heat and the smell. It was easily over 100 degrees, and I could barely breathe inside.(via k-lo)
Even though Democrats likely have enough votes to get onto the bill, below are quotes from conservative Democrats where they condition their vote on the second cloture motion on changes to the bill.
- Sen. Nelson (D-Neb.): "Throughout my Senate career I have consistently rejected efforts to obstruct. That's what the vote on the motion to proceed is all about. It is not for or against the new Senate health care bill released Wednesday. In my first reading, I support parts of the bill and oppose others I will work to fix. If that's not possible, I will oppose the second cloture motion—needing 60 votes—to end debate, and oppose the final bill."
- Sen. Lieberman (I-Conn.): "I've told Sen. Reid that I'm strongly inclined, I haven't totally decided, but I'm strongly inclined to vote to proceed to the healthcare debate, even though I don't support the bill that he's bringing together, because it's important that we start the debate on healthcare reform, because I want to vote on healthcare reform this year. … I also told him that if the bill remains where it is now, I will not be able to support a cloture motion before final passage."
- Sen. Landrieu (D-La.): "My vote to move forward on this important debate should in no way be construed by the supporters of this current framework as an indication of how I might vote as this debate comes to an end. I have decided that there are enough significant reforms and safeguards in this bill to move forward, but much more work needs to be done."
- Sen. Lincoln (D-Ark.): "In fact, madam president, this vote for or against a procedure that allows us to begin open debate on health care reform is nothing more and nothing less. … I will vote to support -- will vote in support of cloture on the motion to proceed to this bill, but, madam president, let me be perfectly clear: I am opposed to a new government-administered health care plan as part of comprehensive health insurance reform, and I will not vote in favor of the proposal that has been introduced by leader Reid as it is written. I, along with others, expect to have legitimate opportunities to influence the health care reform legislation that is voted on by the senate later this year or early next year. I am also aware that there will be additional procedural votes to move this process forward that will require 60 votes prior to the conclusion of the floor debate. I've already alerted the leader, and I'm promising my colleagues, that I'm prepared to vote against moving to the next stage of consideration as long as a government-run public option is included."
Leave aside how dark and painful the chapter really was. The question is, Is it over? Is the chapter in which we had to focus on preventing further attacks really through? Isn't there still a war against the jihadists on? Of course Blair and other senior Obama officials have elsewhere suggested that the terror threat remains real, and even urgent. Why else the maintenance of the Bush era surveillance program? Why else the decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, and to deploy more Predator strikes into Pakistan? But can we then afford Obama's "dark and painful chapter" attitude, exemplified by his foregoing certain interrogation techniques in the present and future, and his exposing and deploring what was done in the past? Can we afford an intelligence director who tries to excuse his boss by telling us we are now safe?
K-Lo calls it torture:
The president yesterday said that "withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time." If the facts are already out there, why the need for yesterday? Unless you're looking to drum up support for prosecutions?
Torture at the hands of Americans should never be swept under a rug. But some adult in this administration ought to be taking the headlines they are making deadly seriously.
John Hinderaker echos Abe Greenwald:
...you will see that DOJ's lawyers grappled carefully and fairly with issues that are, by their nature, both difficult and distasteful. I find much to agree with in the memos and little, if anything, with which I disagree from a legal standpoint. Several things about the memos are striking: the concern that is shown for the health and well-being of the detainees; the very limited circumstances under harsh interrogation techniques were used (only when the CIA had reason to believe that the detainee had knowledge about pending terrorist attacks, among other limitations), and confirmation of the fact that thousands of American servicemen have been waterboarded and subjected to the other techniques in question, as part of their training--a practice that continued at least up to the dates of the memos.
The number of terrorist attacks (that's a "man-made disaster" for any monitors from DHS who might keeping an eye on us extremists) on US soil that killed approximately 3,000 people and caused billions of dollars in economic dislocation before use of these techniques...1.
The number of attacks on US soil that killed approximately 3,000 people and caused billions of dollars in economic dislocation after use of these techniques began...0.
Reasonable people can disagree. Indeed, they can disagree about what is reasonable, as anyone who has sat through a judge’s instructions on reasonable doubt knows. Serving on a jury gives one, if nothing else, an ear for the nonsense of lawyers, but you don’t need much discernment to pick up the utter sophistry in the Justice Department memos released yesterday (thanks to an A.C.L.U. FOIA suit) and their rambling—rationalizing isn’t even the right word—on the putative reasonableness of all involved, especially the person being tortured. “A reasonable person,” a memo signed by Attorney General Jay Bybee says, would not “reasonably anticipate,” based on having his head slammed into a wall (up to “twenty or thirty times consecutively,” according to another memo) that something worse was to come; “a reasonable person in the subject’s position”—position meaning, in this case, stuffed into a dark box—“would not infer from this technique that severe physical pain is the next step.” Say that the next step was putting an insect in the dark box with him—this was proposed for Abu Zubaydah—and the interrogators, whatever they hinted, didn’t “affirmatively” say that it was poisonous...
One thing that nobody should ever be permitted to say again, after reading these memos: "The United States didn't torture." When President Bush said it, he was a liar. The only question is whether or not he was lying to himself, so that he could sleep at night, or consciously lying to the public for reasons of political expediency.
The third Bradbury memo observed that the State Department calls many of the techniques that we were using torture when practiced in other nations. But then the memo, in part, dismisses the force of that point by saying that other nations use these methods for relatively trivial purposes, while we were using them to protect America. The end, in a sense, justifies the means. One difficulty with the memo's analysis is that many regimes that inflicted torture probably thought they were doing it for a good reason. The Inquisition was trying to defend the Faith, the Nazis were trying to defend racial purity, the Khmer Rouge was trying to defend the workers' paradise, etc. That's why the whole point of banning torture was to prohibit certain types of conduct without regard to motive. The rack or the thumbscrew can't be used even it works really well at getting information and is done for an excellent reason. Treating torture as a relative harm rather than as a categorial ban is contrary to that understanding, and that departure is not really explained in the memos.
...from a legal perspective, I do not believe there is any chance in hell of securing a criminal conviction against anyone who acted in accordance with specific OLC legal advice. The opinions of the OLC essentially carry the weight of law within the executive branch. You'd have about as much chance of convicting someone who acted in accordance with a specific Supreme Court opinion.
Marc:
I'd like to point you to this article by the American Prospect's Adam Serwer, who compared the strictures placed on interrogations in the OLC memos with the practices described by the detainees in the International Committee of the Red Cross report. I am sympathetic -- or, at least, I am cognizant of the view that the detainees who described their conditions and experiences to the Red Cross might not be the most honest, most reliable witnesses. But the scope of the ICRC report, the cross-correlated evidence, the similarities of accounts between prisoners -- I believe that these will convince historians that the ICRC report fairly accurately describes the milieu of American torture, circa 2002-2009.
President Obama makes forgiving and forgetting sound awfully appealing. The country is in deep economic trouble. The days and weeks after 9/11 were really, really scary. We need our intelligence officials to be able to keep us safe without having to look over their shoulders. Good people shouldn't be punished for the bad legal advice they received. Bygones. But is the short-term comfort of saying we're over it worth the long-term cost of having become torturers and then cavalierly gotten over it? Because the real risk of getting over it is the possibility that it happens all over again.
When Cheney goes on television to insist darkly, “If it hadn’t been for what we did….then we would have been attacked again,” he can simultaneously insist that we take his word for it, because backing up his claims would require releasing information crucial to America’s safety. As Danner notes, “Cheney’s story is made not of facts but of the myths that replace them when facts remain secret: myths that are fueled by allusions to a dark world of secrets that cannot be revealed.”
That’s why Obama’s decision to release the “torture memos” is an important step, in the country’s best interests. And that’s why suggestions that he’s somehow hurting America by airing the facts are naked political ploys — even if you find them on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.
I assume K-Lo's excitement stems from Judge Edith Jones' daughter being pregnant.she had me at hello [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Judge Edith Jones, delivering this year's Olson lecture, just welcomed her son, daughter-in-law, and "granddaughter to be" to the Mayflower here in D.C.
I was wondering how to best respond to such nuttery, and then I found this. A good take.68 Percent [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
That's how many active-duty military men and women support McCain over Obama, according to the Military Times. That deserves some serious consideration.
"Palin didn't need Greek columns. People react to her because they believe she represents what the Greeks established." --Kathryn Jean LopezK-Lo outdoes herself... again.
a lot of what I like about her could be projection. I’m not where my friend Kathleen Parker is — wanting her to step aside to spend more time with her family and Alaska — but that’s not a crazy suggestion. She's right to say that something’s gotta change.Could be projection? You think? This is exactly what happens when you're more interested in projecting your theology into the White House than supporting a capable candidate!
Couric deserves better ratings for the CBS news based on the steely relentlessness of her questions. Unlike Charlie Gibson, and unlike Joe Biden in a (possible!) future debate, she has no background complications of the older white man bullying the younger, attractive woman. She was a professional woman who has clearly earned her position grilling someone whose bona fides she clearly doubted.Nailed it.
And Couric displayed one brilliant technique I recommend to all future questioners. When Palin ducked a question about financial-bailout provisions, saying that "John McCain and I" had not yet reached a decision, Couric asked the deadly question: "So what are the pros and cons?" There is no way to fake your way around that. As Palin showed.
Information technology is a true gift from God mediated through the creative genius of men and women. Not to use it, to refuse to understand it, is to reject a gift of God.You mean the internet isn't a sign of the apocalypse?
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