Ask Members Of Congress If They Back FULL Torture Accounting, People!
Will members of Congress who are demanding the release of this or that classified data be pressed to answer whether they support a full and complete accounting of the torture program?
That’s the question, now that Nancy Pelosi has just accused the CIA of misleading Congress and Republicans have ratcheted up their calls for a release of notes and memos from the CIA torture briefings.
At a press conference following Pelosi’s, House GOP John Boehner was asked whether he thinks it’s a good idea to release those CIA notes. He answered in the affirmative.
But asking whether members of Congress just support the release of those particular docs is too narrow a question. The follow-up is obvious, though it wasn’t asked. If he supports the release of certain data on what Dems knew and when, will he also support some sort of full accounting?
If the answer is No, then the Republican position remains that we should only be releasing classified data that can help the GOP’s political cause.
By the way, this is a question for some rank and file conservative Dems, too. As Josh Marshall notes, today is something of a turning point in the torture debate, with the pressure for a full accounting likely to grow so large that this is taking on a life of its own — and some Dems are still resisting.
Asking half-baked questions like the ones directed at Boehner today just won’t do it anymore. The question for members of Congress is whether they’ll support the big kahuna.
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Game. Set. and if the media does their job, Match.
that’s what I’m sayin’, SG. Big If tho.
Greg
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I was leaning that way too after they barely covered Soufan’s testimony but Pelosi has set off the alarm bells now. Nora O’Donnell is just shocked and (gasp) dismayed that Pelosi would say the CIA lied to her. I think Pelosi came at this in such a way that it almost demands an investigation now. Hell even Chuck Grassley was just on all but calling for an investigation because in his words the American people have to have faith in the CIA. I really don’t think the Republicans are even recognizing that they are helping to drive the push for investigations so for the next day or so they will probably continue to help the story have legs. And even in a backhanded way, the denial of Cheney to have his reports declassified also adds to that clarion call of a full investigation. Now the FoxNews crowd will be pulling their hair out saying President Obama doesn’t want people to know the truth as told by Dick Cheney. What’s the normal way to find the truth? Investigate.
Waiting to have the man in the white coat drag Pelosi off to her new home “The Nut House”
Ann Keegan
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Wait, I think you mistake Pelosi for Michele Bachmann.
Greg
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Check the video of Boehner’s presser. Tell me he isn’t all but calling for an investigation.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWkGQuKceNk
Would some smart fellow please ’splain to anyone reading why Pelosi kept quiet about these ‘lies’ for four years? She has no credibility.
sbj
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Its called classified information.
???
“Its called classified information.”
Yep.
And furthermore, how, sbj, did she know they were lies in 2002, when she was briefed?
sbj – you’re concentrating on the wrong link in this chain. Pelosi had nothing to do with torturing anyone. She was briefed by the CIA and apparently not told everything. When she found out she hadn’t been told everything was when everyone knew what was going on. By then what difference would it have made? Until she was asked, it didn’t really need to be discussed. I think most of them take the notion of classified information very seriously.
Be all of that as it may – why didn’t the people who were in on the decision-making come clean – specifically, Colin Powell, who knew as a fact when he resigned that: A. he’d been lied to and had lied to the UN in turn; B. the intel he had used in front of the UN came from torture, in large part; C. that Bush, Cheney and Rice were making these decisions on a case by case, waterboarding by waterboarding, basis. He knew and said NOTHING!
Who cares what Pelosi knew?
“Who cares what Pelosi knew?”
The people who think that we engaged in torture and think we should prosecute those who engaged in a conspiracy to torture should care. You, Tena, should care, because Pelosi may be guilty of conspiracy under the torture statute.
“American law regards conspiracy to commit torture . . . as actual torture. . . How do you get off the hook by saying you only knew about a plan to torture but not actual torture? . . . Pelosi knew the CIA was planning to use waterboarding and later learned it was actually being done . . . As Pelosi herself tells it, she was aware of a conspiracy to torture — which is just as significant under the law as torture itself — and she did nothing about it.”
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWQzYjlhZTBmYjI2OGUxNzE4YmRlMzE0YWUxZWYyOTQ=
“You, Tena, should care, because Pelosi may be guilty of conspiracy under the torture statute. ”
Why are you so hot for Pelosi? What about Colin Powell?
Powell was actually present at the torture meetings. Why aren’t you all over his participation? Why just Pelosi?
I don’t believe I have ever seen those words written before: “Why are you so hot for Pelosi?” Very jarring, that.
Now calm down or I shall begin replying in ALL CAPS to express my opinions with greater force! Tena, I don’t think we tortured, so I don’t care what Colin thought/thinks (he is dead to me now anyway as he supported a Dem for President [disclaimer: although I still DEEPLY respect his service to our country]).
You, OTOH, do think we tortured and therefore, you should care about those who participated in a conspiracy to torture.
The Republicans now have their own Cheney, so to speak – thank you Ms. Pelosi. Note well this day, the day the Republicans began their long and slow slog back to legitimacy.