Attorney General
‘Holy Hell’ Breaks Lose Over Possible Disclosure of Torture Memos
Posted Apr 3, 2009 12:02 PM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
U.S. security officials are working to overturn a decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to release three 2005 Justice Department memos approving harsh interrogation techniques.
National security aide John Brennan is leading the effort to block disclosure of the documents, Newsweek reports. "Holy hell has broken loose over this," one senior administration official told the magazine.
White House counsel Greg Craig had already approved disclosure of the memos, but release was delayed after Brennan and CIA Director Leon Panetta became involved. Now it is likely President Obama will have to make the final decision, the story says.
The 2005 memos were written under the leadership of Steven Bradbury, chief of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. The memos, along with a 2002 memo written by former Justice lawyer John Yoo, are the subject of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The government has sought an additional two-week delay to give it more time to respond to the ACLU. The story says the internal debate over the memos explains the delay request.
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Comments
Paul the magyar
Apr 3, 2009 4:44 PM CST
“Holy hell” is justified—the truly shabby work by Yoo and others will reveal the complicity and culpability of senior Bush Administration officials.
More importantly, this will prove a deterrent to future lawyers who might consider providing spurious cover to those who would seek to torture.
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J.D.
Apr 4, 2009 1:08 PM CST
And even more importantly, will embolden the jihadists.
Also, ‘torture’ is not a legal term.
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B. McLeod
Apr 4, 2009 8:53 PM CST
J.D., some research might be improve the quality of your posts on this topic.
Realistically, the more that becomes known of the Bush tactics, the more the public will insist on full disclosure, and the greater the condemnation of the illegal actions will be.
“When the government breaks the law, then there is no law.”
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Paul the Magyar
Apr 9, 2009 4:17 PM CST
It might be difficult to understand, but martyrdom explicitly embraces self sacrifice for a larger future reward.
It is the height of naivete and ignorance to argue that torture or death will deter a SUICIDE bomber. What parts of MARTYRDOM and SUICIDE do you not quite understand?
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Alba Etie
Apr 13, 2009 3:58 AM CST
Does anyone know the status of US Attorney John Durham’s investigation into the destruction of the CIA torture tapes ?
And JD assuming that we are all on the same page here - that we do want to keep Our Country safe -you might want to consider that the one biggest recruiting tool for the Taleban in Afghanistan and Pakistan is the abuse of prisoners at the black sites at Bagram and eleswhere in the CARs . The recent suicide attacks on the Afghanistan Justice Department was a direct respones to the abuse of detainees.
Furthermore General Patreaues has stated repeatedly that detainee abuse is counterproductive to the overall counter insurgency campaign we are fixing to attempt to wage in say Helmand or Pakitia.
JD these are very dangerous times for Our Country we need to stop the wahebees and others from recruiting more extremist to fight us here and over there.
Think about this - if your uncle, brother , father was dragged off by an occupying foreign armed force and was then wrongfully charged with acts he did not committ , and then was tortured and held with no chance for return - what would your reaction be to that occupying armed forces. JD we cannot win kinetically in Pakistan / Afghanistan / FATA theater - Don’t believe that- go ask the Russian did they ever kill enough mujahadin to win their Afghanistan War ?
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Alba Etie
Apr 14, 2009 3:25 AM CST
JD ,
You continue your snarks on other comments i e - over on the “Yoo Constitutional Argument ” thread , yet cannot answer the question posed by Gen Patreaus about how we win in Afghanistan .
This is a very dangerous era we find ourselves in as a Country - we are made less safe by specius arguments about liberal vs conservative- No JD this about what is pragamatic vs what is linear jingoistic and makes us less safe as a nation .
In short JD -when we give up our best practices by torturing detainees —then we allow the jihadist to win - Terrorism is a tactic for an over all strategy that wants to destroy our Country -when we become the caricature that the wahabee mullahs protray as - then we have betrayed ourselves and allowed UBL and is ilk to win ...
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