The infamous torture memo has been posted online by the Washington Post. It’s fucking pdf, though, so it’s a pain in the nuts to quote from. I am proposing that we all pitch in on the hard work of actually typing out some of the most interesting/shocking/amusing portions of the memo to help create a copy-friendly data base for discussion on the SDMB. I’m putting this in the pit because so much of The Memo is pitworthy and the eff word will be all but be required in order to comment appropritately on the contents.
I will start with a favorite passage of my own:
(Bolding is mine).
The bolded portion is like some sort of sick, perverted, nightmare variation on “what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”
That is a start but there is so much more in this memo. Please pitch in. All you need to do is type out one favorite line or passage. Let’s get a decent collection of quotes so that we don’t have rely too much on a pdf link.
Have we any experts at legal weaselspeak? Because I cannot, for the life of me, parse out the meaning. The closest I can get is the notion that just because I know that B will result from action A, that doesn’t mean B is the intended result of action A. That can’t be it, can it? That would be stupid.
I suspect that the thinking goes: my ‘purpose’ is to gain information from the subject. As long as that’s the purpose and not specifically to inflict pain (which would make me a sadist, an inhumane creature, a monster), then I’m ‘good to go’.
similar to: My aim is to drive across the street. the fact that there’s a bevy of schoolchildren holding kittens and puppies in my way doesn’t alter my purpose. Now, a rational and non sadistic person would pause to reflect “is the driving through this bevy of schoolchildren/puppies and kittens necessary to achieve my aim/purpose? can my purpose be accomplished another way, perhaps by waiting until they’ve crossed?”
but apparently in this case, we don’t need to ask those questions, it seems to be assumed that is the only way to get information. (I’d always heard, of course, that torture and so on were’nt especially effective ways to get ‘valid’ info, but I’m not on the payroll).
Here’s something kind of interesting. They state that the USC (i.e., Federal Law–I think) prohibitions on torture only apply to offenses committed outside the US, and thus, since Guantanamo Bay is within US jurisdiction, the USC laws on torture don’t apply.
Um, hasn’t the administration been saying all along that the camp X-Ray detainees don’t have any civil rights because they’re not on US soil?
So if the government needs to torture someone, they consider Gitmo to be inside the US, but if they need to deny due process, etc., they consider Gitmo to be outside the US. Sweet. Bolding added:
I think your link goes to a different memo than mine. There are two. One is a Defense Depatment meo to Donald Rumsfeld (your link). My pdf goes to a Justice Department memo for GWB written by Bush lawyer, Alberto Gonzalez.
If you read them both I think you’ll see that the JD memo is much more overtly evil.
There’s a folk tale about a guy who signed a deal with the Devil that, in exchange for giving him worldly wealth, the Devil would get the guy’s soul after he died, “whether he was buried inside a church or outside a church.” When the guy died, he had his bones interred within the wall of a church, thereby avoiding his deal with the devil.
Maybe the White House has read the same folk tale?
Not quite. That memo was written for Alberto Gonzalez, not by him.
Incidentally, I saw Al Gonzales a couple weeks ago at a function in Austin. The guy looks like he’s aged 20 years since he moved to D.C.
Nice analogy, but not quite what they’re arguing in that memo. Rather, they seem to be claiming that so long as you have the intent to drive across the street, the knowledge that doing so will result in driving over all those kids, kitties, and puppies is legally irrelevant.
There’s a whole lot of people in prison who would be really happy if that argument held any water. “But officer, I wasn’t driving while intoxicated! I was trying to get home!”
You’re right; the document in its entirety makes a more eloquent case than any excerpt of it. But, since you ask:
Never mind that there has been no declaration of war here except by this President, who then arrogates to himself whatever he feels appropriate to execute it. That last sentence is a declaration of outlawry - it means a President is not limited in his powers by any such niceties as Congress, or laws, or courts, or treaties. That is an obscenity equal to those described in the Appendix, which, but for changes of name, could include the Abu Ghraib incidents as well.
The discussions about prospective defendants in torture cases being able to claim “self-defense” would be comical in any other context.
It wasn’t all that long ago that the GOP partisans had Gonzalez on their short list of Bush appointees to the Supreme Court - his being Hispanic would even trump the Democrats’ claim to inclusiveness. But, as it is, he can add his name to the list of those who have been made to sacrifice their claim to honor and integrity on the altar of the 2004 campaign. Powell was the big prize, of course.
minty guess it wasn’t clear that I got that, eh? That’s sorta what I meant when I said that a rational non sadistic human would look for different options, and that it seems to suggest that we need not ask these irrelevant questions. But you’re correct, the memo seems to be suggesting that it’s unnecessary to consider the method of questioning - alls’ good as long as the intent is only to get the information. So, as long as my intent is to pay my bills on time, it shouldn’t matter that I rob a bank in order to do it, right? good to know.
I would bet that, given Bush’s obsession with rewarding loyalty over merit, that he’s still on the shortlist. I’d even bet he’d still get confirmed. But I would also bet that this would weigh strongly against Gonzales actually wanting to be nominated to the Supreme Court. And I’ve never been convinced that he really wanted to be a judge anyway.
There’s a bunch of stuff in the memo about the President’s “ultimate authority,” “complete authority,” “constitutional authority,” “express authority,” and lots of other forceful adjectives preceding the word “authority” to assert that, basically, if it’s a national security issue, the President can do whatever he thinks is necessary in his role as commander-in-chief and head of state.
Fair enough.
Does this apply to Tony Blair, also? Can Blair order his operatives to disregard the Geneva Conventions if the security of the United Kingdom is at stake? Given the reasoning in this memo, probably so.
How about Putin? Does the same rationale apply to Putin? Hard to say why it wouldn’t.
And Chirac? And Schroeder? How about Sharon? Can they effectively set aside the provisions of the treaty as dictated by national-security requirements?
John Howard? Paul Martin? Junichiro Koizumi? How would people respond if the Japanese Prime Minister said his country was reserving the right to set aside the Geneva Conventions if they thought it was necessary to locate a weapon of mass destruction suspected to be in or approaching or targeted at their territory?
Oh, hey, wasn’t Saddam a head of state? Can’t he authorize torture and other Geneva Conventions “violations” if the integrity of his nation was at stake? Wouldn’t any and all extreme interrogation measures be entirely justifiable if they were carried out with his authorization?
Notice that minty said “IF that argument were to hold water”. He said that because it doesn’t. It’s arguable, sure. But any juror who’s got more than two brain cells to rub together won’t buy it. Until we as humans can master the art of mind reading, specific intent has to be derived from circumstantial evidence. Therefore, anyone can argue they didn’t intend a certain result. Proving it, however, is a whole different battle.
There must be a word for it, a descriptive noun for the sense of absurd horror when you witness perfectly ordinary people discuss how to commit a moral outrage as though it were the county municipal tax plan. The prose is utterly calm and civil, the intent is wholly savage.
Reminds me of Dennis Hopper’s character in Apocalypse Now, talking about Colonel Kurtz: “The Man’s clear in his mind, but his soul has gone mad…”
Altogether the whole idea is simply too outrageous, too depraved, to discuss with any level of civility. This is a barbarity. For Lord knows how long mankind has struggled to curb the cruelty that is inherent in war and the conflicts of nations with other nations and with less organized groups (rebels, insurgents, terrorists, bandits, what have you). Now we have the specter of this bunch of political appointees figuratively standing on their heads to find and excuse to abandon all of that. Inherent power of the President to protect national security my foot! Implied power to imprison, interrogate by torture and immunity from prosecution? My good Lord. What have we become. Being the Big Dawg is bad enough, must we also be rabid? These people are clearly mad. Perhaps mad with power, perhaps mad with fear, but in any event mad, and irresponsible and lacking a reliable moral compass.
I have said it before and I repeat it here: We can be thankful for the career Department of Justice lawyers and the career and junior judge advocates who exposed this corruption and depravity.
This nation must stand for something. We say it stands for (under God, for Christ’s sake) liberty and justice for all. We now stand just as exposed to the judgment of the world as did all those good Germans who bosted of Germany as a bastion of culture in the years leading up to WWII. There is a special corner of Hell for people who would betray the nation’s principles, integrity and pledged word for expedience.
