Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

The Third Degree

It’s interesting that the crack lawyers who devised this new immunity from war crimes evoked the Nuremberg defense. Aside from the obvious fact that the Nuremberg defense failed spectacularly, it is also interesting because one of the war crimes the Nuremberg defendents, which included the SS, SA and the Gestapo as well as individuals, were tried and convicted of were using what they believed to be a legally prescribed interrogation method they called “the third degree.” I’m sure you’ve all heard of it:

The GESTAPO and SD conducted third degree interrogations. On 26 October 1939 an order to all GESTAPO offices from the RSHA signed Mueller, “by order,” in referring to execution of protective custody during the war, stated in part:

“In certain cases, the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police will order flogging in addition to detention in a concentration camp. Orders of this kind will, in the future, also be transmitted to the State Police District Office concerned. In this case, too, there is no objection to spreading the rumour of this increased punishment. ***” (1531-PS)

On 12 June 1942 the Chief of the Security Police and SD, through Mueller, published an order authorizing the use of third degree methods in interrogating where preliminary investigation indicates that the prisoner could give information on important facts such as subversive activities, but not to extort confessions of the prisoner’s own crimes. The order stated in part:

“*** 2. Third degree may, under this supposition, only be employed against Communists, Marxists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, saboteurs, terrorists, members of resistance movements, parachute agents, anti-social elements, Polish or Soviet-Russian loafers or tramps. In all other cases, my permission must first be obtained.

“*** 4. Third degree can, according to the circumstances, consist amongst other methods, of:

very simple diet (bread and water)

hard bunk

dark cell

deprivation of sleep

exhaustive drilling also in flogging (for more than 20 strokes a doctor must be consulted).” (1531-PS)

George W. Bush has been making comparisons between the “War On Terrorism” and WWII. I didn’t realize that in this sequel we were the Germans.

Update: Just in case Rummy’s lawyers need a head start on a Nuremberg defense for third degree interrogation war crimes, here’s the one the German defense lawyers used. I think they may actually be familiar with it already:

The prosecution accuses the Gestapo of having employed the third degree method of interrogation. I had already spoken about this when I discussed the question whether the methods employed by the Gestapo were criminal. At this point I have the following to say with reference to this accusation:

The documents submitted by the prosecution made it perfectly clear that it was only permissible to employ third degree methods of interrogation in exceptional cases, only with the observance of certain protective guarantees and only by order of higher authorities. Furthermore, it was not permissible to use these methods in order to force a confession; they could only be employed in the case of a refusal to give information vital to the interests of the State, and finally, only in the event of certain factual evidence.

Entire sections of the Gestapo, such as the counter- intelligence police and frontier police, have never carried out third degree interrogations. In the occupied territories, where occupation personnel were daily threatened by attempts on their lives, more severe methods of interrogation were permitted, if it was thought that in this manner the lives of German soldiers and officials might be protected against such threatened attempts. Torture of any kind was never officially condoned. It can be gathered from the affidavits submitted, for instance, numbers 2, 3, 4, 61, and 63, and from the testimonies of witnesses Knochen, Hermann, Straub, Albath, and Best, that the officials of the Gestapo were continuously instructed during training courses and at regular intervals, to the effect that any ill-treatment during interrogations, in fact any ill-treatment of detainees in general, was prohibited.

See? The Germans didn’t believe in ill-treatment of “detainees,” either. But, sometimes they just had to use harsher measures when the security of the state was at stake. Surely, anyone can understand that.

Not that they didn’t have a few bad apples who took things too far from time to time. Doesn’t everybody?

From The Beginning

I posted a short piece last month about Rumsfeld approving extraordinary “interrogation techniques” from the LA Times. Looking at it now, the timing implies that this is the same shocking memo that the Wall Street Journal reported on in detail today.

What the Wall Street Journal Story doesn’t say is that the permission to torture was sought by none other than our good friend General Geoff D. Ripper, the man currently in charge of cleaning up Abu Ghraib prison. From the earlier LA Times story:

Rumsfeld approved in April 2003 a request five months earlier by Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who had arrived at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in November 2002 to oversee prisoners. Miller sought permission to use a broad range of extraordinary ‘nondoctrinal’ questioning techniques on an Al Qaeda detainee, a general with the Pentagon’s Judge Advocate General’s office said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

[…]

The effort to define how far interrogators can go in pressuring detainees for information without violating international law exposed the rift between interrogators and JAG lawyers, who considered some of the techniques Miller proposed to be illegal.

‘You had intelligence officials that might have been pulling in a direction that was different from the lawyers,’ Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said. ‘It’s a competitive process.’

[…]

Rumsfeld trimmed the list of requested interrogation techniques by about one-third, and he insisted that he personally approve a ‘handful’ of techniques, the senior Pentagon lawyer and the JAG official said. Rumsfeld approved the revised proposal in April 2003.”

I commented at the end of my earlier piece that if it is true that Rumsfeld himself signed off on specific acts of torture it was the kind of evidence that war crimes trials were made of. Silly me. Today’s WSJ story reveals that the administration knew very well they were giving General Ripper explicit permission to commit war crimes and went to extraordinary lengths to fashion legal loopholes in order to set Don, Dick and Geoffrey’s minds at ease that they couldn’t be prosecuted. And they did it all under the newly discovered doctrine of Presidential Infallibillity.

To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a “presidential directive or other writing” that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is “inherent in the president.”

Unbenownst to anyone up to now, the US Constitution is apparently the basis for a legal dictatorship. Very interesting indeed that such a radical new interpretation of presidential power should be “discovered” by an administration that was installed by a 5 to 4 vote by the Supreme Court, isn’t it?

What’s the old saying, “begin as you mean to go on?” They went on as they began, all right, using all levers of power in service of their desired goals regardless of legal precedent or constitutional legitimacy. We shouldn’t be surprised. This is what people who pursue power for its own sake always do.

Hitch’s Epiphany

Christopher Hitchens calls Reagan a senile old lizard, dumb as as a stump and worse. He compiles a list of Reagan’s greatest hits from Iran Contra to greenlighting the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

But, then he remembers all the silly liberals who wished Democrats had been in power when the Soviets threw in the towel and has “been wondering ever since not just about the stupidity of American politics, but about the need of so many American intellectuals to prove themselves clever by showing that they are smarter than the latest idiot in power, or the latest Republican at any rate.”

He used to be a pretty tough fellow but the inherent cognitive dissonance associated with Junior worship is making him soft and mushy. He’s reduced to claiming repressed memories of the day he discovered that his intellectual superiority demanded that he embrace dumb luck as the guiding principle in the fight against totalitarianism. I think I finally understand why he became a drunk.

Con Artists In Arms

EMPHYRIO has all the goods on Chalabi’s bosom pal and fellow INC flim flammer, Francis Brooke, the man who is now under indictment from the Iraqi police — whatever that means.

What’s truly creepy is that this guy seems to be some kind of avenging fundamentalist firebreather on top of everything else (or so he says):

Francis Brooke says he would support the elimination of Saddam, even if every single Iraqi were killed in the process. He means it. “I’m coming from a place different from you,” he says in the soft southern drawl one hears from preachers and con men. “I believe in good and evil. That man is absolute evil and must be destroyed.”

It has become clear to me that the neocon intellectual infrastructure was actually some kind of affirmative action program for right wing freaks of all stripes who didn’t have any business connections. How else can you explain the absurdity of a fundamentalist Left Behinder becoming the errand boy to a cosmopolitan, muslim con artist like Chalabi?

I’m beginning to think that the smart thing to do rather than build a media message apparatus, would be to simply infiltrate the one the GOP has already funded and start using it for ourselves. How hard can it be to get a sinecure at one of these thinktankmedia operations? Clearly, you don’t have to have any experience or track record — look at Brooke. This could be the answer folks. They won’t even know it’s happened.

I’m Shocked

Oh, what a big asshole I am for even suggesting that the Republicans would wrap Reagan’s legacy around Junior like a mink coat on a WalMart greeter.

From the shores of Normandy to President Bush’s campaign offices outside Washington, Mr. Bush and his political advisers embraced the legacy of Ronald Reagan on Sunday, suggesting that even in death, Mr. Reagan had one more campaign in him — this one at the side of Mr. Bush.

In France, Mr. Bush heralded the late president as a “gallant leader in the cause of freedom,” and lionized him in an interview with Tom Brokaw. In Washington, Mr. Bush’s aides said that it was Ronald Reagan as much as another president named Bush who was the role model for this president, and they talked of a campaign in which Mr. Reagan would be at least an inspirational presence

Mr. Bush’s advisers said Sunday that the intense focus on Mr. Reagan’s career that began upon the news of his death on Saturday would remind Americans of what Mr. Bush’s supporters have long described as the similarities between the two men as straight-talking, ideologically driven leaders with swagger and a fixed idea of what they wanted to do with their office.

“Americans are going to be focused on President Reagan for the next week,” said Ed Gillespie, the Republican national chairman. “The parallels are there. I don’t know how you miss them.”

Yes they are. Except Reagan, it turns out, had an excuse.

Other Republicans worry that Bush might not hold up so well by comparison:

Some Republicans said the images of a forceful Mr. Reagan giving dramatic speeches on television provided a less-than-welcome contrast with Mr. Bush’s own appearances these days, and that it was not in Mr. Bush’s interest to encourage such comparisons. That concern was illustrated on Sunday, one Republican said, by televised images of Mr. Reagan’s riveting speech in Normandy commemorating D-Day in 1984, followed by Mr. Bush’s address at a similar ceremony on Sunday.

“Reagan showed what high stature that a president can have — and my fear is that Bush will look diminished by comparison,” said one Republican sympathetic to Mr. Bush, who did not want to be quoted by name criticizing the president.

No kidding. As I’ve been watching the mediawhore self-serving treacle marathon, I’ve been struck by just how good Reagan really was on television. He had tremendous confidence before the camera, as a professional actor would, and performed the role of president with humor and flair. Compared to him Junior is playing the second lead in the Midland Junior High version of “Grease.” Let’s face it, even when Bush was deep into his Top Gun phase, he looked more like a member of the Village People than the steely-eyed rocket man. He can’t even ride a fucking horse, fergawdsake.

Reagan looked good in the costume. Bush always looks like he’s swimming in suits a size too big. They’re just not in the same league.

Whoopsie Daisy:

The United States and its allies are winning some battles in the terrorism war but may be losing the broader struggle against Islamic extremism that is terrorism’s source, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday.

The troubling unknown, he said, is whether the extremists — whom he termed ”zealots and despots” bent on destroying the global system of nation-states — are turning out newly trained terrorists faster than the United States can capture or kill them.

”It’s quite clear to me that we do not have a coherent approach to this,” Rumsfeld said at an international security conference.”

Should we put this quote on every campaign web-site, bumper sticker and campaign commercial going forward?

Heavens, yes.

The People’s Choice

Here’s The Hunting of the President Trailer.

The witchhunt was bullshit then, it is bullshit now and it will be bullshit in the history books. We were lucky to have a president in office who had such resiliance, intelligence and guts or they might very well have succeeded in fundamentally changing our system of government.

It will be a long time coming before anybody attempts a partisan impeachment again. It turns out the people didn’t much like having a bunch of hypocritical Washington politicians and TV stars decide their choice for president wasn’t acceptable, something which the Republicans refused to understand even after they were soundly slapped in 1998. So, they again manipulated the system to deny the citizens their choice as president in 2000, and this time it worked.

I suspect they will get another hard lesson in democracy this November. And once again, the question is whether they will heed it.

Those Incredible Neocons

Josh Marshall and others continue to be a bit gobsmacked that Chalabi defenders like Gingrich and Perle aren’t getting the message from the neocons inside the administration that their boy did, in fact, do something very, very bad.

Today Josh asks around thinking that the insider neos might not be convinced themselves, but comes up once again with the news that everybody who has any info on this is convinced that Chalabi is guilty as sin. Clearly, they have let that be known to their fellow travellers.

Which leads us to the obvious conclusion that Newt and Perle and the rest of the die-hards don’t give a damn if Chalabi sold the country down the river to the Iranians, nor do they care about this silly concept of “credibility.” Their experience is that there is no such thing. You hold your ground, keep pushing your position no matter what the circumstances or the facts may be, and eventually people will move on, forget the details and you will have lost nothing. Where there is no accountability there is no such thing as credibility.

Newt in particular is a master at this. He has said and done the most outrageous, radical, hypocritical things imaginable over his career, he has failed spectacularly, was forced to leave congress and yet he continues to be welcomed to the DOD, the White House, the GOP think tank apparatus and the media as an elder statesman and intellectual guiding light. Why would a small matter of espionage shake his belief in Chalabi’s usefulness as a Republican tool?

On the other hand, one might also ask whether there is a more personal motive people might have for continuing to defend Chalabi in spite of what appears to be a universal acknowledgement within the administration of his guilt. Just how much classified information does the Defense Policy Board have access to, I wonder?

Update: Kevin quotes Danielle Pletka, one of Chalabi’s most ardent cheerleaders, as now saying that Chalabi may have given secrets to Iran, but it’s not that big of a deal because he isn’t an American citizen and “owes us no fealty.”

It is almost beyond comprehension that the ultra-patriots on the Right have the gall to say these things and even more shocking that they aren’t called on it.

Dick Cheney wanted to put those Lackawanna boys down at Gitmo and throw away the key becaue they’d been to Afghanistan. Instead they were given 8 to 10 years in prison. Chalabi, a high level double agent for a member of the axis of evil, a man who was paid millions of dollars by US taxpayers and spent time in the salons and offices of the biggest Washington movers and shakers for the last ten years, is not prosecutable and presumably should be left to do as he pleases. Jayzuz. That’s some moral clarity for ya.

The hell with that. If we’re dragging poppy farmers out of caves in Afghanistan based on the word of some informant we’ve bribed with $5,000, I think we can “detain” Mr Chalabi and send him down to Gitmo for a little of that patented General Ripper interrogation. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan — it’s all part of the GWOT, right?

Get Over Yourselves

Since I seem to have been linked numerous times to grieving websites as an example of the depravity of the left because of my alleged hateful comments, let me just point out one thing.

I made not one disparaging remark about Ronald Reagan in either one of my posts yesterday. All insults were directed at the followers who would exploit his death, mostly by using it (as they use everything) as a weapon against their political enemies and a media whose love of funeral porn is exceeded only by its love of celebrity scandal.

I have nothing but sympathy for his family. It’s the rest of you who are the target of my disdain. Just so you know.

RIP Ronnie

You were better than George W. Bush.