The Artifices of Designing Men

 Children in costumes w/flags at Jones Park, 1918 - George Eastman Hse. Collection

I had no blog post earlier today because after reading these three sorry opinion pieces I was at a loss for words. Thankfully I was able to borrow some words from one of our founding fathers, Samuel Adams, to expose the first two opinion pieces for what they represent and to give the author of the third piece a clue about what this fight is really all about. 

Thanks Mr. Adams, you've given this citizen renewed courage to continue the fight.

On Higher Ground, but Not Safer

A Torturous Compromise

Let War Crimes be Bygones

"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men." - Samuel Adams”

Update: Some good news on this day of bad opinions. Sabra at Democratic Underground posted this news piece.

Fixing The Media Misinformation That Claimed that Waterboarding Worked

When will the rest of the establishment media follow the New York Time's lead by admitting that former CIA officer, John Kiriakou's statements about the effectiveness of waterboarding, that they reported, were false? Will the truth about this previous misinformation about waterboarding be reported  far and wide like the lies of Kiriakou were reported? Or will the media turn this misinformation into disinformation by deliberately failing to retract it? And can even this belated admission help put the "misinformation" toothpaste back in the tube? 

The ball is in your court now establishment media. Let's see what you do with it.

How '07 ABC Interview Tilted a Torture Debate

Brian Stelter, NYT

April 27, 2009

In late 2007, there was the first crack of daylight into the government’s use of waterboarding during interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees. On Dec. 10, John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who had participated in the capture of the suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002, appeared on ABC News to say that while he considered waterboarding a form of torture, the technique worked and yielded results very quickly.

[Snip]

His claims — unverified at the time, but repeated by dozens of broadcasts, blogs  and newspapers — have been sharply contradicted by a newly declassified Justice Department memo that said waterboarding had been used on Mr. Zubaydah “at least 83 times.”

Some critics say that the now-discredited information shared by Mr. Kiriakou and other sources heightened the public perception of waterboarding as an effective interrogation technique. “I think it was sanitized by the way it was described” in press accounts, said John Sifton, a former lawyer for Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group.

Update: Glenn Greenwald has more information about the widespread media falsehoods about waterboarding and the role Brian Ross, whose original interview of Kiriakou got the misinformation started, has played in disseminating additional falsehoods about Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.

Cutting Through the Media Distortions on the Torture Issue

Photo: Performing Monkey, 1900 - George Eastman House Collection

Buhdydharma did a great job posting a diary on Daily Kos that gives us the results  from the newly released Gallup poll that I mentioned in an earlier post. Please visit his diary to get his analysis of this poll. He's more optimistic than I am and hopefully he's right and I'm wrong.

According to Gallup 51% of the American people want to see an investigation into the use of "harsh" interrogation techniques and 42% do not (as Buhdydharma notes they do not use the word "torture" in their survey).  On the surface this appears to be good news because there are more Americans in favor of investigations than those who are against. But the poll also tells us that the more the American people follow this story in the "media" the more inclined they are to not favor an investigation  - 40% favor and 58% oppose.  This is dire news for anyone who wants our country to follow the rule of law and hold accountable those who are responsible for these crimes. 

This poll also troubles me because in their last poll Gallup's results showed that 62% of Americans wanted investigations with 39% of those 62% wanting criminal investigations and 24% wanting an independent panel. So the number of Americans wanting investigations has actually decreased according to Gallup, going from 62% to only 51% in only 2 months time.

The graphic below about another question in the poll also illustrates the troubling reality of having a media that refuses to truthfully cover this story (here, here, here here, & here and countless other examples)

Like many others on the web I've published numerous blog posts where I document how our establishment media is not telling the truth on this issue and are in fact, deliberately distorting the information that the public receives about this issue. Unfortunately my readership and the combined readership of other bloggers does not come close to the readership/viewership that our establishment media has at their disposal. As a consequence, we are losing the argument on this issue through trickery.

I think the only way for us to get out the truth on this issue is to either have someone in the Obama administration lead the charge for investigations (Obama or Eric Holder) or we must find another way to force the media to cover the truth on this issue. 

I don't think there is anyone in the Obama administration that will get out in front on this issue so I think we need to develop a new strategy.  I think part of that strategy requires finding a group of well known public figures ,who represent all views on the political spectrum, who would be willing to lead the charge on this issue. We need these people to start writing op-ed pieces and to start appearing as guests on cable TV so that the people don't get such a one sided view. In addition, I think we need to get out in our own neighborhoods and creatively get a non-partisan message out to our fellow citizens so that we can cut through the media filter.

We know from past experience that it's very rare for our government to do the right thing unless they are forced to do so by the people. With our chattering class running a propaganda campaign to change perceptions about this issue, in order to do the bidding of their masters, we are losing the ability to force action on this issue. We must, therefore, in my opinion brainstorm to come up with ideas like I stated above to fight the establishment campaign that seeks to get rid of this issue. If we don't, the next time Gallup does their poll the numbers will be even worse. And once those polls show that the majority of Americans do not want investigations our establishment media will broadcast that information day and night and our politicians will no longer feel any need to address this issue.

I know that soon we will have more information released that may make it impossible for the media to control this issue but I don't think we should count on that happening. I think we must begin putting together a strategy on this asap.

Washington Post/ABC Poll Shows: It's Not Just Liberals Who Favor Investigations into Torture

If you read today's Washington Post article about their most recent poll results you might come to the conclusion that on the question of whether to investigate torture that the public is evenly divided and that this is just a partisan issue. In other words it's all about Republicans vs. Democrats or liberals vs. everyone else. 

If you concluded this though, you'd be wrong.

Obama Off to Solid Start, Poll Finds
But Release of Memos on Detainee Interrogations Reveal Deep Partisan Split

Americans also split about evenly on whether the new administration should investigate whether the kind of treatment meted out to terrorism suspects under the Bush administration broke laws, with 51 percent in favor of such inquiries and 47 percent in opposition. About seven in 10 Democrats support such action; a similar proportion of Republicans opposes it. As a candidate, Obama said: "I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of the Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems to solve."

Here is the actual question from their poll:

31. Do you think the Obama administration should or should not investigate whether any laws were broken in the way terrorism suspects were treated under the Bush administration?

Should:  51%        Should not:  47%        No opinion   2%

The Post tells us in their article that 7 in 10 Democrats are in favor of investigations and that a similar number of Republicans are not, yet they don't tell us anything about how Independents break down on this question. Curiously, nor do they give us any of this breakdown information in their raw numbers. Which makes one wonder why not?

Questions 32-33 held for future release. (are these the breakdowns?)

In reporting the results about this new Washington Post-ABC poll the Post also conveniently ignores the fact that of those poll respondents who favor investigations into the torture question, most of the 51%  were not liberal. That's right, the lie that the establishment media has been consistently pushing on the public that only "lefties" favor accountability for torture is debunked by the Post's own poll. How do I know that most of the respondents who favor investigations weren't liberal? Because even though you can't find information about the breakdown of Republicans, Democrats and Independents who took this poll, you can find information about the political leanings of the people taking this poll in the Poll's raw numbers. 

908a. Would you say your views on most political matters are liberal, moderate, or conservative?

liberal: 23%    Moderate: 39%    Conservative: 35%

So before questions are even asked in this poll we know that 23% of the participants are liberal and 74% of the participants  are not.

The Post's own poll results exposes the lie that liberals are the only ones who want accountability on this issue. Liberals were the lowest represented group in this poll and yet the poll still shows more respondents favor investigations than those who don't. I think somebody was trying to manipulate this poll and despite their best efforts you just can't hide the fact that there were still more Americans in favor of holding Bush administration officials accountable than were not and of those people the majority were NOT liberals.

Even if all the liberals taking this poll (23%) favored investigations that would still mean that 26% of the 51% of respondents who favored investigations were either moderates or conservatives. Why did the Post deliberately hide this fact from readers? Why paint this as a partisan issue?

Another interesting thing about this poll is that the Post reveals that there are fewer people who identify themselves as Republicans now (even though they included no such Party breakdown info in their raw numbers).

There is a warning sign for the GOP in the new poll: 21 percent of those surveyed said they identify as Republicans, the fewest to do so in a Post-ABC poll in more than 25 years. Last fall, Democrats outnumbered Republicans at the polls by the biggest margin in network exit polls going back to the 1982 midterms.

What this means is that there are more and more former Republicans who no longer identify with the Republican party. This information is crucial because the Post claims in their story that there is a partisan divide on this issue yet if you have more and more Republicans abandoning the Republican party is there really a partisan divide in this country or are more and more Americans just rejecting the ideas of the Republicans, including their ideas on torture? 

If only 21% identify as Republicans and you have 35% who identify themselves as conservatives in this poll it would appear that Republicans are not only losing moderates but conservatives as well. And how many of those conservatives are part of the 51% who favor investigations into torture? We don't know because the Post didn't reveal that information, perhaps because it doesn't agree with their view that only liberal score-settlers want accountability for torture. 

Of the 51% who favor investigations into torture the Post doesn't say what percentage favor criminal investigations over an independent panel. I don't know if they didn't ask the question or this is one of the questions that they say are being "held for future release? It's an important question because in order to have full accountability on torture you must have not only an investigation but the possibility of penalties if the investigation reveals that laws were broken. 

This isn't the first poll that our establishment media has tried to manipulate to support their view of no accountability on torture. In the last USA/Gallup poll their results showed 62% of the public in favor of  investigations and of that 62% there were 38% who favored criminal investigations, 24% who favored an independent panel, 34% who favored doing nothing and 3% who had no opinion and yet the media deliberately tried to hide the fact that more people favored criminal investigations over independent panels. 

Gallup has confirmed that they will be putting out new poll results about torture on Monday. It will be interesting to see if their poll results are distorted by the establishment media in the same way that the Post-ABC poll was done today. 

Anyone want to take  bets? 

PATHETIC

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

PATHETIC!

For anyone wondering why the establishment media is held in such low regard one need look no further for evidence than this video of today's Morning Joe program. Pathetic is the best word I can use to describe the entire conversation that occurred. The entire video is full of distortions, CYA comments and some just outright lies. I was so angered after watching this disgraceful display that I felt I needed to make this post in order to do my part in holding our media accountable for telling us the truth, not the kind of  garbage we saw this morning.

Have these people even bothered to read any of the government documents about our treatment of our prisoners? It's mind boggling to me that people in our media can actually sit around and make comments that what was done to our prisoners was no different than what we do to our own military. That is just factually false. Is this willful ignorance or are these people so delusional that they actually believe this ? Or maybe it's just that lying is the only way for them to convince the public that there should be no accountability for this outrageous program? 

This video is such a clear example of what our establishment media has been pushing from day 1

NO PROSECUTIONS - even if we find out that the evidence reveals that crimes were committed or in the case of Meacham, a call for no prosecutions before the investigation is even started. 

Meacham: I don't think we should be prosecuting people, uh,  but I do think we should be finding out exactly what happened and why.

Scarborough: It would be very difficult if we started prosecuting people because you couldn't stop with the lawyers it would  have to go to Dick Cheney & Condoleeza Rice & Don Rumsfeld & George W. Bush -  all the people around the table. As Donnie said that is the last thing this president wants for this own political reasons.

Meacham: I completely agree with that. I think that you have to go to the top responsible officer and everyone likes to talk about VP Cheney in this context, and they should, he was a critical player but we had a president, we had I think a president who history will show was much more hands on than we think and so you would have to somehow or another figure out how to hold a president culpable in his official role which has been a very complicated thing in our Constitutional history. You mentioned the Nixon example which is the best, I think. And I think you're right in that a criminal prosecution takes us to a very different place then we've been in the past...at the same time I would love to see a terrific senator or congressman doing a 911 commission kind of thing.

So Meacham, in typical beltway establishment fashion,  evidently holds the view that we shouldn't prosecute the unethical lawyers who wrote memos to provide legal cover for this illegal torture program because then we'd have to go after ALL the high-level officials responsible and we can't do that because that's too "complicated." Evidently prosecuting those few lower level  "bad apples" that we've already prosecuted will just have to be good enough.

Scarborough: I hear from some agencies that 100 people died while in captivity in these type of prisons I don't know whether that's the truth or not I would like to know though -  I think you're exactly right that we have these  investigations - we clear the air but we need to be focused and rational about it and not emotional.

Meacham: ...I don't think we know exactly what happened... Let's do a Post 911 commission. 

Deutsch: Let's not prosecute I think we all agree on that...

Meacham: nods his head in approval.

Think about this conversation...Scarborough brings up that he's heard that 100 people died who were in our care....He then says we need investigations but we must be focused and rational about it and not emotional...Meacham says we don't know exactly what happened but he nods in agreement when Deutsch says we shouldn't prosecute. 

I wonder how anyone can hear that there might have been 100 prisoners that died while in our custody, agree we should investigate but without knowing what evidence that investigation shows agree in advance that there should be no prosecutions. What kind of twisted mind does it take to  agree with such thinking?

These people in this discussion have all been on the wrong side of this issue and they know it. They're desperately trying to grab at anything that will prevent them from having to admit that they were wrong like you see in this disgusting comment by Deutsch.

Deutsch: John don't we all know what happened? And you set it up best -  on Sept 10th we were one country on Sept 12th we were a different country and we all know that if you said to everybody in this country OK, if by waterboarding one terrorist you could save your brother would you do it? We all know the answer to that and that was the tenor of this country so without an investigation and Joe help me out here or disagree with me, don't we all kinda know that we walked into that grey emotional and legal area and obviously these are things that people are taught in U.S. military training techniques so there is a precedent there, so don't we kind of know what went down?

How presumptuous of you Mr. Deutsch to pretend to speak for everyone in this country. Quite frankly, you don't know what you're talking about. There were and still are a lot of people in this country who would never agree to waterboard anyone and even if everyone in this country said "yes" to your self-serving hypothetical, it's up to our leaders to resist the passions of the mob and follow the law. What you've outlined in your scenario isn't a legitimate reason for breaking the law and you should be ashamed of yourself for even insinuating that it is.

After defending the torture program these guys finally get around to defending their own culpability. All of these men have been on the wrong side of this issue for years. They've ridiculed the rest of us who have been advocating for accountability for torture. But now when they finally see the accountability freight train coming directly at them these guys cynically try to minimize their own role in allowing the torture program to go unchallenged by saying that everyone was at fault (not just them). No, everyone was not at fault. And no,  everyone didn't have a different mindset about the rule of law on Sept. 12. Maybe you guys did, but a lot of us didn't and YOU KNOW IT.

Scarborough: The important thing though is John, as with the economic crisis, we love blaming Wall street, we love blaming Washington. We need to blame ourselves also. I remember, you know,  I am a  conservative/libertarian,  I want small government . I remember on Sept 12th  turning to my wife and saying -  you know I love small government, I don't trust federal authority  but  I'll tell  you what we need to do, whatever we have (you can hear Deutsch saying...exactly exactly at this point) to  do to make sure it never happens again and I'll be damned if 300 million Americans didn't say the same thing at the same time, so lets not be self righteous now 8years (Another Deutsch "exactly" heard in the background) later when we think that the skies over New York are safe.

Meacham is nodding in agreement during this whole self-serving comment by Scarborough.

Meachum then (mis) quotes Arthur Schlesinger in order to try to cover up his own incompetence on this issue now that he sees that it's not going to be ignored, as he and his fellow establishment clowns have been advocating.

Meacham: (supposedly quoting Schlesinger) Self righteousness and retrospect is easy and cheap

The accurate Schlesinger quote is:

Righteousness is easy in retrospect.

Meacham knows that a lot of us were saying the same things then as we are now so his "cheap" shot about self-righteousness is nothing more than a self-serving comment designed to deflect attention away from the fact that he's been wrong about this issue all along.

Perhaps he should have used this Schlesinger quote instead because it certainly describes Scarborough, Meacham, Deutsch and other establishment media personalities, both then and now.

For most Americans the Constitution had become a hazy document, cited like the Bible on ceremonial occasions but forgotten in the daily transactions of life.

Please watch the entire video because I only scratched the surface on the objectionable comments.

torture