On Jan 19, 2009, at 4:34 PM, Chris Gehlker wrote: > > On Jan 19, 2009, at 12:22 PM, Kevin Callahan wrote: > >> yeah - Turley states that just because Bush and Cheney got lawyers to >> write memos claiming their techniques were legal, doesn't make what >> they did, legal. > > I went back and viewed the clip yet again that you cited and he > doesn't address the issue. > --
Let's say for a sec that the law does require it. The war crimes in Germany (notice slick godwin avoidance) made the point that knowledge of a war crime from a position of power and a failure to act was also punishable. Acquiescence to a war crime can be a war crime if you were in a position to stop it. The oversight's JOB was to know what the CIA was doing. Assume that the CIA covered it's butt by explicitly telling oversight what was going on. After all, they are not stupid enough to do something like that without someone else to blame it on. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664.html > Since "The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan)." ""The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange." "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement." specifically, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk." Note. I am not excusing anything. All I'm saying is that politically, opening that can of worms is not something the Dem's are going to be willing to do no matter how loud or demanding the left gets. It's one thing to throw out retoric about how 'horrible' the Bush'ies were. It's a whole nother thing to bring a full hearing where the "U.S. Official that witnessed the exchange" will get to point at Pelosi and say. "We told her everything and she asked if it was tough enough?" My guess is that you are going to have a hard time getting Pelosi and the rest of the folks that were on the oversight group to agree to anything that resembles a hearing. If they do it all goes public. I'd be willing to bet my lunch money that someone has already made that completely clear to the hill and Pelosi. =c= _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
