Letters to the Editor
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It doesn't make sense
"Enhanced interrogation techniques," at least according to this administration, are a good thing, right? Why would they want evidence of themselves providing this valuable service for Americans destroyed? Why not let us all see what a fine job they're doing?
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Lawyers and tapes
Of course the administration's lawyers knew all about it. They all did.
I still say someone organized a smoker, a little party for the White House elite and confidants and the tapes were viewed, used for entertainment to this gang of perverts and then "destroyed."
I'll bet the legitimate tapes or copies thereof are somewhere. "Amusement" like this would be too good for Bush to allow to be destroyed.
Bush loves this stuff. He even smirks when he discusses it.
Or is that a perpetual expression? Bush is playing gotcha!
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It's an outrage! I demand that Gonzo be brought before the commitee...
So he can tell us what he doesn't know or remember
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Priorities
While I welcome any media coverage that highlights the fact that the Bush administration has directed government employees to torture people it seems to me that the investigations coming from the destruction of the tapes aren't really about that policy. I'd much rather have investigations into the genesis of policies and directives that allowed such treatment rather than finding out who violated a court order regarding the tapes.
I get the feeling that investigations on the destruction of the CIA tapes will just produce alot of noise but no real consequences; heat but no fire.
I would much rather investigations into blatantly illegal wiretapping being directed by the Whitehouse and carried out by cooperating corporations. After all there is pending legislation that would give legal protection to people that participated in those actions which apparently started shortly after Bush took office.
While we're at it how about investigating the stolen 2002 election for Alabama governor? Don Siegelman not only had an election victory taken from him by Republicans connected to Karl Rove but he ended up in prison to boot. How about an investigation into political direction of Gov. Siegelman's prosecution? That could have real consequences for him at least.
In the end I fear that investigating the CIA tapes will just distract from issues that really need resolving and end up being used to give the CIA a black eye for something the Bush administration and it's appointees decided to do. Possibly the hearings will even allow some in the administration to get even with, or get rid of, officials that insisted that the Iran NIE be released. The tapes story did break big after the NIE was finally released after all.
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The Brave Deeds of the Cowardly Few
The input by Gonzalez, Addington and Miers is no surprise, and the role of John Bellinger is consistent with his views reported by the Guardian newspaper in November where he "declined to rule out the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding even if it were applied by foreign intelligence services on US citizens." Of waterboarding, he said, "Well, I'm not willing to include it or exclude it. Our justice department has concluded that we just don't want to get involved in abstract discussions."
Well, nothing beats abstraction like evidence in the form of torture tapes. It's amazing how, in the face of legal liability, lawyerly language gives way to "'vigorous sentiment' among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes." Bravery all around, I'd say.
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Thatboy, it might make sense IF
that valuable information they claim to have extracted from Abu Zubaydah turned out to consist of confessions that he was an operative from the planet Zort who had been sent here to destroy the U.S. by levitating our nukyoolar missiles out of their silos with anti-gravity devices, while creating pod people to substitute for previously patriotic Americans, and diabolically programming these replicants to say things like "I wish I hadn't voted for George Bush, this war he sold us is turning out to be a disaster." Of course all this is tremendously valuable top-secret information, but the great unwashed might have a little trouble understanding its true significance.
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I am shocked!
Absolutely shocked that the administration knew about this. You mean that they were complicit in this? Cheney, Gonzales and Miers? They are such honest people. I can't believe they had a hand in this. SHOCKED! LOL!
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Under circumstances more ordinary...
I'd expect a full investigation by Congress.
Under the current spineless Democratic Congressional regime, I expect we'll see-- following the de rigeur blustering and meaningless wind, of course-- legislation declaring everything just fine after the fact.
Oh yeah, and with full amnesty to anyone who did something that wasn't fully fine.
Then they'll declare victory and move on to surrendering somewhere else.
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This just in: Fire burns on the White House Grounds
The Executive Office Building, that grand old structure next to the White House, was seen to have thick black smoke billowing from a second story window this morning.
Now c'mon Bushistas just use paper shredders like Reagan did. You don't have to build a bonfire in the EOB. Geez!
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This just in: Fire burns on the White House Grounds
Maybe somebody put a penny in Cheney's fuse box to keep him from losing power during a power surge.
Any, the idea that the videotapes just show a babbling madman making up plots so he could breath is one possibility for why the tapes were destroyed. But I've heard a bit of blather on The Internets that another reason was that the fellow being tortured babbled out that members of the Saudi royal family knew ahead of time of the impending 9/11 terror attacks. Has anybody else heard anything like this?
I've also heard that destroying the tapes was an attempt to prevent another embarassing round of exposures such as happened with the pictures from Abu Ghraib, but considering that many members of this administration are tone-deaf to anything outside the Beltway, it's hard to imagine them being that savvy.
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Nothing "potentially" illegal about it.
The destruction of these videotapes, which were the subject of discovery motions in a criminal case pending in federal court, was illegal. There is no gray area here. The only question remains on whom the criminal culpability will eventually fall.
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@Garry Owen
You’re far too suspicious Garry.
Haven’t you heard about the recent White House initiative to curtail Federal spending? Aren’t you aware that Federal spending on paper shredding has increased more than 600 percent since George W. Bush took office?
http://tinyurl.com/2h8wlt
Have you also discounted the possibility that the fire could have been innocently caused by overloaded electrical circuits due to overstressed paper shredders?
Tsk, tsk. You’re such a cynic!