Political wind

Political wind, War on Terror

Code Pink to take aim at Democrats in 2008

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The Washington Times reports Code Pink will target Democrats in the 2008 elections they disagree with:

Medea Benjamin, founder of antiwar activist group Code Pink, addresses what kind of a regime change in Congress the group would like to see. Watch more clips of the meeting at the TWT Photo Report gallery. Ms. Benjamin, Code Pink co-founder Gael Murphy and retired Army Col. Ann Wright, an activist with the group, also participated in demonstrations during yesterday’s Senate hearing about the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base’s detention camp for terrorism suspects. “We are disgusted with all of them,” Ms. Benjamin said of the Democrat-led Congress. “We were in Congress today saying, ‘Close Gitmo,’ and I changed my sign to say, ‘Close Congress.’ “

“We felt betrayed by the very people we helped to put into office,” Ms. Benjamin told editors and reporters at The Washington Times. “We have a particular break with the leadership of the Democratic Party.”

The group also plans to take an active role in the presidential race, likely backing Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois or former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, both Democrats.

Code Pink activists have voiced dissatisfaction with Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and targeted her with demonstrations. Ms. Benjamin credited her group with influencing Mrs. Clinton’s opposition to the Iraq war and to possible military action against Iran.

…

The group has long criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and other Democrats, including at least a dozen freshmen elected last year on antiwar platforms, for caving in to President Bush and approving $120 billion in war funds this year without a timetable for a U.S. troop-withdrawal from Iraq. But in a shift of strategy, Code Pink plans to rally its 180,000 members nationwide to make the war a campaign issue and challenge Democratic leaders, who Ms. Benjamin said lack the “fighting spirit” to stop the war.

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.