Anyone who claims Obama called the torturers "patriots"...

[bigtree]

322. this is a bullshit, kneejerk defense of Obama demeaning folks for comprehending English

Pres. Obama included the line about 'patriots' in the same paragraph expressing 'understanding' about why it happened. It may well have been inartful to include the remark in that paragraph, but, with all of the political-speak from those we elect to tell the truth, and a clear history of politicians, including Obama, parsing language to cover their asses, no one out here in the discerning public should be faulted for interpreting his remarks as an excuse for torturing.

He expressed in the same paragraph how 'afraid' people were; how 'people did not know whether more attacks were imminent;' how 'there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this.' All of those can be fairly read and interpreted as justification for the actions.

However...politicians aren't always perfect orators. In the same statement, Pres. Obama went to unprecedented lengths (for an official of his stature) to call the practices what they were: 'tortures.' He'd said this before, and he has been clear that he finds some of the practices revealed objectionable and against our values or national interest.

What's not acknowledged, though, by this opportunistic and subjective attack on those who read into his remarks and concluded he was trying to have it both ways - objecting to tortures and excusing the past administration for ordering and participating in them - is that there was, at the time, no real accounting by the government of these practices; not from the White House or from Congress. Anyone looking on should be excused for being skeptical of any comment appearing to dismiss the responsibility, complicity, or criminal culpability of the past administration.

Indeed, for anyone who has bothered to remain informed, the Obama administration has resisted the disclosures since 2009 in an attempt to obscure the justifications and assumed authority the Bush administration used to authorize the practices.

from Marcy Wheeler (Some Torture Facts):

(12) Obama’s role in covering up the Bush White House’s role in torture has received far too little attention. But Obama’s White House actually successfully intervened to reverse Judge Alvin Hellerstein’s attempt to release to ACLU a short phrase making it clear torture was done pursuant to a Presidential Finding. So while Obama was happy to have CIA’s role in torture exposed, he went to great lengths, both with that FOIA, with criminal discovery, and with the Torture Report, to hide how deeply implicated the Office of the President was in torture.

This White House appears to be holding onto many of the more egregious of abuses that we’re decrying about the last one; notably, the continued renditions; the continued use of other nations to carry out acts on behalf of our nation in the name of ‘national security’ which our own country has either outlawed or has determined objectionable conduct; detentions interrogations on vessels in international waters and other 'black sites'.

The very same strategy for authorization of military and intelligence activity against targets believed associated with al-Qaeda which was engineered by George Tenet, Cofer Black, and Dick Cheney, has been used by President Obama to justify his ordering of drone strikes and renditions. They have a definite basis in the 2001 AUMF, as admitted by Obama's CIA chief nominee Brennan in his 2013 hearing, but the assumed authority is based in memorandums of understanding which are used as 'notifications' of Congress for blanket authority to conduct operations - operations like the drone strikes which increased under the Obama administration.


from Marcy Wheeler: 'White House Has Been Covering Up the Presidency’s Role in Torture for Years'

As other documents and reporting have made clear, the source of authority was a September 17, 2001 Presidential declaration authorizing not just detention and interrogation, but a range of other counterterrorism activities, including targeted killings.

Both former CIA Director Michael Hayden and former CIA Acting General Counsel John Rizzo have made clear that the torture program began as a covert operation. “A few days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush signed a top-secret directive to CIA authorizing an unprecedented array of covert actions against Al Qaeda and its leadership.” Rizzo explained in 2011. One of those actions, Rizzo went on, was “the capture, incommunicado detention and aggressive interrogation of senior Al Qaeda operatives.”

As Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, noted in 2009 – shortly after Hayden revealed that torture started as a covert operation – this means there should be a paper trail implicating President Bush in the torture program. “There should be a Presidential ‘finding’ authorizing the program,” he said, “and such a finding should have been provided to Congressional overseers.”

...there is evidence that those Congressional overseers were never told that the finding the president signed on September 17, 2001 authorized torture. For example, a letter from then ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman, to the CIA’s General Counsel following her first briefing on torture asked: “Have enhanced techniques been authorized and approved by the President?” The CIA’s response at the time was simply that “policy as well as legal matters have been addressed within the Executive Branch.”

Nevertheless, the finding does exist. The CIA even disclosed its existence in response to the ACLU FOIA, describing it as “a 14-page memorandum dated 17 September 2001 from President Bush to the Director of the CIA pertaining to the CIA’s authorization to detain terrorists.” In an order in the ACLU suit, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein confirmed that the declaration was “intertwined with” the administration’s effort to keep the language in the Tenet document hidden. When the Obama administration succeeded in keeping that short phrase secret, all effort to release the declaration also ended...

What’s not understandable is why President Obama sees a need to cover for the previous administration – not unless you consider that his own might well have engaged in some of the same abuses. Despite all of the talk from Obama about his own torture reforms and remedies there are reports that torture has continued with significant loopholes in his executive order outlawing some of the objectionable practices. Indeed, many torturous actions by the military, such as 'force-feeding' of prisoners at GITMO and sleep-deprivation practices are not subjects of his executive order and are actively being appealed in court.

Moreover, notwithstanding an act by Congress in revising existing legislation or passing new legislation specifically outlawing the objectionable practices outlawed by President Obama’s executive order, those torture policies and practices remain up to the discretion of the person in the White House.

In 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder closed without charges the only two cases the Obama administration chose to investigate that involved Bush’s torture program. What Holder’s decision represented was the last word by the Obama administration on actually bringing accountability and consequence to the actions of the Bush-era torturers; a negligent act which many feel decriminalized the past practices.

It’s disturbing to hear President Obama actually offering his own justifications for torture practices and policies he’s already identified as far outside or constitution or our national conscience. It’s chilling to see that even a summary of that report – in effect, itself auguring an inadequate and incomplete accounting to the American people – is being redacted in such a ‘significant’ way by one of the partners to those abuses; now an integral partner to this President’s representation of the only significant and extensive official accounting of all of that.

However... President Obama did not make a similar statement in his response to the release of the torture report - perhaps well aware of the appearance or interpretation by some that he'd excused away the practices revealed in his earlier comments.

In this new statement, he makes clear that, notwithstanding the efforts he found necessary or prudent in the wake of the 9-11 attacks, and the 'patriots' who made those efforts, the tortures reported were 'contrary to our values,' 'troubling,' 'harsh,' and 'did significant damage to America’s standing in the world.'

Obama responds to the Senate report on the CIA:

Throughout our history, the United States of America has done more than any other nation to stand up for freedom, democracy, and the inherent dignity and human rights of people around the world. As Americans, we owe a profound debt of gratitude to our fellow citizens who serve to keep us safe, among them the dedicated men and women of our intelligence community, including the Central Intelligence Agency. Since the horrific attacks of 9/11, these public servants have worked tirelessly to devastate core al Qaeda, deliver justice to Osama bin Laden, disrupt terrorist operations and thwart terrorist attacks. Solemn rows of stars on the Memorial Wall at the CIA honor those who have given their lives to protect ours. Our intelligence professionals are patriots, and we are safer because of their heroic service and sacrifices.

In the years after 9/11, with legitimate fears of further attacks and with the responsibility to prevent more catastrophic loss of life, the previous administration faced agonizing choices about how to pursue al Qaeda and prevent additional terrorist attacks against our country. As I have said before, our nation did many things right in those difficult years. At the same time, some of the actions that were taken were contrary to our values. That is why I unequivocally banned torture when I took office, because one of our most effective tools in fighting terrorism and keeping Americans safe is staying true to our ideals at home and abroad.

Today’s report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence details one element of our nation’s response to 9/11—the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, which I formally ended on one of my first days in office. The report documents a troubling program involving enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects in secret facilities outside the United States, and it reinforces my long-held view that these harsh methods were not only inconsistent with our values as nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests. Moreover, these techniques did significant damage to America’s standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies and partners. That is why I will continue to use my authority as President to make sure we never resort to those methods again.

As Commander in Chief, I have no greater responsibility than the safety and security of the American people. We will therefore continue to be relentless in our fight against al Qaeda, its affiliates and other violent extremists. We will rely on all elements of our national power, including the power and example of our founding ideals. That is why I have consistently supported the declassification of today’s report. No nation is perfect. But one of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and do better. Rather than another reason to refight old arguments, I hope that today’s report can help us leave these techniques where they belong—in the past. Today is also a reminder that upholding the values we profess doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us stronger and that the United States of America will remain the greatest force for freedom and human dignity that the world has ever known.

That's not nearly as critical as I would be in describing the horrendous and barbaric practices described in the summary released of the Senate report, but it's also does not contain any hint of support for those who carried those practices out. That's a small concession, I think, to those who view his earlier remarks as an excuse; and, perhaps, a position which will enable him to support actions by the legislature to actually outlaw those practices beyond his ephemeral and incomplete executive order.


related:

Remi Brulin ‏@RBrulin 2h2 hours ago
The memo that gave Bush "plausible deniability" re: torture gives it to Obama re: drones http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/12/12/from-bush-to-obama-eyes-wide-shut-torture-drones/ … by @emptywheel