Cover Up For God And Country

[kpete]

Cover Up For God And Country

by digby

Can someone tell me what kind of arrogance would lead someone to write a letter like this http://politics.theatlantic.com/Letter%20to%20President%20Obama%20from%20Former%20DCIs%20and%20DCIAs%20(2).pdf , and more importantly, why anyone would pay attention to it?

We respectfully urge you to exercise your authority to reverse Attorney General Holder’s August 24 decision to re-open the criminal investigation of CIA interrogations that took place following the attacks of September 11.

Uh, at least three of the people who signed this are implicated in the crime. How absurd it is that they are strutting around like some sort of heroes, when in fact they are publicly urging the president to engage in a cover-up from which they stand to benefit.

more:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/cover-up-for-god-and-country-by-digby.html

[polichick]

1. I guess murderers and rapists should just write in and ask for the...

...investigation to be dropped too.

[Solly Mack]

2. they're strutting around with the veil of authority because

America won't admit it committed war crimes & crimes against humanity.

America won't admit that it broke the law.

America uses phrases like "enhanced interrogation techniques" to describe torture.

America likes to pretend waterboarding isn't torture.

America likes to pretend there's confusion on what torture is and isn't.

America pretends you can commit war crimes in "good faith" by pretending a war crime isn't a war crime if lawyers that work for a war criminal says war crimes are legal.

America likes to pretend a crime isn't a crime if America does it and America likes to hide their crimes behind bullshit phrases.

America likes to wrap its war crimes in the flag and call it patriotic to torture people.


And that's why thugs implicated in war crimes can go around demanding that no one look into their crimes.

That's why they can go on TV and into universities to teach.

Because America likes to pretend it is something it isn't.

We see it in how people in government discuss the war crimes committed - the media as well & "respected" guest on TV

The language used to hide war crimes behind...the pretending...and the language used shows a concerted effort to mask the crimes. To make it easier for some to pretend torture isn't torture and war crimes aren't really war crimes.

[Overseas]

3. K&R. Dick Cheney opened the door with his pro-torture tour.

He tried, with his dour, imitate-Kissinger, low-as-possible voice, to imply that he was just serving his country and using the most effective tools to protect us against a superhuman enemy that didn't deserve the Geneva Conventions.

Cheney popped around on TV with his "I'm Your Serious Dad who really knows some scary stuff about the War on Terror" voice to pretend that there was an urgent need to cross the line into criminal activity to combat the super-duper-stronger-than-any-enemy-we've-ever-known Al Qaeda. (And doesn't that just make the enemy far grander than they were-- a few thousand madmen at the time.)

Cheney hopes people have forgotten the Nuremberg Trials. He hopes Americans don't know we executed some Japanese military for torturing with waterboarding.

They're hoping integrity and principles of justice matter far less to the Obama Administration than the potential for more professional bullying the Right could unleash in response to an honest prosecution of war crimes.

The torturers and those who wrote their orders, broke not only our own laws, but international laws we had agreed to abide by and conventions of military conduct we were formerly proud to uphold (for the most part). The torturers and their commanders also ignored what interrogation professionals advised were the most effective techniques for eliciting information, and hope we will forget about that too.

But the Right wing has been successful in getting the administration to back down a bit on some key liberal issues, so the torture-supporters thought they'd give intimidation a try once again.

[jwirr]

4. OR they are making a very public threat against the POTUS.

[gratuitous]

5. Baby Face Nelson: Don't investigate bank robberies

Ted Bundy: Is serial murder really such a big deal?

Yeah, this is a credible complaint to the AG's office.

[leftstreet]

6. K&R

[Mabus]

7. And because we don't know any more now then we did when the original investigation was done

:sarcasm: