interrogation videotapes

interrogation videotapes, Political wind, War on Terror, waterboarding

Why 10 House libs voted to not ban waterboarding

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Last night, Mark Levin pointed out that, “Your House of Representatives [has been] very, very busy looking out for the enemy.”

The House approved legislation yesterday that would bar the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics, drawing an immediate veto threat from the White House and setting up another political showdown over what constitutes torture. The measure, approved by a largely party-line vote of 222 to 199, would require U.S. intelligence agencies to follow Army rules adopted last year that explicitly forbid waterboarding. It also would require interrogators to adhere to a strict interpretation of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. The rules, required by Congress for all Defense Department personnel, also ban sexual humiliation, “mock” executions and the use of attack dogs, and prohibit the withholding of food and medical care.
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The White House vowed to veto the measure. Limiting the CIA to interrogation techniques authorized by the Army Field Manual “would prevent the United States from conducting lawful interrogations of senior al Qaeda terrorists to obtain intelligence needed to protect Americans from attack,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.

Key Republicans also opposed the measure. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), the House intelligence committee’s ranking GOP member, said applying the unclassified Army Field Manual to all interrogations would give terrorist groups full knowledge of U.S. interrogation techniques. “Too many details on the counterterrorism programs that have kept America safe since 9/11 have already been illegally leaked,” Hoekstra said. “Congress should not be in the business of voluntarily giving al-Qaeda or any of our adversaries our playbook.”

Mark then asked, “What the hell does Barney Frank know about interrogating somebody?”

As noted, the House vote was 222 to 199, with five Republicans, Roscoe Barlett (R-MD, 6th), Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD, 1st), Timothy Johnson (R-IL, 15th), Walter Jones (R-NC, 3rd), and Chris Smith (R-NJ, 4th), joining 217 Democrats to approve the measure.

Yet I wondered why this group of very liberal Democrats voted against the bill:

Danny Davis (D-IL, 7th), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH, 10th), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX, 18th), John Lewis (D-GA, 5th), Jim Marshall (D-GA, 8th), David Scott (D-GA, 13th), Jose Serrano (D-NY, 16th), Pete Stark (D-CA, 13th), Maxine Waters (D-CA, 35th), and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA, 6th), opposed the bill.

In the Congressional Record, I discovered that the Senate-House conference removed Representative Sheila Jackson Lee’s amendment that would, “require a report to House and Senate Intelligence committees describing any authorization granted during the past 10 years to engage in intelligence activities related to the overthrow of a democratically elected government.”

In addition, the conferees dropped a House provision that would have made the, “Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance may be conducted to gather foreign intelligence information.”

In other words, H.R. 2082 (the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2008) did not undermine our national security enough. Those ten Democrats wanted to legislate the revealing of our nation’s secrets and to leave it solely up to un-elected judges to decide when to electronically spy on the enemy.

interrogation videotapes, Lawfare, Political wind, War on Terror, waterboarding

Congress was briefed in 2002 about detainee interrogations

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One year later, just as the repairs to the once burning Pentagon were completed, the CIA briefed Members of Congress about detainee interrogations and detention sites.

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current 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.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

Last night, talk radio host Mark Levin pointed out the hypocrites and wants to know who knew what when:

And thanks to Sweetness & Light, we heard about perhaps the biggest hypocrite of them all in this interrogation tapes “scandal.”

“But I’d have to see what we’re talking about here, because this is — all I know is what I’ve read in the New York Times.”

Speaker Pelosi ought to tune in on her radio, at 6 PM Eastern, Monday through Friday, so she can learn more to claim ignorance about afterwards.