"Speaker's Comments Raise Detainee Debate to New Level&

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Washington now is engaged in a battle royal of finger-pointing, second-guessing and self-defense, all over techniques President Obama banned in the first days of his administration. Both sides in this debate believe they have something to prove -- and gain -- by keeping the fight alive.

Both sides have champions and villains. Pelosi has become a lightning rod for criticism from conservatives, and a hero to the left, much as former vice president Richard B. Cheney has become a target of the left and the darling of many on the right.

The speaker's charges about the CIA's alleged deception and her shifting accounts of what she knew and when she knew it are likely to add to calls for some kind of independent body to investigate this supercharged issue, though Obama and many members of Congress would like to avoid a wholesale unearthing of the past at a time when their plates are full with pressing concerns.

Closing the books on the George W. Bush years has proven harder than anyone imagined -- certainly harder than Obama hoped. The intensifying argument over what the CIA told Pelosi and when comes on top of the debate over whether any Bush administration officials should face legal action for their roles in authorizing or implementing the interrogation policies and whether a national commission is needed to get to the truth.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... v=hcmodule

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Dick Cheney has done many dastardly things. But presiding over policies so saturnine that they ended up putting the liberal speaker from San Francisco on the hot seat about torture may be one of his proudest achievements.

Nancy Pelosi’s bad week of blithering responses about why she did nothing after being briefed on torture has given Republicans one of their happiest — and harpy-est — weeks in a long time. They relished casting Pelosi as contemptible for not fighting harder to stop their contemptible depredations against the Constitution. That’s Cheneyesque chutzpah.

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In The Washington Note, a political and foreign policy blog, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff at State, wrote that the “harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 ... was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and Al Qaeda.”

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

I used to agree with President Obama, that it was better to keep moving and focus on our myriad problems than wallow in the darkness of the past. But now I want a full accounting. I want to know every awful act committed in the name of self-defense and patriotism. Even if it only makes one ambitious congresswoman pay more attention in some future briefing about some future secret technique that is “uniquely” designed to protect us, it will be worth it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opini ... l?_r=1&hpw

[Arcadia]

Yesterday there was an article in pagina/12 about it. Maybe it´s interesting for you too:

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmun ... 05-17.html

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I got the google translation here

It gets surreal at certain points, no idea what "trout" has to do with anything.

But you are right I did find it interesting.

Obama is going to make it his war and he is determined to win it.

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Letters to The NY Times
Shinning a Bright Light on Torture

To the Editor:

It is incredible that our elected officials in Washington are wasting our time on “who was told about the details of torture and when were they told.” If we want to know about how our country tortured and who authorized it, it is time to appoint a 9/11-type commission to get at the facts, so torture will never be used again.

I know a bit about this: my son was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11, and I’m certain that we were smart enough at the time to determine who did it without resorting to torture.

If a commission is appointed, I’m volunteering; I’m an ordinary citizen who is not a lawyer but who has broad experience as an involved American.

Let’s get past the current smokescreens and on to matters that can help all Americans and improve their lives. We are tired of the politics and want progress!

Thomas Murphy
Venice, Fla., May 19, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/opini ... l?_r=1&hpw