Nancy Pelosi is lying

Yes, I think she is lying. So are a lot of other Congressfolk, Rs and Ds alike. Unfortunately, I don't think most Americans care. Look how willing everyone was to pass Abu Ghraib off as "a few bad apples." There were quite a few press reports on the treatment Jose Padilla (an American citizen, I would add) was receiving. The people who tried to stop that were generally labeled unAmerican and traitors. Abuse at Guantanamo? Not that much to get excited about. I believe it is time for America to stand up and say loudly that we do believe in our ideals and in the rule of law. If that means Bush and Cheney need to be tried for war crimes, so be it. If that means the political careers of Nancy Pelosi and other Congresspeople end, so be it. But we cannot do nothing.

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.--Hannah Arendt

Some Democrats were certainly cowards. They've been running from the "weak on security" label for a long time. I'm not sure who I loath more: Cowardly Dems trying to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing or the Chickenhawk Republicans that seem to only complain that we didn't torture enough.

Oh wait, I know who I loath more! The Bush administration officials that actually instituted these torture programs, lied about them, and have damaged our countries moral standing and long term security for nothing that couldn't have been gotten through legal and moral means.

The pundit class is just eating up this Pelosi stuff, but it all ignores the fact that she wasn't president, she didn't authorize this stuff, she didn't shill legal memos justifying it, she didn't tear up the constitution because she was afraid of some maniac cave dwellers a full 3-4 years after 9/11.

I'm a Dem and I wish Pelosi had had the guts to stand up to Bush & Co. But the good thing about the Republicans focussing on her is that this could result in an independent investigation of who knew what when. Ending up with Bush and Cheney holding the bag for starting the whole mess. Unintended consequences. And good riddance to Pelosi.

I've never been much of a fan of Nancy Pelosi but this episode is just messy and disgusting. I don't think either party has a right moral outrage, now nor ever.

Aside that though, it all has to start at the top. If a President, democrat or republican, institutes and condones a program of torture, it won't be difficult for others to line up behind him or stay silent. Is said President perhaps too much of a fall-guy? Sure. But it was a President who said, "the buck stops here."

I'm a Democrat and I still agree. I think Pelosi is lying, too, and I concur that our party would be failing badly without Obama.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Pelosi is lying about torture. I am somewhat surprised at the number of people who have a childish faith that the Bush administration and the CIA would NEVER fudge the truth on something like this. Seriously?

Mike

If Pelosi lied, she should be held accountable...period.

I find it admirable that so many conservatives in the GOP are now agreeing that torture is a bad thing. If they say that Pelosi lied and should be punished, fine. What do they say about those who designed, authorized, and implemented the policy?

Exactly right, Charles Cosimano and Beaumont George. I see this as yet another amusing sideshow designed to further inflame both Left and Right. Keep us angry at each other, and we're easier to manipulate. BOTH parties are complicit. As Jude pointed out above, Obama has backed away from his campaign promises, and has quietly carried on Bush's policies, accompanied by deafening silence from the Left, with some honorable exceptions such as Glenn Greenwald. We may be getting out of Iraq, but are settling in now for a long, pleasant stay in Afghanistan. The thieves and scoundrels that drove the economy into the ground are still on the taxpayer's dime. Obama is nothing more than Bush with a slightly darker skin, higher IQ and a better vocabulary. Pelosi? To call her a brain-dead hack is to insult brain-dead hacks everywhere, and I will not be a party to it.

"Or you can believe that their personalities and moral compasses have remained steady throughout the years, but changes in circumstances (threat, knowledge, imminence) alter the moral calculus attached to any interrogation technique."

I wonder if Krauthammer or his readers understand that he's endorsing a Godless utilitarianism that would take most of the priciples the U.S. was founded on and throw them in the trash?

What has distinguished America from other nations and somewhat legitimized our moral authority in the world is that we weren't a country built on race or religion or even geography. America was supposed to be about certain ideals. That's what Krauthammer and his ilk are tossing aside like yesterday's newspaper.

Mike

@ Scott,

We actually aren't getting out of Iraq. We've got more than 50 bases there. Gotta staff 'em somehow. Oh, and the bloodshed has picked up quite a bit there in the last 6 weeks.

But yes, to say what you were tempted to would have been insulting to braindead hacks. Prudent judgment there, sir.

Mike,

Re Krauthammer, please reflect on Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus and FDR's, er, "internment" of Japanese-Americans, just to scratch the surface of the historical record. Such anything-that-might-help-us-win pragmatism has a long history in this country. As do the post-crisis ablutions of finger-pointing and hand-wringing that we're now engaged in. This method of hitting the national, moral reset button is a socially useful exercise -- no more, no less.

look at it this way this is Obama's version of the Night of the Long Knives. He is allowing the press to take Pelosi down a notch or two, if not totally emasculating her (I know I know that term is usually associated with men). Notice how quiet Harry Reid has been. Like Hitler Obama doesn't want to share Power with the Congress. and if you don't like the Hitler analogy this could be similar to Stalin's show trials of the 30s when he too consolidated his power. either way it is interesting watching the Speaker slowly twisting in the wind.

From a Human Events report of yesterday's House Judiciary Committee hearing:

[Rep. Dan] Lungren [(R., CA) and the state's former attorney general] then switched gears to a line of questioning aimed at clarifying the Obama Justice Department’s definition of torture. In one of the rare times he gave a straight answer, Holder stated at the hearing that in his view waterboarding is torture. Lundgren asked if it was the Justice Department’s position that Navy SEALS subjected to waterboarding as part of their training were being tortured.

Holder: No, it’s not torture in the legal sense because you’re not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally, all we’re trying to do is train them —

Lungren: So it’s the question of intent?

Holder: Intent is a huge part.

Lungren: So if the intent was to solicit information but not do permanent harm, how is that torture?

Holder: Well, it… uh… it… one has to look at... ah… it comes out to question of fact as one is determining the intention of the person who is administering the waterboarding. When the Communist Chinese did it, when the Japanese did it, when they did it in the Spanish Inquisition we knew then that was not a training exercise they were engaging in. They were doing it in a way that was violative of all of the statutes recognizing what torture is. What we are doing to our own troops to equip them to deal with any illegal act — that is not torture.

[ACM note: I'm not sure whether the Spanish Inquisition had a torture statute — the United States did not have one until 1994, and to this day federal torture law does not mention waterboarding. Nor does the federal war crimes statute. As I've recently noted, Sen. Kennedy posed an amendment in 2006 that would have specified waterboarding as a war crime — something he wouldn't have needed to do if it were already a war crime. The amendment was defeated.]

... Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), a former judge, continued the “intent” line of questioning in an attempt to make some sense of the attorney general’s tortured logic.

Rep. Louie Gohmert: Whether waterboarding is torture you say is an issue of intent. If our officers when waterboarding have no intent and in fact knew absolutely they would do no permanent harm to the person being waterboarded, and the only intent was to get information to save people in this country then they would not have tortured under your definition, isn’t that correct?

Attorney General Eric Holder: No, not at all. Intent is a fact question, it’s a fact specific question.

Gohmert: So what kind of intent were you talking about?

Holder: Well, what is the intention of the person doing the act? Was it logical that the result of doing the act would have been to physically or mentally harm the person?

Gohmert: I said that in my question. The intent was not to physically harm them because they knew there would be no permanent harm — there would be discomfort but there would be no permanent harm — knew that for sure. So, is the intent, are you saying it’s in the mind of the one being water-boarded, whether they felt they had been tortured. Or is the intent in the mind of the actor who knows beyond any question that he is doing no permanent harm, that he is only making them think he’s doing harm.

Holder: The intent is in the person who would be charged with the offense, the actor, as determined by a trier of fact looking at all of the circumstances. That is ultimately how one decides whether or not that person has the requisite intent.

It is now probably certain that private and congressional inquiries will be made on the issue. And I think criminal prosecutions are not far behind. And to all of those people commenting on the need for this kind of protection (CIA, Cheney, etc.), there is a very real danger in this process. Soon your protectors believe that they are your controllers. That is how torture techniques are implemented and democracies are lost. We as a nation have been on this downward slope since the disputed 2000 Presidential election.

"They're claiming, in various ways and with various bullcrap rationales. that torture isn't torture or that torture isn't wrong. That way lies Orwell's 1984."

No, they are arguing that waterboardng as practiced by the CIA isn't torture.

Well, except Eric Holder cited above. He's saying torture isn't torture, I think. Or is he saying torture is torture, except when it isn't? Something like that.

As someone without a horse in this race, my take on Pelosi was that she is a coward who didn't speak up when she had a chance and who now doesn't want to take accountability of acts she knew and approved of, and wants to place the blame elsewhere. Like an immature person or a child. As the writer says, it's a huge drop from Obama to the next highest Democrat.

I am also inclined to think Pelosi knew and was cowardly and she would do herself a favor by admitting that now.

I think we need to avoid the does torture work arguement - it is irrelevant if it worked or not ( appears it did not). What matters is that it is against the law - it violates treaties we signed- it is uncivilized and makes us no better than what we are fighting. I do not think it is moral either. Even if it worked.

MBunge is right - I think most Americans agree that internment of the japanese, the violation of treaties with Native Americans, slavery, Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus were shameful and wrong. That we did wrong in the past does not justify doing wrong now. In fact, one would hope we have learned from the past and are determined now to not repeat it.

Celtic Dragon - thanks for that info - your point is well taken and I may be jumping the gun re: thinking she lied.

Truth commission will hopefully get all this out.

Without actually knowing any of the principals, I tend to believe that Pelosi is telling the truth, and the other participants in the briefing (the CIA and Porter Goss, its former director) are lying. Why? Because deception is part of the CIA's job description.

Katherine
May 17, 2009 12:11 AM
This is exactly a reason why any investigation of torture has to be done by some independent commission and absolutely not through Congress. Members of both parties are too interested in covering their asses to do a thorough and honest job of things.

*****

True, and while they are at it they need to investigate not only torture, but the CIA's use of waterboarding.