Boehner: Memos Outline "Torture Techniques"

[BlueJessamine]

Source: The Huffington Post

While cable news outlets and major newspapers continue to use euphemisms such as "harsh interrogation tactics" to describe the Bush administration's approach to intelligence gathering, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) used a more succinct term Thursday: "torture."

"Last week, they released these memos outlining torture techniques. That was clearly a political decision and ignored the advice of their Director of National Intelligence and their CIA director," Boehner said at a press conference in the Capitol.

The techniques discussed include waterboarding, slamming detainees into walls, and depriving them of sleep for up to 11 days.

Boehner argued that a discussion of such torture techniques was "inappropriate," as it could tip off U.S. enemies to the tactics used and "denigrate" the United States and its allies. Torture is illegal under U.S. and international law.

"This is another sideshow here in Washington," Boehner said about the ongoing discussion about torture. "When it comes to what our interrogation techniques are going to be or should be, I'm not going to disclose, nor should anyone have a conversation about what those techniques ought to be. It's inappropriate. All it does is give our enemies more information about us than they need."

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/23/boehner-memos-outline-tor_n_190547.html

[Dr.Phool]

1. No Boner, discussing torture techiques, doesn't inform our enemies.

It informs your voters. And you have the gall to stand up there and defend it?

Hopefully, next year, you and your ilk will be consigned to the trash heap of history. If not a prison cell.

[saigon68]

4. Dude needs one of these

[saigon68]

6. This would also be good

[FVZA_Colonel]

23. I'd imagine our enemies already have a pretty good idea of what we're doing.

This has only served to destroy our moral credibility as a leader for human rights and democratic development.

[valerief]

2. This Honcho Clown from the Clown Party is as stupid as they come.

He can't even stay "on message."

:rofl:

[Mike Daniels]

3. He freely refers to the techniques as torture.....

and yet his beef isn't that we torture people but that we admitted that we do.

No further proof regarding the fall of the Republican party from any claim towards "values" is needed.

[madamesilverspurs]

5. "Sideshow," eh?

Not surprising, coming from the king of Capitol Hill's drama queens. Give it up, Boehner - you're the biggest sideshow going.

[Still Sensible]

7. It's all to reinforce their WRONG belief that this torture

made us safer and that we would be somehow showing weakness if we didn't do it... since the "evildoers" use these kind of tactics. It is Chuck Norris thinking at its best (I know, Norris and thinking shouldn't appear in the same sentence).

What Bonehead and his party's current spokespricks don't get is that their arguments only appeal to their shrinking base--including the most looney nutjob right wingers. Their positions on this and many other issues have no chance of broadening their appeal to levels necessary to regain power. They have been "Roved" into thinking they just have to play to their base. Truth is, that will only work if you are able to bullshit a great part of the moderate middle with scare tactics. Right now, the country is two or three years beyond where they could sell that crap IMO.

[Mike Daniels]

14. But we made such a big deal about Saddam's torture rooms

so is Boehner saying we really didn't care if Saddam tortured people and that argument for going to war was just another thing they threw at the wall to see if it would sell?

[Still Sensible]

24. To their base it is two different things

Saddam's torture would be wrong, because Saddam's regime was doing it. Bush's torture would be righteous because it was Amurika doing it. Thankfully that only passes for logic with about 25% of the people---but from 9/11/2201 until sometime in 2005-06 they had another 30% or so in their back pocket with the fear card.

[damntexdem]

8. Failing to obstruct justice is "inappropriate."

When he says, "give our enemies more information about us than they need," Boehner really means giving international justice officials, domestic justice officials, and the American public more information than a criminal would be comfortable with having uncovered about crimes. Well, to the GOP, justice officials and the American public apparently ARE the enemy.

[nbcouch]

9. Right, Boneher

now everyone knows how we USED to torture prisoners - big fucking deal. It's not something you need to worry your pretty little head about for at least the next eight years or so.

Nor are there any great revelations about some fancy new methods of barbarism in these documents, Bonemeal. Waterboarding for example has been in use for decades - up until BushCo, only by our enemies.

[No More Bushbots]

10. But, but, but, I thought we didn't torture prisoners

I wish Boner would stay on message.

[nbcouch]

11. The Bushies tortured people because they LIKE it

Does the feeling get stronger day by day that the statement in my subject line is true - that the primary reason the Bush adminstration endorsed and employed torture is that they simply LIKE torturing people? That sick bastard Cheney can't keep his pie hole shut about it, three months after we kicked him and the rest of the Asshole Club to the curb, and now this.

You can't make a credible case for it on practical grounds. It simply doesn't work, in terms of producing real, useful information. In fact, it has been well-established that it is useful only for getting someone to tell you what they think you want to hear. No doubt BushCo used it for that very purpose.

Obviously it is morally and ethically repugnant as well. It is prejudicial in the extreme to assert that whatever we do to a prisoner in the name of national security is okay, especially considering the hundreds of people we have detained without cause at Gitmo alone. How many of them were tortured before they were released, without charge or trial?

It is legally proscribed by all sorts of authority, nationally and internationally.

Why then were torture techniques used so extensively by the Bush administration? In one month's time, March of 2003, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. Six times a day for an entire month, on average - that number alone suggests, at a minimum, that the people holding him were simply obsessed with torturing the guy. I don't much care what Mohammed did or didn't do. If he were tried and convicted of mass murder, what would his punishment be? Would any court rule that being waterboarded six times a day for a month was not cruel and unusual?

But in fact, in addition to this barbarism we perpetrated on someone we only ASSUME did us wrong, we know that Mohammed gave up NOTHING in terms of useful information because of it. Let's face facts - the people who used to occupy the White House and control our Federal government were not just incredibly venal, but sadists as well. Very sick puppies, these Bushies.

[Doctor_J]

16. Hartmann says torture = terrorism

I don't know if Cheney likes torturing people, but he does like people to be afraid of him.

[nbcouch]

22. Thom, as always, makes a good point

Fear was certainly the coin of the realm under BushCo.

[flyarm]

12. hey Boehner ..i distinctly remember bush laughing while looking under a carpet

for WMD..he thought it was funny..in fact it just tickled his fucking funny bone..while US soldiers were in harms way because of his fat fucking lies..and he was laughing while thousands upon thousands of Iraqi's were being killed daily..their mothers, their fathers, their children..and while our government was torturing children..children for god's sake..Ya know what Boehner ..do what you have all along when you knew crimes were being perpetrated.... go the fuck away and ..shut the fuck up..

Torture you s.o.b is against the law..

It is against the law.. just as much today, as it was when German Nazi's were being held accountable with the help of my once credible country.

Now just STFU..Boehner /..because you are complicit in these war crimes and crimes against humanity..how you fuckers sleep at night is truely a mystery to me!

[Bette Noir]

13. The scariest thing is that these folks are defending torture as if it's a good thing.

They are openly recommending breaking the most basic of human laws, and expect to be re-elected. That this country has come to a point where we no longer recoil instinctively from the very suggestion of torture...

As John Dean said on "Countdown" sometime last year, "Richard Nixon on his worst day would never have approved torture."

Now, the right wing is calling our guy a dictator because he has come out (finally!) and said he won't try to stop prosecutions. Up is down, white is black, and there is no longer any difference between war crimes and "policy differences."

[Doctor_J]

17. Looks like I have a new sig line

"Richard Nixon on his worst day would never have approved torture."

[Doctor_J]

15. Sure, Boner. Torturing people doesn't denigrate us - admitting it does

What a maroon.

[bvar22]

18. Clue for Boehner: THEY ALREADY KNOW !

The ones we didn't kill with torture, they went home and TOLD EVERYBODY exactly how we treat our prisoners.

THEY ALREADY FUCKING KNOW !

The WORLD already knows.

The ONLY people who don't know are the Low Information US Voters,
but they are finding out.

[underpants]

19. Whoopsie!!!

I ...uh... didn't mean "torture" per say...when I ....uh...said "torture"

:rofl:

[struggle4progress]

20. Translation: Boehner is up to his eyebrows in this mess

[DainBramaged]

21. This is the Bonner that thinks cow farts are made of CO2 not methane.