Days after Taguba Reported Sadistic Criminal Abuse at Abu Ghraib, DOD Asked to Use More Torture

On March 13, 2004, according to the OPR Report, Jack Goldsmith and Patrick Philbin went to Jim Comey’s house on a Saturday to alert him of something. The military had contacted Goldsmith, wanting to use a more extreme form of torture against a detainee–something like isolation, waterboarding, water dousing, or death threats.* [Update: In this post I explain why I think DOD was requesting extended isolation.] But, as Goldsmith had told DOD General Counsel Jim Haynes the previous December, the March 2003 opinion Yoo wrote that authorized DOD’s use of such techniques was hopelessly flawed. Goldsmith wanted to explain the flaws of the memo to Comey to get his support for withdrawing the memo. Comey, who was then acting Attorney General (since John Ashcroft was in the ICU with pancreatitis), agreed with Goldsmith’s judgment and–the OPR Report explains–later got John Ashcroft to agree that “any problems with the analysis should be corrected.”

That meeting at Comey’s house took place just four days after Goldsmith and Comey refused to reauthorize the President’s illegal wiretapping program, just three days after Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card raced to the ICU to attempt to convince John Ashcroft to override Comey and reauthorize the program, just two days after Bush reauthorized the program without DOJ concurrence, and just one day after Comey, Goldsmith, and Philbin threatened to quit if Bush didn’t make certain changes to the wiretap program.

The meeting also took place just four days after General Antonio Taguba issued a report finding that “numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees” at Abu Ghraib. Significantly, two of the allegations made against Americans by detainees that Taguba found to be credible–threatening detainees with a loaded pistol and pouring cold water on them–were among the four restricted torture methods that Haynes asked Goldsmith for authorization to use. While it’s not clear how much Goldsmith knew of DOD’s simmering torture problems (in Terror Presidency he said he didn’t learn of Abu Ghraib until it broke in April 2004, though aspects of his book clearly gloss then-classified events), Jim Haynes must have known about them.

The OPR Report doesn’t tell us how this conflict worked out–whether, in response to Goldsmith’s objections, DOD backed off its plans to torture a detainee or whether the White House overruled Goldsmith (or whether, as happened with a number of detainees, they used the technique before they asked to use it).

But we do know this occurred at a point when the White House was rejecting DOJ criticism of its counterterrorism programs. On March 11, in the context of the illegal wiretap program, Alberto Gonzales told Goldsmith that the President “had made an interpretation of law concerning his authorities and that DOJ should not act in contradiction of the President’s determinations.” And on March 16, again in the context of the illegal wiretap program, Gonzales had said,

While the President was, and remains, interested in any thoughts the Department of Justice may have on alternative ways to achieve the goals of the activities authorized by the Presidential authorization of March 11, 2004, the President has addressed definitively for the Executive Branch in the Presidential authorization the interpretation of the law.

In other words, at precisely this moment, the White House was telling DOJ–and Goldsmith and Comey specifically–that what they thought about the law was interesting, but in no way binding on the President. Indeed, Gonzales was telling these two men they had best not act counter to the will of the White House.

I’ll explain more how I think this resolved in later posts. But for now, realize that one response DOD made to the Abu Ghraib scandal was to ask for more torture.


*There is some ambiguity in the unclassified OPR Report about what range of techniques DOD was trying to use. In a later post I’ll show why I think it was one of the latter three techniques listed here: waterboarding, water dousing, or death threats. [Note, I now think the request was for extended use of isolation, as I explain in this post.]

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43 replies
  1. eCAHNomics says:

    realize that one response DOD made to the Abu Ghraib scandal was to ask for more torture.

    If they did it one more time, and a little bit harder, surely it would work.

  2. nomolos says:

    President “had made an interpretation of law concerning his authorities and that DOJ should not act in contradiction of the President’s determinations.”

    Behold the Lord High Executioner!
    A personage of noble rank and title-
    A dignified and potent officer,
    Whose functions are particularly vital!
    Defer, defer, to the Lord High Executioner!
    Defer, defer,
    To the noble Lord, to the noble Lord,
    The Lord High Executioner!

  3. BoxTurtle says:

    What do you suppose might happen to me if I informed the local police and judges that while I found their opinions on the law interesting, they are in no way binding upon me and then acted upon it?

    I’m sure I’d just get a sternly worded letter.

    Boxturtle (Attached to a pair of handcuffs)

  4. scribe says:

    This makes clear that one of these two cannot be:

    Rumsfeld’s testimony to Congress was truthful;
    That an effective chain of command (as required by law) existed in the military.

    IF Rummy didn’t know what was going on, then he was being circumvented – illegally – by orders and reporting flowing around and not through him.

    If Rummy knew, then he lied to Congress.

      • scribe says:

        We all knew that then, but the problem was in proving by a means more definitive and objective beyond the lawyerly/good-observerly way of knowing, that he lied.

        • Mary says:

          If Congress had demanded the investigation that Taguba flat out told them, over and over, was needed – the investigation into MI and its authorizations/actions – then we would have had that evidence.

          Kind of interesting that no one in Congress ever pushed for Taguba to be authorized to go that next step.

          • DWBartoo says:

            Apparently, Mary, Congress views its priorities somewhat differently than you and I.

            Frankly I have yet to see the kind of interest that such goings on as have gone on, ought to be in evidence, creating.

            I know the lack of evidence is not evidence of lackadaisical vigor or determination … but I am beginning to wonder.

            And, what appears to have been a self-appointed agree-er with and spokesperson for Obama assured us, here, over the weekend, that Obama says that, “IF” investigations are warranted, that such investigations, then, must not have the taint of partisanship about them.

            I am so thrilled, and filled with hope that an honest accounting is soon to begin that my sanguine meter just pegged its needle. But wouldn’t ya know it the warranty just passed a statue of limitation on its way down the drain? The plumber says the main pipe from the sewer is broken and that things are going to stink a bit, but, as he said, with a wink, “You’ll have that …”.

            DW

          • bobschacht says:

            This has always bugged me. Another sign of the breakdown of our Constitutional balance of powers, as our feckless Congress rolls over once again.

            Bob in AZ

      • BoxTurtle says:

        I would point out that decision will be appealed. And the supremes will be extremely reluctant to allow a lawsuit such at this to proceed.

        You cannot sue an elected offical for carrying out his job. Like it or not, torture was part of the job if you worked for BushCo.

        I don’t agree that the above should apply here. Breaking the law and violating the constitution should not be part of the job. However, my bet is the above is enough to get 4 votes from the supremes and after Ginsberg’s ruling on Eminate Domain you have to wonder if she’d be the 5th vote.

        Boxturtle (So don’t get your hopes up)

    • BoxTurtle says:

      Of course he lied to congress. Congress knows it. ObamaCo knows it. The Red Cross knows it.

      Boxturtle (The only folks who don’t know it work for Fox)

      • Leen says:

        The CPT (Christian Peace Maker Team) knows it. Hell they started interviewing Abu Gharib released detainees and family members of detainees just a month after the invasion. They have many reports of abuse. They took their reports to U.S. officials (Bremer being one of them) and they were told to go away.

        Eyewitness: Taking detainee testimony in Iraq
        US-led international forces in Iraq are currently holding thousands of Iraqi people suspected of involvement in the violent campaign against the Iraqi government and the occupying forces.
        But some detainees complain of arbitrary detention and abusive treatment.

        Peggy Gish, 62, is an American woman who has spent 13 months over the past two years logging the cases of Iraqi detainees with the ecumenical humanitarian group Christian Peacemaker Teams.

        She told the BBC News website about her experiences.

        ——————————————————————————–
        We were not allowed to go into prisons, so our contact was with the families of detainees and freed detainees. We got very careful testimonies.
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4066835.stm

  5. TalkingStick says:

    It has now become unchallenged fact, except by left wing loonies like us, that the President has no restraints on his powers. He may do anything he wants to to so called enemies and his own people alike.

    It is clear that for our military and intelligence agencies torture is an inherent aspect of the treatment of those under their control.

    And on whole the American people think that is just fine.

    I have no solution. Who does?

  6. shootthatarrow says:

    The story above is now history. G.W.Bush and Richard B.Cheney both should be held in contempt and suffering very real politcal/legal jeopardy for what they did or failed at in upholding the oaths of office they gave.

    Today,March 8,2010, Barack Obama is POTUS. What has he done since taking his oath as POTUS? Lets hold him to the same standards as D Party hacks,palm greasers,the party faithful and the ObamaBots would have condemned G.W.Bush and Dick Cheney for the act of not looking back or doing what needed or needs to take place.

    Anyone smell the hypocrisy here?

    Barack Obama is POTUS now. Make him look back. Or suffer for not doing so.

    Who is the torture enabler now? Who is the war crimes coverup principle now?

  7. Leen says:

    And the only people serving time for the torture are the flunkies.

    http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2004/05/12/who-is-john-israel/

    So they blithered, and they blathered, and struck poses, and not until it came Senator Daniel K. Akaka’s turn was any further light shed on the dark corners of this investigation. The Hawaii Democrat looked affable enough, and he was smiling, but his questions, when they came, cut straight to the heart of the matter:

    SENATOR AKAKA: “General Taguba, in your report you reference the lack of supervision over U.S. civilian contractor personnel, third country nationals and local contractors within the detention facility at Abu Ghraib. During your investigation, did you determine how many civilian contract personnel were working there? Who supervised these individuals? And can you describe what you observed in terms of type of access these individuals had to the detainee areas?”

    GEN. TAGUBA: “Sir, we did not make a determination of how many civilian contractors were assigned to the 205th MI Brigade and operating at Abu Ghraib. I personally interviewed a translator and I also personally interviewed an interrogator, both civilians, contractors. There was also a statement, and substantiated by the witnesses that we interviewed, of another translator, a third-country national in fact, that was involved. And there was another third- country national who was acting as a translator for the interrogators that was involved in one of the interrogation incidents where dogs were used. Their supervision, sir, from the best that we could determine or discern from the information that we gathered, was they were under the supervision of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, the JIDC, who is then under the supervision of one, a lieutenant colonel, who was also supervised by the brigade commander, the MI brigade commander. That was the chain, sir.”

    Third country nationals, eh? So what third country are we talking about? Britain? Canada, perhaps? I guess we can probably rule out Monaco.

    The only translator identified in the Taguba report is John Israel, supposedly a “contract translator” employed by the Titan Corp. Mr. Israel is furthermore described as not having a security clearance, an unusual condition for someone in his position – unless, of course, he’s not an American, in which case it would be perfectly understandable.”

    —————————————————-
    Torture, Incorporated
    Oliver North Joins the Party

    By JOHN STANTON and WAYNE MADSEN

    The U.S. Army has employed as many as 27 contractors to run its interrogation operations, according to media reports. But while CACI and Titan are getting all the mainstream media play, it appears that far more than 27 contract employees were involved in recruiting and placing interrogators in various locations. Some of the firms involved in the Bush administration’s “TortureGate” include an odd assortment of telecommunications companies and executive placement firms that have jumped into the lucrative torture business in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Iraq and at secret locations throughout Central Asia and North Africa.

    Interrogators can earn up to $120,000 per year plying their trade and most are former military and law enforcement personnel. More ominously, these so-called “private military contractors” are nothing of the sort. They are paramilitary organizations that are funded by the US Department of
    Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State, and assorted other agencies through contract vehicles known as Basic Ordering Agreements or “BOAs” hidden throughout the vast US government bureaucracy. It now is well known that CACI got its money through a BOA with the Department of the Interior.

    http://www.counterpunch.org/stanton06142004.html

  8. DWBartoo says:

    ‘…the President “had made an interpretation of law concerning his authorities and that DOJ should not act in contradiction of the President’s determinations.”‘

    Presumably these “determinations” were regarding what is now, in some circles, considered to be … torture?

    No doubt Gonzales presented this statement to Goldsmith and Comey with a straight face, and the three of them must, each, have understood that this apparently “standard procedure” of determination is a common, everyday thing that a President does … but of course, each must have known, on some level, and clearly at that, that there was nothing “ordinary” about the subject of the determination. One would hope so, at least. One can only hope that it has not, subsequently, become either ordinary or common.

    Given the extraordinary nature of the determination, it is difficult to imagine that the President and his able minions did not believe that they had the tacit approval of both Congress and the Court, going “forward”.

    In a very real sense, such a determination, made by the Executive alone, and without some consultation with the other two branches, actually goes some way in abrogating certain of the proper functions of those two other, co-equal branches.

    If nothing else, going ahead without consultation could prove embarrassing at some point, and place an unnecessary strain on the deference so useful to keeping the ship of state on the course chosen by the Captain and his chief officers.

    Such determinations as this was, cannot be expected by anyone to remain hidden or secret or unnoticed. Even hopey-changey guys and gals, cannot believe it worthwhile to pretend that nothing is going on and merely hope that none of the evidence will seep out.

    So, if Congress and the Court did not somehow know anything about the determination, back then, by now, they must certainly have heard of it.

    The behavior of Congress, thus far, suggests that many members are viewing retirement, so that they might spend more time with whomever, as a good idea, and such members as are questioning the “determinations”, in the appropriate Committees and so on, of course, are doubtless producing strongly worded letters …

    And the Court can do nothing until someone with the proper “standing” might bring them “something appropriate” of “interest”.

    In the meantime, the “standards” that White House attorneys who fashion such “determinations” are, apparently to hew to, are so low that it would require extensive excavation, several thousands of feet, even in Death Valley, to locate them.

    Officially, today, the awesomely powerful United States of America, has found that “only a few bad apples were involved.”

    What might we imagine that the US will find tomorrow?

    That they need even more of that good stuff?

    All they need do, it would seem, is ask.

    DW

  9. Leen says:

    Stephen Cambone “Soften them up”
    http://www.democracynow.org/2007/6/19/seymour_hersh_reveals_rumsfeld_misled_congress

    Seymour Hersh Reveals Rumsfeld Misled Congress over Abu Ghraib; How Gen. Taguba was Forced to Retire over his Critical Abu Ghraib Report; and the Site of Another Secret U.S. Prison (Mauritania)
    Hersh-6-19-07

    Over three years ago, Seymour Hersh exposed the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib in an article largely based on a leaked report by Major General Antonio Taguba. Now Taguba has spoken to Hersh in his first interview since being forced to retire. Taguba reveals that he was blocked from investigating who ordered the abuse at Abu Ghraib and how more pictures and video exist showing the torture. [includes rush transcript]

    “soften them up”
    http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444

    What did warmongers learn from Vietnam? Don’t count the dead of the Iraqi people and DO NOT SHOW THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THE PICTURES.

  10. oldhippiejan says:

    The first thing that popped into my mind when I saw this, was Nancy Pelosi insisting that impeachment was off the table. It seems as tho Ms Pelosi knew that torture and wire tapping would become staples of our domestic and foreign policy and would continue under a possible democratic president.

  11. Mary says:

    Great post.

    This is during the time frame when there were driblets coming out about some possible detainee issues – about how Bush was handling the GWOT – but with no release of the pictures, no one was paying much attention.

    One of the points that gets lost a lot (not here, but in general) about the Taguba Report is, just like the OPR and other reports, the Bush-Torturers (as opposed to our new wave) successfully used used limitation of scope to shut down the worst aspects. Taguba was not allowed to investigate or report on anything involving the Military Intelligence guys – only the MPs.

    Concurrent with the Taguba investigation there was a prosecutorial investigation (again, limited to MPs – despite DOJ’s knowledge of and involvement in the MI abuse of detainees) going on and just a few days after the events in this post, Abu Ghraib soldiers were charged – and those charges were pretty much ignored by the nation at the time.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/21/international/middleeast/21IRAQ.html

    The American military brought charges on Saturday of assault, cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment of detainees against six soldiers in connection with alleged abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

    Eleven other soldiers remain suspended from duty while the investigation continues into possible mistreatment of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad.

    It was the April 60 minutes, with the pictures, that changed the game, though, not this earlier announcment of charges being tendered.

    Until that point, what Haynes et al were doing was to successfully shut down Taguba vis a vis anyone who could walk their abuse up the chain command and even shut down the investigation vis a vis what MI (and contractors) were *authorizing* Concurrent with the Taguba report (excluding MI) there was a criminal investigation by the army (also excluding MI) that was being handled in such a way as to keep any public interest at a minimum.

    Right after the Taguba report (where he was encouraging MI investigation) and just before the charges against the MPs were released on March 21 and while all of the abuse was being successfully kept under the radar with rolling disclosures and no pictorals, Haynes was going to Goldsmith and Comey et al to *back up authorize* more MI tactics. And when charges against the MPs were released on March 21, everyone at DOJ who was up to their neck in torture sat mum. No one was pushing for investigations of MI, no one was sending out litigation holds re: torture authorizations from DOJ and DOJ torture involvement, no one was advising their torture clients at the WH and DoD to not destroy evidence, etc. IMO, the response of DOJ and all its torture lawyers to the Abu Ghraib charges is of equal interest to their new found disgust for Yoo’s old memo and yet their desire to ‘fix it’ by tapping on mo betta analysis.

    No lit holds, no advice to clients at DoD and WH not to destroy evidence, etc. – just scrambling to fix the old memos and grin while MPs get scapegoated while torture lawyers end up at Pepsico, Lockheed, Harvard, Yale, etc.

    It also gets lost a bit (again, not here) that when DOJ was refusing to give Haynes his additional authorizations we were in an election year. So with Taguba’s report pushing hard for a MI investigation (that would track back to DOJ as well as to Rumsfeld – and it’s something that Obama has refused to do, preferring to protect the chain of command for special forces and MI rather than extend his hand to someone who destroyed their career to do the right thing) and the possiblity of a new President who might authorize that MI investigation – that’s the context for DOJ’s sudden caution imo, fwiw.

    ACLU has it’s FOIA requests out, but it’s not until after the election, in December of 2004, that there’s a release of this:

    http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/FBI.121504.4940_4941.pdf

    which refers to the Executive Order by the President authorizing Abu Ghraib style torture, that the email sender was careful to always refer to as NOT Abu Ghraib type abuse, since, after all, the sleep deprivation and shackling etc was,after all, all authorized by an EO and therefore “lawful.” So while musing about just what it is that the sender and his crew are supposed to do re: an instruction in May, 2004 to them to report all abuse that they saw, he goes on:

    We assume that the OGC instruction does not include the reporting of these authorized [by Presidential Execustive Order] techniques and that the use of these techniques does not constitute “abuse.”

    So one thing to keep in mind for all these investigations is that a lot of people in the field were being told that, “it’s not abuse if the President said to do it.”

    • fatster says:

      ” . . . a lot of people in the field were being told that, “it’s not abuse if the President said to do it.”’

      And much effort has been made ever since to drill that little incantation into the consciousness of ‘Murkins everywhere.

  12. fatster says:

    Gem of a post, EW. They are above the law, way up there cruising around in the clouds, laughing and dumping on us who are controlled by the laws they make and impose.

    Meanwhile, they are keeping busy::

    GOP senator urges Obama to shift on terror trials

    Graham says he’ll press his GOP colleagues to back Guantanamo closing if Obama backs tribunals
    Link.

    Administration official: Obama wants a former Army senior intelligence officer to lead TSA
    “[Gen. Robert] Harding served in the Army for 33 years and retired in 2001. He has been the Defense Department’s top human intelligence officer and managed a $1 billion intelligence collection program. Between 2003 and 2009, Harding was a government consultant on human intelligence and counterintelligence issues. He sold his company in 2009, according to the administration official.”
    Link.

    • Mary says:

      See -that’s the change Obama promised. We’ve traded in President Bush for President Graham.

      Oh – and we’re going to close GITMO and do what with those commissions Graham’s going to get out it? I guess no one really considered the change platfrom plank of Closing GITMO to mean – by shipping its inhabitants somewhere blacker. How many guesses on Graham et al knowing that they damn well NEED to close GITMO to hold those commissions, since Rashul puts GITMO under the court’s authority. So Graham’s only going to push on the huge ol “concession” to *Democrats who mollycoddle terrorists* in order to get what he actually needs – escape from a jurisdiction that the Sup Ct has ruled is within the Federal Courts’ powers.

  13. klynn says:

    Thanks for this incredible post EW.

    You have me thinking Haynes is responsible for the missing docs.

    • emptywheel says:

      I actually don’t think he is. He had no means, to begin with. But I also think he was trying to reel them in. Keep in mind that that July 26 JPRA packet must have exactly resembled what he wanted. And it included the document that said it was torture.

  14. Gitcheegumee says:

    One of the best,imho.Thank you for this thread.

    I was noodling around and found THIS for March 9 and March 11,2004

    Context of ‘March 9, 2004: Cheney Blocks Promotion of Justice …It contains events related to the event March 9, 2004: Cheney Blocks Promotion of Philbin…… [US Department of Justice, 8/14/2007] Cheney or Bush Behind Visit? …
    http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=civilliberties_139 – Cached

    Also, the cell activated Madrid Bombings that killed almost 200 people,were on March 11,2004.According to this HC link-the same day Bush goes on to recertify the program without approval of the Justice Department.

    • emptywheel says:

      Yes, and it’s possible they wanted to torture someone bc they thought he might have news of the Madrid bombing. Except that Bush’s allies tried to pretend it was ETA for a while so as not to have to pay for supporting Bush’s war.

  15. fatster says:

    U.S. officials looking for way to send Khadr back to Canada: source 
    But Ottawa must ask for him first

    Link.

    • emptywheel says:

      Maybe our resident Canucks can help here, but didn’t we just miss this boat? Didn’t a Canadian court just rule against demanding Khadr back?

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        The Canadian Supreme Court ruled in January that Khadr could not force the Canadian government to demand that the US release him, overturning two lower court decisions to the contrary. It did find that both the US and Canadian governments had violated his rights, but that the executive branch, not the judicial, had the authority (and discretion) to made such a demand of a foreign government. See here and here.

        The Omar Khadr Project has its own website. Amnesty International, too, has a dedicated site for Omar Khadr.

        A blog comment Toronto’s Globe and Mail on Monday by the former chief of staff to a Harper predecessor, a former prosecutor and academic lawyer, called on Harper’s government to demand his return. I think Harper is doing a Bush and hoping that this problem, too, will just go away.

    • Mary says:

      And poor Ottawa – apparently the Obama approach to these guys is to ship them somewhere, then assassinate by bombing – all of which is legal bc the world is a battlefield.

      Golly – who isn’t chomping at the bit to take people that Obama has argued he or any successor President can bomb with impunity in civilian areas in countries with which we are not at war. Hard to imagine any problem witht that..

      BTW – I thoughtthe info on the pending miltiary investigations was interesting in part bc of the email from now-Ford counsel David Leitch to Goldsmith. Leitch was mocking an anonymous lawyer who actually thought torture was wrong (instead of just a way of being Ford tough) and that lawyer indicates that Goldsmith had been involved in the working group, if not a named appointment. I’ve wondered about Goldsmith’s involvement in the DoD working group during his time serving as Haynes’ “special” law pal. It would be really tough, as the Abu Grhaib pics were coming out, to be both the guy who helped work on the MI torture early on and then the guy who signs off on mo betta torture when criminal investigations are underway and you might have a President or a Congress that hauls you in.

  16. DWBartoo says:

    The other night, I had what I guess was a dream.

    I found myself, as one does in a dream, without knowing how, or what had preceded my discovery of myself, in a vast room, or something, full of statues. Each of these statues had the word, LIMITATION, carved, as a legend, on their bases.

    So, finding myself in such company, and not wishing to appear impolite, but also not too nosy, I asked, “Excuse me, what are you all doing here?” the answer was, “We are expired”. To which I responded, “But you all look so new, so clean, like you, forgive me for saying this, but, well, frankly it looks to me as if you never did anything.” One rather sniffishyly said, “Well! We are not supposed to do anything, but we ARE supposed to look good. Tell me, am I still beautiful? There aren’t any mirrors here and, just between you and I (she whispered), the rest of these statues all look the same to me.” Another statue must have heard what she said because he said, “We are all unique, in term of philosophical deontology, and it matters not a whit if we saw what some here brag of as ‘action’ or not, for our purpose is much higher and closer to the sublime, we serve as gatekeepers for boundaries that should never be crossed.”

    I left them squabbling about their worth and their function, happy that I had met such mythical beasts even at all. Unlike unicorns, those statues most certainly exist. I was simply confused about whether it was ever intended, once upon a time, that they should actually do anything …

    And then I woke up, wondering why I was awake, and determined that while I wasn’t certain what was the cause, I should probably get up and go, there being limitations, on some things, after all.

    DW

  17. Mary says:

    Related –
    Apparently a bunch of terrorists hiding among civilian provoked a bombing and sure, civilians including women and children were hurt, but it’s all the terrorist’s fault.

    Or not so much.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100308/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

    Lahore, Pakistan interrogation center (using only USDOJ approved interrogation procedures) in residential area bombed by suicide bomber. 13 killed, civilian taking children to school injured.

    Pakistanis living near the building had filed complaints urging authorities to move the unmarked interrogation facility out of the residential area so the street wouldn’t become a target for an attack

    Apparently the up side is that they are all going to get Condi Rice t-shirts imprinted with, “who could have imagined?” bitter s/

    Prayers for the dead, the dying and the wounded.

    Meanwhile:

    The U.S. … is also suspected of pummeling militants in the tribal areas with dozens of drone missile strikes, including one Monday that killed three people, said Pakistani intelligence officials.

  18. alinaustex says:

    So if it can be sufficiently” suggested” ( ie recent Hersh article on General Tagube ) that Cambone ordered destruction of Abu Gharib torture media -or may at least have knowledge of that destruction would that not mean that the Durham grand jury should want to talk to Cambone ?

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