CIA Report

[Razgovory]

I never understood the opposition to drone strikes.  Presumably it would be better if we sent mail bombs.  Truth is, I want these people dead.

[OttoVonBismarck]

What's particularly puzzling about this story is that it was the Bush administration that was pushing for disbarment.  First they accept the arguments in his memo as the legal basis for EIT, then later on decide that it was unethical in some way.  Did he make up cites?  Fabricate case law?

Read up more on Dick Cheney and his power within the Bush White House. Generally all other cabinet-level officials in the Bush Administration loathed Cheney, because he was essentially more powerful than them and no one expects that going into an administration--the most recent Al Gore model for example didn't fit that mold at all. A lot of these legal opinions came either direct from Cheney or people loyal to Cheney in the Justice Department. Cheney actually is known several times to have circumvented the entire cabinet with issues like this and gone straight to Bush, and due to his working relationship with Bush he was the only person who had that sort of access. Cabinet members or high level officials didn't get access to Bush unless Cheney knew about it, and Cheney could be in the room for any of those meetings. The converse was not true. A lot of people under the Ashcroft Justice Department didn't like this policy as it was being crafted, but they were essentially powerless compared to the Vice President.

[Warspite]

Yep, I tend to think the same about drone strikes but we do tend to hear complaints and issues over it. I just hope that doesn't also come back to bite our arses as well.

The Bush administration's lawyers were a tough group. They gave cover to this but now we're going after the CIA members. Seems we should be going after the lawyers who authorized it more so than those who did the work thinking it was legal and sanctioned by Congress. This is a mess if they go after people now, as I think was tried earlier in the Obama admin. I can understand wanting to but IMO those who sanctioned it are the major players, if anyone is to be brought up on charges.

Drone strikes are largely no different than targeted surgical strikes that have been carried out under Presidential whim essentially as long as we've had a modern air force capable of doing such a thing, and never successfully legally challenged to my knowledge. The only difference with drones is it allows us to do those without putting skin in the game, which means we are willing to do them more often. People believe this makes them fundamentally different, but that just smacks of people being bitchy because we've found a way to have our cake and eat it too.

The real opposition, once you strip out the hysterical, pacifist and anti-imperialist stuff, is actually over the targeting criteria for signature strikes and the issue of imminent threat for a lot of the specifically targeted strikes.

[CountDeMoney]

Always target the middle car.  The lead and follow cars are the security details.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I actually think this report is foolish political theater conducted by Feinstein and it serves no valid or good purpose.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has full oversight authority over activities like this, including authority to subpoena administration officials. If it chose not to exercise that authority at the time, it shouldn't be doing it today. My reasoning is pretty simple, we already knew torture was happening. This has been known since the Bush Administration. Very few new specifics have come out through this report, certainly nothing that changes the "nature of what we knew." More examples of things we already knew were happening isn't really new in terms of how you should respond to it. The Bush Administration put a stop to this stuff and said it wouldn't do it again, Holder investigated and it was reiterated by the Obama Administration in his first term that this happened, was bad, and wouldn't happen again. It was also made known definitively that no one would be prosecuted for it, end of story.

All this report has done is cause even more strained relations with European/NATO allies, I'm sure in the late 2000s when all of this stuff came out for the first time this was big news in Europe, but Europe had already digested and moved on. Now this is front page news there again, and in a way that embarrasses and harms some of those said allies to no good end.

I do not buy that the Bush Administration was meaningfully deceived on what was going on. Any administration that did stuff like this was going to bake in plausible deniability, but they knew (if not specifically) what their orders and advice to the CIA would turn into. It's very similar to a King telling someone "take care of this, and don't bother me with the details." Saying that means you know what the details are but want moral separation from them (a false moral separation) by not being briefed on every slice of skin.

Practically speaking, I really want to see our intelligence agencies to cease programs that appear to provide no meaningful intelligence and no tactical or strategic advantages whatsoever and also then end up being political time bombs. It's very similar to the NSA Internet metadata collection program, which has resulted in mountains of worthless data (as in never been used productively) and tons of ill will that actually in that case has spilled over to hurting the international business operations of our large tech companies.

Morally speaking I have no real problem with torture, I certainly wouldn't torture anyone as I view it as personally immoral, but I believe States are and must be amoral and expect them to always be.

I don't believe this generates any increased practical risk of terrorism directed at the United States. We didn't torture anyone during the Clinton Administration or the first year of the Bush Administration and a bunch of Islamic terrorists flew planes into buildings and killed 3,000 Americans, terrorism that even after a period of torture and outright war with the Muslim world stands out as the most devastating terrorist attack in American history. If that can happen long before invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, world wide assassinations of Islamic terrorist leaders and et cetera I don't buy that these actions increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks.

[Ed Anger]

I never understood the opposition to drone strikes.  Presumably it would be better if we sent mail bombs.  Truth is, I want these people dead.

Good man.

[crazy canuck]

Morally speaking I have no real problem with torture, I certainly wouldn't torture anyone as I view it as personally immoral, but I believe States are and must be amoral and expect them to always be.

Yes, that is one of the problems.  It seems people who had decision making authority thought the same thing.

[11B4V]

I never understood the opposition to drone strikes.  Presumably it would be better if we sent mail bombs.  Truth is, I want these people dead.

Good man.

Mail bombs are good.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yes, that is one of the problems.  It seems people who had decision making authority thought the same thing.

Come at me bro.

[crazy canuck]

Yes, that is one of the problems.  It seems people who had decision making authority thought the same thing.

Come at me bro.

Naw, you have already done enough to yourself.   

[grumbler]

Morally speaking I have no real problem with torture, I certainly wouldn't torture anyone as I view it as personally immoral, but I believe States are and must be amoral and expect them to always be.

Yes, that is one of the problems.  It seems people who had decision making authority thought the same thing.

Not really.  Otto speaks as though "states" were more than legal fictions.  Of course "states" are immoral, but "states" don't torture people.  Only people torture people, and when they do so, the appropriate legal authorities should punish them.  The people who directed and carried out torture didn't think that the torture was going to be carried out by some impersonal and amoral state; they knew exactly which individuals were going to torture exactly which victims.

[crazy canuck]

Morally speaking I have no real problem with torture, I certainly wouldn't torture anyone as I view it as personally immoral, but I believe States are and must be amoral and expect them to always be.

Yes, that is one of the problems.  It seems people who had decision making authority thought the same thing.

Not really.  Otto speaks as though "states" were more than legal fictions.  Of course "states" are immoral, but "states" don't torture people.  Only people torture people, and when they do so, the appropriate legal authorities should punish them.  The people who directed and carried out torture didn't think that the torture was going to be carried out by some impersonal and amoral state; they knew exactly which individuals were going to torture exactly which victims.

Fair point

[Berkut]

Yeah, I share a lot of Otto's basic objections to the report - I think it is about 94% political theater of the worst kind.

But the idea that you can cloak the actions of the "state" behind some "amoral" fiction is ridiculous. People act on the behest of the state, which in turn is acting at the behest of and in the interests of the citizens it represents. It is not just "amoral" to claim that the state can be "amoral", it is downright, IMO, evil. And I mean that in a very practical manner, much more so than I mean it in a theoretical manner. It is that kind of thinking, that the actions of people on the behest of the state cannot be wrong that leads to the most horrific of human behaviors.

[Jacob]

Not really.  Otto speaks as though "states" were more than legal fictions.  Of course "states" are immoral, but "states" don't torture people.  Only people torture people, and when they do so, the appropriate legal authorities should punish them.  The people who directed and carried out torture didn't think that the torture was going to be carried out by some impersonal and amoral state; they knew exactly which individuals were going to torture exactly which victims.

Fair point

I never thought I'd see the day...

[Jacob]

I think it is about 94% political theater of the worst kind

What is it that makes it so bad? That there will be few concrete results in terms of prosecution etc? That the people involved are in bringing this forward are in you opinion likely to be motivated by political concerns?

To me, there's a fundamental clash of values here, and significant wrongdoing that otherwise seemed destined to be left untouched. Bringing it into the political limelight is exactly what the political process is supposed to do (or one of the things it's supposed to do). It may be political theatre, but IMO it's of a vital kind.

Is torture in the name of the American people okay or not okay?